TAMIL
Reminiscences
PREMA NANDAKUMAR
EN THANTHAI BHARATI: N. Sakuntala Bharati; Palaniappa Brothers, 25, Peter’s Road, Chennai-600014. Rs. 60.
THE ORIGINAL book had been of immense use to Bharati scholars as it was an authentic documentation by his daughter Sakuntala who was herself a gifted personality. As a young girl she had experienced the agony and ecstasy of life with Bharati and watched in Chellammal a valiant housewife. Though the book’s title refers to Bharati, it is actually a homage to Sakuntala’s brave mother.
Deprivation had been a way of life for Chellammal. With Bharati gone, she was rudderless and it is sad she turned away from the offer of firm friends like Surendranath Arya. Her misplaced faith in her brother was her financial undoing. Once she began the pre-publication offer, money came in and the first thing the family did was to buy jewellery and to spend lavishly on eatables. Relatives, who had looked the other way when the family was poor, trooped in to enjoy the Madras sights. Financial ruin was not far off when commitments could not be met. It is a sad tale.
The alert daughter of a genius, Sakuntala’s narrative moves chirpily like fiction. Yet, all this had happened, including the pitiless command of an elder sister that the widowed Chellammal should tonsure her head. En Thanthai Bharati is thus an important file for feminist studies as well.
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