She hailed from an ultra-orthodox family in north Kolkata. Her paternal grandmother did not permit her and her sisters to attend school since it would involve stepping out into the ‘big bad world’. So the young girl lived a cloistered life, devoting herself to reading. As a matter of fact, books were her doors and windows to the vast world that lay outside, often beckoning to her silently. With her grit and sheer determination, the spirited woman surmounted her obstacles to emerge as an ardent feminist and champion of women’s liberation.
She was born on January 8, 1909, in a traditional Bengali Baidya (traditional ethnic physician) in north Calcutta. Her father, Harendra Nath Gupta, a famous artist, was employed by a renowned British furniture-making company. Her mother, Sarola Sundari, belonged to a liberal family. Reading was her passion. She inculcated this passion in each of her daughters. Theirs was a joint family with a great dichotomy between male and female children, thanks to her imperious grandmother’s bigoted ideas. While the girls of the household were forced to remain unlettered and unschooled, the boys were taught by private tutors.
However, little Asha was indomitable. In fact, by regularly listening to the readings of her brothers and cousins, she eventually managed to learn the Bengali alphabets. As luck would have it, due to an ever-growing family, there was a paucity of space in the ancestral house. Hence, Harendranath Gupta decided to relocate his family to a more spacious apartment. In the new environment, Sarola Sundari and her daughters had ample scope to read to their hearts’ content. To cater to Sarola Sundari’s voracious reading habit, her home had a steady supply of books and magazines from local libraries.
During their leisure hours, this slew of women read nearly every book they could lay their hands on. Although she missed out on formal education, Ashapurna educated herself enough for people to sit up and take notice. Those were politically turbulent times. Though the girls of the Gupta household had minimal exposure to the outside world, they were aware of and sensitive to the upheavals and incidents taking place countrywide under the dynamic stewardship of Mahatma Gandhi. This kindled a strong sense of patriotism in her.
While growing up, Ashapurna began dabbling in poetry. At 13, she secretly dispatched a poem captioned Bairer Dak (the outside beckons) to Sihu Sathi, a Bengali children’s magazine. Not only did the poem get published, but the editor also sent her a request to submit more literary pieces.
At age 15, Ashapurna married Kalidas Gupta, whose family lived in Krishnanagar. The couple lived a fairly peaceful, harmonious life, settled permanently in Kolkata, and eventually became proud parents of a son. The young wife had to juggle household chores with her literary creativity. Initially, she wrote only for children. Her Chhoto Thakurdar Kashi Yatra (Great Uncle Goes to Varanasi) was a hit in the genre of children’s literature. In 1936, she made her debut in adult fiction. Her story, Patni O Preyoshi, was published in the puja bumper edition of Ananda Bazar Patrika. In 1944, she published Prem O Prayojan, her first adult novel.
Through the entire gamut of her literary works, the focus is on gender bias (discrimination) and the sexist mindset of men. Her short stories, novellas, and larger novels vividly portray the emergence of quintessential middle-class Bengali women—their repression, angst, growing awareness, awakening of conscience, and the final revolt.
Ashapurna’s female protagonists spent a major part of their day in the kitchen, cooking meals for their armies of families, hanging out washed clothing, and drying pickles, mango slices, and bori (lentil dumplings) in the sun. Recreation or leisure comprised needlework or embroidery and catching up on neighborhood gossip, which trickled in via domestic help and occasional visitors. Their “outside” was the roof (terrace), from where they could catch a glimpse of the sun, moon, stars, clouds, and a dash of greenery. The plucky and lucky ones managed to bypass common terrace walls and strike friendship with women in their neighbors’ homes, which was frowned upon by formidable mothers-in-law.
During her lifetime, Ashapurna composed more than thirty novels, poetry, and ten volumes of collected works, besides children’s fiction. However, it was her powerful trilogy that catapulted her to fame and glory. The three novels (written between 1964 and 1974), Pratham Protisruti, Subarnalata, and Bokul Katha, depict women’s liberation from colonial to independent India.
The plots revolve around the lives of Satyaboti, her daughter Subarnalata, and her daughter Bokul. Satyaboti is a strong-willed woman who refuses to accept the straitjacketed life of a married woman. Having found a chance to relocate to Calcutta, she champions the cause of women’s emancipation and establishes a girls’ school. With dreams and aspirations about her daughter’s future cramping her mind, she elicits the first and only promise from her spouse: education for their daughter and no child marriage. Paradoxically, when Subarnalata is tricked into marriage by her grandma, her timid, demure father watches helplessly.
Disappointed by her spouse’s inability to redeem his pledge, Satyaboti leaves him for good! Subarnalata’s married life is no bed of roses, as she is treated like a doormat by her husband. To him, she is a housekeeper and an object of physical gratification rolled into one. Burdened with household chores and childrearing, a hostile atmosphere at home notwithstanding, she manages to find time to write her autobiography. In the third and final part, we are impressed by the personality of Bakul, an educated and economically independent feminist writer. She appears contemporary to readers today.
For her significant contribution to the field of literature, especially feminist literature, Ashapurna Devi was bestowed the Jnanpith Award as well as the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 1976. She was conferred a D.Litt. by the Jadavpur, Burdwan, and Jabalpur universities. Vishwa Bharati University (Shantiniketan, Bolpur, W.B.) decorated her with Deshikottama in 1989. She also won a Sahitya Akademi fellowship in 1994.
Even after coming into the limelight, the octogenarian Ashapurna Devi continued to lead a low-profile life surrounded by her family and loved ones. On July 13, 1995, she passed away. Her literary creations, translated into several vernaculars, remain part of the school curriculum. In 1998, the Indian Postal Department issued a stamp on her as a joint recipient of the prestigious Jnanpith award.
