My mother's story..
Women's lives have always fascinated me. I used to love my mother more than anyone else. I was fascinated by and deeply drawn to her story. When I was a child it was very important for me to support my mother at all times. My father was an extremely dominating man and I used to sense my mother's suffering.
She is still alive. Her name is Bharati Mukherjee. She was Bharati Bhattacharya before her marriage. She was born in Shillong in a Sylheti family. Her family was very cultured and refined. However, they were not that sophisticated.
My Dadu had a transferable job. He was in Auditing. He had retired as the Chief Audit Officer of the Sikkim Government (Maharaja). I remember seeing him as a child. I mean the Maharaja. Hazy and uncertain the memory--but there, none the less.
So, my mother never really had a proper school education. In the sense it took place in fits and starts. She took her Matriculation examination when she was 15-16. Then she studied Philosophy at Lady Keane College in Shillong, which was under the recently inaugurated Guwahati University (Gowhati University).
I just went downstairs and got a few details from her. The Principal of the college had asked her to study Philosophy. So she did. Who knows what she would have studied, otherwise? May be even Pass subjects.
This narrative/testimony/witnessing will depend on the oral narrative that my mother will spin as I ask her every day about details of her past life..:)
Women's lives have always fascinated me. I used to love my mother more than anyone else. I was fascinated by and deeply drawn to her story. When I was a child it was very important for me to support my mother at all times. My father was an extremely dominating man and I used to sense my mother's suffering.
She is still alive. Her name is Bharati Mukherjee. She was Bharati Bhattacharya before her marriage. She was born in Shillong in a Sylheti family. Her family was very cultured and refined. However, they were not that sophisticated.
My Dadu had a transferable job. He was in Auditing. He had retired as the Chief Audit Officer of the Sikkim Government (Maharaja). I remember seeing him as a child. I mean the Maharaja. Hazy and uncertain the memory--but there, none the less.
So, my mother never really had a proper school education. In the sense it took place in fits and starts. She took her Matriculation examination when she was 15-16. Then she studied Philosophy at Lady Keane College in Shillong, which was under the recently inaugurated Guwahati University (Gowhati University).
I just went downstairs and got a few details from her. The Principal of the college had asked her to study Philosophy. So she did. Who knows what she would have studied, otherwise? May be even Pass subjects.
This narrative/testimony/witnessing will depend on the oral narrative that my mother will spin as I ask her every day about details of her past life..:)
How do you distinguish 'cultured' from 'sophisticated'?
ReplyDeleteGood question. Let me start by saying that in my blog writing I do not exercise the kind of critical caution that I do when I am doing my scholarly work. It is usually written towards the end of the day, in a more relaxed frame of mind. But you are right. The word 'sophisticated' was used by my mother visa vis her family several years back. Yes, they were educated, men only of course, but unversed in the ways of the city. Perhaps, that is what she meant; lacking 'urbanization' or lacking the superficial urban polish that came with the Bengalis of Kolkata imbibing British ways to move up in the world, get government jobs both as clerks and officers, and generally be able to host the Sahibs...I value 'culture' intensely and 'sophistication' to a certain point.
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