Remembering Rabindranath Tagore Volume - High Commission of ...

“The Inside Story”: Gender and Modernity
in Chokher Bali
Radha Chakravarty
There is a scene in Tagore’s Chokher Bali where the widowed Binodini bursts into
Bihari’sbachelor’s abode one evening and begs for his love, asking him not to judge her
by conventional norms. “From an account of external happenings, you will not understand
the inside story,” she insists (Chokher Bali 252). The “inside story” fascinated Tagore when
he created this narrative, announcing in his Preface the advent of the modern Indian novel.
What did modernity signify for Tagore, and why did he put these words in the mouth of
a female character? In this paper, I explore the evolving relationship between gender and
modernity in Tagore’s Chokher Bali.
Chokher Bali wasserialized in the periodical Bangadarshan from 1902 to 1903.When the novel
was published as a book in 1903, several passages from the original version were omitted.With
Tagore’s consent, some of these were restored in the version of the novel that appeared in the
first edition of Rabindra Rachanabali(1941), Tagore’s collected works in multiple volumes. The
Visva-Bharati edition of Chokher Bali published in 1947 included some more of these excised
portions, with Tagore’s approval. Of special significance is theoriginal ending, restored here
after it was omitted from the book version of 1903.
The narrative focuses on a newly-wed couple, Mahendra and Asha, whose marital bliss is
disrupted when a beautiful young widow named Binodini enters their household. Mahendra’s
bachelor friend Biharialso gets caught in the web of forbidden desires thatBinodini’s presence
generates. Other important figures in the plot are Rajalakshmi, Mahendra’sdominating and
over-possessive mother, and Annapurna, his widowed aunt. Binodini blazes a trail of pain
and devastation through the entire narrative, until she repents and goes into voluntary exile
in Kashi (Benares). Though the text concludes with the reconciliation of Mahendra, Asha
and Rajalakshmi, the events that precede this superficial restoration of order leave their
mark on every character.
Pivotal to the entire narrative is the figure of Binodini, the desiring widow who rebels
against her fate. “Am I an inanimate object?” she protests. “Am I not human? Am I not
a woman?” (CB 75). Her words resonate with special significance when viewed in the
context of Bengal’s history at the turn of the century, when elite, educated Bengalis were
wrestling with the problem of constructing a subjectivity commensurate with their altered
social scenario. In an essay called “The Condolence Meeting” (1894), marking the demise
of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Tagore argued that contact with European culture was
transforming both external conditions and subjective feelings, creating new social needs
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