A Singular Revolution: Review of Sandip Roy’s ‘Chapal Rani, The Last Queen of Bengal’

In a conversation with Anindya Sengupta on a channel called Cybertalkies, Anirban Bhattacharya reflected that an actor, especially in theatre and cinema, cannot remain confined within a fixed ideology, religion, or institutional framework because performance demands inhabiting multiple lives shaped by conflicting beliefs and shifting moralities. This idea becomes particularly significant in the context of jatra, where performers often have to portray contrasting roles across productions, requiring constant emotional and imaginative transformation. Such fluidity allows the artist to move beyond rigid identities, absorb the inner lives of others, and ultimately make a performance believable for the audience.

Sandip Roy’s ‘Chapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal’ (Seagull Books), is much more than the biography of Chapal Bhaduri, the last celebrated female impersonator of Bengal. It is also the story of a fading theatrical tradition, a changing society, and the fragile relationship between performance and identity. Through Bhaduri’s life, Roy reconstructs a cultural world in which male actors once played female roles on stage with immense skill and emotional depth, particularly in Bengali folk theatre and jatra. At the same time, the book reveals how quickly admiration can turn into alienation when the artist’s life begins to blur with the characters he performs. Bhaduri’s feminine mannerisms, artistic sensibilities, and lifelong attachment to women’s roles made him extraordinary on stage, but these same qualities often became sources of ridicule, misunderstanding, and social exclusion in everyday life.

Roy presents Bhaduri not simply as an actor, but as someone who devoted himself completely to the art of inhabiting femininity. His performances were not superficial reproductions of women’s gestures or voices; they emerged from careful observation, emotional sincerity, and a profound respect for the inner lives of the female characters he portrayed. The book repeatedly shows how Bhaduri viewed acting as a form of transformation, where the boundary between performer and character gradually dissolved. This complete immersion made his performances unforgettable for audiences, but it also complicated his relationship with society, which often struggled to separate the artist from the roles he played. Roy captures this tension with remarkable sensitivity, showing how Bhaduri lived between admiration and discomfort, celebration and marginalisation.

One of the most significant aspects of the biography is the way it situates Bhaduri within broader discussions of gender and identity. Although Bhaduri never consciously attempted to become a public representative of queer identity, his life and performances naturally came to resonate with many members of the queer community. His existence challenged rigid ideas of masculinity and femininity, especially within a conservative social structure that preferred clear and unquestioned boundaries. Roy carefully avoids imposing contemporary labels upon Bhaduri, yet he demonstrates how the actor’s life became meaningful for people searching for expressions of fluidity, difference, and selfhood within Bengali cultural history. In doing so, the book becomes not only a personal biography but also an important reflection on how societies respond to those who exist outside accepted norms

The introduction of the book is particularly rich, detailed, and intellectually engaging. Roy uses it as a framework through which readers can understand both Bhaduri’s life and the larger cultural history surrounding him. Drawing from traditional, liberal, and neo-liberal perspectives, he examines the intersections of theatre, gender, sexuality, class, and public morality. The introduction also functions as an archive of forgotten histories. Roy brings attention to several other female impersonators and performers whose contributions have largely disappeared from public memory because their lives were never properly documented or respected. Many of these artists existed within spaces shaped by stigma and silence, where society admired their performances while simultaneously dismissing their humanity.

Through these forgotten figures, Roy exposes the deep orthodoxy that has historically shaped social attitudes toward performers who transgressed conventional gender roles. Society often reduced such artists to spectacles instead of attempting to understand the emotional, artistic, or personal realities behind their choices. The inability of people to move beyond rigid moral and cultural frameworks prevented meaningful conversations about fluid identities and alternative expressions of selfhood. Roy’s work therefore becomes an act of recovery and recognition. By documenting the lives of these performers, he restores dignity to artists who were celebrated on stage but denied acceptance beyond it.

Before entering Bhaduri’s life, Roy carefully traces the history and evolution of jatra, presenting it not merely as a form of entertainment but as a powerful cultural institution that preserved storytelling in Bengal when organised schools of theatre were almost absent. Roy explains how jatra gradually moved beyond its religious origins and embraced a more secular spirit. In the introduction, he writes that “as jatras became more popular, the themes became more secular” and that “jatra was no longer just about spreading the word of God. It was full-on entertainment.” These observations become deeply significant in the present time, when secular spaces are constantly threatened and questioned. Long before modern discussions on inclusivity and coexistence emerged, jatra artists had already internalised these ideas through performance and practice. Though often associated with rural Bengal, jatra was never confined to villages alone. Wealthy landlords and urban elites invited these performances into cities for their own amusement, yet the artists transformed those opportunities into spaces of artistic expansion and social engagement. Through this background, Roy prepares the readers for the central question that naturally arises while reading the book, why did men choose to dress as women and perform female characters on stage?

Roy answers this question by locating it within the rigid social morality of the time, when women were forbidden from acting because theatre was considered sinful and inappropriate for them. As he writes, “They needed men who could be women or purush Ranis, the male queens.” From this necessity emerged a remarkable generation of performers devoted to female impersonation. Through interviews with actors, directors, journalists, and scholars, Roy reconstructs the forgotten world of these male queens who, despite their immense contribution to Bengali theatre, were rarely granted dignity or recognition. They were mocked for their effeminate behaviour, excluded from respectable social spaces, and later interpreted through modern identity categories they themselves often resisted. Roy therefore presents them not as symbols, but as complex human beings who exceed fixed definitions.

The book also suggests that performance gradually entered the inner lives of these actors. Years of portraying women transformed not only their gestures and voices, but also their emotional selves. Their femininity was no longer mere imitation; it became part of their lived experience. Roy recalls an incident narrated by filmmaker Kaushik Ganguly, Bhaduri asked everyone to leave the room while changing clothes. Ganguly understood the emotional intimacy between the actor and the female persona he inhabited. The moment reveals not simply modesty, but a profound merging of performer and character. Yet, Bhaduri consistently rejected labels such as queer, gay, or third gender. He preferred masculine pronouns and resisted attempts to define him through contemporary identity politics. Roy handles this contradiction with sensitivity, showing how modern frameworks often fail to capture older artistic traditions and lived realities.

What makes these performers even more fascinating is the way their lives quietly unsettled patriarchy without openly declaring rebellion. Many female impersonators, including Bhaduri and Chhabi Rani, were married men who fulfilled conventional social roles while embodying femininity on stage. Roy notes that some even helped their wives with household chores, subtly challenging rigid gender expectations within orthodox settings. Their lives therefore cannot be reduced either to performance or identity alone. Jatra scholar Prabhat Das captures this complexity when he says that “they dealt with that duality on a daily basis.” This insight becomes central to Roy’s narrative. These artists were neither simply men pretending to be women nor figures that neatly fit modern notions of the third gender. Instead, they inhabited a fluid space where masculinity and femininity constantly interacted without settling into fixed identities.

While we may first understand Bhaduri as an artist who never received the respect he truly deserved, the book gradually reveals that jatra was much more than a profession for him. It became a medium through which he expressed his thoughts, emotions, and understanding of the world. At the same time, Roy carefully introduces readers to the social reality surrounding Bhaduri, allowing us to witness both his strengths and his vulnerabilities. Bhaduri carried himself with confidence and grace because he genuinely loved performing female roles. For a true artist, art is not limited by social expectations or gender boundaries; it becomes a way of exploring identities beyond the self.

Roy also honestly portrays the insecurity Bhaduri began to feel when women started entering jatra in larger numbers. As female actors gradually replaced male female-impersonators, Bhaduri found himself losing space in the world he had devoted his life to. Since he neither enjoyed nor identified with playing male characters, this transition made him deeply vulnerable as an artist. Here, Roy succeeds not merely as an admirer of Bhaduri, but as a balanced and critical biographer who is willing to show the painful realities behind Bhaduri’s artistic legacy.

The book also presents a Bengal that once appeared more open to ideas of inclusivity and gender fluidity. At a time when social conservatism continues to grow, revisiting Bhaduri’s world becomes important because femininity was often understood there as a matter of personal expression rather than shame. The culture of male queens in jatra created spaces where many performers could quietly express aspects of their own sexuality and identity.

Bhaduri’s mother, Prabha Devi, had herself been a respected stage performer before Indian independence. Yet, what makes Bhaduri’s journey remarkable is his decision to portray women, not simply to become an actor, but also to understand the emotional and social experiences of womanhood within a male-dominated society. His greatest inspiration remained his mother, though he never directly imitated her while performing characters like Razia Bibi. Instead, Roy subtly shows traces of Prabha Devi in Bhaduri’s portrayal of Chand Bibi, a character close to his mother’s age. Bhaduri shaped such performances by absorbing his mother’s gestures, personality, and emotional depth.

Through these details, the book also reminds us of the discipline demanded by jatra. Though often considered less sophisticated than other theatrical traditions, jatra performers had to face open audiences directly and convince them completely through their performance. A male actor playing a woman had to make the audience forget the distinction between performance and reality. Bhaduri achieved this with extraordinary skill. Men often flirted with him, believing him to be a woman even outside the boundaries of performance. His success lay not in merely acting like a woman, but in fully becoming the woman on stage.

The biography becomes compelling not only because of the life it records, but also because of the way it is narrated. Sandip Roy uses the first-person voice to recount Bhaduri’s experiences, making the narrative intimate and deeply believable. Roy does not remain a distant biographer, who merely documents the life of his subject. Instead, he gradually becomes immersed in Bhaduri’s world, emotions, and struggles. This narrative technique allows readers to encounter Bhaduri directly, without the constant intervention of an external narrator. In many ways, the reader feels as though Bhaduri himself is speaking. Such a mode of storytelling is rare in contemporary English literature, especially in biographies, where the subject often remains filtered through the author’s interpretation.

Because of this closeness, Bhaduri’s vulnerabilities acquire a deeply personal quality. His hesitation, loneliness, and insecurity while sharing the green room with male actors are not presented as distant observations, but as lived emotional experiences. Readers confront these feelings through Bhaduri’s own consciousness rather than through Roy’s detached commentary. This approach is important because a personality like Bhaduri’s cannot be understood through mere factual documentation. His identity exists in fragments and contradictions, and only his own voice can hold those complexities together. Roy therefore creates a narrative axis shaped by Bhaduri himself, allowing the reader to understand both the artist and the human being behind the performance.

‘Chapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal’ ultimately emerges as an important work of non-fiction because it explores art in its truest and most humane form. The book presents theatre as a space that was once deeply inclusive, secular, and democratic, and in some ways continues to remain so. At the same time, it documents the life of a person who might otherwise have disappeared from cultural memory. Bhaduri exists outside fixed social categories. Though he does not explicitly identify with the third gender, his life and performances constantly challenge rigid definitions of gender and identity. He finds himself displaced by the arrival of women actors in jatra, yet he also becomes unforgettable precisely because of the women he portrays on stage. He avoids sensationalising himself, yet his life itself becomes extraordinary and symbolic in many ways. What makes this biography significant is that it refuses to let such a cultural history disappear into silence. Through Bhaduri, Roy preserves not only the memory of an artist, but also the memory of a theatrical tradition, a social transition, and a revolution that might otherwise have faded away with time.

(Kabir Deb is a writer, translator and reviewer)