Dhanapatir Char by Amar Mitra (translated into Whatever Happened to Pedru's Island? by
Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey)
, published by Penguin India.
The world, says a Hindu myth of creation, rests on the back of a tortoise. So does the island of Dhanapati, the descendant of a Portuguese mariner called Pedro and the last in the line. It’s a place that flourishes in winter where women spend six months with the partners of their choice, on the understanding that once the six months are up, the women will return to their seedy lives on the mainland in Ghorardal and Calcutta.
It is a story about the lives of women bought and sold without their consent or knowledge. Despite traces of magical realism, Danapatir Char is very solidly set in the unhappiness of the everyday world where women migrant workers are at the mercy of those in power. Batashi has blossomed into new beauty as soon as she set foot on the island after six miserable months of being drenched on the footpaths of Calcutta. The problem with this blooming is that it attracts the wrong kind of attention. It also opens up questions on whether a woman belongs to herself or to the ‘government’ - the police represented by one man who can threaten an island governed by an aging patriarch.
Dhanapati’s young wife Kunti has also been sold and her solution is to beg her husband to transform himself into a tortoise again and float away with the island. The issues which are highlighted are those which plague the real world of grassroots Bengal. As the novel continues with the intrusion of police, traders like Dasharath determined to get rich quick whether by selling goods or women, Dhanapatir Char becomes more and more a story of the Sunderbans with its floating islands and the instability of its population drifting across borders and never sure where they belong.Where gods from one faith and another are invoked because it seems natural to do but which only arouses suspicion among official hearers. It highlights the transience of life and the insecurity of women, especially the ones who are illiterate and forced to live on the streets. As part of a migrant population with no certification of citizenship and family they remain at risk.
This is not the magical poetic world of Marquez – even though the island apparently rose out of the goddess’ golden urn and even though it rests on the back of a tortoise – it is solidly grounded in matters of rights and belonging. Though Dhanapati’s Portuguese ancestor was given the land by Akbar and apparently had a document which stated his right to the soil, the descendant and last of the line cannot find the proof he needs which also denies him the right to gift the island to Kunti.
The story becomes a matter of gamesmanship playing trader against trader and words against words. Batashi manages to chase the greedy Dasharath away with the help of her friend, only to discover that her trials don’t end there because none of the women on the island can prove that they are independent of the system. Their situation is like that of the island, seemingly belonging to someone or belonging somewhere but with nothing to consolidate that fact. As a result they are swayed by the waves of politics and the two men whom Dhanapati seems to think are the best of a bad lot, Malakar and Aniket Sen, continue the circle of Block Development Offices and police stations.
The women and their lives and Dhanapati’s increasing age are starkly and sympathetically drawn with the currents of the sea and the underwater lives of tortoises as metaphor. Ageless man and reptile merge while the women at one level attain mythological power despite the reality of their helplessness. It is a tale of metamorphosis through metaphor.
In a sense this is very much a novel for modern India with its demands for citizenship certification on paper set against a paperless population that takes its existence and the knowledge of family for granted, only to discover that the ‘government’ refuses to take that as given. There is only one solution which is actually no solution at all but a dream.
The late Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey has translated Amar Mitra’s Bengali capturing the flavour of the time and the rapt lives of the women who circle around Dhanapati in the hope of shelter.