Digital Narrative : Sultana's Dream

SUNDAY READING

Sultana's Dream and Sultana's Reality

This blog is a response to a reading task given by Yesha Bhatt Ma'am. On the very first day of MA semester 3 class Ma'am introduced us to a ‘Digital Narrative’ in the class.

Women writers were not so celebrated in Literature. Reading female writers gives us insight to their life, we can read their situations and way of living in a specific period. ‘Sultana's Dream’ is a short story by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880 - 1932) which was originally published in The Indian Ladies' Magazine, Madras, 1905, in English.

Rokeya Hossain was a prominent Bengali feminist thinker, writer, educator and political activist from British India (present day Bangladesh). She is widely regarded as a pioneer of women's liberation in South Asia.

She advocated for men and women to be treated equally as rational beings, noting that the lack of education for women was responsible for their inferior economic position. Her major works include:

1. Matichur (A String of Sweet Pearls, 1904 and 1922), a collection of essays in two volumes expressing her feminist thoughts;

2. Sultana’s Dream (1908), a feminist science fiction novella set in Ladyland ruled by women; 3. Padmarag ("Essence of the Lotus", 1924) depicting the difficulties faced by Bengali wives;

4. Oborodh Basini (The Confined Women, 1931), a spirited attack on the extreme forms of purdah that endangered women's lives and self-image.

Afrah Shafiq is a multi/new media artist based out of Goa, India. Using the process of research as an artistic playground, Afrah intertwines archival findings, history, memory, folklore and fantasy to create a speculative world born of remixed culture. Afrah Shafiq has retold the story of Sultana from Rokeya Hossain’s story ‘Sultana’s Dream’ and presented her imaginative creative work which tries brings out the real situation which might be faced by Sultana or Rokeya Hossain in her life with the name ‘Sultana’s Reality’. ‘Sultana’s Reality’ is an interactive multimedia story that explores the relationship between women and the colonial education movement in India using archival imagery, women’s writing and history.

You can visit her Digital Narrative ‘Sultana’s Reality’- https://www.entersultanasreality.com/

Below I am answering the assigned question.

Concept of Andar mahal – the universe of Women

Beginning with the meaning of what is Andar mahal; Andar mahal or inner chambers is also known as Zenana, it is a part of a house for the seclusion of Women. The very first chapter of ‘Sultana’s Reality' talks about Andar mahal ‘an inner world of their own’.

The concept of Andar mahal was at its peak in the earlier part of the nineteenth century. It was a completely secluded place for women, the only contact with the outside world was working women who did household jobs in Andar mahal and had freedom to roam the world. It was the place from where women cannot step out and it was only the place where men can not step- in. in a small bonded place but women were all free to do what they wished. They used to live their best life singing, dancing, jokes, partying etc.

While reading a short story ‘Sultana’s Dream’ we realize that she also might be caged in an Andar mahal and it is giving her an imagination of the ladyland where women were free and men were caged in Mardana instead of Zenana. One can interpret the craving of women in Andar mahal to be free, roam unveiled.

Andar mahal can be considered to be a universe of women because it was the only place where they were safe from the men. In a compact, caged place, they were free to dance, sing, enjoy, writing poetry, gossip about husbands and making jokes on them.

Observation of females and their connection with books.

(Colonial education movement)

Sultana’s Reality explores the inner lives of the first generation of women to be educated in pre-independent India. Following an Alice in Wonderland style adventure the interactive multimedia installation brings to life accounts of different women.

On 14th August 1856. Koyla Schumer Bose gave a speech on ‘Education of Hindu Females’ in Calcutta. He appealed to the wealthiest people of Bengal to rally around for female education. He was the one to give a famous line “ She must be re-organized, refined, recast, regenerated.” In the second chapter of ‘Sultana’s Reality’ I Got my Eye on You’ we get an idea about why female education began. It seems like before this period no men paid attention to what happened inside the Andar mahal. Later, men felt that women were loose and men were embarrassed. So they decided to give education and hand books to them but not for their development and growing, for cultivating women’s true nature, their stri- bhava. Good books to improve their religious sense, being suitable for domestic work, to be more amiable and high principled, more faithful and devoted to men’s services, to have a modeled English women; men believed the only duty/ dharma of women is to serve their husband. The books ‘Stri- Dharma Padhti’ and ‘Bahishti Zewar’ were the two famous publications of the time.

The third chapter ‘Straighten Things Out’ clearly states that men wanted to bring women on line through education. Even in this system some women were happily accepting books but some were annoyed by it. Some would rather nap than read, Some were stoned in the streets for wearing shoes and carrying umbrellas, Some read forbidden texts in secret at night, Some read and then challenged the very ideas they read and some went on to write books - telling their story in their own words. The books they wrote reveal a universe of women’s lives as they were actually lived – outside the confines of bad and good behavior. The women in the books and the books in the women were full of messiness, intimacy, cynicism, humor, anger, dreams, beauty and love - and all of it together makes up their history. Men wanted a modeled woman for the show piece but for some getting books worked as a boon.

But later for all the women the savior women came and talked for women and their growth.

Compare both narratives of Sultana's Dream and Reality.

Sultan's Dream is the story of the utopian world, while Sultana's reality is the prequel of Sultana’s Dream. Sultana’s Dream is a story of dreamland, it has a wonderful feminist point of view of a ladyland. Sultana’s Dream is based on an imagined Ladyland where women Can access public spaces unrestricted by social or religious customs. A feminist utopia imagines a world without gender binaries and gender discrimination. women seem to have access to public spaces without being restricted by social or religious customs in Sultana’s Dream which is an unrealistic idea. But it gives us a feel for women’s urge to be free, live life like men. The story reveals various emotions felt by women facing patriarchal oppression. In the story, women are shown as more rational and scientific than men, wherein Sara (the protagonist’s imaginary friend) is a scientific researcher who considers women as superior to men. Women and men work in a completely opposite manner than sultana’s world. While the Sultana’s reality gives a view of Sultana’s world and their suffering. Complete opposite concepts are seen in both the stories like of Mardana and Zenana, Women ruling and growing faster in Dream and Reality. The story of Sultana’s Dream also gives a hope that only in a world of women, women ruling is far more better, organized, refined, regenerated, progressive than ruled by men.

Sultana’s Reality is told through animated video, graphics, gifs, comics, collages and other digital art forms made by collating, re-mixing, re-interpreting and re-imagining traditional visual imaginations of the female form. It tries to explore the multiplicity of women’s history and also image making – the ways in which it is told and remembered. Sultana’s Reality is perhaps an exercise in questioning history. Not the history of the image, but a history that is constructed with the image.

I hope my blog was useful to you. Thanks for visiting.