নরেশচন্দ্র সেনগুপ্তের ছোটগল্পে নারীজীবন : ‘অসতী’ ও ‘বিচার’/ Women's Lives in Nareshchandra Sengupta's Short Stories : ‘Asati’ and ‘Bichar’

Abstract

Naresh Chandra Sen Gupta was a gifted writer of twentieth-century Bengali short fiction. While his writings reflect the nuances of social life, he also examined the lives of women from a multitude of perspectives. In many of his short stories, the female experience emerges with varying degrees of significance. In this essay, we will analyze how the lives of women are portrayed in two of his most notable stories: ‘Asati’ and ‘Bichar’.

          The central character of the story ‘Asati’ is Latika, who becomes pregnant at the age of sixteen while still unmarried. To preserve the family's social honor, her father arranges her marriage to a young man named Atul in exchange for a dowry of twenty thousand rupees. Although Atul formally accepts Latika as his wife, he is unable to accept her wholeheartedly. He constantly torments Latika with verbal barbs, ceaselessly reminding her of her past. Latika’s first child—born just six months after the marriage—dies due to Atul’s utter neglect and disdain. Later, when she bears a child fathered by Atul, he keeps Latika estranged even from that child—an act that leaves her maternal heart deeply wounded. Seeking liberation from this extreme humiliation and neglect within her marital life, Latika begins working as a nurse during a plague epidemic. By risking her own life to serve humanity, she earns a place of honor in society, revered as a goddess and a noble woman. The story concludes by revealing that Atul remains unable to transcend his narrow-mindedness and patriarchal arrogance; he views even Latika’s hard-won success with a jaundiced eye. However, the author demonstrates that physical purity alone does not constitute a woman's sole identity; through acts of service, self-sacrifice, and motherhood, Latika ultimately dispels the stigma of being a so-called "unchaste woman" and ascends to a position of true dignity and respect. The story ‘Bichar’ is narrated through the testimony of a condemned prisoner awaiting execution. The prisoner stands accused of murdering an innocent man; yet, he perceives this impending punishment not merely as a legal verdict, but as an act of divine justice. In the past, driven by an obsessive desire to abduct a milkman's wife, he had set fire to and killed her husband—a crime for which an innocent friend of his was unjustly sent to the gallows. This execution serves as the atonement for that very sin. Delving into the depths of the narrative, it is revealed that the accused was involved in an illicit affair with a married woman named Nistarini. One day, when Nistarini's husband, Sanjeev, threatened to catch them red-handed and exact revenge, Nistarini—acting in a moment of utter desperation and loss of judgment—killed her husband with a cleaver. Subsequently, in an attempt to save the accused, she shifted the blame for the murder onto him rather than accepting responsibility herself. The accused was apprehended while attempting to flee; however, upon realizing the gravity of his transgression, he ceased his escape efforts and submitted himself to the course of justice. Nistarini, on the other hand, was driven to insanity by the pangs of her conscience and ultimately perished in a fire. Through this narrative, the author demonstrates that while earthly justice may occasionally err, a sinner can find no escape from the invisible or divine justice.