Frontline ·
Passion play
Isheeta Ganguly’s inventiveness in Three Women is a world away from the psychological complexity of the characters on which the novel is based.
In 1884, Kadambari Devi, the wife of Rabindranath Tagore’s older brother Jyotirindranath, died by suicide. She was 25, two years older than Rabindranath, who had been her close companion ever since she came into the Tagore household as a nine-year-old bride. Playmates as children, Kadambari and Rabindranath grew up sharing a bond that included their literary interests.
Some say she was the poet’s muse in his early years. And Kadambari, who was lonely in her marriage—her much older husband had little time for her—probably allowed the brilliant “Robi” to dominate her emotional landscape. We do not know why she took her own life, but the fact that she did so four months after Rabindranath married the girl chosen for him by his family has been cited by legions of literary historians as an indication that perhaps the poet’s relationship with his “notun bouthaan” (new sister-in-law) was more intense than either of them had let on.
Rabindranath was deeply affected by Kadambari’s suicide. She was gone, but he let her spirit waft into many of his works, including several of his later paintings. The character of Charulata in his novella, Nashtanirh—masterfully brought to life by Satyajit Ray in his film Charulata—is widely regarded as having been based on Kadambari Devi and the situation she may have found herself in.
