It was a sticky summer evening in 2017, and the rusty fans in the community hall were whirling at great speed. We were rehearsing for Tagore’s Chitrangada.
The story goes: Chitra, the princess of Manipur, is brought up to be an heiress to the throne. Her father tutors his daughter, much like a son, in warfare and archery. Chitra grows up unaware of the multifaceted woman hidden within her until she meets Arjuna and falls in love. It is then that she transforms herself into a radiant maiden to woo him, only to realise the superficiality and impermanence of her external beauty. In Bengal, Chitrangada is an annual staple in various cultural programs. In our apartment complex, it was to be the third Rabindra Jayanti production in seven years.
I had finally graduated from an unimportant shokhi (friend) to an important one who stood in the front row, and that excited me. It still saddened me that, unlike my friend, I couldn’t play Chitra, the ‘heroine’. I desperately longed to, and I soon found myself learning her lines and performing them secretly.
It was during a very animated rendition of ‘No goddess to be worshipped, nor yet the object of common pity’ in the bathroom that it struck me as odd that Chitra should object to being treated like a goddess. The question bugged me then but soon got buried, unresolved, beneath seemingly more important questions. It was years later that I found my answer.
History and etymology
Coined by Sigmund Freud in the early twentieth century, the Madonna–Whore dichotomy is a psychoanalytic concept that refers to the polarised perception of women as either chaste and, hence, ‘pure’, or as promiscuous and, therefore, ‘degraded’. This neurosis, according to Freud, is most commonly found in heterosexual men who presume that women solely occupy either of these two categories.
Coined by Sigmund Freud in the early twentieth century, the Madonna–Whore dichotomy is a psychoanalytic concept that refers to the polarised perception of women as either chaste and, hence, ‘pure’, or as promiscuous and, therefore, ‘degraded’.
Today, the concept, according to psychologists and other mental health practitioners, is considered to be archaic in coinage and modelling. It is no longer interpreted as a natural, psychological trait but viewed through a feminist lens by the likes of sociological theorists such as William Simon and John Gagnon. Misogynistic in construct, shallow and one-dimensional in perspective, the dichotomy is undoubtedly troubling.
It confines itself to the notion that a woman is to be read through a narrow androcentric lens. Her complex palette of emotions, her mind, and her interiority are thereby denied recognition. She is confined to two mutually exclusive boxes — the Madonna or the Whore.
Chitra: A critical reading
In his film Chitrangada: The Crowning Wish, Rituparno Ghosh observes that juxtapositions form the crux of Tagore’s play. I believe they form Chitra’s emotional core too. Chitra is a woman of conflict and contrast. Chitra often finds herself torn between the binary of love and sexual desire. Her mind, heart, and body, as pointed out by the philosopher Abu Sayeed Ayyub, are not separable entities but one fine mesh. Residing within her are many Chitras — one who thinks, one who feels, and one who desires.
In his film Chitrangada: The Crowning Wish, Rituparno Ghosh observes that juxtapositions form the crux of Tagore’s play. I believe they form Chitra’s emotional core too. Chitra is a woman of conflict and contrast.
She is a deeply complex being with a rich inner world of her own. She craves the realisation of her bodily desires as well as recognition of her generous heart, a sharp mind, and excellence in warfare. She wishes to be seen by Arjuna, in her entirety, not through the narrow prism of divine beauty.
‘If you deign to keep me by your side in the path of danger and daring, if you allow me to share the great duties of your life, then you will know my true self,’ says Chitra in the play, further adding, ‘Worship me not.’ She echoes generations of women who find themselves labelled before understood and their ever-expanding world confined.
Tagore recognises Chitra to be a complete woman, a phenomenal one at that. Domesticity suffocates her, as does the docility and coyness Arjuna incorrectly associates with her. She does not conform to prudish standards set by society and wishes to connect with the larger world.
Tagore recognises Chitra to be a complete woman, a phenomenal one at that. Domesticity suffocates her, as does the docility and coyness Arjuna incorrectly associates with her. She does not conform to prudish standards set by society and wishes to connect with the larger world. Thus, she breaks free and embraces her true self in its entirety, as a woman of many dimensions, one who refuses the binary altogether.
Chitrangada, as interpreted by Ghosh, is as much about identity as love. The film has a Bildungsroman-like arc that stretches throughout. It is during the course of it that Chitra deciphers an inexplicable being: the self. She comes to terms with its complexity and grows not more mature in outlook but in perception. Her gift to Arjuna is a ‘woman’s heart’, not that of a nymph or goddess. It is her rooted and mortal identity that she takes pride in and offers before her beloved.
Today: Chitra and I
Years later, the Madonna–Whore binary still survives. A newsfeed pop-up tells me that Marilyn Monroe had a library of over 400 books and was also a civil rights activist. I wonder why this ‘fun fact’ remained hidden under reductive labels all these years. Her intellect was never recognised, let alone acknowledged. Was she to merely occupy the binary and live and breathe through an identity men chose for her?
Chitra refuses to confine herself to a strictly male lens of reverence and worship. It is through her deep resolve that she echoes the aspirations of millions of ordinary women who seek the extraordinary within.
Chitrangada was published in the year 1892, more than six decades before Marilyn Monroe was labelled a ‘dumb blonde’. The extraordinary modernity that Tagore exhibits, not only as a staunch feminist but also as a humanist, fascinates me no end.
Chitra refuses to confine herself to a strictly male lens of reverence and worship. It is through her deep resolve that she echoes the aspirations of millions of ordinary women who seek the extraordinary within. Nine years later, as I think of the girl who badly wanted to play the heroine, I realise that what she wanted was to matter. Much like Chitra, she wanted to be seen in her entirety.
About the author(s)
Oindri Mandal (she/her) is in her twenties but still finds most of her sentences beginning with a stubborn 'When I grow up...'. Much like the nurse in Penny Lane, she does think she is in a play and invents a varied range of games, ranging from 'spot-the-allusion' to 'let's-pretend-we-are-in-a-book' to keep herself engaged. Her friends think it is Kiarostami, Manto, and Vietnamese lattes that keep her going, but she suspects that it has always been Studio Ghibli and fried maggi.
