Reflection of Indian mentality in the Fakeer of Jungheera

Name: Sonal Baraiya.

Roll No.: 34.

Sub: Indian Writing in English – Pre Independence.

Topic: Reflection of Indian Mentality in the Fakeer of Jungheera.

                                                   

                                        In the Fakeer of Jungheera, Derozio dexterously mixes the tantric, Hindu mythological, Islamic and Christian traditions to create a composite whole that corresponds to the elegiac European tradition of the nineteenth century and the syncretistic Sufi tradition of the fifteenth century. Derozio’s marginalized Anglo-Indian background was ideally suited to the hybrid and impure tradition of the tantric tale. The world of magic, resurrection and immorality that the tantric tradition provides was more suited to the Fakeer- Nuleeni’s tragic tale than the purist and idealized versions of Hindu, Christian or Islamic thought. Derozio confessed that he found the tale quite fascinating when he first heard it from a student of Hindu college and realized that it would fit perfectly with the Jungheera story of inter-religious blighted love tale that he was narrating. Probably because of the impurity and Hybridity of the poem many literary historians have rejected it from inclusion in the Indian literary canon. As the lie goes, if Monarch Vikram relic steady in his effect for his queen he can resurrect her and erstwhile solon both can reach felicity unitedly. The dauntless fortitude and spirit that the queen exemplifies by qualifying through the horrible or deals in the necropolis slip to his success, provides a fitting close to the sad end of the Islamist in the aggregation of his loved Nuleeni. If the tale of the Baital is honorable then

                                    ‘‘the treated out eloquence’’

Of Nuleeni can again be resurrected in the accumulation of the Islamist if she can overtake finished the horrors and temptations of account. Nevertheless those are unstated assumptions, a line of the mass environs of the tarradiddle that forces the order to reflect upon the antepenultimate verbalizer broods over the tragic environment divesting us of all emotions, merely reflecting on a thoroughfare, which may presently be resolute finished a dues ex machine.

                                        The open – ended picture makes the elergyman emit on a quieted engendered by a purging. The poem can be indicate as story of emancipation of equenched Asian women and an indictment of the grownup Asiatic gild in the nineteenth century. The light and bonnie Nuleeni refuses to die on the funeral pyre of her spouse and escapes with the thief Mohammedan to his cave in Jungheera to a being of impermissible bang though afraid by tough sociable repercussions. She believes that her lover’s courageousness and her unfailing Jazz leave finally make them victorious. Her blonde and glorious present brightens the glooming inter- personal surround of the poem and mitigates the steep mettlesome rebellion of the weaker faith draws the attention to the inequality of the sexes and the mixer unease rampant in Magadha order of the dimension. The poem has a grievous coach in the use of gregarious themes in literate texts endorsing a syncretistic practice quite popular in ordinal century Bengal.

                                                The proponent of The Saint poem is a robber Mohammedan or a mendicant, who belongs to both anonymous Islamist camp, times the protagonist, the widow Nuleeni, comes from a speed caste Magadha Religionist tribe. Derozio’s uses religion imagery, specified as heaven and angels hurry sound active, and juxtaposes it against the religionist tradition of sati, Muhammedan prayers and Buddhism tale of Aristocrat Vikramajit and Baital to create a stylish, idiom condition. Though the tantric tale seems to be a prolonged excursus within a sad tale of a destroyed Hindu – Muslim object thing, it nonetheless places the tragedy in an unprocessed practice after having unloved all the new dominant churchlike forms.

                                       Sati – Pratha

The Social Malaise of Sati:

     

                                                    At the ancient time there are many rules and regulations in which one of the most famous is ‘Sati’. ‘Sati – pratha’ is the most means high influence on Indian mentality. In that time women situations, conditions are very pathetic. That is also describe in ‘The Fakeer of Jungheera’ very well by Henry Derozio.

                                                  Instead of belaboring upon the misery of slavery, Derozio embarked upon a mission of resolving some of the inherent evils of Hindu society especially – ‘the practice of widow burning’.

                                                 In 1829 when William Bentinck abolished sati Derozio wrote a poem entitled ‘‘On the Abolition of Satee’’ in praise of Regulation xvii extolling the merits of the decree:

     ‘‘Bentinck, be thine the everlasting mead! The heart’s full homage still is virtue’s claim, and ’tis good man’s ever honored deed. Which gives an immortality to fame: that glory lights upon the wastes of war: Nations unborn shall vererate thy name, A triumph than the conqueror’s mightier far, Thy memory shall be blessed as is the morning star.’’

               In the Fakeer of Jungheera, Chorus of women who are suggest her to become a ‘sati’. When she become a sati rather you can say that when she died she going in heaven. That is indicates under the stanzas,

  ‘‘Such is the boon that to her shall be given; Myriads of ages for her are in store; she shall enjoy all the blessings of heaven, Till heaven, and its blessing themselves are no more.’’

‘‘Happy! Thrice happy thus early to leave, Earth and its sorrows, for heaven and its bliss! Who that hath known it at parting would grieve, Quitting a world so disastrous at this?’’

And they are also believed in that when someone being a sati who is going in heaven because it is good deeds for her and wherein she meet her husband, that is also indicates in one stanza;

Happy! thrice happy! Thy lord shall there meet thee, twined round his heart shalt thou ever remain; Happy! Bright angels are longing to greet thee, tuned are their harp strings, and ready their strain.’’

 This stanza indicates that when she died, she meet her husband. But how are known that when she died she meet her husband in heaven or not. The fact is, that so far from any display of enthusiastic affection, a suttee, is a spectacle of misery, exciting in the spectator a melancholy reflection upon the tyranny of superstition and priest – craft. The poor creatures who suffer from this inhuman rite, have but little notion of the heaven and the million years of uninterrupted happiness to which their spiritual guides tell them to look forward. The choice of immediate death, or a protracted existence, where to be only must contend their desire, is all that is offered to them; and who under such circumstances would hesitate about the preference? The most degrading and humiliating household offices must be performed by a Hindu Widow; she is not allowed more food than will suffice to keep her alive; she must sleep upon the bare carth; and suffer indignities from the youngest members of her family; these are only a few of her sufferings. The philanthropic views of some individuals are directed to the abolition of Widow – burning; but they should first ensure the comfort of these unhappy women in their widowhood – otherwise, instead of conferring a boon upon them, existence will be to many a drudge, and a load.

         Derozio approvingly quotes a writer from the ‘‘Indian Magazine’’ and endorses the latter’s opinion that sati constitutes the most barbaric and degrading aspect of Indian Society which can be overcome through education and intellectual development. Nonetheless with all his self – assurance and animosity for con – cremation, Derozio seems somewhat bewildered by cases of willful self – immolation. During the nineteenth century many upper caste Hindu women willfully committed sati mistakenly believing in the veracity of the Hindu ritual, as if mesmerized into an abominable act through a long process of socialization.

    Thrilled by the regulation Derozio felt that the ‘‘widow’s wail’’ was over at last and the ‘‘flames from impious pyres’’ have been forever extinguished though its ‘‘dismal’’ history would continue to haunt us. He believed that now sati declared illegal women would enjoy freedom and ‘‘social bliss’’ in a new India. The poem was dramatically signed in capital letters – INDIA – could be construed as a sign of the emerging identity of a new India that Derozio envisaged.

  The issue of sati was not just a social phenomenon. Natural causes and hygienic practice also aggravated the malaise. It must however be remembered that the increase in the number of sati was also related to a large extent to the spread of cholera epidemics in the nineteenth century that originated along the banks of the Ganges River and spread to other parts of the world reaching through the middle East and Europe up to the united states. Though there were many reasons for the increase of incidents of sati in Bengal the death rate of married Bengali males was a significant factor.

Caste System:

                          Indian mentality also believed in caste system. In which Brahmins are belongs to upper caste and all are under them. So, in the Fakeer of Jungheera Nuleeni who was belongs to upper caste. She was comes from a Bengali Hindu family.

                            Nuleeni, who was love with Fakeer who was, belongs to another caste, Muslim. Nuleeni’s strong feelings with Fakeer. But because of different caste system, Nuleeni’s parents against with their relationship. So, her parents committed her marriage with rich Brahmin. But at the end Nuleeni escaped with Fakeer, their parents and her caste members also against with both of them, because of social prestige. It is indicates that because of caste system Nuleeni and Fakeer not commit marriage.