Author: Tapan Raychaudhuri
Publisher: Roli Books
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 407
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8174360905
Description
This extraordinary account, the longest and most detailed memoir yet discovered by an Indian woman born in the nineteenth century was originally written in Bengali.
This intimate autobiography, rich in details of a society in transition, was written by one of India's earliest 'native' women doctors. Though a child widow, driven from pillar to post, Haimabati nourished an ambition for higher education, eventually trained as a medical practitioner, and became the 'Lady Doctor' in charge of Hughli Dufferin Hospital for Women. Haimati's memoir illustrates the predicament of a woman determined to earn an honorable living in a man's world.
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK:
The Memoirs of Haimabati Sen is destined, I believe, to become a classic. I found her story gripping, her frankness engaging, her lucidity astonishing, her generosity heart-warming, and her ultimate fate truly tragic. Though it has all the excitement of a novel, it has an added, marvelous authentic. Anybody interested in the relationships of men and women, in the tensions of family life, or in the perverse effects of well-intentioned institutions, will find it not just instructive but deeply moving. Professor Theodore Zeldin, St. Antony's College, Oxford.
Contents
Translator's Note
Introduction to the Memoirs
Om Tat Sat
Family and Ancestors
Childhood
Married Life
Life as a Window
Benares
Calcutta
Wanderings in East Bengal
Wanderings in East Bengal-II
Return to Calcutta and Remarriage
Pilgrimage
Medical School
Chinsurah
Householder
Old Age
Glossary
Appendix A
Appendix B
Index