Chandalika

-Rabindranath Tagore
 Biography
• Novel laureate from Bengal
• (Calcutta, now Kolkata) - 1913

• May 7, 1861 - August 7, 1941

• poet, short-story writer, song composer, playwright,

essayist, and painter

• From well-off family, also stayed in London

• highly influential in
introducing Indian culture 
to the West

• Contemporary of Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas

Chandra Bosh, Jawaharlal Nehru

• became acquainted with W.B.Yeats, George Bernard

Shaw, Robert Frost and Albert Einstein.
 Famous works of Rabindranath Tagore:
• Gitanjali. Subject: Devotion to God. ...
• Chokher bali. Subject: Extra-marital affair. ...
• The Postmaster. ...
• Gora. ...
• Kabuliwallah (The Fruit seller from Kabul),
• Sadhana: The realization of life.
• Shesher Kabita. ...
• Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)
• Chandalika (caste system)
• Malini (Buddhism)
• Tagore was awarded a knighthood in 1915, but
he repudiated (rejected) it in 1919 as a protest
against the Amritsar Massacre
 Context and Setting
• British raj in India

• Exploitation and oppression

• Indian people uniting against British imperialism

• Hindu caste system (division of people)

• Christianization

• India in 1930s (Sravasti (well) in particular)

Character Sketch

• Prakriti
• Mother
• Anand
 Prakriti
• Also termed as Chandalika

• Belongs to lowest caste

• Developes self-awareness and starts speak differently

• Deeply in love with Anand

• Wants him in the cost of mother – determined

• At last regrets for her action

• Begs pardon with Anand

 Mother
• Superstitious – wants to maintain caste system

• As a Chandal she knows her limitations

• Loving and caring

• Puts her life in threat for daughters love

• Caste magic spell to drag Anand

• Begs pardon with Anand

• Dies at last !
 Anand
• Off-stage character
• Main disciple of Buddha
• handsome
• Yet controls the drama from beginning to last
• Takes water from Chandalini in cupped-hand
• Guided by the principle of universal love and
forgiveness
• Gets torture for his good deeds
• Pale and deformed appears to Prakriti
• Saved by Lord Buddha at last
 Summary

• Prakriti didn’t turn up from well for long time

• Mother calls her

• Mother wonders seeing daughter in the blistering sun

“There is a story in the Purana about how Uma left home and did penance in the
burning sun – is that what you are about?”

Yes, mother, that’s it – I’m doing penance

Good heavens! And for whom?

For someone whose call has come to me.

What call is that?

‘Give me water.’ He set the words echoing in my heart.

• Did you tell him that you are a Chandalini?
• I said, ‘I am a Chandalini, and the well-water in
unclean.’ He said, ‘As I am a human being, so also
are you, and all water is clean and holy that cools
our heat and satisfies our thirst.’ For the first time in
my life I heard such words.
 Themes
• Sex Psychology (Theory of Unconscious)

• Criticism of Caste system

• Physical Lust vs Spiritual Wisdom