Review: Chittacobra by Mridula Garg

In a piece in Scroll last year, Garg, who now has 30 books to her credit, wrote that her depiction of a married woman treating her husband as a commodity during the sexual act was what had caused offence. “They could not digest the fact that while participating in the physical act fully, the wife was thinking of philosophical and intellectual matters. She was not thinking of her lover, that would have been acceptable. She had the temerity to just think, thus objectifying the husband,” she wrote. “This was very hurtful to male egos. Women are forever reduced to bodies and commodities but women aren’t allowed to do that to men, to their husbands. I think this is the reason everyone got so angry,” she pointed out.

The controversy erupted shortly after the Hindi weekly magazine Sarika published excerpts from the novel, which were seen as offensive. Complaints were sent in, claiming the book was obscene and the magazine’s stocks were seized, prohibiting further sales. What hurt Garg was that none of the complainants had read the book, and none of her fellow writers, with the exception of one, stood up for her. Interestingly, a concerted campaign against the book was launched soon after it had received glowing reviews and was featured in Lothar Lutze’s book on the post-colonial literature of India.

In 1982, when the book was already in its fifth edition, she was arrested under Section 292 of the Indian Penal Code for publishing obscene material. The controversy ended when her lawyer approached the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi at the time, and the latter decided to withdraw the case half an hour before it was to come up for hearing.

By translating this iconic work into English, Garg, who writes with proficiency in both Hindi and English, has presented her sensitive exploration of love and desire between Manu and Richard to a new generation of readers.

One of the most lauded works of modern Hindi literature, Chittacobra raises important questions about how women are viewed as either good or bad within the patriarchal structure of a heterosexual marriage. This is true even today. However, Garg’s story of love and passion skillfully avoids all the usual middle-class tropes.

Told from Manu’s perspective, this intimate story of infidelity interrogates the structural inequalities embedded in marriage and sexuality and shows how both are conveniently tied to reproduction. Set in the late 1960s, when India’s first Miss World was crowned, the novel follows a married woman who meets and falls for a Protestant missionary during the rehearsals of a play in Jamshedpur. The lovers talk about love, life, death, capitalism, communism, Gandhi, Marx and Christ. Richard wants to reform “the bastees” of the world and has joined the Church to fulfil his mission. He doesn’t stay in a country for long, has learnt six languages during his gypsy-like travels, and is yet to

find a permanent home. He tries to sneak into India every year for a minimum of five days to spend time with Manu. On one of his visits, Manu decides to get drunk. “I want to know what I actually do when under the influence, not what a man thinks a woman would do. I need a description, not a world view,” she tells him.

“We were so different. He was English… no, Scottish. I was Indian. He was a parson. I an atheist. He was married, so was I. His family was in London, mine in Delhi,” Manu reminisces when Richard hasn’t shown up for two years during the mid-1970s when Emergency was imposed in India.

At home, she is a typical middle-class housewife, always ready to welcome her husband, Mahesh, home with a cup of tea. Mahesh does not love her, however, he is sympathetic towards her. As she approaches the twilight of her life, Manu reflects on her life with Mahesh: “All the love was on my side. I had never asked him if he loved me because I was afraid, he might say no… I had quietly committed myself to giving him all that I believed an average husband wanted from his wife. A well-appointed house. Healthy and well-behaved children. An attractive, attentive and well-groomed wife. A hospitable hostess attuned to the needs of the social circle.”

Mahesh does not regard marriage ties as binding. However, when Manu asks him what he’d think if she fell in love with someone else, there is a long silence. Then he tells her that if she does, she should try and not tell him.

Richard decides not to tell his wife Jenny about his affair. Confession, he tells Manu, is for the cowardly. It might lighten Richard’s burden by making him feel self-righteous, but his wife would lose her peace of mind forever.

For the record, Garg coined the term “Chittacobra”; Chitta means consciousness in Sanskrit. A few years ago, the Juggernaut app published an English translation of Chittacobra as Banjara Love. Garg has written extensively across various genres; she has authored eight novels, four plays, four collections of essays, a memoir, a travel account, and 90 short stories. In 2004, her novel Kathgulab won the Vyas Samman and Miljul Mann was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2013. Chittacobra has been translated into English, German and Russian.

In the years since Garg wrote this novel, little has changed. Marriage is still plagued by unequal gender dynamics and women are still viewed as possessions to be sexually controlled by men. That is why this novel is as pertinent now as it was five decades ago.

Lamat R Hasan is an independent journalist. She lives in New Delhi.

Mridula Garg ran into trouble for writing Chittacobra back in 1979. Her novel was branded obscene and she was briefly arrested along with her publisher. Chittacobra was Garg’s third Hindi novel – an intense and intimate love story between two young married people – an Indian woman and a missionary from Scotland.

In a piece in Scroll last year, Garg, who now has 30 books to her credit, wrote that her depiction of a married woman treating her husband as a commodity during the sexual act was what had caused offence. “They could not digest the fact that while participating in the physical act fully, the wife was thinking of philosophical and intellectual matters. She was not thinking of her lover, that would have been acceptable. She had the temerity to just think, thus objectifying the husband,” she wrote. “This was very hurtful to male egos. Women are forever reduced to bodies and commodities but women aren’t allowed to do that to men, to their husbands. I think this is the reason everyone got so angry,” she pointed out.

The controversy erupted shortly after the Hindi weekly magazine Sarika published excerpts from the novel, which were seen as offensive. Complaints were sent in, claiming the book was obscene and the magazine’s stocks were seized, prohibiting further sales. What hurt Garg was that none of the complainants had read the book, and none of her fellow writers, with the exception of one, stood up for her. Interestingly, a concerted campaign against the book was launched soon after it had received glowing reviews and was featured in Lothar Lutze’s book on the post-colonial literature of India.

In 1982, when the book was already in its fifth edition, she was arrested under Section 292 of the Indian Penal Code for publishing obscene material. The controversy ended when her lawyer approached the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi at the time, and the latter decided to withdraw the case half an hour before it was to come up for hearing.

By translating this iconic work into English, Garg, who writes with proficiency in both Hindi and English, has presented her sensitive exploration of love and desire between Manu and Richard to a new generation of readers.

One of the most lauded works of modern Hindi literature, Chittacobra raises important questions about how women are viewed as either good or bad within the patriarchal structure of a heterosexual marriage. This is true even today. However, Garg’s story of love and passion skillfully avoids all the usual middle-class tropes.

Told from Manu’s perspective, this intimate story of infidelity interrogates the structural inequalities embedded in marriage and sexuality and shows how both are conveniently tied to reproduction. Set in the late 1960s, when India’s first Miss World was crowned, the novel follows a married woman who meets and falls for a Protestant missionary during the rehearsals of a play in Jamshedpur. The lovers talk about love, life, death, capitalism, communism, Gandhi, Marx and Christ. Richard wants to reform “the bastees” of the world and has joined the Church to fulfil his mission. He doesn’t stay in a country for long, has learnt six languages during his gypsy-like travels, and is yet to

find a permanent home. He tries to sneak into India every year for a minimum of five days to spend time with Manu. On one of his visits, Manu decides to get drunk. “I want to know what I actually do when under the influence, not what a man thinks a woman would do. I need a description, not a world view,” she tells him.

“We were so different. He was English… no, Scottish. I was Indian. He was a parson. I an atheist. He was married, so was I. His family was in London, mine in Delhi,” Manu reminisces when Richard hasn’t shown up for two years during the mid-1970s when Emergency was imposed in India.

At home, she is a typical middle-class housewife, always ready to welcome her husband, Mahesh, home with a cup of tea. Mahesh does not love her, however, he is sympathetic towards her. As she approaches the twilight of her life, Manu reflects on her life with Mahesh: “All the love was on my side. I had never asked him if he loved me because I was afraid, he might say no… I had quietly committed myself to giving him all that I believed an average husband wanted from his wife. A well-appointed house. Healthy and well-behaved children. An attractive, attentive and well-groomed wife. A hospitable hostess attuned to the needs of the social circle.”

Mahesh does not regard marriage ties as binding. However, when Manu asks him what he’d think if she fell in love with someone else, there is a long silence. Then he tells her that if she does, she should try and not tell him.

Richard decides not to tell his wife Jenny about his affair. Confession, he tells Manu, is for the cowardly. It might lighten Richard’s burden by making him feel self-righteous, but his wife would lose her peace of mind forever.

For the record, Garg coined the term “Chittacobra”; Chitta means consciousness in Sanskrit. A few years ago, the Juggernaut app published an English translation of Chittacobra as Banjara Love. Garg has written extensively across various genres; she has authored eight novels, four plays, four collections of essays, a memoir, a travel account, and 90 short stories. In 2004, her novel Kathgulab won the Vyas Samman and Miljul Mann was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2013. Chittacobra has been translated into English, German and Russian.

In the years since Garg wrote this novel, little has changed. Marriage is still plagued by unequal gender dynamics and women are still viewed as possessions to be sexually controlled by men. That is why this novel is as pertinent now as it was five decades ago.

Lamat R Hasan is an independent journalist. She lives in New Delhi.