The Sleeping Dictionary is a novel by American writer Sujata Massey. It is the first book in the Daughters of Bengal series and was released in paperback on August 20, 2013. [1] Set in late Raj India, The Sleeping Dictionary tells the story of a young peasant girl, who makes her way to Calcutta and is caught between the raging independence movement and the British colonial society she finds herself inhabiting.
Set between 1925 and the end of World War II, The Sleeping Dictionary is the story of Kamala, who loses her family during a West Bengal cyclone. As the young orphan, an unseen child servant, grows up and learns English, she turns into a secret freedom fighter in Calcutta. While the term "sleeping dictionary" was originally coined for young women who slept with Europeans and educated them in the ways of India, Kamala turns the tables on the colonial establishment, using her talents for readings languages and men to work for India's independence. [2] This is an unusual portrait of colonial India, told in the voice of a young woman who breaks barriers of race and caste to remake her destiny.
The book received a favorable review in the Romantic Times. [3]
The God of Small Things is the debut novel of Indian writer Arundhati Roy. It is a story about the childhood experiences of fraternal twins whose lives are destroyed by the "Love Laws" that lay down "who should be loved, and how. And how much." The book explores how the small things affect people's behavior and their lives. The book also reflects its irony against casteism, which is a major discrimination that prevails in India. It won the Booker Prize in 1997.
Bandini is a 1963 Hindi drama film directed and produced by Bimal Roy, the man who directed classics such as Do Bigha Zameen and Devdas. Bandini stars Nutan, giving one of the finest performances of her career, along with Ashok Kumar and Dharmendra as leads, and explores the human conflicts of love and hate intertwined in the mind of Kalyani (Nutan). The lead female role was offered to one of Roy's favourite actresses Vyjayanthimala, who earlier worked with Roy in Devdas and Madhumati. However, due to her busy schedule she refused the role, which later went to Nutan, who had worked with Roy in Sujata (1959). The movie tells the story of a woman prisoner serving life imprisonment for murder, Kalyani, the all suffering, selfless, sacrificing and strong, yet weak Indian woman. She must make a choice between two very different men, Devendra (Dharmendra), the loving prison doctor, and Bikash, a man from her past.
The term Anglo-Indian can refer to at least two groups of people: those with mixed Indian and British ancestry and people of British descent born or residing in India. The latter sense is now mainly historical, but confusions can arise. The Oxford English Dictionary, for example, gives three possibilities: "Of mixed British and Indian parentage, of Indian descent but born or living in Britain or of English descent or birth but living or having lived long in India". People fitting the middle definition are more usually known as British Asian or British Indian. This article focuses primarily on the modern definition, a distinct minority community of mixed Eurasian ancestry, whose first language is English.
Bethune College is a women's college located on Bidhan Sarani in Kolkata, India, and affiliated to the University of Calcutta. It is the oldest women's college in India. It was established as a girls' school in 1849, and as a college in 1879.
Sujata Massey is an American mystery author and historical fiction novelist. Her books are published in English in the US and Canada, the United Kingdom and India, and Australia/New Zealand. Massey’s novels are also available in different languages and formats in Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Spain and Thailand.
Cooch Behar, also known as Koch Bihar, was a princely state in India during the British Raj. The state was placed under the Bengal States Agency, part of the Eastern States Agency of the Bengal Presidency. It is located south of the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, in present-day West Bengal.
Amala and Kamala were two "feral girls" from Bengal, India, who were alleged to have been raised by a wolf family.
Rajshekhar Basu, better known by the pen name Parashuram, was a Bengali writer, chemist and lexicographer. He was chiefly known for his comic and satirical short stories, and is considered the greatest Bengali humorist of the twentyfirst century. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1956.
Indian English literature (IEL), also referred to as Indian Writing in English (IWE), is the body of work by writers in India who write in the English language and whose native or co-native language could be one of the numerous languages of India. Its early history began with the works of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio and Michael Madhusudan Dutt followed by Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo. R. K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao contributed to the growth and popularity of Indian English fiction in the 1930s. It is also associated, in some cases, with the works of members of the Indian diaspora who subsequently compose works in English.
The Bardhaman Raj, also known as Burdwan Raj, was a zamindari estate that flourished from about 1657 to 1955 in the Indian state of West Bengal. Maharaja Sangam Rai Kapoor, a Khatri from Kotli, Punjab, who was the first member of the family to settle in Bardhaman, was the original founder of the house of Bardhaman, whereas his grandson Abu Rai, during whose time the zamindari started flourishing, is considered to be the patriarch of the Bardhaman Raj family.
Cornelia Sorabji was an Indian lawyer, social reformer and writer. She was the first female graduate from Bombay University, the first woman to study law at Oxford University, and the first female advocate in India.
Hana Catherine Mullens (1826–1861) was a European missionary, educator, translator and writer. She was a leader of zenana missions, setting up schools for girls and writing what is arguably the first novel in Bengali. She spent most of her life in Calcutta, then the capital of British India, and was fluent in the Bengali language.
Kamala Surayya , popularly known by her one-time pen name Madhavikutty and married name Kamala Das, was an Indian poet in English as well as an author in Malayalam from Kerala, India. Her popularity in Kerala is based chiefly on her short stories and autobiography, while her oeuvre in English, written under the name Kamala Das, is noted for the poems and explicit autobiography. She was also a widely read columnist and wrote on diverse topics including women's issues, child care, politics among others etc.
Socialism in India is a political movement founded early in the 20th century, as a part of the broader movement to gain Indian independence from colonial rule. The movement grew quickly in popularity as it espoused the causes of India's farmers and labourers against the zamindars, princely class and landed gentry. Socialism shaped the principal economic and social policies of the Indian government but mostly followed Dirigism after independence until the early 1990s, when India moved towards a more market-based economy. However, it remains a potent influence on Indian politics, with many national and regional political parties espousing democratic socialism.
Sulekha Sanyal was a Bengali writer and activist. She emerged as an early feminist in the region through her work Nabankur in 1956. The work has been translated to English in 2001 by Gouranga P. Chattopadhyay.
The History of Little Henry and his Bearer (1814) was a popular children's book written by Mary Martha Sherwood. It was continuously in print for 70 years after its initial publication and was translated into French, German, Spanish, Hindustani, Chinese, Marathi (1853), Tamil (1840), and Sinhalese. Telling the story of a young British boy who, on his deathbed, converts Boosy, the Indian man who has taken care of him throughout his childhood, the book is dominated by colonial and evangelical themes.
Ente Kadha is an autobiography written by Kamala Surayya (Madhavikutty) in the year 1973. She was motivated to write this as she became ill and thought will not survive. The book was controversial and outspoken and had her critics gunning her after it was published in 1973; often shocking her readers with her for conventions and expression of her opinions on subjects in society- more often on the hypocrisy of it. Though My Story was supposed to be an autobiography, Das later admitted that there was plenty of fiction in it.
Goynar Baksho is a 2013 Bengali language Indian horror comedy film directed by Aparna Sen. The film is based on a novel Goynar Baksho and a short story Rashmonir Sonadana, both written by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay and published in Desh magazine. The film premiered in Kolkata on 12 April 2013.
My Story is an autobiographical book written by Indian author and poet Kamala Das. The book was originally published in Malayalam, titled Ente Katha. The book evoked violent reactions of admiration and criticism among the readers and critics. It remains to date the best-selling woman's autobiography in India.
Haimabati Sen, born Haimabati Ghosh, was an Indian physician.
Readers may think of a sleeping dictionary as a mistress who teaches her master the customs and language of the country, but such is not the case with Massey’s heroine, who eloquently, slowly and sometimes painstakingly relates her journey from child to revolutionary and lover. There is sadness, tragedy, joy, love and triumph — everything saga readers enjoy.
