Long time ago I overheard an aunt recommending the autobiography SmritiChitre by Laxmibai Tilak. A few days back, I found this book. Not in printed form, but, to my delight, in the form of an audio book. As such Marathi audiobooks are a rarity, and this was a free download on top of that! This is a well narrated audiobook (Narrator: Vidya Hardikar-Sapre) with proper character voices. I have not listened to the complete book so far, only the first part (there are four parts in total).
The book is set in a 1870-1930 Maharashtra. It starts with childhood memories of author in an orthodox Brahmin family. At the age of 11 her elders decide to marry her to a young man named Narayan W. Tilak. That name reminded me that there was a poem by "Reverend Narayan Tilak" in one of our Balbharati school textbooks. Indeed, he was the same guy. He converted to Christianity later in his life. Why he converted, is an interesting story. Basically he seems to have fed up with hypocrisy of some Hindu customs, casteism and people around him. Apparent simplicity of Christianity seems to have attracted him.
Laxmibai's life story is full of interesting characters. She lived in very poor conditions and at times didn't have money even to buy food for her kid. The parts that bothered me were wherein she casually talks of domestic violence (towards her mother-in-law by F.I.L.) and general cruelty towards herself by her F.I.L; without explicitly saying to the reader that she thought it was "wrong". She is quite objective while describing people. From time to time her husband (who is a noted poet and teacher) keeps vanishing for weeks and months leaving her on her own in financially harsh conditions. She seems proud of poetic side of her husband even though she is fed up with his not caring about money and donating things to other people. It's not all a sorrow story and humorous incidents occur here and there. We can infer a lot about social customs in Maharashtra at the time from it. It is interesting to know how a formerly uneducated (and smart/perceptive otherwise) woman like her went on to write her autobio.
Good read/listen.
