“The thing, sadhanam, who had been kept in isolation and charged with adultery was summoned to the court convened by the elders of her community. She said in her statement: “I am guilty. Cast me out if you will. But I, and only I, am entirely responsible for all that has happened. No other person shares my guilt.”
These are the opening lines of what must surely count as one of Lalithambika Antharjanam’s most powerful stories, Admission of Guilt (Kuttasammatham, written in 1940). Translated from the Malayalam by Gita Krishnankutty in 1998, it describes the trial or smarthavicharam of a young Namboodiri widow from the antharjanam community of Kerala who is accused of having an affair, presumably with a man whom she heard reading from the Bhagavatham. The word antharjanam translates literally to “a person who lives inside”. So strict were the customs that unmarried women were not even allowed to look out of the windows. The widow in the story finds herself pregnant and is labelled an adulteress by the elders of the community.
The story hinges on her elaborate and moving defence of herself. We learn that she was married at the age of 11 to a man much older than her; that this man has four Namboodiri wives and has lived with 40 Nair women; and also that he has a 30-year-old daughter who is offered in exchange to the narrator’s father. “The two fathers married each other’s daughters, a good exchange.”
Stills from Parinayam and Taya, two movies that addressed the practice of smarthavicharam, and a Namboodiri illam | Photo Credit: Imaging: Sathish Joseph
The narrator soon grows to be a burden to her husband and returns to her parents’ home where she is reasonably happy until the day she is widowed. Lalithambika articulates to the fullest the horror of that life-changing moment: “I was snatched away from where I was playing contentedly with my friends and dragged indoors. There was loud wailing in the kitchen. Even so, I did not cry… I bathed in the tank, came in streaming wet, and lay down in a dark room. I took off my bell metal bangles. I wiped the thilakam off my forehead. I did everything they asked me to do. But when, according to custom, the senior daughter-in-law of the household came to break the sacred black thread I wore around my neck, I protested. “I won’t give it to you. I won’t take off my thali.”
Read | The goddess of revenge — Lalithambika Antharjanam’s heroine in Pratikaaradevata
The young widow is condemned to a life sentence of loneliness. She watches her brother and his wife breaking into loud laughter and her sister-in-law adorning herself with jasmine flowers. Her heart breaks at the thought that such joy is never to be hers. She asks the elders who have put her on trial: “To stand and watch while the pleasures of life forever denied [the widow] are being experienced by another — do you know, you great vaidikans, how deeply that can hurt and sting?” She also asks them if they have ever lifted a finger to protect the likes of her, and speaks of the desires that she and others like her find hard to suppress. It is at the temple (the only outing she is allowed) that she has her first glimpse of the man who becomes, very briefly, her lover, the man whose reading of the Bhagavatham she finds magical.
Admission of Guilt, one of the stories in this collection, is ahead of its times, unique in its portrayal of a woman who finds herself pushed to the wall but speaks back to patriarchy
Lalithambika’s strengths as a storyteller lies in the sensitivity she brings to difficult subjects and her compassion for and insight into the lives of antharjanams. Born in 1909 in a Namboodiri illam in the Travancore state, she was herself an antharjanam. As Krishnankutty points out in her introduction to Cast Me Out If You Will: Stories and Memoir, a collection of stories and autobiographical fragments by Lalithambika, the writer was more fortunate than other women from her community. Her poet and social reformer father and educated mother allowed her certain freedoms that her peers didn’t enjoy. Lalithambika was taught both Sanskrit and Malayalam. Her father ensured that she always had access to books. She was also permitted, unlike the other antharjanams, to wear a blouse and did not have to leave her breasts uncovered. However, there was only so much liberty her parents could allow her and she was confined to the women’s quarters as soon as she attained puberty.
Read | Savitri’s revenge: The story of how this ‘antharjanam’ shook the imperfect world of Namboodiri men
The social reform movement and the nationalist movement were major influences on Lalithambika’s work. She was also lucky in that her husband Narayanan Namboodiri was a source of great encouragement. But one still can’t help marvelling at the boldness, empathy and clarity of her voice. Surely that is something that can only come from within.
Adulterous women, no matter the circumstances, continue to be judged harshly. It was only as recently as 2018 that the supreme court struck down the colonial-era law dating back to 1860 which made adultery illegal, arguing that it was unconstitutional because it “treats a husband as the sole master”. Admission of Guilt is a story ahead of its times, unique in its portrayal of a woman who finds herself pushed to the wall but speaks back to patriarchy.
K. Srilata is a writer and independent scholar who is currently writing verse that re-imagines the ‘Mahabharata’.
