Once Upon the Queens has translated stories from the iconic Thakurmar Jhuli, a collection of Bengali rural folk tale stories. Written by Satabdi Das, and translated by Nadia Imam, this book deconstructs some of the original stories, to give them a feminist twist. Beautifully illustrated by Paramita Brahmachari, this is a collection that takes you back to childhood, and introduces the new generation to classics, but updated to reflect contemporary times.
Das has introduced each tale with a rhyming verse, like Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumder did when he compiled Thakumar Jhuli in 1907. He had divided the stories in three sections, and Das has chosen a few from each section to translate in English. She concludes with a translation from Thakumar Jhuli’s sequel, Thakurdadaar Jhuli. The sequel was for the girl who used to listen to Thakumar Jhuli stories, grew up and needed to be reminded of her place in the patriarchy.
The first story, from the ‘Dudher Sagar’ section, is called ‘The Sleeping Kingdom,’ and was similar to Sleeping Beauty originally. Das makes the princess the protagonist instead, and gives her agency as an adventurer. She reverses the reasons for sleep, switches the sleeper and the savior, and revises the roles others play in the story too.
Das has revised the famous story ‘Kalawati’ similarly. In ‘Kachanmala and Kakanmala’ Das adds shades of grey to both the titular characters, rather than keeping one as good and the other bad, like it was in the original.
‘Seven Brothers Champa’ does away with the cruelty of the original, which was about infanticide. By creating a sisterhood instead, Das shows another way for women to co-exist, rather than vying among each other for male attention.
Other famous tales Das has translated include ‘Prince Red Lotus, Prince Blue Lotus’ and ‘The Golden Stick and Silver Stick.’ Das questions why the demon, as the Other, is often defeated by deception and asks whether that is morally correct. She revises the ending to be more open.
In ‘One and a Half Finger,’ Das highlights the issue of caste, changing the protagonist’s gender to underscore the plight of the girl child. ‘Malanchamala’ originally centred the protagonist around marriage, but Das creates a new Malanchamala, who girls today are more likely to identify with.
This collection is one that will bring parents or grandchildren closer to young ones, as they tell these stories to them at bedtime. Considering feminist retellings of tales like Cinderella have already happened, this was long overdue.
Hopefully children reared on tales like these, which are set in more egalitarian societies, will also then think that girls and boys are more equal, and can make their dreams come true. However, they must see what they read about reflected in the world around them as well, otherwise fairy tales will stay fairy tales, and they will replicate the reality they see.
Still, books like
these are a step in the right direction, for only when the youth sees
possibilities can they learn to think differently, rather than repeat history.
Translator: Nadia Imam
