I, Durga Khote: An Autobiography
Translated By Shanta Gokhale
Oxford, Rs 295

Memoirs and autobiographies are usually scoffed at as inauthentic by traditional historians. But feminist historians from the Eighties onwards have looked upon these as more comprehensive than archival history. Memoirs, especially those by women, are seen as challenging the overarching patriarchal pattern of archival history, dismantling, among other things, the dichotomy between the public and the private. In Dwelling in the Archive, Antoinette Burton refers to family history as “family heirloom”, which legtimizes “collective middle class past as ‘History’”.

Shanta Gokhale’s translation of Durga Khote’s autobiography (Mee, Durga Khote in the original Marathi) exemplifies the Burtonian “family heirloom” in which the woman as a historical subject emerges as the mediator between her public and private lives. Durga Khote, cast as Jodhabai in the Bollywood classic Mughal-e-Azam, dominated the silver screen for more than three decades. She does not present her life in chronological sequence in the memoir. It seems that Khote is more concerned with emotional coherence than with an account of her life in time.

Khote’s flair for storytelling is evident in her autobiography. She skilfully portrays the decadent lifestyle of the aristocracy in the late British era. Her discomfort with the patriarchal demands of the times comes to the fore in her writing. In the chapter “Looking back now”, she says,“Once your were married, you wrapped up all your talents and hobbies and put them away”. To Khote’s credit, the criticism never becomes too direct. She comes across in her memoir as a smiling rebel, who breaks through the social straitjacket without much fuss.

Khote’s description of the Land household — her parental home — is rich in architectural details. The architectural space becomes an emblem of the mental space in the domestic relationships. A joie de vivre informs Khote’s style, to be found especially in the descriptions of her journeys abroad. Her tours to Switzerland, Italy and Russia are described with the sense of wonder which characterized the accounts of the late 19th-century Indian travellers to Europe. There are sketches of some of the renowned personalities of Marathi theatre and funny anecdotes from Khote’s stint on the stage. Khote’s opinions about the changed world of Indian films are worth recording. On talking about the excesssive concern of today’s actors with their image, she says, “The actor’s image is his capital investment. This was not how people felt earlier. Attractiveness had a more limited definition.”