My Sainted Aunts is a collection of eight stories, dealing primarily with the lives of old Bengali women in the post-Independence era, with themes ranging from oppression of women because of social evils like child marriage, or ostracizing of widows, to lack of independence of women due to inequality of social status.
Most of the stories have old Bengali widows as main characters, like Mayadevi in ‘Mayadevi’s London Yatra’ or the widow aunts of Meera in ‘Aunts and their Ailments’. A noticeable thing in these stories is the lack of names of the widows as if symbolizing the loss of identity upon death of one’s husband. These women, then, simply become aunts instead of a person with own issues. Even Mayadevi who was a strong, self-sufficient woman, of whom her whole household was terrified is moved when she sees her foreign daughter-in-law buying her a gift. Since, she is a widow, it never occurs to anyone to buy her things or that she would like to have something fancy. Meera’s aunts in ‘Aunts and their Ailments’ discuss and bond over ailments as if these were the only things they had of substance as of their ailments were their main identities.
Another common theme is child marriage and its evils. Neelima from ‘Bishtupur Landing’ is joyous for being married when she is young since that would mean she wouldn’t have to go to school, but soon realizes the society’s expectations of a married woman and the burden of humiliation of being a clumsy bride even if she is just a child. Mini in ‘A Child Bride’ learns through Prabha what a widow’s life is, and the sacrifices a woman has to make for something that is no fault of her own. The uncertainty of marrying children is also discussed in ‘Trials of a Tall Aunt’ where Roopbala suffers when she grows to be taller than her husband, to whom she married when she was a child, no one anticipating such a turn of events.
Another prevalent theme is the independence of women, as seen in ‘R.C.’s First Holiday’ and ‘Life in a Palace’. Both stories have different people as protagonists but focused on the insistence of a woman being submissive in a household. While R.C. observes strict handle at the women in his family, Gita’s in-laws ask her not to sing or dance which was considered a profession fir for harlots and to cook all meals in spite of having many servants since that was their belief of a daughter-in-law’s duty. With these themes, ‘My Sainted Aunts’ can be considered as a feminist book.
