What problems did Rashsundari Devi faced?
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At the age of fourteen, Rassundari Devi faced no choice but to assume responsibility of the entire household as her mother-in-law had lost her eye-sight and become bedridden. She now had to do all the housework from cleaning to cooking to attending to guests and looking after everyone’s comfort. The family was a large one. There were servants but they were not allowed to enter the inner premises of the house. Her workload increased as she became a mother at the age of eighteen. She bore 12 children, of whom 7 died early. Unassisted and confined to the antahpur of the house, Rassundari kept performing her domestic duties, but felt a strange desire for something she knew was forbidden to her. The desire to gain literacy! The desire to be able to read Chaintanya Bhagavata on her own.
One day, her husband left his Chaintanya Bhagavata in the kitchen before going out. Rassundari gathered courage, detached a sheet from the book and hid it in the khori of the kitchen. Then she stole one of the palm leaves on which her son practiced handwriting. By comparing the words written on the two sheets and with people’s speech, by recollection and recognition of the letters she had learned in childhood, by constant effort and determination, Rassundari taught herself to read at the age of twenty-six. She learned to write years later when her son expressed his annoyance about her not answering his letters.
Rassundari was widowed at the age of 59 and a few months after her husband’s death, she finished and published the first version of her autobiography Amar Jiban in 1868. A final version was published in 1897.
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