Speaking of the Self: Gender, Performance, and Autobiography in South Asia
Anshu Malhotra is Associate Professor of History at the University of Delhi and the author of Gender, Caste, and Religious Identities: Restructuring Class in Colonial Punjab.
Siobhan Lambert-Hurley is Reader in International History at the University of Sheffield and author of Muslim Women, Reform and Princely Patronage: Nawab Sultan Jahan Begam of Bhopal.
Anshu Malhotra is Associate Professor of History at the University of Delhi and the author of Gender, Caste, and Religious Identities: Restructuring Class in Colonial Punjab.
Siobhan Lambert-Hurley is Reader in International History at the University of Sheffield and author of Muslim Women, Reform and Princely Patronage: Nawab Sultan Jahan Begam of Bhopal.
The Heart of a Gopi: Raihana Tyabji’s Bhakti Devotionalism as Self-Representation
-
Published:October 2015
Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, 2015. "The Heart of a Gopi: Raihana Tyabji’s Bhakti Devotionalism as Self-Representation", Speaking of the Self: Gender, Performance, and Autobiography in South Asia, Anshu Malhotra, Siobhan Lambert-Hurley
Download citation file:
In 1924, Raihana Tyabji composed a small book of Bhakti devotionalism entitled The Heart of a Gopi. This chapter considers how far it may be read as a kind of personal narrative, an evocation of the self. Does the referencing of an established narrative tradition give the author’s feelings and experiences, especially as a Muslim woman devoted to Krishna at a time of increasing religious rigidity and growing communal strife, a validity not achievable otherwise? And, if so, how do we separate the author’s “self” from the literary conventions—in this case, the gopi tradition—that structure the story? In the...
Advertisement
