Sultana's Dream Read online

  “Sultana’s Dream” is a Utopian work, with strong satirical elements. The Indian context is unmistakable. For example, through the dialogue of Sultana and Sister Sara the untenability of many of the prevalent Indian notions of “masculine” and “feminine” character are demonstrated. Sultana extols the wonder of Ladyland and represents the Indian stereotype while Sister Sara presents the outsider’s view. At the same time she is also the alter ego of the author. Through Sultana, Rokeya ridicules Indian stereotypes and customs.

  Women in Ladyland are powerful, but to portray a society where women are in a position of power, Rokeya did not find it necessary to eliminate men or to propose anything so drastic as Charlotte Perkins Gilman did a few years later in Herland, in which parthenogenesis was the means for continuing a unisex society.6 In Ladyland men are a part of the society but are shorn of power, as women were in Rokeya’s India. They live in seclusion and look after the house and the children, again, just like the women in Rokeya’s India. Women, the dominant group in Ladyland, do not consider men fit for any skilled work, much as Indian men thought of women at that time. It is as if the omnipotent author is punishing men in an ideal world, according to the laws of poetic justice, for their criminal oppression of women in the real world. Men are being paid in their own coin and with interest. Rokeya’s story does not tell us whether Ladyland changes basic human nature. Perhaps that was not her intention. All we are certain of is that she never again suggested the extreme measure of male seclusion. Indeed, given Rokeya’s yearning for liberty and equality, it is hardly likely that she would have found the domination of either sex agreeable.

  Though the story is presented as a dream, an internal logic is maintained. Extraordinary things do happen but not by magic or through supernatural agencies. All is explained in terms of advanced technology. This technology serves human needs to beneficial ends. Here again the Indian context is very clear. Ladyland has many amenities that Rokeya’s India lacked. We have only to think of the India of horse-drawn carriages, gaslights, smelly, smoke-filled kitchens, dusty streets, natural disasters, famines and epidemics, cockroaches and mosquitoes—all the big problems and petty nuisances of Indian everyday life—to appreciate the Utopian element and the trust the author has in the power of science and technology to solve these problems. To us, living in the shadow of the nuclear threat, such faith and trust in the benevolent aspect of science and technology as that displayed by authors like Rokeya, or Gilman, may seem quaintly touching or slightly naive. But it would not have seemed so in the days before World War I.

  Rokeya’s emphasis on science and technology in Ladyland must also be seen in terms of the debate about women’s education in her time and place. Among her contemporaries, even the most forward-looking Brahmos, who were generally in favor of education for women, emphasized a curriculum that was not strong in science and mathematics. In this context, Rokeya was not only stressing the need for female education in general but also a type of education that enabled women to excel in science.

  Finally, a word about the style and language. By temperament an essayist, Rokeya rarely wrote fiction and rarely wrote in English. And yet, of course, “Sultana’s Dream” is an extraordinary achievement, and one that is particularly enjoyable today. For readers in both the East and the West, the reversal of male and female in a simple and powerful plot is intellectually appealing as well as humorous. And today, when the empowerment of women and the need for a reappraisal of gender roles have become internationally prominent issues, Rokeya’s story seems less Utopian than it did in 1905.

  A Note on the Text

  The text of “Sultana’s Dream” presented here is closely based on the text included in the collected works of Rokeya, Rokeya Racanavali, published in 1973 by the Bangla Academy of Dhaka. That text retains the style of Rokeya’s early-twentieth-century Bangla-influenced English. For clarity to readers of this volume, capitalization, spelling, and punctuation have been standardized according to present-day U.S. conventions.

  Notes to “‘Sultana’s Dream’: Purdah Reversed”

  1. Ann J. Lane’s introduction to Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland (New York: Pantheon Books, 1979, [1915]), p. xix.

  2. Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, “Bayujane Poncash Mile” (“Fifty Miles in an Aeroplane”), in Rokeya Racanavali (Dhaka: Bangla Academy, 1973), p. 311. All translations of quotations from this volume are by Roushan Jahan from the original Bangla text.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Hossain, Rokeya Racanavali, pp. 601–2; quoted from the critical review by Abul Hussain, in the Bangla monthly magazine Sadhana, 1921.

  6. Gilman, Herland.

  Sultana’s Dream

  Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain

  ONE EVENING I was lounging in an easy chair in my bedroom and thinking lazily of the condition of Indian womanhood. I am not sure whether I dozed off or not. But, as far as I remember, I was wide awake. I saw the moonlit sky sparkling with thousands of diamondlike stars, very distinctly.

  All on a sudden a lady stood before me; how she came in, I do not know. I took her for my friend, Sister Sara.

  “Good morning,” said Sister Sara. I smiled inwardly as I knew it was not morning, but starry night. However, I replied to her, saying, “How do you do?”

  “I am all right, thank you. Will you please come out and have a look at our garden?”

  I looked again at the moon through the open window, and thought there was no harm in going out at that time. The menservants outside were fast asleep just then, and I could have a pleasant walk with Sister Sara.

  I used to have my walks with Sister Sara, when we were at Darjeeling. Many a time did we walk hand in hand and talk lightheartedly in the botanical gardens there. I fancied Sister Sara had probably come to take me to some such garden, and I readily accepted her offer and went out with her.

  When walking I found to my surprise that it was a fine morning. The town was fully awake and the streets alive with bustling crowds. I was feeling very shy, thinking I was walking in the street in broad daylight, but there was not a single man visible.

  Some of the passersby made jokes at me. Though I could not understand their language, yet I felt sure they were joking. I asked my friend, “What do they say?”

  “The women say you look very mannish.”

  “Mannish?” said I. “What do they mean by that?”

  “They mean that you are shy and timid like men.”

  “Shy and timid like men?” It was really a joke. I became very nervous when I found that my companion was not Sister Sara, but a stranger. Oh, what a fool had I been to mistake this lady for my dear old friend Sister Sara.

  She felt my fingers tremble in her hand, as we were walking hand in hand.

  “What is the matter, dear, dear?” she said affectionately.

  “I feel somewhat awkward,” I said, in a rather apologizing tone, “as being a purdahnishin woman I am not accustomed to walking about unveiled.”

  “You need not be afraid of coming across a man here. This is Ladyland, free from sin and harm. Virtue herself reigns here.”

  By and by I was enjoying the scenery. Really it was very grand. I mistook a patch of green grass for a velvet cushion. Feeling as if I were walking on a soft carpet, I looked down and found the path covered with moss and flowers.

  “How nice it is,” said I.

  “Do you like it?” asked Sister Sara. (I continued calling her “Sister Sara,” and she kept calling me by my name.)

  “Yes, very much; but I do not like to tread on the tender and sweet flowers.”

  “Never mind, dear Sultana. Your treading will not harm them; they are street flowers.”

  “The whole place looks like a garden,” said I admiringly. “You have arranged every plant so skillfully.”

  “Your Calcutta could become a nicer garden than this, if only your countrymen wanted to make it so.”

  “They would think it useless to give so much attention to horticulture, while they ha
ve so many other things to do.”

  “They could not find a better excuse,” said she with [a] smile.

  I became very curious to know where the men were. I met more than a hundred women while walking there, but not a single man.

  “Where are the men?” I asked her.

  “In their proper places, where they ought to be.”

  “Pray let me know what you mean by ‘their proper places.’ ”

  “Oh, I see my mistake, you cannot know our customs, as you were never here before. We shut our men indoors.”

  “Just as we are kept in the zenana?”

  “Exactly so.”

  “How funny.” I burst into a laugh. Sister Sara laughed too.

  “But, dear Sultana, how unfair it is to shut in the harmless women and let loose the men.”

  “Why? It is not safe for us to come out of the zenana, as we are naturally weak.”

  “Yes, it is not safe so long as there are men about the streets, nor is it so when a wild animal enters a marketplace.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Suppose some lunatics escape from the asylum and begin to do all sorts of mischief to men, horses, and other creatures: in that case what will your countrymen do?”

  “They will try to capture them and put them back into their asylum.”

  “Thank you! And you do not think it wise to keep sane people inside an asylum and let loose the insane?”

  “Of course not!” said I, laughing lightly.

  “As a matter of fact, in your country this very thing is done! Men, who do or at least are capable of doing no end of mischief, are let loose and the innocent women shut up in the zenana! How can you trust those untrained men out of doors?”

  “We have no hand or voice in the management of our social affairs. In India man is lord and master. He has taken to himself all powers and privileges and shut up the women in the zenana.”

  “Why do you allow yourselves to be shut up?”

  “Because it cannot be helped as they are stronger than women.”

  “A lion is stronger than a man, but it does not enable him to dominate the human race. You have neglected the duty you owe to yourselves, and you have lost your natural rights by shutting your eyes to your own interests.”

  “But my dear Sister Sara, if we do everything by ourselves, what will the men do then?”

  “They should not do anything, excuse me; they are fit for nothing. Only catch them and put them into the zenana.”

  “But would it be very easy to catch and put them inside the four walls?” said I. “And even if this were done, would all their business—political and commercial—also go with them into the zenana?”

  Sister Sara made no reply. She only smiled sweetly. Perhaps she thought it was useless to argue with one who was no better than a frog in a well.

  By this time we reached Sister Sara’s house. It was situated in a beautiful heart-shaped garden. It was a bungalow with a corrugated iron roof. It was cooler and nicer than any of our rich buildings. I cannot describe how neat and nicely furnished and how tastefully decorated it was.

  We sat side by side. She brought out of the parlor a piece of embroidery work and began putting on a fresh design.

  “Do you know knitting and needlework?”

  “Yes: we have nothing else to do in our zenana.”

  “But we do not trust our zenana members with embroidery!” she said laughing, “as a man has not patience enough to pass thread through a needlehole even!”

  “Have you done all this work yourself?” I asked her, pointing to the various pieces of embroidered teapoy cloths.

  “Yes.”

  “How can you find time to do all these? You have to do the office work as well? Have you not?”

  “Yes. I do not stick to the laboratory all day long. I finish my work in two hours.”

  “In two hours! How do you manage? In our land the officers, magistrates, for instance, work seven hours daily.”

  “I have seen some of them doing their work. Do you think they work all the seven hours?”

  “Certainly they do!”

  “No, dear Sultana, they do not. They dawdle away their time in smoking. Some smoke two or three choroots during the office time. They talk much about their work, but do little. Suppose one choroot takes half an hour to burn off, and a man smokes twelve choroots daily; then, you see, he wastes six hours every day in sheer smoking.”

  We talked on various subjects; and I learned that they were not subject to any kind of epidemic disease, nor did they suffer from mosquito bites as we do. I was very much astonished to hear that in Ladyland no one died in youth except by rare accident.

  “Will you care to see our kitchen?” she asked me.

  “With pleasure,” said I, and we went to see it. Of course the men had been asked to clear off when I was going there. The kitchen was situated in a beautiful vegetable garden. Every creeper, every tomato plant, was itself an ornament. I found no smoke, nor any chimney either in the kitchen—it was clean and bright; the windows were decorated with flower garlands. There was no sign of coal or fire.

  “How do you cook?” I asked.

  “With solar heat,” she said, at the same time showing me the pipe, through which passed the concentrated sunlight and heat. And she cooked something then and there to show me the process.

  “How did you manage to gather and store up the sun heat?” I asked her in amazement.

  “Let me tell you a little of our past history, then. Thirty years ago, when our present Queen was thirteen years old, she inherited the throne. She was Queen in name only, the Prime Minister really ruling the country.

  “Our good Queen liked science very much. She circulated an order that all the women in her country should be educated. Accordingly a number of girls’ schools were founded and supported by the Government. Education was spread far and wide among women. And early marriage also was stopped. No woman was to be allowed to marry before she was twenty-one. I must tell you that, before this change, we had been kept in strict purdah.”

  “How the tables are turned,” I interposed with a laugh.

  “But the seclusion is the same,” she said. “In a few years we had separate universities, where no men were admitted.

  “In the capital, where our Queen lives, there are two universities. One of these invented a wonderful balloon, to which they attached a number of pipes. By means of this captive balloon, which they managed to keep afloat above the cloudland, they could draw as much water from the atmosphere as they pleased. As the water was incessantly being drawn by the university people, no cloud gathered and the ingenious Lady Principal stopped rain and storms thereby.”

  “Really! Now I understand why there is no mud here!” said I. But I could not understand how it was possible to accumulate water in the pipes. She explained to me how it was done; but I was unable to understand her, as my scientific knowledge was very limited. However, she went on:

  “When the other university came to know of this, they became exceedingly jealous and tried to do something more extraordinary still. They invented an instrument by which they could collect as much sun heat as they wanted. And they kept the heat stored up to be distributed among others as required.

  “While the women were engaged in scientific researches, the men of this country were busy increasing their military power. When they came to know that the female universities were able to draw water from the atmosphere and collect heat from the sun, they only laughed at the members of the universities and called the whole thing ‘a sentimental nightmare’!”

  “Your achievements are very wonderful indeed! But tell me how you managed to put the men of your country into the zenana. Did you entrap them first?”

  “No.”

  “It is not likely that they would surrender their free and open air life of their own accord and confine themselves within the four walls of the zenana! They must have been overpowered.”

  “Yes, they have been!”

&nbs
p; “By whom?—by some lady warriors, I suppose?”

  “No, not by arms.”

  “Yes, it cannot be so. Men’s arms are stronger than women’s. Then?”

  “By brain.”

  “Even their brains are bigger and heavier than women’s. Are they not?”

  “Yes, but what of that? An elephant also has got a bigger and heavier brain than a man has. Yet man can enchain elephants and employ them, according to his own wishes.”

  “Well said, but tell me, please, how it all actually happened. I am dying to know it!”

  “Women’s brains are somewhat quicker than men’s. Ten years ago, when the military officers called our scientific discoveries ‘a sentimental nightmare,’ some of the young ladies wanted to say something in reply to those remarks. But both the Lady 12

  Principals restrained them and said they should reply not by word but by deed, if ever they got the opportunity. And they had not long to wait for that opportunity.”

  “How marvelous!” I heartily clapped my hands.

  “And now the proud gentlemen are dreaming sentimental dreams themselves.

  “Soon afterward certain persons came from a neighboring country and took shelter in ours. They were in trouble, having committed some political offense. The King, who cared more for power than for good government, asked our kindhearted Queen to hand them over to his officers. She refused, as it was against her principle to turn out refugees. For this refusal the king declared war against our country.

  “Our military officers sprang to their feet at once and marched out to meet the enemy.

  “The enemy, however, was too strong for them. Our soldiers fought bravely, no doubt. But in spite of all their bravery the foreign army advanced step by step to invade our country.