Abstract
This essay addresses the applicability of life history as a genre and method to explore culture and self. It looks at how various aspects of culture and society contribute actively to emergence of cultural self, social self and psychological self. The psychological biography of child widow, Devaki from Banaras explores these concerns. A Hindu widow is known for the traumatic rites of passage she goes through from marriage to widowhood. In the case of child widow her adolescence gets enmeshed, with that of the rites of widowhood. She experiences embodiment of shame and ritual pollution along with economic hardships and social marginality. Devaki’s efforts are steered in the direction of releasing herself from the shame that, envelopes her being, and then her emergence as an independent self. The essay also explores possibility of multiple selves.
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This essay is first part of the Reconstructing Indian Feminine Self: A Case study of Devaki. Devaki Devi (1929–92) was my paternal grand aunt (my grand father’s sister). My family is originally from Prayag, Allahabad. My great great grand father Mansa Narayan Dutt had been awarded an Estate, Manjhi (60 kms southwest of Ayodhya) in the late 19th century, by the British, for his services to the British administration.
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Verma, M. Reconstructing Indian feminine self: A case study of Devaki . Psychol Stud 54, 184–193 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-009-0025-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-009-0025-2