Binodini Dasi
Binodini Dasi | |
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| Born | 1863 |
| Died | 1941 (aged 77–78) |
| Other names | Notee Binodini |
| Occupation | Drama actress |
Binodini Dasi (1863–1941), also known as Notee Binodini, was an Indian Bengali actress and thespian.[1] She started acting at the age of 12 and ended by the time she was 23, as she later recounted in her noted autobiography, Amar Katha (The Story of My Life) published in 1913.[2]
Biography[]
Born to prostitution, she started her career as a courtesan and at age twelve she played her first serious drama role in Calcutta's National Theatre in 1874, under the mentorship of its founder, Girish Chandra Ghosh.[3] Her career coincided with the growth of the proscenium-inspired form of European theatre among the Bengali theatre going audience. During a career spanning twelve years she enacted over eighty roles, which included those of Pramila, Sita, Draupadi, Radha, Ayesha, Kaikeyi, Motibibi, and Kapalkundala, among others. She was one of the first South Asian actresses of the theatre to write her own autobiography. Her sudden retirement from the stage is insufficiently explained. Her autobiography has a consistent thread of betrayal. She violates every canon of the feminine smritikatha and wrote down what amounted to her indictment of respectable society. Ramakrishna, the great saint of 19th century Bengal, came to see her play in 1884.[4] She was a pioneering entrepreneur of the Bengali stage and introduced modern techniques of stage make-up through blending European and indigenous styles.
In popular culture[]
- In Dinen Gupta's Bengali film Nati Binodini (1994) Debashree Roy played the character.[5][6]
- Nati Binodini, a play based on her autobiography, Aamar Kathaa was first presented by National School of Drama Repertory Company in 1995 with the lead role played by actor, Seema Biswas, then in 2006, noted theatre director Amal Allana directed a play by the same name which premiered in Delhi.[7][8][9]
- In Prothoma Kadambini, Diya Mukherjee is currently portraying the role of Nati Binodini.[10]
References[]
Citation[]
- ^ Murshid, Ghulam (2012). "Dasi, Binodini". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
- ^ "Women on stage still suffer bias: Amal Allana (Interview)". Sify News. 11 March 2010. Archived from the original on 11 August 2011. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
- ^ Bringing alive Binodini Dasi The Tribune, Sunday, 18 November 2007.
- ^ Christopher Pinney (2004). Photos of the Gods. Reaktion Books. p. 42. ISBN 1-86189-184-9.
- ^ "Nati Binodini (1994)". youtube.com. Retrieved 1 March 2020.
- ^ "Pradeep Sarkar to helm a biopic on Bengali theatre doyen Notee Binodini". The Times of India. Retrieved 1 March 2020.
- ^ Romesh Chander (8 December 2006). "Autobiography comes alive : "Nati Binodini", based on Binodini's autobiography "Aamar Kathaa"". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 6 June 2011. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
- ^ "STAGE CRAFT". India Today. 8 February 2008. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
- ^ "Lights, sets, action..: Nissar and Amal Allana's "Nati Binodini" premieres this weekend in Delhi". The Hindu. 24 November 2006. Archived from the original on 1 April 2012. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
- ^ "Diya Mukherjee joins the cast of 'Prothoma Kadambini'". The Times of India. 25 November 2020. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
Sources[]
- Spinazzola, Joe (1997). "Binodini Dasi". In DeLamotte, Eugenia C.; Meeker, Natania; O'Barr, Jean F. (eds.). Women Imagine Change. Routledge. pp. 167–170. ISBN 978-0-415-91531-1.
- Tharu, Susie J.; Lalita, Ke, eds. (1991). "Binodini Dasi". Women Writing in India. Volume I: 600 B.C. to the Early Twentieth Century. The Feminist Press. pp. 290–296. ISBN 978-1-55861-027-9.
|volume=has extra text (help) - Trivedi, Poonam; Dennis Bartholomeusz (2005). India's Shakespeare. University of Delaware Press. ISBN 978-0-87413-881-8.
- Srinivasan, Doris M. (2006). "Royalty's Courtesans and God's Mortal Wives". In Feldman, Martha; Bonnie Gordon (eds.). The Courtesan's Arts: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Oxford University Press. pp. 173–175. ISBN 978-0-19-517029-0.
Further reading[]
- Binodini Dasi: My Story and My Life as an Actress. Edited and translated by Rimli Bhattacharya. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998.
- Forbes, Geraldine Hancock (1999). Women in modern India. The New Cambridge History of India. IV.2. Cambridge University Press. p. 183. ISBN 978-0-521-65377-0.
External links[]
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- 1862 births
- 1941 deaths
- Bengali people
- Feminist artists
- Writers from Kolkata
- Indian stage actresses
- 20th-century Indian women writers
- Indian autobiographers
- Indian courtesans
- Indian female prostitutes
- Women autobiographers
- 19th-century Indian actresses
- 20th-century Indian actresses
- People of British India
- 19th-century Indian women writers
- 19th-century Indian writers
- Indian women non-fiction writers
- Women biographers
- 19th-century Indian biographers
- Women writers from West Bengal
- Actresses from Kolkata
- 20th-century Indian biographers