Bold, Resilient and Fearless: Representation of Women in Anurag Basu’s Stories by Rabindranath Tagore

Indian history is replete with stories of women who have been victimised and face the consequences and complications of social evils like child marriage, dowry, widowhood and domestic hostility. They are now defiantly resisting the compulsive and conservative social and familial societal norms by refusing to follow them. Within this paradigm, the present paper attempts to bring out the injustice against women and their attempts at withstanding the impositions of the unreasonable societal norms laid down by the contemporary society of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Rabindranath Tagore, the legendary novelist and the face of Bengali Literature is known for his contributions to Indian literature. Some of his famous works highlight the lives of everyday Bengali people, the rich and poor, the domestic roles of a woman, familial controversies, the societal problems of rural areas of Bengal and much more. A few of his short stories have been well-depicted by ace director Anurag Basu in his Epic On web series entitled Stories by Rabindranath Tagore, which presents to the audience strong, confident and ambitious Bengali women of the 1920s. By highlighting the lives of the central characters Binodini, Charulata, Giribala, Kalyani and Mrinal, the paper explores the journey of Bengal women, who defiantly resisted the subjugation, stereotypes and social norms of society. The select women-centric stories of Tagore highlight the intricacies of gender inequality where women aggressively defy the norms to break the old-age stereotypes. Keywords: Women, Bengal, Indian Society, Social norms, Gender-inequality