“Whether From Reason Or Prejudice”: Taking Money For Bodily Services

Taking leave of Binod, Durga slowly, deliberately walks towards the shack of Sukhlal the contractor, who stared at her even yesterday and flashed ten‐rupee notes. What else can one do, she argues to herself, except fight for survival? The survival of oneself, one's loved ones, and the hopes that really matter. (MANIK BANDYOPADHYAY, “A Female Problem at a Low Level” [1963]) If the story is about the peasant wife selling her body, then one must look for the meaning of that in the reality of peasant life. One can't look at it as a crisis of morality, in the sense one would in the case of a middle‐class wife. (MANIK BANDYOPADHYAY, About This Author's Perspective [1957])1