WRT: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/27231

Hi Aparthib,

Thanks for sharing this amusing anecdote. I had a similar experience
in my personal life when we went to see a prospective bride for a
close relative of mine. We were also very disappointed when we came
to realize that a beautiful young women that greeted us upon our
arrival was in fact the maternal aunt of the prospective bride who
happened to be much less attractive. However, I am not too clear
about how this anecdote relates to Rabindranath's view of woman. Is
it so shocking and unthinkable that he was disappointed in this
situation? Would any of the neo-feminista male members of this forum
who has started the current 'Rabi-hate-fest' act any differently in
that situation? Oh yeah, I know what they would claim (that they
would most definitely settle for the less beautiful but more brainy
gal ... ha ha ha) as opposed to what they would actually do in a
similar situation.

Anyways, my main objective in writing this note was to ask you about
the opening phrase of your posting - "Agreeing with Dr.
Mazumdar ...". What part of Dr. Mazumdar's message did you agree
with? That Rabindranath married an 8 year old girl? I knew that her
age was 12 or 13 at the time of her marriage. Have I been always
wrong about this information?

Or did you agree with his complain against Rabindranath as to why he
did not help enough his contemporaries (??!!) Raja Rammohon Roy
(1772-1833) and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (1820-1891, Widow
Remarriage Act proposed in 1856) in their women's emancipation
movements.

I doubt you agreed with either of the above because I do not believe
your space-time frame of reference can be as skewed as that of the
wise guy. This leaves us with the only possibility that you are
probably in agreement with what Rabindranath supposedly said about
Satidaho that Dr. Mazumdar quoted from a book written by another
champion of Satidaho which was published in 1991, about 50 years
after Rabindranath's demise. Do you believe there may be any need of
a credibility check for this relatively new 'hadis'? Is it possible
that Dinesh Sen could have cleverly misquoted Rabindranath in
seeking support for his own fondness for Satidah?

Just pondering. Trust me, Rabindranath is not my 'debota', and
neither is Humayun Azad. However, I will try to gather my thoughts
to write an article in the future exposing the shortcomings of
Humayun Azad's version of extreme feminism (uggro naribad), as
detailed in his book 'Naari'. This version of feminism is rather old
and many aspects of it have been thoroughly discredited lately. It
appears to me that Humayum Azad might have been either unaware of
the direction that feminism has taken in modern times, or he did not
feel it important to include these new insights in his otherwise
decent primer on classical feminism. The main trouble is that the
feministas of this forum are too eager to pick up his fragmented and
often misleading concepts of feminism to unnecessarily malign
Rabindranath.

Best wishes,

Mainul Ahsan
Ottawa, Canada