The bittersweet tale of author-poet Toru Dutt: One of the founding figures of Anglo-Indian literature
Toru Dutt was a changemaker and feminist who paved the way for great legends in Indian English writing. Her writing and contribution to French and Sanskrit are highly celebrated.
In a world that encases itself in a forest of desire for ever-growing popularity, some do not seek power. They thrive, not for themselves, but for the world that encircles them.
In the mid-nineteenth century, when the agony from the British Raj was slowly settling into the lives of Indians—the capital of British India, Calcutta—was in its richest form, decorated with The Bengali Renaissance.
In this era, a young Torulata Dutt lived. An author, poet, translator, linguist, essayist, and polyglot, she was acclaimed to be the most crucial founding figure of Anglo-Indian literature.
Born into Calcutta's prestigious Dutt family—known for their nobility, westernized approach to life, and literary inclinations—Toru and her siblings, Abju and Aru, grew up in a poetic and literary environment and home tutored by private English teachers.
Her family converted to Christianity when Toru was six years old. While her mother, Kshetramoni Dutt, was against conversion at first, she gradually began accepting it.
In fact, she would narrate tales from Hindu epics and Christian mythology as bedtime stories to her children.
However, a tragedy hit Toru’s family when her elder brother Abju died aged 14 due to tuberculosis. Deeply downcast, the family moved to Europe, making Toru and her sister one of the first Bengali girls to travel to Europe via the sea route.
The family spent three years in England and one in France, where Dutt attended a boarding school and learned and wrote her works in the French language.
Soon after, the family shifted to England, where the sisters attended “Lectures for Women” at the University of Cambridge.
In 1873, Toru, aged 17, returned to Calcutta. She was coping with the grief of losing her sister and literary soulmate, and the old, conservative, and restrictive Indian society made it more challenging for her.
In one of her letters to a friend back in Europe, she wrote: "I have not been to one dinner party or any party at all since we left Europe," and "If any friend of my grandmother happens to see me, the first question is, if I am married."
In other letters written to her friend, Mary Martin, she spoke about realizing that India is her home and about being patriotic. She also spoke about her failing health and expressed urgency, which meant that young Toru knew she was destined for death.
Like both of her late siblings, Toru, too, died of tuberculosis on August 30, 1877.
Although she lived only for 21 years, Toru was highly proficient in Bengali, English, French, and Sanskrit, and could seamlessly translate between them.
In the year preceding her death, she published her volume of poetry—A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields—containing 165 poems translated from French to English. Sadly, Toru wasn't alive to see the book gain immediate popularity.
Toru also left behind some of her unfinished works.
Le Journal de Mademoiselle d’Arvers—written entirely in French—went on to become the first-ever French novel written by an Indian writer.
After Toru’s passing, her father posthumously published both of her works, including Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan, containing poems and lyrics translated from Sanskrit to English.
Dutt also published translations of French poetry and literary articles in The Bengal Magazine. To add to her works that levitated around the themes of loneliness, longing, patriotism, and nostalgia, she also wrote a great many letters, published in 1921 as the Life and Letters of Toru Dutt.
Toru Dutt was a changemaker and feminist who paved the way for great legends in Indian English writing. Her writing and contribution to French and Sanskrit are highly celebrated.
Her brief time in this world and her passing can be best summed up in this verse from a poem titled, The Death of a Young Girl, written by French poet Evariste De Parny, which Toru herself translated.
But God had destined otherwise
And so she gently fell asleep
A creature of the starry skies
Too Lovely for the earth to keep.
Edited by Suman Singh