Novel: Chokher Bali

Overview

Rabindranath Tagore’s 1903 novel Chokher Bali is a keen psychological study of desire, jealousy, and social constraint in turn-of-the-century Bengal. Set largely in Calcutta and occasionally on pilgrim roads to Kashi, it follows a small circle of young people whose affections and ambitions collide within a household governed by custom. The title, literally a mote in the eye, figuratively names the corrosive grain of jealousy that unsettles intimacy and sight itself.

Premise and Characters

Mahendra, a headstrong law student, lives under the indulgent gaze of his possessive mother, Rajlakshmi. His closest companion is Bihari, quieter and morally anchored. Spurning proposed matches, including one with the poised and educated Binodini, Mahendra impulsively marries Asha (Ashalata), a naïve, affectionate girl. Not long after, Binodini, married elsewhere and newly widowed, returns to her natal region, confronting the claustrophobic lot of a young widow in a reforming yet rigid society. Through circumstance and design, she becomes companion to Asha and a frequent presence in Mahendra’s home.

Plot Summary

At first, the trio’s intimacy seems benign. Binodini tutors Asha in reading and social graces, cultivating a sisterly bond. Yet Binodini’s intelligence and thwarted prospects sharpen into resentment and yearning. She had been dismissed by Mahendra without a meeting; now she witnesses the careless privilege with which he enjoys a love denied her. Amusement turns to experiment, and experiment to entanglement. Mahendra, indulgent and vain, is drawn to Binodini’s wit and allure, even as Asha’s trusting innocence keeps her blind. Rajlakshmi, jealous of her daughter-in-law’s hold, warms to Binodini, unwittingly abetting the drift.

Bihari, seeing the fault lines, resists Binodini’s testing advances and remains loyal to Asha, though he is not free of feeling. A journey to Kashi, intended for discipline and respite, deepens the complications. Binodini’s restless maneuvering widens the breach between husband and wife. Back in Calcutta, clandestine meetings and letters inflame Mahendra’s obsession; his studies and duties collapse, and the household’s harmony fractures. When scandal threatens, Mahendra proposes flight. Binodini hesitates at the edge of transgression she herself invited. The vision of a life built on Asha’s ruin unsettles her; the freedom she seeks already feels like another cage.

As gossip mounts, Bihari, to preserve the women’s honor and arrest the spiral, agrees to marry Binodini, not out of passion but from hard moral clarity and a dawning respect for her fierce spirit. That act of generosity pierces her. On the day set for the wedding, Binodini leaves a letter and vanishes toward pilgrimage, choosing renunciation over a legitimacy purchased at the cost of others’ wounds. Her departure shocks Mahendra into contrition and forces Asha into an adulthood born of pain rather than tutelage.

Themes and Significance

Chokher Bali probes the asymmetries of gender and the limits placed on female desire, particularly the circumscribed life of widows. Binodini is neither villain nor martyr; she is a brilliant, wronged woman who experiments with the few instruments available to her, charm, intellect, manipulation, and finally forges a path of refusal. Asha’s arc, from docile bride to self-possessed mistress of the house, traces a quieter emancipation through suffering and literacy. The male friendship of Mahendra and Bihari tests ideals of loyalty when exposed to erotic rivalry and moral demand. The title’s speck of jealousy becomes a metaphor for the half-blindness that afflicts each character, distorting sight until compassion clears it.

Resolution

Binodini’s self-exile leaves the household chastened. Mahendra, abased and repentant, seeks his wife’s forgiveness; Asha, newly conscious of her own worth, stands on firmer ground. Their future remains open, shaded by loss yet steadied by recognition. The novel closes not with triumphant unions but with hard-won clarity, holding social reform and human frailty in the same unflinching gaze.