Binodini Dasi
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Binodini Dasi (1862 -1941) also known as Notee Binodini was a Calcutta based Bengali speaking renowned actress and thespian. Born to prostitution, she started her career as a courtesan and at 12 she played her first serious drama role in Calcutta's National Theatre in 1874. Her career coincided with the popularity of the proscenium inspired form of European theatre among the Bengali theater going audience. During a career spanning 12 years she enacted over 80 roles. Her roles included those of Pramila, Sita, Draupadi, Radha, Ayesha, Kaikeyi, Motibibi, Kapalkundala among others. She was one of the first South Asian actresses of the theater to write her own autobiography.
Her sudden retirement from the stage is insufficiently explained. As a leading actress she was passionately devoted to the development of theatre in Bengal. She made monetary contributions to build up the once famous Star Theatre in Calcutta, which she wanted to be named after her. In her autobiography, she has admitted to the fact that in order to help procure funds for the Star Theatre and its company, she agreed to become the mistress of a rich businessman for some time.
Sri Ramakrishna, the great saint of Advaita Vedanta came to see her play in 1884, and visited Binodini backstage afterwards - an event which left a deep impression on the actress who became an ardent devotee of Ramkrishna soon after. During her bygone days of glory, she was referred to as the Flower of the Native Stage and the Moon of the Star Theatre. She was a pioneering entrepreneur of the Bengali stage and introduced modern techniques of stage make-up through blending European and indigenous styles.
Veteran Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee who has written the introduction to the recent reprint of her autobiography, mentions that the chroniclers of the theater movement in 19th century Bengal make no reference to Binodini. This may be partly explained as an instance of class-caste divide, as most 19th actresses in India hailed from the ranks of prostitutes and Binodini was seen as no exception to that rule. The upper class Brahmin-Brahmo dominated establishment that spearheaded the Bengal Renaissance felt it improper to acknowledge the merits of the talented lowly born. Her contribution to the establishment and enrichment of the organizations she was associated with, has been largely glossed over[citation needed].
Her autobiography is lucid and explores a section of the 19th century Bengali world, at ease with European ideas, but conscious enough to carefully subjugate the female to the domain of the household. Women who talked of and expressed in their lives the very embodiment of liberated femininity were, surreptitiously viewed from a distance, to be loved and be the object of scorn -- and never aspire to respectable notions of femininity[citation needed].
