HANNA MULLENS The First Bengali Novelist

On a lazy English Autumn day last year, I was researching in the British Library in London, a gem of a place for knowledge. And while delving in the topic known as “ the golden age of Spanish literature” in the 16th and 17th centuries, I fancied a break from the heavy subject, to read something much lighter.
Many Moons ago,in my early days in London as a self-supporting post-graduate student, I was an employee of the British Library and once came across a Bengali book while assisting an academic but couldn't read it as time was severely rationed-holding down a full-time job and continue with part-time study. I remembered the book and obtained the copy from the British Library. The book, Phoolmoni o Koruna now recognised by the scholars of the history of Bengali Literature, as the first Bengali novel. It was written in Bengali not by a Bengali but by Hanna Catherine Mullens, a woman of European origin and born in Bengal. More about Hanna Mullens later.
Although popularly known as Phoolmoni o Koruna, the full title of the book is Phoolmoni o KorunarBiboron. The book was first published in Kolkata by the Christian Tract and Book Society in 1852- 5 years before the first War of Independence of India also known to the English colonists as the “Sepoy Mutiny” of 1857. Divided into 10 Chapters, the book has 148 pages including the author's rather long notes at the end of the book. The publisher printed 3000 copies initially. Within a few years after the publication in Bengali, Phoolmoni o Koruna was translated & published in 12 Indian languages and in English.
The book was a product of missionary zeal written in standard Bengali with some sophistication and is mainly about Bengali Hindus who converted to Christianity in rural Bengal, with particular focus on 'native Christian women'. Hanna Mullens herself wrote to the publisher - “it is a book specially intended for native Christian women. I have endeavoured to show in it the practical influence of Christianity on the various details of domestic life”.
The author has created two main characters of Bengali Christian women based in a “Christian village”. She intentionally didn't name the village stating that “ the village where the story is taking place is like any other village in Bengal”. Perhaps she didn't want to divulge the real identity of the characters in her book.
One of the main character is Phoolmoni and the other, Koruna. Briefly, Phoolmoni is an organised, clean, hard working woman with a determination to be self-supporting and is inspired by Christian values and teachings. Her husband, a lowly employee of the Sahibs, is hard working and organised too. Koruna, a friend of Phoolmoni and a fellow converted Christian of the same village, is almost the opposite - lazy, tobacco addict, unclean and forever seeking hand outs. Koruna's husband is lazy, an alcoholic and is a wife beater.
The author creates a character in the novel who is a missionary woman of European descent, possibly herself, who, armed with Christian teaching, values and with some material goods frequents the “native Christian village” –home of both Phoolmoni and Karuna. She is very impressed with Phoolmoni's cleanliness and life style and uses her as an exemplar. The missionary woman's inspiration, guidance and some material assistance helps Koruna and her husband to recover from a spiralling down situation to that of Phoolmoni's status. While focusing on the two main characters, Hannah Mullens succeeds in constructing profiles of other contemporary villagers and their daily chores so that reader gets a picture of the rural life in a mid-19th century Bengal, albeit, an emerging Christian village life.
Thus was born the first novel of Bengali literature written in Bengali by Hanna Catherine Mullens. Nothing terribly exciting or extraordinary. A simple story, simply told, in prose. And never done before in Bengali.
Six years after the publication of the book, now accepted as the first Bengali novel, the second novel of Bengali literature titled Alaler Ghare Dulal written by Peyari Chand Mitra was published in 1858. Pundits of literature agree that in Bengal and in the rest of the Sub -continent, literature in prose form didn't much exist. In Bengal, rhyme was the essence of literature to the extent that even a book on homeopathy was written in rhyming verses. It was in the eighteenth century, literature through prose form started appearing in the sub -continent after coming in contact with the English language and through English, the rest of the modern European Literature.
Hanna Catherine La Croix was born in Kolkata in 1826. Hanna was a daughter of Reverend Alphonso Francois La Croix who was born in French speaking part of Switzerland. Orphaned at an early age, Alphonso was sent to the Netherlands by his uncle to receive Christian education with a view to be a missionary. Alphonso was later sent to Kolkata by the London Missionary Society in the days when Bible followed the sword for the consolidation of expanding imperial power.
Hanna was educated at home in Kolkata and right from her early age learnt to speak Bengali from the ayas and other domestic employees of the La Croix household but no doubt, she received formal education in Bengali. She was considered so good with the language that she was allowed to teach Bengali –one lesson a day, in the newly opened mission school in Bhawanipur in Kolkata at the age of 12. In 1841, at the age of 15, Hanna was sent to London where she received some education under the supervision of Mrs Ramez, a family friend, for a year and a half. Hanna then returned to Bengal and in 1845, was married to J .Mullens- Superintendent of the Christian Institute of Bhawanipur.
In 1861, Mullens was required by the Missionary Society to report to London and he did so in some hurry, leaving his family in Kolkata to follow him later. Hanna was getting ready to leave Kolkata to join her husband in London. In mid-November, she complained of stomach ache which progressed from mild to severe pain and on the 21 November 1861, Hanna died. A post-mortem report at the time recorded that she died from the “ rupture of intestine”. She was only 35.
Hanna died, not knowing till the last day of her life, that she was the creator of the first novel in Bengali - a language so proudly rich in poetry and novels today. It took over a century to recognise that Hanna Catherine Mullens was the author of the first Bengali novel.