“Doctor Miss Jamini Sen”: : A Journey from Privacy to Publication and Critical Appraisal

Pritha Kundu

doi:10.35684/JLCI.2024.11106

Authors

Pritha Kundu Assistant Professor of English HMM College for Women Dakshineswar, Kolkata

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35684/JLCI.2024.11106

Keywords:

Dr Jamini Sen, Memoir, Women Medics, Colonial Bengal, Feminist Historiography

Abstract

The present article is basically a tribute to Dr. Jamini Sen, one of the pioneering women medics who passed out from the Calcutta Medical College, and dedicated their lives to the service of humanity. Unlike her most famous predecessor, Dr. Kadambini Ganguly, Jamini Sen was not a ‘public figure’; she was rather of a reserved character and maintained her privacy almost with a religious zeal ‘not to be exposed’. Little was known about her life, work and legacy, before Chitra Deb mentioned her in the book Mahila Daktar: Bhin Graher Basinda, and some lesser-known prose writings of Kamini Roy, her elder sister revived and published from the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University. That book contains some portions of Jamini’s own diaries and one essay, never published during her lifetime. In this article, an attempt has been made to reconstruct her life and work, and to translate some of her writings on the basis of those texts.

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Author Biography

Pritha Kundu, Assistant Professor of English HMM College for Women Dakshineswar, Kolkata

Pritha Kundu is Assistant Professor of English, and in-charge of the Department of Music, and co-ordinator of the Add-on course, ‘Literature and Performance Studies’ at Hiralal Mazumdar Memorial College for Women, Dakshineswar, Kolkata. She has been awarded her Ph.D in 2018, from Vidyasagar University. She is also a creative writer and translator, and associated with Akashbani Maitree (AIR) as a Presenter. Presently she works on Literature and Music in general, and the History and Cultures of Musical Performance in the context of Bengal, in particular. She writes features and articles in Anandabajar Patrika and Aajkaal on literary and cultural topics, she is further associated with ‘Aro Ananda’ ‘Desh’ and ‘Boier desh’ as a reviewer of cultural performances and books.