Matchbox
by Ashapurna Debi · translated by Prasenjit Gupta
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In this Bengali story, the narrator compares women to matchboxes: though they hold enough gunpowder 'to set a hundred Lankas aflame', they sit meek and innocent, scattered carelessly around the house. The story centres on Nomita, a young wife in a large joint family. One Sunday she finds a crumpled, opened letter addressed to her in her husband Ajit's pocket, he has secretly read and withheld it, as he habitually does. The letter is only from her poor widowed mother, begging for a little money. Furious at the insult to her dignity, Nomita confronts Ajit; when he lies and mocks her mother, her anger flares and she lights a matchstick and sets fire to the fine anchol of her sari. Ajit, frightened, puts it out. But when her niece Rini enters, Nomita instantly composes herself, folds away the burnt anchol and covers it up before the prying joint-family women, pretending it was an accident. The narrator concludes that women, like matchboxes, have the power to set off 'many raging fires' but never do, they never burn away the mask of men's 'high-mindedness', so men leave them scattered carelessly, without fear.
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'Matchbox' by Ashapurna Debi opens with the narrator's striking comparison: women are like matchboxes. Though a matchbox holds enough gunpowder 'to set a hundred Lankas aflame', it sits meek and innocent in the kitchen, pantry and bedroom, and women, the narrator says, are exactly the same.
The withheld letter
The example is set in a huge three-storey joint family home. One Sunday morning, before handing over her husband Ajit's dirty clothes to the washerman, Nomita finds a twisted, crumpled envelope in his pocket, a letter addressed to her, opened and read three days earlier and never given to her. This is Ajit's 'ugly habit': he secretly opens and reads Nomita's letters, and sometimes never gives them to her at all, though he has never once found anything suspicious.
The quarrel
The letter is only from Nomita's poor, widowed mother, complaining about a leaking roof and begging, indirectly, for money, while also taking credit for having married her daughter into a wealthy family. Ajit mocks his mother-in-law and, when confronted, first lies that he 'forgot' to give the letter, then defiantly asks why he shouldn't open his own wife's letters. The quarrel sharpens into cruel words on both sides.
The flame and the mask
Almost panting with rage, Nomita does something astonishing: she grabs Ajit's matchbox, lights a matchstick and touches it to the fine anchol of her sari. It flares up instantly. A frightened Ajit slaps out the fire with his hands, now truly afraid of her.
But the moment her niece Rini enters, Nomita becomes calm, folds the burnt anchol away and, before the prying women of the joint family, laughingly pretends she burnt it by accident lifting a hot pot. She covers the truth to protect her dignity, still secretly resolving to send her mother a few rupees.
The narrator concludes: this is why women are like matchboxes. Though they carry the materials to set off 'many raging fires', they never flare up and burn away 'the mask of men's high-mindedness'. Because men know this, they leave women scattered carelessly, without fear, in their pockets.