 Hello, everyone. Welcome to the British Library South Asia Seminar Series, which is part of our research and digitization project called Two Centuries of Indian Print. Today, we are very happy to have Dr. Swati Moitro amongst us. She will be speaking on mobile women for anecdotes about book distribution. Swati is an assistant professor at the Department of English at Gurudash College, University of Calcutta. She has earlier taught at Shivaji College and Miranda House in University of Delhi. Her work focuses on book history and histories of readership. We are also extremely delighted to have Professor Anandita Ghosh as a chair for our event. Anandita Ghosh is a professor of modern Indian history at the University of Manchester. Her work focuses on the social and cultural history of the book and on questions of power, culture and resistance. Her published works include Power in Print, Behind the Veil and Claiming the City, Protest, Crime and Violence in Colonial Calcutta. About the structure of our event today, Swati will be presenting for about 30 to 45 minutes after which there will be a short discussion between the speaker and the chair, following which we will be taking the questions from the audience. In the meantime, while the talk or during the discussion we would like to put in your questions, please use the Q&A box or the chat box to do so. So without much further ado, I hand it over to Swati to speak on mobile women for anecdotes about book distribution. Thank you Priyanka. Thank you so much to the British Library for your kind invitation to Professor Ghosh for chairing this session and to Brett of course for your support yet again. It's been a little somewhat difficult and especially I know there's a lot of people here from India so yeah it has been a remarkably difficult few weeks for all of us here. And sometimes it does feel as though I should not be as though anything else but staying alive at the moment and keeping everybody else alive does not make sense. But nonetheless, one must continue with their work and so here we are. I'll start sharing my screen first. Right. Here we go. I hope this is visible and I'll start talking straight away. This paper is about the book wallies of colonial Bengal, whose itinerant hawking practices constituted an important aspect of book circulation in Calcutta and beyond, and shaped the reading practices of the women readers of the Bengali on the models, whose access to books was determined by the constraints upon their mobility and their access to finance. So we'll derive the term book Wally from the writing of Emma Roberts, the English woman who sketches of colonial Calcutta in the 1830s speak of the male vendors of the book or book wallies with considerable warmth. The book wallies and book wallies find mentioned in passing in the pioneering scholarship of the Bengali historians of the book, such as Shukumarshen and Nikhil Sharkar, who wrote under the pen name Sripant. The rich body of contemporary scholarship on the book in Bengal, ranging from the works of Gautam Bhadra to Muntasi Mamun, Rabanandita Ghosh, to Tapthi Roy, from a Vijay Gupta to Borun Kumar Mukhopadhyay, or the Rishbhisthashtu Arnab Shah. This body of work has pointed time and again to the existence of the itinerant book peddlers as significant agents of circulation in the early days of print. Ulrike Stark, in her work on the Naval Kishore Press, has called them the South Asian counterpart of the European coal porter. Stitting together anecdotes and scanned evidence in the archives, this paper hopes to trace the fleeting footsteps of the itinerant vendors and the book wallies in particular. Now in the beginning, as I was preparing for this presentation, I turned to colonial era paintings such as the one that you see in front of you right now. I turned to paintings of the Chitpur Road, hoping to catch a glimpse of the mobile men and women of the book trade at the time. Paintings of 19th century Calcutta are valuable resources for our understanding of the colonial city. These paintings drawn from the British Library archives offer glimpses of parts of the so-called native town of Calcutta, the Kaccha roads, the wandering cattle and stray dogs that so often draw the attention of the British painters, the bazaars, the various landmarks, and of course the one that you see behind you, the Black Pagoda for instance, and of course the ordinary, nameless citizens in Indian attire. Chitpur Road is an important arterial road that cuts through the heart of the city. It is deemed one of the oldest thoroughfares of the city, dating back to pre-colonial times when it served as a route for pilgrims from Nodhya to travel to the Kalighat temple. Chitpur Road is an important fixture in British paintings, in particular the Black Pagoda, again the one that you see, it seemed to capture British painters interest. I turn to these paintings for the simple reason that the Chitpur Goranhata Shobha Bazaar area in the colonial city would emerge as one of the most significant hubs of print in 19th century Calcutta, with Chitpur Road an adjacent lanes and by lanes serving as an address for many Indian-owned printing presses and adjacent businesses. The paintings did not unfortunately offer me a glimpse of the bustling printing presses as I was hoping, and the people who made their existence possible. What was even more curious was the relative absence of women beyond the stock image of the woman with her clay picture out to collect water or location accompanied by children in the paintings, creating an impression of a city whose public spaces are largely devoid of working women. For example, the painting that you see right now, James Bailey phrases a view of the Black Pagoda from 1826. Gobindoram Mitra's Kali Temple, the so-called Black Pagoda that was once the tallest building in Calcutta, dominates the backdrop. The busy Chitpur Road in the foreground features customary images of cattle, Brahmin priests, mendicants in saffron and ordinary citizens in native attire. Only one of them, a solitary figure with the child, is a woman. At the distance, one can spot another woman making her way to the temple. Let me turn to the next image. Again, this is also a Fraser piece. It's a view in the bazaar leading to the Chitpur Road, also 1826. A few more women make their presence felt. There's an elderly woman with a stick, with a walking stick, one with a clay picture that you be quite as image. And two more on the terrace of a building that overlooks the bazaar. The woman with the clay picture, in fact, is a stock presence in a lot of British paintings and engravings of Calcutta. In fact, the ubiquity of the clay picture leads one to wonder if women in the streets of Calcutta did indeed move about to gather water at odd hours, often with children in town, or if it was simply an image popular among British artists of the period. In the third image, Charles O'Doiley's Hindu Mutt in Chitpur Bazaar, and again that's the Black Pagoda. Familiar images of cattle, Indians in native attire, and the lone woman with the child and the clay picture. Another woman can be found standing on the Roark, which is the extended Varanda of her house. And the final image for the day is, this is from William Simpson. This is called the Chitpur Road. This is from 1867. It features a bustling bazaar that the painter himself claimed to be a learning experience for Englishmen. Because in this bazaar hundreds of Englishmen have had their first conceptions of Eastern life realized, or more properly falsified face to face with the living facts. There are two women visible again, and they carry clay pictures and one of them is accompanied by children. It's not simply the British painters whose images find no space for working women in the city's public spaces and thoroughfares. A classic text such as Kali Prashan No Shingo's Huthumpacha Noksha, the Wondrings of the Barnaul as it translates to, features the catalogue of images spanning the city's busy days and nights punctuated by the sounds of the clock and the cannons at Fort William. The cacophony of voices in Huthump's city offer very little space to working women's voices. Beyond the cursory sounds of the female fishfonger and the flower seller's sales pitch, do you want belly flowers, bellyful nebego? Directed at fashionable young men about town. Hamta dancers and Baiwalis or courtesans make their presence felt in more scandalous episodes about the entertainment practices of the male elite. And yet, as Shubhanta Banerjee has pointed out in a 1997 essay, and it's a long quotation, I'll not read all of it, but some of it. Nonetheless, women of 19th century Bengal, like women in other regions, were not economically or socially a homogeneous group. The majority were working women, either self-employed like Naptanis, women from the Barbara caste who used to decorate with Alta, the feet of Andhra Mohul women, sweepers, owners of stalls, selling vegetables or fish, street singers and dancers, maid servants, or women employed by mercantile firms, in dealing in seed produce, mustard, lean seed, etc. The poor class of women used whatever time they had after housework to assist the men in the traditional occupations like cultivation, pottery, spinning, basket making, etc. Because of the nature of their work, these women had to move in that dangerous society which was considered to be a threat to their sheltered sisters who lived in the Andhra Mohuls of the upper class Bengali gentle folk. For the members of the Zanana, it was often this vast multitude of working women who had access to the Andhra Mohul and so provided the only link to the outside world. This mobility of theirs extended to religious gatherings and festivals, increasingly frowned upon by the colonial administrators and the Bengali elite as hubs of obscenity. Indeed, as Banerjee has cautioned us, when speaking of the reforms for emancipating women in 19th century Bengal, we often tend to ignore the possibility that the issues around which the debates on emancipation revolved might have concerned only the Andhra Mohul women of respectable Baudralok homes who constituted a minority of Bengali women. Now, how are these words of caution relevant to the study of the book in colonial Bengal? Histories of Bengali women in the 19th and early 20th centuries, often preoccupied with histories of the Bengali Baudramuhila, which is to say primarily Hindu upper caste women, employ metaphors of cages and shackles to speak of the constraints on women's mobility in the Antukpur, as well as the impositions on women's literacy and education. Narratives of emancipation centered around women in the formal education system and emerging women writers and editors harness the language of pioneering and firsts. Now, this property occupation has extended to book studies. My doctoral work is no exception, where a significant body of scholarship in Bengali and English has engaged with the female readership that patronize the book trade at the time with women as consumers and producers of the book. The same cannot be said for the women who were involved in the book trade in a different way. Namely, the female vendors of the book or the book valleys, as I call them, unnamed in the archives seldom referred to except in footnotes or passing anecdotes. The book valleys, as I have stated earlier, were important agents of book distribution, who formed a vital link between the printing presses and the Antukpur of upper caste Bengali households. How then do we grasp the mobile world of the women in book distribution whose experience in the city was not defined by confinement in the Antukpur or by first valorized in history, but by survival and occupational pursuits made possible by the transforming economic structures of colonial Calcutta. This paper seeks to consider the same, drawing upon anecdotal sources from the works of Novin Chandrushin, Reverend James Long, Sharnu Kumadi Devi and Kolani Dutta. We'll come to Novin Chandrushin first. Now, this is an off-sighted anecdote, a lengthy one. In fact, I'll try to cut it short. It's from the first volume of his autobiography, Amar Jibon on My Life. Now, Novin Chandrushin, poet and colonial administrator, hailed as the Byron of Bengal by Bokeem Chandrushadharji, writes, The very roots of this country have been shaken by women's education. Now, such diet drives are not uncommon from the literate of the period. And it is unsurprising that Bengal's Byron shared similar concerns. But his anecdote is a very interesting starting point to the conversation I'm trying to have today about the circulation of the printed book in Bengal. Now, in this anecdote, Sen reflects on an episode which is roughly in the 1870s, where he had returned to his rural home in Nohapara, Chittagong, in the monsoon month of Shrabon after 14 long years. The month of Shrabon is traditionally associated with the worship of the serpent goddess Monosha and rituals that continue to exist till date. Sen, however, experiences a root shock when he finds that the old practice of listening to readings of Monosha-Mongol or Monosha-Pachali manuscripts, read out by the traditional performer, the Kothok, has been in terminal decline in his village. He writes in his aghast. In the past, every respectable household would establish the idol of Monosha in the month of Shrabon, and the entire village echoed with the sounds of Monosha manuscripts being read out loud. And he announced he talks about what else was read, the Chittonimongol, Ramayana Mahabharat. But now, he says, even if Monosha visits some respectable households, the reading of Monosha and other manuscripts has practically come to an end. I started to look for someone to narrate the Monosha manuscripts. I found out that some of the Kothoks from my childhood, the few who are still alive, are famous readers now, but they have no success as in the village. If you ask them why they will say, who listens to manuscripts in this country that someone will learn to read them? Women of no household listen to manuscripts anymore. I realized that women's education had indeed shaken the foundations of this country. Novels have taken the place of manuscripts. Sita has been replaced by Shurjamukhi, Ramchandra by Sita Ram, Savitri by Kundanandini, Vipula by Vimala, Sri Krishna by Shuttanandho, Urjun by Jeevanandho. And he of course holds the Bengali novel and the Department of Education responsible. Now, there's a lot to consider here. The most obvious of which is the commentary on women's education and the Bengali novel, characterized here by the works of Bhoom Kimchandra Chatterjee. Now that has been a subject to considerable scholarly discussion. And for the sake of this paper, I would prefer to set the matter aside with the understanding that Novinjandrashen's anxiety over women's novel reading practices represents, as Anithita Ghosh has called it, the anxiety of the male reformer to whom allowing women to navigate the world of knowledge, unshapperoned, was tantamount to losing control over their beings. Women had to exist as surrogates in need of continuous supervision to justify the existence of the nationalist patriarchy. Now such anxieties did not stop feminine consumption of the female, of the Bengali novel. Since anecdote displays considerable surprise over the overwhelming presence of the printed book in a far flung press place in Chittagong, such as his ancestral village, Noapara. Chittagong is nearly 250 kilometers away, I mean in today's context, from the print Habindhaka, close to 500s away, kilometer away from the one in Rangpur and nearly 550 kilometers away from the colonial capital, Calcutta. The journeys by steamer, often marked by turbulent waters and dangerous cyclones that sent himself endured on his journeys back home, did not appear to prevent the circulation of the printed book to the distant Noapara and had even managed to supplant the traditional reading of sacred manuscripts by kothos. Now there is a lot more going on here than the simple trail of transition from manuscript to print. The collection of manuscripts as Gautam Hodros scholarship on Munshi Abdul Kaurim and Tapthi Roy's work on the print journey of the Onnuda mongol and Vita Shundur has shown. This would become an important consideration for scholars and printers alike. Munshi Abdul Kaurim's quest to print the most authentic edition of Soya Dalawa's Padagoti, after reading a Bhattala edition, would lead him down a rabbit hole of manuscript collection. While Isha Chandra Vita Shagwar's version of the Onnuda mongol, the print version, would claim authenticity based upon a manuscript shared by none other than the family of the Maharaja of Krishnabur. However, it was not a simply scholarly collectors of manuscripts, Munshi's and Pundits, who facilitated circulation. As Gautam Hodros has pointed out, we might recall that Horoprasad Shastri, in his Brit to write about Bengali publishing, discovered that Periwalas, or itinerated hawkers, from the city brought back popular manuscripts from the villages. The same manuscripts were reprinted in the shape of books after some brushing up. This is how the gems of Bengali literature from the Middle Ages was collected. Now, who were these itinerant hawkers, taking it upon themselves to carry popular manuscripts to the printing presses in the city? Were they commissioned by printing press owners to deliver popular manuscripts? Or did this hawker sense an opportunity to do business in the city of print and turn manuscript hunters themselves? If so, how did they convince householders to part with the sacred manuscripts? Such questions might lead us to the second anecdote of this paper, courtesy Reverend James Long. Reverend James Long's return relating to the publications in the Bengali language in 1857 is a particularly valuable document for the study of the book and publishing in Bengali in the 19th century. Reverend Long writes about the hawkers, observing that these men may be seen going through the native part of Calcutta and the adjacent towns with a pyramid of books on their heads. They buy the books themselves at a wholesale price and often sell them at a distance at double the price, which brings them probably 6 or 8 rupees monthly, though we know of one man who realizes by book hawking more than 100 rupees monthly. Now he's full of admiration for the advertising potential of the vendors, arguing that these living agents who show the book itself are the best advertisement for a Bengali book. He's of course not the only non-Indian to notice the vendors of the book. Emma Roberts, writing a couple of decades before the good reverend calls them the book hawkers or the book wallas, a sort of literary peddler who wonders about from town to town and station to station with much patience and an apparent love of books and periodicals which such glorious old bookworms such as our Roscoe and Charles Lamb would have greatly admired. Roberts points to the diverse collections of the book walla, English philosophical treatises, mathematical works, magazines and offers tales of two amusing encounters with the same. One of them involves an encounter with a turban book walla accompanied by a culli who offers Roberts a copy of Shakespeare only for it to emerge as an edition of Shakespeare's Hindustani dictionary. Another involves an encounter between a colonel and a Bengali book walla at Calcutta's Babu's Ghat or Babu Ghat as it is called today, where the book walla offers the portly colonel, an edition of a book titled Wade on Corpulency, featuring the image of an old fat lady in a chair. Oninita Ghosh cites a letter in The Friend of India dating back to 1822, where the letter writer speaks of no less than four walking booksellers in Muschidabad, one of whom claim to have earned 30 rupees per month despite selling great trash as per the letter writer. Two of the four we learn are an employee of a native of Calcutta. And other two are selling for another native who has established a press near Agroodip or Agroodip as it is called today. Borunkuma Mukhopadhyay has in fact speculated that the former printer is likely Bhavanishwaran Bandhapadhyay and the latter Ganga Keshwar Bhattacharya, who shifted his printing business from Calcutta to his village Bohura. These anecdotes appear to suggest that the itinerant hawkers or the book wallas facilitated a two-way transaction, carrying manuscripts to the printing presses in the city and ferrying printed books of a wide variety across the city and beyond into the districts. However, as Ulrike Stark has noted with some frustration, little is known about the social identity or the range of activities of the South Asian counterpart of the European Calcutta. The aforementioned narratives appear to identify the hawker of books or the book walla as a distinctly male figure. Despite evidence to the contrary, the vernacular literary society as Stark herself points out employed several female hawkers who gained direct access to the secluded domestic sphere of respectable Bengali women and reportedly sold books in large numbers. The 1872 census identifies 9,840 adult males involved in the book trade in the Bengal province under the subheading books for the category of arts and manufacturers and the sale of manufactured books. But it doesn't clarify what aspects of the book trade they participated in or any other social indicator. The same census identified 68 adult females in the Bengal province involved in the book trade. Would the book wallas or the book wallies be a part of this categorization by the census takers? Or would they be among those identified underneath other professions such as the 1178 adult female hawkers and peddlers? Could the book wallies be found among the 111 adult female gardeners or the 4793 adult female barbers? The 1881 census makes further division among workers in books in the Bengal province by dividing them into booksellers, bookbinders, printers, newspaper proprietors and librarian and places 24,418 adult male hawkers and peddlers separately without offering any information on female workers either in books or in hawkers and peddlers for the same period. So the limits of the archives take us back to the anecdotes again, this time from Vardhamoila consumers and producers of the book. A third anecdote, I promised four though I kind of also spoke about Emma Roberts, but nonetheless a third anecdote is drawn from the writing of Sharnukumari Devi, the eldest sister of Rabindranath Tagore and an author and editor of considerable significance in 19th century Bengal. She speaks of the practices of reading and writing in the Andhra Mahal of the Tagore household of Jorashako in the earlier half of the 19th century as narrated by her elders as well as her own experiences. And so she says that reading and writing was an everyday affair in our Antupur at the time in the same way as eating, resting and worship was. Just as the Goyalani or the milkmaid arrived every day with her milk, the Malini, the gardener of the flower seller supplied flowers. The astrologer showed up with almanacs and manuscripts to speak of good and evil. So did the white clad pious and fair Vaishnavi make her way to the Antupur to distribute the light of Egypt knowledge. Now Sharnukumari, who was born in 1855, did not encounter the Vaishnavi or take Shishu both lessons from her, but she did witness the arrival of the Bukwali in the Andhra Mahal. She writes, I remember how excited the women's quarters would grow on days the Malini would show up to pedal books. All the new books of Bortala, novels and poems, strange tales, that is to say the Kissas, she would bring them all to the Antupur to expand the contents of the libraries of my sisters. She offers quite the catalogue of books, ranging from the Bortala editions of the Gule Bakaveli and Kissai Chahar Darvesh to the Anudamongal and Dutishangbath from Kamini Kumar to Roti Bilab. They had it all. Our fourth anecdote, drawn from the works of Kollani Dutta, narrates encounters with Bukwalis in the Antupur of an elite Fadro household in Calcutta at the turn of the century. Like Shornokumari, there were no white-clad Vaishnavies distributing the light of knowledge to women in the Antupur, but the Bukwalis continued to remain of significance in the lives of the women at the Antupur. She narrates the tale of a smiling woman of the barber cast, Napiteni, of a slim figure, who brought along religious chap books such as Madun Mohan, Tarakeshwar Mahatta, Lokhir Pachali, priced at two paisas each. The other women, who ferried Japanese glassware and porcelain utensils, are simply identified as women. One of whom, Dr. Claims, gave a copy of the Chahar Darvesh, printed in Bortala, to Bortivi, her elder sister. The woman simply named Malini, not as a name, but an indicator of occupation by Shornokumari Devi, as Anithita Ghosh has rightly pointed out, must have had a more flexible occupational role. Despite the word Malini, translating literally as a female florist, gardener or garland maker. The occupation suggests a novoshak caste origin, that is to say one of the nine Shodshudra castes, entitled to have Shrotriya Brahmins as priests, and considered Jolachoronio by Brahmins. Water from their hands would be accepted by Brahmins, perhaps even fallen Brahmins like the Tagore of Jorashako. The Jorashako Tagore, as we know, as Esen Mukheji has shown in his work, held considerable castes as Dholuputis or leaders of their Dhol, of which the Jorashako Tagore Dhol was a significant one. As Dejendra Nath Tagore recalls in his memoirs, his father Debedra Nath Tagore and grandfather Daruka Nath Tagore once held considerable power over the Shomaj, settling caste disputes of various sorts. Our Malini, one imagines, was the acceptable sort of Shudra woman to enter the Thakur Baris in her courtyard. Not for her, the romantic fate of Bunkimjwandra Chatterjee's blind flower girl Rojani, who eventually marries into the wealthy Mitro household. Rojani, as the novel's dialogue makes very clear, is of caste Hindu origin. There's a dialogue, let me read it out. She's the blind flower flower girl, says Chotoma in a soft voice. The flower girl. I thought she's the daughter of a Bhodrulok. Why? Can't a flower world be a daughter of a Bhodrulok? The young man, who is the eventual love interest, who mistakes Rojani as a girl of a Chotolok or low caste origin by her occupation, is chastened. Even as the heroine's caste identity is established as befitting one, that will eventually marry into a wealthy Kiostho household. Our nameless Malini, identified only by her caste occupation, cannot have a proper name the way Rojani might have in Bunkimjwandra Chatterjee's novel. In this, she has much in common with the Bhoshnabhi Thakurani, spoken of with immense respect by Sharnukumari Devi for her poison learning, as well as her command over Sanskrit, but identified again by her Bhoshnabhism. Sharnukumari's penchant for identifying the working women who conducted various businesses with the Thakurabharis on the Mahol by their caste occupations, Malini, Goyalani, might suggest that the Bhoshnabhi Thakurani too was a Jati Bhoshnava. A Jati Bhoshnava, because as Konil has pointed out, Joseph Tio Konil has pointed out, many Jati Bhoshnavas were employed as domestic servants by high caste families. A number of literate Jati Bhoshnava women served as tutors in well-to-do families and some women copied manuscripts as evidenced by the holdings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Porna Shankupta's work on the failed model of the Thakur Normal School in the 1860s has highlighted the perils of the colonial administration attempting to train literate marginal caste women from the Boiragi Bhoshnav sect as school teachers in a formal setting, even though colonial administrators found records of such women engaged as tutors in the Zenanas of some households. So the occupational possibilities of Jati Bhoshnava women as tutors for dominant caste women then remained marginal and cartel. Indeed, the Bhoshnabhi Thakurani of Shornokumari's narrative is one whom she herself had never witnessed, but rather heard off from older women in the household. Rumanto Banerjee has in fact said that apparently by then the Thakur family's male members eager to emancipate their women from the influence of the lascivious stories of Radha and Krishna had barred their doors to the Bhoshnabhite Kattakotta readers. Now there is no evidence, no concrete evidence either way on this matter. This is perhaps not entirely impossible to speculate that the emergence of women's schools, especially after the establishment of the Bethune School in 1849 and the contemporary respectability politics at the time ensured that such Jati Bhoshnava women were no longer fired in the Andhra Mohals of the Bengali households of the Bathulok, but the same does not appear to hold true for the Bukvalis, who as Dothosanigdhut show continued to hold some sway with women readers in the Antapur even at the turn of the century. The aforementioned Nappiteni, the woman of the barber caste, much like Malini is the member of another Shathsudra caste group. Women from Shathsudra caste groups could very well have found flexible occupational roles that included becoming walking agents for books, their access to inner courtyard of caste Hindu households, placing them in a position of advantage over other caste groups that would not have had the same. As Gautam Bhadra has observed, people from many castes and religions were involved in processes of various processes of production in the 19th century. No one was left behind. Be it Deva or Asura, everyone's participation was needed to raise the goddess of wealth by churning the oceans of Calcutta, the city of Lakshmi. Of course, not everyone had the same claim to the nectar from her Amrit Kumbh. The walking agents of publishers and booksellers, vital, though they were to the process of book circulation, did not have the same claim to the nectar from Lakshmi's Amrit Kumbh in the city of print. And records and testimonials of the time that offer little by the way of proper names places them in the lowest rung of the hierarchy of print, mere deliverymen and women of little import beyond the physical circulation of the book itself. We are left then, and I'm coming to my conclusion now, we are left then with methods more imaginative, as we seek to trace the fleeting footsteps of the bookwalis, the Malini or the Napitini denied proper names in elite anecdotes. Perhaps Sharnakumari Devi's bookwali, the Malini was married, her husband employed in the Thakurbari's extensive grounds as a Mali and referred to again without his proper name. Perhaps she's one of the women referred to in the 1872 census as a gardener, engaged in flower selling, carrying garlands and loose flowers for worship into households, selling them in hearts. Perhaps hers is the voice we hear in Hutom Pacharnaksha calling out belifulnepego to the fashionable young men about town, embarking on a night of adventures. Perhaps she's an agent employed by an enterprising publisher at Bhattala, who has produced an edition of Kisai Chahar Dorbesh in Bengali from the Hindustani versions of the text popularly available at the time. Now the publisher understands all too well the significance of the female readers of the Antupur and the popularity of the Kisai, especially texts like Gule Bokavali, Hatem Thay and Chahar Dorbesh. The Malini might not be a beneficiary of formal education. Despite the expansion in women's education at the time, her literacy therefore might be rudimentary at best. She does, however, know enough about the books she sells and the taste of her clientele to diversify her wear between the perineally popular epics and Kissas as well as the modern novels and the most scandalous Gupta Gauthas. One imagines her carrying her wear into the inner courtyard of her household, throwing down her wicker basket on the ground and laying the books out for everyone to see. She haggles with a group of excitable customers she knows well. Does she sit and exchange pleasantries, discuss her day and her family with her customers? Does she sell other indulgences, ranging from cosmetics to a smuggled book or two that no Bhadram Huila should be reading? Does she stay around for the reading-hearing sessions after lunch, where women listen to the Ramayana being read in rapt attention? Perhaps she takes orders from her readers, promising to bring an edition of Horidashe Gupta Gautha, surreptitiously alongside the more acceptable copies of the Anudha Mongol and Shushila Rupakhan. Even as a patron's coup over their newest collections, she slips away with her wicker basket of books, navigating the streets of the city she knows like the back of her hand. That's all I have to say for now. Thank you so much for listening to me. Thank you. Thank you so much, Swati, for your fascinating presentation. Am I audible? You're audible, yeah. So, without wasting much time, I would now like to invite Professor Anandita Ghosh for her comments and for a short discussion with Swati on her paper. Thank you, Priyanka. And thank you, Swati, for that really interesting and very tantalising paper if I may say so. You gave us truly just the glimpses and one wants to know so much more about these women, these authors. I'd like to start with just kind of moving from the general to the specific, but just the general sense of how prolific that trade was that you were talking about. You know, those listening in might get a sense of, you know, just how busy that trade was. You know, they, as Swati, you would know yourself. You know, they very much in terms of numbers and print terms, you know, they were way beyond what the more elite literary presses of the city were producing. They were very much in demand. They sold like hot cakes. It's not surprising therefore that there would be such a, you know, widespread distribution network for these books. Networks, which you are absolutely right to highlight, but which have not been really studied and we should. And I know evidence as you pointed out is hard to come by, but that doesn't mean we don't give that we give up, you know, we have to, we have to do whatever. There are, there are many parts to this. So to begin with, of course, one could go to the printers house where a lot of these copies would be kept. So that was one point where the sale happened, then there were these these hawkers that you talk about. One knows more about male than female hawkers rightly so. They were very profitable trade again as you point out in a six to eight to a month from just hocking books is is not that money in those days. They were also long tells us they were they were they were part peasants part hawkers, you know, so, you know, the times of the of the year when the land is like follow they would be very much engaged in the book trade. Another method through which of course we know these books went out that is to subscription to people in mafasa areas could, you know, pay to subscription. And that was another way of doing it but but there's like a lot of record to show that wherever hawkers have employed the sales really really went up. They're an indispensable part of the book trade as much as the printers and publishers and authors work. Yeah, so the 19th century book business could not have happened about these people so you're absolutely right to throw the spotlight on on on these people. And I won't be surprised that you don't find them in the in the paintings that you show us because that that's not something that you know colonial painters were interested in showing they were not. They were more interested in the bizarre and the woman with the picture than books. So even if they were blatantly there on the chipboard roadside, that's not something they would pick up, but also possibly because you know a lot of these bookshops were not really the bookshops as we perhaps imagine the books all stacked up you know they were probably in a bathroom somewhere you come and knock on the door and the household or the printer stroke printer opens the door and asked you what book you want and they go and get it from the maybe they were not visible in shop runs in the way as we perhaps expect, they might have been. But but but it's absolutely clear crystal clear that without these hawkers, these would not have been, you know, these books wouldn't have reached as far and wide you know they're everywhere they as you said they buy the bubble cart. They're on trains. They are they are actually carrying them to the villages they're working on you know that they're working there on foot, they're everywhere, and that's how they reach these really wide networks that the school book society depends on them. I think initially they did not. And then they realized they needed to employ hawkers and when they did again you know their books went far and wide. This this is really really. This is really really important what what you just now talked about. But let's move on to the specific of specifics of what you are talking about which is the female. And again, I think you know that that is really the tip of the house I spoke your for for anecdotes, because if they were important these hawkers for the book trade they were doubly deeply important for our women readers because that's the only way through which these books would reach them. And this is, these are the earlier generations of literate women, who are reading books on such a vast scale they would have, they would have heard manuscript before they wouldn't have read them. But, but, and even if they would have read them they, it wouldn't have been you know widespread practice, but the books, they're easy, they're easily available they're you know they're coming to your home to be brought by the Nafteni or the Bosnian B or the Malini and they're there and easily, easily, they're coming in from hot from the press. And that access would not have been possible without your hawkers. So, from that point of view, in terms of really expanding women's literary tastes, and the kinds of books they read, they played a very, very crucial role. And you know the memoirs you mentioned, it's kind of, and these, these are highly literate educated women of the times who are, who remember with pleasure, these hawkers coming in, you know, selling the Bosnian books, even though they would have been they would have known what the more desirable tastes of the time. Well, you know, they, they remember, there's a fond remembers there's a great deal of fondness for these hawkers who might be the same hawker coming into the household year after year you even have a relation built up a relationship with them. You know, so, so you know they're kind of vital cogs in that field of distribution and therefore needs to be appreciated. The other thing I was really interested in, you know, which never occurred to me when I was doing my research but now that you mentioned the way you bring them up, you know, these terms Malini, Bosnian naftali. Now, how far are these really generic terms or are these occupational terms. Now the reason I ask is that you know the Malini and the naftali or the Bosnian. Well, most of the Malini and the naftali, they are often the literary tropes as well aren't they, you know, they're always, you know, part of conspiracies, you know, they, they're the ones who will make lovers meet, they're the ones who will carry messages. They're invariably, you know, part of this world of secrecy, this part of, you know, forbidden things and they are invariably your messengers in these situations. So I was quite intrigued listening to you today as to, you know, what they really were because, you know, why would suddenly a Malini, a hawker or a naftali, apart from the fact that of course, you know, they can also reach the Andhra Mohan, which is possible. But, but you know, might that be something else as well. It's just a thought but it could be occupational, but it might not be, but it's, I think it's important to reflect on that to find out, you know, where, you know, where, where, where that fulcrum really lies. And I don't know, I don't have an answer to that, but I just thought maybe you might want to comment on it. And finally, about literacy amongst these hawkers, you allude to, I think, once in your paper that they would be, I mean, you would need to have some kind of functional literacy to be able to say, you know, this is your gulip khalia or this is your hatenta, you know, you would have to be able to be able to do enough to read that. But how far were their, their own tastes also driving the peddling, of course, you know, they would, they would be very mindful of what the consumers want. And you know, they might be running errands, as you said, for women who would give them their orders and they would be getting that next time they come in, they'll be bringing in the books that they want, that these women wanted. But is, is it possible that they also would be picking up a few books that have just come out and, you know, in turn, then taking them to these women and saying, look, you know, these are new and, you know, just hot hot off the stress, do you think you might be interested. If that is the case, then, you know, once again, there is that very hidden layer that secret layer of, of the road that tremendous agency played by these women in developing women's taste in Nandalmohal. And, and, you know, no wonder people like Nubensheen are cribbing about it because they have no control over that world. And, and this, the idea, the whole idea of women bonding in Nandalmohal, you know, it has been written about in scholarship in recent times. And it is a very real world out there, you know, these, they're very much on their own. They're not, they're left alone, but, but they're not left alone. If you know what I mean, you know, they're up to things, they're doing things constantly. So, I just find it fascinating to even maybe I'm just jumping ahead and being too, to very imaginative, but it's possible, you know, if you're literature in the book trade, you know, you might have your own suggestions to bring back to your consumers. But again, you know, these are, these are thoughts, but as I said, it's a very, very tantalising paper and just picked up so many interesting threads that could go further. But I'll leave it at that. But also may I say that you've been extremely brave to come and give us this paper in the middle of a pandemic. And, you know, with what's raging around you, I can't even imagine what you're going through. But thanks very much for that. Thank you so much for listening. I'd like to comment, especially on your second point, because that's actually something I did think about, and I didn't really get to talk about, because of course when you're quoting Roger, you were also thinking of Hiramalini in Vishwabrikho. And this is in fact also something I must thank Priyanka for because back in the days when she had been working on her empathy work, she had worked on the farces. And again, you do see women of particular caste backgrounds such as the Malini, such as the Napitani, who play a certain set of stock characters who they perform a lot of insignificant roles. They're the ones with the course abuses as well. That was the typical stereotyping of the Bengali stage at that point of time. But I think the reason that the Malini or the Napitani is a trope is precisely because the Malini or the Napitani has a very significant role in the lives of the women of the first and foremost, and of course, not simply as a book trader, but the book trade is part and parcel of it, no doubt. But the Malini and the Napitani and women of, and I must insist on their caste origin, the Shotsudra caste, because it is, it seems to points to these particular caste groups that had, that would be considered short enough, acceptable enough to be, to enter. It could not have been say a Bauri woman or a Bagdi woman or one of these caste origins. Right. That's a distinct narrative altogether. So the Malini and the Napitani are tropes precisely because of the significance that they do hold over the lives of women in the Andhra Mahal that even if they want to, you know, copy of a novel that they want to read or something else, it's a message that they want to send. It is the mobility of these women that makes possible these things. And that's precisely how they become such successful hawkers as well. That's the last point that you make about their taste thriving is again something I had not thought about. But yes, absolutely that may have been for instance, as you were speaking, though again this is conjecture on my partner completely imaginary. As we see as the, you know, as the book trait and becomes a thriving VC, we see the book covers in particular beginning to take shape though this is really 20th century more than the 19th century. I wonder if the book covers had some role to play in terms of their appeal to the women delivering these books, or to the women buying them. I wonder if they talked about the books, if, or if it was the publisher pushing idea saying take this to the ladies they will like it. Or if she also had a certain input, considering the, again, considering the street smartness and the business savvy of these women that we do undoubtedly witness, perhaps this would very much have been part and parcel of that narrative. But we can be at the moment what I have right now is conjecture, which is why I said we must resort to more imaginative methods, the narratives that I have won't even give them names. So, there is that. Thank you so much, Swati and Onamita Di. And the questions have started coming in. There's one question at the moment. But before I take the mention, but I'm sure you're looking to it in terms of, you know, the hawker, and I would like to know a little bit whether these texts at all mentioned women as hawkers. One is a Kolkata Periwala Darka Rasta Rawaj by Radha Pushad Gupta. And the other one, I don't know if it at all talks about book rendering. It's Manu Mohan Boshu's diary, because he was the one who was collecting and publishing a lot on different kinds of songs. And he had a lot to say about the genre of the Kewd as well when talking about performances like Kobi Gaan and Thodja. So just wanted to refer to these two, if you have come across anything in these texts. The former does not. The latter I have not looked at. So I'm going to have to ask you for the full reference later. Okay, so I won't take more time. So I'll start reading the questions. The first is from Mo Banerjee. She says brilliant talk, Swati. I'm wondering about two other groups, one being the Acharjani, referred to in the Thakurbari Chronicles across between doctor and storyteller, whose medical advice led to the death of Sharada Riddhi. What I mean is, in what ways are you uncovering not only women as booksellers, but as professional women outside the Bhadramahila in colonial Calcutta? Two, the books being referred to in your anecdotes are respectable books, but women and scandals are ever present in Bortola Yellow Journalism. Do you find any evidence of trade in illicit books and Gupta Kothais, and women both reading and facilitating the trade in such books, as well as the facilitation of the spread of gossip of the Andhra Mahal to Bihari Mahal, and to the world, under the colonial world? Thank you so much, Mo, for the questions. I'm glad you're here. So yes, when I started to answer your first question, when I started thinking about this, and I have been thinking about this for a very long time, five years now to be specific. When I first started thinking about it, and even writing about it, I was not really thinking of anybody else but the booksellers, precisely because they are so frustratingly everywhere if you look at the narratives of the time, and yet so little, we know so little about them. But as I started to work, as I started to work a little bit more about this, it became amply clear that the booksellers were not simply, I mean, they were, it's extremely, we cannot say for certain, perhaps the gentleman who sold books worth 30 rupees a month was only a bookseller, but it's extremely unlikely that they would have been solely booksellers, but rather, this was something that they probably doubled up as, as, as another job, the Nappitenis and the Malinese whom we encountered in fiction, as well as in the memoirs also appear to suggest that they did have professional lives outside of bookhawk, of which bookhawking was only a part of. And so that world of professional work is something that needs to be traced and mapped from the, again, I go back to the farces, where you have the domestic servant as a particular figure of import, the female domestic servant. You have these figures of the Malinese and the Nappitenis, the woman who delivers milk, again, significant, all of a particular caste origins as well. So this is something that remains to be seen and their connections with the book trade, though, again, evidence is scant. The latter is something that I do have an answer, a more concrete answer to, because yes, there is evidence in trade in illicit books and Gupta gothas, though, very interestingly, there is, again, this is so characteristic of Vahadra Mohila narratives, is that Sharnakumari Devi is very clear that these are Asha regal posts, so the books that the bookseller brings are, well, you know, books of not particular significance. Kolani Dutta mentions that a book like Kashi Keccha, Kashi Keccha was in fact brought to the Andhura Mahul, Ranga Devi had a copy of it, but she does not mention who brought it, it's although she delicately forgets, I don't remember who got that book. And that is something I think that that little evidence is enough for me, enough to suggest that that was very definitely trade in illicit books and that these women were the ones facilitating it, because it's unlikely that Ranga Devi or a Boro Devi would be telling the men of the household to get them more likely that it would be sneaked in alongside more respectable books, as well as for the facilitation of the spread of gossip, again, we have very little evidence of the, I mean, from what I have studied so far, very little evidence of the conversations that they had. So, we are left with nothing but conjecture at the moment, though I hope perhaps to have better answers to this in the future. I hope that's sufficient answer for you. Okay, the next one is more of a comment from Ogjit Gupta, who says, I seem to remember that the founder of PPM's press predecessor of Dev Shaita Kutil, Boro Daprasad Majumdar, who lost his Jamedari in a drunken night's carols, restarted life as a hawker of books in Bortola and saved enough to set up as a publisher on his own. That's a remarkable story. Okay, the next question is from Penelope Hornet. She says, did they just sell books? Was there a market for women's magazines too? Thank you for a most interesting talk. From what evidence we have, most of the women's magazines were sold by subscription. And there is, because the women's magazines in the 19th century were mostly respectable magazines such as the Bama Bodhini Putrika, or even Bharati, which was run by, although I would not call Bharati a women's magazine, but Shonokumari Devi was the editor. This piece mostly run on a subscription basis, and you have lists of subscribers at the end of the last page of a lot of the magazines of the period so you can get an understanding of it. Most of the subscribers are in fact male. So it's possible that there are female names of course, but most of the subscribers are male, and it appears to suggest that male members of the household subscribed to the magazines, which would then be sent by post to these particular households. Women's magazines of the sort that women can buy in, I mean, that are perhaps less respectable or that is not something that we see. But these women did not simply sell books. I'm fairly certain that they did not. I mean, we have at least some evidence, I mean both their caste occupations appear to suggest they're not given proper names, but their caste occupations suggest that they did double up, at least the Malini probably did double up as a flower seller, as well as a book seller because why not. You also have evidence of women bringing in a lot of things like Japanese glassware porcelain, probably counterfeit porcelain, alongside the books appearing to suggest again they're highlighting the nature of the book as a commodity. Which could be sold alongside things like indulgences such as porcelain and Japanese glassware and cosmetics and the like. So yes, they were definitely not, or at least from what evidence we have so far, so there could be more. I do not know yet. We're not definitely full time booksellers so to speak. I think what is critical here, you're absolutely right, Swati is the access to the Andhra Mohan and whatever could be peddled via these women would be done by those looking to make quick money. So it's that access and as you said, canny booksellers would definitely want to capitalize on that kind of access. And on the serial front, I was just thinking and I saw a comment in the chat about Barogar Doctor. Not quite women's magazines, but you know they were serial publications as well. So you know stuff like Barogar Doctor might have gone out. A lot of that is about sensational murders and you often do romances or scandals in households and so on. I mean, not that I know of, but do you know of any evidence of these going out as serial publication. So I'm thinking of, I'm kind of stretching magazine to be read as serial publications. I'm thinking, you know, maybe serial publications might have gone out through your hawkers or do you think that's only subscription. It's impossible to see by the turn of the century again by 1890s or so we do have an emergence of the whole crime genre, and by all means these these were extremely popular among women. So, I mean, more than I mean, from ranging from the ketch has earlier to these now the Gupta Kotha also really takes off at the turn of the century. So it's, I don't think it's a stretch to assume that the hawkers would have been carrying this. I think it's a distinct possibility. And especially if the books are something that women shouldn't be seen reading in the first place, then it makes more sense for the hawkers to be delivering them as opposed to ordering them by post, or you know having a male member go to the printers shop. I mean not the book shop but you know the printers printing press and obtaining a physical copy. It does appear to suggest so. Thanks for the thanks on the study. The next question is from show me what a chariot. The shock should gross does have the freedom to one wonder out while the upper caste women were in on top. Do you think this was a topic of discussion between the upper caste and shock should gross. I think we are left to, again, imagine the women in the Antukpur. I don't know how much the divide of caste would have allowed them to consider the possibility of wandering into the dangerous city and allowing ritual pollution. I think that a napite near a Malini could have had right so this is this is purely conjecture on our part, they may have had. I think again, we do have evidence of bonds being formed between women of different cast groups, while, of course the boundaries of caste remained. The bonds between women of these cast groups precisely because of their long association. So there is that, but as to whether or not these thought of heart to heart conversations would have happened that I think again is a matter of conjecture that I cannot comment on. Okay, the next question is from far more. Thank you for that wonderful presentation Swati picking up on the discussion on women hawkers agency in distribution of books in this context. Is there a significance of genre tendencies for very diverse examples like novels on the one hand, and books on household management or such instructive pamphlets by any chance. I see almost no evidence. I mean, so far I can probably I should point out that my evidence is so scant that I'm going running on fumes here. But so far I see no evidence of the book while he's bothering with instructor instructive manuals which appears to suggest that those were probably brought into the household by the men of the household who hoped that such good books would be read by the women in their in their lives. Because the genres that they seem to prefer where very much the novels, the, the kissers in particular are extremely popular the kissers are stressed upon in fact. The novels the kissers the Gupta kothas and the novel national they don't really talk about the Gupta kothas beyond a certain point and of course Ramayana Mahabharata on the mongol, the acceptable sort of nobody mentioned with the Schundler, but on the So these seem to be the generic preferences, and I would suspect that later on, though, again, bookstores became become more and more viable, I mean begin to exist more and more as the 20th century progresses, but I would dare say given that we have the evidence of theater pamphlets being distributed by women hired by the theaters to the on the mohals, I would say that even things later on from the, I mean, this was suggested this continue to be a practice in later on as well. But again I have very scant evidence here as to how much access women would have had to the bookstores in the 20th century, and whether or not the 20th century genres, how they were patronized that's again something I can't really say beyond a certain point. I can, this is the evidence that I have so far. Thanks Vati. The next question is from Shupunadash Bhutto. Is there any evidence of interaction between book wallows and book wallies. Not that we have here. But again, it would not be a stretch to imagine that they did because they would be picking up the books from the same place. But we barely have so far from what I have been able to gather. We barely have access to the voices of these men and women, which means that whether or not and how they interacted with each other is something that I don't really do at the moment. But it's of course they interacted they picked up the books from the same place. How could they not. The next question is from Orpitadash. As a small independent publisher who's constantly trying to find more innovative ways of reaching my reader. I'm wondering if you can talk a little more about how the publishers of time interfaced with these women. Did they give them particular instructions or were these women carrying back leader preferences to the publishers. We know how the publishers were interacting with the book wallows. So, what I say about the woman women is an extension from there. We do know that the publishers explicitly hired these walking agents to carry books, both in Calcutta from places as diverse as Babu Ghat to the household of Emma Roberts. I mean one book walla entered barged into her house and trying to try to sell her a copy of Shakespeare. So we have them in places as diverse as this and her anecdotes in particular interesting because here you have a book walla trying to sell an English woman Shakespeare. That does appear to of course it turns out to be Shakespeare's Hindi dictionary. But the fact that the book walla is trying to sell Shakespeare to an English man and an English woman does appear to suggest that there is some understanding of the reader's tastes. The second anecdote that she gives us also which is you have a very poorly colonel being given a book called Wade over corpulence with the image of a corpulent lady and the colonel thinks that this may be a joke played by somebody or by the book walla himself. So again, these anecdotes do appear to suggest that they understood to an extent readers needs. There's also she talks in glowing terms about the fact that they cater to the urges of these young Hindu and Mohammedan men who were trying to educate themselves. So they offered a wide variety of books from grammars to magazines to philosophical manuscripts, all for the welfare of the young native mind. So yes, this does appear to suggest that the book wallas were quite conscious of, I mean, if you know young men educating themselves for British jobs, we're probably trying to read things that the Englishman would approve of and would improve their English skills. So from it's from there that I offered this conjecture, we don't know how the publishers interacted with the book wallies in particular. But even if something as respectable as the vernacular vernacular literature society is engaging them, it appears to suggest again that it does the publishers do understand their significance. So how did they tell these women that take these books and go try to sell these books. These are good books at that at that again conjecture. And again as on Anita pointed out right now, did the taste of the book wallies drive the sales to an extent. That's again something I hadn't even thought about but yes it could have, but I wish I had more concrete answers for you. I don't. So, this is what I have to leave you with. Thanks, Swati. Your next question is from, have you found any mention of maim sahib selling distributing Christian tracks in the on top of Janana. No, that that that is perhaps because I was not really paying a lot of attention to the maim sahibs in the first place. But that's something the only maim sahib I do hear off is the, the one who was asked for the copy of a bidah shundur and then handed over shushila Rupa Khan to her charge instead. So, apart from that I admit I have. It can be sold though they would come for free. Yes, that's that's also true that's also true. So I haven't paid a lot of attention to the maim sahibs in the first place. Can I, can I just just come come in just very briefly. I was when you were talking about other things that these people settled and somehow I'm more attractive now to it the idea of them working as these hawkers stroke Malini or nothing is acting more as networks for all kinds of commodities and not just books so you know your gossip has more pointed out. Certainly, except we don't know where they went out from down the mall to the outside that we're not sure about but but yeah surely they must have got city gossiping. I'm quite sure. But you know, and that's a really, really attractive idea at the moment that that you floated and I think I want to hold on to that. But also these publishers were very canny they were giving out often images were I mean not images pictures like posters to hang up on your bedroom walls, weren't they. That that was also possibly another point at which you're, you know, particularly the women might have had a greater role to play so you know they might have picked up certain images or books that came with free images, because that's what the women wanted so it might have been the value of the image rather than the book the free images that you're getting, rather than the book that that is driving them to pick them up so you know, we are really looking at, you know, kind of the very hyperactive world of business men and women who who are not interested in literacy, not interested in creating literary tastes you know that goes out of the window it's like what sells what do people want that constantly trying to get a sense of that of the tastes of these people whether it be your your bosses or whether it be your your images or books and and and that's what makes them such successful business man. So you're on to some things for me for sure material culture I think you know kind of the general general material culture that that that's that that's being peddled through these women. Fantastic. Thank you. I also think they would have been certainly selling I was just about the the basher basher for songs and all of that. They've certainly have been selling all of them for sure. And the ones that you've written about absolutely certainly. Yeah, yeah. Shatya I think there was one question from Mo which on the study has already preempted but I will read it out in case you want to respond. She's saying, wondering if Daruka Doctor might have more leads for you in terms of women as I can read book peddlers. I also wonder if Malini and Naptini are derived from Marital associations. Yes, I do think so as well. I mean it's entirely possible that their husbands I mean as I also speculate because I have no evidence. I speculate for all we know the Malini who brought books into the Thakur Bari was very likely her husband would have also been employed in the extensive Thakur Bari grounds and neither of them would have been granted proper names in the memoirs of the Thakur Bari. So yes, certainly so certainly so. Shatya I was thinking of two other spaces, which could probably have been spaces where women that women were venturing into as Thakur. So one is the religious site and this is from an example which is much later I mean which I have written about a little bit it's the performer Ramesh Shil, the Kovial Ramesh Shil in Chittagong. He talks about this, he was into the Majhmandari Torika, and he talks about this religious site of Gautul Azam, where he first came across song collections being distributed by young boys. So, just to think about religious sites which were also performing sites as potential areas where you know this literature would be, you know, distributed souls, and the other is fair is the space of the Malla, which would, you know, be again a potential space for men. Yeah, actually do have evidence of male booksellers in heart and Malla. So there's certainly that, but the question of women venturing into these spaces is something to think about. I think there are no more questions. So in case you want to, you know, say something else or, you know, have other comments on it. I just want to say where are you going to go from here, from this paper, are you going to build on this, what are your plans? I do hope to build a little bit more on it because again it's very frustrating to have to resort to, I don't mind resorting to imaginative means. I did a lot of Saidiya Hartman before this, just to brace myself for the fact that I may not be able to after a certain point find the voices of these women themselves. But I do think I hope to at least establish this work a little to an extent where we can start talking about the vendors, the Kiriwalas, and the women in particular as important agents of book trade, because we do need to, I mean, just as we talk about the composers and the printers and other figures of the book trade. These were important figures and I do think, at least we can start the conversation about the people who made the book trade possible instead of circulation in purely abstract or numerical terms. So there is that. And the rest remains to be seen. Absolutely right in what you said that one needs to get at these networks, particularly I think where women readers are concerned, you wouldn't really have that readership is built up on the backs of that hard labor of these peddlers going in. They are not expanding the case so you know not just keeping to shushu shushu shushu shila up a can, but actually you know taking it beyond that and giving them that wider world of books that they could. Because I think my own work has read as they wished, sorry. My work had been so frustrating earlier because precisely even as we're working on the women readers and on the mohol and their lives are not out fascinating, but I was, I myself was talking about them in terms of the firsts and the pioneers and well you have a white. So if you just have to de center the lens from the on the on the mohol a little bit, because you have a large number of women living lives, professional lives working lives that are distinctly different. Right. And, and it doesn't make sense, especially for something like the book trade to not center these women, even if we have so little to go by. I wonder whether you should be looking at perhaps more unconventional sources like say, you know, embroidery, for instance, you know, it cut our scenes would often depict very household scenes and it's not particularly meant for you know any wider consumption beyond that of the household, or maybe just that very bedroom where it belongs. I don't know I mean I'm not, I'm not tuned in there by saying you know it's very easy to get but all I'm saying is you probably have to be a bit more inventive in the in you know what sources you go to and what things you look into. What painting would not clearly have it wouldn't be a source for you but but maybe cut her which is far more domestic and yes I've on and off I've come across references to not your booksellers, but those kind of painting very intimate domestic seems kind of familiar to me in any other sense but they're familiar so maybe maybe you will find your, your hockey there which which is still not concrete but would add another layer of that intimacy of that female space where the bookseller and the readers bonding over books. That's that's certainly something worth looking at. There's a lot of it in the Gurshwada museum. It's possible to visit again. Yeah. Fascinating stuff. Thank you. So I don't think there are any more questions so there might be one more. They would have had street cries. So what they were we did that's not really noted down. Also, given that these women, at least some of them were selling books alongside other things they would have probably had street cries that that mentioned all these things. So what that is, Pryanka referred to a very comprehensive collection of street cries, a little later in history but we find no mention of the bookwell is there possibly because by that time, the need for such bookwellers or bookwellies had ended. So, yeah, we can only have conjectures about this but they would certainly have had. Yes and you did mention Hutum during your talk and it's quite glaring that there is no mention of the hawkers. I mean, the voices that we hear are fishwongers and flower sellers and those are probably the only women who have been depicted in the text. And that's in the margins into pretty curious that Hutum who has so much space for professional men in the city, those, those fantastic sketches, almost zero for the professional women beyond the buy wellies and the camera wellies in a very scandalous context. And just to stretch what you've been speaking about, you know, about a book distribution and selling. I was also thinking more in terms of the work that Anitha Di is now doing on revolutionary violence and popular patriotism, you know, thinking about women as you know, smuggling these cross-fried literature. Absolutely, absolutely. That's a whole new thing, women smuggling letters being sneaked around, that's a whole new world altogether. But you know, the world of literature and revolution comes together and I've not done a great deal of work on this yet but the more you read these memoirs and autobiographies of these revolutionary women, what are they inspired by? Isn't that fascinating? Yes, absolutely. It's not just what's happening around that but it's also what they're reading. But at least two of the women I know of, you know, very well known ones have been reading popular W. Absolutely, absolutely. That's amazing. So once you get to the 1920s and 30s and you have the women of Bethune's College getting together, getting the act together, it becomes a different story altogether. That's a fascinating one. I think there's one question, comment from Mo. Yes. Also the question is what we see and hear and what we filter out, who wouldn't need to hear the cries of professionals. Oh yeah, and they wouldn't probably come to where they would go into the Andhra Mahal, right, to the inner courtyard. They would not come to the Bahir in courtyard to begin with. That's where the only women in the Dalan or Thakur Dalan of these houses where the Bhai Valis and the Khentha Valis. So yeah, it's possible we didn't have to see them in the first place. Thank you, Swati. Thank you so much for that fascinating talk. Thank you, Anandita D for your very insightful comments and that inspiring discussion. Thank you to the audience. A lot of you have joined in from India and needless to say my heart goes out to all of you and what you've been enduring and I hope we'll be together soon we'll be able to meet and this too shall pass. It's quite late in India so I wouldn't take any more time and it's time to wrap up here. Just about the forthcoming talk which is on the 24th of May. The talk is by Dr. Sanjitha Sundarathan from University of Amsterdam. She will be speaking on partisan aesthetics, Indian art and 20th century decolonization. The talk will be chaired by Dr. Zehra Jumabhoy from the Courtauld Institute of Art. So do join us at 5.30. This talk was a little, I was scheduled a little earlier, but from the next one onwards we'll resume the sessions at the same time 5.30 GMT. So do join us and take care of yourself, stay well and thank you for joining in tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good night.