Archiving The Self: A Comparative Study of Hansa Wadkar's Autobiography You Ask, I Tell and Durga Khote's Autobiography I, Durga Khote

Abstract This paper examines the autobiographical works of two prominent Indian actresses, Hansa Wadkar and Durga Khote, within the context of women’s autobiographical writing. This comparative study tries to investigate how the personal and professional lives of these women intersect in their memoirs and how their lived experiences exhibit commonality with each other and have points of divergence. These analyses shed light on whether these women’s autobiographies confirm or challenge the overarching structures of patriarchal ideologies prevalent in society. Additionally, the paper intends to understand the status of female artists in the Indian film industry during the 20th century which was predominantly a masculine world. Drawing its theoretical framework from feminism and autobiography studies, the paper analyses themes such as self-articulation, identity formation and the divide between public and private spaces. It tries to examine whether it challenges the classical configuration of the autobiographical genre which originated in the West and understand the unique features of women’s autobiographies which break away from the conventional structures of the autobiographical genre. This study also intends to open several avenues of research into Indian women’s autobiographies which hitherto remained unacknowledged and marginalised in the dominant discourses. The study thus aims to foreground women’s narratives as valuable historical records and thereby contribute to constructing inclusive and equitable historical narratives. Keywords: autobiography- women’s narratives- identity formation-relationality-agency- problematics of gender