Article: A Musalmāni Matron of Cholera in Bengal, Utsa Bose and Tony K Stewart

June 2023, Dr Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen, Utsa Bose, Professor Tony K Stewart

A Musalmāni Matron of Cholera in Bengal, Journal of Hindu Studies (OUP), Utsa Bose and Tony K Stewart

The article contains a translation of a late-19th century (1879) Bengali poem (called a jāgaraṇ), commemorating Olābibī, the "matron of cholera", as well as an introductory essay contextualising the translation. As an interdisciplinary piece, it combines both our interests and specialisations: Tony's interest and specialisation in Bengali religious and literary traditions, and my interest in epidemic outbreaks and diseases.

This publication is also bittersweet because as I write this, Tony is no more. We had started working on this article in 2023, but a few months later, Tony was diagnosed with cancer. The journey of this essay, then, coincided with the trajectory of the disease, and, by some cruel twist of fate, my first publication ended up being his last. There is grief in this absence, but as I increasingly find myself feeling, there is also a sense of profound gratitude. Because although Tony has left, he has left me with so much. Looking back, it seems to me that the people who mean a lot to us never really leave. They remain in the words and worlds we write, in the way we carry their work forward. And in that way, we all live.

Utsa Bose
DPhil candidate in History