Uttara Huddar, Nagpur’s wonder woman on faith, writing and life

Nagpur: Uttara Huddar, or Shraddha Chattopadhyay, and her unique case of reincarnation and split personality has been a curious topic of discussion and varied interpretations all these years. A woman who switched between a present day Marathi and a 19th century Bengali, Huddar has attracted detailed study into her past life.
Audience at the Vidarbha Sanshodhan Mandal at its premises thus gathered in huge numbers as Uttara spoke on ‘Majhi Sahitya Nirmiti’ on Sunday.
She had also written about the experiences on her life instances and her love for literature. She completed her doctorate in biology and Masters in English literature and public administration. She shared her thoughts on the occasion.
“Everyone was puzzled in my family when they found out that I had this unique split personality and did not know how to communicate to me when I spoke and dressed as a Bengali woman,” she said.
Talking about her faith in God she said, “We all need a ‘God’ be it in the form of the universe or the idols we pray. This power is omnipresent,” she said. “My grandfather used to say that I loved freedom too much. He used to say that it was imbibed in my blood,” she said. “When ‘Shradha’ took over my body, nobody could believe it. I come from a normal middle class family and it was very hard for anyone to digest that I had these two personalities inside my body,” she said.
Sharing her experiences about writing, she said, “I don’t even remember when I first started to write but I know I didn’t want to be a writer. I was a learner and I loved to read. In our early days, there used to be a competition where we would play ‘antakshari’ of poems. So whichever letter the other one ended with, I had to start with that letter and recite a poem. Our culture was to rhyme every line and sing a rhythm,” she said.
“All that I’ve ever written, now I am retrospective of how I wrote it,” she continued. “I have a feeling that whatever we write is from the subconscious mind, from our experiences and memories,” she said.