Uttara Huddar - Sharada

The case of Uttara Huddar and her alternate personality Sharada presents us with a unique opportunity to study what might possibly be an actual case of an external alternate personality entering the body of another that resulted in dramatic changes to the actual person.

Let us start by looking into the personalities of both Uttara Huddar and her alternate personality Sharada to give us some understanding of both personalities and to try and comprehend the cultural diversities that separated both personalities.

Uttara Huddar was born on Friday, the 14th of March 1941 (Friday is a day that is synonymous to Sukracharya). Persons born on this day, theologically at least, have the faculty to see into the past, present and the future and have an affinity to the dead by virtue of Sukracharya’s ability to raise the dead) in Nagpur (a city in Maharashtra).

Venus (Sukra) is the governing planet and persons born on this day have a closer affinity to the Goddess Durga than others. It is the prescribed day to worship the Goddess.

Uttara Huddar was also born on the day, Holi, an important festival in the Hindu calendar was celebrated in 1941. Narashima the fourth incarnate of Vishnu was born on Holi.

Uttara Huddar was born in Nagpur and the city probably derives its name from the Sanskrit word Naga which means cobra. According to Uttara’s mother, when she was pregnant with Uttara, she had repeated dreams of being bitten by a snake on the foot and as a child Uttara was unusually afraid of snakes and suffered from acute ophiophobia.

Uttara was the 5th of six children born to the Huddars. Her father, G.M. Huddar was from Maharashtra and her mother Manorama was from the south. She had a normal childhood and like her father she took an interest in Bengali literature, artifacts, and Bengali people. A native Maharashtrian she dressed, spoke and acted in a manner that is peculiar to most Maharashtrians. Uttara had lived all her life in the areas of Nagpur and Wardha.

In school Uttara was an average student who actively participated in dance and drama. She studied Sanskrit for three years in high school and was privately tutored in Sanskrit for an additional year. She later, took and passed a special exam in Sanskrit.

In college however, she abandoned Sanskrit and took up science. Later she dropped science and studied English and public administration instead. Eventually she obtained a double M.A.

In 1974 Uttara’s life changed completely when her personality was suddenly and unexpectedly supplanted by a new personality that appeared without notice. The name of the new personality that appeared was Sharada and she was completely different to Uttara. From all accounts and from cross referencing details that were given to interviewers, researchers came to the conclusion that Sharada was someone who had lived between 1810 - 1830 in the state of Bengal, and had died more than a century prior to Uttara’s birth.

Sharada was married at the age of 7, and at the time of her death, she was married. She was taught to both read and write by her uncle and she could do both fairly well. 

Sharada lived with her maternal aunt. There appears to be no mention of her parents. Sharada was a native Bengali speaker and behaved in the manner of an orthodox married Bengali woman. She appeared somewhat shy and demure and in the initial stages anyway she did not recognize Uttara’s parents, her siblings, or any of her friends.

It was like she had stepped out of another time zone, and appeared to be oblivious to the changes that had occurred since her death.

In short there were two different personalities that inhabited the same body, each unaware of the other, at least at the start anyway.

Sharada was very forthcoming in the way and manner that she spoke, and freely divulged details pertaining to her life. She didn’t feel afraid at all and neither did she appear intimidated in any way.

Sharada was friendly, open and to some extent from what she had said, even eager to share her life with others around her.

A premonitory sign usually preceded the phases during which Sharada manifested. Uttara first had a sensation like that of ants crawling on the top of her head. A few hours later, she’d become Sharada.

There were also instances when Sharada would appear overnight i.e. Uttara would go to bed as Uttara and wake up as Sharada, and as soon as she woke up, she’d dress in Bengali fashion, wash her hair while bathing, and place a vermillion mark between the parting of her hair, like a married woman.

At the beginning, Sharada appeared distant towards Uttara’s parents and communicated with them only in gestures because she didn’t understand a word of Marathi, but she later managed to pick up some Marathi. She appeared to be very much alive.

Sharada had no knowledge of modern utensils or modern innovations and she didn’t have the slightest clue as to how to use many of the modern amenities that we take for granted, but she was amicable, friendly, willing to learn and communicative. She didn’t even know how to open a bottle of pickles (which is regarded as a standard item that is available in every Indian household).

She took no interest in any of the household chores and she didn’t do any housework and she spent almost all her time in activities relating to the worship of the Goddess Durga.

According to researchers the Sharada phase usually ended with an aarthi or homa - a Vedic type of worship that pays homage to the 5 elements i.e. earth, wind, water, fire and aether.

The Sharada phases usually lasted from a day up to 6 weeks. The median duration was approximately 2 days but the average duration, because of two long phases that lasted 41 and 43 days, was slightly over eight and a half days.

Despite initially being unaware of each other both Uttara and Sharada over time began to drop hints that they were growing accustomed to each other.

At first, Sharada’s parents did not notice a pattern in Sharada’s appearance but later they realized that her appearance coincided with the 8th day of the waxing or the waning moon.

In the Hindu calendar, these days are called Ashtami days and these days are particularly significant to the Goddess Durga. Ashtami days are devoted to the worship of the Goddess.

Maha Durga Ashtami is the most significant of all Ashtami days and it is the day, the Goddess Durga appeared in the form of Mahishasura Mardini to slay the buffalo headed Mahishasura.

Though Sharada’s appearance did not coincide with Ashtami all the time it happened consistently or frequently enough to form a trend or a pattern.

Sharada gave interviewers as much information as possible. For example, she wrote her husband’s name down as Swami Vishwanath Mukhopadhaya and wrote her father in-law’s name down as Nand Kishore Mukhopadhaya.

She gave details of how she had travelled from Burdwan (West Bengal) to Kalighat in Calcutta and how she had gone to Shivpur (Bangladesh) with her husband. From Shivpur she had gone to the Tara Devi Temple at Shikarpur (Bangladesh) by boat. She also told interviewers of her visit to the Hansheshwari Temple in Bansberia. All in all, Sharada was fairly religious.

She also mentioned that she’d had two miscarriages and that she had not given birth to any children. When she was 7 months pregnant with her 3rd child, a snake had bitten her on her toe while she was gathering some flowers and she fell unconscious. She was 22 at the time and died as a result.

Copyright © 2019 by Kathiresan Ramachanderam