Strenght of Women in Indian Novels Essay Example for Free

Strenght of Women in Indian Novels Essay India has been a country where males have dominated society and oppressed the fairer sex. Only recently have things changed and currently India has its first woman president. This domination has caused women to actually believe that they are indeed inferior to men. It is therefore not surprising to find women content with the subservient life they were forced to lead, like in Mulk Raj Anand’s ‘The Coolie’ where in Munoo’s village, his aunt â€Å"†¦had done the housework herself, untiringly uncomplainingly and quietly. But in stark contrast, to find women voicing their opinions, or acting against the norms of society does shock the average Indian because examples are few and far between. Interestingly therefore, I was surprised to find that out of nine Indian novels that I read I found women with strong characters in six. The strength of these women can be categorized into three distinct groups with two books under each subdivision. The first category would consist of women with strong will powers, the second would describe women who fought against society and the final category would comprise of women who committed homicide. The first example of undaunted will power is in Sharat Chandra’s ‘Queen’s Gambit’ aka ‘Chandranath’ where the daughter of a widow who eloped with a man is married to a rich village Brahmin, only for the villagers to oppose the union with the husband following suit. He refuses to eat from her â€Å"†¦filthy hands†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Despite being pregnant, the wife quietly walks away from her husband’s life and begins life afresh in the company of an old chess player. She gives birth to a baby boy whose father isn’t present for the first few years of his life. But the father returns and the wife not only forgives him for having deserted them but taunts him for his previous remark of eating her cooking â€Å"†¦will you eat rice from my hands? † She then goes back to the village to resume the life they once had. Similarly in the 2008 Booker Prize winning ‘White Tiger’ by Arvind Adiga we see Pinky Madam disgusted with life in India, and wanting to return to the life she once had in America. She perpetually complains to her husband telling him â€Å"†¦Why can’t we go back Ashoky? Look at this fucking traffic jam†¦Ã¢â‚¬  and â€Å"†¦You promised me, Ashoky, we’ll be in Dehli just three months and get some paperwork done and go back†¦Ã¢â‚¬  But her husband has come to stay in India for good, and when one night in a drunken stupor she runs over a child on the road, a change begins in her. She feels guilty and even more so, when the husband and the brother in law decide to charge the driver with the crime. Nonetheless, some miracle saves the driver but Pinky madam isn’t satisfied and feels guilty for her crime, she wants to compensate the family despite the opposition from everyone else in the household. When denied this opportunity she takes matters into her own hands. She commands the driver in the middle of the night â€Å"†¦Ã¢â‚¬ËœYou’re going to drive me’†¦ she got out at the airport – then slammed the door and left†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Thus she chooses to renounce her rich and luxurious life and divorce her husband because she feels she has wronged society. But in our next category, it is society that is doing wrong to a history professor. In Gita Hariharan’s ‘In Times of Siege’, a writer of history books, Shiv, touches a sensitive issue when seemingly demeaning the image of Basava a Hindu poet who was regarded widely as a divine figure. Fundamentalists storm protests against the helpless man and even ransack his office. His sole helper in his time of siege is the daughter of a family friend, Meena, who has broken a foot and is living with him, while his wife, Rekha, is away. Meena is dynamic despite her handicap and with the help of her friends’ looks to combat the fundamentalists by distributing pamphlets and organizing rallies, which she hopes will help to exonerate Shiv. Her courage is a mismatch when compared to Shiv’s who seems lost without her and depends on her like the crutches she uses to walk about. â€Å"†¦ Her face glows in the smoky room, almost like an avenging angel’s. Shiv finds himself drawn in†¦Ã¢â‚¬ . They even share a romantic moment: â€Å"†¦Meena, the very heart of things. Meena, a sweet and disturbing mixture of irony and inexperience. Meena, whom he has just about touched; who transformed him, for all of fifteen minutes one evening, to a simple organism†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Finally as the days pass the event is forgotten and the dark cloud of attention lifts from Shiv without any serious consequence. Though in the last case no serious consequence ensues from the action, in Matampu Kunjukuttan’s ‘Outcaste’ the whole race of Namboodiri Brahmins are made to pay for their way of life, which permits illicit liaisons in the case of men, while women found guilty of this crime are ex-communicated. The birth of a girl in the â€Å"†¦Thazhath House†¦Ã¢â‚¬  begins what Chematiri Otikkan, a reputed astrologer and priest, calls the â€Å"†¦Kali Yuga†¦Ã¢â‚¬  or the destruction of their kind. Even though he foresees the havoc this girl will bring about on their sect, Chematiri agrees to educate the child. A beautiful Naboodiri Brahmin by birth she learns everything her master has to teach till she comes of age. She is then married to man whose elder brother is unmarried. At first to her horror on her wedding night it is the elder brother who enters her chamber before the younger brother, who stands guard at the door, which is bolted from the outside. As soon as the elder brother touches her â€Å"†¦inner eye opened. The purpose of her birth was revealed to her in that moment. Her weariness vanished†¦The primal figure of the Mother Goddess in a graveyard, wearing a garland of skulls, gleefully sucking the blood trickling from the decapitated demon’s head, appeared in her mind’s vision†¦ In that instance the bridal chamber was transformed into a chamber of birth†¦ Paptikutty! The Goddess of Revenge! The personification of power, an incarnation born on hearing the clarion call of Time itself†¦Ã¢â‚¬  She then has affairs with a numerous important people and records all these experiences with proof and when she is produced in court she reveals all the details and gets many respected Brahmins whom she has seduced, ex-communicated. She is another Femme Fatale that one comes across so often in literature. Finally the last category is dedicated to the murderers, first in Shashi Deshpande’s ‘If I Die Today’ in a medical campus a cancer patient, Guru comes and shakes up the lives of a few families. At first he is looked upon as a friend who is about to die, but as the days pass a general hatred for the man seems to spread like a disease among the doctors. One night he is murdered, and while probing into his death, another innocent man, Tony, is murdered too. The author clearly describes the troubles in the relationship of each of the families and nobody knows who the killer can be, only that it is someone among them. The climax of the story reveals that the murderer is Vidya, the Dean’s sister who seems to have no motive to kill Guru. The only possible explanation given by the storyteller is that â€Å"†¦Remember the relationship between her and her brother. The Dean was four years older. He must have been a tremendous influence on her, right from their childhood days†¦She must have admired him and looked up to him. Let’s just say that and not get too Freudian Oh yes, its obvious now she couldn’t bear anyone to mean more to him than she did†¦Ã¢â‚¬  and â€Å"†¦there was Tony†¦ going about telling everyone he knew who it was†¦ and Tony was not ready to let her know so soon, either†¦ that was when Vidya decided to get rid of Tony before he got any closer†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Even more gruesome than these two win murders are the murders brought about by Queen Supalayat in Amitav Ghosh’s ‘The Glass Palace’. â€Å"†¦ Of all the princesses in the palace, Supalayat was by far the fiercest and most willful†¦ she†¦ fell headlong in love with h er husband, the King†¦ and†¦ in order to protect him from her family she stripped her mother of her powers and banished her to a corner of the palace†¦She then ordered the killing of every member of the Royal Family who might have ever been considered a threat to her husband.