The Homemaker

By

ROHIT M
201601425
HM-320
 I think ‘The Homemaker’ is a satire on the institution of
marriage, as well as on the social mores of 1940s. In India, marriage remains an
essential step of any individual’s life, especially a woman. Very few women remain
single and those who do, are looked at with suspicious raised eyebrows. ‘The
Homemaker’ questions the notion of marriage being the prerequisite to
womanhood.

‘The Homemaker’ is a story about Lajjo, an orphan who comes

of age to realize that her biggest asset is her body. She is a woman of precise
pleasures. She solicits her body for money, sometimes for cash, sometimes on
credit and other times on charity. She likes sex and makes no qualms about it.
She works as a maid servant, serving food in the dining room and serving her
master in the bedroom. She is a woman of ill-repute but is at the same time
incredibly desirable to the men.

As she had grown up on the streets, she doesn’t think much of

social status and hierarchy. She does not distinguish between the neighbourhood,
milkman and the rich merchant or the boy next door – Lajjo’s smiles are for all. I
felt that her relationships are open-ended. In the hour of love, she holds back
nothing from the man with a big purse or from the man with none.

This story narrates how Lajjo comes to work in a strait-laced

bachelor, Mirza’s house and charms him with her coquetry. I think Mirza’s
dilemma is solved, when one night Lajjo herself grabs him and seduces him
thoroughly. His fondness for her breeds insecurity and he soon proposes
marriage. Lajjo begs and pleads him to change his mind but Mirza stays firm.
Once they get married the inevitable happens.I had this thought hwile reading
regarding their marriage that after marriage, Mirza will change her or something
that sort of. But he started losing his interest in her and Lajjo, who breeds a
healthy appetite for sex finds a replacement. When Mirza finds out, all hell breaks
loose. He beats her black and blue and turns her out. Divorced, Lajjo is out on the
streets again. In the end they both realize that they need each other and the
arrangement they had was best when left untouched by marriage. After reading
this, I thought that marriage is a tool to control female sexual desire in a
patriarchal world and even people Lajjo felt relived when this burden is off her
head.

Though her character in the story is submissive she has tongue

which is razor sharp. She is bold, frank, outspoken and in touch with her sexuality.
I felt that she understands her physical needs as basic human needs without

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getting caught up in the complicated notions of modesty and morality. She had a
very large-hearted concept of the man-woman relationship. For her, love was the
most beautiful experience in life. After attaining a certain age, she was initiated
into it and since then her interest had only grown.”

Lajjo certainly is desired by all. But she falls in love with Mirza, the
elderly bachelor and neighbourhood grocer in whose house she is the live-in
maid. In a strange sort of way, his loneliness, his diffidence, and even his proposal
of marriage appeals to her – though she does not understand it and finds it
unnecessary.

But I never found Mirza treating her like dirt. Lajjo’s former masters,
once they became her lovers, took it for granted that she was not to be paid for
sexual favours. They even farmed her out to other men. Mirza alone considers her
his own. He considers her worth keeping.

Through the questioning of the institution of marriage by the principal

character, Chughtai delivered a strong message about how fidelity is possible
without marriage. But they both are, in fact, happier after divorce.