The Dark Holds No Terror

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Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high into

that heaven of freedom (Gitanjali)

is the plea, the prayer, the desire, the dream of the heart of every

mother / wife / daughter of this country. Emancipation, equality, equity,

empowerment, is the longing that sprout in the very early childhoodstate.

The girl child, right from the beginning is tutored to be an old campaigner,

the picture that is imprinted in the tender hearts is that, women is less

valued than man or to be more contextual, a girl is less valued than a boy

or to be more accurate, a daughter is less valued than a son. The -girl is

made to think that being a slave to man is the mark of chastity. The

thought that is strongly injected is that women are by nature weak and have

been created to be constantly under the care and control of men. The rule

of the thumb is that, woman has to play a subservient role. The problems

of an Indian woman/wife are not teething problems, to be taken for

granted. Diana Spearman, “It is true that the circumstances of all human

lives are social in the sense that they are within society and are the result of

relations with other human beings.” (1966:103)

The words of Diana Spearman find relevance with Shashi

Deshpande’s novels. The characters, the incidents, the emotional display,

the traumatic experiences, the complex problems that one comes across the
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novels are not unfamiliar to the reader of this>day. "Shashi Deshpande’s first

novel The Dark Holds No Terror., published in 1980, talks about the

callous treatment that a woman encounters from the infant state, in a

society built on patriarchal system. Even in the 21st century woman, though

has access to education, profession is, still, a victim. Quite frequently,

arises the question, are women * equal before law as noted in the

constitution of India. According to Millet.....

In modem times patriarchy is upheld chiefly by attitudes

rather than political or economic structure. This patriarchy is

so deeply ingrained into , our thinking that the character

structure it creates in both the sexes is more a habit of mind

and a way of life than a political system. (1972:60)

It is popularly talked of and believed that, God, as He cannot be

everywhere has created mother. Mother is god’s image on the earth. She is

designed to enjoy a revered position. Her love is considered as the nearest

to the unconditional love of god. Her love is very essential, in the making

up a complete personality of a child.

In India, the traditional patriarchal system is the real pest which

snubs the foil blossom of a girl child. The arrival of a son, in this setup,
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creates an occasion for gala celebrations. The birth of a girl, from the same

womb, from the same combination of the sperm and ovum of the same

source, is the other way round. Who is -to be "blamed? Who is to be

punished? How far is it fair for any thinking brain to allow such disgusting

circumstances? Should not the benevolence of the mother be extended to

one and all, impartially? Mother influences the child in many a way. She is

a buttress to her children. It’s the mother who is the first and the best

friend, guide, philosopher to a child. Mother’s love gives the confidence to

face the emotional crisis and psychological -chaos. A girl, especially, is in

need of a friendly image. If she misses the initial love and care, it would

really be a tough time to face the reeling realities. Fear, hatred, contempt,

automatically, would creep in, to master over her life. Eric Fromm in his

study uses Biblical symbols of ‘milk and honey” to express the pervasive

nature of mother’s love. He puts it in the following lines.....

Milk is the symbol of the first speech of love, that of care and

affirmation. Honey symbolizes the sweetness of life, the love

for it and the happiness in begin alive. Most mothers are

capable of giving milk but only a minority of giving honey

too. In order to be able to give honey a mother must not only

be a good mother but a happy mother.....and this is not

achieved by many (1994:03)

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It'seeras mother’s in India are helpless. They have to live up to the

dictates of their men. The entire novel, The Dark Holds No Terror holds a

mirror to all the above said facts. The novel represents the patriarchal setup

that India is blighted with. The writer dares to speak on many relationships

and the prime importance is given to the mother- daughter relationship. It

appears to be a sickening relationship. Saroja, fondly addressed Saru, is the

protagonist of this novel."She is cornered right from the beginning of her

childhood. The first bom, the fruit of their prime love, the once adored

Laxmi, the goddess of wealth, is deliberately neglected for the one and

only reason, being ‘she’. Dhruva, her brother is an apple of the eye to her

parents. According to Sarbjit Sandhu.....

The mother is attracted to her son. Her attitude is typical one,

after all, he is male child and therefore one who will

propagate the family lineage. In another sense, the male child

is considered more important than a girl, because he is

qualified to give agni to his dead parents. The soul of the dead

person would otherwise wander in infernal. (1991:20)

Who is qualified to speak about agni? Or the life after death? Are

the scriptural texts written by men, authentic? Isn’t it foolishness to make a

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hell of this for the heaven, unknown? Isn’t the matter concerned with the

mind?

The mind in its own place and in itself can make a hell a

heaven, a heaven a hell, paradise Lost - Book 1)

The Dark Holds No Terror speaks volumes about mother’s

pernicious, unforgiving, unfavourable, and unloving nature that plays with

the life of the daughter......1Sara. The Indian mothers when coming to tutor

their girl child, without second thoughts, resorts to the traditional

procedure. R.K. Narayan’s, Mr. Sampat show how a girl child, when

grows to be a woman, is cautioned in a way in which....

Her life is reduced to mere approved behaviour in the midst of

her father, mother, grandmother and uncles and later in life,

parents-in-laws, husband and so on and on endlessly, till one

had no opportunity to think of one’s own views on any matter..

(1949:1-23-124).

Sara is instructed thoroughly by her mother about her dress,

appearance, even in the presence of her father. It all looks like a girl is

designed for a robot type of living. Shaw says that “home is the girl’s
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prison and the woman’s workshop” (Penguin Dictionary: 358). The mother

of Sara, unhesitatingly stoops to strike on her ego, when her mother’s,

don’t do this, don’t do that, are not given due attention, “You will never be

good looking. You are too dark for that.” (86) (The lines from die text hereafter

shall be mentioned with the page numbers)

Even in the 21st century, one -can trace ‘the fair complexion’

obsession, especially to girls nearing marriage. All marriage bureaus have

a special column for this aspect in the bride’s profile. Saru’s initial

experiences are compiled of insecurity and inferiority. The treatment at

home, the attitude of the mother and non-interfering nature of the father

made her think of herself as, “Redundant, the unwanted, an appendage one

could do without. It was impossible for anyone to want me, love me, need

me.” (86)

Resentment wells her heart, anger and frustration choke her to the

extent that she turns reckless, adamant and hates her mother.

Don’t go out in the sun. You’ll get even darker / Who cares? /

We have to care if you don’t. We have to get you married /1

don’t want to get married / Will you live with us for all your
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life? / Why not? / You can’t? / And Dhruva? / He is different.

He is a boy. (40)

This discriminating nature, the outright denial of owning, tears her

little heart. The biggest disease of today is the feeling of being unwanted.

Even the father, does not come to her rescue. This is the vicious strength of

patriarchal tradition. All these have an indelible mark on her tender soul,

“He (father) never took interest in my school or college. He left it to her.

And she really never cared. Not after Dhruva’s death. I just didn’t exist for

her. I died long before I left home.” (27)

What heart cannot feel the suffocation this little darling has

experienced? When Dhruva dies by drowning, quite accidentally, the

mother so, rude to blame, yells. “Why didn’t you die? Why are you alive

and he dead”. (34).

Girls, like any other human beings, need emotion, communication

and love. Saru represents, many a girl child in India. They are always

neglected, rejected, ignored, disgraced, and disowned in favour of the male

child. What sin did a daughter commit? Is it her fault to be bom, a girl?

Isn’t it foolish to follow blindly any practice simply because great people

had recommended it thousand years ago.

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Simon <le Beauvoir says that love for woman is religion: She desires

her lover to represents the essence of manhood: “She writes.....

the act of love requires of woman profound'self abandonment,

she bathes in passive danger: with closed-eyes, anonymous,

lost, she feels as if borne by waves, swept away in storm,

shrouded in darkness darkness of fles, of the womb, of the

grave. Annihilated she becomes one with the whole, her ego

is abolished. Her body is no longer an object: it is a hymn, a

flame. (1949:234)

Women always put love before anything else in their life and they

measure success and self-worth by the strength of their relationship.

Ongoing research proves that emotions play a vital role to buffer against

things that leads to stress and further to illness. The bad relationship that

the child has with one or both the parents will surely face a trouble and so

they seek an intimate, loving relationship as an adult which will help in

bringing emotional safety and can see off those effects of parental

deprivation.

For a woman, as for a man, the need for self-fulfilment.....

autonomy, self-realisation, independence, individuality, self-

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actualisation.....is as important as the sexual -need, which has

serious consequences^ when it is thwarted. Women’s sexual

problems are, in this sense, by-products of the suppression of

her basic need to grow and fulfil her potentialities as a human

being, potentialities which the mystique of feminine

fulfilment ignores. (Betty Freiden: 1971:282)

This exactly happened to ISani. Denial of love and sickening

approach has given the courage to seek cupid in the guise of Manohar. She

is inextricably unbelievable, when she hears, cupid’s sweet voice.... I wake

up to you..... I know why I was bom and why I’m alive (65).

Manohar comes to quench her quest for fatherly protective,

caressing love, assuring her to lead into a happy healthy future. One can

feel what heart pines for, is best said by Allan + Barbara Pease.....

evolutionary biologists and evolutionary psychologists who

study human being strategies have found that women

everywhere generally- agree on the important characteristics

they want in men. Here are the top five things women say

they want from men.... (1) love (2) faithfulness (3) kindness

(4) commitment (5) education and intelligence. (2010:58)

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Sara, having found all the 'five in Manohar, reciprocates his love.

Marriage opened doors of the eleventh heaven of happiness, for Sara. His

arrival into her life is like an oasis in the desert. The physical tie-up, the

emotional harmony with Manohar, happened to be a delight beyond

expression for it is, a dream come true....

I was female and dreamt of being adored and chosen of a

superior superhuman male. That was glory enough.... to be

chosen by that wonderful man. I saw myself humbly adoring,

worshiping and being given his father-lover kind of love that

was protective, condescending, yet all encompassing and

satisfying. (43)

The thought that she, an appendage, a redundant, could mean so

much, to a person is incomprehensible for her. It is an unexpected boon.

The cup of Sara’s heart over flows with inexplicable joy at the

unbelievable response of love from the most desired person, Manohar. The

knowledge that, the much awaited time has come for her to move away

from her parental house, doubles her joy. S. P. Swain rightly observes.....

she marries to attain autonomy of the self and to secure the

lost love in her parental home. Manu is her saviour, the ideal
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romantic hero, who rescues her from her insecure, wooden

existence in her maternal home. Her marriage with Manu is an

assertion and affirmation of her feminine '“sensibility.

(1995:35-36)

At last she is at peace with herself. ISaru is so excited and

overwhelmed that she is the fortunate off the few to be blessed with a

wonderful husband, who provides all that a woman’s heart longs for. She

in return, in the true sense of ‘love’, willingly and unhesitatingly offers

herself to be his, in toto.

all the cliches, I discovered, were true, kisses were soft and

unbearably sweet embraces hard and passionate hands

caressing and tender, loving as well as being loved with an

intense joy. It was as if little nerve ends of pleasure has

sprung all over my body I was insatiable, not for sex but for

love. Each act of sex was a triumphant assertion of our love of

my being loved. Of my being wanted. (40)

Shashi Deshpande presents through the choice of the words, what

exactly a woman longs.... true, caressing, tender, loving of being loved, of

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being wanted etc. this sense of belonging is enough for a woman-to be

happy and-grow in life. Ann Landers says that.....

All married couples should learn the art of battle as they

should leam the art-of making love. Good battle is objective

and honest.... never vicious or cruel. Good battle is healthy

and constructive and brings to a marriage the principle of

equal partnership.

Even while enjoying the taste of the real love, the bitter memories of

her childhood haunt her, for the entire memory is blurred with cheerless

reminiscences. She goes through a whammy of excitement and fear. She is

ever subjected to the fear of losing this, much wanted love. Alas! What an

insecure life, “The secret fear that behind each loving word behind each

kiss, lay the enemy, the snake, the monster of rejection. Sometime,

someday the truth will out and I will know I was never loved.” (40)

Though elated by marriage, a girl would feel terribly painful to leave

her parents. It is wildly accepted that, east or west/home is the best/even

though it is a mess. But for Sara, this home is never a nest off love because

she is treated as a real pest. Unlike, any other girl, Sara is least bothered or
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worried-to. leave her parental home. To Manohar, who is trying to console

her, she says

have you seen a baby being bom? Do you know Manu how

- easy it is to eut the umbilical eord and separate the baby'from

the mother? Litigate cut and it’s done. There’s scarcely any

bleeding either. It is as if nature knows the child must be

detached from the parent. No Manu, for me there will be no

trauma, no bleeding. (40)

The lines speak ample about the affliction she went through at a

place where she has to gain and grow in love, compassion and

companionship. How excellently does Shakespeare says ‘The course of

true love never did run smooth’. Sam is a doctor and Manohar is a lecturer.

Gradually, Sam, by dint of her merit grows to be a bigwig and was

observed of all observes. All is fine, till a question came, like a bolt from

the blue, from an interviewer, “How does it feel when your wife earns not

only the butter but the bread as well?” (200).

Things were the same for Sam but not so with Manohar. The male

ego couldn’t digest his wife’s progress. He couldn’t dare spell out his

thoughts’ Inferior complex creeps into his heart. He is a coward at heart.

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All of a sudden, he retreats into the patriarchal shell, thus once again

proving what Ramamoorthi says, “Marriage, the promised end in a

traditional society becomes only another enclosure that restricts the

movements towards autonomy and self-realisation.” (1980:41).

The entire problem started with just a single question from an

outsider, an interviewer. Is the question so impossible to take? Why can’t a

man feel it’s a feather in his cap to possess a wife who earns along with

him for the family and also yearns for his love? Nay, the Indian tradition

can never provide provision for such dream. In reality it reserves only the

subservient role for the wife, who is addressed or introduced as better half,

ardhangi or sahadharmacharini etc.

You must pretend that you’re not as smart as you really or not

as competent as you are, not a rational as you are not so

strong either. You can nag, complain henpeck, whine, moan

but you can never be strong. That’s wrong which will never

be forgiven. (124).

Shashi Deshpande through Sam, exhibits the reflection of the

tradition implanted in the heads and hearts of our men. They can never
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accept a woman who is superior foTiim in any area of life. He just loves to

have subordinate, an inferior, this alone can promote his peace.

Don’t over try to -reverse the doctor-nurse, executive-

secretary, principal-teacher role. It can be traumatic,

disastrous. And I assure you, it isn’t worth it. He’ll suffer you

will suffer and so the children. Women magazines will tell

you that marriage should be an equal parentship. That’s

nonsense. Rubbish. No partnership -can ever be equal. It wall

always be unequal but take care that it’s unequal in favour of

your husband. If the scales tilt in your favour, god helps you,

both of you that’s important, important because it’s the

symbolic of truth. A wife always be a few feet behind her

husband...if he is earning five hundred rupees you should

never earn more than four hundred and ninety nine rupees.

That’s the only rule to follow if you want a happy marriage.

(137-38).

The green-eyed monster takes over him. The rise in the purse and

popularity of Sara, pulls Manohar down to an insecure position. Every

word demonstrates the gender biased society. Man can and will never

entertain the idea of his wife being superior to him. Isn’t this factor
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encouraged by the patriarchal culture that is hailed and welcomed by men?

Aren’t there women, who proved to be in par with men? Yet, the-ego of

man will never allow such a progress. He just needs a helping mate,

fulfilling his physical materialistic and spiritual needs, “It was there it

began this terrible thing that has destroyed our marriage.....and so

esteem with which I was surrounded made me inches taller, made him

inches shorter.” (42).

The feeling that, now, he is a has-been, turns him to a sadist. He

stoops to sexual aggression. "Sexual aggression is defined as one person

pushing his sexual urges on to another without permission, “While a

murderer destroys the physical frame of the victim, a rapist degrades and

defies the soul of a helpless.” (Justice Aqit Prassaya).

Dr. David buss listed 147 upsetting actions related to sex and found

that women related sexual aggression is the worst possible act a man could

perform in a relationship. Usually sex is the vital part of love, whereas in

Saru’s case, it turns into a means of estrangement. Sam’s recollection of

the nightmare, “he attacked me that night, I was sleeping and I woke up

and then this.... this man hurting me with his hands, his teeth, his whole

body.” (201)
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Manohar like any other Indian husband Teels that wife - is his

property and hence has right to exercise his power over her. The tradition,

the society has empowered man to take possession of his wife. Agnes

Flaviasays that.....

It is socially acceptable that within the family man is the

master and woman is the inferior and the subordinate partner.

Social pressure force women to maintain this status quo. A

women who does not accept the traditional role of

submissiveness and subordination need to be advised or

tamed into accepting this position any means including

violence is justified in achieving the goal. (1993:103)

The woman is silenced. The act of imposing himself on her, without

her consent amounts to legalised rape. The motive behind this inhuman

action is best put in the words of Helen Benedict. “I prefer to characterize

rape simply as a form of torture. Like the torture, the rapist is motivated by

the urge to dominate, humiliate and destroy his victim. Like torturer, he

does so by using the most intimate acts available to humans....sexual

ones.” (Web quote garden)

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Manohar, at nights, is hare brained and in the morning he keeps his

hair on. The puzzling point of the entire episode is, Manohar displays no

sign of his awareness of the monstrous behaviour in the nights, while her

bruised body is witnessing his inhuman nature. This split character of

Manohar drives Sara crazy, “Was it possible for a man to dissemble so

much? The violent stranger of the night and now, this. Am I crazy or he?

Can man be so divided in himself?” (99).

Sara, quickly realizes the cause of the problem and decide to quit the

profession for the love of her dear family. Isn’t this enough to prove her

love for Manohar, her husband? No man can ever understand the real love

of the Indian women/wife. His secret, invisible, unacknowledged strength

is ‘she’. Her first priority, ever since creation, is the family. Sara,

unfaltering, spells out her decision, “I want to stop working. I want to give

it all up my practice, the hospital, everything.” (79).

On hearing this, Manohar is at his wit’s end. His instantaneous

reaction is.... ‘you are joking’. To give up her profession is talking the gift

of the ginger bread that comes from her extra income as it will be difficult

to make both ends to meet. Manohar is not prepared for that.

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Can you bear to send the'children to a third rate school? To

save and snape and still have nothing after the 'first few days

of the month? No saru, there can never be going'back. We

have to go on. (81)

Their relation, their existence, all -seemed to Saru, a need based

hypothetical complacency. Her expectations, her vision are all shattered

and collapse like a castle of cards. ‘Love’, this day, for her, “is only

word.... take away the word, the idea and the concept will wither away.”

(72).

She once again is disappointed and deserted. The sexual assaults are

so unbearable for both the mind and the body that she broods, about

divorce but the mother in her, entertains, second thoughts regarding this

idea. It’s the umbilical cord, which pulls back from deserting her children.

What women should be? Sir consult the tastes of marriageable

men. This planets store in iron, cotton, wool or

chemicals....all matter rendered to our plastic skills, is

wrought in response to demand the market’s pulse makes

index high or low by rule sublime: our daughters must be

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wives and to be wives what men will choose: menVtaste is

woman’s'test. .(Daniel Deroda :144)

Manohar’s professional jealousy takes vengeance on Saru through

his beastly love. The horror of rape, the destruction of the spirit has made

her to walk off her house bald-headed. With a decision to fight her

adversities with the back to the wall, she moves out. The agony is so

terrible that it looks like he raped her mind too. “I can’t, I won’t endure

this anymore. I’d rather die I can’t go on.” (98).

i

She moves to her father’s home, after the death of her mother. Back

in her father’s home, free of these terrible haunting, she enjoys a cool

comfortable sleep in her cosy bed, “To sleep peacefully, the night through.

To wake up without pain. To go through tomorrow without apprehension.

Not to think, not dream. Just to live.” (27).

Every word, in the above lines speaks about her tormented self.

Which heart cannot catch the glimpse of the body and the panic soul of

hers. Keeping aside everything, her family, her career, her reputation, she

comes in search of peace, peaceful sleep, a hopeful tomorrow which

promises nothing more than just ‘live’. Back home with no mother, no
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nagging, no. haunting, no nightmares, shegoes into introspection. Seema

Jera Opines

The technique of withdrawal becomes a means by which a

woman discovers her personalities and digs up her hidden

potential and learns not to repress her talents. (1992:10)

Her feelings of her loneliness and emptiness, her lessons of failures

and frustrations her longing for love, possessiveness, her psychological and

traumatic upsets all lead to philosophical reflection.....

To be alone? Never a stretching hand? Never a comforting

touch? Is it all fraud then, the eternal cry of.....my husband.

My wife, my children, my parents? Are all human

relationships doomed to be a failure, any attempt to reach out

to another human being? Had she been chasing a chimera all

her life: hoping for someone? (176).

The heart of Sara longs a patient hearing, strengthening words,

protective love, helping hand to recoup and face the inevitable tomorrow.

Her entire self seems crying.... “I fall on the thorns of life I bleed”.

(Shelley Ode To The West Wind).

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In the father’s presence, she becomes like a child. With a-childlike

innocence, she compels him to listen to her, however much, it is indecent

for a father to hear. Dad protests but 'Saru insists. There is-every need for

her to open up, speak aloud of her, bruises.

the ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from

consciousness.....certain violations of the social compact are

too terrible to utter aloud! this is the meaning of the word

‘unspeakable’.... atrocities telling the truth about terrible

events are prerequisites for the restoration of the social order

and the healing of individual victims....when the truth is

finally recognised, survivors can begin their recovery. But

too far . often secrecy prevails and the story of the traumatic

event surfaces not as a verbal but as a symptom. (Judith Lewis

Herman: 1992:01)

The result of sharing gives Sara such relief and moral strength that it

makes one understand the gift in the art of sharing. Initially, it may be a

problem but it has a remedial effect.

words seemed to make it Visible, but, speaking even when it

embarrassed me also. Slowly freed me from the shame I felt.

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The more Tstraggled to‘speak, the less power the rape and its

aftermath, seemed to have over me. r(Nancy Raina 1998:02).

After a sound counselling, lot of introspection, Sara compromises to

go bade home and continue the battle of life, with a positive attitude. She is

well equipped with the tips that need to make life going. Shashi Deshpande

feels that.....

Rebellion in a domestic context as walking out of a marriage

is often erroneously construed as being a liberating process.

"Shashi Deshpande believed such an action to be self-

defeating, since walking away from a relationship meant

carrying the old self, unchanged and unrefleexive with

oneself. (2003:158-159)

The veil of the darkness of ignorance, the darkness of silence, the

darkness of terror, tares giving way to the light of the truth and the truth of

life.

But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is

to risk nothing. The person, who risks nothing, does nothing,

has nothing, and is nothing. They may avoid suffering and

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sorrow, but they cannot learn, feel, change, .grow love, or live.

Chained by their attitudes they are slaves. They have forfeited

their freedom. Only a person who risks is free. (Shivkhera:

1998:84).

Sara is a typical Indian woman, whose roots are forever rooted in

the age old tradition. She is like any of the woman portrayed by D.H.

Lawrence. He wrote, “She would not easily turn to the cold white light of

feminine independence: she would hunger, hunger all her life for warmth

and shelter of true male strength.” (1977:228).

Another facet of marital relation, where you find, just, a master slave

relation, is referred, in the novel. This is seen in the incident where

Manohar and saru are invited for tea. The host, the man, never bothers to

introduce his wife to the guests. The writer takes due care in presenting the

picture of many a home. The woman comes in.....

with trays of food, cups of tea and glasses of water. She came

in silently, unobtrusively, like the shadow and went out in the

same way..... (as if she is) a nameless waiter in the hotel who

got food for them. She had fallen in with her husband’s

desires and successfully effaced the person that was her. (158)
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Economic independence and independent identity are the two things

an Indian woman should not dream of. In our Indian traditional

background woman is expected to behave in-accordance to the whims and

fancies Of her man. The Indian wife is expected to erase her true self and

rewrite herself according to ;the tastes of her husband. Marriage is

honourable in all honourable to whom? The master enjoys the honour, for,

where can he get a better servant than a woman in the name of wife,

through the institution of marriage. Who is more fortunate than a man who

secures a servant performing all in all duties?

Karyeshu Daasi, Karaneshu Mantri Bojyeshu Mataha, Seyaneshu

Ramba, the lines mean.....A servant to work, a minister to advice, mother

at the dinning table and bitch in the bed. Men forget that courtesy is the

hall mark of gentleness. Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.

Rudeness wins respect without love, work without devotion and sex

without feeling. Shashi Deshpande provides another picture of an Indian

wife. Saru, Nalu and Smitha are friends. Smitha, of the three, puts an

impression of, successful and happy wife. But truth cannot hide for long.

Smitha borrows money from Saru without the knowledge of her husband.

She has come to her home town to attend her nephew’s thread ceremony

but has not got enough money to buy a gift of her choice to her dear ones.
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He doesn’t understand these things. He takes it for -granted.

I’m welcomed here. Now if I tell him I’ve bought a sari as a

gift, he will be furious, (with an air of pride she tells) last time

I made some dresses for the girls and he never realised it.

(119).

Is she free? Is she happy? Is she content? These factors are not to be

questioned. Not ever to be analyzed either by the man/parents/ society.

What life is here. If not Sugar coated lives!

God, when will you create a woman who will be filled in

herself, a frill human being, not anybody’s appendage.... the

men take it look as if aspire for children (boys) or

die..... because! failed to live up to die standard expected of

me by the males, of my life, my father, my husband.... now I

have to include my sons. But who made the law. We women

subscribe to the law more than anyone. Until we change, this

is still a man’s world which women will always help to build.

(K.C. Barlal: 23).

When? will there be a remedy for these women who were created to

be in par with man? Shashi Deshpande does not leave either her
 1-21

protagonists or her reader in the vortex of dilemma. She does not leave

them to fate or to draw their own-conclusions. She does not teach them-to

take the track of the westerns. Prem Nanda Kumar.....

Shashi’s women are conscious of their predicament they are

victims of inequity; they are creatures of conventional

morality; they are one’s who are unfairly abused, misused,

and ill used. But they believe in conformity and compromise.

For the sake of retention of domestic harmony rather than

revolt which result in the disruption of familial eoncord.

(1989:27).

The author tells that escapism is no answer for a victorious life.

Hence comes the piece of advice, a word of strength, a ray of hope. It is

wise to hear B. C. Forbes, “History has demonstrated that the most notable

winners usually encountered heart breaking before they triumphed. They

won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.”

(1998.50-51).

Shashi Deshpande mirrors a truth which is often encountered by

people of all walks of life, all over the world for this very reason, the novel
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comes closer to the hearts-of its-readers. it deserves all praises. It is

contextual to quote, Im Waldgut.....

The woman does everything in her power to assert herself to

"find her own way. Success in this endeavour is not as

important ns the path pressured and the struggle undertaken.

The book is excellently structured, accurately and vividly

presented. It creates a woman’s story, that is gripping, that

calls out for solidarity- because it would be a rare woman,

who is not familiar with such an experience. Regardless of

whether the story is played out in India or Europe, the issues

is international and critical. (1989:143).

Family is more a relationships, an emotional bond, a normative

structure where everyone is assigned with rights and duties. Yet, we find

men neglecting duties and depriving women of their rights. What Hansa

Mehta asked in the constituent assembly in 1946, the women of 2011, ask

the same, “we have never asked for privileges.....we have asked for that

equality which can alone be the basis of mutual respect and understanding

and without which real co-operation is not possible between man and

woman.” (Hansa Mehta)

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