134

Chapter 4
A Study of Custody, “The Necklace” and “Chocolate”

Nature, no doubt, has ascribed different anatomy to man and woman but the
discrimination between these two human forms is not nature‘s creation but man made.
Man accords woman a secondary status and assigns her the role according to his own
whims and fancies. Women, generally, play two types of roles: conventional or
unconventional and surprisingly they suffer in both the condition. The unconventional
woman suffers from not only her violation of accepted norms of society but also from
even questioning them. She suffers unless she accepts the wisdom of traditional ways
whereas conventional woman suffers due to patriarchal set up. A woman, particularly
Indian, does not bother about her personal happiness. She is always assumed to make
others happy. Manju Kapur raises her voice against the issue of male bias. Custody is
Manju Kapur‘s effort to draw the new face of woman in age-old traditional society.
She brings a new woman who is self-independent enough to challenge years-old
plight and traditional bondage.

Manju Kapur is one of those rare writers whose heroines succeed in

maintaining a complete balance in life by asserting their individualism and throwing
off the shackles of social bondages. Custody deals with the issue of marriage crippled
by a socially unacceptable romance upon which the concept of individualism has been
raised. Custody mirrors the reality of modern society. It also discusses, at far,
dissolution in marriage. Manju Kapur professes the characteristics of sowing a deep
seed into the minds of married women they should not lay behind the apparently
charming curtains of marriage, they should rather move out and look for a life of their
own too. She is a feminist in the sense that she is intensely concerned with the issues
related to women. Sunita Sinha writes, ―Kapur‘s fiction stresses on the woman‘s need
for self-fulfilment, autonomy, self-realisation, independence, individuality and self-
actualization‖ (160).

In the traditional system of Indian society; more heed is paid to the rights of a
particular gender, so the privileged male becomes dominant. When a girl is married
135

and joins her in-laws family, she has to mould her lifestyle according to the family‘s
standard. Her sincere efforts to make herself part and parcel of the family rarely gets
due recognition and she is always treated like an outsider. Manju Kapur‘s novel
Custody is set up in India and divulges the suffering of a married woman- alienated
and underrated. Here in this novel there are two women protagonists: Shagun and
Ishita. Shagun, who is stunningly beautiful, is married to Raman, a corporate man. It
is a marriage in paradox of beauty and intellect; everything goes fine for a few years
of marriage. Discord raises its ugly hood when Raman becomes extremely busy with
his work and spends time mostly, on tours. Shagun feels lonely and prepares herself to
take care of her two children, single handedly. Their marriage was a kind of
agreement where criterion for the girl was beauty and for the boy a brilliant rather
successful career. But how two persons of different temperament could lead a happy
life? Meanwhile Shagun meets Ashok Khanna, Raman‘s boss, a corporate icon, who
is fascinated by her beauty.‖ In her colouring, her greenish eyes and her demeanour,
she was a perfect blend of East and West‖ (Custody 4).

Shagun, being fed up with the monotonous routine of life, is also enticed by
his sugarcoated words and sterling elegance and exceeds the limit spoiling the dignity
and sanctity of marriage and flouts its sacredness through sexual transgression. But
there is a conflict haunting her mind, body and soul. She worries about being caught:
―Guilt sees accusation everywhere, in the glance of a servant, the fretful cry of a child,
a stranger staring on the street, a driver‘s insolent tone‖ (Custody 1).

Manju Kapur‘s novel presents female suffering dualism, oblivious of

preference either for body or soul. She showcases how society relegates, woman to a
secondary social position assigning priority to her body over her mind. She always
tries to search for herself in the male-dominated world; her quest for self in the
family, society never comes to an end. L.Tiefer comments: ―What women need is not
to learn traditional morality according to official rules but to put forward women‘s
sexuality that has been contained by the patriarchy system in the past‖ (qtd. in
Saharan 67).
136

Manju Kapur portrays Shagun as a person who despite being a mother and a
wife does not confine herself to her home; she rather goes out for happiness. Shagun
is in dilemma whether to continue her relations with Ashok Khanna or save her
marriage. Raman‘s cardiac arrest demands her to fulfil the responsibility of a wife.
Despite this situation Shagun doesn‘t want to stay with Raman. She feels that their
relationship can no longer survive as false relationship is not her choice. She decides,
partially, not to spend her life with Raman any longer. Shagun‘s position reflects her
monotonous life where the society lays all the responsibilities on women. Shagun
doesn‘t accept these gender variations and is entrapped in dilemma. Imposed gender
role has made her life a hell and Shagun strives to wriggle out of this dilemma. To
show Shagun‘s indecisiveness, Manju Kapur says:

For Shagun every day was torture. Raman exuded reproach without
once looking directly at her. His illness put her in a false position, his
poor weak heart and clogged arteries cried out for assurances that
would mend the great jagged holes in their marriage. Could she love
him because he had almost died? She compromised by offering him
care with a warm but distant friendliness, conveying concern but little
intimacy. This satisfied no one, and made her feel like a hypocrite.
(Custody 103)

Manju Kapur considers the celebratory aspects of modern society, culture and
human behaviour. Shagun who is fed up with the family and her married life, uses her
sexuality as a tool to give her autonomy over her body after marriage. She objects to
the ever-dominating male scanner keeping surveillance on females as a specific
control mechanism of patriarchy. She presents the hollowness of the modern life.
Fascinated by Ashok‘s sweet words and a tempting life, Shagun decides to leave her
husband and children. When Raman refuses to give her either divorce or her kids, she
plans to fight for the custody of her children- eight year old Arjun and three year old
Roohi. She is ready to forego her status in society and forsake her married life. She
expresses fears about what her children will think of her when they grow up, but
Ashok brushes them aside telling her that a lot of change will take place in her
137

children‘s life. Ashok says: ―‗Traditional versus modern values, individual versus
society,‘ he elaborated, putting a contrite arm around her. ‗I just want to take you
away from here. This narrow social set up is all you know-that‘s why you are afraid.
But it will all be fine, fine‘ ‖ (Custody 84).

Shagun represents a modern woman, who craves and attains happiness at any
cost. Ishita on the other hand, is another woman who gets divorced by her husband as
she is not able to conceive. Ishita comes close to Raman and fights for the custody of
Raman‘s little daughter and is successful in doing so. Ishita is a person who comes out
to be more loving and caring even though Shagun gets what she wants. Like Manju
Kapur‘s other heroines Shagun becomes victim of illusion that marriage, by its very
nature, binds in fetters and leads, especially woman to the unknown realms of
sufferings. Shagun‘s plight is beyond words. She appears to be the happiest woman
on the earth after marriage but she is ―unhappier than she realized‖ (Custody 27).
Shagun‘s marriage remains the foremost objective for her mother as she strongly
opposes the career of model that Shagun desired to adopt. ―Do what you like after
marry‖ (Custody 11). Shagun‘s mother suggests her, but after marriage roles change
with increase in responsibilities. Shagun is raised with the notion of getting married
and is prepared and conditioned on a set pattern. Gender conflict is clearly visible
when every role is expected to be played well by Shagun i.e. of wife, mother and
many others. Shagun‘s plight as a sufferer after marriage is clear from these lines.
―She had been brought up to marry, to be wife, mother, and daughter-in-law, she
had never questioned this destiny, it was the one pursued by everyone she knew‖
(Custody 27).

Shagun wants to become a model but her dreams are crushed in the name of
marriage. She is entertained only by the family values. Her marriage, catering to
in-laws and later serving two children keeps her bound to her domestic
responsibilities. After marriage also she could not pursue her dreams. She is supposed
to be an incarnation of Goddess of sacrifice and love. Simone de Beauvoir in her ‗The
Second Sex‘ argues that society only permits women to be ―being-in-itself‖ an object,
while men are being for themselves. She states, ―Woman has always been man‘s
138

dependant, if not his slave; the two sexes have never shared the world in equality.
And even today woman is heavily handicapped, though her situation is beginning to
change‖ (100).

Manju Kapur‘s Custody presents the saga of a new woman who shuns and
sheds off all the inhibitions which she has been carrying from centuries. Now, women
challenge marginalization and inculcate in themselves the desire for independence, to
live life on their own terms. The female protagonists‘ struggle in novels of Manju
Kapur, especially highlights the conflict between tradition and modernity. Their
individuality forces them to break the confines of patriarchal society and step out of
the patriarchal cages, constructed for women. Both of the female protagonists Shagun
and Ishita are victims of society and the traditional bondages. Shagun rejects both the
constant servitude and the patriarchal surveillance mechanism. Manju Kapur shows
how Shagun loses her individual identity in ‗her stupid early marriage‘, seeks for the
lost ‗self‘ in her extramarital relations with Ashok. She reflects her character bravely
and then creates proper response intelligently: ―When she turns inwards where her life
was waiting to be examined, she blames Raman for her predicament, thinking of years
she had been satisfied with his lovemaking, tender, attentive, pedestrian, as so much
wasted time‖ (Custody 34-35).

Shagun defines her desire, choice and sexuality as she inspects, recognizes and
accepts. She thinks that her talent would not get acknowledged in Raman‘s company.
Ashok who believes that everyone should lead a free life, might give perfect direction
to her career and her desires. Shagun gives words to her free will and Ashok gives her
that liberty which she desires. She trusts Ashok who says: ―Diana followed her heart
and you must follow yours. Something else will emerge if only you let it. In Diana‘s
case she started saying she was the people‘s princess-you have to admire the
repackaging that went into that. We have only one life and everybody wants to live it
the best way they can‖ (Custody 85).

She does not yield to the regulations of the society, rather she displays her
strength to submerge problems and extracts relief and delight in her new relationship
with Ashok. She does not want to make any attempt to save her marriage so she
139

adopts a callous attitude towards her family, especially her husband. This indifferent
and changed attitude of Shagun sows the seeds of doubt in Raman‘s heart. Raman‘s
character is of a conventional father- a breadwinner, a head of family whose duty is to
raise funds for the maintenance of family. He reserves the privilege of warm reception
at home after work from his family especially his wife. His profession and occupation
is so important for him that his family is relegated to background. It seems as if he is
married to his job and company. He has no knowledge about his children‘s friends,
school and even their progress in school-academics, sports or co-curricular activities
above all, their health. Likewise, he does not know what his wife wants and how she
feels with him. Being conventional, Raman‘s parents do not object to his behaviour.
They conveniently assume that a woman‘s selfhood, status, respectability and
realization lie in her wifehood and motherhood. In such normative patriarchal family
that has its role model in great Indian epics, The Mahabharata and The Ramayana,
the household functions as a producing and reproducing unit: the husband produces
and moves out into the public sphere and the wife on her part, procreates and upbrings
the children at home, the private sphere. As Uma Chakravarti argues:

The domestic ideology out lined here encapsulates within itself codes
of duties and responsibilities. But the hierarchy of power and of
exclusion, keep it quite clear. The central figure in the structure of the
household is the young householder, a male, who inherits the land,
contracts a suitable marriage, delegates authority to the wife and buys
things for her. (258)

Manju Kapur places her protagonists in the context of the 1990s: their
respective families belong to the upper middle class of Delhi. It is the beginning of
globalization where Indian enterprises project their business across the country and
also abroad. Shagun is also married in such a family with commercial values and
where the man is to rise high even at the cost of woman‘s career and ambition where
as women, a wife‘s role is to support him in his career and family unconditionally.
Here, Raman notices the changed behaviour of Shagun. Such behaviour being
unpalatable to him, he starts keeping a vigilant eye on Shagun‘s activities. On the
140

other hand, Shagun‘s desire to exercise her sweet and free will results in frequent
episodes of quarrel between husband and wife. Shagun starts objecting to the way that
Raman goes on in life. This way she refuses to bear the imposed roles that arise out of
gender conflict she has been facing daily: ―I want something else in my life, can‘t you
understand that? We always meet the same people, talk about the same old things
over and over. It‘s boring‖ (Custody 47). Shagun‘s indifference and cold attitude
towards Raman assumes gigantic proportions of hatred when she learns about Raman,
hiring some detective to trace her undisclosed whereabouts and reasons for her lack of
interest in the family. It is Shagun who demands separation from Raman. Shagun‘s
choices are her own and she is determined to tread the chosen path, least bothered
about the social dogmas that will not accept the illegitimate relation. R.K.Tandon
says:

Any woman who has broken away from the tethering of normal
domestic life becomes liberal in her attitude to sexual freedom. She
realizes there cannot be different standards for man and for woman,
sexual freedom is more often approved by emancipated women
belonging to the progressive younger group, by woman unhappy in
marriage, sexually frustrated, widowed, or separated. (165)

Individualism sharpens and speeds up the efforts towards goals of

independence and self-reliance. Shagun conceives the idea of achieving equality with
her male counterpart i.e. her husband in the male dominated society and especially in
the institution of marriage. Ironically, Shagun fails to take into consideration the
anticipated plight of her two innocent children, despite that she cannot be disregarded
as an egoist. Generational differences can be observed well in Shagun and her
mother‘s views. Her mother considers that woman should be happy with her husband.
In her contrast Shagun‘s mother, as a true representative of a traditional society that
demands sacrifices to be made by woman, reminds her daughter: ―The house rests
upon us women. In your children‘s happiness, your husband‘s happiness lies your
own. Anything else is just temporary‖ (Custody 103).
141

While Shagun has totally different view point and she outrightly rejects her
mother‘s biased approach towards women. Shagun considers this ideology of her
mother as ―It was part of the Indian disease‖ (Custody 103). Shagun‘s act of sexual
violation celebrates the aspect of autonomy and brings forth the idea of new
womanhood who wants to fulfil aspirations. This new woman celebrates her idea of
self-assertion and living a fulfilled life. Shagun follows the dictates of her heart and
seeks divorce from Raman and desires to embark upon a new life with Ashok.
Shagun‘s sexuality is a kind of empowerment for her. As Shagun emerges out as a
new woman, she tries to fulfil dreams at the cost of her children‘s future. She goes
abroad and the divorce case is pending for decision. Shagun asks Raman to divorce
her; consequently the battle between the two takes a bitter turn. Their conversation
clearly depicts the new incarnation of woman when Shagun asks for divorce:

He held the phone tightly longing to wound.

‗Why ask?‘ It‘s already in the court.‘

‗I want one now.‘

‗I am not going to give you a damn thing unless custody is decided and
that too in my favour, if the children become too old and the issue
irrelevant, I will never free you. Never.‘

‗So take the children and give me a divorce.‘(Custody 240)

The failure of their marriage not only separates the two people but also
segregates the children from each other. Divorce of parents leaves a drastic imprint on
children‘s personality as Arjun could not develop interest in studies and Roohi also
nursed a sense of insecurity. Later on even as an infant, she is deprived of motherly
love. Manju Kapur draws attention to the fact that in Indian scenario, the delayed
legal battles appear as a scandal in society. Disastrous collateral effects of break up in
marriages can be seen in the kids who remain dangling between two homes, desires of
two people and bitter custody battle of their parents. Arifa Akbar takes it as a gender
based battle and remarks: ―Kapur addresses the gendered nature of custody battles in
142

India—men often refuse to grant divorce while women usually have greater claim to
the children—but she refuses to generalise or moralise‖ (n.p.).

Manju Kapur highlights the generational conflict between Shagun and her
mother‘s views. Her mother has internalized the subtleties of patriarchy finds Shagun
a sexually erring wife, who must be chastised and brought back into the orbit of
conventional social morality. Her mother considers the security issue and its
recognition in the society. She begs her not to bring shame to the family and be an
object of ridicule:

‗Beti‘, have you ever thought of the consequences of your actions?

Even if you don‘t care for Raman, for heaven‘s sake preserve some
appearances. You think all wives love their husbands but they stay
married. You are so idealistic. You don‘t think about the long term.
What about the society? What about your children? (Custody 79)

In this situation, the conflict between values of the traditional and modern time
can be observed well. She feels excited in Ashok Khanna‘s company and her boredom
seems to vanish. But her familial responsibilities tie her to Raman and her children.
She feels a kind of happiness in Ashoka‘s company which she has been missing for a
long time. Responsibility has been the only expectation of Raman in their entire
period of conjugal life with absolute denial to any kind of right or any acquisition of
her feeling. Shagun gives priority to a life of her choice and thinks: ―She sank down
next to him; she knew she would have to pay heavily for this happiness, but at least,
dear God, she would have a happiness she never had before, if she were to die
tomorrow, it would be as a fulfilled woman‖ (Custody 113).

Shagun and her mother have different opinions towards Raman. Shagun‘s
mother approves of all the qualities of a good husband in Raman but Shagun fails to
appreciate her mother‘s observation. Shagun has her own concepts and frame of a
husband and gradually, Ashok fits well in the frame of her ideal man. Here she does
not want to lose out on this opportunity to marry a person of her choice. She refuses to
forsake Ashok just for the sake of her mother. She strongly offends her mother who
cautions her to face social repulsion. Her mother thinks that Shagun‘s act of leaving
143

Raman will be disastrous as her neighbours and society will not approve of her illicit
relation.

When Shagun left her marriage, it became impossible for

Mrs.Sabharwal to hold her head high in the community. Every
neighbour got to know as the news seeped through the walls of the
clustered flats. Ami, who had arranged the introduction, felt personally
offended. If Mrs. Sabharwal did n‘t mind her saying so, there must be
something essentially wrong with Shagun for her to leave a husband as
devoted as Raman. (Custody 139-140)

Shagun, however firmly decides to leave her husband and children at a stage
when Raman denies her divorce; she decides to fight for the custody of her children
who are used by both the parents as objects to fight for. Another character in the
novel, Ishita, is the woman who gets divorced by her husband on the pretext of
infertility. Due to her inability to give heir to family she is victimized in her own
family. Consequently the happiness in her married life slowly starts fading away, her
family‘s behaviour changes instantly, and she also ends up being a divorcee. Coming
back to Shagun we find that Shagun and her mother, Mrs. Sabharwal, harbour
different opinions regarding the discord in Shagun‘s marital life. Her mother starts
suggesting her to mend her broken relationship. Shagun, straight away, considers as
interference in her life. Again generational conflict is apparently visible in their
conversations: ―Shagu, I could not sleep all night. What will happen to you? To the
children? And Raman? His family is everything to him? ‗Mama stop going on. It is
hard enough as it is. Am I to stay married to Raman because you love him so much?‖
(Custody 40).

Manju Kapur suggests that the portrayal of passive image of woman as a

sufferer is changing in modern fiction and various facets of her personality are
presented with an acute understanding of her needs in the changing society. Manju
Kapur in Custody presents the main aspects of Indian society i.e. female embodiment,
infidelity and infertility and the dimensions of complex human relationships. She puts
forth the gap of understandings in the different age groups, where the elders attach
144

more importance to their culture and moral values but the youngsters give preference
to their pleasure. Apart from Shagun, Ishita is also a sufferer who faces the conflict
due to her infertile status. She fails to assess the cause of her suffering in such a
society where educated people on the one hand talk about woman emancipation but
on the other hand, they analyse and estimate woman‘s worth by her ability to
procreate only. In this connection Anderson says: ―Motherhood is usually identified
as an essential part of being a woman, to an extent that woman without children is
usually portrayed as unfulfilled and incomplete‖ (qtd. in Dhillon 132).

This dual standard of Indian society is exposed in Custody as Ishita‘s marital

status is judged only by maternal status. She is of any value provided she can carry
forward the ancestral legacy by begetting an heir for the family. Here Manju Kapur
suggests that mere child bearing may give the woman a responsible status but not her
identity. Her husband who earlier used to dote on her, supports his parents‘
expectations regarding the heir issue, leaves her in lurch on account of infertility.
Ishita had an arranged marriage. ―From the day of her wedding she had thought of this
family as hers, revelling in the togetherness, sharing and companionship. Now instead
of love all around her, there would be rejection‖ (Custody 63-64).

When Ishita is not able to conceive even after treatment the whole family
hates her, ―It didn‘t take long for the loving atmosphere around Ishita to grow so this
that it became hard for her to breathe‖ (Custody 68). Ishita‘s desertion by her husband
points to the mean standard of Indian society where a woman is respected only if she
becomes a mother. If somebody, biologically unable to reproduce, she is denied all
the rights of a wife and a daughter-in-law. Suryakant, her husband suspends
communication with her. Her plight is clear here: ―last night, he moved into his
parents‘ bedroom. She felt degraded, a non-person, certainly a non- woman. He was
determined there should be nothing left between them‖ (Custody 71).

Discrimination between daughter and daughter-in-law, different treatment and

stance for them is clearly visible in Ishita‘s mother-in-law‘s behaviour. Here, she
represents the dual nature of a mother, lady of the house of an Indian family and
society. She does not sympathize with Ishita but warns her of future separation. She
145

enquires all the relevant details regarding infertility and after knowing Ishita‘s
medically infertile status, decides to throw her out from her house and even from the
life of her son. Being a selfish woman, she takes into account her own vested interest
and leaves Ishita to her own fate. Manju Kapur depicts how an infertile woman
undergoes negative individual experiences regarding her infertility in this modern and
technological age. Ishita experiences a lack of identity in the absence of motherhood.
Her mother-in-law plans not to waste more money on her. This makes Ishita
contemplate, painfully: ―Had there been something wrong with S K, they would have
moved heaven and earth to get a son‘s defect corrected. In an ideal world, the same
resources would have been put at the disposal of a daughter-in-law. But this was not
an ideal world‖ (Custody 68).

Ishita has to bear the traumas of patriarchal society. She fails to give birth to a
child and this biological handicap denies her due honour in the family. It seems as if a
woman‘s role is confined merely to produce children, to be a mother to progeny of her
husband family line. One can clearly observe the generational gap in the verbal
assault on Ishita. Her mother-in-law blames her and prepares her for separation in
future. She accuses her:

Did we take a dowry, did we, did we? We are too simple for worldly
types such as you.

You must have known you couldn‘t have a child.

You will never get a paisa from us.

How long do you think you can go on eating our salt?

There are ways to deal with shameless women like you. (Custody
72-73)

There is a loss of both health and self-esteem as infertility denies Ishita her
identity. Her family‘s behaviour changes towards her instantly and happiness in her
life starts receding. She is divorced on the pretext of a barren womb. Her identity is
negated, her wills are declined and even her womanhood is questioned. She regrets
146

over her rejected status and utters in disgust: ―Hadn‘t they valued her for herself?‖
(Custody 68).

Manju Kapur in her novels presents two contradictory but interlinked aspects
of female embodiment-infidelity and infertility. Surprisingly, infidelity empowers a
woman but infertility disempowers her. Infidelity reflects and defends woman‘s right
to pursue sexual fulfilment as a metaphor for women‘s equality policies. Infertility
issue is problematic for both male and female but social and cultural construct of
Indian society lays the blame solely on the female. Woman‘s social status, direction in
life, economic achievement, her well-being and the very meaning of marital life
hinges upon her ability to give birth and rear children. So body is a source of
discontentment for an infertile woman. Marx in his The Communist Manifesto in 1848
had clearly written. ―The bourgeois sees in his wife a mere instrument of production.
He bears that the instrument of production are to be exploited in common, and
naturally, can come to no other conclusion than that lot of being common to all will
likewise fall to women‖ (60).

In Ishita‘s marital life, her relation with Suryakanta is strained as infertility

adds catalyst to disrupt the loving relationship. After revelation about her infertility
the complexities of life start affecting her life. The erstwhile loving husband suddenly
starts ignoring her and finally, makes the decision of divorce. Ishita‘s inability to
attain motherhood makes her vulnerable even to society. ―The tyranny of biology is
what‘s wrong with society—not only ours, but everywhere‖ (Custody 183).

Ishita experiences a sense of alienation vis-a-vis her body as she allows it to be

subjected to rigorous scrutiny. She is haunted by the feeling of self-hatred and
inadequacy and experience a relentless process of deterioration that marginalizes her.
Inscribed with patriarchal meanings, the body is perceived as the product and property
of others. How can she dissociate the body for herself, from body for others? Her
relationship with body is marked by sense of alienation:‖hatred towards her body
filled her. It had let her down in this most basic function and she had to live with the
knowledge for the rest of her life‖ (Custody 63).
147

After marriage, Ishita had struck with her selfless service and devotion to the
roots in the husband‘s house and now from the same establishment she is uprooted for
having blocked fallopian tubes. Not being able to conceive is considered a sin and so
she is divorced: ―If she had had a wish in life it was to be home-maker, with husband
and children, something every girl she had ever known effortlessly possessed‖
(Custody 185). These two parallel stories of Shagun and Raman; Ishita and Suryakant
have one feature in common, that is motherhood. For Shagun, motherhood is an
imposition, a chain binding her and for Ishita, not being a mother is a curse. Ishita
gets compensation of five lakh rupees for divorce but Shagun engages herself in legal
battle for the custody of her children. Raman tries to persuade her not to destroy her
home and assures that he would forgive her, ―It‘s not your life alone. Think of the
children. By now this plea was beginning to sound like a cracked record. Think of the
children, the children, the children. She didn‘t want to think of them‖ (Custody 99).

Raman suffers a cardiac arrest and Shagun‘s mother advises her, ―beta should
anything happen to Raman it will be upon your head‖ (Custody 103). Her mother tries
to make her understand the situation and return to Raman. But Shagun takes it as an
undesirable pressure made by the society on women. She recollects Ashok‘s
comment, ―The great Indian family, which rested on the sacrifices of its women‖
(Custody 104).

Finally Shagun gets an outlet and leaves Raman and her children for the love
of Ashok. On the other hand, Ishita sulks and suffers her infertility. Post trauma stress
goes simultaneously in their life; Raman loses his partner, Shagun and Ishita loses
Suryakant. Ishita is both a product prisoner of her reproductive system and her body
becomes:

The battlefield where she fights for liberation. It is through her body
that oppression works, reifying her. Her physicality is a medium for
others to work on; her job is to act as their viceroy, presenting her body
the treatment that and applying to her body for their ministrations and
applying to her body have been ordained (Greer 114).
148

Ishita‘s failure of being infertile disconnects her culturally from society and
also from her own self. Ishita internalises the imposed role and strains her life. This
creates an exile like situation from her body and from her own family members.
Cultural impact determines her destiny over infertile status and her body decides the
fate of her identity. Patriarchal power doubles her exile from body and society and she
remains disconnected. So, this problematic ‗natural and essentialised assumptions of
motherhood‘ is imposed on her body. Manju Kapur reveals the truth that in a
traditional society, woman is disempowered due to her barren body. When Ishita is
thrown out of Suryakant‘s house she feels disembodied as she is punished for her
substandard body. Divorce fills her life with angst, misery, depression, dejection,
gloominess and sense of failure after the stressful and negative experience; but with
the support and care of her natal family, Ishita builds her self-esteem and despite her
feelings of inadequacy, starts a new life. She resumes her life from where she left off
five years ago. She takes her maiden name and embarks on a new journey. Ishita
over-powers her inability and showers her motherly love on Roohi, a motherless and
abandoned girl. Manju Kapur shows how the conflict is going on in the protagonist‘s
mind. Shagun and Ishita both suffer from the same pain and misery as a woman
cannot live a life of her own. They always lead a life of suffocation, loneliness and
uncertainty. Manju Kapur portrays Indian society in today‘s perspective. The entire
story revolves around love, marriage, in decisiveness and infertility. These are also
the burning issues of today‘s society. Manju Kapur successfully presents the
suffocation in Indian homes for wives, the constant shifting of the children from one
parent to other and also misuse of children in court cases to twist the case in favour of
either parent.

To start with, Shagun has a perfect life. Raman, her husband has a good
position in a multinational company and she is the mother of two sweet children.
Loveless life and workaholic husband together make her choose another person as life
partner. On the contrary, Ishita is a typical Indian woman, who accepts home and
hearth in a conventional manner but her infertility creates mess in her life. Ishita gets
love of husband and also craves for love of kids. Both the characters i.e. Shagun and
Ishita are living a life full of uncertainties. Researchers aim to study the writings of
149

Manju Kapur to examine her handling of the changing image of woman in the modern
and the post modern era. Women in Manju Kapur‘s novels cross the stages of
tradition, transition and modernity. Her new woman sheds off the forced inhibitions
and puts an end to her sufferings. We find a remarkable change and more confidence
in the way she walks, talks, works and almost everything. The undercurrent of
feminist viewpoint brings a remarkable change in the protagonist of novels. The
transitional phase of Manju Kapur‘s women prepares them to break the old set
patterns and walk over new paths. Shobha De‘s Starry Nights presents the struggle
and survival of a woman as described by Sheela Rani Khare:

Women don‘t believe in suffering submissively, they leave no stone

unturned to reach the peak of joy and success. Struggling hard with
hardships, facing exploitation and defeat at different steps, sometimes
with tear-filled eyes while at other times like a tigress, they challenge
the society to turn the tide in their favour. Brimming with hope and
zeal, they lay hands on hope in starry nights of their life. Their crusade
against slavery, oppression and exploitation is alarming. (178)

Shagun follows her heart and her act of sexual violation celebrates female
sexual self-assertion directing her towards the aspirations of the new woman who
strives for her rights to live life freely, without any conflict. The novel presents the
conflict between love, sex, family and freedom; between tradition and modernity in
such a crystal clear way that readers may find it quite easy to comprehend the root
cause of all the tensions, problems, abuses and conflicts that take place in the life of
the characters. Both of the women characters Shagun and Ishita are facing the same
problem in their married life. The former is unable to move out of wedlock because of
children and latter is unable to save her marriage because of absence of children. In
the first case the presence of children is a hindrance to happiness and in second case
absence of children is an obstacle to happiness. On Ishita, divorce is hurled as an
unwanted painful burden to remind her constantly of her infertile status. In Shagun‘s
case divorce which is ultimately sought with mutual consent is a release from the
chain of wedlock suffocating her dreams, love for life and life with a partner of her
150

choice. Later on she has her way. She compromises with Raman and gets the divorce
with mutual consent.

Divorce by mutual consent was initiated. The couple appeared in court,

swore that it was impossible for them to live together and they were
not acting under duress. Six months later, they would reiterate the
same thing, upon which divorce would be granted. Shagun was to give
up all ownership of their joint assets, all claims to maintenance, the
legal guardianship of the children, only demanding visitation rights in
the holidays. (Custody 245)

Manju Kapur discusses how Shagun who lost her individual identity in her
‗stupid early marriage‘ desperately seeks for the lost selfhood and finds it as she feels
in her extramarital affair with Ashok up to so great a satisfaction that she prepares
herself even to leave her children- Roohi and Arjun. Her mother tries to dissuade her
from her motive quoting the fact that Indian marriages generally lack cooperation of
husband towards wife and children in the matters of household. Generational conflict
appears when Shagun‘s mother is tense after the divorce and she suggests to her
daughter. ―I hope he continues so involved, beti. People change after marriage‖
(Custody 245). Mrs. Sabharwal was worried about her daughter‘s future and her
grandchildren. She could not resolve the issue and was not satisfied with her
daughter‘s decision of re-marriage.

Mrs. Sabharwal, like a typical Indian mother, advises her daughter to save her
marriage with Raman at least for her children‘s sake. She tells her how her impulsive
decision would adversely affect the education and future of her children, bring social
and financial crisis for her. Shagun placates her mother and subsides her fears that
Ashok is ready to manage all her responsibilities. In fact, Arjun feels good in his
company. But her mother still nurses the notion that Shagun has no clear vision about
her future life.

Mrs. Sabharwal could not find nothing to say to all this reasoning.
Increasingly she had become the person her daughter confided in, and
the ebb and flow of information about divorce, custody and Ashok was
151

almost more than she could bear. Nothing was clear in Shagun‘s life,
she didn‘t even know in which direction to turn her prayers anymore.
(Custody 246)

In Ishita‘s story, Ishita being cursed with barrenness is divorced by Suryakant

and this merciless act on the part of her husband pains her parents very much.
However, they bravely face the situation and help their daughter come out of her
depression. To overcome her depression, Ishita starts involving herself in social
activities in the flood-affected areas and other social works too. Divorced and socially
isolated Ishita finds the courage to volunteer and teach under-privileged children and
get their love in return. Gradually she finds hope and in the process, she regains her
lost sense of individuality. She even wants to adopt a baby to gratify her longing for
love. Ishita‘s parents though traditional, prove to be modern in their thought and
outlook. As loving parents, they are ready to go to any extent to help their daughter to
come out of her trauma and stigma of being a divorcee and also arrange her second
marriage. They speculate, if Ishita becomes happy, they will certainly feel relieved of
their mental agony. They express their desire to get Ishita settled in married life.
Exhibiting traditional and conventional bent of mind they still feel that the presence of
man is mandatory for her to provide marital bliss and security in life. Ishita is against
remarriage, she does not like to enter into matrimony to suffer further humiliation.
Her mother wants her to get married again as it is hard to survive in this materialistic
world alone. ―People are very narrow-minded. They don‘t understand how misfortune
can come‖ (Custody 260).

Both families, Rajoras and Kaushiks, suffer from the grief of their children‘s
divorce. ―Shame and humiliation would touch the Kaushiks; the Rajoras could count
on the companionship of similar miseries‖ (Custody 262). Both families wish that
their boy and girl should get settled in life again. Ishita feels happy to meet Roohi, the
baby girl of Raman, who is also leading a deserted life because of the elopement of
his wife with his boss. As two persons sailing in the same boat, Ishita and Raman
come very close to each other. They get from each other what they couldn‘t get from
their respective partners. Ishita is getting over her barrenness and moves forward and
152

joins Raman‘s family as a foster mother to Raman‘s children and consequently

regains her status.

Mrs. Kaushik, Raman‘s mother, is a typical mother. Like other mothers

she always wants her son to lead a happy life. Her husband also wants that the
daughter-in-law should be perfect in every field. The comparison between Ishita and
Shagun delineates that an Indian household wants only a submissive woman. They
admire only the homely aspect of a girl, yielding no scope to accord her sweet will,
desires and ambitions propagated in their household. Mrs. Kaushik compares Shagun
and Ishita as her daughter-in-law. If there were any such, she had not the pleasure of
their acquaintance thought Mrs. Kaushik. She bitterly remarks: ―In her son‘s
ex-wife‘s case it was the opposite. More new-fashioned than the latest fashion.
Changing husbands with the breeze‖ (Custody 262). She criticizes Shagun in anger
because of her son Raman, children, and all the family which suffered most. ―After
Raman‘s divorce Mrs. Kaushik‘s main desire was for a simple home-loving girl to
heal the wounds in her son‘s life‖ (Custody 270).

Patriarchal values have set a certain pattern for an ideal Indian wife and every
woman when enters in to matrimony is judged by some doctrines and standards. A
predetermined set of values especially, favourable for the family is imposed on the
new entrant in the family. Here, Raman‘s parents, governed by the expectation and
rules of their family deduced that Ishita will take care of Raman and his children as
she possesses all the qualities a girl should have to qualify as a good daughter-in-law.
Mrs. Kaushik found all these qualities in Ishita.

Capable, patient, even tender with the children, reliable and deferential
around Mrs. Hingorani, Ishita had the attractiveness of the sincere, the
casual appearance of one who looked at the world rather than
expecting the world to look at her. These are good qualities in a wife.
And what was good in a wife was good for the family. (Custody
270-71)

Ishita satisfies Mrs. Kaushik with her qualities. She begins to enjoy the status
of wifehood and motherhood which endows her with legitimacy. Ishita‘s marital
153

relationship with Raman not only empowers her but also gives her strength to fight for
the custody of her husband‘s children whom she now considers hers. Even though she
is a stepmother, she somehow attains now the status of motherhood hitherto denied to
her. In Roohi, Raman‘s daughter, she finds her own child. The very feel of this
emotion makes her ecstatic. According to Meena Shirwadkar, ―The mother in the
Indian tradition is the giver of blessings, the giver and protector of life. She is the
creative and protective goddess to be respected and worshipped. To a woman, to be
the mother of a son is the goal of womanhood‖ (79).

These typical attitudes hint at the essential difference between the Indian and
western concept of motherhood. In the west, feminist like Adrienne rich has seen
motherhood as a burden, as a weapon for enslaving, while in eastern countries it is
considered as a token to become entitled to womanhood, social status and to earn
respect in household. Ishita marries Raman and thus returns ―to the status so rudely
snatched from her‖ (Custody 303). Her marriage to Raman enhances her social
position; she enjoys the status of her husband just like the women in great Indian epic
who got access to power and family honour through their connection with men. Even
their love for each other is expressed in material terms: ―At jewellery counters
unfortunately love needs to be translated into rupees. ‗Any price range‘, said Raman
grandly. Those words were more important to Ishita than diamonds they indicated.
They settled on a mid-range of 30,000‖ (Custody 301).

Ishita‘s union with Raman empowers her and gives her strength to fight for the
household‘s common target i.e. the custody of his children. As the narration advances,
we see the new couple is carried away by its selfish desires. They become obsessed by
the idea of retaining the children anyhow, regardless of what they have to do for that.
Children are utilized for their parents‘ purposes. Shagun uses Arjun and instills wrong
notions in him about his father and Ishita‘s desire to get Roohi shows that her long
deprived self wants to get her child‘s love back. The children are rendered to
subsidiary position and their parents keep them at stake. As Uma Chakravarti
examines: ―the conflict is unambiguously about differences over material interests,
not merely over notions of power, since power, legitimate power, provides control
154

over resources, in Kapur‘s novel the children become the family‘s ‗material stakes‘ ‖
(262).

Ishita convinces her husband to manipulate events and also to invent lies over
Roohi‘s illness. She exercises power over the small child by teaching her what she has
to say in court in order to, eventually, win the custody of the little girl. Thus the
lawyer, a friend of the family, does not oppose Ishita and Raman‘s manipulation of
the regime of visitation established by the judge. Their unscrupulous behaviour
undoubtedly, manifests that the more the members of a normative patriarchal family
confine themselves to its social and internal strictures to maintain power over others
and gain control of their possessions the more they transgress ethics and democratic
laws. Ishita cannot influence the boy Arjun who is mature enough to discern her
manipulation but she assumes full control of the little girl, Roohi, to whom she gives
new love, care and concern of a mother. This shows that the child is hers, a girl of her
own and not of Shagun. Ishita takes care of the child and says:

I love you my precious. You are the best thing that has happened to
me. Now you will remember that, won‘t you?

The head under her chin bobbed.

‗Doesn‘t matter who was here before me. We are fated to be mother
and daughter, you and I. It is our karma that joins us‘. (Custody 328)

This shows that the woman, who is deserted by the society as a barren, hopes
to start a new life with Raman‘s family. The void in Ishita‘s life gets filled by
marrying Raman and she finds happiness in life. She accepts Raman‘s daughter Roohi
without any hesitation and this way her desire to have her child is fulfilled. Manju
Kapur breaks the popular image of stepmother and presents Ishita as an emblem of
new role of motherhood. Ishita gives the answer to all the curiosities present in the
little girl‘s mind. ―Towards the end, when all is done, she thinks carefully before she
says, ‗Beta I, am like Roohi‘s mother. I hope to be your mother too, at least your
mother in this house‖ (Custody 330).
155

To a certain extent, the reader feels compassion for the barren Ishita who still
suffers from the reminiscences of her past frustrations and social ostracism. As she is
under society‘s constant supervision she needs to demonstrate herself as a ‗good‘
loving mother for Roohi; entrapped in such a suffocating family, her egoistic love
compels her to break whatever democratic ethical agreements set. The love that she
gives to Roohi comes back to her as a reward in the form of Roohi‘s custody. The
author tells us: ―Meanwhile she was carrying the most precious part of the marriage
with her. She stretched out a hand and clutched her daughter‘s fist firmly in it‖
(Custody 415).

While discussing gender and generational conflict, Ishita here comes out of
her long imposed false patriarchal values to bear a child. She becomes a mother to her
child leaving all old generational faiths aside. She also gets Raman as a husband,
forgets all the nuances caused upon her by Suryakant, overcomes gender conflict and
restarts her life with Roohi. She also breaks the age-old myth of stepmother‘s ill
treatment. Manju Kapur‘s focus has always been on family and the happiness within
it. The family issue remains focussed as the Indian background keeps it relevant. She
brings the infertility, infidelity and long legal battles and ignored childhood as the
main issues. She gives a lot of importance to the family as she tells in one of her
interviews to Boikanyo Refilwe: ―I place a fair amount of emphasis on the family
because I look at the family as the nucleus of our life. This is where you have your
children, where they develop values. And they eventually grow up and go out into the
world with those values‖ (n.p.).

Manju Kapur presents the hollowness of the society, Indian families, pathetic
conditions where children suffer because of the divorce of their parents. The novelist
successfully portrays the conflict of the little kids‘ minds, and the question which
comes into their minds and gives acute pain to their little hearts. In their parents‘
battle siblings suffer the most. Raman makes efforts so that Shagun may not meet
Roohi and Shagun also tries to stop Raman from meeting Arjun. Both of their
children are not able to meet each other. Here, Ishita tries to give rest to their soul and
mind with very satisfactory answers. When Arjun questioned Ishita:
156

‗What‘s divorce?‘

‗The opposite of marriage.‘

‗What‘s marriage?‘

‗Marriage is when two people decide to live together forever should

they change their minds they go to court and get their marriage
cancelled. Finished. Divorced. They become strangers, sometimes they
never see each other again.‘(Custody 341)

Ishita answers all the questions of a teenager boy. He doesn‘t understand the
worldly relations but Ishita significantly clarifies his queries. Ishita not only sides
with Raman and his family but also justifies her relation with the small girl, Roohi
and also with her father, so she removes her insecurities as an abandoned child. Ishita
is very soft hearted and full of mother‘s love. She always knows how the child can be
pampered. ―Well in a manner of speaking. I married your papa because I love both of
you–I will never, never leave you‖ (Custody 342).

Generational conflict shows through Shagun‘s mother Mrs. Sabharval, who

becomes a mute spectator of whatever happens in her daughter‘s life and her grand
children‘s lives. She is not a strong lady and is not in a position to force Shagun not to
go for divorce. Shagun communicates with her mother through letters only and this is
how she comes to know about her daughter‘s happiness as well as loneliness in her
stay abroad. Even though Shagun gets what she wants and settles with Ashok in the
U.S.A, her letters to her mother are self-revelations. In one of her letters she writes
her mother,

Perhaps I was foolish to believe, but he did promise to keep me happy

forever not that I have reproached him with anything. Our life together
would not have been possible if I had regretted my past.

Still what happened to that promise? I guess when you are in love, you
experience some momentary delusion, then the glow fades and things
157

look ordinary again. Of course, I adore my life here, but sometimes I

feel its foundations are fragile.

Sorry to unburden myself like this, Mama. In New York there are few
people I can tell such problems to. (Custody 391)

Shagun‘s letter conveys her loneliness and the fading brightness of love in her
life. She misses her children but is unable to talk about it with Ashok. Shagun‘s life is
torn between her aspirations for love along with the dream of a high society‘s life and
her love for her children. She is the new woman who is selfish about her own
happiness and loses her daughter Roohi‘s custody to Ishita. It is Shagun‘s loss and
Ishita‘s gain as the little child Roohi recognizes love and care which she gets from
Ishita and not from her biological mother Shagun.

As herself a victim of the norms of patriarchal normative households, Ishita

turns into the worst oppressor: she never speaks to Shagun; nor does she make an
effort to understand her as a mother and a woman who also wants to be happy. Ishita
does not approve of Shagun‘s decision of leaving a small child. On the contrary, she
hates her and has no misgiving to express that: ―there are two kinds of mothers. The
ones who give birth to babies; and then forget about them, and the other ones who
look after the babies for the rest of their lives‖ (Custody 329).

Ishita, a conventional submissive girl fails to assess how and why a mother
can leave her kids behind. In the deepest corner of her soul, she envies Shagun‘s
strong will and individual success; only this envy of hers can explain her intense rage
and hate. She could feel the loathing coursing through her body, submerging her
brain, narrowing her emotions to the point of that strong feeling. ―How could New
York tolerate the presence of such a woman? How come its forces hadn‘t combined to
kill her?‖ (Custody 379).

Roohi‘s custody constitutes Ishita‘s last chance to cure her past frustrations to
overcome her infertility and gain motherhood and be accepted as ‗a good mother‘ and
exemplary wife among those who dictate or abide by patriarchal socio-cultural norms.
Manju Kapur also presents the disturbing father-son relationship, the growing
158

distance between Raman and his son Arjun during the case of custody. Arjun, who
has the looks of his mother, and is a grown up child, adjusts somehow to the situation.
He understands his mother, having a new husband who is not his father and his father,
having a new wife who is not his mother. In both the houses that he visits, he has to
face one individual who is a stranger in his life. Raman observes the changes that take
place in Arjun‘s behaviour and attitude.

Each time he saw him Raman felt startled at the changes, the totally
natural changes. And each time he worried at the rate the boy was
growing and the little time he had with him before he became a man
with his character fixed.

As he struggled to reach out of his son, he felt an impenetrability that

disturbed him. The earlier sullenness had gone, but slowly a stranger
was taking his place. (Custody 386-387)

Alongwith a disturbing relationship between father and son, Manju Kapur also
puts before us relationship between two mothers and a daughter. Shagun‘s daughter is
a small child when the case of custody begins. She is loved and brought up by Ishita,
Raman‘s second wife. Ishita who is medically unfit to become a mother, becomes the
real mother to Roohi. With her love and care, she takes the child out of the trauma of
separation from her mother, Shagun. Roohi fulfils Ishita‘s craving for motherhood
and in return she brings up Roohi as her real daughter. Comparing Shagun and Ishita,
Shagun is a practical individual, who wants the custody of the children but not at the
cost of her happiness with Ashok. She is able to get the custody of Arjun but loses
Roohi to Ishita as the little child recognizes Ishita as her mother in the court. Custody
not only deals with the broken relationships but it proposes some new relationships.

Indian society does not encourage individualism and even today, the family is
the centre of one‘s life. Within the family, culture and tradition teach us to give
respect and importance to social intercourse. Manju Kapur writes about these
wonderful relationships that grow with time. Relationships do not remain the same all
the time. Human nature is sure to be affected by the forces and feelings of jealousy,
greed, happiness, sorrow, money, power and so many other things that turn out to be
159

responsible for breaking or making relationships. Manju Kapur has very delicately
dealt with the issues in her novel and churned up the conflict between the genders and
the conflict between the views of generations. She creates miniature model of actual
Indian families presenting problems of changing social patterns with amalgamation of
various incidents. Characters belonging to first generation immigrants are close to
their roots: hence they value the sanctity of conjugal bondage but the generation both
born and brought up or brought up there are liberal, open and adventurous. When it
comes to expression, old values are secondary as their approach towards life is more
individualistic and independent.

The institution of marriage binds just not two people in relationship, but two
whole families within different relations. Equations of marital relationships are
changing with the difference in opinion and their readjustment is to be examined.
Equality and its implications initiate the chances of success in any relationship. John
Stuart Mill in his The Subjection of Women refers to an ideal relationship in marriage.

What marriage may be in the case of two persons of cultivated

faculties, identical in opinions and purposes, between whom there
exists that best kind of equality, similarity of powers and reciprocal
superiority in them—so that each can enjoy the luxury of looking up to
the other, and can have alternately the pleasure of leading and of being
led in the path of development… I maintain, with the profoundest
conviction, that this, and this only, is the ideal of marriage. (211)

The marriage prospects of a daughter have a different manifestation at least

culturally. The weaker section of society considers daughter‘s marriage only as a
responsibility to be fulfilled. Family has neither any relation with her happiness nor
take marriage as a celebration but just a social and moral obligation. Here, the notion
to dispose a girl off in marriage, deeply ingrained on the psyche of family
circumscribes the daughter. Manju Kapur is also conscious of this undercurrent, hence
the female characters are allowed to breathe in the clinched atmosphere and live the
life with in traditionally, conservative confines. She feels that society also should
understand that a woman has her own wishes, own dreams and own life. Trying to
160

reform society and change into existing mindset towards barren woman is no doubt
like chasing one‘s tail. But persistent efforts to face the challenges and to develop a
positive attitude by these women will bring out a change for the better, sooner or later.
Custody very clearly conveys the message that a barren woman has to be honoured
and respected as she is also eligible to possess all rights of a woman. Custody proves
to be a book that is torn between the old and the new perception of life. The question
it raises is whether, the modern ideology is harming the base of the Indian society i.e.
the love and respect for the family.

Indian women, their position, priorities and predicaments get judicious

revelation through different facets of a woman in the form of distinct individuals
projected by Manju Kapur in her female protagonists. All of them, if focussed in the
entirely, reverberate the age long suppressed instinct to echo their self. They not only
deserve the rightful space in the framework of our social structure but also be allowed
to express their hidden aspirations. In the name of liberty, self reliance and unyielding
approach has been exposed to an extent that one is made to realize how diasporas has
affected the culture as well as the social structure of age long Indian minds. No one
can deny that the Indian patriarchal structure has successfully retained and maintained
its significant role for ages together due to its unifying norms, social values and moral
resoluteness despite having some serious defects. One cannot have a beautiful,
appealing and durable social pattern unless there is timely pruning and removal of
weeds. Undoubtedly in this age of globalization and fast mobilization, the foreign
elements have polluted the sanctity of Indian, social touchstones, but the patronage of
the elders still commands its say. Manju Kapur is conscious of the characteristic
Indianness, hence she hesitantly allows her female characters to have their esteemed
space, not as a revolt but as the need of the time. Their aspirations are suggestive as to
make the male dominance feel ‗judge not that they be not judged‘.

Being a woman writer, Manju Kapur is a very keen observer of the

vicissitudes in the lives of female characters in the Indian social male dominated
pattern and the Western scenario where the older concepts and conceits get minimized
and ‗woman literature‘ has the upper hand. The dilemma whether it is cultural or
161

personal is mostly an indicator of ‗change‘. Within the social set up, men and women
are merely agents to create or recreate action or reaction elaborating the basic issue,
man-woman relationship is conditioned by set values, the values in the Indian
background or the diasporic world. It is the clash between the meanings applied to the
values that the dilemma is emergent. Manju Kapur in Custody feels quite comfortable
in handling the conflict and issues in the lives of Indian women though in different
situations and in different age groups. She understands the crux of the problem and
through her very realistic approach continues to remain familiar and involved in her
creation.

Manju Kapur through the novel Custody brings forth the idea of constant shift
of the urban kids in case of divorce of their parents. The family gets affected through
divorce and children become a matter of possession for each one. Custody issue
emerges as a matter of winning and losing and serves the ego of couples by shifting of
children from one home to another treating them like commodities. Sufferings of
children, clash of egos and delayed legal battle are focussed throughout the novel.
The title of the novel itself depicts the battle for guardianship issue and a mental
agony and its aftermath on the children. The legal battle of bereaved custody leads the
innocent children to suffer the harsh consequences of parents‘ divorce. The emotional
and legal difficulties of custody cases are presented with acute sense of conflict and
its pinching effects on children.

In her story ―Chocolate‖ Manju Kapur concentrates on the issues related to

women though in a very light-hearted manner. Here, life of Tara, the protagonist, is
comprehensively studied revealing a colossal mass of imposed desires on her tender
self. It seems as if from her childhood, she has been prepared with a sole career of
matrimony. She receives education in a girls‘ school and later in a girls‘ college. Her
free time is meant only for dance and music classes, as two necessary components for
a girl child‘s education. She is not asked or counselled to pursue her wish for
choosing the stream or discipline of studies or her career. Tara‘s mother shares the
same attitude towards the girl child, while Tara nurses a different opinion. Her
childhood is spent in shade of peculiarly prescribed roles for females. Manju Kapur
162

gives the details of her education as: ―Strict emphasis on studies and nothing else.
Tara‘s free time is taken with going to dance and music classes. Her mother says these
things are important give grace to a girl‖ (―Chocolate‖ 1).

Being an obedient child, she does not exercise her choice in matters of career
or even matrimony. She takes admission in English Honours without any serious
involvement in the same. Her wedding is fixed and nobody cares or even thinks about
her future prospects. Tara‘s husband Abhay also follows the path of patriarchy after a
considerable amount of time. When she is unable to bear child, she consults a doctor
who proclaims her fit for motherhood. Abhay refuses to meet the doctor and being a
staunch follower of patriarchy blames Tara for absence of child in their lives. Their
conjugal life does not show any signs of love in their relationship. Here, gender
conflicts assume the centre of the story. Since Tara is not able to conceive after a long
period, she tries to consult some doctor but Abhay summarily rejects the idea of his
checkup, showing egoistic temperament. Manju Kapur here brings to light the Indian
male psychology i.e. the wounded ego at the knowledge of his impotency and
consequent aggressive reaction. For instance in one of their conversations we find:
―May we should go and see a doctor?‖ she suggested to her husband; ―You go if you
want to,‖ replied Abhay. ―There is nothing wrong with me‖ (―Chocolate‖ 2). Here he
confirms his male chauvinism and directly by forces his wrong opinion on her. His
enforcement of opinion on her exemplifies the presence of gender conflict.

After a second thought, he meets and consults the doctor but does not reveal
his report. He rather, advises Tara irrationally not to consult the doctor in future
showing apathetic attitude towards Tara. He never shares with her the facts about his
report. On the contrary, he blames Tara for infertility. Instead of admitting the truth
before her, he calls medical advice a foolish. His insecurities do not allow him to
accept his deficiency. His guilt is manifested when he hides his medical reports and in
his defence puts the share of blame on the doctor. Gender conflict is visible in their
conversation when Abhay forces his opinion on her. Their conversation reflects
Tara‘s secondary or peripheral role in her own household.

―So Tara never knew what happened at the doctor‘s.‖

163

Abhay came home tight-lipped and cross and refused to comment.

―But what happened? What did she say?‖ She asked several times.

―She a fool. Huh ! No point in your going to her either.‖

(―Chocolate‖ 3)

To conceal the handicap of son and man, too, Tara is forced to live a strict and
regimented life. She is advised to follow the path of religion as her infertility is the
sole outcome of her past life or sins earned in previous births. She is emotionally
tortured for observing fasts and pujas. Unreasonably, she bears pain to her own self,
excruciating physical pains for the need of a child. Even being an educated girl, she
follows all the superstitions, whatever is suggested and bears physical trauma. She
visits temples and shrines; crawling on hands and knees, starts wearing gemstones for
some effects.

But this divine aid does not yield any fruit to her. Suspicious about his
behaviour, she notices that Abhay has started giving her chocolates in bulk—she
discovers his idea to make her fatter day by day. He takes advantage of the situation
to make fun of her obesity and conveniently develops an extramarital affair. Soon
Tara smells the rat in their relationship, especially, in the changed behaviour of
Abhay. Mistakes of life have made her mature, at least mature enough to understand
the reason behind the situation intentionally created before her. Now onwards, Tara
starts seeking revenge on her husband. She changes her life style and loses some
weight. She takes cookery lesson and makes delicious dishes for Abhay. Now fate
takes a different turn. The reversal of roles i.e. the role of villain earlier played by
Abhay is now adopted by Tara, adds the element of excitement to sustain and reveal
the plan. Abhay gains weight and gets entangled in Tara‘s web. His extra-marital
affair comes to an end. The last step of Tara‘s revenge is to develop relationship with
Abhay‘s friend but she finally disconnects with him when his role is over. To fight
with age-old prevalent gender conflict, Tara uses her husband‘s friend to execute her
plan and success fully comes out of that relationship. Out of this relationship she
begets a girl child and the accomplishment of this long awaited desire over whelms
her: ―Given the circumstances of her revenge, she needed an affair to give it a finished
164

ending. She chose a friend of his, the most convenient male to hand… She had long
given up the possibility of conceived, and when she found herself pregnant, she was
exhilarated‖ (―Chocolate‖ 4).

Abhay is oblivious about the paternity status of child. Tara plugs all loopholes
in her plan in such a way that Abhay fails to justify his suspicions and accepts the
child. For this child, she decides to arrange good education and make her independent.
She shapes up her daughter to be a brave woman. Though she is a victim of gender
based society, she finds the path to her victory and wins herself back in the story and
life. The saga of Tara conveys not only gender conflict but also generational conflict
which comes to the fore when we see Tara‘s mothers-in-law‘s behaviour. She
professes double standards—she uses nice words but with sarcasm to make her feel
her infertility and weakness seriously. When Tara visits various shrines, and fails to
get any positive result, she is reduced to a ‗thing of pity‘. One can find the
amalgamation of gender and generational conflict in the short story ―Chocolate‖.
Tara‘s mother-in-law plays the dual role. On one hand she sympathises with her
daughter-in-law while on the other, she makes fool of her by forcing the superstitious
approach of last generation that she is the real cause of infertility. Her mother-in-law
shows sympathy for her but this sympathy is just an outward show. ―Poor Tara!‖ she
heard her say once. ―She is trying so hard‖, and then in a lowered voice, ―but she is
unhealthy from the inside‖ (―Chocolate‖ 3).

Tara gets the lesson of life and decides to rear her child and design her as
career-conscious and independent girl to face all kind of assaults with a tendency to
fight back. This specific change in her behaviour takes place due to different gender
implications which are ascribed on her. She does not want her child to face the same
fate and thus rears her child in a different way. Tara rears her girl child, developing in
her a career oriented approach and priority for self-dependence. ―When Tara‘s
daughter was born, she crooned her lullabies of brave women warriors, and made sure
that all her education was oriented towards a career that would make her independent‖
(―Chocolate‖ 6).
165

Manju Kapur highlights that girls are brought up, even in an educated family
with an idea to settle them in matrimony-the sole career for them. Even educated
families are caught in the patriarchal whirlpool forcing a girl to be dependent on her
husband and in-laws. Career-orientation and economic dependence of their daughter
are still assigned less importance. This particular bent of mind clearly demarcates the
presence of gender conflict where choices in educational fields are also done only
taking care of the gender not their interests. Nalini Prabhakar comments:

Education in her case is considered mostly as an ornament that would

brighten her chances of getting a good husband. Her growing
disaffection for the course she is pursuing does not alarm her parents.
Clearly they do not expect her to take up a career. Tara, at this stage,
still warm from the embraces of her husband does not have the
foresight to figure out the importance of economic independence
which a career would give her. (1)

Manju Kapur puts under scanner the social institution and its drawbacks where
a girl is reared only with marriage prospects, where marital relation demands her to
procreate anyhow and her failure to procure desired results, the entire blame is put to
her share. Same thing happens in case of Tara. Her husband serves his own means and
provides her a vast quantity of chocolates so that she would become fatter and
prepares her for the cause of future break up. Here Manju Kapur gives a twist in the
story and the protagonist uses chocolates as a back-up plan to inflict her revenge on
her husband. In a way she answers the patriarchy ridden society and utilizes her
culinary skills. She inflicts her revenge so cleverly that nobody could trace any
loophole to detect her role in that scene. She ultimately wins back her life, restores
happiness and decides to live by her own values. Manju Kapur declines the infertile
status as a cause of melancholy in one‘s life. Tara comes out of forced infertility and
paves her path towards liberty and self-dependence. She realises Abhay‘s infidelity
and plans to win him back. Manju Kapur presents the example of woman‘s winning
position in an objective way that makes the story interesting and realistic. Here, Tara
initially victimized, tactfully regains her position in her husband‘s life.
166

The short story ―The Necklace‖ is set in the backdrop of pre independence era
during British regime. The story starts with the discovery of lost necklace of
governor‘s wife but narrates woeful tales of repression, falsely executed riots of
Hindu- Muslim and misuse of government machinery and power of post by Governor.
The story unravels before us the sorry state of George‘s wife whose lost necklace has
triggered much hype and hoopla. The whole Indian colonized community has to pay
the price of necklace as it belongs to a colonizer‘s wife. Surprisingly, the lady whose
loss and missing necklace is the epicentre of the entire chaos and turbulence is
neglected. Her emotions are not taken care of rather her husband‘s status is considered
more important. Manju Kapur brings forth the idea of woman‘s ‗uncared for‘
emotion. The short story, ―The Necklace‖ represents the embodiment of gender
conflict, especially in the elite class affecting the lives of women with foreign
background. Here in the story Lady Blake belongs to a noble class. Despite her status,
she goes through a humiliating situation that only reflects her subsidized status. Her
husband does not admire her for her merits rather he considers her as an arm candy of
an elite husband. Manju Kapur points to the gender conflict when George accuses her
of her misdeamenour. This ‗uncared for‘ situation presents the existence of gender
conflict in their relationship:

Can this woman be blamed for the state she was in, even though she
was Lady Blake, and the Governor‘s wife? Poor thing, Stress had
wiped out time and place, causing her to forget she was not an ordinary
person and could not behave as ordinary people did. Ignoring this, her
husband, unreasonable man, later accused her of allowing the white
man‘s burden to slip from the shoulders. (―The Necklace‖ 74)

Her identity is assessed and evaluated on the base of her husband‘s position
not her emotions. Her loss, her emotional attachment to the thing is ruthlessly
unnoticed. Patriarchal mindset of governor comes to fore when he gives priority to his
position over his wife‘s emotions. George, The Governor not only keeps Indian
people colonized and underrated but also treats his wife on a secondary status. He
even controls her behaviour in public as of a subordinate status. For a small incident
167

several people have to pay for their lives and remain divided as Hindu and Muslims.
He further tries to control her behaviour as she is wretched and cries. Her clothes are
not laced down properly. He imposes his status on her and controls her public
behaviour. Her emotions are again ignored and cruelly crushed when Blake, her
husband scolds her publicly. His articulation discloses his meanness he hurls on his
wife. Gender conflict can be well observed in Governor Blake‘s behaviour when he
scolds his wife for her foolish public behaviour.Gender conflict is apparently visible
in that Governor Blake wants his wife to hide her emotions. He controls her tears and
remarks: ―Those kind of things creates a bad impression. All those tears and loss of
control. You‘re not cracking up, are you darling?‖ (―The Necklace‖ 74).

When she sobs again Blake replies in rather a cruel way: ―I will make them
return it, if I have to horsewhip every man in the province‖ (―The Necklace‖ 74). This
is his actual way of holding his reign over any country and he believes if he takes the
issue of lost necklace slightly, slowly everything will be gone. He further remarks:
―Have to set an example. Let one thing slide and soon the whole Empire will be gone‖
(―The Necklace‖ 74).

One can clearly observe the gender inflictions and also racial prejudice in
George Blake‘s behaviour that he accuses Indian people only for whatever happens
and scolds his wife for not following the code of conduct for the governor‘s wife. He
blames his wife and Indian people together and says: ―You were crying so much you
didn‘t notice your buttons were undone. These blacks can‘t stand too much white
skin. Drive them mad I could see… I could see…‖ (―The Necklace‖ 75). Even when
the necklace is recovered from his own countrymen, the poor Indian people have to
undergo various kinds of ill-treatment; Hindu-Muslim riots take place, women
undergo serious mental and physical trauma. Religious books were torn or burnt
repeatedly. Ironically, the colonized people have to pay the cost of lost necklace by
their flesh and blood, losing many lives and curfew clamped to disturb their normal
course of life. Innocent women have to pay the price for their specific biological
distinct body structure and religious scriptures were burnt to ashes. Manju Kapur
remarks: ―Blood began to flow, at first-tentatively, and then in fuller course. Women
168

were dug out from their places and raped. Each side had their sacred books torn and
desecrated‖ (―The Necklace‖ 76).

The story raises the issue how a trivial issue of a lost necklace triggered such
riots in which several innocent people were either subjected to death or were ill-
treated. The worst was with women as several women had to face sexual and mental
harassment without any appropriate fault. The real culprit, George Blake was neither
blamed nor punished for the unexpected hazards heaped on many Indians. A small
necklace took several lives but unblushingly its discovery is celebrated with the
notion of gratitude and thankfulness. The worst result of it is that it disturbed peace
among Indian people and created disorder in India. The whole issue spread communal
violence as George Blake used inhuman means to regain the necklace. The necklace
no more remains an ornament but becomes a thing of false honour to Governor Blake:

Sir George was unsure of what to do. True to his expectations, a series
of betrayals by backstabbing natives had lead to recovery of the
necklace. It had been restored to his wife, and her expression of love
and gratitude had made every interrogative method worth which.
However the breakdown in Law and order did not resolve itself with
the same gratifying immediacy. (―The Necklace‖ 75)

Here, we see, the whole issue relates the sub standardized position given to
women and Indian people. This political stunt satisfies only the Colonizer‘s need and
above all, male ego. Right from the initial moments till the end, Lady Blake is
presented as an item to be displayed, an arm candy rather than a living human being.
She is controlled, directed; imposition of every incident on her serves her as an
eminent propellant. Though, ironically Lady Blake is given the status of highly
respected lady but reality is just the reverse of it. In social scenario, Indians are treated
rudely after riots. A committee is constituted to investigate the real cause behind
chaos and shallow transparency is advertised among the public as the author says: ―A
committee was set up to constitute the committee: Recommendations were invited
that would be publicly evaluated to ensure transparency. In this way month passed‖
(―The Necklace‖ 77).
169

The story opens with the news headline in The Tribune dated 11 July 1944
which was published from Lahore. The story further reveals how a news headline of
stolen necklace results in spread of riots and reveals Britisher‘s strategy and attitude
towards Indian people. Governor misuses the incident of necklace and blows up the
fire of hatred among Hindus and Muslims, thus triggering riots. The whole issue is
concocted in such a clean way that the real culprit is considered respectable at last,
negating the fate of poor unprotected people. The whole matter serves political
purpose only and innocent lives are put at stake. The story depicts the autocracy and
monopoly of colonizers over colonized countries. The short story ―The Necklace‖
produces a background of pre independence India. The stolen necklace of governor‘s
wife so incensed people about communal difference, that thousands of people were
killed for the sake of religion. Political effects on contemporary events are highlighted
in a matter-of-fact manner. Governor‘s wife and Indian people are treated in a like
manner. The story does not convey any prevalent generational aspects but gender
conflict becomes an eminent centre point of the story in a clear manner. Though the
incident of lost necklace is not a matter of import but it highlights Lady Blake‘s lower
status granted to her and reveals the sorry status of a high-class woman. The story
reveals the diminishing condition of a high-class woman and simultaneously raises a
pertinent question, what could be the condition of a common woman. Though
generational conflict is not the main issue found in the short story. Here, gender
conflict is the major theme detected in the character of George Blake.

Lady Blake is conditioned to that particular ornamented expression. So, after

having finished the hue and cry over her loss she thinks and finds her behaviour
inappropriate to situation. Her conditioning and consequent regret over the issue and
her strange expression may be of guilt reflects her suppressed personality and bent of
mind. George Blake conditioned her psyche and conveys gender conflict. Her guilt
and sense of regret is obvious here:

She shouldn‘t have shrieked and rushed out like that. How could she
have forgotten the code? She was his half, brave soldier marching by
his side, his helpmate his better half, his stiff upper lip, his source of
170

comfort and joy in this barren heathen godforsaken land, where palatial
building and hundreds of servants were not compensation enough for
the pressures experienced in carrying the burden. She looked at
George. Could be forgive her? (―The Necklace‖ 75)

Gender conflict here appears in different shapes. Conflict here, boggles the
mind of lady, disturbing her peace with guilt, diluting her self-confidence and also her
individuality. Her husband‘s status, his stiff aura is a constant reminder to her as a gift
and boon to her, rare embellishment to her, to adore her in every eye. The weight and
feel of this aura of his is so heavy and vehement that it triggers deep sense of guilt in
her, killing her naturalness, a natural reaction of her to the loss of a most precious and
coveted thing.

Manju Kapur presents woman‘s deprived self within male dominated culture
where women of upper strata of society (Shagun, Tara and Lady Blake) have to
undergo gender and generational conflicts. Her writings signify the sorry state of
common women struggling and fighting the patriarchal pressure in order to sustain
and survive. Their spectacular sensibility towards freedom changes the perception and
helps them to overcome their conflicts.
171

Works Cited

Akbar, Arifa. ―Custody, By Manju Kapur.‖ Rev. of Custody. Independent [London]

11 Mar. 2011: n. pag. 11 Mar. 2011. Web. 15 Oct. 2014.
Beauvoir, Simone De. ―Introduction to the Second Sex.‖ The Continental Philosophy
Reader. Ed. Richard Kearney and Mara Rainwater. London: Routledge, 1996.
95-108. Print.
Boikanyo, Refilwe. ―Unravelling Family Values.‖ Sunday Times. Times Newspapers
Limited, 3 Apr. 2012. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
Chakravarti, Uma. Everyday Lives, Everyday Histories: Beyond the Kings and
Brahmanas of 'Ancient' India. New Delhi: Tulika, 2006. Print.
Dhillon, Kavita. ―Matrimonial Discourses Pertaining to the Identity of Woman in
Manju Kapur's The Immigrant.‖ International Journal of English Language,
Literature and Translation Studies 2.3 (2015): 128-38. Web. 15 Mar. 2016.
Greer, Germaine. The Whole Woman. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1999. Print.
Kapur, Manju. ―Chocolate.‖ Untitled Document. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Dec. 2015
---. Custody. New Delhi: Random, 2011. Print.
---. ―The Necklace.‖ Ed. Khushwant Singh. New Indian Fiction. New Delhi: Harper
Collins, 2005. 73-77. Print.
Khare, Sheela Rani. ―Facets of Feminism in Shobha De‘s Starry Nights.‖ Feminism in
Indian Writing in English. Ed. Amar Nath Prasad and Samiran Kumar Paul.
New Delhi: Sarup, 2006. 177-87. Print.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Communist Manifesto and Its Relevance for
Today. Comp. Leon Trotsky. Chippendale, N.S.W.: Resistance, 1998. Print.
Mill, John Stuart. ―The Subjection of Women.‖ J. S. Mill: On Liberty and Other
Writings. Ed. Stefen Collini. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989. 117-218. Print.
Prabhakar, Nalini. ―Understanding Humour ―Chocolate‖ By Manju Kapur.‖ School of
Open Learning. University of Delhi, n.d. Web. 17 Sept. 2015.
Saharan, Asha. ―Treatment of Infidelity and Infertility in Manju Kapur‘s ‗Custody’.‖
The Journal for English Language and Literary Studies 2.1 (2012): 61-71.
TJELLS.COM. Web. 11 Dec. 2013.
Shirwadkar, Meena. Image of Woman in the Indo-Anglian Novel. New Delhi:
Sterling, 1979. Print.
Sinha, Sunita. Post-Colonial Women Writers: New Perspectives. New Delhi: Atlantic,
2008. Print.
Tandon, R. K. Status of Women in Contemporary World. New Delhi: Commonwealth,
1998. Print.