Roots and Shadows was Shashi Deshpande’s third novel which was published in 1983. The novel is often considered a feminist novel though the main theme of the novel is not feminism. Rather, it is to express the anguish and conflict of the modern educated woman struggling between the patriarchy and tradition on one hand and individuality, self-expression, and independence for the women on the other. The novel tells about the dynamics of an Indian, Brahmin, joint family and all its conflicts, compromises, and peculiarities.
Characters of Roots and Shadows:
Indu is the main character of the novel. She is a married woman who has yet to become a mother. Her mother died during her infancy and her father Govind, a photographer, left her in the care of his old aunt, Akka, and his brother, Anant or Kaka. Akka is the matriarch of the family, an elderly widowed woman with no child of her own. Narmada Atya is the widowed sister of Anant and Govind. Other uncles and aunts of Indu are Madhav Kaka and Sumitra Kaki, Vinay Kaka and Kamala Kaki, Sunanda Atya and Vasant Kaka, and Saroja, her widowed aunt and mother of Naren, one of her cousins. Her other cousins include Hemant, Sumant, Padmini (or Mini), and Sharad, sons and daughters of Anant Kaka. Sunil, Geetha, and Lata are children of Madhav Kaka and Sumitra Kaki. Viththal is an orphan Brahmin boy whom Akka adopted at an early age. Jayant is a young man of a different caste whom Indu meets at college and falls in love with. Later on, she marries him.
Summary of Roots and Shadows:
The novel begins as Govind, Indu’s father leaves her at his aunt Akka’s house after his wife’s death. It is a big joint family. Akka is an elderly widow with no child of her own. She is the matriarch of the family and lives with Indu’s grandfather (Akka’s brother-in-law), and his sons Anant, Madhav, Vinay, and Vasant. The family is controlled and dominated by Akka. It has been drilled into Indu’s mind that, being a female, she has to be obedient and unquestioning, meek and submissive. She is of the view that Akka is an obstacle in her way leading her to achieve her goal, the goal of attaining freedom and completeness. Indu grows up as a rebellious and pugnacious kid who wants to do things according to her fancy and understanding. At home, Indu was comfortable with Naren. He not only appreciates her but also encourages her to achieve her goal, the goal of attaining freedom and completeness. She, therefore,
rebels against Akka, her dominating authority, her conventional world with rigid rules, norms, and values, and the oppressive atmosphere in the family where women have no choice but to submit, surrender, and accept their lot silently and ungrudgingly. She finally succeeds in her endeavor when she leaves the house at the age of 18 and later marries a man of his own choice, Jayant.
Indu believed that he love marriage would bring a sense of freedom to her but gradually she begins accepting the traditional normal life of a typical Indian housewife. Her life and her thoughts begin to move around her husband. She thinks of her husband when she dresses; she thinks of him when she undresses; she thinks of him when she looks in the mirror; she thinks of his wants, his dreams, and his way of life. She forgets her ‘self’ and her ‘identity’. She sheds her ‘I’ into her husband’s. She shapes, molds, and changes herself according to her husband’s needs and desires. She understands that her attachment to Jayant is quite disturbing and her total surrender to him quite frightening. However, she believes that to live without a husband is the greatest calamity in her life. The irony of her life is that though she is not completely happy with her husband, she cannot live without him. She realizes that she, as a human creature, is incomplete, almost nothing without her husband. This sense of incompleteness fills her with sorrow and frustration. To get rid of it, she begins working as a writer in a magazine but wishes to take up a different form of writing that would satiate the novelist inside of her. She is a doting wife and almost as dutiful and self-effacing as the domesticated housewives she always resented.
She hides her dependence on Jayant and the hypocrisy of her emotions and actions builds a stream of angst and guilt inside of her. Jayant allows her to work as a writer but he never appreciates her, not consider it any real work. Indu starts feeling as if she is a caged bird. She gets a chance to set herself free from the cage, her marital home when she is called back to her ancestral home during Akka’s illness. The two had not spoken for 10 years and never really saw eye to eye, Indu is surprised when she learns that Akka wants to bequeath all her property and wealth to her. She hides the information from the rest of the family up until her final rites when the probate lawyer, Shayamarao reads Akka’s will to the entire family. They all are shocked to see that Indu, a familial pariah, was given everything. Even Indu herself is baffled at this. Indu’s cousin Padmini or Mini is supposed to get married and Akka promised to pay for it. So, Indu feels obligated to honor the said promise. However, she doesn’t like the man Annt Kaka chose for Mini as she feels Mini deserves a better match. However, Anant Kaka says that it is difficult to find a better match as he doesn’t have much dowry to pay. Mini is prepared to marry any man as ‘to marry’ seems to be the only purpose of her life. To Indu’s surprise, she is interested in marriage and not in man. Mini says, ‘I’m past twenty-four. I have to get married. What else is there to think about? . . . What choice do I have? . . . Of course I’m marrying him because there’s nothing else I can do. I’m no good at studies . . . There’s only one thing I’m really good at . . . looking after a house”. She knows that she has to get married so that she can get home, her own home. She is ready to marry any man, any man who is ready to marry her.
Indu learns about Viththal and his mother from Old Uncle: “Vithal’s father . . . a sour, grim man who rarely spoke and never smiled, there was a streak of cruelty in him that came out in his relations with his meek, silent wife. Viththal as a child, had been a frequent spectator of scenes in which the father had worked out his sadistic anger on the mother for the merest trifles. And then one day, when the man was out on the job, the mother just disappeared. She had not even bothered to cook a meal for the child. When the man returned after a three-day job, he found the boy starving. The mother never returned and her father was indifferent. Indu was still not a mother and she had a kind of distaste for the female function, the function of feeding a child, the function that gives a feeling of motherhood. She shivered to see Sunanda-atya sitting down with the child on her lap, opening her buttons and pushing a flaccid nipple into his mouth; and the child taking a long shuddering breath and sucking with loud noises. How can Indu perform this female function without a child of her own? Indian married women like Indu are considered incomplete without a child. However, she a motherless and yet never unloved, quail at the thought of becoming a mother for fear of being disillusioned.
Indu further learns about Saroja, Naren’s mother. She was a brilliant singer and wished to learn music but Akka didn’t allow her. How could she allow the female of her family to sit beside a stranger man? Saroja succumbed to Akka’s rule. Indu felt that a woman becomes an obstacle in the way of a woman. It is the woman who decides the destiny of a woman. And that is why Indu does not blame her husband, who, according to her, has not compelled and pressurized her to live her life the way he wants. It is the way that she wants to be. It is the woman who confines herself in the cage willingly. She still felt that Akka was the real villain who ruined almost all the lives of the females of her family. However, one day, Narmada Attya tells her about Akka. “Akka was just twelve when she got married. And he was well past thirty . . . Six months after her marriage, she ‘grew up’ and went to her husband’s home. What she had to endure there, no one knows. She never told anyone . . . But I heard that twice she tried to run away . . . a girl of thirteen. Her mother-in-law, I heard, whipped her for that and locked her up for three days, starved her as well, and then, sent her back to her husband’s room. Akka is one of the victims of child marriage and marital violence. She has been given inhuman and beastlike treatment by her husband and her mother-in-law. She has spent almost every night crying in her marital home. However, being a typical Indian woman, she proves herself a dutiful wife by looking after her bedridden husband when he gets ill. She proves her domineering character by not allowing his mistress to meet him. On hearing this story, Indu realizes that her knowledge of Akka is inadequate and incomplete. She feels guilty for having judged her without knowing anything about her. All this while, Indu is distressed about her relationship with Jayant as he restricts her attachment to her to some placid and dispassionate letters. In her desperation, she even commits adultery with one of her cousins and close friend Naren who is the only grandson of the Old Uncle (cousin of Akka). Naren was a self-indulgent and carefree vagabond who was never accepted by the family. He was orphaned in childhood and only has his grandfather to call his own. In the end, Naren succumbs to his ‘private devils’ and commits suicide. Meanwhile, Indu learns about her profession’s seeming betrayal as she realizes that she is not doing anything meaningful, rather, only perpetuating the self-serving lies of various influential people. She resigns from her job. As she introspects, she starts observing Jayant in a new light. Now she could see his strengths and his weaknesses with a better perception. She realizes that she cannot remain detached from Jayant because if she does so, she may end up like Naren. She realizes that all her infatuation with Naren was not love, it was just a good camaraderie and understanding. She comes with a better understanding of her family. She almost forgives Akka for her cruelties and she now knows what is important for a meaningful domestic life. She realizes that her home, her destination, and her point of final arrival is Jayant and Jayant alone. She needs to shed off her complexes and not let her love for him become a restrictive bond. She also needs to do away with a large part of the façade she has built up around Jayant and inject honesty and authenticity into their relationship.
She decides to fund Mini’s marriage and sell the house (and give everyone their share). She also decides to return to Jayant, her husband, and confess her infidelity with Naren. The meek, docile, and humble Indu of the early days finally emerges as a bold, challenging, conscious, and rebellious woman. She resigns her job, thus defying male authority, hierarchy, and the irony of a woman‟ 's masked existence. Indu weaves the fabric of her own intricate relationship with Jayant, contemplates, and goes back with the positive renewal of life. The whole things in the novel transform one by one. Akka renders her legacy to Indu and with Indu, everything changes. Her life undergoes through a transitional phase, but she buries the memories of Naren and their past. This change though snatches Naren from her but it also makes her present better. Her self-discovery, self-recognition and revived relationship with Jayant give her safety and protection for the future. Indu after this self-discovery goes back to life as its successor.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of Indian English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
No comments:
Post a Comment