CHAPTER-5

The Awakening

Of New

Consciousness

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In this modern India one comes across certain intelligent and courageous

girls who raise their voices against the patriarchal norms. Such girls fight their battles

on their own to change their destiny. They not only transform their lives, but are

helpful in transforming others‘ lives also. They contribute actively in the national

development too. These are the girls who celebrate their journey from victimized to

liberated and individual selves.

Kashmira Sheth and Kamala Markandaya depict the picture of such girls

in their novels. This chapter will analyse Leela in Kashmira Sheth‘s Keeping

Corner , Mira and Pemala in Kamala Markandaya‘s Some Inner Fury. These girls

are successful in awakening new consciousness amongst other girls and society.

I

The death shrouds and the shadow falls, trapping me.

I want to run free like a newborn calf on a grassy plain.

Tied, I am tied with a chidri to the nail of widowhood

Nail driven, in the soil of my life (Sheth: 157)

The search for a liberated self other than the one imposed upon women by

society and culture begins when the woman starts thinking and questioning the codes

of conduct laid down by society, especially a patriarchal one. This thinking and

questioning attitude can start right from the woman's childhood, persist through

adulthood, that is, marriage and motherhood, and become a mature understanding of

one's individuality leading to an integrated, whole personality. Once they have

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succeeded in the quest, and found their true selves, they are at peace with themselves

and with the world. They become people who have their own aims in life, making

their own choices, with a sense of responsibility. They become liberated in their

thinking, and actions. ―Childhood is a very important period in the formation of

character and for the emergence of a value structure in the life of a human being.‖

(Aerathu Vincent: 43) Though the girl child was absent for long in Indian literature,

we get some memorable portrayals of the girl child in recent Indian English fiction

Children‘s literature in India tries to highlight young girls‘ capacity to

represent a healthy new beginning. ‗The New Indian Girl‘ presented in contemporary

Indian English children‘s literature proves to be an epitome of modern and post-

colonized India, where gender equality is beginning to find its place. In contemporary

Indian children‘s literature feminist ideology is observed in the widespread presence

of girl characters and the pursuit of gender equality. In contemporary Indian

children‘s literature, there are many stories in which girls are the protagonists and

they initiate different actions. The children's novels like Suchitra and Rag Picker,

Blue Jasmine, Koyal dark Mango Sweet, Keeping Corner portray different picture of

girls in India. The girl characters in these novels are not passive like they used to be in

traditional Indian literature. Most of the novels by women can be considered a form of

feminist children‘s literature. However, while a work of feminist children‘s literature

can be defined as one in which the protagonist triumphs over gender- related conflicts,

a prevalent narrative pattern in many of these novels, it can be considered a form that

is premised on a feminist ideology espousing, that all people should be treated

equally, regardless of gender, race, class or religion.

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From the Panchatantra and the Jataka Tales to the Ramayana and the

Mahabharata, India is a land of oral traditions. Grandparents handed down stories to

their grandchildren and they retold many of those to their children. In fact, most of the

Indian books which are seen in the market today are retold versions of these stories.

However, since independence, India has transformed through a series of changes in

outlook, achievement and ideals, which have been reflected in literature—even

children‘s literature(www.Chillibreeze.com) Books for children have changed from

simple stories that are rich in morals and traditions to those that reflect the new

changing society. Children‘s literature from India is not yet recognized around the

world, but it is certainly spreading its wings. Writers of children‘s literature produce

books, both traditional and contemporary, that reflect Indian reality in content, style,

visuals and production.

Kashmira Sheth is a children‘s novelist. She is the author of six books, two

of them are picture books, titled as My Dadima Wears a Sari and Monsoon Afternoon.

She has written three books which are meant for teens, Blue Jasmine, Koyal Dark,

Mango Sweet and Keeping Corner. She is awarded with many awards like, 2007

Parent‘s Choice Award Gold Winner, 2008 Notable Children‘s Books in the

Language Arts, Booklist Top Ten Historical Fiction for Youth, CCBC choice 2008,

IRA(International Reading Association) Notable Books for A Global Society,2008

Friends of American Writers Award. Keeping Corner is published in 2007. Her latest

novel is Boys without Names. In Kasmira‘s novels feminist ideology is visible, she

represents girl characters as protagonists who fight for their rights, raise questions

against traditional patriarchy and triumph over gender related conflicts.

Keeping Corner is a story of a Brahmin girl Leela, who lives in a small

village Jamlee, in the Indian state of Gujarat in 1918. Leela is engaged to Ramanlal at

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the age of 2 and she gets married at the age of 9. When the novel begins Leela is 12

years old and she is about to leave her parents‘ house and go to live with her husband

as per tradition. She has never been interested in school. She does not care for the

chaotic situation in India and Gandhiji‘s struggle for independence. She is very much

a pleasure-loving and carefree girl who enthusiastically looks forward to move to her

husband‘s place. As a child, marriage to her, is just about wearing beautiful clothes,

wearing new jewellery, eating good food and have fun. Unfortunately her husband

dies and she becomes a widow at the age of 12.With her husband‘s death Leela‘s life

changes forever. Instead of being showered with gifts and affection, she is forced to

shave her head and give away her favourite saris and bangles. Leela is compelled to

follow the tradition of ‗keeping corner‘ by remaining inside her house for a year. As

per Indian tradition, the subsequent life of Leela will remain the same. Leela will be a

social outcast and considered a burden by her family. As Leela tells her teacher, ―A

year of keeping corner will never end. It will be as long as a river.‖ (Sheth: 107)

The custom of child marriage of girls became very common by the epic

period. Leela also has heard people saying:

Daughters are someone else‘s treasure and the sooner you part with

them the better off you are; daughter looks good only in their in-law‘s

house, and the younger you marry your daughter the quicker you are

done with your obligations. (Sheth: 9)

A more tragic disaster brought about by the early marriage system was that

this led to many girls becoming widows even before they reached to puberty. The

plight of the widow was very poor. Widows were ill- treated and ignored. They were

excluded from all good rituals. Regarding personal morality the society maintained a

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double standard for men and women. After becoming a widow Leela is also ill-treated

by the society. She is ignored and excluded from the rituals. She is considered to be

the bringer of misfortune. Society tries to make a widow feel that she is inferior to

everyone in the world and even a widow does not have confidence to face the

challenges that she will come across as a widow. After the completion of a year of

keeping corner when Leela steps out from her house for the first time to pluck some

flowers, she hears the voice of a band. At that time across the street someone shouts:

Aye Leela, are you crazy? Go, go in the house. No one wants to see the

face of a widow before getting married...Hurry, run in before the

groom sees you. It would be a bad omen.

(Sheth: 210)

Leela questions this custom and asks her kaki:

Tell me how can I bring bad luck? I am just a girl named Leela. What

powers do I have? And if I had powers, then wouldn‘t I have prevented

bringing such bad luck to myself? (Sheth: 211)

Leela also questions society‘s unequal attitudes towards men and women.

She asks, ―Fat Soma was widowed once, why does not he bring bad luck? (Sheth:

211) Her kaki answers, ―It‘s different for men .They can marry again and be

happy.‖(Sheth: 211) Leela again cries in grief, ―Why can‘t women be happy again

too?‖ (Sheth: 211) Leela wants to go to Ahmedabad for studies because she thinks

that if she educates herself she can step out of her image of Leela –the widow to Leela

as an individual. When Leela thinks of going to Ahmedabad, her cousin Jaya

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appreciates it and writes to Leela, ―... It will open up a new world for you. A world

where you will be Leela and nothing else.‖ (Sheth: 146)

Leela is a victim of such a custom in India. Kashmira Sheth tries to depict a

new Indian girl in Leela, who successfully balance tradition and modernity. As

Michelle Superle says:

These ‗new Indian girl‘ characters are shaped by liberal feminist ideals

and successfully balance tradition and modernity in support of

contemporary societal needs. (Both national and multicultural) They

honour tradition by working from within and improving family and

community relationships. At the same time, they embrace modernity in

their fight for gender equality, which they attain by developing

themselves through education and by making valuable contributions to

public society, outside the domestic sphere. (Superle: 41)

Leela is such a girl who is empowered and progressive. She acts to reject

traditionally prescribed roles for Indian girls by insisting that girls and boys are

equally valued members of society and deserve equal opportunities, particularly in

relation to education and self-determination. Leela is the epitome of such a girl who

not only succeeds in improving her life, but tries to bring transformation in the lives

of other people also and thinks for the well-being of her community and country.

In Keeping Corner the conflation of national progress and gender equality is

clearly demonstrated as Gandhi‘s pursuit of freedom from colonial control is

consistently shown to inspire Leela‘s own pursuit of freedom from patriarchal

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constraints. Gandhi is struggling for freedom of the nation and Leela is struggling for

liberation of self and women in general.

Before 1947India was a colonized country. In the novel Gandhi is shown

struggling against the colonizer for getting ‗Purna Swaraj, means freedom of choice.

In the same way women, for many centuries are suffering from ‗Interior colonization‘.

They are colonized by the patriarchal tradition and custom. For many centuries there

has been a tacit acceptance of a number of such assumptions about the inferior status

of women which pervade all fields of life. With the codification of the laws of Manu,

the subordination of women was assured for centuries to come. Manu's idea that a

woman does not deserve freedom, that she has to be protected in her childhood by her

father, in her youth by her husband and in her old age by her sons put the seal of male

domination and tyranny over women and their socially sanctioned oppression. As

Toril Moi observes, ―It is quite natural to assume that women have internalized this

objectified vision about themselves and consequently they lived in a state of

unauthenticity.‖ (92)

Leela feels that tradition has bound people as foreign rule has bound India.

Even when it hurts people they cannot escape from it because people are so used to it.

Forced by her relatives to behave according to strict Hindu behavioural codes, newly

widowed Leela begins to follow the patriarchal Hindu customs. But as a new girl

Leela begins to question the tradition by saying, ―who started this? Can anyone

benefit from it?‖ (Sheth: 59) She then realises that custom is nothing but made up

rules. She begins to rebel against the out mood customs. She cries in grief, ―I don‘t

want to follow this custom. I want my bangles, my earrings, my ghaghri-poulka-I

want everything back. Everything.‖ (Sheth: 59)

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A society that caters exclusively to the well being of men can bring disaster

for a girl. when she finds herself captive in ‗a man‘s world‘ she will necessarily be

torn between the values that she has imbibed from her elders and her own ambitions

regarding her future. The patriarchal myths incorporating archetypal images and role

models have been internalized by men and women over the ages and it calls for the

immense effort on the part of women to liberate them from the cultural influence

imbibed by them. Each of them has to live through an experience of casting off the

image imposed by society in order to find an authentic identity. An archetypal image

of woman cherished for ages has been the ‗angel-in-the house‘ which Virginia Woolf

has elaborated in the following manner:

Intensely sympathetic…immensely charming, utter unselfish, excelled

in the difficult arts of family life, sacrifice herself daily…In short she

was so constituted that she never had a mind or wish of her own, but

preferred to sympathies always with the minds and wishes of others.

Above all… she was pure. Her purity was supposed to be her chief

beauty… her blushes, her great grace. In those days… every house had

its angel. (Woolf: 39)

In this way patriarchal culture insists that a woman should confine her life to

cooking, cleaning, washing and bearing and rearing children ignoring her intelligence,

education, human potency and even her selfhood. At the age of 12 only the girls like

Leela are taught as Leela‘s mother advises her, ―You‘ll be thirteen soon and must

behave like a young woman. Don‘t gawk.‖ (Sheth: 7) As Simone De Beauvoir has

said, ―The self control imposed on the woman becomes second nature for ‗the well

bred girl‘ and kills spontaneity.‖ (Beauvoir, 2011: 358) Girl‘s childhood is spent as a

training period of being a woman only. Even when parents pamper a girl child and try

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to make her happy there is always a fear in their mind that what if this pampering

become a burden for a girl when she goes to her in-law‘s house. Even society cannot

bear such pampering for a girl. As Leela‘s Masi shows her anger to Leela‘s mother,

saying:

I never heard of a little girl who could make the whole family dance

around her! Why don‘t you raise her the way girls are supposed to be

raised? Our ba only indulged our brothers, never us sisters. (Sheth: 25)

The cultural and traditional aspect of how a girl should be brought up is

clearly shown here. Traditional codes and conduct are always imposed on girls.

According to the Indian traditional concept girl should never be treated like boys. The

facilities and preference should always be given to boys and never to girls. Feminists

contend that in a male supremacist world owned and controlled by men; it is no

wonder that women consistently find themselves in subjugating positions. Each and

every avenue of power within society is in male hands. The concept of ‗power‘ is

highly charged for women. The delimiting aspect of power in its usual sense is that it

has long been associated with violence and the use of force. Power is seem to act only

in its own interest and by exploiting the powerless, including women and children.

Feminists consider it important to re-define the very concept of power. To

them power means, ―the capacity to change… the individual and the environment…

without the use of force.‖ (Boneparth, XIV) Feminists, as a rule, are not interested in

exploitative power but in the power that is mutually strengthening and fortifying.

Leela, before she meets her teacher Saviben, she is confined to her house with her

narrow vision. Saviben proves to be a real Guru for Leela. She becomes a tourch-

bearer to show Leela the correct direction and widen her vision. With the help of

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Saviben, Leela realises that she has the power to change her fate. Leela, who was not

interested in studies earlier, starts taking interest in studies and reading books and

articles written by the reformists like Narmad and Gandhi. Leela shows her gratitude

to her teacher by saying, ―I‘ll never forget the day you came to teach me. I didn‘t

really want to study then, but now I know it was the best thing that ever happened to

me.‖ (Sheth: 181)

Leela does not think about herself solely as an individual, but rather sees

herself as connected with a societal whole once she begins to understand her position

as a part of the larger condition of child widows, widows in general, and ultimately

women‘s role in Indian society. She says:

May be being a widow is my kismet, but that does not mean I have to

suffer for the rest of my life. It wasn‘t my fault that Ramanlal died. If

you send me to Ahmedabad, I‘ll work hard and make you proud. I‘ll be

able to help people, the way Saviben helped me. My life won‘t be

wasted. (Sheth: 244)

Narmad‘s ideas have widen Leela‘s perspective. She says about Narmad,

―He said that childhood marriage was a shameful thing and should be abolished right

away. He believed that widows should be allowed to marry.‖(Sheth, P-163) Narmad‘s

ideas begin to sink into her mind and her thoughts begin to grow. She starts thinking

that customs and tradition are man-made and someone should take initiative to

question the unfair tradition which is partial to women. She says:

Narsi Mehta‘s ‗bhajan‘, devotional song, that Kaka loved, said we were all

part of the same God. If it was true, then widowed men and widowed

women should be treated the same. May be some tradition started as silk

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threads but had turned into stubborn ropes. If I was questioning them, then

others could be too. (Sheth: 164)

For the first time, despite her confinement, Leela begins to open her eyes

to the changing world. Leela initially believes that her social position is

nonnegotiable due to her fate. She later understands that her action can make a

difference in changing her life. By reading the newspaper as well as other reading

for her school work, she becomes familiar with the philosophical values and

protest work of activist, including Gandhi, who is leading the struggle to

emancipate women in India- as well as India itself. In turn Leela recognises that

her individual actions can affect her entire society.

In India, where the oppression of women was perhaps more severe than in

other countries, not until the nineteenth century, was there a move towards abolishing

the unjust practices and evil traditions. Since the majority of women were leading

‗muted lives‘, the moves for reform was made by men. Indian reformers of the period

like Mahadev Govind Ranade and Raja Ram Mohan Roy pleaded for the spread of

women‘s education. A campaign against early marriages gained wide support. The

evil practice of ‗sati‘ was declared illegal by the government. (K. Nirmala: 4)

The cause of equality of women was taken up by the national freedom

movement. Mahatma Gandhi was an ardent champion of women‘s rights. The cause

of the nation‘s freedom drew many brilliant women out of their houses and led them

to join the freedom struggle and fight on a par with men. With the participation of the

Indian woman in the freedom struggle, the woman‘s question acquired a new

dimension in India. By proving her mettle as a freedom fighter, the Indian woman

proved that her sphere need not be confined to the household chores. Participation in

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these movements gave women awareness about their inherent power. (K. Nirmala: 4)

The existence of different groups and various mass movements in which women get

involved, indicates that different perceptions on women‘s oppression and on the ways

to overcome them prevail in India. Since the oppression of women in Indian context is

based on a multiplicity of factors like class, caste, gender bias, ethnicity, so the need

for plural expression of feminism is imperative. It is practically difficult to convince

of a single women‘s movement which can include within its fold all the complex

issues faced by women of India who belong to different groups and communities.

Activists the world over have raised their voice against the patriarchal

tendency to look down upon woman as an object or a possession of man, denying her

the right as a free individual who can exercise her discretion and intellectual

capabilities, make her own choices in life and play her role in decision making which

can bring about drastic changes in her life and in the life of the universe. As Gandhi

demands for ‗Swaraj‘, freedom of choice for the people in India, in the same way

Leela also demands for the same for the women in India. She questions, ―If Brahman

men can remarry, why can‘t Brahman women? Why can‘t women be treated equally

to men?‖ (Sheth: 167) Leela frequently uses Gandhi‘s principles and arguments to

support her own: for example, she confronts her father by saying, ―Gandhiji thinks

widows should be able to go to school… what good are all his ideas if widows and

their families don‘t take the lead? Ba, I want to study, and I need your help.‖ (Sheth:

236) While convincing her father to allow her to go to Ahmedabad and study further

Leela tells her father:

It‘s easier to follow customs than to question them. Bapuji, we have to

take a pledge to fight against all that is wrong and cruel, including

customs and prejudices. Don‘t our scriptures, Vedas, say that truth is

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whole? So how can we fragment it?... How can we fight against cruelty

and unfairness in some cases but not in others? I didn‘t do anything

wrong, but I have to suffer. Don‘t I have a right to wage satyagrah

against that? (Sheth: 246)

Eventually Leela‘s father recognizes that, ―this is not just about Leela, it is

also about something bigger.‖(Sheth: 246-247) and approves Leela‘s demands. The

new Indian girl as a collective is about something bigger: changing social roles for

Indian females, roles that ultimately serve a national agenda. Thus, in their own small

ways, Leela creates a ripple effect that conceptually expands the boundaries, not only

of girlhood but also of what comprise the Indian nation.

Novels such as Keeping Corner which imagine girls taking initiative and

acting with agency to become new Indian girls by obtaining education and pursuing

gender equality, can provide inspiration and demonstrate that gender equality may be

attainable. Leela in Keeping Corner is one such girl, who tries to contribute to

national development by educating herself. Like a freedom fighter, she fights for the

right of women in India. She joins Indian freedom movement and tries to help in

National progress. Commenting on Leela‘s character Michelle Superle has said:

Leela from Keeping Corner is the epitome of the new Indian girl. She

struggles to achieve her own personal transformation by escaping a

continued domestic existence and contributing to her nation

professionally as a teacher. She also becomes involved in Gandhi‘s

freedom movement. Thus, the setting of Keeping Corner on the cusp

of Indian independence only emphasises the new Indian girl‘s nation

building role. (Superle: 53)

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Leela is like any teen at the threshold of a new adventure when her life falls

apart. She gains strength from adversity and fights back. The teens will realise that

even in the most critical circumstances, an individual has a choice and responsibility

to question authority. It may be family, society or government. Leela‘s courage will

make them care deeply about what happens to her and help them find strength when

facing their own problems. As imagined by Indian women writers in many English-

language children‘s novels, the new Indian girl is a savior: in emancipating herself

and others and pursuing gender equality. Leela in Keeping Corner is one such girl

who, transforms herself and her community, ultimately providing a valuable

contribution to postcolonial India by creating an empowered balance between

tradition and modernity. She symbolizes a new way of being not only for Indian girls,

but also for the Indian nation.

II

I discovered at last the gateway to the freedoms of the mind and gazed

entranced upon that vista of endless extensions to which the spirit is

capable. ( Markandaya: 50)

After a period of aggressive deficiencies, which can break certain girls

mentally we can see that girls succeed in breaking the constraints binding them and

developing independent identities. They become people with their own aspirations in

life, capable of making their own choices, and responsible. They become liberated in

their thinking and actions, in contrast to their earlier selves, which were similar to the

traditional concept of a woman that is submissive, docile, fearful, dependent and

suffering in silence. Once liberated, girls learn to live on an equal footing with men

and develop qualities earlier associated with ‗manliness‘ like aggressiveness,

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ambition, broad mindedness, independence and courage. Though a girl has to go

through a lot of mental agony and has to suffer a lot, to find their true identity. It is this

struggle for self- realisation that becomes a text of most women writers. The quest for

an authentic self is an off recurring theme in the fiction of many women writers. This

quest for identity is manifested in their rebellion against tradition and conventions,

their efforts to develop their individuality, their efforts to develop a whole and

harmonious self, at both emotional and intellectual levels and thus experience real

peace and happiness in their lives.

Indian women novelists in English have been presenting women as a centre

of concerns in their novels. A woman‘s search for identity is a recurrent theme in their

fiction. Kamala Markandaya is one of the finest and most distinguished Indian

novelists in English of the post colonial era, who is internationally recognized for her

masterpiece Necter in a Sieve published in 1954. She has achieved a worldwide

distinction by winning an Asian prize for her literary achievement in 1974. Endowed

with strong Indian sensibility, she depicts women‘s issues and problems very deeply in

her novels. A woman‘s quest for identity and redefining herself finds reflection in her

novels and constitutes a significant motif of the female character in her fiction. Her

deep instinctive insight into women‘s problems and dilemmas helps her in drawing a

realistic portrait of a contemporary woman. She explores and interprets the emotional

reactions and spiritual responses of women and their predicament of sympathetic

understanding. The chief protagonists in most of her novels, present an existential

struggle of a woman, who denies to flow along the current and refuses to submit her

individual self.

Kamala Markandaya, through her novels shows her determination to carry on

her fight for the oppressed women in a male oriented society. She is succeeded in

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studying women thoroughly. Being a woman, she inherits innate property to delve on

the plight of women. She perceives their wretchedness from a sociological and

psychological perspective. She delineates their dilemma in the form a sociological and

psychological perspective. She delineates this dilemma in the form of rootlessness and

crisis of identity, a desire to be treated not only as someone‘s daughter, wife and

mother but also a liberated individual. Throughout her novels, her consciousness of

what it is to be a woman, both as a member of society and as an individual, emerges as

one of her instinctive and passionate note. Applauding this quality Dr. A. V. Krishna

Rao observes:

Kamala Markandaya‘s novels in comparison with those of her

contemporary women writers seem to be more fully reflective of the

awakened feminine sensibility in modern India as she attempts to

project the image of the changing traditional society. (Rao: 55)

Kamala Markandaya, in most of her novels introduces female characters as

her protagonists who possess life affirming qualities. By making them central

characters of her novel, she has highlighted their roles in the present day world.

Kamala Markandaya uses the novel as a befitting medium to reveal different

facets of the image of woma. She has shown her self- definition and her emphatic

identification with her characters. Compared to other Indian English women

novelists, she has won the battle for her women protagonists and has come out with

flying colours in the domain of the feminine world. She breathes life into her women

characters, who with the strength of adoption convert the challenges of life into a

pursuit of finer values that make life worth living.

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In Some Inner Fury Kamala Markandaya depicts an urbanized environment

which gives her an opportunity to share the life and experiences of the sophisticated

upper class females in the pre-independence era. In the novel Kamala Markandaya

gives a very vivid and graphic account of the East-West cultural clash in the

backdrop of national struggle by projecting three wonderful female figures, Mira,

Premala and Roshan, who exhibit rare and unique virtue of love, loyalty, friendship

and understanding. Mira, the protagonist is brought up in a rich, sophisticated family

that prides itself in being a part of the British social circle. In spite of her mother‘s

warnings she engages herself with Richard. Mira soon realises that the British are in

India to exploit and to oppress. In fact, Mira is a product of two cultural modes- the

East and the West. In her search for identity, she encounters the conscious and

unconscious motives of her life. Mira ultimately realises the superiority of her own

culture.

It is the first person narrative, both tender and realistic of the growth and

flowering of a young Indian girl from the close confines of the traditional family into

the larger world of love and experience. The first step is taken when Mira meets

Richard, who has come from England with her brother Kitsamy, and then she

discovers for the first time a new obligation that goes beyond the boundaries of

family. It progresses when Mira decides to leave home to live on her own terms, and

it continues when she goes to work in the city for Roshan and discovers herself.

Some Inner Fury is also the tale of Roshan Merchant, the rich miller

owner‘s daughter. Roshan is a frank, educated, talented, enlightened woman. Roshan

acquires her notion of freedom from her education abroad. Through the portrayal of

Roshan, Kamala Markandaya widens the concept of freedom. Roshan is concerned

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not only about personal freedom but about national and global freedom. Thus, she

becomes a role model for Mira and Premala.

Premala, an educated girl symbolises the traditional Indian girl who admires

Roshan but fails to translate her desire of assertiveness into her daily life. Premala

does not like the Westernised ways of her husband. The gentle and docile Premala is

deeply religious in outlook, believing in the sanity of marriage and that a wife must

do her utmost to please her husband. A revolutionary change towards life occurs in

her only after observing Roshan and Mira. This change in her makes her associate

herself with an orphanage and a school.

In Some Inner Fury Kamala Markandaya depicts female characters who

exhibit a positive and optimistic outlook on life and emerge as strong human beings.

By exercising their own free will, exhibiting their own self, they get fulfilment and

recognition in life.

The Indian culture demands specific duties of the girl and strict conceptions

of morality are held in high esteem. The notion of identity is nurtured by society.

Society creates certain images and girls mould themselves into these roles by the

process of socialisation and domestication. They are told that they are inferior to

men, they are weak, passive and it is feminine to be gentle, obedient and sacrificing.

Even now girls are expected to adjust themselves to the whims and fancies of the

male members of the family. In the Indian society, that is essentially patriarchal, the

female child is constantly being trained for her new role to serve her husband and

live up to his expectations.

In Some Inner Fury Premala and Mira at the very beginning of the novels

seem to face the challenges of Indian traditional norms. When the novel begins Mira

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is 16 years old and Premala is 17. Both of them are considered as young women and

not girls. When Kit and his father insists Richard to stay at their place for a week or

two Mira also says, ―Of course we shall be delighted.‖ (Markandaya: 3) Everyone

starts looking at her with disapproval and wonders, as Mira says, ―How a well

brought up young woman like myself could be so forward.‖(Markandaya: 3) Mindset

of the people of India is that a girl is good, who is shy and timid and if she dares to

speak certain things, she is not considered to be a well brought up girl. A girl can not

react spontaneously. As Simone De Beauvoir says:

...her ears are filled with the treasures of feminine wisdom, feminine

virtues are presented to her, she is taught cooking, sewing and

housework as well as how to dress, how to take care of her personal

appearance, charm and modesty, she is dressed in uncomfortable and

fancy clothes that she has to take care of, her hair is done in

complicated styles, postures is imposed on her; stand up straight, don‘t

walk like a duck; to be graceful she has to repress spontaneous

movements,...: in short, she is committed to becoming, like her elders,

a servant and an idol. (Beauvoir, 2011: 306)

A girl in India ,at a very young age is trained to be a wife. As a part of such

training Mira is taken to the club, frequently. Club going becomes part of the pattern

of their lives, for varying reasons. Mira discloses the purpose behind going to the

club saying:

I went because I was taken and to learn to mix with Europeans. This

last was part of my training, for one day soon I would marry, a man of

my own class, who like my brother would have been educated abroad,

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and who would expect his wife to move as freely in European circles

as he himself did.(Markandaya:14)

Mira, though she never denies to go to the club and accepts it as a part of

training. She wonders, ―Why the lesson had to be learned so hardly.‖ (Markandaya:

14) In India a young girl of 16 is trained like a woman and taught constantly about

what she should do and should not do. When Mira, excitedly asks her mother to go

to the swimming pool with Kit and Richard, her mother says, ― Modesty graces a

woman. It is not right for a young woman to go among young man.‖(Markandaya:

25)

In case of the Indian girls, the societal norms are such that all of them are

conditioned to become successful as wives and mothers. Great societal pressure is

put on a girl to function as a successful wife or mother. She is also conditioned to

remain docile and submissive and always cater to pleasing the male members of the

family. Premala, another female protagonist leads a different kind of life. She is an

idealized, stereotyped girl who symbolises Indian tradition and culture. Premala is a

girl who comes to stay at Mira‘s home. The reason behind her staying at Mira‘s

home is that Kit does not want to marry a strange girl, so his mother tells Premala‘s

mother that Premala has to stay there for some time. Moreover, she adds that it is

not compulsory for Kit to marry Premala.Kit will marry Premala only if he likes

her. Premala symbolises a traditional Indian girl who is treated like an object and

does not have freedom to choose her life partner as a young boy like Kit has. As

Krishnaswamy opines:

Premala, an educated girl in Some Inner Fury proves that in India a

marriage is performed to please everybody else except the principle

partners in the union.(185)

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Premala‘s condition is the same. No one feels the need to ask about her

opinion. Mira feels the agony and fright of a young girl Premala, who never left her

home earlier and never had been alone, has to live with unknown people at unknown

place. Premala‘s feeling is reflected in Mira‘s words. Mira says:

Now standing beside her in the porch while our mothers exchanged

farewells, I felt her trembling, and looking up saw that her face was

wet. I knew then what it must be like for her; her loneliness touched

me and flowed into me, my throat felt tight with pity. She is too

young...To me she seemed a child: and this feeling was always to

remain for, like a child, she had no defences. (Markandaya: 35)

The innocent, modest and utterly unpretentious Premala wears shorts, play

tennis and throws parties for Kit‘s sake. Premala cannot adopt Westernized codes and

conduct easily, she does not like to go to club and can not easily match with people

there, she is embarrassed. Premala is a girl who can not voice her likes and dislikes

freely, she is traditionally brought up girl who is always taught to remain silent, to be

submissive of his husband‘s wishes and likes. Govind tries to arouse the feeling of

self-discovery in Premala saying, ―It‘s foolish to force oneself, one can not.‖

(Markandaya:38) Premala as a traditional girl answers, ―One can try. I would make a

poor wife, if I did not.‖ (Markandaya:38)

In social situations, one responds either in the active form or in the passive

form. This depends on the respondent‘s mental ability, his/her interest in the particular

subject, his/her attitude towards the person spoken to or about. In the Indian context, a

girl is usually appreciated as an object from whom obedience, submissiveness,

passivity, complicity and silence are demanded. As a result of her passivity,

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submissiveness and self-denial, she is led to depressive moodiness and morbid

sensitivity. These negative influences that shape female identity from a very young

age have destructive effects on girls. Some destructive effects can be seen in Premala

as Mira says:

A lovely face, tenderly moulded, which never lost its tenderness

because she could never learn to be tough, but which gave up one by

one, the lights and colours of happiness. (Markandaya: 107)

Commenting on Premala‘s character S. Krishnaswamy opines that:

In Premala, the author shows the insecurity, isolation, bewilderment

and vulnerability that the traditionally brought up Indian woman feels,

when she has to adjust to Western norms of living, when she has to

accommodate to the tastes and values of a culture in flux. She cannot

confront a group- oriented male- dominated society head-on as Roshan

does. Being sensitive and gentle by nature, she is overwhelmed by

harsh reality. She tries to be an ideal wife and companion to her

husband. (Krishnaswamy:188)

Girls in the novels of Kamala Markandaya are beyond doubts the victims of

social and economic pressures and disparities. However, they raise themselves above

all these and cross the barriers of discrimination only for the larger concepts of

universal love and concord. The common thread in all her female characters is that the

quest for autonomy for the self coupled with nurturance for the family and fellow

feeling for the larger community of men and women. This is a venture in which

female characters are confronted with several obstacles emerging mainly from the

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irregularities in the social system along with economic difficulties. As the girls battle

with these forces they develop mature vision of life.

In Some Inner Fury one comes across three such female characters, Roshan,

Mira and Premala. Roshan Merchant is an outspoken, educated woman. She bestows

her outstanding qualities upon her less fortunate sisters around her. From a columnist,

she becomes the owner of the paper. Her magnetic dynamism appeals even to the

conventional character, Premala. Her quest for identity and autonomy cannot be

separated from her desire for national independence. Her foreign education does not

distance her from her own people, but instils in her the need for personal as well as

national freedom. Roshan is a bold woman that is why she can protest and raise a

voice against injustice done to Indians. She becomes angry when Indians do not show

courage to protest and raise a voice against injustice done to them. She says, ―Of

course, if you are all prepared to accept this- if you don‘t want even to protest- there is

nothing more to be said.‖ (Markandaya: 135)The condition of girls is also same in

India, they do not dare to voice against patriarchy and have to remain chained in

traditional codes and custom. Roshan, has her own ideas, she leads her life on her own

terms. Roshan is a woman who enjoys freedom of choice, which she wants for Indian

people also. She believes that everyone has a right to choose the way of living and no

one can force one to behave in a certain pattern. She becomes liberated in her thoughts

and actions. Roshan says about herself:

I‘d rather go to the devil my own way, then be led to heaven by anyone

else. And I wouldn‘t give up being free like that of anything... It hasn‘t

always been that way- no, not even for me. (Markandaya: 145)

146

Roshan, as a liberated woman prefers to choose wrong path chosen on her

will by herself than led by someone to right one. She wants her soul to be free and

wants to enjoy such state of freedom where her soul is not slave to anyone. She wishes

the same for the country and her people. Mira is impressed by Roshan‘s idea of mental

freedom, though physically locked in jail. Mira says about Roshan:

I understood quite well what she meant, although nowhere else could

she have been as securely fettered as she was here, behind locked door

in a cell behind the high walls of a prison: and yet, of course here she

kept her freedom.(Markandaya: 145)

Roshan stands as a symbol of new awakening among Indian women during

the period of national struggle for freedom, who do not mind giving up the comforts of

their life for some noble cause. Roshan has a sway over young girls like Mira and

Premala.

Roshan‘s company and her work give Mira a chance to live differently. Mira

starts working with Roshan and she starts going everywhere as an observer. Earlier

also she used to go at clubs, weddings, parties, but now the situation has changed. She

is now given a chance to mould her own self the way she wants. Mira says,

I went as an observer, and it was almost as if I had a new pair of eyes,

for I began to perceive, beneath surfaces glazed by familiarity, colours

and values that had never been apparent before. Moreover the power,

handed to me so lightly, of being able to cast my own moulds, of

finding my own expression for feelings which had hardly been evoked

till now, was one which, not having exercised before, I found

exhilarating to a perhaps disproportionate degree.(Markandaya: 77)

147

Girls are always observed or criticized and they have to behave in a way to

protect herself from criticism. Girls are never given a chance to criticise. When Mira

gets a chance to observe she feels very happy about it. In Roshan‘s company Mira also

starts understanding Roshan‘s way of living and she also starts becoming bolder in

expression and starts following Roshan. When Mira goes to meet Roshan in prison,

she dares to argue with the jail superintendent in favour of Roshan, though she knows

that the jail superintendent may deny her to meet Roshan.

Mira ruminates that individual fall or suffering is irrelevant in the event of

great causes. Through the character of Mira, a mentally liberated girl, Kamala

Markandaya emphasises that personal losses do not count for the noble cause. Mira

sacrifices her love for Richard at the altar of national loyalty. Mira progresses rather

painfully to a higher level of perception. It is in the company of Roshan that Mira

realises that there are many gateways to the freedoms and one has immense capacity to

achieve freedom of mind. In this context Sriwadkar says, ―Mira is not defeated in the

pursuit of physical, mental and emotional freedom, but she learns that there are many

dimensions to freedom.‖ (38)

Mira understands her duties as a responsible citizen of a country which is

struggling for her independence. She realises that personal fulfilment and desires are

less important than country‘s freedom. Mira joins freedom struggle and tries to help

her community. She leaves her own happiness for the country. She leaves her lover

Richard. Mira is the epitome of a liberated girl who sacrifices personal concerns for

the noble cause. The liberation movement may annihilate a few individuals, like Mira,

but it is immaterial in the larger national interest.

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Premala, another girl is an idealized, stereotyped girl, who symbolizes Indian

traditions and culture. Premala is a girl who also has firm opinions of her own. She is a

kind girl as Mira says:

In all things Premala had shown herself to be docile and obliging; but,

as is sometimes the case with such people, these qualities were due not

to timidity but to the graces of her nature. (Markandaya:44)

Premala is not a timid girl who can not raise her voice but she respects

tradition. A revolutionary change towards life occurs in her only after observing

Roshan and Mira. Through her Markandaya projects the bewilderment and

vulnerability of the traditional Indian girl confronting a culture in flux. Premala

promotes humanitarian feelings in her community. She enjoys her self-less service

while Kit keeps himself aloof from his countrymen. Premala engages herself in

educating poor, illiterate and unprivileged ones. This change in her makes her

associate herself with an orphanage and a school with poor children. Premala starts

visiting the school frequently and Mira feels that in doing this Premala finds a

meaning of her life, as Mira says about Premala, ―From each visit she came back

glowing, revived, as if her parched spirit had at last found a spring at which to refresh

itself.‖ (Markandaya: 116)

Despite her being a victim, she shows a streak of inner strength in her attempt

of saving the school on fire risking her own life. Torn between her western oriented

husband and her conventional upbringing, she sublimates herself through sacrifice.

According to Iyengar, ―Her silence is stronger than all rhetoric; her seeming capacity

for resignation is the true measure of her unfathomable strength.‖ (Iyengar: 440)

149

Markandaya breathes life in her female characters, who with the strength of

adoption convert the challenge of life into a pursuit of finer values that make life

worth living. In Some Inner Fury Markandaya presents girl characters like Mira and

Premala and woman character like Roshan as the epitome of modern girls who

unanimously succeed in achieving transformation by acting with agencies to improve

their own lives, the lives of people about whom they care and well- being of their

communities. Though basically, Kamala Markandaya has projected the traditional

image of female characters, it will be injustice to carve her female characters in this

image, as she has re-discovered, redefined and asserted her identity and recognition as

a person, not as a possession. Feeling the pulse of the changed time, she has created a

new race of girl, who is neither staunch traditionalist nor ultra- modern but that who

honours the tradition and welcome modernity to the best of her calibre and sensibility.

She can very intelligently keep pace with the new developments of the fast electronic

world. To create such a new race, she has taken up the most vitalizing stuff of tradition

along with the purest light stuff of modernity. By creating the new image of girls

Kamala Markandaya has emerged as a bridge between the tradition and modernity.

Markandaya‘s female characters are in search of something positive. Applauding this

quality, Dr. A. V. Krishna Rao observes:

Kamala Markandaya‘s novels in comparison with those of her

contemporary women writers seem to be more fully reflective of the

awakened feminine sensibility in modern India as she attempts to

project the image of the changing traditional society. (Rao:55)

This chapter depicts some bold and intelligent girls like Leela, Mira and

Premala. These are the girls who are embodiment of the girls who not only get their

strength back to fight against the traditional norms and injustice done to girls, but they

150

also help others to fight their battles. These are the girls who bring transformation in

their own lives as well as they successfully transform others‘ lives also. India is a

country where a girl is trained to be a perfect woman, perfect in the sense, not as a

human being or responsible citizen but perfect in household chores, perfect to

maintain a family. Leela, Mira and Premala are not girls who remain confined to

home and household duties. They are the epitome of modern, educated, responsible

citizens of a country who think of the welfare of their community, society and nation.

They live their lives for a noble purpose to serve the nation and bring some positive

change in people‘s traditional set of mind.

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