WOMEN DEFYING PATRIARCHAL NORMS IN MANJU KAPUR’S DIFFICULT DAUGHTERS

Indian women novelists have been portraying women in various manifestations. But recently, the remarkable range of India’s most accomplished women writers of post colonial strand has brought a tremendous change in the trend of depicting women characters. Women writers as Kamala Markendaya, Nayantara Saghal, Anita Desai, Sashi Deshpande , Bharathi Mukherjee, Manju kapur, Gita Hariharan and the others have intuitively perceived the gender issues perturbing women and presented women as an individual who fights against suppression and oppression of the patriarchy.       

         The present paper analyses the patriarchal norms defied by the women characters in Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters. Difficult Daughters is indubitably a prowess work of art which acclaims her as a feminist writer. The novel is a nostalgia of the situations that prevailed during Indian War of Independence and the socio-political conditions of the time. Kapur expresses the plight of women in such a society, which eventually deprives her freedom to pursue her studies, choose a career and above all to choose her partner in life.

          Kapur has presented the women of the1940s, when women had no voice to assert their rights, most importantly the voice of the protagonist,Virmati. She raises her voice against male chauvinism to claim her rights of economic independence. Kapur makes her a cult figure that fights against taboos, social and joint family restrictions and constraints laid by patriarchy in the tradition.

                                                                                    

A major preoccupation in recent Indian Women’s writings has been a delineation of inner life and subtle interpersonal relationship. In Indian culture and heritage, individualism, quest for identity, protests and concepts of rebelliousness have often remained alien ideas, as far as women were concerned. Women were not supposed to raise voices for their rights, protest against injustice or question the already existing beliefs, customs, rituals and superstitions. They have to merely exist subjected to the patriarchal system. Women have to be obedient, quiet, submissive, and passive not claiming any of their rights neither as women nor as human beings.

Even the earlier Indian women novelists have been portraying woman as the silent sufferers, the upholder of traditional values and ethics, a strict observer of social taboos, an epitome of tolerance and patience, an exemplar to their successors, a being with no space for herself, a woman without an identity (rather identified as subordinates to men), a worshipper of their counterparts, benighted and ignorant about their rights as human and so on. Recently, fortunately there is a tremendous change in this trend, with the advent of feminism. Indian women writers have brought incredible transformation to conform a specific genre to explore the unexplored array of maladies; to reveal the explicit reality of the society and the plights of  Indian  women in the society. Women are no longer characterized to surrender, submit and suffer to martyrdom. Women novelists unveil the hidden secrets and enfold the deliberate denials that are refutable in today’s context.

A whole band of women novelists beginning with Ruth Prawar Jhabvala, Nayantara Sahgal, Anita Desae, Sashi Deshpande, Kamala Markandaya and many others have highlighted significance of portraying woman as an individual rebelling against the traditional role, breaking the shackles of exploitation and oppression, awakening with a sense of identity,to  assert their individuality. Their novels speak about women’s frustrations, refusals, retaliations, and their breach of conventional expectations.

Manju Kapur has joined the growing number of modern Indian Women writers who have significantly contributed to the progression of Indian fiction. Kapur is a post colonial writer who intuitively perceives the position of women in a patriarchal society and deals with the problems of women.  Her novel presents the yearning struggle of women to establish an identity. She has tried to make a space that women have to occupy in domestic relationships. Kapur remarks “the mother-daughter nexus is only one of the many manifestations of the Indian women’s roles. She is a wife, a mother, a daughter-in-law, ... in fact there are many aspects of  a woman’s life.”

Difficult Daughters is a maiden venture of Kapur. It is written against the historical background of the Indian Freedom Movement. The Partition of India is an important aspect interwoven with the tantalizing narrative of man- woman relationship. The novel presents the controversial issues of domineering patriarchal world, which denies women the voice and the freedom which is rightfully women’s. Kapur’s protagonist Virmati is not only portrayed as a revolutionary woman who fights for her right to educate herself but as one who manages her situations in moments of crisis. There is a parallelism drawn between the independence aspired and obtained by the nation and the independence aspired and yearned by a woman of the nation. Indian Freedom Movement aimed for the upliftment of the nation as a whole. Gandhi’s encouragement and invitation to women to participate in the freedom struggle itself proves that women were treated as equal partners to man and that women’s role is essential to achieve independence against a foreign rule. Gandhiji’s conviction brought women out of the conventional mode of behavioural pattern. The struggle for freedom from British, the quest for identity and the sense of oppression has become a shared experience both for the nation and for women in India.

Difficult Daughters is a profoundly conventional story set in Amritsar. Virmati faces numerous vicissitudes in her life to fulfil her desire to establish an identity. Virmati and even the other daughters in the novel are difficult to be managed by their mothers because of their dissenting nature. Kapur talks about a range of women and their problems which demand equal opportunities, equal access to education and identity beyond conventions. It pictures not only Virmati’s struggle but also the struggles of independence aspired by other women characters and their succeeding in it, unlike Virmati. The central focus is on the futile attempts Virmati makes to succeed. She fights but fails. Every time she rebels to liberate herself and aspires to live a freer life, she is condemned because of the incredulousness of her family and of the man whom she loves and later marries.

Virmati  is a difficult daughter for her parents. Kasturi, as an Indian mother feels abashed if her daughter drowns herself refusing to marry Inderjit; if she has an affair with a married man,Prof. Harish Chandra; if she elopes and marries against her choice. She asks Virmati whether her education has taught her such independence of disobeying and refuting parents. Virmati’s struggle to assert her individuality puts her in a dilemma and her demeanour reflects her inner conflict and the guilt that pervades her. It is clear when she suffers the traumatic experience of abortion, she is besieged with her guilt of deceiving her own parents.  And after her marriage with Professor, she suffers miscarriage. It at once makes her regret that “her father had died without forgiving her.”

As an educated woman, she is aware of the degree of control she has to exercise over her life. Her protest against the conventions is strong and it starts with her wish to continue her education after she meets Shakuntala, whom she immediately takes as an exemplar. She felt deprived of her rights when her parents wanted her to accept the arranged marriage. But all her protests lead her to life of depravity. And the deplorable condition deprives her from attaining the power and freedom she hopes to enjoy. Whenever she breaks away from her old prison, she is locked into the new ones. To liberate her, she believes that education is the only means but falls prey to the Professor’s snare.  While her relationship with the Professor provides an escape from the loveless marriage, it is itself furtive and claustrophobic, offering only a stolen clandestine love affair.

The repercussion of this continual illicit relationship, she suffers with the conception of the ‘sinful burden’. She exerted her rights but tainted and stained it. Therefore, she failed in her exertions. She feels void when she aborts the child, she laments, “That a child of their union, the result of all those speeches  on freedom and the right to individuality, the sanctity of human love and the tyranny of social and religious restraints, should meet its end like this!”(157)

She tries to contact him to find a solution to the impending danger but in vain. When the Professor meets her, she discloses the matter and proposed for her own marriage to him. But he refuses for the fear of spoiled his reputation and his family name. Then, Virmati retaliates,

I break my engagement because of you, blacken my family’s name, am locked up inside my house, get sent to Lahore because no one knows what to do with me. Here I am in the position of being your secret wife, full of shame, wondering what people will say if they find me out, not being able to live in peace, study in peace... and why?(137)

Now is the moment that makes her realize and affirm Swarna’s statement that,”Men do take advantage of women.”(138) Education is the only source she can turn to in all her crisis, as a solution to her problems. She is offered a suitable way to scamper out from the slanderous deed of having an affair with a married man. She finds refuge as the headmistress of a girl’s school in the hill station of Sirmaur. For the first and the only time, she has her own space, to live as Virginia Woolf’s “a room of one’s own”. Yet by encouraging the secret visits of the Professor, she again entraps herself into the sexual oppression and once for all loses the chances of liberation and identity. She freely allows him to exploit her sexually. Her whole reputation is tainted by her misconduct and the Diwan Sahib burst out, “it is important to set a good example...” .She contaminates her life and loses a beautiful life of freedom and dignity. She loses control as anyother ordinary woman.

         The journey to Shantiniketan would have led her to a destination which opens her to a glimpse of spiritual awakening and of a renewed autonomy. But the journey is interrupted and the long- waiting opens up a trap that she eternally and endlessly falls into. Virmati’s marriage with the Professor turns out to be disastrous. Though she becomes the second wife legally, she desperately struggles for self-assertion. The marriage alienates her from the husband’s family.  She is ordained to live with a mother-in-law, Ganga and the children who are hostile and resent. Lack of love and humiliation from them makes her steadfast to uphold her right to self-assertion through education at Lahore and through economic independence by becoming a teacher in a school at Nahan. When she slowly withstands and gets accustomed, she again suffers miscarriage. Once more, she finds consolation by pursuing MA at Lahore. At the end, the partition of India ironically unites Virmati with Professor. More promisingly, she acquires her coveted place of the wife and mother at Delhi.  

        Virmati’s life is restructured and reconstructed by her daughter Ida. In her pursuit of Identity, she loses it at every stage and struggles to make space for herself on her own. Her rebellious attitude fades whenever it has to be strong to refute the Professor’s sexual oppression. She allows him to exploit her with his love drenched words. She hopelessly and willingly succumbs to his lustful love knowing full well that her reputation, her life, her job would be at stake. She becomes submissive and passive under the patriarchal shelter.

         The other women in the novel Lajwanti, Kasturi, Kishori Devi, Ganga glorify the institution of marriage and take pride in being submissive. But the social scenario of Indian Independence is vividly visualized through Virmati the protagonist, Shakuntala her cousin and her hostel roommate Swarnalata. Shakuntala  makes her realize that education means freedom to women. Swarnalata makes her realize that men exploit women. Swarnalata is a vigorous, politically active and striking woman activist who inspires Virmati in asserting her self.

The women in the novel are all educated and modern. They are unwilling to blindly follow the old convictions and beliefs that curb the freedom of women as an individual. They are women who wanted to prove their individuality and strive towards attaining their own aspiration. They motivate themselves and work towards upliftment. The women do not accept the constraints of the society, religion or the tradition. Their conviction is, “that society would be better off if its females were effective and capable.”(150)

  

          Manju Kapur has presented a vivid portrayal of the women of 1940s and the events revolve around the backdrop of Indian Independence. Women’s emancipation perhaps has its zenith now but in pre-independence era the fight for autonomy and freedom was a combat in its early stages. So, Virmati’s attempt to succeed in her fight to assert herself is to be esteemed for though she failed, she has made an attempt. Because of her acquaintance with the Professor, she not only comes to value education and the higher things in life but also about the darker aspects of life. The endless vicissitudes of life makes her a matured woman. She tramples and defies the patriarchal constraints and expectations to assert her identity and achieves self-satisfaction and self-fulfilment in her life.

References

1. Kapur, Manju. Difficult Daughters. Penguin Books. New Delhi.1998
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         Atlantic  Publishers and Distributors . New Delhi,2004.
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4. Prasad, Amar Nath.  Indian Women Novelists in English. New Delhi: Atlantic
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5. Roy, Anuradha. Patterns of Feminist Consciousness. Prestige Books. New Delhi,1999.