|
|
|
Paper -
Feminist Voices in the Novels of Kamala Markandaya
Indian
women novelists in English have been presenting woman as the centre of
concern 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 ‘Nectar in a Sieve’
published in 1954. She has achieved a world-wide distinction by winning
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 her self finds
reflection in her novels and constitutes a significant motif of the female
characters 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 with sympathetic
understanding.
The chief protagonists in most of her novels are female characters who are
in constant search for meaning and value of life. In some of her novels
she presents an existential struggle of a woman who denies to flow along
the current and refuses to submit her individual self. The woman emerging
out of such situation is a defeated individual undergoing much pain and
suffering. Such characters exhibit a sense of insecurity due to their
traumatic psychic experiences and also due to the collapse of one value
system and the absence of any enduing values.
In her novels Kamala Markandaya traces a woman's journey from
self-sacrifice to self-realization, from self-denial to self-assertion and
from self-negation to self-affirmation. The feminist voice is heard in all
her novels. In her first epoch-making novel, ‘Nectar in a Sieve’ (1954)
the narrator-heroine, Rukmani emerges a greater and stronger character
than her husband. The author displays Rukmani's life which is full of
hopes and frustrations, pleasures and pains, triumph and defeat, rise and
fall. In fact, before writing this novel Kamala Markandaya went to live in
a village to seek an opportunity of getting the first hand experience of
village life and the problems of rural folk and therefore this novel is
mainly a product of her personal experience in rural living.
Kamala Markandaya shows that before the advent of tannery the life of
Rukmani with her family was simply peaceful with her simple joys and
sorrows. She was proud of the love and care of her husband. She needed
nothing else, no wealth, no luxury, and no material pleasure. Rukmani
struggles hard to survive the relentless strokes of Nature and society.
However, her calm and placid life suddenly begins to change under the
impact of the industrialization i.e. the establishment of a tannery by an
Englishman. The building of tannery brings about a change in the life of
Rukmani and her village. From the very beginning Rukmani opposes the
advent of tannery, the symbol of modernity and industrialization which
spoils the natural calm and beauty of the countryside. Rukmani feels great
pain in her heart when her tranquil and serene life is spoilt by the din
and bustle, the filth and dirt. The loss not only of natural beauty but
also of human virtues and values is the natural outcome of industry. The
sweet peace and tranquility of the village fade away giving rise to the
urban squalor and vice.
Rukmani stands for the traditional values of life and so she revolts
emphatically against the encroachment of the western industrial values on
rural life. The simple rural human values are replaced by those of
materialism. Rukmani becomes a mute spectator to this horrible scene,
while the tannery flourishes and creates havoc in her life. She says
Somehow I had always felt the tannery would eventually be our undoing. It
had changed the face of our village beyond recognition. (133-34).
Tannery had effaced the identity of the village and its inhabitants. Till
now Rukmani along with other rural folk was living in a world which had
got a name and habitation, which had got an identity of its own. In a
village human beings are easily recognized and respected by each other.
This small rural world gave an identity and recognition to all its
inhabitants. Villagers did not feel lost and abandoned. But the onset of
the process of industrialization effaced their identities and distorted
their personalities.
The urban culture is encroaching upon their simple and peaceful life,
leading the two elder sons of Rukmani, Arjun and Thambi to join the
tannery. Another son Murugan goes to the city in search of a job. While
working in the tannery her sons experience the impact of new values. They
actively participate in protests and strike not relished and digested by
Rukmani because it eventually leads to the disintegration of their family
and their village.
When a woman is married in India whether in a city or a village, she
gradually finds a name and recognition, though this name is invariably
associated with her husband, for she is generally called the wife of such
and such a person, still she is known by her distinct virtues. If the
inmates of the house live in peace and harmony, she finds a kind of
fulfillment, sharing the joys and sorrows of the family. She has got a
name and a habitation. All the family members have got some recognition in
that place. Their identity is not lost.
If in a village people live in peace of harmony, recognizing their selves
and their identities, that life is better for them than that of so-called
urban life. Peace and harmony, unity and integration provide the solid
foundation on which the life of human beings rests. Kamala Markandaya
highlights the stoic patience of its heroine in the face of suffering.
Arundhati Chatterjee aptly remarks;
Rukmani has imbibed the spirit of acceptance and endurance. This helps her
to put up with the adversity that follows the period of drought. (Chatterjee:
87) Harrowing poverty and terrible drought lead to the death of her
younger son Raja. Her daughter Ira revolts against the false norms of
traditional society because she is unable to bear the starvation of her
family any more. She is forced to take resource to prostitution to save
her younger brother. Under the impact of modernity and industrialism, she
thinks the preservation of life more pious than the observation of
so-called moral values which fail to feed her family. Tannery is indeed
the root cause of tragedy in the life of Rukmani and her family. The
author suggests here that the spirit of resignation and stoicism
strengthens one like Rukmani in times of suffering.
The advent of tannery has resulted in the loss of the traditional values,
in social degradation and moral debasement) and ultimately it leads to the
disintegration of Rukmani's family. Thus the encroachment of industry
causes the decay of human values and creates havoc in village economy.
Industrialization pollutes completely the serene atmosphere of the village
with its smells and clamors and corrupts the values of people (as in the
case of Ira) and dehumanizes them completely. However, Rukmani, unstrung
by the bug of industrialism, displays her faith in human dignity by
assimilating the destitute leper boy Puli into the nectar of her love and
warmth (a natural feminine virtue) and gets him cured of his disease. Thus
by infusing meaning into his life, she finds a new meaning in her own
life.
In the so-called modern society humanity and human values are dead and
people prey on each other like vultures. The erosion of human values
continues and so the voice of Kamala Markandaya heard in the novel is
still relevant, for we have to protect the eternal human values from
decay. In her second novel, Some Inner Fury (1955) Kamala Markandaya gives
a very vivid and graphic account of the East-West clash in the backdrop of
national struggle for freedom, by projecting three wonderful female
figures- Mirabai, Roshan and Premala who exhibit rare and unique virtues
of love and loyalty, friendship and understanding. We notice a great
difference among the female characters of Nectar in a Sieve and Some Inner
Fury. While in the first novel her women are mostly uneducated and
unprogressive in their outlook to life, accepting, without protest, the
kind or cruel treatment of their husbands or society. In the second novel,
being educated they assert their selves and individualities. For example,
Mira loves Richard, an Englishman against Govind's and her parents' wishes
and Premala adopts a child against Kit's wishes.
In Some Inner Fury Markandaya projects a national image and patriotic
consciousness in myriad forms by presenting the peculiar sensibility of
the modern educated and progressive Indian woman. In fact, like the
author, her woman character Roshan has a cosmopolitan outlook and seems to
be the truly liberated woman of modern India. Mira and Roshan, like
Markandaya, have close affinity and sympathy with the individual
westerners and like the author again they participate, a least by heart,
in the political struggle against Britain. Both of them love the Western
values, yet they have a deep love for their motherland. Roshan sacrifices
her parents, her husband and aristocratic life at the altar of national
loyalty and does not hesitate to go to jail. To Mira's query about her
life in prison, she exclaims enthusiastically: What do you think? Of
course, I'm not sorry! I'd rather go to the devil my own way than be led
to heaven by anyone else.... (161) 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.
Markandaya presents love and intimacy between another female protagonist
Mira, an Indian girl and Richard, an Englishman in the background of
India's independence movement. Though it reaches the romantic pinnacle,
yet it is developed with caution and carefulness. However, Mira's love for
Richard is full of warmth and intensity as Krishna Rao observes:
Her inner fury is completely quenched when her love for Richard results in
an ecstatic experience of the sweep and surge of love. (Krishna Rao, 48)
Mira and
Richard dream of solemnizing their love in the form of marriage, but they
are allured to enjoy the consummation of the romantic love and then comes
the tragic end of it. Richard is mercilessly killed by Indian
revolutionaries giving a shock to Mira. This conflict between the Indians
and the English reaches its peak at the end of the novel when the Indian
crowd moves ahead to lynch Hickey and the fellow Englishmen rush to
protect him from the clutches of the Indians. The end of the novel leaves
Mira filled with despair, as she says, "Still my heart wept, tearless,
desolate, silent to itself." (285)
The liberation movement may annihilate a few individuals, but it is
immaterial in the larger national interest. Mira reflects at the end of
the novel, But what matters to the universe, I said to myself, if now and
then a world is born or a star should die? or what matter to the world if
here and there a man
should fall or a head or a heart should break. (285-86)
Mira ruminates that individual fall or suffering is irrelevant in the
event of a great cause. Through the character of Mira, a mentally I
liberated woman, Kamala Markandaya emphasizes that personal losses do not
count for a noble cause. Mira sacrifices her love at the altar of national
loyalty. In the beginning the ardent love of Mira for Richard seems to cut
across boundaries of hatred, but it ultimately fails because they belong
to two different cultures or races of the ruler and the ruled.
Premala, another female protagonist leads a different kind of life. She is
an idealized stereotyped girl who symbolises Indian traditions and
culture. She is deprived of love even within married life. She exhibits
great patience, the spirit of sacrifice and love. Kit, her husband who is
an Anglophile does not reciprocate her feelings of love. Her love is
subdued and is ultimately sublimated to the social cause; when she becomes
a helping partner of an English Missionary Hicky in maintaining a school
in a village. Govind, a great Indian revolutionary develops intense love
for her. Despite her responding to it from the core of heart, this love
does not flower and she is burnt up within the school by the Indians.
Hereafter we discern the transformation of Kit, her husband, who repents
but all in vain. He is also engulfed by the fire of revolution.
When Govind is tried in court on the charge of murdering Kit, Mira decides
to leave Richard who belongs to the community of rulers. The final parting
between Mira and Richard is symbolic of the parting between India and
England. The internal conflict of Mira reveals her spiritual agony: Go?
leave the man I loved to go with these people? What did they mean to me,
what could they mean, more than the man I loved? They were my people -
those were his. (285)
The strong communal forces separate them and thus Mira's efforts to meet
an Englishman on emotional and romantic level for bridging the gulf
between the two cultures fail miserably.
In her third novel A Silence of Desire (1960) Kamala Markandaya portrays
the assault of the views of western scepticism on the oriental faith of
Sarojini, the female protagonist. The novel unfolds a family drama by
studying the husband-wife relationship. It reveals how men and women
torment themselves and each other by silence on many occasions when they
actually require to unburden their hearts by giving vent to their
feelings. The novel stresses mainly the internal conflicts of Sarojini,
the female protagonist. A.. V. Krishna Rao points out: A Silence of
Desire is an imaginative commentary on the psychological maladjustment of
a middle-class woman, deeply religious and traditionalist. (Rao: 72:65)
Thus Kamala Markandaya focuses on the psychological torments of Sarojini,
the heroine who is a God -fearing and religious and a very caring wife.
Dandekar, her husband, a government servant with his modern and western
attitude to life opposes her deep faith in a Swamy who, she believes, will
cure her of a tumour in her womb. She has no faith in medical treatment of
her malady. She undergoes great spiritual crisis when her westernized
husband asks her to give up her faith in the spiritual powers of the Swamy.
She clearly tells him, I have beliefs that you cannot share. ………. because
faith and reason don't go together and without faith I shall not be
healed. Do you understand that? (87)
She ridicules him for his ignorance of the efficacy of faith and
prayer: “Yes, you can call it healing by faith, or healing by the
grace of God, if you understand what that means. But I do not expect you
to understand - you with your Western notions, your superior talk of
ignorance and superstition.. When all it means is that you don't know what
lies beyond reason and you prefer not to find out." (P. 87)
Thus Sarojini asserts herself by exPressing her personal views on faith –
healing, which gives her a kind of identity and distinct personality. She
strongly believes in spiritual faith and sticks to it and does not even
hesitate in defying her husband. The deaths of her mother and brother in
hospital have strengthened her faith in God. In his poem, Morte De Arthur,
the great victorian poet Termyson also exPresses his faith in the efficacy
of faith and prayer when he says, ‘More things are wrought by prayer than
this world dreams of’.
The strong character of Sarojini with firm faith in spiritualism saves
many a time her husband, with his so called modern, progressive and
scientific outlook, from moral degradation when he is reminded of her
loyalty and fidelity. Thus being a perfect housewife and embodying the
ideal and traditional feminine virtues, Sarojini becomes an integral part
of Dandekar's life and a pivot of the family. The author shows that
Dandekar with his scientific views is filled with doubt and skepticism,
while Sarojini with her spiritual faith is firm and stable in her
principles and thus she emerges a stronger person than her husband.
Kamala Markandaya makes London a partial setting of her novels. Possession
(1963) and the Nowhere Man (1975). Though she lived in London, yet she
considered herself as a part of the Indian mainstream and inseparable from
her motherland. She, in fact, has double loyalties, since she lived half
of life in the East, half in the West. The author belongs to the
westernized upper middle-class society of India. This impact of western
upbringing is discernible in Mira and Roshan in Some Inner Fury and in
Anasuya in Possession. These female figures may be identified with the
author to a great extent. Anasuya, the narrator in ‘Possession’ is a
typical Indian girl loving and self-sacrificing and possesses all the
feminine virtues. Still like her creator she is a kind of liberated women
of modern India and like her again, she writes novels and often moves
between India and England for the publication of her novels.
Like Roshan and Mira, Anasuya in ‘Possession’ has close affinity with, and
sympathy for, the individual westerns, but is patriotic at heart and does
not relinquish her Indian values, though she is mentally liberated and is
not confined to the four walls of home. Though Kamala Markandaya had been
living in London for a long time and realizing her artistic potentialities
there, yet India, its culture and its people are never effaced from her
memory. Her novels present mostly the female protagonists and their quest
for self realization in a chaotic world of conflicting cultures - 'one
dead, the other powerless to be born'.
In fact, Kamala Markandaya has presented a variety of female figures in
'Possession’. A young divorcee Caroline Bell constitutes the central
figure of the novel. The search for sensuous pleasures brings her to India
where she comes across a young fourteen year old rustic poor boy Valmiki,
a talented painter who requires patronage and economic help. She escorts
him to London where his talents are flourished. She exploits him
physically and provides him with all comforts and luxury. Suddenly, Val is
tortured from within and feels that his talents are being wasted. Caroline
shows him a fake letter from the Swamy, his spiritual guide and mentor in
India. He feels inspired again and resumes painting. She even arranges an
exhibition of his paintings. However, unable to tolerate his intimate
relation with Ellie, his housekeeper, Caroline brings about a separation
between them very cleverly. When Val begins to live with Annabel, Caroline
poisons his mind again. It is Anasuya, the enlightened and liberated
Indian woman who saves him from crisis by arranging his return journey to
India where he is deeply rooted.. He returns to his old ambience and to
Swamy, his mentor. He decides never to return to Caroline who had acquired
and possessed his soul. She, in fact, stands poles apart from other female
figures of Kamala Markandaya. These women stand for grace and beauty of
life, Caroline suggests British dominion over India. The possessive and
dominating Caroline, according to R.K. Srivastava, becomes "an active
victimizer of an adolescent male". (Srivastav: 126). In her effort to
imprison the soul of val, she is herself imprisoned in her own ego.
Kamala Markandaya's fifth novel –‘A Handful of Rice’ (1966) concerns
itself like the first novel with the theme of conflict between oriental
stoicism and western revolt. Like the first novel, this novel also gives
vent to Markandaya's anguish over social injustice. In the first novel she
has treated it in a village, now she shows its effect in a town. In the
first novel Rukmani's son Murugan leaves the village hoping to make a
better living in town; Ravi, the protagonist in A Handful of Rice, follows
the same pattern. The first novel has a female protagonist Rukmani, the
narrator heroine. The fifth novel has a male protagonist Ravi. Rukmani in
Nectar in a Sieve and Ravi in A Handful of Rice, in village and town
respectively, represent starvation, social injustice and exploitation of
poor people. The first novel shows the hard struggle for existence in a
rural society, the fifth one displays the same in a modern city. The
former novel depicts this struggle in the life of Rukmani, and the latter
novel shows it in the life of Ravi. Here Markandaya probes deeper into the
misery of human predicament, and sows the seeds of revolt in the heart of
its hero.
Poverty pollutes the characters of Markandaya's fiction. She shows that
extreme poverty is a gateway to all kinds of crime. In the first novel
poverty leads to the exploitation of Rukmani's sons and to the immoral
life of her daughter.. Ravi becomes the victim of the same poverty and
exploitation in this novel. Once while caught drunk by a policeman; but
going scot-free, he forces his way into the house of Apu, a tailor and
father of Nalini, the heroine. Due to his infatuation for Nalini and at
the suggestion of Apu he decides to stay there and give up his marauding
life for an industrious career. By marrying her he starts life afresh
under her love and inspiration. Nalini's pure love inspires him to abandon
his immoral ways. For her sake, Ravi decides to reform himself completely.
Extreme poverty leads him to violence again. Once he joins a mob with a
stone in his hand, but he drops it soon because of Nalini's influence on
him. Like Rukmani and Sarojini she stands for the sweetness of home and
hearth and a healthy traditional life. Nalini exercises a very powerful
influence on the life of Ravi turning him into a respectable and
honourable person. Thus she sustains him through all his struggles as a
wife, guide, friend and philosopher. Though not very strong, Nalini still
works as a force, to be reckoned with, to check him from straying.
Sometimes even her voice was a source of consolation and solace to the
wounded Ravi. To sum up, we can say that by the force of her character she
emerges stronger than Ravi while Ravi avoids the vicissitudes of life, she
faces them boldly and proves to be a blessing in disguise in Ravi’s life.
She awakens: "within him an itch to better their lot. He contrasts
the little he can offer his wife, with the luxury of the houses he visits
in the course of his work." (Joseph:59)
In her sixth novel, The Coffer Dams (1969), Kamala Markandaya delineates
the theme of East-west encounter in the form of a clash between the human
values of India and the technological views of the west. The novel
revolves round a dam under construction by a British Engineering firm
'Clinton-Mackendrick Co' to channelise a turbulent river. Here again
Kamala Markandaya highlights the character of a woman Helen, the young
wife of Harward Clinton, the British engineer. The inhuman behaviour of
her husband towards the Indian tribals repels her from him. She develops
great feeling of love and compassion for the poor Indian workers and takes
great interest in Indian values and customs, culture and tradition. More
specifically, she is fascinated by an Indian tribesman named Bashiam for
his honesty and integrity, sincerity and devotion to work. To her, human
beings are superior to inanimate machines and to inhuman Clinton and other
English officials.
However, another female character Millie, the wife of Rawlings, a British
officer, arrogantly remarks: "Never trust the blacks. That's my motto and
I stick to it." (37) Unlike other Britishers, Helen thinks of the
Indians on equal terms. She perceives the vastness and depth in the
soulful East and in the tradition-sustaining tribal people. To her, they
are not 'black apes' but alive and feeling men and women. She remarks:
"But these people aren't different clay, they're like me, like people.
What is for me, is for them, there's no other kind of yardstick that's
worth anything" (49).
In fact, Helen, the English lady belongs, by heart, more to the mysterious
and humane East than to the West and therefore she does not keep away from
the Indians. She is overwhelmed by their overflowing warmth, courtesy and
hospitality. However she is infuriated by their docility in leaving their
land without protest. She asks Bashiam. "Without protest, just got up and
walked away, like animals". (48)
She wants to sow the seeds of revolt in the hearts of Indians against the
inhumanity of the Britishers because she only thinks of them as human
beings. Helen seems to be the mouthpiece of the author in voicing her
views against the injustice of the English people. She takes so much side
of Indians who are filled with human feelings that she feels perhaps she
was born in India in her previous life. Once later in the novel, during
the shattering noise of blasting, the English sit comfortably in their
solid houses and the tribals suffer in their flimsy huts. Clinton
callously remarks, that they will get used to it’. But like her creator
Helen does not believe that one gets used to suffering. Out of despair,
she cries out to her husband.
"Can't you care? Don't human beings matter anything to you? Do they have
to be a special kind of flesh before they do? (105) In fact, humanity at
the very core of her heart distinguishes Helen from other self-conceited
Britishers who embody the modern civilization and progressive outlook. She
shares with her creator the bitterness of insulted human dignity of the
native inhabitants. She bitterly criticizes modern European civilization
in her outburst before Bashiam: Our world......... the one in which I
live. Things are battened down in it. Under concrete and mortar, all sorts
of things. The land, our instincts. The people who work in our factories,
they've forgotten what fresh air is like. Our animals - we could learn
from them, but we're Christians you know, an arrogant people, so we
deprive them of their rights ... (138)
Helen
drifts away from her husband farther and farther each day because he sees
himself only as a 'builder'. For him concrete and steel are more important
than human beings. Helen is obviously the mouthpiece of the author and
gives free exPression to her indignation at the insensitivity and the
inhumanity of the British people who think themselves superior to other
races in the world, but who, in fact, are subhuman. It seems that in her
views, Helen belongs more to India than to the west. In fact, the author
depicts Helen as a white woman in quest of harmony in an alien culture
which suits her temperament. A. V. Krishna Rao truly opines, "Helen
represents the new generation of young men and women of the west for whom
India is not a contemptible colony of Macaulays and Mirtos and Montagues
but a cultural commonwealth of Huxleys and forsters and Haldanes." (Rao
: 84 : 17)
In her next novel The Nowhere Man (1972) Kamala Markandaya delineates the
problem of identity of elderly Indian immigrants. The protagonists,
Vasantha and her husband Srinivas find it not only difficult but
impossible to create their own identity in England, the land of their
adoption. The theme of racial rancour and hatred figures more prominently
in The Nowhere Man than in any other novel of Markandaya. Vasantha, who
embodies the Indian traditional values and virtues of patience, tolerance,
love and fellow feeling, dies of despair and frustration in this
atmosphere of racial antagonism, leaving her husband in a state of shock.
The novel depicts mainly the tragedy of Srinivas, the lonely man in an
alien land. Old and alone, Srinivas is befriended by an English widow,
Mrs. Pickering who looks after him and protects him and develops intimacy
with him still she can never replace Vasantha, Srinivas's Indian wife, in
her calm and intense spiritual love. Kamala Markandaya observes:
But she cannot fill the gap left by Vasantha because the affection between
Srinivas and Vasantha is the product of India marriage, the union of two
souls.. (196). When Fred Fletcher, an arrogant Englishman, tells
Srinivas that he has got no right to live in England and torments him by
abusing and slandering him, Srinivas accepts all this humiliation
stoically because he has nowhere to go now. At this moment, Mrs. Fletcher,
the good and kindly mother of Fred, apologises to Srinivas,
You don't want to pay any attention to Fred ……..He doesn't know what he's
talking about, you've got as much right to live here as what he has. More
……..(165)
Mrs. Fletcher, though a white woman, is full of love and understanding and
tries to right a wrong caused by her son to a good and gentle - hearted
Indian, Srinivas. In this novel also woman are shown in a better light
than their counterparts. The novelist makes us hear the distinct voice of
a woman for the cause of mankind.
In her eighth novel 'Two Virgins, (1977) Kamala Markandaya portrays the
encroachment by the modern Western values on the traditional beliefs and
old established relationships within the family and the village.
Markandaya has presented the story of two virgins or girls, Lalitha and
Saroja, in this novel. The need for individual freedom is the central
concern of this novel. The female characters so deeply rooted in the
Indian culture, struggle to be free and pure human beings.
Greatly fascinated by the westernized outlook of Mr. Gupta, a film
director, Lalitha, the heroine, displays her revolt against all the
conventional ideals and values of traditional Hindu society. Lalitha is
more beautiful and charming and ambitious than Saroja, her sister,
therefore she becomes an easy prey to the temptations of Mr. Gupta who
allures her, enjoys with her and ultimately leaves her when she is
pregnant. She had gone to the city in search of her identity, a name and
fame by becoming a film star. Her quest proves hollow. She loses
completely whatever she had in her village. She had some identity, a home,
a name and fame for her beauty which was appreciated by all as long as she
belonged to the village. However, to her utter disgust and shock, all that
is lost now, devoured by city monsters or devils in the disguise of Mr.
Gupta, who roam about the city in search of their easy prey like Lalitha.
Out of frustration she even tries to commit suicide, but is prevented from
doing so by her younger sister Saroja. She is so much shocked that she
leaves her house and village which fail to restore her lost name and
identity. In fact, she has nowhere to go now. The author seems to suggest
in the novel that a woman can experience safety and security in her home
where she is deeply rooted. Once she becomes a victim to the lust of a
male like Mr. Gupta, she is uprooted from her home and village and becomes
a nowhere woman, losing her identity A.K. Bhatnagar aptly observes:
Lalitha's life is a living example of the tragedy of the modern woman
particularly in India (Bhatnagar: 89) The modern western values of urban
life destroy Lalitha's self and annihilate her personality completely. In
this novel Markandaya has presented the existential struggle of a girl who
refuses to flow along the wave and denies to surrender herself. However,
her effort to find a new self and identity, she gets completely lost. She
undergoes much pain and agony and displays a kind of insecurity on account
of her traumatic experience and due to the collapse of one value system
and the dearth of any sustaining values.
However, all these traumatic experiences teach a lesson to Saroja, the
younger sister who returns to her village to be secure there and not to be
led astray like her sister. Rukmani, Val, Ravi and Srinivas are uprooted
by natural and worldly forces which are beyond their control. But Lalitha
is uprooted by her own weakness, her ambition to become a film star
and thereby get a new name, fame and identity. Her ambition displays the
uprooting of human values and culture in Indian society.
Kamala Markandaya's ninth novel, The Golden Honeycomb, (1977) a saga of
princely life in India, portrays the life of a Maharajah who is merely a
puppet in the hands of the British. The novel is written in a political
background and is fully charged with the feelings of patriotism and
nationalism. However, Rabi the illegitimate son of Maharajah, becomes a
revolutionary since his education is supervised by his mother Mohini and
by his grandmother who instil in him the patriotic feelings. Under their
influence from head to toe, Rabi can't tolerate his father bowing to the
English Viceroy. In this novel also, as in some earlier novels, Kamala
Markandaya has glorified the life of a woman Mohini who is presented in a
light better than that of other female figures in the novel. Mohini is
very clever and wise, full of love and romance and has all the feminine
charms and qualities of Shakespeare's Cleopatra. A paramour of the
Maharajah she exercises a greater control on him and her son Rabi. She is
a kind of liberated woman who is not confined to the four walls of
Maharajah's palace. Unbound by the familial or homely ties, she enjoys
complete freedom of movement, and though living in colonial days, she
appears to be a liberated woman of modern India.
In her
last novel Pleasure City (1982) Kamala Markandaya strives to bridge
the gulf between two cultures of the East and the West, by developing love
and intimacy between Rikki, a poor and rustic Indian boy and Tully, an
English officer.
As Dr. Kenny, the missionary in Nectar in a Sieve establishes a hospital
where the poor Indians may get the treatment for their ailments, Mrs.
Bridie in the Pleasure City is running a school for educating the
fisherman's children. She is a kind of female missionary ever extending
her helping hand to the people of the fishing colony and always sharing
their joys and sorrows. Like some great persons, this English lady is a
person of simple living and high thinking. Her noble and sublime thoughts
associate her not to a particular community, but to the entire humanity.
Her character reminds us of Helen in the Coffer Dams for her respect of
human beings. She lives and dies for the sake of mankind. Kamala
Markandava has enhanced the dignity of human life by creating such
elevated female figures in her fiction.
By the study of Kamala Markandaya's fiction we can sum up that the
feminine voice is heard in nearly all her novels. The one persistent theme
that underlies all the novels
of Kamala Markandaya is a constant search for identity] mainly by the
female protagonists. We witness an internal and external conflict in them]
in their process of discerning and
affirming their self identity. A. V. Krishna Rao observes that in her
novels Kamala Markandaya has shown "the creative release of the feminine
sensibility in India." (Rao : 84 : 50)
Her female characters such as Rukmani, Mira, Premala, Roshan, Sarojini,
Caroline, Anasuya, Nalini, Helen, Vasantha, Lalitha and Mohini all have
asserted their identity in their own way. They have been in quest to
locate their acceptable place and identity. Nearly all of Markandaya's
women characters exhibit a positive and optimistic outlook on life and
emerge much more stronger than their male counterparts. Each one of them
responds in her unique way to her dreams for a better and meaningful life.
By exercising their own free will, exhibiting their own self, they get
fulfilment and recognition in life. In this way they are able to establish
their true identity.
In her novels Kamala Markandaya has shown that women are not lesser human
beings, rather they are sometimes more dignified than men because of their
greater human virtues and qualities. It is they who enhance the beauty and
charm of life and provide grace and dignity to it. They provide the solid
foundation to the edifice of family which is impossible without their
active participation. They need to be given their rightful place and
dignity in the family and society for their well-being. Markandaya has
made us hear the pronounced voice of women in her fiction, as it may lead
to the welfare of entire mankind. The supPression of the feminist voice
may cause havoc in our life.
In her fiction Kamala Markandaya has shown a woman's gradual journey from
self-effacement to self-realization, from self-denial to self-assertion
and from self-sacrifice to self-fulfilment. She has traced a woman's
transformation from self-sacrificing Rukmani in her first novel to
self-asserting Mohini in her ninth novel, kindling her son Rabi with the
flame of revolution.
Read with keen interest her novels have elicited wide critical acclaim
from both the Indian and foreign critics of repute. She is really the
glory of India and pride of the world. By creating such female figures in
her fiction, who leave an indelible imprint on our hearts, Kamala
Markandaya has immortalized herself in English literature.
WORKS CITED
Markandava, Kamala: Neetar in a Sieve. Bombay: Jaico Publishing House.
1956.. Some Inner Furv London: Putnam, 1955. A
Silence of Desire, New Delhi Sagar Publications, 1968. Possession: London:
Putnam (1963). A Handful of Rice: New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks. 1966.
The Coffer Dams Delhi: Hind Pocket Books Pvt. Ltd. (Year not printed). The
Nowhere Man. Oriented Langman Ltd. 1975.
Bhatnagar, A.K. : Kamala Markandaya : A Thematic Study. New Delhi: Sarup
and Sons 1995.
Chatterjee, Arudhate: “Rukmani : the mother figure in Nectar in a Sieve"
Studies in Indian Fiction in English. ed. G.S. Balaram Gupta Gulbarga :
JIWE Publication:
1987.
Joseph. Margaret. P.: Kamala Markandaya New Delhi: Arnold Heinemann. 1980
Rao. A.V. Krishna: “Continuity and change in the novels of Kamala
Markandaya”. Perspectives on Kamala Markandaya. Ed. Madhusudan Prasad
Ghaziabad: Vimal
Prakashan, 1984. The Indo-Anghan Novel and the changing tradion Mysore:
Rao & Raghwan. 1972.
Srivastava R.K.: "The Novels of Kamala Markandaya”. Amritsar: Guru Nanak
Dev University. 1988.
Contributing Writer: Dr. Ram Sharma, Lecturer
in English,
dr.ram_sharma@yahoo.co.in
|
|
|
