Professional Documents
Culture Documents
09 Chapter 3
09 Chapter 3
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Man-Woman Relationship
3.3 Shashi Deshpande’s Life and Personality
3.4 Shashi Deshpande’s Reputation as a Novelist
3.5 Shashi Deshpande’s Position
3.6 The Quest of Love
3.7 Crisis of Identity
3.8 Confessional Content
3.9 Main themes of Gauri Deshpande’s Poetry
3.10 Over Views of Shashi and Gauri Deshpande’s Works
(1) Themes of that Long Silence
(2) A Matter of Time
(3) The Binding Vine
(4) Roots and Shadows
(5) The Dark Holds No Terrors
(6) In the Country of Deceit
(7) Small Remedies
3.11 Conclusion
CHAPTER – III
GAURI DESHPANDE
3.1 Introduction
Gauri Deshpande (1942) is another poet who has earned a niche for herself. By
both the merit and the body of work that she has to her name. She is known for her three
collections of poetry, Between Births, Lost Love and Beyond the Slaughter House which
are published in 1968, 1970 and 1972 respectively. With a total of eighty poems,
presumably and hopefully excluding the ones not published and not anthologies so far.
Gauri Deshpande was born in Poona on February 11th, 1942 and buried on March
1st, 2003 who was a novelist, short story writer and poetess from Maharashtra, India. She
published literary outputs in both Marathi and English languages. Her father’s name was
Dinkar Karve and mother’s name was Irawati Karve. In Pune from Ahilyadevi School she
completed her schooling. To receive a degree of M.A. in English Literature, she secured
her admission in Fergusson College of Pune. From Pune University she was awarded for
her Ph. D. degree. In 1961 she married Avinash Deshpande and she devorsed him in 1971
and in 1974 she remarried with Surinder. She had each child from both the husbands. In
1972 she was awarded with the Satya Katha Award. She was the prolific and bilingual
writer. For Illustrated Weekly of India she worked for the long time. The relationship
between man and woman is perfectly explored by Gauri Deshpande and she also focuses
on the cause of absurdities and frustrations of the females. From her childhood she had
learnt to work for the woman emancipation from her parents and grandparents because
they had worked for the betterment of the women. So her main concern is of female
psyche and her intention is to define woman in the real sense.
A sense of frustration, conflict and dilemma, futility, sadness and loss are the main
themes of her poems. It is shown in her poems that women at the end of the day crave for
some love of the care that they have taken very heartily for their children and husband
and family members. The paper attempts to investigate some of her poems and explore
the various themes that marked her creativity.
She has enriched the Indo English literature with her great endeavor.
Books:
She also translated the ten volumes of Arabian Nights written by Sir
Richard Burton from English to Marathi.
Collections of Poems
Having read the three collection one after another one may say clearly get an idea
that she is a very sensitive poet. She is very emotional and realistic in her expression.
These collections of the poems express the feelings and emotions of the poet. Through
these poems she reflects her views and observations in the best words. In these poems we
find the themes of men women relationship, love, marriage, life, death, feminine world,
suppressed desires of women, male dominated society etc.
The confessional mode becomes a device to formalize the process of analysis and
adjustment of the problems which crop up from personal life. Gauri Deshpande’s poems
and autobiography stem from her own experiences and therefore often classified as
‘confessional’. Confessional poetry is all autobiographical; it is rooted in the personal
experiences of the poetess. Gauri Deshpande confesses a number of things exclusively
related to herself, self as a woman with her strong feminine sensibilities. Her poems are
indeed an intense study of her personal traumas and tribulations that she faced in her
married life bereft of emotional bounding.
In poem of her there a relationship of women and men which are described in not
limited chances and ways. In relation the central subject and concept of it are found
woman and man love ship attachment. There constant struggle involved found in that
particular society. And that inner search and quest is the central and love and loneliness,
suffering and pain and their different and that was very effective in the writing to that was
effective to them. Deshpande is a centralized poet and thinker particular in the area of the
feminist area. In her poems that were an striking features and affected to all in the society.
To regard Gauri Deshpande as one of the hundred and fifty odd women poets ‘jostling for
space’ in contemporary Indian women’s English poetry is to mistreat and underrate her.
Gauri Deshpande is a prolific writer of Marathi and English literature. She leaves a
memorable impression on her critics and readers. As for her post of prestige in the
tradition of genre, she is no doubt, with Toru Dutt, Sarojini Naidu and Kamala Das. Gauri
Deshpande have put across the predicament of a woman in one of her poems; You sight
me glimpsing and won‘t wait too long, with a half-smile in your raised eyebrow will
leave me between shores and walk off.
In her fiercely honest search for identity, Gauri Deshpande reveals her inner
contrasts, conflicts, emotions, feelings, ironies and extremes. Her poems move rapidly
through sentiments, anger, sympathy and tensions. It is somewhat complex to understand
the emotion and texture of her verses because she is a very mature poet. A sense of
sadness and loss are the main concerns in her poems. She somewhat similar to Thomas
Hardy in the matter of theme because like Hardy she also believes that evils surpass the
virtues and human adventure seems very puny in front of evils. In her poems we find
very common story of everyday life, death of a puppy dogs, coming lover, ingratitude of
children etc. Thus, she writes on a very pretty things and common matters.
Throughout history, women have been appropriated as sexual objects, Karl Marx
says, Marriage is incontestably a form of exclusive private property and this is echoed by
Gauri Deshpande who expresses about this position of a woman in marriage in her poem
Man and Woman. ,
She reveals how a woman torn ruthlessly between fulfillment and frustration, is
forced to accept her identity as a lonely being;
Love is enriched with the sense of meaningfulness when the lover is absent even
more than when he is present near her:’ When the vast barrenness of your presence.
Confronts me, I feel your absence fruitful, In you personified were all, My loves
unreached. ’ Gauri Deshpande is, thus, primarily concerned with the exploration of the
various intricacies and conflicts of the man-woman relationship. She depicts woman as
distressed by the non-fulfillment of physical as well as emotional cravings. Kanwar
Dinesh Singh while discussing her poetry expresses. She finds the lack of genial after
play in lovemaking as most unsatisfying and disappointing. In the whole gamut of
lovemaking she perceives neither physical intensity nor mental satisfaction, and finds
neither emotional contentment nor even spiritual delight.
Shashi Deshpande from Indian soil and name of her village is Dharwad, she born
in 1938. She is not the first but after first she was daughter of the writer and dramatist
Shriranga who was Sanskrit man and scholar. She went her way on Mumbai at the age of
half thirteen and getting the education of law. And that degree was practiced in Bangalore
for few years in her career. And after sometime she got married and then she has two sons
and got busy with them in her life. After all this, she has started writing in 1970.
Deshpande began her writing with short stories which later developed into writing
novels. ‘The Legacey’ first collection of stories of short in 1972 had been prescribed for
graduate students in Columbia University. I don’t think so that I planned ever for
becoming a writer in my career and that was not so easy to be a writer. It was conscious
decision was taken by me. I was busy with my two sons and in the beginning of life that
was not possible and easy for me to become a writer. And other factors are there found is
that she didn’t have any friend at this time and whole day with her children and then after
sometime from this life she got the idea to put her hand and writing and also her
imagination in writing and created an immense contribution in this field. She got the
point that something was there that which asked her to go towards her unidentified goal
and that was about to be a good writer and known as feminist movement.
Shashi Deshpande now in India’s one of best place at Bangalore with her husband
and also completed her Master Degree in Literature there. She is best in all regards of
literature. She is different from another perspective and unique in her writing and
depicted totally different way in writing and go against the traditional writing and
presented the realistic picture in her writing and described in details and most
contemporary qualities also found in her writing that is her best quality in her drama and
play and most of her fictional writing. Deshpande began her writing with short stories
which later developed into writing novels. ‘The Legacey’ first collection of stories of
short in 1972 had been prescribed for graduate students in Columbia University. She is
not the first but after first she was daughter of the writer and dramatist Shriranga who was
Sanskrit man and scholar. She got the point that something was there that which asked
her to go towards her unidentified goal and that was about to be a good writer and known
as feminist movement. Actually her education background is economical and later on she
got the degree of Literature though she has shown beautiful sense in literature writing in
her performance. And her grandfather who is known as the Bernard Shaw of Kannada
theatre, yet she never got any guidance from him in this field. She repents the fact of
being detached from her father. In response to a question of Vanamala Vishwanatha, If I
should criticize him, I should say he was somewhat detached from us. . . never guided us.
May be if he had directed us at an early age, I could have done better. He never did that.
Some of her themes are: there is a woman from and her husband house
background present connection is with politics and there so many problems she has and
nothing else, and a girl in womb not able to understand why all this is happening with her
because she doesn’t have that level and existence, a new married couple try to adjust
herself in the company of each other and they are not able to decide what to do and once
shown compassion and lucidity. All these writing provided the lost data of human
relationships and feeling which was mostly forgotten in all corner in the society that was
ridiculous reality. These writings have focused light on those forgotten facts of human
relationships and feelings in different form of literature.
Deshpande has tried not to write any fictional and novel to entertain the people
and amuse them but actually she had presented the realistic view and daily Indian life that
was found in everyday in various part of the society among different cast and community
in India. Shashi mostly described the place and the realm in which our society belonged
and lived in it with the realistic and ridiculous factors in that found the disastrous factors
and fault and weakness of the society. She is not intentioned to criticize anything and
discuss it but she has just presented the picture of Indian society as it is found in present
days with its traits and tradition in ridiculous manner. Her writing is not demanding high
intellectuality for reading because she has presented the things in which people are taking
breath and performing their duty in that society. Shashi Deshpande dives deep into the
society and also into the minds of her male and female characters and she very wittily
portraits the problems of men and women relationship. She also shows how her male and
female characters act and react to the situation.
Shashi in all her writing seems to be a prolific writer and huge creator and make
silent many social issues in her fictional writing that was eye catching factor which
concentrated audience highly in their life. She used simple and usual picture of Indian
society and this simplicity attracted a lot and number of people and caught them in their
society. In all her contribution in literature it was easy to find the traits and factors of
Indian culture easily and that’s why there is the central concept and theme of her all
writing that was Indian way of life and woman. With this concept and constant attempt
and her interest which she regaled the majority of Audience and of her enthusiastic
followers and readers who are going to share her dilemma, fears confidentialities and
hope, prerogatives and experience.
Shashi in all her performance and inscription seems to be a prolific writer and
massive architect and formulate noiseless many societal issues in her story bound writing
that was eye transmittable reason which resolute audience highly in their life.
"So these two fellows who are caused for their fate and
upcoming and the compilation in very high. ” 4
She uttered the contribution of her and indifferently, there must be another
time introduction ability of her to converse in her mind.
So when there is a doubt about the central character in all her writing and fictional
novels, in which she concentrated the middle class woman and their condition and in
urban city area where it is Norman to found working women and their personal
difficulties and crisis.
Further she underlines and asserted and not accepted to play and the rules of
global. And she continued her work and make aware herself and aware others about the
prevailing situation and she doesn’t not follow the tradition and work as per that tradition
but she created her tradition and way of work different.
She got Sahitya Award for her best work ‘That Long Silence’ and she was also
respected for her two ‘The Dark Holds No Terrors’ and ‘Shadow and Roots’. Small
Remedies, her latest novel, was released in India on the 16 th of March, 2000. We will
deal with six novels of Shashi Deshpande in detail in the next part of the study Sarita in
The Dark Holds No Terrors 28 undergoes a similar trauma like Indu in Roots and
Shadows. She confronts reality and in the end realises that the dark she feared really
holds no terrors. Saru is a 'two-in-one woman. ' A doctor in the day time and a trapped
animal at night. She wants to be free and have an identity of her own. She longs to break
away from the rigid traditional norms. She hates her parental home, yet the work was
found Saru, who going to meet her father after long period of time, she decide to visit her
father because after listening the death of her Mother from their friends. In the past she
left that home in her young age. Denying her parents to marry the man Manohar whom
she loved. So at the end she wanted to establish all good and well and resolution
everything and forgot her past try her best to established well and good.
In the beginning of that fictional work found that Sarita was scolded by her
mother because she was not helped out her brother when he was drowning in deep water.
But at present situation changed so much her mother was now not anymore and she
comes back to her childhood place. She wanted to provide her service to her father but
her husband was not happy with this and create so much problems in her life and there
was very much brutal behavior was done by him to her and she has piteous condition. In
her childhood home she remember all her past incident who changed her a lot she
observed her village, her marriage against her parents wish, and her relationship with her
childhood friend Manohar. So there is constant incidents and situation of Sarita addressed
as ‘Saru’, with whose character Deshpande prevailing situation of Woman in the society
is described and reflects constant struggle of woman to prove their status constantly in
their living place and around atmosphere. The hostel life is a kind of "rebirth" into a
totally different world where you don't have to stay outside for;
When Sani falls in love with Manohar, a boy from a lower caste, again she defies
the authority of her mother. Saru's marriage is a means to get away from her mother and
her home. The departure of the heroine from the mother is the first step towards
autonomy; for, the mother is the first pedagogue of the restrictions on the woman.
Marriage, the promised end in a traditional society, in feminist fiction becomes only
another enclosure that restricts the movement towards autonomy and self-realization.
There are recurrent images of enclosure in Roots and Shadows as well as in The Dark
Holds No Terrors. Indu constantly speaks of the dark room where so many women had
given birth. Saru is reminded of a room whose doors are closed whenever she looks at her
daughter, Renu. Saru, even when she comes back home, "felt herself enclosed. " When
she enters into her room, she finds male clothes hanging on the wall and realizes that she
has no room of her own. The feeling of being enclosed is associated with the mother's
house and the protagonist wants to escape from the enclosure, as revealed in Indu's
dreams. The image of the enclosed walls suggests the suffocation these women undergo
not only in their parental homes but the homes they have chosen as refuge. The novel is
presented in four parts and even in the first part, all the important issues bitterness
towards the mother, insecurity of Manu, Saru's relationship with Manu and children,
Dhruva's death are touched upon. The rest of the three parts elaborate Saru's introspection
of and her reaction to different issues touched upon in the first part. Shashi Deshpande
works with a dubious world that falls between reality and unreality. The truth behind
Saru being the murderess of Dhruva, Manu being the predator and Saru the prey is a
matter that lies in this realm between reality and unreality. The italicized description of
Saru's traumatic but dream-like experience when she slowly recognizes the predator to be
her own husband defines the dubious area better. It also lays all the cards on the table,
takes away the element of shock and the reader is left with nothing to anticipate about the
monstrous problem. The second part too begins with a dream suggestive of the
uncertainty of the destination and the inability to know what lies in store as she drifts by.
In the course of Part IV there is a reference to another dream that evokes the road image
again with "something, somebody awful, frightening" at the end. But she has no way out
and has to proceed. The dream suggests the definite need to proceed and confront
whatever is at the end. Though the novel deals with an uncertain situation, Shashi
Deshpande makes use of effective concrete images to drive home the reality and gravity
of the problem. The Dark Holds No Terrors presents the inner drama of Saru that has a
lot to do with the past. Hence narration is introspective sliding across the past and the
present through effective "quick cuts. "Occasionally, Shashi Deshpande sidetracks into a
bit of philosophizing on human life, grief, happiness, pain, man's aloneness and so on,
and these digressions make the novel a bit too wordy. She never leaves anything unsaid
to evoke rich suggestions. Some Indian elements like the son's importance in the family,
girls getting importance only during haldi-kumkums, a woman possessed by Devi, find a
natural place in the novel that deals with a woman's status and the dichotomy within her
personality.
Shashi Deshpande is known for creating women characters that are contemporary.
Shashi Deshpande makes use of effective concrete images to drive home the reality and
gravity of the problem. The Dark Holds No Terrors presents the inner drama of Saru that
has a lot to do with the past. They are conscious of the great social inequality and
injustice towards them, and struggle against the oppressive and unequal nature of the
social norms and rules that limit their capability and existence as a wife. Fettered to their
roles in the family, they question the subordinate status ordained to them by society.
Deshpande prevailing situation of Woman in the society is described and reflects constant
struggle of woman to prove their status constantly in their living place and around
atmosphere. Her regular and serious concern for women and their oppressive lot is
reflected strongly in all her novels and stories. Shashi Deshpande is identified for creating
women typescript that is contemporary. Shashi Deshpande makes use of successful
existing descriptions to constrain home the authenticity and gravity of the problem.
Deshpande has chosen sensitive issue among the all factors and theme of Literature and
that was a major weapon of her writing. And all her creation just highlights the realistic
picture of the society and nothing else.
What really sets Shashi Deshpande apart is that she holds a universal appeal
through her effective and best writing and that is without any doubt emanates from the
rootedness in India every day. She has steadfastly refused to compromise in order to suit
the global market, never exoticising India, never 'presenting' it as she puts it , and
certainly by not playing to the gallery. She is often compared to regional language writers
firmly entrenched in our social realities and grappling with our issues. One agrees with R.
K. Dhawan's remarks that in her writing and period found the pretty packaged and her
lucid thought in her fresh writing. Everything is said as it should be, not a superfluous
word to be found anywhere.
The aesthetics of her writing is informed from her subject matter and all those
thing create her thought very firm and articulate her observation and make people to read
the things and experience by her was sharing in that work. And so there is no doubt about
that she has very strong bounding with her content and her inner self was attached with it.
What in actuality sets Shashi Deshpande spaced away from home is that she holds a
widespread application through her valuable and best characters and that is exclusive of
any uncertainty emanates from the rootedness in India every day. Reading of Deshpande
was so effective that it pull in the reder and make his or her that actually this situation
was happening with them directly or indirectly, that is the feeling which comes from the
reading of the Deshpande. It proved a satisfying and immense experience to the reader
and make them to feel aware about the system.
In all her novel finds the central subject is about crisis and problems of women.
People go out through the reading of Deshpande but their effect was not found any longer
in that personal and public behavior about this disastrous fact of the society. All these
things which were put by Deshpande in front of the people of society was not making in
their behavior and it gone to the fail. People are not asking any question and without any
doubt they are accepting this ridiculous fact of the society. The central character of her is
Woman and their suffering and behavior of the society with them was major and eye
catching factor of her writing.
In all her work of fiction finds the innermost subject matter is about crisis and
problems of women. Populace goes out from end to end the reading of Deshpande but
their effect was not found any longer in those personal and public behaviors about this
disastrous fact of the society. All these things which were put by Deshpande in front of
the people of society was not making in their behavior and it gone to the fail. People are
not asking any question and without any doubt they are accepting this ridiculous fact of
the society. The central character of her is Woman and their suffering and behavior of the
society with them was major and eye catching factor of her writing. But on other side it is
reflected that woman has a great strength, power and ability to deal with difficult
situation and their problems. Among all these complexity she has a great and sustainable
power that she handles with great ability and deal with them. She is not just described as
emotional fool but depicted as a warrior. This is because woman has great bearable
ability and they have best inner ability. Shashi Deshpande in her writing with all these
problems and dealt with them nicely and presented the realistic picture of the society.
When a couple was seen by them in ‘The Dark Holds No Terrors’. She is
uniquely Indian and her use of Marathi words very evidently presents the customs and
traditions of the people belonging to Maharashtra and Karnataka. For example, words
such as Kaka, Kaki, Atya, Dada, and so on, are essentially Marathi words and might be a
bit difficult to grasp by the readers who do not know the language.
Shashi Deshpande cares more for literary qualities of her creative works. Her
language is transparent. It does not draw attention to itself, nor does it come in the way.
She is Indian by every inch and always writes for citizens of India. She states that if you
try to make everything easy for everyone, then, you end up belonging nowhere. So, I've
left it at that- characters in their novels, without providing glosses for the western readers.
. . Also literature can be appreciated even without understanding every word of it one can
still respond to the core of it. Before the publication of her great novel That Long Silence
she was unknown to the persons. For the very first time Virago Feminist Press, London
published her novel. She says: It's meaningless that people know me as a person and not
know what I've written. I feel publicity is not a good thing for a writer. It detracts you
from your work. Further she writes about the need to write:
She does not see males as the cause of all, troubles as some feminists do, and she
deals with the inner mind of women. Education and experience in foreign countries sets
women writers apart from traditional Indian women. The traditional Indian women
suffer, submit and adjust themselves to the circumstances. The women novelists like
Anita Desai, Nayantara Sahgal, and Ruth Prawar Jhabvala have, in their novels, portrayed
this aspect of women's life without having the first hand experience of it. Shashi
Deshpande has projected this aspect of Indian women with more sensitivity and
instinctive understanding as she belongs to this category. Unlike other women writers,
she is born and brought up on this soil, gained her education in India itself and wrote
about India. The projection of the woman's world in her novels is more authentic,
credible and realistic. She knows what Indian women feel. Shashi Deshpande does not
want to be categorized with other Indian writers writing in English. She has a unique
place among the novelists writing in English. She declares that she is just like any other
regional writer but her medium of writing happens to be English, as it is the only
language she knows well. Explaining her position, Shashi Deshpande says: I'm isolated.
I'm not part of any movement and not conscious of readers to impress. To get wider
recognition here and abroad, you have to be in the university and places like that with the
right contacts. I'm an ordinary woman who writes sitting at home. None of these things
are within my reach.
This has, I believe, done me good. It has given me great freedom. I'm happy with
this anonymity. Once you get publicity-conscious, your writing becomes affected. I'm
truly happy with this freedom. Shashi Deshpande believes that a writer gives to society a
mirror image of itself, so has she tried to do in her creative writing. Vanamala
Vishwanatha points out that the author has presented in her works a typical, middle-class
housewife's life. . . . . That's every woman's problem as well. That's where Shashi
Deshpande has touched a chord. The study tries to understand and perceive the real
dilemma of middle-class educated women in her novels.
Deshpande has never ever tried to portrait her female characters mightier than
they are in actual life. Rather she has exposed their transitional state, as pinpointed by Dr.
Promilla Kapur. The educated women demand more sexual freedom and independence
but are not very sure about what they should do with the same, which leads them to a
bitter confusion, anxiety and tension. Their psychology is still wedded to tradition. The
projection of the woman's world in her novels is more authentic, credible and realistic.
She knows what Indian women feel. Shashi Deshpande does not want to be categorized
with other Indian writers writing in English. The picture of such women has found place
in Shashi Deshpande's novels: Character of mine find their own by themselves. People
saying that there are strong character described by me in the novel but the reality is that I
have just put my characters as they are. It is not that Shashi Deshpande has deliberately
made women the focus in all her novels. She, in fact, wanted to portray the whole society
in her writings; but somehow, as the characters took shape, the women characters turned
out to be the protagonists. That is the world she knows more closely. The reason may be
that being a woman, she felt more for the women characters, could understand the
mundane reality, the complex structure of man-woman relationship better.
It's needed. The system in India is like that woman has to depend on their family
and have to be in a relationship. And in family she is woven in different roles such as
sister, mother and wife. And this concept was the prime object of this writing and
discussion of the present research study. And try to convince the concept in the future of
woman. Search for identity and inner conflict, parent-child and other ritual and just
medium of child generating and tools for sex and marriage are the main themes of Shashi
Deshpande's novels. Female psyche is studied fully in Shashi Deshpande’s novels.
Deshpande does not want to be categorized with other Indian writers writing in English.
She has a unique place among the novelists writing in English. She declares that she is
just like any other regional writer but her medium of writing happens to be English, as it
is the only language she knows well. Explaining her position, Shashi Deshpande says: I'm
isolated. I'm not part of any movement and not conscious of readers to impress. It is well
set in Karnataka, and the name of work titled ‘A Matter of Time’ which discover and
illustrates the not easy of dealings and an complete family, surrounding in different
generations of women and men.
In the beginning of the novel there is a girl named Anu, under demands and that
was be aware of her father's `absconding and her mother's impressiveness and
unresponsiveness, and in the few route of a confused months and falsified and it
completely depended on uneasy to expect of relationships. Sumi the main woman
character of the novel is different from the women protagonists of Shashi Deshpande's
earlier novels. Sumi is gradually emancipating herself as a new and independent woman
who has evolved from utter desolation and bitterness linked with invisible chains of
patriarchal pressure and family responsibilities. Gopal's desertion makes her experience
the trauma of a deserted wife and the anguish of an isolated partner.
When there is a Gopal who gone for specific reason and other side there a Sumi
who brought out three children along with her all these three are girls and their names are
Charu, Anu and Seema. All these three from big shelter home and the name of their real
parents is Shripathi and Kalyani. Their parents are mysterious because they with each
other not talking form last since thirty five years and that was a long period of silence. So
there is a horrifying story of them in which they became silent for long period of time and
Sumi finds her own reflection in their story. So it is the women who are always in the
centre, here found a woman who deals with three different generations. And here
Deshpande’s depiction reveals question that why Kalyani married with her maternal
uncle named Sripathi. So there are so much suspension and tragic elements with woman
and their life. And Sripathi deserted her wife because of to marry with Kalyani. Sripathi
spent her reaming life in isolation shelter and that was very big. But he never talks with
and found any conversation with Kalayani, in this situation spent thirty five years spent.
Kalyani is overwhelmed from man who is not from them and desertion of this instance
that of her relatives.
‘Shadow and Roots’, this work of Deshpande won the Rangammal Thirumathi
award for author. That was allocated for the best fictional performance and written and
published in India for the year 1982-83. Her collection of short stories, The Legacy, has
had the single distinction of being used as text-book in Columbia University for a course
in Modern Literature. And almost all her books have been well received by the reading
public, though seldom acclaimed by academics, or anthologized. For her, writing is a
vocation, not a profession, and so she seems to have been untouched by the reception
accorded to her work. Shashi Deshpande's novels are concerned with a woman's quest for
self; an exploration into the female psyche and an understanding of the mysteries of life
and the protagonist's place in it. Shashi Deshpande uses irony in the majority of her
stories and novels to satirize the morals and manners of our society although she is not an
ironist. She employs situational, attitudinal and verbal irony to telling effect. Simplicity,
directness and brevity of language are the chief characteristics of her. She uses her words
very economically but very effectively in her works.
Six of her major novels, Roots and Shadows to Small Remedies in the
chronological order are chosen for this thesis. The focus in these novels is on heroines or
the major women characters. Her heroines are sensitive to the changing times and
situations, they revolt against the traditions in their search for freedom. They succeed in
achieving self-identity and independence and choose their partners in life to live within
pursuance of their felt need to lead a family life. Women have to play their role as an
obedient daughter, faithful beloved, faithful wife, loving and caring mother in a family.
Standing at cross-roads of tradition they do seek a change, but within the cultural norms
so as to enable themselves to live with dignity and self-respect.
Indu, the protagonist in Roots and Shadows, her first novel, emerges and just flow
as a woman of her thought and ideas and she was determines in her ideals and reflected
as challenge for male dominated society. In the transitional period she demonstrates and
exemplifies in that particular transitional area of the society. She was, who reflect her
ability and gone through out all tradition and just rise up as new form of presented by her
in the patriarchal society.
Saru of The Dark Holds No Terrors seeks freedom without impinging on her
obligations and responsibilities and achieves harmony in Life. It shows how she
undergoes a not a god sight of at the time when she was persisted by her cast and its
shadow in her union with her husband in that her blunt behavior as woman make her
different and shining character in the all field of writing.
Sumi, a deserted wife in ‘A Matter of Time’, a best contribution of her and a god
adversity reflected by her, in which she evolves and connect herself not from good sight
but from the bitterness and desolation and described unseen chain of society dominated
by the society. She attains her final stage thought here are so many problems and
obstacles like dignity, courage, independent thinking and spirit and responsibility. She got
her final self awareness and satisfied her desired wishes.
Madhu in Small Remedies, her latest novel, writes the biography of Indorkar
Savitri represented the tradition and good sight of Indian music during her career and she
was a versatile personality at that time. An unconventional existence and life was led by
her in most of her life, and suffered a lot because of her independent thinking and action
in male dominated society. There is so many other stories like this, in which finds the
situation as it was described in the present discussion like Madhu who told and narrates
her own story. Shashi Deshpande's six novels have been critically analysed with a view to
understand and appreciate the impact of the conflicting influence of tradition and
modernity and the responses to the emerging situations in life in the contemporary
society. Different kinds of challenges faced by her characters are studied in detail here.
The novels have been analyzed individually and commented upon in detail. A close
analysis of her novels leaves no doubt about her loyal and good concern about female and
for their generation. The major thinking and fact is that her character are enough
intelligent and aware about path that it is smothered or not in patriarchal area of the
society.
It is she was who is in fault that a stubborn because of her desire and wishes and
there is also founds the description of nails and lips and the things which were happened
with her. One character named Shakita, present the picture most of all woman and their
situations in the field of her action in which there was situation in which she loved her
children but stick family and its rules tied her hands and sacrifice because of false honor.
There is one character name Urmila who brought out the attention of entire society and
not stand with the false values and norms of the male dominated society. In fact she was
not declares fight against the society and its system but she has trust and faith that things
are going to develop with the passing of time. Mira and her excellent poetry is the best
example of above discussion. It is not Deshpande that created a great Indian mythology
and tradition in her conceptual fiction but suffered and bitterness of the society generated
by the man and felt by the woman in different role of wife, sister and mother. Deshpande
observed the world of woman and depicted in her best artistic sense.
So, there is also found the presence of men but not on the primary stage but on
secondary stage in which they have power and used over their daughter wives and
mother. There are women in the centre who suffered a lot and loses their hopes the
incidents and creates a problem for them. It is only that poem in which found the
suffering of female character are described in verse and open a new realm of writing in
literature. And Deshpande presented and occupied a great picture in the society.
Gauri Deshpande occupies a prominent position among the poets who constitute
the modern tradition of Indian poetry in English. It is only Gauri Deshpande among all
her contemporaries who draws our attention immediately. Longing and yearning for love
and unfulfilled love are the chief themes of most of her poems. A cursory reading of her
poems at once reveals the facts that the person and the poet are not different. Her
desperate attempts to search for genuine love are shown in all her poems. Women are
more emotional and sentimental by temperament than men.
Her love poetry is different from the love poetry of other Indian poets; she has
rejuvenated the tradition of love poetry by a contemporary new voice. There is
reconsideration and reassessment of the experience of love. Though love is considered as
giving eternal pleasure in some of her poems, but she seems to be quite aware of the
dreams which shatter because of love. Slightly unwelcome, taciturn, you moved in and
we lived on in disharmony, slowly, silently the green came into trees.
At the same time love seems to give her endless contentment. In There Was a
Time love gives her abundant recompense for a loveless past and an uncertain future. It
has more than made up for the times when they were not together: And our solace . Will
be: we knew of you and me. In her In Absentia she recalls her past association with the
lover and expresses her disappointment because of his absence. The rainy days, which
used to evoke sensuality earlier, are now painful for her. And winter, which is a symbol of
decadence, has now overtaken her; this time I know that you are not near , . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . I know that winter is here to stay.
She has no glee and delight in her life. The parting with the lover seems to her so
shocking that even re-union could bring them no joy the reality of the present misery
becomes too cruel for her to be lived again. And from our present misery. Do yearn to
believe. That that too was a reality. To be lived again. In her distress she further says:
‘Teeth clenched, Breath held, I wait for your coming, for, from that moment, I must start
to live, The coming of your departure’.
Eunice de Souza while discussing her poetry says: She doesn‘t trust her lover‘s
affection, which seems to her, beyond confines of need and desire. She is unable to study
his mind:
Even the memories of love have their own significance. For Gauri Deshpande the
most dear treasure is an old letter with violets preserved in its leaves and she feels that
memories are essential `otherwise there‘s nothing’. Even the very intensity of her love
sometimes becomes painful because it involves almost slavish attachment. And attached
by the same, Painful devotion and self-loss. To the feet of God . I‘d be canonized.
Here she doesn‘t seem to be much different from the early Romantics like Toru
Dutt and Sarojini Naidu. It is her frank, free and uninhibited portrayal of sex that makes
her different from these early poets. In order to flout the rules which patriarchy has set up
as norms, women poets like Gauri Deshpande have unreservedly expressed their sexual
desires and have, thus, replaced the earlier timidity and tenderness. In fact free expression
of sexuality is an act of self-assertion and freedom according to the feminist point of
view. Lost Love reveals Gauri Deshpande‘s concept of love as modified by her attitude to
sex because What was in Between Births an innocent flower of love has become in this
volume a blood-stained symbol of sex orgy. Sex is now almost a substitute for love
(Saha). In Poems on Lost Love she uses the imagery of earth and rain to suggest the act of
consummation. She compares herself with the earth. She admits that she is as deep and
black as the earth. She experiences the first rain as the blessing of God.
For her sex is a natural desire and an irresistible biological need. It gives her
delight and pleasure. Even while reveling in the physical act, Gauri Deshpande expresses
her contempt and distaste for sexual pleasure which reveals her bafflement in this
patriarchal world. She finds modern love-making devoid of intensity as men do not
plunge into; the plunging depths of our souls and bodies. The intensity of her passion
often cripples her power of exploration. Love and sex provide no enjoyment. However, at
the same time Gauri Deshpande expresses her desire for man‘s love in some of her
poems. In Integration tortured by the agony of existence, she longs for a lover: If only
there was someone to fall in love with.
Her nights are spent in `causeless researching’ and waking in the mornings is dull,
flat and unprofitable. She considers the final outcome of this physical act as moving into
the darkness from the good fortune of smiles and caresses. The act is itself a mere ritual;
Mental calculator says only five more minutes. She doesn‘t desire her lover to be
physically present with her as his closeness makes her feel disgusted with bareness of
your presence. There is disillusionment and disappointment with love. She finds love-
making most unsatisfying. While going through her poems H. L. Amga observes: Her
conceptual strategies seem to hover between two extremities of love, the one dealing with
the exuberant feeling of conjugal satiety, and the other with the etiolate nausea or
boredom, which comes after the surfeit of love . She shows woman as dismayed by the
non-fulfillment of physical as well as emotional cravings. When you divided our love
thus, With your strong and calloused hand. To me fell the harsh, Waking up of cold
nights. The tired soothing, the quiet. Retreat and unquestioning emptiness. The illness
and magnifying of flaws. You chose well, my love .
Her heart has broken when her love has lost. She feels confusion and withdraws
herself from the outward. In her poems the feelings of disappointment and despair are
found often and often. She acquires a somewhat sentimental outlook; and that
surrounding facts and that heap upon not only from the one side but all over. She
complains about the relation of her lover with other woman in one of her poems and
expresses her hatred;
Her treatment of love and sexuality shows how much she is dissatisfied with the
society which demands silent acceptance from a woman. Though the poet doesn‘t
become strident like Mamta Kalia and Eunice de Souza who adopt an aggressive tone,
yet she is quite aware of the gnawing unrest of her life that gives her pain and suffering.
She longs for a haven of peace. She asserts that her rest has been snatched away by the
world. She doesn’t want to go ahead now. With her fists that clench and unclench.
Thoughts come pouring in her eyes. And drain away leaving a whorl of dirt. If only it has
rain. If only she has die.
Repetitions within a line like. The sun poured and poured and at the beginning of
successive lines can be seen in her poetry: If only it‘d rain.
(Integration 6-9)
Such repetitions intensify her feelings for her lost love. Thus, while her love
poems voice her emotions and experiences, they also reflect a constant dilemma and
conflict in the backdrop. In the article Modern Indian English Women Poets: An
Overview Sunanda P. Chavan studies Gauri Deshpande‘s frustrations and dissatisfactions
and attempts to trace the causes that lead to trauma. According to him, her poetry gives
place to sheer sentimental outbursts when the poet abandons herself weakly to the
passion of grief in the face of the traumatic experience of frustration (Chavan, Modern
79). As when she speaks of; and the now familiar beat of. I won’t cry I won’t cry drums
at the base of my throat.
In Known is this City she can tolerate the strange city only because we were here
once, in love. But soon the mood deserts her and she is found lamenting her loneliness
and emptiness in her next poem at the loss of her love. I wanted to weep for you. And me
but I had already spent. All tears in useless mourning. So now I watch arid eyed. As my
fingers open slowly. And let you go. Her love poetry is a commentary on male
indifference, callousness, insensitivity and exploitation of the female. Cracking under the
pressures of chaotic world in which male cruelty and exploitation go hand in hand, she
feels torn by the pain and meaninglessness of existence: ‘And so meaningless is the drift
of years. That the only residue is this habit of pain.’
Probably such poems lead Eunice de Souza to regard Lost Love as a great poem
of blood, sweat and clenched teeth. It should however be noted that the poem defines
love in terms of sex only in a limited number of poems. The awareness of sex becomes
gradually an integral part of her total awareness of love only in the later poems. For
instances, her expression achieves uninhibited frankness and honesty of tone in ‘Lying of
Ghosts’ where she communicates her sense of guilt for the aborted children;
Love emerges as a multi dimensional experience in the case of Kamala Das, while
Gauri Deshpande’s exploration suffers from certain basic limitations. Furthermore,
Kamala Das’s ironic stance enables her to achieve then necessary artistic detachment
while Gauri Deshpande‘s intensity of passion after cripples her power of exploration. She
says,
Gauri Deshpande also strongly feels that a woman has to compromise and adapt
to the circumstances she is situated in. But at the same time in such circumstances she
can neither have tranquility, nor peace of mind. A frustration results from the shock and
despair she experiences in her life. She develops the habit of pain and the grit of
surviving in a milieu that is meaningless. She says that she has just glanced at the passing
face. That face is not much familiar but little known and wondered at the sudden gust of
pain. After an hour or two it came back again: It was a face very like your own. Your son
or daughter, I‘m certain (Souvenir).
(Oh Let Me …)
She longs for some peace. She is tired of the unrest of her life which gives her
pain and suffering:
She like any other new woman has emerged with her own desires, ambitions and
quests to break away the shackles of age-old customs, beliefs and mores. But the attempt
to fight against the repressive forces of tradition and prescriptive roles based on idealized
modes of a bygone era and her desire of newer, wider horizons only results in her living a
dual existence; feel confused, angry and reactive. The style of her poetry is an exposure
of all this. Isolation and defeat are the prime concern in most of her poems; ‘voyages and
when they begin’. Thereafter like Hopkins in ‘spring and fall’, this poet’s advice to a
child is to keep innocence in order to rise above superficialities and see sorrow and joy.
Loneliness has many faces. In “No more” the waking is “tireless, dull, flat
and/unprofitable” as the prince of Denmark also found it. The metaphor of separation is
quite home-spun with a touch of characteristic of feminism.
Isolation and defeat are the prime concern in most of Gauri Deshpande’s poems.
In Absentia is the fantastic and proper example of this theme. The protagonist of this
poem is suffering from the loneliness and frustration. The entire poem is full of symbols.
In the present poem rain is symbol of the hope for the protagonist. It is rarely, as in
‘Waiting’ 2 that the rain becomes a harbinger of the lover who actually presents himself.
The clouds had gathered all day long . And absently I had noted them. As I waited…Until
you stood at the door, drenched. Smelling of trees and rain. The exuberant Gauri
Deshpande excelled in the poem ‘Two self portraits’, The opening line: One learns to live
with. All the misconceptions about oneself .
Perhaps the poet thinks that the society does not permit an individual with true
identity and she treated the poem at the psychological level-how the self could react,
respond and disguise itself in order to lead the daily life without any disturbance. There is
a danger in over confidence about oneself-an approach to the humility of oneself-a sure
way to self respect. A cleansing process, it is better understood. Then is the witch of
oneself-with hurt bewilderment, one could accept, the lewd snigger. The poet suggests the
high intensity and severity of the satisfaction of the self, one would automatically protest
by saying that. I am not like that, meet. Knowing smiles only. At the next stage, the poet
is interested to state that there are behind factors that are invisible like treachery, crime or
untruth that are cruel and obscene and these could be understood if at all the individual
has s the smartness to perceive it in the image of the mirror-no other than its own self
image. She believes that there is certainly another self of hers and this definitely
understands the disguise form and for this, the poet would like to get a dream.
The Female of the Species is a poem of Gauri Deshpande. In the present poem she
talks about love, frustration and loneliness but there is no link about these thinks she talks
about. She also talks about the infant child in this poem and she also talks about the
innocence behaviours of the child. She also talks about the household thinks like the price
of tea and coffee, price of rice and wheat etc. Logically, the topics of conversation, the
price of tea, the scarcity of cheese, have nothing to do with what the speaker desires to
communicate love and despair and ungrateful children. However, by making such a
comparison the poet tries to lay emphasis on the frustration experienced by women in
every sphere their dissatisfaction with relationships which is accentuated by their
discussion of the material world.
She experiences the all-pervasive pain that comes through body, flesh, heart and
spirit. The poetry of Gauri Deshpande is overflowing with an overwhelming sense of
frustration, discontentment, brooding over the past love and an unsuccessful waiting. The
lady doth weep too much. There is only one mood to weep in nostalgia. Monika Varma
puts across the same obsession of Gauri Deshpande while talking about her poetry: Our
women poets weep too much in nostalgia. In her frustration, Gauri Deshpande has made
death a part of her collective unconscious. She finds a bitter disgusting odour emanating
from new-bathed earth in her poem The Renascence and in her view. I wonder why
instead of the baked fragrance . The bitter stench arises out of the new-bathed earth. It is
the smell of a death she‘s hiding in her womb.
Between Birds is the first collection in which she deals with the theme of death.
She describes the different faces of death in her poems. She praises and curses the last
event of life. Death is the last stage of the human being. She also deals with the theme of
love in this collection. She also deals with the man woman relationship in this collection.
She also talks about the Indian marriage. She deeply discusses about the seven commands
which is known as Saptpadi in Hindu marriage.
Appropriate images of color like brown patch, gray blood grass, dusky fall,
yellow tipped leaves, yellow winter, to suggest death are used, finally leading to the
overwhelming question. In order to be gathered into the sanctuary of his arms. Further,
reiteration of this willingness is laconically worded in the haiku ‘Farewell’, Death has
struck a note, Clear and blue on the piano, and I go.
One even learns to live with the bitter stretch; ‘the smell of a death’ hidden in the
earth instead of the ‘baked fragrance’ after the first rains, as the last poem of the
collection ‘The Renascence’ puts it. There is contradiction in speech and thought in the
poetry of Gauri Deshpande. She has not revealed a consistent attitude towards death. In
her poem Death, she says.
She expresses her horror at the mere thought of death in Kalpavraksha. She
wishes for rain and it pours down. The poet says. ,I was frightened thinking. This fatality
of fulfillment would lead me into strange Lands.
A Change of Seasons is a poem in which she writes about the mental and physical
depression. Family Portraits is her other poem deals with Iru’s hypochondrias and gloom.
Her poems are very modern in her themes and treatment. Disillusionment and boredom of
modern life are well narrated and discussed in her poems.
Memories a sin “In absentia” which is deeply nostalgic poem in six short sections
conveying various moods redolent with memories of meeting and parting, such as, I
remember you did not lift you hand. To touch lightly upon my head.
The poet uses an unusual striking image of a bird to describe her mental state of
loss, shock and bewilderment and irrelevance in: ‘But can bring to mind only the bird
trapped in the beam of sudden light’. A similar monsoon of memories is seen again in
‘Waiting’ where the hope of meeting deferred makes the heart sick, though sometimes
unexpectedly there are delicately sensitive moments of beauty also encased in sun blank
silence. I had meant to wait for tears. But a flight of red. Dragonflies distracted me. And
kept from remembering. The shape of your lips.
But there is nothing and superficial in the poet’s love; its integrity has the dignity,
honesty and sanctity of a worshipper’s devotion for shiv . Since no physical pleasure is
expected in love, the physical pain in it also does not matter . If devotion is a new
dimension of love, an equally noble sentiment of maternal love is also an important part
of the poet’s world of experience. Another striking quality of some of the poems in the
second collection is the lilting line, occasionally regularly rhymed also with marked
prosodic measure that makes it heard. Sometimes musical effect is created with
alliteration as the repetition of the ‘h’ sound in.
Gauri Deshpande’s poetry is full of gloom and pain. She was deeply influenced by
the modern scientific theories like Darwinism, evolutionism, which have brought drastic
change in the entire gamut of human thought. Deshpande seeks to highlight the idea of
‘misery and discontent’; of living ‘in disharmony’ with decadent dreams; ‘barren and
bereft’ of hope and consolation that characterize human lives in modern times. Her
treatment of life and the world around her is most scientific and as such, she finds a man
almost at the mercy of natural causation as Thomas Hardy did a century ago. Her poetry
is stuffed with a sense of suppression, tyranny, deep-rooted gloom, melancholic fancies
and helplessness. Patriarchy creates and recreates the psychic conditions for women’s
subordination which does not exist in the form of thin veil of false consciousness but the
very flesh and blood of female subjectivity.
After her M. A. she published her first poem in English entitled Between Births in
1968, in 1970 she published another poem Lost Love and in 1972 she published Beyond
the Slaughterhouse. She expresses her immediacy of experience through a tightly webbed
series of images in poems as A Change of Seasons, Migraine and The Female of the
Species. Family Portraits poetically represents an entire lineage. Deshpande boldly
encounters sexuality in Between Births. Her next collection Lost Love also breaks away
from the sensuous and honeyed treatment of conventional love.
Her treatment of sex is more spiritual than carnal and it is seen to be the beginning
of a process ultimately leading to spiritual fulfillment. Her primary concern with man-
woman relationships is expressed in a series of poems ranging from the treatment of
sexual love and abortion to barrenness and old age. She projects the dilemma of a lost
love through poems such as The Eclipse where she is forced to accept her alienation and
December where she accepts love but hesitates because it chains and confines her. A clear
progression towards accepting poetry as a social outgrowth can be noted in Beyond the
Slaughter House where she shows a rare insight about employed women in the busy city
of Bombay. A woman who has lost her responsiveness to love is explored in the Work of
a Day Woman and replication of the loss even of gender roles within a changing society
finds expression in Where Do Lonely People Live. The existential torment of the modern
woman finds expression in Deshpande’s poetry. After her mother’s death in 1970, she
wrote her memoir in Marathi for a newspaper and commenced a new tradition of Marathi
writing with the idea of narrating Kahani or women’s tales. She started with Ekek Pan
Galawaya (1980), and then she wrote above mentioned books consequently.
The title of the poem contradicts the informality of expression that follows. The
title in itself makes one conscious of the aspect of the female as ‘the other’ and also about
the fact that Deshpande was fond of Darwin’s work on the origin of species. The term
‘species’ in itself makes one wonder at the exclusiveness it represents as how many of us
would have said ‘the male of the species’ for the masculine is taken as the norm and the
female as the aberration of nature. Juliet Mitchell in her essay Femininity, Narrative and
Psychoanalysis talks about the marginalized and repressed condition of women.
Deshpande’s poem goes on to state how when a woman needs to have a candid heart to
heart talk on love and despair or about children, talking to a man has no value or solace.
It is difficult for a woman to narrate and chronicle her experience for history or she has
always segregated and marginalized her identity as that of the as opposed to the thereby
forcing her to acquire an alternate identity in sharp contrast to that of the absolutely
powerful image of the man. It is the construction of Woman as the quintessential ‘Other’
that Simone De Beauvoir identifies as fundamental premise to women's oppression in her
seminal work ‘The Second Sex’. The capitalized 'O' in ‘other’ indicates the wholly other.
Robin Liftoff in his study ‘Language and Woman’s Place’ goes a step further to assert
how the personal identity of women is also linguistically submerged. He goes on to state
how ‘the marginality and powerlessness of women is reflected in both the ways women
are expected to speak and the ways in which women are spoken of. ’
In her ‘The Second Sex’ Beauvoir observed, ‘Woman has ovaries, a uterus, hose
peculiarities imprison her in her subjectivity, circumscribe her within the limits of her
own nature. It is often said that she thinks with her glands.
The poem ‘The Female of the Species’ talks about these innumerable nameless
faces that keep life going on sacrificing themselves for the sake of others. The poem
recounts how at the end of the day they who surrender their lives for others also yearn for
some love or acknowledgement of the care that they have so profoundly bestowed. Such
women can be found anywhere across India, chatting with their saris tucked as they make
a vociferous group of chattering women who seem happy and content but within their
hearts hold secret desires which were stifled or sacrificed a long time ago.
The poem alludes to the fact how the Constitution of India ensures gender
equality in its preamble as a fundamental right but also empowers the state to adopt
measures of positive discrimination in favor of women by ways of legislation and
policies. The poem also refers to the fact that discrimination is not merely a socio cultural
phenomenon but a psychological condition which is integrated deep within one’s own
consciousness. The woman speaker makes it clear that she would be able to find a
sympathetic confidante in a fellow suffering woman, for men would not be able to
comprehend the sheer intensity of her experience. The late 1960s Women’s Liberation
Movement was based on this premise of sharing and bonding that believed in the
ideology of ‘personal is political’. This was however over laid by the New Age
Movement which believed in the new notion of ‘personal-for-it own-sake’.
Migraine is another poem in which she again talks about the sadness and loss;
‘you rage and pretend you’re dead. But it’s clever, goes on–until, tears streaming from
pain-destroyed face, mouthing long, inarticulate screams, your body heaves up its very
guts and you cry, reduced to sweat-drenched, shivering, whimpering lump of agony,
smelling of sickness and vomit, humiliation. ’The magnitude of pain intensifies as the
poem progresses. The poetic persona complains of a melancholy and claustrophobic
existence that creeps into senses and gains control over emotions and goes on to conclude
how there is no easy respite from that numbing pain. There is no alleviation for the
malaise; nothing can soothe the senses, or offer comfort or consolation.
In the poem Two Portraits she negotiates between the two splits of her own self,
and much like the Joseph Conrad’s protagonists she tries to come to terms with the
dormant evil instincts ingrained within her own consciousness engendered by the forces
of darkness dominating the world around her, and the deep rooted residues of virtues that
still remain within her somewhere unknown and unseen. The poem manifests a Freudian
moral conflict. She talks about the two levels of consciousness, one part reacting,
responding to the daily activities of life and the other self lying dormant within the depths
of the unknown reminding us of the Freudian notions of id, ego and the super ego. The
readers become aware of the poetic persona’s desire to transcend the self-fix, get released
from the stress of negotiating between the two splits of her selfhood. Her poems finally
symbolize an integration and assimilation of both the instincts. She acknowledges the
dormant forces of evil and violence in human nature and hints at the bitter struggle that
the soul has to undergo while living in this modern world of lost hope where things fall
apart and there is no strong centre of faith that can hold of sustain us. Her poems
exemplify her reading of Darwin’s Origin of Species which deprived man of firm faith in
god thereby ushering a big blow to Christianity. Deshpande’s poems depict humanity in
its raw details without any romantic idealization whatsoever. Her treatment of death is
casual and bold. She invites death to come and meet her; ‘How long must I walk. These
long and wind some streets. Before I meet you?’
The tone is that of repentance and realization. The poet emphasizes on the need of
honesty and trust in love to sustain a relationship. In the words of S. P Sree; ‘Deshpande
could write with an authority and she never deviated from the simple usage of words. ’
Her imagination was vivid and graphic and she could spread herself to various human
thoughts, she was a woman who possessed a vivid understanding of the multiple layers of
the human mind. Feminist Ideology in Deshpande’s Poetry.
Gauri Deshpande confesses a number of things exclusively related to herself, self
as a woman with her strong feminine sensibilities. Her poems are indeed an intense study
of her personal traumas and tribulations that she faced in her married life bereft of
emotional bounding. The relationship between men and women are the prime concern in
the poems of Gauri. She focuses on male love, female sensibilities, search for the identity,
suppressed desires of female, longing for the respect, loneliness etc are the main themes
of her poems. Her female characters have become the victims in the hands of male. She
displays the power and criticality of male dominated society.
To conclude we may say that Gauri Deshpande writes on the little things of
everyday life. She is very simple in her narration and writing. Even an ordinary man can
understand the language of her. She shares her personal experience with her readers
through her poems.
There are the following works of the Shashi and Gauri Deshpande’s Works:
This novel was written about the Jaya and Mohan`s life. This novel
developed around the character of Jaya. She was the main character of the novel.
Shashi Deshpande explains very clearly how she was suffered from the family
and beard with her husband. Dilip and Kusum were brother and sister. Their
parents thought that Dilip was born for success from the very beginning he was
ready to do anything that helped him to get on. His motto was in his own exorable
English,’ Whose fathers what goes!’ Where Kusum was carried the aura of defeat
about her from her birth.
This was concept of parents about their children they were always thought
that the son was so important and the daughter had only worked women. So that
Shahi Deshpande give that contrast the between girl and boy both were born with
same worm. When the child is born into the world she/he has no idea about
her/his sex. After her/his childhood his/her parents create two ways a girl or a boy
so that that concept always growth with her/his. Shashi Deshpande was not
written of all those innocent young girls. She has written of till now, girls who
intimately mated themselves with the right men nor she writing a story of a
callous insensitive husband and a sensitive, suffering wife. She writes her
autobiography and explains the condition of women during that period. She
explains how she was suffered and what was the concept of that period to
understanding and different between two genders male and female. Shashi
Deshpande deals directly with feminist narrotological preoccupation with the
context of how a woman writes. Her writings she explained her condition in the
novel during after her marriage life. She was suffered so much. The stillness, the
silence reminded her of something’s. It was like sitting in a stationary train. There
is movement, bustle, noise all about you, your train is gathering speed, and you’re
off. Then the sudden shocking silence and the gleaming rails outside tell you it
was another train that has left, the other train that moved away. Your own
movement has been only an illusion. You are right where you were all along. The
truth was that we had both lost the props of our lives. Deprived of his routine, his
files, his telephone, his appointments, he seemed to be no one at all; certainly not
that man, my husband around whose needs and desires her own life revolved.
There was nothing he needed, so there was nothing for me to do, nothing she had
to do. Her own career as a wife was in jeopardy. The woman who had shopped
and cooked, cleaned, organized and cared for home and her family with such
passion. where had she gone? We seemed to be left with nothing but our bodies
and after we had dealt with them we faced blankness. The nothingness of what
had seemed a busy and full life was frightening. She gave the explanation about
suffering. In this novel she explained how she was suffered during that long
period.
The fiction named That Long Silence there is one more character found
who is brave named Jaya and her high intellectual expose a lot of things to her in
her process of feeling, thinking and reacting situation and moment. Jaya is not
totally a mad and clean and silent and not found any longer to mute sufferer.
There is in ‘The Binding Vine’, in which Mira’s poems and other document and
diaries draw her full attention. There is an establishment of Urmila and in which
she was try to construct a worst sketch of an energetic girl, who is live in a very
worst condition and not happy with her married life and compelling to live in a
forceful life. In ‘A Maths of Time’ brilliant work in which Kalyani’s character
described oppression made her silence and quite. And she was always
misinterpreted by her rounding people.
He saw strength in the woman sitting silently in front of the fire, but I saw
despised. I saw despair so great that it would not voice itself. I saw a struggle so
bitter that silence was the only weapon. Silence and surrender. Almost worse to
me than this constant noise had been the sense of being invaded, not just by
sounds, but by a multitude of people and their emotions as well. Anger, fear,
hatred, only, tenderness, love-all of these came to me as I lay in bed, a fascinated
listener. Sometimes at night, when there was a diminuendo in all sands, I had
heard even the tinkle of a women’s bangle distinctly. Mohan had managed to get
the job. I never asked him how he did it. If Gandhari, who bandaged her eyes to
become blind like her husband, could be called an ideal wife too. And there was
enough for Mohan to send to his father- for Sudha’s fees, Vasant’s clothes and
Sudha’s marriage. His words, and even more his peevish, complaining tine, gave
me a peculiar feeling. There were my lines. It was I who should be saying them.
Since we got married, both of us had been scrupulous about playing out our
allotted roles.
Deshpande’s most of the works deal with the problems of woman in India
and domestic life of the women. In 1996 A Matter of Time was first time
published in India. In the present poem she deals with the silent sufferings of
three generations of women. The leading women characters like Kalyani,
Manorama, Sumi and her daughters act and react to the various situations in their
life. Kalyani represents the character of weak and frail female in the present work.
She suffers silently without making any complaints to anybody in the family and
endures all the problems. She sacrifices her life to perform her duty as an ideal
Indian woman. Thus, she represents the old generation of Indian woman. Sumi
also like Kalyani suffers from the many problems and she also makes any
complaints to anybody in the family or outside the family. She lives her tragic life
with keeping silence and endures all troubles with cool mind.
In her Mother’s house again, she finds herself inclined to agree with him.
‘Gopal was right. Kalyani’s past, which she has contained within herself, careful
never to let it spill out has nevertheless entered into us. it has stained our bones. ’
Sumi reflects that the potential to walk out on her was always there in Gopal.
Once, while arguing about the word Sahriday, Gopal had stressed that there is no
word in English that can fit the concept because it is a practical language; it has
no words for the impossible. Although Sumi manages to keep her feelings on a
tight leash, it is Aru who finds it difficult to come to terms with the situation.
Sumi understands what she is doing: she is trying to reclaim, not her father, but a
situation of which he was a part. Sumi urges Aru to let him go for her own sake.
Aru is soon to realize something else: they are trapped into inactivity by that
greatest of fears the fear of losing face. Gopal’s desertion is not just a tragedy; it is
both a shame and a disgrace. In a joint family, it won’t be so visible, but now the
rent in the fabric, gaping wide, is there for all to see.
Deshpande believes that there is a vast difference between the world of the
male and female. However, Gopal is different in the sense that he is able to
present the whole aspect of his personality to a female and not just a part of
himself. But, the sharp demarcation in a man’s and a female’s worldview still
exists. When Gopal saw Sumi put the baby to her breast he felt that they belonged
together, they were together in a magic circle in a way in which he never could
be. ‘A man is always an outsider for a woman, from the moment she is pregnant,
and there is an overriding reason for living, a justification for life that is loudly
and emphatically true. A man has to search for it always and forever. ’ In his quest
to discover himself and man’s relation to the universe he realizes, ‘Emptiness is
always waiting for us. All human ties are only a masquerade. ’ However, Ritu
Menon makes a pertinent point,
According to the narrator, the hero and heroine do not matter so much in
the story of an arranged marriage; it is the parents. The truth of this statement is
borne out in Manorama’s marriage to Vithalrao. Manorama was the daughter of a
poor village Brahmin while Vithalrao was an educated son of a well to do man
from Bangalore. Vithalrao’s father did not hesitate to do what could have damned
him in the society he lived in: make an offer to a girl’s father for his son. Also, it
was Manorama’s mother who had sent her daughter to Yamunabai’s school at a
time when schooling for a girl was something that could come in the way of her
marriage prospects. And she did this in spite of the fact that Yamunabai and most
her students were not Brahmins. Moreover, Manorama’s mother had induced her
husband to write a letter to Vithalrao’s father about the disaster that struck, just a
month before the wedding was to take place: Manorama ‘grew up. ’ When
Kalyani at last gave birth to a son he turned out to be mentally retarded. While
coming to Bangalore for the vacations, the four year old child somehow got lost at
VT station. Premi tells Aru, ‘Baba had gone to check the reservations, leaving
Amma with the children, when he returned the boy wasn’t there. ’ It is clear that
Shripati suspected Kalyani of deliberately losing the mentally retarded child
whom she found difficult to manage. Kalyani and her daughters did not see
Shripati for nearly two months as he went on searching around the city like a
madman for his lost son. Even though he was distraught and frantic for his son, it
was an act of public desertion as he left Kalyani and her daughters on the
platform, surrounded by curious strangers. After this, Kalyani like Sumi, later,
went with her daughters to the ancestral home. After being forced by Manorama
on her deathbed, Shripati returned back to Kalyani after more than two months.
However, he stayed in his room and never spoke to her again. Like Premi told
Anil, My father never spoke to me until I was ten. . . . the truth was a father who
stayed in his room, who never came out, never spoke to you. The first time he
really talked to her was after her medical exams when he summoned her to his
room to tell her that she was getting married to Anil. As stated earlier, the
husband-wife relationship does not exist in isolation. It gets affected by myriad
factors. Manorama never relented in her anger towards her daughter. There was
more to it than the disgrace of her coming back home, a rejected wife.
Manorama’s treatment of her daughter adversely affected her relationship with
Vithalrao and the rift between them never healed. Vithalrao had a stroke soon
after and for this, too, Manorama held her daughter responsible. Kalyani has
turned the very weapon employed against her into her armour. Her silence is a
mode of resistance which is highly potent because it does not allow anyone even a
glimpse of her feelings or thought process. It puzzles Aru to distraction as she
attempts to fathom the inscrutable nature of Kalyani and try to reconcile her
contradictory attitudes towards her. In her attempts at making sense of the
situation, she gradually moves towards an understanding that perhaps, whatever
we do, we are always giving the past a place in our lives. However, Kalyani has
come to terms with the past and she reminds Sumi of a spider she had seen a few
days ago, spinning an intricate delicate web into a beautiful design because of the
variety of relationships she has at present. As the narrator says, the family does
not seem to realise that ‘the real miracle is Kalyani herself, Kalyani who has
survived intact, inspite of what Shripati did to her, Kalyani who survived
Manorama’s myriad acts of cruelty. ’ During a conversation, the talk veers
towards a person who was interested in Goda and who died a year later. At this
point Goda shudders involuntarily, prompting Sumi to wonder whether it is this
that has helped Kalyani to endure everything; the fact that Kalyani has the right to
all the privileges of the wife of a living husband. After Shripati’s death, they find
in his will he has left the house to ‘Kalyani, daughter of Vithalrao and Manorama’
Goda had looked anxiously at Kalyani when Anil read the will, but for Kalyani,
clearly, there was no sting in the words that took away her marital status.
The words have given her back her identity. Sumi, who had begun to
reclaim herself by indulging in gardening, learning the scooter, becoming
economically independent and by writing plays, is suddenly killed in an accident
along with Shripati. It is interesting that the accident takes place when they have
just mentioned Madhav, the lost son. In fact Sumi takes a while to realize that
Shripati is referring to the lost boy. She is surprised that he is taking about the
child to her and turns around and sees a look of brooding tenderness on his face. It
is the only time that father and daughter utter his name and both die with it on
their lips. As Ritu Menon notes, it is ironical that Kalyani’s silence is broken with
the deaths of Shripati and Sumi.
Aru had rushed to Kalyani and kneeling by her huddled body said, Amma,
I’m here, I’m your daughter, Amma, I’m your son, I’m here with you. . . . It is Aru
who takes charge at home, doing all the things that have to be done. ‘She has the
concentration of a rope-walker, holding the weight of her grief in her two hands,
not as if it is a burden, but to balance herself. ’ Ever since she had heard Kalyani’s
story from Premi, after initial tumult, she had been left with two images: a
woman, her two daughters by her side, frozen into an image of endurance and
desperation; and a man, moving all over a city, tirelessly searching for his lost
son. Even when Kalyani learnt about Sumi’s death and cried out ‘I lost my child
Goda’ Aru couldn’t help wondering whether it was a declaration of innocence
when it was too late and did not matter anymore or was she referring to Sumi. But
when she saw Goda envelop her in the folds of her love and compassion she
realized that it did not matter. Forgiveness has no place in this relationship, accept
all.
The present novel opens with the death of Anu, Baiajji’s and Urmi’s
daughter. Urmi is soothed by the persons around her but no one can consol her.
Her fast friend Vanna is always stays at her side. To get out of her despair he
recalls many past incidents to Urmi. Though Vanna is distressed, he tries to to
help her in any way. He reminds the story of Mira and thus she slowly gets
refreshment. From an old trunk Urmi gets out the poems of Mira and stars to read
them one by one. Thus, she gathers her strength and courage to face this critical
situation which arises in front of her. From the reading of these poems of a
teenager college girl Mira that she comes to know about the many facts of her life.
She comes to know that Mira was married off a man whom she didn’t like or love.
Thus, Urmi realizes that women’s life is full of miseries and many problems but
they keep silence and dare not to raise their voice against the male dominated
society. In the hospital Urmi meets Shakutai where Vanna works as a medical
social worker. Kalpana the eldest daughter of Shakutai is brought to the hospital
after she was raped and beaten. When Urmi sees her, she feels compassion for her.
She patiently listen her sufferings and ready to do something for her and keeps her
constant company. Kalpana slips into coma and Urmi tries to consol Shakutai by
saying that Kalpana is not responsible this trouble. There is nothing wrong to
dress up well, paint the nails and lips but she is trapped in the hands of male
monster. For a long time Urmi cannot understand her need to come here and listen
Shakutai. She realizes that her world is very different from that of Shakutai. Urmi
is constantly asked by Shakutai that what she shall do at that time she expresses
her own tormented cry and helplessness at the time of Anu’s death. She thinks that
she could not do anything to save her. Non violence, brotherhood, love, care,
aloofness are the only words of the dictionary they are not found at all in the real
life of a woman.
The present novel is not only the story of Urmi but it is the same story of
Shakutai and Mira also. The journey of novel begins with the story of Urmi and
with the passage of time many characters join with her. The main plot of the novel
is about Urmi and her sorrow and grief of her dead daughter Annu. The sub plot
of the novel deals with the story of Kalpana and Mira. These two plots mingle
with each other in such a way that readers cannot make it different. Thus, the
resent novel is a tale of three women and their actions and reactions to the
particular situations.
Indu sprang out of the claustrophobic world with courage. She was free.
But often to be free is to be lonely. But there is always the beacon light of love.
And love leads to the certainty of marriage. But marriage invariably takes you
back to the world of women, of trying to please, of the fear of not pleasing, of
surrender, of self-abnegation. According to Shashi Deshpande, Indu in Roots and
Shadows, and many women in her other novels had their roots in the same place.
Shashi Deshpande herself says: Life as I saw it in a small town as a child, as a
growing girl. Life as I saw it in Mumbai as a woman. And I saw it, the sharp,
clean line dividing the world of men from the world of women. As a child I could
cross over easily from one world into the other. Often I was the bridge. But as I
grew up, I realized the bridge wasn't there anymore. I had ceased to be one
myself. I was trapped into a world of my own. But, still, for some reason, outside
the claustrophobic world of womankind, motherless and with an absentee father,
didn't belong. She was an outsider because of this, so was Shashi Deshpande
because of an agnostic father who had broken from orthodoxy and family. But the
women all came to Shashi Deshpande. She watched them from a distance. The
girl who burnt herself because her mother said she had shamed the family by
talking to a boy in public. The clever girl taken out of school because she got
engaged and 'they' didn't want her to study any more. The ugly girl with huge feet
and hands and a humble fixed smile listening to her mother telling mine ‘he has
approved, but. . . ’ The smile wavering at the but, falling off. All these women
came to Shashi Deshpande from the society that she watched from a distance.
‘The childless widow, the deserted wife, the scheming woman. I saw these again
with Indu. And now, the knowledge shaped itself into words, ideas. . . The
vulnerability of women. The power of women. The deviousness of women. The
helplessness of women. The courage of women. In Roots and Shadows, Shashi
Deshpande portrays an independent woman from contemporary society defying
traditional roles and holding her womanhood responsible for closing many
adventurous doors to her. This woman Indu came to Shashi Deshpande from the
society in which Shashi Deshpande lived.
Sarita in The Dark Holds No Terrors undergoes a similar trauma like Indu
in Rootsand Shadows. She confronts reality and in the end realizes that the dark
she feared really holds no terrors. Saru is a 'two-in-one woman. ' A doctor in the
day time and a trapped animal at night. She wants to be free and have an identity
of her own. She longs to break away from the rigid traditional norms. She hates
her parental home, yet the novel begins with Saru visiting her father after a gap of
fifteen years. On hearing through a friend about her mother's death a month ago,
Saru wants to visit her father's house from where she had left as a young woman.
Defying her parents to marry the man Manohar whom she loved. She now
returned to it as a well-established doctor and a mother of two children more out
of an urge to escape from the hell of life she is passing through. She appears to be
confused, hopeless, dull almost thoughtless and a recluse. Years on Sarita still
remembers her mother's bitter words uttered when as a little girl she was unable to
save her younger brother from drowning. Now, her mother is dead and Sarita
returns to the family home, ostensibly to take care of her father, but in reality to
escape the nightmarish brutality her husband inflicts on her every night. In the
quiet of her old father's company Sarita reflects on the events of her life: her
stultifying small town childhood, her domineering mother, her marriage to the
charismatic young poet Manohar, her children. As she struggles with her emotions
and anxieties, Sarita gradually realizes that there is more to life than dependency
on marriage, parents and other such institutions and she resolves to use her new
found truths to make a better life for herself. The Dark Holds No Terrors is a
tremendously powerful portrayal of one woman's fight to survive in a world that
offers no easy outs. Saru in The Dark Holds No Terrors has childhood scars. She
hates her mother to such an extent that she says, ‘If you're a woman, I don't want
to be one Saru's mother shows gender difference in her treatment of her son
Dhruva and daughter. ’ He's different. He's a boy these words establish the
traditional Indian mother against whom Saru has to rebel all her life.
The childhood experience of watching her brother sink into water and die
gives her a sense of guilt that she is responsible for the death of her brother. There
are recurrent images of enclosure in Roots and Shadows as well as in The Dark
Holds No Terrors. Indu constantly speaks of the dark room where so many
women had given birth. Saru is reminded of a room whose doors are closed
whenever she looks at her daughter, Renu. Saru, even when she comes back
home, ‘felt herself enclosed. ’ She enters into her room, she finds male clothes
hanging on the wall and realizes that she has no room of her own. The feeling of
being enclosed is associate with the mother's house and the protagonist wants to
escape from the enclosure, as revealed in Indu's dreams. The image of the
enclosed walls suggests the suffocation these women undergo not only in their
parental homes but the homes they have chosen as refuge. The novel is presented
in four parts and even in the first part, all the important issues bitterness towards
the mother, insecurity of Manu, Saru's relationship with Manu and children,
Dhruva's death are touched upon. The rest of the three parts elaborate Saru's
introspection of and her reaction to different issues touched upon in the first part.
Shashi Deshpande works with a dubious world that falls between reality and
unreality. The truth behind Saru being the murderess of Dhruva, Manu being the
predator and Saru the prey is a matter that lies in this realm between reality and
unreality. The italicized description of Saru's traumatic but dream-like experience
when she slowly recognizes the predator to be her own husband defines the
dubious area better. It also lays all the cards on the table, takes away the element
of shock and the reader is left with nothing to anticipate about the monstrous
problem. The second part too begins with a dream suggestive of the uncertainty of
the destination and the inability to know what lies in store as she drifts by. The
dream suggests the definite need to proceed and confront whatever is at the end.
Though the novel deals with an uncertain situation, Shashi Deshpande makes use
of effective concrete images to drive home the reality and gravity of the problem.
The Dark Holds No Terrors presents the inner drama of Saru that has a lot
to do with the past. Hence narration is introspective sliding across the past and the
present through effective ‘quick cuts. ’ Occasionally, Shashi Deshpande sidetracks
into a bit of philosophizing on human life, grief, happiness, pain, man's aloneness
and so on, and these digressions make the novel a bit too wordy. She never leaves
anything unsaid to evoke rich suggestions. Some Indian elements like the son's
importance in the family, girls getting importance only during haldi-kumkums, a
woman possessed by Devi, find a natural place in the novel that deals with a
woman's status and the dichotomy within her personality.
Small Remedies, Shashi Despond’s latest novel was published in the year
2000. Here she adopts the structure of a biography within a biography. Madhu
Saptarishi, the protagonist is an urban, middle-aged, educated woman who has
been commissioned by a publisher to write a biography on a famous classical
singer, Savtribai Indorekar, doyenne of Gwalior Gharana. Madhu has been asked
to write Savitribai's biography wherein she was to be presented as a heroine. But
she refuses to present her as such since the latter had been a victim of gender
discrimination prevalent in our patriarchal social set-up. Imposing the current
concept of heroines on an old woman seemed not only impractical but out of
place to Madhu. Instead, she presents her as a young woman who had led a
sheltered life not only as a child in her parental home but also as a daughter-in-
law in an affluent Brahmin family. It is her daring independent nature that makes
her seek her own identity and elope with a Muslim table player to live in a strange
town. Although born in a tradition-bound orthodox Brahmin family, she makes a
name for herself as a great classical singer. Madhu records how Savitribai felt hurt
when her grandmother asked her to stop singing immediately during her
performance at a family gathering. ’
Savitribai's father with his unconventional ways stood out from society.
He was a widower, bringing up a daughter on his own with a male servant at
home. He would observe no rituals or religious rites and would openly indulge in
a drink or two every evening. But all his unorthodox behavior never invited any
censure or disapproval from society. He too could get away with his way of life
without any censure or disapproval from society. He had a mistress who was a
well-known Thumri singer. He visited her regularly and the people around knew
this. It was not much of a secret affair and the women gossiped about it. His
choosing a wife from his own class and mistress from another was quite
acceptable, but for a daughter-in-law pursuing a career in classical music was
scandalous. The gossip surrounding Savitribai in Neemgaon was that a Station
Director who had helped her get many contracts with the radio was her lover. He
was a regular visitor to her place. In course of time a daughter Munni is born to
her from him. As the child grows up, Madhu recalls how children would tease
her by calling the Station Director her mama, a euphemism for mother's lover.
Savitribai, while narrating her life story to Madhu, conceals the fact that she had
any lover, but the small town knew that the Station Director was her lover. In a
patriarchal set-up, as Savitribai was ‘A woman who had left her husband's
home’, she was considered an immoral woman. Like her father and father-in-
law, she too had led a most unorthodox life and had also paid a price for it as a
woman. To society, her way of life was inexorable, while her father's or, for that
matter, her father-in-law's was connived at.
3.11 Conclusion
Deshpande deals with the modern women's rebellion against the rule of male
dictators of the society. Her poetry is full of apparent sensuality. Deshpande's poetry
differs from other poets in terms of conventions, experimentation, spirit, values and
sensibility. Her major concerns in poetry can be divided into different categories like of
man-women portrayals in term of their marital and sexual relationships, concept of death,
sense of alienation and frustration, identity crisis, recognition, and urge for feminine
sensibilities. Gauri Deshpande has written poems frankly discussing love and sexuality.
Thus, while reveling in the physical act, Gauri Deshpande expresses her contempt and
distaste for sexual pleasure. Her poetry, as a result, gets suffused with personal anguish
and dilemma and the psychological matrix of her experience makes her swim deep in the
sea of pessimism and dispiritedness. Gauri Deshpande is absolutely lyric poet and the
capsule verse is her fort.
References
(1) Beniwal, Anup. Identity, Experience, Aesthetic: Indian Women‘s Poetry in English,
Occasional Papers, 1999; 71-95.
(2) Chavan, Sunanda P. Modern Indian English Women Poets: An Overview.
Perspective on Indian Poetry in English, Ed. M. K. Naik. New Delhi: Abhinav,
1984; 190-207
(3) De Souza, Eunice. Kamala Das, Gauri Deshpande, Mamta Kalia.
Contemporary Indian Poetry in English, Ed. Saleem Peeradina. Delhi:
Macmillan, 1997.
(4) Ibid, Page No. 32
(5) Ibid, Page No. 39
(6) Dwivedi, A. N. ed. Papers on Indian Writing in English, 2nd ed. Vol.1. New Delhi:
Atlantic, 2001.
(7) Ibid, Page No. 106
(8) Ibid, Page No. 112
(9) Ibid, Page No. 56
(10) Muthal, Mamta M. Love Thy Self‘: The Empowerment of Women in Gauri
Deshpande‘s Fiction. Articulating Gender: An Anthology Presented to Professor
Shirin Kudchedkar. Anjali Bhelande and Mala Pendurang, Delhi: Pencraft, 2000;
316-322.
(11) Naik, M. K. A History of Indian English Literature, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi,
1982
(12) Ibid, Page No. 59
(13) Ibid, Page No. 30
(14) Echo and Voice in Indian Poetry in English. Contemporary Indian English
Verse: An Evaluation, Ed. Chirantan Kulshrestha. New Delhi: Arnold-Heinmann
Publishers, 1980; 26-40.