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CHAPTER V

MANJU KAPUR

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CHAPTER V

MANJU KAPUR

Manju Kapur, the noted novelist was born in Amritsar and studied MA in English

Literature from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada and MPhil from Delhi

University. She taught at Miranda College, New Delhi for over three decades and

then took a sabbatical inorder to spend more time in writing. Her first novel Difficult

Daughters published in 1998 won the Commonwealth Prize for the best first book in

1999. Her other novels are A Married Woman (2003), Home (2006), The Immigrant

(2008) and Custody (2011). She also edited Shaping the World: Women Writers on

Themselves, a work that documents the literary journey of twenty-four women

writers.

Manju Kapur is a compelling storyteller and a perceptive chronicler of the urban

Indian middle class and the microcosm called the joint family. In an interview with

Hindustan Times she says that writing is “conveying a world view, it aims to

persuade, to convince, to move. Obviously it is easier if you attempt to do all this

with something you know.” Her novels portray the struggles of the Indian women of

these times as they oscillate between tradition and transition, duty and desire, family

and self, suppression and independence. This is the internal conflict which is an

ongoing battle due to her conditioning which is challenged by education and

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experience. The external oppression results from patriarchal forces that prohibit

formal education, job or marriage of one‟s choice. Kapur‟s women characters can be

categorized into three kinds: conventional orthodox women, the emancipated women

and the category to which most of her protagonists like Virmati, Ida, Nisha, Astha

and Nina belong, i.e. the ones who struggle between convention and emancipation.

Kapur shows that choices exist before these women but often they fall back on the

same conventional path tread by their mothers. She does not set out with a conscious

feminist agenda but is deeply influenced by feminism and feels that “it is impossible

to live in the world today as a thinking person and not be one”.

Kapur opines that women‟s fiction is often called domestic or family-centered and

this label is not derogatory but condescending. “Literature by women, about families,

always has larger considerations. With years of studying texts, it becomes almost

second nature to look beneath the surface at social and economic forces, gender

relationships and how they are played out in an area that, in my writing, happens to

be the home.” Within these stories, she touches bigger themes like corruption,

consumerism, dowry, immigration, communalism, religion and superstition etc. She

negotiates different issues emerging out of the socio-political upheaval in the country

by presenting the Independence struggle, Partition, demolition of Babri Masjid and

Rath Yatra. She also deals boldly with taboo issues like female sexuality,

masturbation, infertility, sexual abuse, sexual dysfunction and frustrations. She says

“All issues are grist to the writer‟s mill” and hence there is no issue that she wouldn‟t

touch. More specifically she is concerned with the consequences of these problems

as it affects both men and women in the family.

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A brief summary of the plot of her novels is given below. Difficult Daughters is set

in Amritsar and is the story of three generations during the time of Partition. The

saga of Indian Independence overlaps with Virmati‟s quest for freedom and as the

former was marred by Partition, Virmati struggled for and attained her desires but

lost a part of her self. Being the eldest of ten siblings, she is burdened with family

responsibilities due to the incessant pregnancies of her mother Kasturi. Belonging to

a high-minded Punjabi family, she is conditioned to think that it is the duty of a girl

to get married and is duly engaged to a boy selected by the family. But in the delay

in marriage caused by two deaths in the family, she asserted herself to study at AS

College as the seventh girl in a class of four hundred boys. Prof Harish their

neighbour was the teacher and he noticed her „flower like‟ appearance and forced

himself into her mind, laying at her feet the anguish of being married to Ganga an

illiterate woman. Caught in the hopeless situation of passion for the Professor and

loyalty to her fiancé, she found it “splitting her into two socially unacceptable

pieces” and in the confusion she attempted suicide. After a volley of secret letters

between them, she conclusively decided that she had already shamed her family,

refused marriage and hence she never meant to marry, nor wished to continue any

relations with the Professor but would leave him to his pregnant wife. With the

budding of the New Woman, she sets off to study in Lahore aspiring to be self-

reliant through education. Through her roommate Swarnalata, she becomes aware of

the wider vistas open to women through active participation in Indian freedom

struggle and politics. But as the Professor came knocking at her door as an exigent

and ardent lover, her resistance broke down and so did her new born selfhood. The

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horror of pregnancy and abortion broke her heart and body and once again she left

him to start life anew at Nahan as the Principal of a girls‟ school. But the Professor

who saw a companion in her pursued her and this time she had to pay for it with her

job. With her heart set towards Shantiniketan she moved on but Syed the Professor‟s

friend forced and arranged their marriage. Virmati moved from one patriarchal

threshold to another, as she had to share him and his house with his first wife Ganga.

Her own family disowned her, she miscarried and life was a mess again. The

professor sent her to study MA at Lahore. Gradually she learnt to hold her own,

returning only when Ganga and the others shifted to Kanpur. Her personal tragedy

gets swallowed up in the collective tragedy of partition. Ida the narrator of the story

was born to them and they shifted to Delhi.

A Married Woman is the story of Astha, the only child of struggling middle class

parents and their aim in life was to see her happily settled. She is married off to

Hemant, a rich bureaucrat living in the posh colony of Delhi. In quick succession,

she fulfils her responsibility of producing a daughter and a son for the family. She

had everything in life, but she was frustrated. Hemant had an inherent inability to

respect her as an equal and felt that she should be the stay-at-home wife and mother.

When she took up the job of a school teacher she felt “the pleasure of interacting

with minds instead of needs” but her family always found ways to project her

incompetence. The turning point in her life was the workshop in her school by The

Street Theatre Group led by the intellectual artist Aijaz Khan. She was given the

responsibility of preparing the script for the play on Babri Masjid. The experience of

scholarly research on the topic widened her horizons about communal attitudes in

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India, awakened her sense of social responsibility and brought out her creativity

which had never really found an expression. In childhood, her father shunned her

paintings and Hemant reacted against her poetry but Aijaz had wholeheartedly

appreciated her thoughts and opened out her personality. Few days later the news of

his murder made the cause of communal harmony more significant for her. She

joined the rally for peace, made paintings on the issue for the Manch and conducted

exhibitions. She took the bold step of joining the protest rally in Ayodhya where she

made her first public speech, an appeal for religious unity. But in all this she was

always walking a tightrope, with constant questioning leading to great stress and

frustration. Pipeelika, the widow of Aijaz was a bold, independent woman,

heterosexual by nature. Astha‟s pain, frustration, helplessness and need to have a

voice drove her to Pipeelika and they bonded instantly over their personal sorrows.

Talking and sharing with her was like a balm to Astha, leading eventually to a

powerful physical relationship based on perfect understanding of each other. Both

helped the other to grow but eventually Astha could not consent to Pipe‟s demand

that she leave Hemant and live with her. The relationship ended when Pipe decided

to go abroad for further studies.

Home is the story of a joint middle class family, the Banwarilals, in Karol Bagh in

Delhi. The story opens with the life of two sisters, Sona and Rupa. Sona is married

into the Banwarilal family and the latter to a junior government officer. The novel

focuses on the life of Sona in the joint family, her struggles and her childless state for

ten years and then the birth of her two children Nisha and Raju. Rupa is also

childless but starts her own pickle business with help from her husband and remains

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content in life. To this story, the sub-theme of Sunita the daughter of the family is

added. She had a sad marriage and after her „accidental‟ death in the kitchen, her son

Vicky came to live in the maternal house. Confused and uncared for, he becomes the

black sheep of the family and he sexually abuses his cousin Nisha. The traumatized

girl is sent away to live with her aunt Rupa where she is given a proper education.

The story shifts its focus to Nisha as she pursues BA in English, meets and falls in

love with a low-caste boy Suresh who abandons her. Her life is riddled with

humiliation and disappointment and it expresses itself in the breaking out of her skin,

permanent itching, black patches and bloody scars. Her life takes a turn when she

seeks her father‟s help to start a garment boutique Nisha‟s Creations and succeeds

well. Soon her marriage is fixed and burdened with the responsibility of her home,

husband, twin children and old mother-in-law; she reluctantly hands over her

business to her sister-in-law to eventually tread the path of her mother.

The Immigrant is only partly set in India but for the major part it is in Canada and

revolves around the story of Nina and Ananda. Ananda leaves his home in Delhi

after the tragic death of his parents, to qualify as a Canadian dentist in Halifax, under

the direction of his maternal uncle who had settled there. The story brings out the

painful process of assimilation he goes through in Canada with regard to food, stay,

study and relationships. Though in the next seven years, he becomes Canadian in

thought, it has handicapped him internally. He fails tragically in his physical

encounters with white women expressed in his inability to sustain the act due to

premature ejaculation. His sister‟s insistent pleas to get married and on the other side

Mrs Batra‟s perpetual nagging leads to the marriage of Ananda and Nina. The story

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then shifts to the life of the couple in Halifax. Nina is confused with her new

immigrant status and life as a lonely bride without any family or friends in an

unfamiliar setup. Confounded to this is her discovery of Ananda‟s sexual disorder

and her inability to conceive. As Ananda refuses to talk of it or take help, it

traumatizes both of them and becomes a big struggle. Nina goes in search for

answers in different directions; goes for her health checkup, joins a woman‟s group,

talks to Sue, takes up a job and then goes for a two year course in Library Science.

Unknown to her, he goes for treatment with the help of a sex therapist. When she

comes to know of it she is very hurt. He tries to improve his condition and prove

himself by entering into a relationship with Mandy and others. He improves to a

great extent but by then the gap of non-communication has widened between them to

a great extent. Anton enters her life bringing her sexual liberation. But it is a

temporary affair as both are married and they connected only as bodies. The relation

comes to an end when he forces himself upon her and she is mentally traumatized.

She realised that she had always depended on men and it had given her nothing but

grief. Her relation with Ananda and Anton failed and felt it was „a signal to move

on‟. The novel ends with her decision to find her feet in a new place with a new job.

An indepth analysis of these four texts, reveal the sensibilities of the author reflected

in myriad ways through the characters and their responses and reactions. It is

enumerated as follows:

1. Focus on the urban Indian middle class family

2. Focus on the life of women and their struggles; a gynocentric approach

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3. Portrayal of difficult daughters

4. Significance of marriage in society

5. Theme of female bonding

6. Desire for motherhood in the women characters

7. Openness in discussion of sexuality by the author

8. Importance given to education by the author

9. Discussion of many socio-political issues

Manju Kapur chooses the urban Indian middle class as the sociological base for her

works. She feels she is most familiar with this class and comfortable writing about it.

It is difficult to define a class but it can be identified by its specific features. The

Indian middle class represents the majority of the population. They have been

identified with the joint family structure although this notion has also undergone

change. The family lives together and personal space is limited. Education is

important and preference is given to government jobs with security. Marriage is

considered a union of two families. This class is riddled more with worries about the

ownership of a house, education of children, health and future security. Moreover

class is not just an economic category but is also how people think, feel and believe.

Modesty, high morals, thrift, saving for the future and hardwork are the important

features in the people of this class.

Kapur chronicles the life of three generations of the Banwari Lal family who were

cloth merchants and three generations of Lala Diwan Chand family who were into

jewellery and food grains business, in two of her novels. The patriarch in both cases

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was the head of even the married sons. Banwari Lal emphasized the importance of

collective thinking, “United we stand, divided energy, time and money are

squandered.”(7) He was strictly against partition of the house and business between

Yashpal and Pyare Lal. Lala Diwan Chand had a standing in society and he had

brought up his family by the strict principles of austerity and charity. Chander

Prakash was agitated because he had two children and Suraj Prakash had ten and by

persistant harping he got his father to construct two separate houses. Kapur also

shows the transition in family structure by referring to the changes in living

structure. Astha‟s marital home also had a joint family structure but the in-laws

stayed on the top floor. In the fourth novel, she narrows down to a nuclear family.

Working through the various stories, she shows how difficult the joint family is for

the women due to lack of privacy, sense of competition among the women,

antagonistic in-laws and pressure of domestic work. She shows the change in

thinking when the third generation of the Banwarilal sons diversified to readymade

garments and newer shops. Children of the third generation leave the family business

to choose their own path. And as described in Home, “there was a time when joints

in the joint family became more visible.” (107)

The middle class families are full of worries about the future. Hence there is an

emphasis on thrift and saving. The „unbuilt home‟ always loomed large in the mind

of Astha‟s parents. Ananda bought a car for his parents but they never used it and

always insisted on walking. They worked very hard to come up in life. The

Banwarilals worked hard to set up business in Karol Bagh, after they were forced to

close down one of the largest cloth shops in Lahore after Partition. They never took

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holidays and survived on leftover cloth. Hemant worked hard after leaving his job to

set up TV business in India. So did Ananda with his Dental course and Nina with her

study. Nisha worked hard as a businesswoman to set up Nisha‟s Creations.

Middle class is associated with high values of morality. When Astha‟s dairy full of

experiences of her teenage romance was discovered by her mother she felt exposed

and in her hands, “it looked awful and soaked in sin” (27). Nisha‟s affair in college

was not taken well by the family and they did all they could to separate the couple.

Nina and Ananda both have moral values imbued in them by their parents. So though

they pursue sexual fulfillment, they are guilt ridden. Again for the sake of family

honour, they did not take any action against Vicky for abusing Nisha nor make any

inquiries into Sunita‟s death. Thus the importance of the family as an institution is at

the center in all these four novels and the changes happening within this basic

institution.

All the novels have female protagonists. Ida narrates the story of her mother and

traces the journey back because she never got any well-defined answers to her

questions from her. Now “without the hindrance of her presence, I can sink into the

past and make it mine.” (280) Astha as the protagonist, shares the journey from

childhood to the process of becoming a wife, mother, teacher, activist and painter

and the struggles in holding all these roles together. The first half of Home is about

the struggles of Sona and then the life of her daughter, Nisha. Nina‟s unmarried

status at thirty, and then her marriage, immigration to Canada and her struggles

against loneliness form the story of the fourth novel.

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There are a number of women characters in these novels. As discussed earlier, one of

the categories to which they can be placed is the conventional orthodox type

including Kasturi, Ganga, most of the characters of mothers and mothers-in-law.

Marriage is the destiny of their lives and they wish the same for their daughters.

They do not want them to be highly educated or hold a job. They are unconsciously

the voice of patriarchy. Kasturi says, “A woman without her own home and family is

a woman without moorings.” (111) Ganga is a suffering wife, and though she excels

in cooking and domestic duties, her husband rejected her for being illiterate. Sona‟s

mother-in- law grudged her love marriage saying, “the girl must have done some

black magic ….I myself will disappear to make way for the wretch.” (4) Astha also

had to listen to taunting remarks from her mother-in-law for continuing to work after

the children were born. Virmati‟s mother-in-law treated her badly till she came to

know that she was pregnant. In case of Nisha, her husband gave more importance to

his mother than to her. Kapur sharply paints many of these old women who are

plagued by loss of husband, status, old age and health problems, yet they continue to

live in the centre of the family. The life of Astha‟s and Nina‟s mother is candidly

depicted with bereavement and hopelessness after the death of their husbands. In

their case their loss is much larger than the death itself because life comes to a

standstill. Though Kapur does not dwell into the issue in detail, Jasbir Jain considers

the narrative of loss caused by the death of the husband, an articulation of the new

awareness of self and a study of whether women are affected differently by it than

the male counterparts.

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The other extreme includes single independent feminists like Swarnalata,

Shakuntala, Sue, Zenobia, Rupa, Beth and Gayatri. Virmati‟s cousin Shakuntala was

ahead of her times. She worked and attended conferences and believed that women

must not be confined to the home. In her, Virmati saw a new version of womanhood

and was attracted to her life of education and freedom and it had planted seeds of

aspiration in her. She thought, “work was not something to do when marriage didn‟t

work” (112) Swarnalata her roommate was a fierce activist, involved in woman‟s

reformist group that agitated against rising prices, stood for ration shops, equality

and religious harmony. She was a part of the demonstration that was against the

Hindu code bill because “men don‟t want family wealth to be divided among

women”. (232) Zenobia was independent with her own house and job and nobody to

question her. “Been there, done that was her attitude to matrimony” (8) and she had a

full life with family and friends and occasional sexual encounters. Astha felt that if

she had money and an independent house like her friend Zen, she could be brave in

many ways. Beth and Gayatri were members of the co-counselling group, Nina had

joined in Canada and they prided in their studies and work. Space is an important

metaphor in discussing freedom. All these women have a physical space or house

that they own, or a mental space provided by their job or their women‟s group.

Freedom is worked out in the resistance to imposition of stereotypical traditional

roles. They continue to remain active politically like Swarnalata even after marriage.

However though it is easily said, Kapur does not really show how they have

achieved this and the process they had to go through and how has society reacted to

them.

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Kapur‟s focus is however on women who have to maneuver between tradition and

modernity. Virmati, Ida, Astha, Nisha and Nina are all women from good educated

families who have been conditioned to think of marriage, motherhood and

housekeeping to be the destiny of their lives. But they have a deeper quest for love,

understanding, freedom, self-expression and fulfillment beyond the limits of their

families. Neglect, loneliness, rejection and subordination are recurring features and

within them is a deep awareness of being on trial. The novels show what actually

happens to Indian women in the present context and the paths they choose, either

going back to the path of their mothers or forging new untrodden paths. But there is a

price that must be paid at the end. Virmati marries Prof Harish who had an undying

love for her but she is disowned by her family and has to share him with his first

wife and her kids. Astha gets a job, develops her hobby, gets involved in a social

cause, attains sexual satisfaction, but not without being considered negligent and

irresponsible. Nisha loses her lover and boutique but has her taste of freedom and

accepts her life. Nina realises that Ananda and marriage only stifle her and she has to

go away „to think‟ though she knows that the life ahead is wrought with pain,

difficulties and solitude.

Tradition and modernity are often viewed as being in opposition to each other. But as

Jasbir Jain in her book Writing Women across Cultures opines, tradition is a norm

based on religion or society and modernity represents the questioning or resistance of

the norm. They are both concepts which are permanently in a state of flux.

“Tradition sets the ground for self-definition, and modernity for self-development.”

(2002:97) All these above mentioned women are products of tradition. Tradition here

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represents a cloistered setup with set codes of behavior and action. Childhood for all

these women symbolized a need to please their parents and elders by fulfilling their

traditional roles as daughters. This meant taking care of numerous siblings, engaging

in domestic chores, behaving like a girl of a good family who did not associate with

boys and imbibing the values of the family and looking forward to marriage. It meant

literally crossing the threshold from the parental home to the marital home without

any deviations in mind, body or spirit. The study focuses on the life of these women

in detail.

Virmati was psychologically affected by the lack of expressive love and affection

from her family, especially the unmotherly treatment of her mother. It was this

inherent and unconscious longing for love that made her respond to the advances of

her married Professor. Especially when he “spread his anguish at her feet” (54) of his

child marriage to an illiterate Ganga with whom he could never live „in any

meaningful way‟. Virmati could very well understand the language of need and her

own desire to be the cause of pleasure. The situation became more complex due to

their clandestine meetings and she felt that her destiny was decided by the first touch

of a man on her body. But all this while she was engaged to a boy chosen by the

family and she decided to evade marriage by saying that she wanted to study ahead

and not get married. Her mother considered it a deprivation of reason and „grabbed

her by the hair and banged her head against the wall.‟(59) Her suicide bid was foiled

and she was locked up. Finally she decided that she did not want to continue her

relations with the Professor but would leave him to his pregnant wife and go for

further studies to Lahore.

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The girl who went to Lahore showed the budding of a New Woman who had chosen

self-reliance through education. She was introduced to the world of active politics

and independence by her roommate Swarnalata. But this exposure made her “feel out

of place, an outcaste amongst all these women….these larger spaces were not for

her.”(144) This inability to fit in to the independent category shows what childhood

conditioning had done to her. As the Professor grew exigent, her new found selfhood

weakened, she gave in to her innermost longing to be desired although all her

meetings with him now were a plea for marriage. But the study period came to an

end without any move from his side and on his asking about her future plans she felt

“the despairing recognition that her future plans must not include marriage”.(150)

Virmati‟s life is shaped by the experiences of her life, the choices and decisions she

made. On one hand she was clear that “a life for herself without marriage, which was

strange and not quite right. It meant she would be alone, and she wasn‟t sure she was

capable of it.”(152) In the context of women‟s lives in India, the concepts of freedom

and fulfillment mean two different things. Freedom is a release from chains of

patriarchy or conventional modes of life whereas fulfillment is the need to achieve

the fundamental human requisites of love, space and self-expression. Virmati‟s life is

an example of the quest for fulfillment than freedom; she was looking for love and

again through the institution of marriage. It was this need that made her long self

destructively for the Professor.

The Nahan period, where she was the Principal of a reputed girls school, appears as a

Utopian moment in her life. She had a room of her own, social standing and financial

security but when Professor Harish pursued her seeking her companionship, she

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demanded, “I want to know where I stand before anything else.”(189) Her situation

was ambivalent, a moment of bliss and then a time when the devils of anger,

irritation and cynicism seethed within her. His careless roaming in Nahan costs her

her job, and she wondered, “How many new beginnings had her relationship with the

Professor led her to?” (197) Eventually a friend forced him to marry her, but her

married life was a disaster. She wilted under the hostile look of Ganga and the

antagonism of his mother. This was the most traumatic period of her life when she

was disowned by her family, lost her freedom and had a miscarriage. This is

symbolized in the tight silence she maintained about her past, even with her

daughter. Virmati‟s life becomes one-dimensional, characterized only by her love for

the Professor and complete devotion to him. She had so deeply internalized it that

she has turned this relationship into self-satisfaction. So as a character who has

followed her needs she is modern to her times but her path never completely left the

traditional tone. This is indeed a true picture of Indian women.

Astha in A Married Woman, was prone to paternal indoctrination and dominance.

She is not affected by overt cruelty but benevolent relations. Her father‟s lack of

interest in her drawings, her mother‟s insistence on marriage and lack of faith in her

ability to handle money, Hemant‟s notion of a wife, his lack of enthusiasm regarding

her career and hobby reflects the effacement of her personhood and enslavement to

the idea of dutifulness. The novel begins with the portrayal of an awkward girl with

pulpy feelings and fantasies of romance and lack of any other direction in life other

than the path of marriage decided by her parents. Jasbir Jain quotes Carolyn

Heilbrum in Reinventing Womanhood, “wifehood calls for abandonment of self”.

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(48) Astha‟s mother was satisfied to see her daughter happily married to Hemant

and become the mother of two children and enjoy a life of financial stability and

future security. Astha‟s life is the example of women of the present who have

everything materially and socially but are in a quest for their space. Her job had

made her realise that she had changed “from being a woman who only valued love,

to a woman who valued independence. Besides there was the pleasure of interacting

with minds instead of needs.” (72) Her salary meant she didn‟t have to ask Hemant

for every single rupee she spent. But she had no idea where and how money was and

he didn‟t approve when she asked him of the money given by her mother after the

sale of her parental house. She felt, “what kind of fool she had been to expect

Hemant to understand? She had a good life, but it was good because nothing was

questioned.” (99)

Kapur uses the imagery of the joint family to show how it encroaches on a woman‟s

personal space. Astha‟s job meant she had to take the help of her in-laws to take care

of the children. She was accused of negligence. Her involvement in the Theatre

workshop during the holidays was looked at with displeasure and her creativity or

work was not appreciated. She had scripted a play on the most burning issue of the

time, the demolition of the Babri Masjid and it did not evoke any response from her

family. On the contrary, Hemant‟s absolute indifference and insensitivity and

communal strain angered her. But unlike Virmati, the social cause burned in her. She

went to the funeral procession of Aijaz, the massive protest rally and resurrected her

latent talent of painting to donate to the painting exhibition to support the cause of

unity and secularism. As she did not get enough family -support, the multitasking

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took its toll on her health and she was tired all the time. Hemant asked her to leave

the job but after ten years of working she couldn‟t , “it represented security…….a

place where she could be herself”.(149) Being a part of the Manch was a tightrope;

constantly being aware of the time, the family waiting at home and the need to do

something for society. Each time she was late, there was frosty reception at home

and a multitude of tasks awaiting her. She had to get the children to finish the

homework, put them to sleep and make amends with Hemant and she felt guilty that

“tired women cannot make good wives.” (154)

Astha oscillates between her desire for fulfillment and traditional concept of duty. “A

willing body at night, a willing pair of hands and feet in the day and an obedient

mouth were the prerequisites of Hemant‟s wife.”(231) Through Aijaz, she had

achieved creative fulfillment but it was through Pipeelika that she found emotional

fulfillment. Pipeelika came home to read her pamphlet and see her paintings and she

critiqued it with an understanding eye. For Astha, “there was no aphrodisiac more

powerful than talk, no seduction more effective than curiosity.”(218) They met often,

sharing their lives, talking on phone and her husband accused her, “Women

…..always mind-fucking”.(218) She considered it crude and derogatory. It was Pipee

who initiated the physical encounter and Astha had responded. It was difficult to

explain, she brooded over her sexual nature and that since they were both women,

marriage was not threatened. It gave her a new awareness of mutuality in

relationships and she “realised how many facets in the relationship between her

husband and herself reflected power than love.”(233) Astha and Pipee spent three

weeks together for the Ekta Yatra wherein her she found satisfaction in her devotion

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to Pipee. But this was also the time when holes in the relationship manifested, Pipee

was more demanding that she leave Hemant, prolong her stay and a wall had come

up between them after Astha went to US for the vacation with her family. Finally

there had been the goodbye and Pipee left to study abroad. Astha felt the dislocation

in her life, she lived with Hemant‟s body but the face she saw and the hands she felt

belonged to Pipee. She focused on painting and they had become strong and

effective, enough to emerge from the shadow of the Manch. “as her brush moved

carefully over the canvas, her hand grew sure…….her mind more focused…..she

thought of her name. Faith. Faith in herself. It was all she had.” (299) In two years

she made twenty canvasses and sold more than half and made almost two lakhs.

Astha‟s life like that of Virmati had many beginnings but ultimately she realised that

her larger self was with her family. Unlike Virmati she found satisfaction in the

public life. As a New woman, she learnt to draw her strength from her inner

resources.

Nisha‟s life also swings between tradition and modernity. She too like the other

protagonists was brought up to behave like a modest girl. But her life took an early

negative colour when she was sexually abused by her cousin. Nobody really took an

active step but she was sent away to her aunt‟s house to study. However it remained

as a repressed thing in her subconscious mind. The novel fast forwards to her college

days where the high point was her meeting with Suresh. He had been responsible for

her external metamorphosis as a typical college girl with a short haircut and painted

nails. He appreciated her beauty and engaged in physical relationship with her. Nisha

was resistant and her mind was divided, “one part on college and parents, one part

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following his hypnotic touch.”(191) She had missed classes and her relationship was

found out. They stopped her college and rejected the boy. They bribed him to stay

away. A chapter in her life came to a close but she bore the consequences. Her skin

pricked, developed itching which then turned into bloody sores and black patches.

Rumours about her condition drove away many proposals.

Her father arranged a job for her at a playhouse. But her heart was not in it. It was

when a colleague brought a home-made salwar kameez for sale that her life took a

turn. She started calculating the actual cost and she thought of her knowledge of

textiles and dreamt of herself as a maker and seller. She spoke to her father that she

wanted to do business, “give me a chance to show you what I can do.” (287) Her

father provided her a loan, rented out a basement and she balked in the trust of her

father. She hired workers, a master tailor, purchased sewing machines, went to

wholesalers for thread, made designs and created her boutique called Nisha‟s

Creations. She learnt to price her products, employed more people and did a brisk

business. This selfhood was however short lived. Her marriage was fixed to Arvind,

a widower who was a person who had fixed notions about wifehood. Rather than a

wife, he had wanted a daughter-in-law for his mother. Nisha‟s life was confined to

his house and she had to struggle to gain permission to go to her boutique. After the

birth of her twins, her sister-in-law wanted to take over her set business and she had

to relent. She accepted the conventional path of her life. Nisha represents the women

who have tasted fulfillment but choose to give priority to motherhood not in a

resisting or rebellious mode but of acceptance.

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Nina‟s life as an unmarried woman of thirty was a great source of worry for her

mother. It was rubbed in all the more by many factors especially her body. Nina had

expected to feel young but “her body stepped in to make a difference to her

mind.”(49) As a college teacher at Miranda College, she felt that “education was a

gift and she would not exchange the life of the mind for any humdrum marriage”. (3)

The delay in her marriage was also because the early death of her father had

financially, emotionally and socially led to their spiraling down the social ladder.

Her marriage to Ananda was not a traditionally arranged marriage because she had

made the choice and not forced although the pressure was paramount due to her age

and the widowed status of her mother. She and Ananda had talked, gone out

together, spent some cozy sexual moments together. After months of indecision, she

felt that if she didn‟t say yes, she would regret it all her life and finally to push her

over the fence her mother and friend Zen “held out the tantalizing option of divorce.”

(79)

Her wedding was a simple affair and he had insisted on taking the whole payment on

himself. She was married to a dentist, who seemed caring and provided her the new

status of an immigrant wife in Canada. But he had a sexual problem and as their

unpenetrative nights continued, she wondered, “her husband was giving her the best

of everything. Was she going to be so unreasonable as to demand penetrative

orgasms as well?” (96) Nina had to deal with the newness of the place, the climate,

the western clothes and food. He got her a library membership, cooked for her and

she was “more prepared for the brevity of their sexual encounter.” (121) She had

always masturbated and now she had to once again resort to it. She felt frustrated and

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panic filled her over her infertility and as Ananda was not prepared to consult a

doctor, her first major decision was to go to a doctor. With no child and sexual

satisfaction, her life was heading nowhere. Ananda finally visited a sex therapist but

he had not informed her about it which had hurt her a lot because she felt that

marriage was based on companionship. Her future was unclear to her as on the day

she had wed.

This led her to focus on another field in her life revolving around her job as a

librarian and her two year study of Library Science. She also became a part of a

women‟s group where they encouraged her to work through her problems in life.

Later she joined another group of independent women and talking and sharing

helped her to be more aware of herself. They introduced her to feminist books and

she searched for an answer to who she was, “A woman, an Indian, an immigrant”.

(221) An understanding of these three areas of her life was important in the new

place. Her helplessness is shown in the following words, “I used to be a teacher,

infact I taught for ten years before I came here. And now I do nothing. I have even

been unable to conceive…I don‟t know what I want.” (232) Anton came into her life

bringing sexual liberation. Though her moral sense pricked her, she felt she had

really lived life in those moments with him. With the break in this sexual taboo, she

also broke down her other taboos of non-vegetarian food and western clothes. She

joined a gym and became more conscious about her body. She spent more money on

buying attractive clothes. But as she was berated by her husband, she decided to earn

her own money. She broke ties with Anton when he after her resistance, forced

himself on her. Coupled with this trauma was also the death of her mother in India.

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When she came back she made a vow to be happy. The death of her mother was a

turning point because she felt adult; completely her own responsibility and now the

bonds of marriage did not feel the same. When she found a blonde hair in her

bedroom on her return, she decided that no one could be the anchor of their lives but

their own selves. She decided to take a job elsewhere and she hoped independence

would facilitate her thought process. “She looked down the path on which there

would be no husband and saw the difficulties, the pain, the solitude. Nevertheless

treading it was not unimaginable.”(333) Of all Kapur‟s protagonists, Nina is the one

who completely chooses a different path, leaving behind marriage. Inorder to do this,

the character is placed out of India and children are left out from the plot because

they affect women‟s decision making.

A very important feature in Kapur‟s novels is the mother-daughter relationship

which is wrought with a lot of tension. Her first novel that marks this theme is itself

titled, Difficult Daughters. The other novels also deal with it characteristically. The

main reason for this is that the mothers are mostly conventional in nature but the

daughters choose to lives differently, looking for love, fulfillment and independence.

They try to liberate themselves through education and job. They look to forge new

relationships. They may fail, be exploited or not find the real thing they search for

but the journey is meaningful. At least their choices are their own. The first novel

begins with Ida‟s exclamation that the one thing she did not want was to be like her

mother. She was born during the time of Partition, a time of pain and violence. Her

family of three had shifted to Delhi for her father‟s job. Her mother‟s insistence on

her being a model daughter was always a strain. She always tried to find escape

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routes and asked why it was so important to please her father. She remembered her

mother Virmati as being bad-tempered and nothing was right between them. She

never answered any of her questions about her past. It was only after her death that

Ida went on a journey to her mother‟s past to find out about her.

Ida realised that Virmati‟s relationship with her mother Kasturi was also one of

insensitivity. Her relationship with Prof Harish, ostracized her from her family. They

disowned her after her marriage. Ida came to realise about her mother‟s terrible

abortion through Swarnalata. Ida understood her pain that had made her so tight-

lipped and withdrawn regarding her past. Virmati‟s life was so traumatic that she lost

everything in her path to gain love. Even when she was married to Prof Harish, it

was a disaster and she was rejected by his family and she suffered a miscarriage.

Virmati‟s past had infact destroyed her present. In gaining one relationship with the

Professor, she had invested so much that she could not give meaning to any other

relationship, even to her daughter.

Astha was brought up with large supplements of fear as a girl. She was kept under

surveillance all the time. Her mother did not trust her and she cut off her relationship

with any boy she knew. She kept advising her all her life to live a life of submission

to her family. There was never an understanding between them. Astha was very

pained when she sold off all her father‟s books without informing her and handing

over all the money from the sale of the house to Hemant. When she needed support,

her mother „s advice left her all the more restless. Nina‟s mother too kept harping on

marriage and children. Nina‟s struggles with her inability to conceive were unknown

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to her. She was the anchor that kept her rooted to an unhappy marriage. Her death

was a kind of release for her from expectations. Sona was also equally tough on

Nisha. She never knew about her childhood trauma and her inability to concentrate.

She berated her for laziness and lack of cooking skills. She was so insensitive that

she failed to see the real reason behind Nisha‟s psychosomatic ailments. She was

fully against her business and “Nisha could never forgive her mother for this.”(290)

Thus we see this strain of difficult mother-daughter relationship in all the novels.

The theme of marriage is central to all these novels. Though they deal with

childhood, youth, old age, education, marriage is central. The focus is on the man-

woman relationship i.e, Virmati-Professor Harish, Nisha-Arvind, Nina-Ananda and

Astha-Hemant. Except the first which was a love marriage, all the others are

arranged marriages. This reflects the major reality for Indian society. As Astha

realised, many facets in her relationship with her husband symbolized power than

love whether it be sharing of ideas, sex, decision making, handling of finance, her

own freedom and expression. It is true in all cases. Harish loved Virmati and pursued

her but could never really grasp the pain she went through in being his lover. Ananda

felt that an Indian wife would be understanding about his sexual dysfunction and

never thought about how it would affect her physically and emotionally. It was not

possible for him to accept his weakness and go for medical counseling with her. His

behavior with Nina, drove him away from her. Love was never a word between

Arvind and Nisha and he had married her to please his mother. Of all the male

characters the most difficult husband was Hemant. He was sex obsessed and used

Astha for his pleasure. He considered her job to be useless, her poems to be neurotic,

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her participation in public rallys as rabble rousing and called her and Pipeelika as

mind-fuckers. He travelled abroad four times a year and was angry and irritated

when she was out of home. The money she acquired from the sale of her paintings,

he insensitively used it to buy her flight tickets. Inorder to climb the social ladder, he

made her go from one party to another on New Year‟s Eve even though she was least

interested. Ananda and Hemant also had extra marital relationships. Nina had found

a blonde hair in her bedroom when she returned from India and Astha had found a

condom in his suitcase after one of his trips. It affected the wives and shocked them

about the hypocritical nature of their lives.

Apart from love and arranged marriage, Kapur also shows the extra marital affairs

and premarital affairs. She shows the live-in relationship between Virmati and the

Professor for a long time before marriage. There are really no issues she would not

touch in her stories. Kapur openly discusses the reasons and consequences of deviant

social behavior. In case of Virmati, she shows how her need for love was met

through sex. The Professor‟s undying love is fulfilled in clandestine meetings and

love proves to be the most painful thing for her. Astha at sixteen was „prey to

inchoate longings , desired almost every boy she saw.‟(8) Bunty was her first crush

and with Rohan she had entered into deeper bond. But both of them left her due to

one reason or the other. After her marriage, when Hemant “attacked the who le thing

with great urgency”, she wondered if she had been misled about the magnitude of the

act. She was shyly ashamed at her longing for him. Kapur also shows how Astha

feels drawn towards Aijaz and his words and gestures. Astha spent a lot of time with

Pipee and she always had to lie about where she had been to Hemant and thus “an

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element of secrecy had entered the relationship and gave it an illicit character.”(218)

Kapur touches the theme of lesbian relationship here. When Pipee sucked her

fingers, Astha hardly dared to breathe and initially felt strange making love to a

woman. “And it also felt strange, making love to a friend instead of an adversary.”

(231)

Nisha was five when she was sexually abused by her cousin Vicky. Kapur sharply

paints the picture of the duo on the terrace, brother and sister at play, one instant and

in the next he was touching her private parts. The child was gripped with fear and

she struggled to get her hands off the “dark thing”. The second time was in her room

and she wanted to die of shame. No one understood when she said “I was here only.

Vicky also”. (64) She had bad dreams at night and screamed with fear. She was sent

away to Rupa Masi‟s house and it was she who noticed how she avoided Vicky and

told her father that she should stay with her till some arrangement was made about

Vicky. Nisha‟s relation with Suresh in college began in the bus. He helped her with

notes and took her to a beauty parlour and brought about a transformation in her. He

took her out to movies and restaurants. Once he took her to a friend‟s house and tried

to establish a physical relationship with her. She was terrified and walked away. But

over the months he kept begging and longing that she acquiesced more than she

would have liked. On those evenings she tried to avoid her parents as if her face was

stamped with what she had done. Due to the stress, she developed a skin problem

which lasted many years.

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Kapurs depicts pre-marital relationships of these women protagonists. Boys like

Suresh, Rohan, Bunty, Rahul entered their lives with the promise of love, richness of

experience, physical intimacy and fun. Hemmed in by family traditions and customs,

the girls project various stages of acceptance, though riddled with fear and guilt.

These relationships also show the change in social behavior. Nina even had an extra

marital relation with Anton. But Kapur has also shown how people enter into it and

she does not aim to pass any moral judgment. Kapur also shows the problem of

sexual dysfunction in Ananda. He was born into a Brahmin family with set notions

of morality. When he came to Canada, in his effort to assimilate he had broken down

many taboos. This involved relationships with White women as well. But his first

relation with itself proved to be a failure. It was his sense of morality and the

newness that affected him and he suffered from premature ejaculation. Kapur uses

this as a reason that breaks the marriage, because it was not looked at as a problem

that needed to be solved but a humiliating issue.

Kapur‟s women characters show a strong desire for motherhood and a sense of

fulfillment in it. Ida had never wanted to abort her child and she had to do it on the

insistence of her husband. That death always haunted her and it became the reason

for her divorce from Prabhakar. Sona‟s barrenness was a great source of pain for her.

When she conceived after ten years she was given the greatest care by her family.

Her husband gifted her with a gold necklace. Her mother-in-law also treated her

kindly. Her first child was a daughter but it was when the son was born that she felt it

was the most blessed moment of her life. Years later, Nisha gave birth to twins, a

boy and a girl. It was their birth that helped her to look upon her family anew and fill

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with satisfaction. Astha had always wanted to have babies but her husband had

delayed it. When she finally gave birth she felt fulfilled and it “made her feel that she

had partaken of the archetypal experience marked out for the family‟s race.” (69)

Nina too longed for children. Every time she imagined that „her eggs were fertilized‟

but each time she had her periods her childlessness was sadly reinforced. In Canada

she noted that morning time was „mother and child time‟ and she longed for her own.

She wanted a child to settle down to give her focus in the new country. Two years of

living with Ananda, her tests and his sperm analysis didn‟t lead anywhere and he was

concerned about the medical cost. She felt empty. All these characters in one way or

the other show their longing for motherhood deeply. Jasbir Jain opines about

motherhood as displayed in the women writers, “it is one of the central impositions

which deny woman personhood. And though life is born out of the sexual act,

motherhood itself erases both sexuality and selfhood. It is asexual.”(122) However in

Kapur‟s works, motherhood is a celebration that gives women a sense of fulfillment

although child rearing is presented with all its tedium and worry.

Female bonding is another important area of focus. In Astha‟s case, Kapur says that

she had wished to show how women bond with each other differently than men and

the lesbian angle was initially never intended. Nisha is close to only Rupa Masi. She

is the only one she reveals about having a lover. Virmati shared a close bond with

her youngest sister Paro. She was very young when the tragic incidents happened in

Virmati‟s life and so she was the only one who did not judge her but loved her. Even

later when she talked to Ida about her affair, she put the blame on the Professor. She

said that her sister was a simple girl and the Oxford returned Professor had dazzled

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his way into her life and she didn‟t stand a chance against him. Nina was very close

to her friend Zenobia, and even while she was in Canada, she sent small mental notes

to her. She told her about Anton and after a long time it was a release for her. Sue

was her first Canadian friend whom she shared her problems. Female bonding takes

on a formal dimension in Nina‟s life in Canada. Sue introduced her to the League

where married women got together to meet, compare notes and receive support from

each other. It believed in the positive affirmative feminine relationships. But Beth

and Gayatri from the second group that Nina joined were more assertive and

believed in finding answers to their problems by themselves. They were like a

community united with warmth and acceptance. Their purpose was to explore

themselves, be independent and fight for their space. Astha‟s relationship with

Pipeelika is presented as a lesbian relationship. Jane Freedman is of the opinion that

lesbianism does not always mean sexual relationship but withdrawal from

relationships from men. Even Adrienne Rich says:

If we expand it to embrace many more forms of primary intensity between and

among women, including sharing of a rich inner life, the bonding against male

tyranny, the giving and receiving of practical and political support….we begin to

grasp breadths of female history and psychology which have lain out of reach as a

consequence of limited, mostly clinical definition of lesbianism. (648)

Kapur gives importance to the education of women in all the novels and also their

job as educators is taken seriously. Virmati was very keep in studies and she studied

more than any other girl in her family. Often she had to juggle the book and the

kitchen knife and when she looked at her cousin Shakuntala she felt that she had not

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taken the process of learning as seriously as she should have. Though her mother felt

that it was education that ruined her, it gave her a job and financial stability. But she

did not continue in it. The central male character is the Professor who had a high

standing in society. Virmati‟s brother Kailashnath was his student and he reminisced

“he brought the subject alive. Most of us had never stepped out of Amritsar. The

things he talked about, his expression, his way of speaking, we felt we were in

another world.” (53) When Astha took up the job as a school teacher, she felt her

days were fuller. She started a reading club, writing club and a painting club. With

Aijaz help she scripted a play for the Theatre workshop. Nina was a teacher before

marriage. She did not value it much till she lost it. She “had known the excitement of

breaking into minds” and this she missed in Canada. She read voraciously and

initially they helped her to understand Canada better and then they became a

soporific. Feminist books helped her to understand herself better. Her course in

Library Science taught her the importance of doing as opposed to thinking. Being a

teacher of English Literature herself, Kapur cannot avoid references to books or

allusions to them.

The novels of Manju Kapur deal with some socio-political concerns of the times.

The novel is set during a specific time like Partition in Difficult Daughters and

thereby the author chooses to comment on the issue or take up some aspect and deal

with it specifically. In A Married Woman, the issue of Babri Masjid is weaved into

the story because the protagonist has to write a script of a play on it. The Immigrant

takes up the issue of Emergency during the reign of Indira Gandhi. All these

problems are presented through the perspective of women. And the epicenter of all

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these issues is Delhi and the northern part of India which is the setting of these four

novels. The Acknowledgments in the novels reveal that they are all extensively

researched through libraries, important reference books and people. But as she says

in an interview they are all “imaginative reconstructions”.

The theme of Partition forms the backdrop of Virmati‟s story. There is a sense of

contrast because the story begins on a positive note when food was unadulterated,

there was more value for money, school fees was affordable, Arya Samaj education

was prevalent and people lived at peace. But as time progressed, they became

“legendary items” connected to some remote past and invoking a sense of loss.

Lahore was not the capital of another country but their very own cultural capital with

beautiful colleges and the place where conferences like Anti-Pakistan Conference,

Arya Bhasha Sammelan, Urdu Conference, Women‟s Conference and many others

were conducted. Then the strain of being the colony of a warring nation was seen

and cost of living increased, prices rose, bureaucratic procedures multiplied and “the

dark face of control emerges, the black market”.(234) Every product had to be

stamped and the price fixed and in the process, many shops were sealed and

bargaining became difficult.

The talks in the educated circles were of war, prices, ration shops, Hitler and

Independence. Communal disturbance had started. “The word Pakistan appears more

and more often in the newspapers….the language of crisis is used about food”. (249)

The later part of the novel depicts the unrest that that spread in the whole country.

Many Muslims did not want Pakistan and the Sikhs would resist it until death.

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Killings spread through the whole country, “People die – roasted, quartered,

chopped….legacy of thousands of tales of sorrow.” (263) Pakistani Sikhs turned

against Muslims. In Punjab, no single party rule was possible. In Amritsar, 51% of

the population was Muslims. The narrative of Virmati‟s life overlaps with the

narrative of Partition. All the unspoken things suppressed in the recesses of the mind

burst out in the revelation of individual tragedy and the tragedy of the nation. The

entire country was burning, people came with lathis and swords. People narrated the

horrible sights of trains that came from Pakistan with blood everywhere, dried and

crusted and the train had to be taken straight for washing. Kapur voices the view of

many Indians, “The British left us with a final stab in the neck….We were forced to

accept the Partition”. (268) Many writers have taken the issue of Partition as the

main theme, but here it is presented as a story of terrible collective loss which

swallowed many incidents of personal loss as seen in the life of Virmati.

The Babri Masjid was a squat, three-domed monument that caused centuries of

bloodshed due to ambiguity regarding its actual history. The Muslims and Hindus

claimed the structure to be theirs. It had become an open political battleground. It

evoked fanaticism on both the sides. For some period it was locked up then the

government had ordered it to be open. Astha traces all this history through her

research in the Library inorder to form the script. Astha‟s small son Himanshu was to

represent the temple in the play. It is suggestive of the delicateness and fragility of

the Masjid. The tone of the play was secular in nature. This became Astha‟s point of

view for life. She was angered by Hemant‟s hatred for the Muslims. Aijaz was

murdered when he went to sensitive areas of India with his message of harmony.

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This had really affected Astha, the larger perspective of living life for a cause. And

she had spoken to the crowd in Ayodhya that whatever happened it was a loss to

women and to families. Kapur presents the evil of communalism in both these

novels.

In the fourth novel she chooses the times when “Indira is India, India Indira”. (10)

This period was characterized by absolute control of the government, press was

censored, opposition jailed, demonstrations banned and activists tortured. Indira was

considered the “probing eye” that delved into every house and heart. Kapur

lampoons her useless twenty point programme, the sterilization drive and Garibi

Hatao movement. Many bastis were razed to the ground to make “a Delhi Beautiful”.

(59) Kapur brings into the story a close encounter with the first family of India by

portraying Ramesh, the brother-in-law of Ananda and The Son as classmates. He got

many benefits because of it. And the family was awaiting his posting abroad as a

reward which infact was to keep him as he had been used to raze down the bastis. It

was a give and take relationship solely. Political parties aligned together as a united

front against the Emergency and the PM. “The forces of dictatorship seemed so

firmly entrenched that Nina voted Janata in despair rather than hope.” (102)

Whenever the state of India was discussed in Canada, a sense of despair pervaded

her. People claimed that the name of Nehru would protect Indira and the NRIs

believed that they were lucky to be out the country. After two years when Nina came

back to India, politics was in every conversation, the Congress had lost and the

people were fed up with the power mongering in the Janata. Inflation was on the rise

and the general picture was of depression and hopelessness.

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In A Married Woman, Hemant is against nationalization of banks causing constant

interference of the government. But he used his knowledge of being a bank

employee to procure loan of ten lakhs in his wife‟s name under small scale industry

inorder to start his TV business. He had a grasp of the rules of getting by and to

exploit situations to his benefit. He had started in black and white TV but the

Minister for Information declared that India would go colour before Asiad of 1982.

Hemant left his bank job to travel to South Korea and twenty thousand colour sets.

Other issues which occupy a small area of the novels are the custom of dowry and

providing for the girl child right from her birth, the importance attached to the boy

child, generation gap, immigrant experience, influence of swamis, horoscopes etc

Coming to the technical aspects of the works, the following points are enumerated:

1. Autobiographical strain

2. Plot and structure

3. Dramatic tension in the plot

4. Feminine descriptions and images

5. Indianness in Language

All the four novels have autobiographical strains. Virmati‟s story is actually her

mother‟s tale. She says in an interview, “it became much more important for me to

tell in my first novel. She was not very forthcoming at first, as she regrets being a

source of trauma for her parents. There was also the trauma surrounding the events

of Partition.” Talking about Home she says that it “was first conceived in response to

the home situation of some of my students who came from conservative

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backgrounds”. About the fourth novel she says, “The phenomena of the NRI…..has

become widely known and discussed in India. I experienced being away from India

when I was a student in Canada in my youth, so I wanted to write about this.” This

specific strain reflects a consciousness of self and reflects back to a selection of

incidents that have impacted the writer. The aspects of Kapur‟s life especially her

academic life is a visible continuous strain in the works. Like her many characters

are students or teachers of Miranda College. Teaching is a profession followed by

Virmati, Nisha, Astha and Nina although many of them diversify. As Kapur chose to

take up writing, Astha chooses painting and Nisha chooses to open a boutique.

Another feature is the presence of letters and diary entries of various characters

which presupposes the consciousness of self in a more subjective manner and

emphasizes the autobiographical strain.

All the novels are long but the storytelling mode makes it easy to read. The first

novel has 27 chapters (280 pages), the second has 10 chapters (307 pages), the third

has 26 chapters (336 pages) and the fourth has three parts (334 pages). A study of

these 1300 pages approximately is long. Kapur talks of her painstaking process of

editing her drafts twelve to fourteen times, which means what is retained is of

importance and hence needs complete attention. Moreover there are a number of

characters and the joint family setup provides the perfect setting. Like Astha,

everything is put in miniature on a large canvas, the whole history of the

contemporary political events with small figures and symbols filling the entire

canvas to represent everything connected to the event. The novels start at the

childhood of the central characters and in a fast pace moves to the setup of marriage

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and lingers over it till the end. A number of turns and twists are introduced and

unless a careful reading is done, many things could just be missed.

This particular style of writing creates dramatic tension in the novels of which there

are numerable instances. Some of them are: Virmati was locked up in her home yet

she and the Professor managed to pass more than a dozen letters between them

always at the risk of being caught. When she comes to know that she is pregnant, she

goes home, tries for some way to communicate her situation, even the Professor was

away and she walks up and down the terrace till her mind grew empty. The

description of Nisha and Vicky playing on the terrace and then the detailed

expression of the traumatic turn of events is a tense moment in the novel. The New

Year eve for Astha was quite stressful as she had to participate in a demonstration

and then join her husband for three parties one after another. She chose not to inform

him but got ready and Hemant questioned why she had to go when he was free. It

mattered to him because “going out with him must be highlight of her day, not

something she was squeezing into the rest of her activities.” (173) It was a candle

march followed by submission of memorandum and other things, and Astha kept her

eyes on the watch to reach home by eight-thirty. Then three parties at a stretch and at

two they had made their way home and Hemant had drunk more than he should have

and there was no tone sufficiently neutral in which she could convey it. The

conversations between them are terser. Astha no longer found the need to take

permission but she merely informed.

There is a march today.

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The husband said nothing.

Astha persisted with her information. „It‟s going to be a tremendously big march…..

Nothing.

„OK?‟

The husband saw a female bull charging from the distance and his body taunted…..

„I always admired your sense of proportion,‟ he said at last

Astha raised her eyebrows and looked inquiring.

„out in the street jostling with the goondas, neglecting your family, all for some fool

masjid you didn‟t even know existed before your great friend Aijaz chose to educate

you.‟

„it has nothing to do with Aijaz,‟ sid Astha choking on the rage she had kept inside

her for the last three days.

„Then his widow.‟

„I suppose I have no mind of my own.‟

„I didn‟t say that.‟

„You meant it.‟

„I refuse to talk to hysterical women,‟ said Hemant. (293-4)

202

This reflects the tense air between them because of Hemant‟s fixed notions of a wife,

his sense of control and suspicion.

Another feature of her writing is the presence of feminine consciousness reflected in

the matter of food and clothes. This is because they are a part of a woman‟s daily

routine and her consciousness. Cooking is an integral part of her life and she spends

a great deal of time over it. Hence the writers have mentioned it.

1. Kasturi was taught that food was one of the ways to please the in-laws. “she could

make puris with syrupy gram inside, luchis big as plates, kulchas, white and

long…..rotis…parathas….morrabas…seasonal pickes of lemon,

mango,carrot……..sherbets of khas, rose and almonds with hot and cold spiced

milk….papad…” (63)

2. Nina‟s wedding trousseau is described, “She took out her saris and stroked the

intricate woven surfaces. Benarasi, Kanjeevaram, Orissa patola, Gujarati Patola,

Bandhani, she had fancied carrying all parts of India to Canada in her clothes. (114-

115)

3. Descriptions of delivery, nursing, baby naming ceremony are seen in all the

novels. Kishori Devi elaborates on the food to be given to pregnant women; sweet

cold things in the first three months, Shashtika rice with curd in the fourth month,

with milk in the fifth, with ghee in the sixth.

4. Nina thinks of her age in association with her body; “ her womb, her ovaries, her

uterus…they were busy marking every passing second of her life.” (1)

203

5. Structure and interior of the house are also a part of the description. The new

house in Tarsikka with the orchards, vegetable patches, kitchen, shops, gardens and

the nearby canal give a complete picture of Virmati‟s house. Through Nina‟s eyes

can be seen the page long description of the New York Public Library complete with

halls, staircases, floors, tables, stacks, catalogues ,reference system and so on.

6. The author takes us briefly along with Astha from Kanyakumari, many villages

and towns, Karnataka, Bangalore, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar

Pradesh and finally back to Delhi. As a part of the Ekta Yatra it had dawned on

Astha that India represented Unity in Diversity.

Finally coming to the linguistic analysis, the novels are lucid and readable. Kapurs‟

English has a local flavor due to extensive use of Hindi and Punjabi. There are

numerous examples of Indianisation of vocabulary, loan translation, use of repetition

and linguistic creativity.

1. Words related various levels of experience are used in Hindi e.g. food

(chutney, dahi bhalla, Idli, Pakora), clothes ( Pyjama, palla, salwar kameez,

dhoti), relations ( Penji, Saheb, Masi ), utensils (Thali, tashtris, kaddhai),

events ( godh bharayie, shaddi ), places (dharamshals, kothi)

2. Slang usages: Baap re, Shor-shar, Har har, He Bhagwan

3. Code-mixing indicating the use of more than one language in the same

utterance: mithai boxes, pull her sari palla, morabbas in huge jars

204

4. Code-switching indicating movement from one language to another: use the

fresh butter in the doli, away from home with others from the basti, drank a

kulhar full of sweet tea

Concludingly, it can be stated that Manju Kapur has explored the complex subject of

the Indian family with much insight. Her women characters challenge the limits of

passive and ordinary existence and try to cull more from life. They are characters

that move to different destinations in search of their self. They vow to „learn not be

afraid‟ like Astha or earn their own money like Nina or acquire their privacy. Her

plots are familiar but crafted with much tension and drama. Her understanding of

human relationship is deep and she uses the joint family to play out these qualities.

She does not pass judgement but shows people and situations with forthrightness.

Her strength lies in the ability to chronicle the ordinary and it gives the feeling of

things that were often thought but never so well expressed.