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Difficult Daughters is the first novel of Manju Kapur. It was written in

1998. It won the Commonwealth Writers Prize, 1999 for the best first

published book in Eurasian Region. It opens with the declaration of the narrator

daughter, who is named “Ida”: “The one thing I had wanted was not to be like

my mother” (Kapur, 1).

Dr. S. Prasanna beautifully sums up various opinions on Difficult Daughters:

The novel Difficult Daughter is about a woman torn between

family duty, and the desire for education and illicit love. Mukul

Kesavan comments that Difficult Daughters is a first rate realistic

novel (106). To Meenakshi Mukharjee Difficult Daughters has

been hailed as an impressive novel while Bibi Shah calls it, A

novel about female desire and entrapment about compromise and

complainee and Nira Gupta says that it is an extremely readable

novel. To Uma Parameswaran Difficult Daughters is a story of

victimization (395) (Prasanna Sree, 173).

This novel is the love story of a young and educated girl Virmati and a

married professor of English named Harish, who wants to marry her. Virmati is

the protagonist of this novel. She is born in a highly reputed joint family of Amritsar.

Her life takes a different direction the moment she comes in contact with Professor.

Professor is a man already married and lives as a tenant in their house. Virmati is

infatuated by his knowledge, style and charismatic persona. Professor though married, is

deeply attracted towards Virmati and motivates her to pursue studies. Virmati is torn

between the family pressure and her love. She is unable to comprehend her longing for the

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Professor. The family pressurizes her to get married and settle down. But Virmati goes

against the wishes of her family and shifts to Lahore. She does try to distance herself from

the Professor but fails. The events in Lahore and her longing for the Professor torment her

and do not let her remain steadfast in her decision to be away from him. His

intermittent visits to Lahore do not help the situation, making it more difficult for Virmati

to snap her relationship with him. Virmati is not easy with her statue and grows desperate

for social recognition and acceptance. Professor however fails to accept her socially and

continues his illicit love. The desire to be acknowledged as Professor’s wife

tortures Virmati. The Professor realizes the gravity of the situation and marries her in

haste. Virmati dresses herself up as a bride: “The only thing she said she wanted were

the red ivory bangles that the women of her family wore when they married” (Kapur,

186).

Marriage which is perceived as a social commitment between husband and wife

does not provide any solution to Virmati. In fact, her marriage with the Professor, for

which she was so keen, leaves her more perplexed and troubled: “Though

married, she was dispossessed. Well so be it. She would walk tight-lipped, mute, on the

path her destiny had carved out for her”. (Kapur, 196)

Virmati has a keen desire to get knowledge and lead an independent life.

Hence she attempts to defy the social norms and follow her instincts and she

agrees to become his second wife. Throughout the novel Virmati finds herself

displaced, alienated from her family, from the society, from her husband’s family and

even from her husband. She shuffles between Amritsar , Lahore , Nahan and Delhi but is

never able to find her roots.

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Difficult Daughters is an autobiographical novel. Dr. Ruby Milhoutra

rightly focuses the autobiographical elements in the novel:

Like Virmati, Manju Kapur was born in Amritsar and teaches in a

college. Her family was victim of partition and was Arya-Samaji

like Virmati’s family. Manju Kapur’s father too was a professor,

like Virmati’s husband. Manju Kapur admits that she herself had

been a difficult daughter for the mother whose priority was

marriage and she in turn wants her daughters to have good jobs

(Milhoutra, 169)

Virmati, the central character, of the novel, rebels against tradition in her

quest for identity. She makes a dedicated effort to carve an identity for herself

as a qualified woman. But the circumstances don’t allow her to live an

independent life.

Difficult Daughters is the story of three daughters belonging to three

generations – the grandmother Kasturi belongs to the first generation, her

daughter Virmati belongs second generation and Virmati’s daughter, the

narrator belongs to the third generation. As Samuel and Hephzibah observe, the

novelist has carefully woven the lives of three generations of women who

represent Indian womanhood in different shades:

When we take a look around at the women in this novel, one may

delve into family history and examine grandmothers and great

grandmothers. Almost every woman has a story to tell under their

cheerful I’m – only – an – insignificant – cog – in – the – wheel

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facade. Perhaps they wouldn’t think their lives worthy enough,

but we have a lot to thank our foremothers for, from equal

political participation to the right to education (Samuel and

Hephzibah ).

In the generation of Kasturi, a woman’s role was confined to child-

bearing and kitchen-work; the generation of Virmati took some bold steps,

joining the political movement for India’s freedom. Virmati becomes the

difficult daughter in the family. In this novel we find that as Virmati grows up

rebelling against Kasturi, Ida too grows up rebelling against Virmati. She also

becomes a ‘difficult daughter’ like her mother.

Thus it becomes clear that the second generation is against the first generation

and the third generation is against the second one. Virmati does not want to be

like her mother Kasturi and Ida, Virmati’s daughter also does not want to be

like her mother Virmati. In fact, she refuses to be what her mother stands for.

Virmati and Ida both become ‘difficult daughters’.

Things become difficult when the daughters learn to dream, to think of

identity and to assert their individuality. Virmati is the emblem of the new

woman. She wants to walk hand in hand with men. She does not want to be a

rubber doll in the hands of others. She asserts the need for woman’s education

and independence. She rejects the kind of life led by her mother, fights for

woman’s independence and social status. Being the eldest of the eleven

children, she is burdened with family duties because of her mother’s incessant

pregnancies. She has to play the role of the second mother. Kasturi’s repeated

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pregnancies made her sick. So Virmati has to manage all household works. Her

childhood is lost being a young mother. She grows up thinking that the duty of

every girl is to get married and a woman’s place is in her home and she is not

supposed to go out for a job. Virmati is engaged to an engineer initially but a

series of incidents propel the family members to postpone the wedding. These

incidents pave way for Virmati to carry on her studies and to begin an illicit

relationship with the married Professor living next door. The Oxford returned

Professor finds little to share with his uneducated wife and is unable to resist

the charm of Virmati who is innocent and hungry for knowledge and love. The

Oxford returned Professor makes way into her mind and heart. This affair

begins a new thrill in her life for which she is ready to sacrifice everything.

After completing her B.A. her wedding date is fixed. But she does not agree to

marry. When Virmati confronts her mother about the marriage-proposal and

informs her about her decision of not marrying, Kasturi considers it a betrayal.

Here we find that unknowingly Kasturi becomes the voice of patriarchy

and when Virmati goes against the patriarchal values, she takes it against her

own self. Even after being a woman and the mother of Virmati she cannot

understand her daughter. Her conscience is steeped into those values which

patriarchy has inculcated in her.

Virmati’s growing relationship with the Professor and her imminent

marriage arouse a lot of confusion and crisis into her mind. She struggles

between both and cannot take any decision. She attempts to commit suicide but

is not successful. After this incident her mother becomes hostile and cruel

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towards her. She feels humiliated and blames Virmati’s education that has

made her do such a deed. Instead of understanding her daughter she plays the

role of patriarchy.

However, by making use of her education Virmati very firmly resists the

family’s pressure for her marriage and by making her priorities in life clear she

wins her independence. Now her family arranges for Indumati, her younger

sister, to marry Inderjit. Then Virmati goes to Lahore for higher education and

tries to forget the professor. But in Lahore also he meets her and they develop a

physical relationship, as a result of which she becomes pregnant. When she

gets to know about her daughter’s pregnancy, she feels shame and humiliation

is upset with Harish for not taking the necessary precautions. She realizes her

position and the meaninglessness of her activities. Then Swarna Lata, who is

her roommate, helps her. She does not let her go to a ‘dai’ for abortion because

she finds it dangerous for her. She tries to fix an appointment with a doctor.

She supports her emotionally and psychologically and makes her feel better.

Virmati gets the child aborted because of her unmarried status.

After the abortion, Virmati joins as a teacher in National women’s

college at Nahan, a college newly founded to meet the need for women’s

education. When again the professor comes in her life, she struggles between

the physical and the moral; the head and the heart. Finally she gives in to the

demands of her heart and her body. And she forces him to marry her. The idea

of becoming second wife does not occur outrageous to her. After her marriage

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she returns to Amritsar. But Virmati’s married life with the professor in

Amritsar turns out to be a disaster.

She wilts under the and hostile gaze of Ganga, her husband’s first wife,

with whom she has to live her life. Ganga never lets Virmati enter her kitchen,

do the household work or any work related to the professor. Her relationship

with the children of her husband’s family is also not a healthy one. They hate

her without knowing the reason. Ganga’s son remarks ‘who is this gandi lady?

Send her away.’ (Kapur, 192, italics in original). They don’t like her even when

they grow up. Her sister-in-law also feels uncomfortable in her presence and

does not talk to her.

Since the Professor does not feel comfortable with Ganga and she could

not win his love and admiration, he gets married to Virmati. Though all rights

are with Ganga but her poor soul craves for her husband. Virmati manipulates

to send Ganga away from Harish’s house but the distance does not diminish her

love for her husband. She wears daily her bindi, sindoor and mangalsutra

though she is not with him.

In spite of being legally wedded, she cannot live a happy life. She never

gets admiration from her kids. Her father and grandfather die without forgiving

her and her mother is also angry with her. After marriage her life becomes

isolated, silent and withdrawn. She finds herself a victim of her choice, torn

between her duty to her family and her illicit love for the professor. Virmati is

reduced to being the Professor’s wife and loses her spark for ever after

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marriage. She realizes that the professor, despite his literary taste and

intellectual thirst, is nothing more than a lascivious male.

Professor’s second marriage is occasioned because of his

incompatibility with his illiterate wife, Ganga and his failure to educate her

invokes in him an urge to get the companionship of an educated woman,

Virmati. Now after his marriage with Virmati he enjoys both: his wife Ganga

attends him as a maid servant and manages all the household work and Virmati

satisfies his academic urge. Virmati realizes that ‘a man who is already married

can never give happiness to any women’. After marriage she finds herself

caught into another tangle where her free spirit is curbed and all she does is to

adjust compromise and adapt.

Thus Virmati’s life becomes a series of struggle against all odds. She

wants to get herself free from the bondage of patriarchy that denies or deserts

her freedom and choice. But she is not successful. She tries to counter social

norms, she faces several troubles but as she breaks free from old prisons, she is

locked into newer ones. . She resists living in the new home which constantly

reminds her of Ganga’s presence. When her husband insists on her coming

home from Lahore, she admits her dislike for home to the Professor: “I don’t

mind going on a holiday with you, but I will not come home”(Kapur, 236).

Ganga, the Professor’s wife plays her role as a devoted and dutiful wife.

She serves her whole family especially her husband, who does not care for her.

She thinks that through her devotion she will win her husband. She fasts twice

every week for her husband’s long and prosperous life, rarely goes out and

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never wears anything blue because her husband Harish does not like blue

colour and presses his legs daily.

The Indian community expects every woman to merge herself with her

husband, thus earning the status of ‘ardhangini’. Though these women are

devoted and caring, they are devalued. Their virtues become instruments of

domestic and social exploitation. Putting others before self results in

compromise and tolerating injustice silently. Such women always remain

unhappy. In India women pass the laws of stree-dharma from one generation to

other, which are backed up by patriarchy and become instruments of

oppression.

Finally we find that the professor fails to do justice to both, especially

the vulnerable Ganga, who, in the end, is abandoned by him. He does not care

for Ganga’s devotion and abandons her and Ganga silently suffers the anguish

of emotional abandonment. She suffers her husband’s apathetic attitude who

has snatched her marital rights from her. She wants to rebel against Virmati but

she is unable to do so because her husband is with Virmati but as a result of her

anguish and frustration, she does not let her enter the kitchen or wash his

clothes. He cannot do justice with Virmati also. He does not care about their

happiness. He is selfish to the core but she is not able to gauge the egotistical

and cunning attitude of the Professor. She wants to be the Professor’s legally

wedded wife and a happy married life but finally fails miserably.

Harish can relate to Virmati only because of his education but he is not

able to connect with his kids. She adopts Harish’s first two kids Giridhar and

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Chhoti as her children along with her daughter Ida. Giridhar marries against the

wishes of his parents. Chhoti excels in studies to get her father’s attention but

refuses to get married. She joins IAS to accommodate her mother and

grandmother. When Virmati becomes mother of Ida she wants to get the best

for her. But again the younger generation decides to go against the wishes of

the parents. Ida does not study properly; she simply wishes to live for herself,

something which younger Virmati herself has done. Ida sums up her

resentment in one line, “I grew up struggling to be the model daughter.

Pressure, pressure to perform day and night (Kapur, 258, italics in original).

Ironically, Virmati also becomes the same mother with whom she

herself could not accommodate when was young. Ida is tired of being a model

daughter. She wants to live her own life. But now Virmati also becomes

instrument of patriarchy. Having learnt from her experience she tries to make

learn her daughter Ida ‘adjust, compromise, adapt’, the values she has

neglected herself. But the question arises as to why these women create

problems for themselves and alienate their daughters by their uncompromising

attitude? Why Kasturi could not understood her daughter’s intense quest for

higher education and to exist as an individual. Why a mother creates hindrance

in the path of her daughter? The answers to all these questions lie in patriarchal

conditioning and social and cultural taboos. In India mothers consider their

daughters as carriers of family-traditions and customs which are essentially

patriarchal in nature. They feel threatened if their daughters do not fit in the

patriarchal image of an ideal daughter, ideal wife or daughter-in-law. If they

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fail in doing so, they are ostracized by the society. So unknowingly they

become the voice of patriarchy and compel their daughters to follow the social

sanctions.

In Difficult Daughters we find that Virmati becomes a difficult daughter

for her family because she does not want to be a rubber doll in the hands of

others and fight against the power of the mother as well as the oppressive

forces of patriarchy symbolized by the mother figure. However, Virmati is not

the only ‘difficult daughter’ in the novel, her daughter Ida turns out to be

equally ‘difficult’. In fact, she does not wish to be like her mother. She rejects

the world of domesticity, marriage and childbearing. She is a childless

divorcee, living an isolated life. She says: “I’ll live my life, my story” (Kapur,

66).

Virmati is a victim of ineffectual will power. She struggles throughout

her life for separate identity and live an independent life. However, on deeper

probe we find that actually Virmati does not know what she wants. Her desire

for education entraps her in an affair with the Professor and then her studies are

relegated to the background. She desires for an independent life but becomes

second fiddle to Harish. Her only desire is to be the professor’s legally wedded

wife and a happy home. She becomes a victim of her choice. She cannot

understand the cunningness of the professor. She goes against her family and

rebels against her family but she does not know what to do with this newly

acquired liberty.

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What happens to Virmati is undoubtedly the most representative destiny

of the Indian woman. The women of India have indeed achieved their success

in half century of Independence, but if there is to be a true female

independence, too much remains to be done. Manju Kapur as a novelist does

not try to establish the rightness of her doing, but rather projects the inner

sufferings and confusion that keep engulfing her mind.

It is a realistic novel, a story of victmization. It is in fact the story of a

woman’s struggle for her liberation. In this novel Virmati, the protagonist of

the novel tries to emancipate herself from the confinement of patriarchal Indian

social structure. Virmati’s story is recounted by her daughter, Ida, who makes

use of her memory, oral material gleaned from relatives and printed records of

the partition to reconstruct her mother’s past.

Difficult Daughters is an autobiographical novel. The texture of the

novel has been knitted and knotted around the consecutive three generations of

a Punjabi family. It is a story of three daughters belonging to the three

generations, the grand mother Kasturi, her daughter Virmati and Virmati’s

daughter Ida, the narrator. The novel begins with Ida’s statement: “The one

thing I had wanted was not to be like my mother” (Kapur 1). She does not want

to be like her mother Virmati. The domination by her mother has always

instigated her to search for escape routes. Ida fights the label of marginality that

the society has cast upon her by assuming the role of the omnipotent creator.

Thus, in the novel Manju Kapur has tried to focus on mother–daughter

conflicts and contradictions.

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Kasturi, Virmati’s mother is a typical domesticated, servile woman who

is an excellent manager of the household works. She is thankful to her mother

because since childhood she has moulded her in the traditional role:

During Kasturi’s formal schooling, it was never forgotten that

marriage was her destiny. After she graduated, her education

continued in the home. Her mother tried to ensure her future

happiness by the impeccable nature of her daughter’s

qualifications. She was going to please her in-law’s… (Kapur,

57).

In the generation of Kasturi, a woman’s role was confined to

childbearing and kitchen work. So Kasturi feels grateful to her mother to be

from:

A good family where girls were taught housekeeping from the

time they could walk… Kasturi felt grateful to her mother for

those long hours she spent in the kitchen, cutting, peeling

chopping, slicing, pounding, wrapping, mixing, kneading,

baking, roasting, stirring and frying (deep plus shallow). It paid to

know these things (Kapur, 188-189).

After some time she feels that her life has become burden on her

because her life centres only around these activities and makes her feel

overtired. She does not get even a single minute for herself. This gives way to

her perpetual tiredness and takes a heavy toll on her health. But she finds

herself unable to tell her predicament to her husband. She has become tired of

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frequent pregnancies and ashamed of “breeding like cats and dogs” (Kapur, 7).

But being a submissive, docile wife, she has to fulfil all the wishes and desires

of her husband and can never refuse him. So as a result she becomes a mute

sufferer:

Kasturi could not remember a time when she was not tired, when

her feet and legs did not ache. Her back curved in towards the

base of her spine and carrying her children was a strain, even

when they were very young. Her stomach was soft and spongy,

her breasts long and unattractive. His hair barely snaked down to

mid-back, its length and thickness gone with her babies. Her teeth

bled when she chewed her morning neem twigs, and she could

feel some of them shaking. She had filled the house as her in-

laws had wanted, but with another child there would be nothing

left of her (Kapur, 7).

Today we say that women have become free but today also we find that

they don’t have any right on their body. Where is freedom if they can’t take

any decision related to their bodies? When her bua says: “Bap re, how do you

do it? And so sick all the time”, she replies: “I am going to die, Maji, this time I

know it” (Kapur, 7). It is a very difficult situation. She knows that now she has

no energy left to give birth to another child but she can’t deny her husband. She

becomes so weak she is not even able to feed her baby. “Kasturi had no milk.

The new-born sucked with all her feeble might on her mother’s dry breasts,

hanging milk less and flabby against her little chest” (Kapur, 9). But nobody

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cares about this, she had to give birth and she had to struggle. The hakim

declares he cannot answer for Kasturi’s life if she had any more children. The

vaid also says the same thing. A western-educated allopath declares that

repeated birth depletes the body and no medicine can help Kasturi through

another pregnancy. She needs to build up nor strength, she needs the fresh air

of the mountains immediately, as much as she needed to be removed from the

crowded and unhealthy atmosphere permanently.

Thus we find that Kasturi leads a listless life which centres around and

is totally devoted to her husband. Being moulded in traditional womanhood,

she fulfills all the wishes of her husband and never refuses him anything. She is

tired of frequent pregnancies but she is unable to communicate her sad

predicament to her husband and fulfils his desire of children. As a traditional

woman she does not show her tears to anyone. But her virtues which make her

a mute sufferer become an instrument of domestic and social exploitation. It

becomes clear that Kasturi is not happy in her traditional life but she does not

like when her daughter Virmati dreams, thinks of her own identity and asserts

her individuality. She considers it as a revolt against her and becomes the voice

of patriarchy. Because like a traditional woman she holds those values as ideal

which patriarchy has taught her. Since childhood women are conditioned to

fulfil their roles a handed over to them by patriarchy. Thus we find that Kasturi

becomes the voice of patriarchy for her daughter Virmati and Virmati also

become the voice of patriarchy for her daughter. In our patriarchal set-up

women consider themselves in men central to their lives. A woman’s identity

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and her perception of the self is seen in connection with husband. Marriage

gives security to a woman. Without marriage she can’t be secure. So according

to tradition marriage is a very necessary part of life. Since childhood a girl is

conditioned that marriage is the main goal of her life.

In the novel, women like Kasturi and Virmati show streaks of rebellion

by expressing their simmering discontent with their marital life but the main

dictum dominating their lives is compromise. They expose the old value

system, react against the suffocation of male dominance, but their resistance is

tepid and feeble in nature. Women under the patriarchal pressure and control

were subjected to social ostracism.

Virmati, the protagonist of Difficult Daughers, is a woman of strong

will. She breaks rules and defies traditions to achieve her objective. Her

mother’s frequent pregnancies train her in nurturing at an early age. She is the

eldest of the long chain of children. Being the eldest among the eleven

children, taking care of her siblings becomes her natural responsibility:

Ever since Virmati could remember she had been looking after

children. It wasn’t only baby Parvati to whom she was

indispensable. To her younger siblings, she was second mother as

well. She was impatient and intolerant of fuss. If they did not eat

their meals, on her return home from school she would hunt out

the offending brother or sister and shove the cold food down their

throats. If they refused to wear the hand-me-down clothes she

assigned them, she slapped them briskly. Visually once was

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enough sometimes she tried to be gentle, but it was weary work

and she was almost always tired and harassed (Kapur, 6).

Her mother is always sick so her life smears under the pressure of

family responsibilities. Being the eldest she has to run the house and in this

way she becomes the surrogate mother. Her childhood is lost in being a young

mother. Virmati who has always lived for others, never gets the same pleasure

in her life. She pines for her mother’s love and affection but never receives

any: “At times Virmati yearned for affection, for some sign that she was

special. However, when she put her head text to the youngest baby, feeding in

the mother’s arms, Kasturi would get irritated and push her away. ‘Have you

seen to their food-milk-clothes-studies?” (Kapur, 6).

Throughout her life she has never been given attention. She finds her life

burdened with family responsibilities but no one cares about this. The first

generation considers it just a normal routine. When she says to her mother that

she is not able to carry on her studies properly with family duties, her mother

replies: “Leave your studies if it is going to make you so bad-tempered with

your family. You are forgetting what comes first” (Kapur, 19). Thus we see

that from the very beginning Virmati is ill-treated by her mother despite

fulfilling all her responsibilities and thus a barrier is created between them:

“From time to time Virmati glanced furtively at her mother, and the wall she

encountered forbade her from making the attentive gestures that might have

made the journey bearable for both” (Kapur, 111).

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Today also education is not considered to be necessary for a girl because

one day she will marry and after marriage her duty is just to bring up children

and take care of her family. Simon de Beauvoir is right in saying that:

In particular, the elder sister is often concerned in this way with

motherly tasks, whether for convenience or because of hostility

and sadism, the mother thus rids herself of many of her functions,

the girl in this manner is made to fit precociously into the

universe of serious affairs… (qtd. in Singh, “Indian Women”,

39).

Virmati is only thirteen-years-old when her parents want to arrange her

marriage:

The first class she had to join was the social class for those girls

weak in English. After that, classes IX and X, and then two years

to get a Fine Arts degree. And then marriage, said the elders.

Thirteen-years-old Virmati listened and felt the thrill of those

approaching rites (Kapur, 17).

When she expresses her desire for higher education and gives examples

of her cousin Shakuntala, Kasturi replies:“Now it is you who are eating my

head. What good are Shaku’s degrees when she is not settled? Will they look

after her when she is old?...At your age I was already expecting you, not

fighting with my mother” (Kapur, 19).

This view is shared by most people, who think that girls should not go

for higher goals of self-development because after that they will be

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independent and will not dance to the tunes of others. They will develop their

own will. Hence they should be married early before they develop their own

will and choice. In fact, Kasturi blames Virmati’s education for all her

misdoings in life: “Mati blames it all on college. She should have married after

Inter, she keeps saying. See what this reading has done to her. She feels she

knows more than her own father and mother” (Kapur, 85).

People don’t support girls’ education because they think that if a girl is

educated, she will learn to think for herself and then she will not be able to

adjust in her married life. When Virmati gives the example of Shakuntala, her

cousin, Kasturi replies:

Shakuntala Pehnji did not have five sisters waiting to get married

either. And do you think it makes her mother happy to have her

daughter unmarried? She may say what she likes about jobs and

modern women, but I know how hard she still tries to fine a

husband for shaky and how bed she feels. You want to do the

same to me? To your father and grandfather (Kapur, 54).

Kasturi does not like the rebellious spirit of her daughter and strongly

disapproves of Shakuntala’s influence on her. Referring to her way of dressing

she says: “Study means developing the mind for the benefit of the family. I

studied too, but my mother would have killed me if I had dared even to want to

dress in anything other than was brought for me” (Kapur, 14).

All the relatives of Virmati have the same casual attitude towards girls’

education. When parents of Virmati’s fiancé come to see her they also don’t

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give much importance to her education. They think that there is no use of more

education for a daughter-in-law:

Her parents thought that she had gone enough. Her fiancé’s

parents thought that she was already well qualified to be the wife

of their son, the canal engineer. They didn’t want too much

education in their daughter-in-law, even though times were

changing. Virmati wept and sulked (Kapur, 41).

Virmati wants to make herself free from the bondage of patriarchy that

deprives her of her freedom and choice. She is a woman of her will. She rejects

the world of marriage, domesticity and childbearing. She wants to make an

independent life. She says: “I’ll live my life, my story” (Kapur, 66). So she has

to fight against the power of the mother and society. But when she tries to

counter social norms, she faces several troubles. According to her mother, a

woman is only meant to be a wife and a mother. These are the consciously

inculcated ideals of the Indian feminine role.

Virmati has a keen desire for higher education, to make her separate

identity and love also because during her childhood she was ignored. She could

not get love and affection even from her mother who was too busy attending to

her children. So when she meets the Professor, she is infatuated by him. The

Professor is also not satisfied with his married life and his illiterate wife. He

tries to take advantage of her innocence and lures her with the dreams of a

mesmerizing, glorious world of freedom and love. Virmati also does not realize

the true nature of the professor’s cunning attitude and enticing talks. As a result

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she begins an illicit relationship with the married Professor. She breaks her

engagement and desires to be his legally wedded wife and a happy home. She

becomes a victim of her choice, torn between duty to her family and her illicit

love for the Professor. The Oxford returned professor Harish likes Virmati for

her self-assertion, which is missing in his docile wife. He finds little to share

with his uneducated wife. To satisfy his academic urge and intellectual hunger,

he needs Virmati.

Virmati is blinded by her love for him. She cannot gauge the self-

centered and disloyal attitude of the Professor. Finally she breaks her

engagement and refuses to marry Inderjit and tries to end her life by drowning. Her

family does not acknowledge her feelings towards Harish. This compels Virmati to end

her life as she cannot accept another man as her husband. Even under such circumstances,

the Professor does not openly acknowledge his love and acts meekly. Virmati decides to

leave her house for good. Besides carrying her luggage only takes “the packet of

Harish’s letters which she attaches to herself” (Kapur, 182). All the attempts by

Virmati to elude her marriage are resented. When she confronts her mother

with the proposal of not marrying, she considers it a betrayal to the family

values. She does not feel the need for freedom for which her daughter is

opposing her and going against her. She considers her daughter’s desire of

freedom as sheer selfishness smacking of ingratitude. Here Kasturi becomes

the voice of patriarchy and conspires with others to subdue her and crush her

rsbellious spirit:

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The nights are beginning to get cold, and I now sleep with them.

In the day they still lock me in the godown. Each time I hear the

door shut, I burn with anger and humiliation. What have I done? I

am just like the sacks of wheat and dal here, without my own life

(Kapur, 85).

Thus it is through Virmati that Manju Kapur tries to draw our attention

to a woman’s psyche that a woman has no right to take any decision about

herself or her own life. Here we find that Kasturi holds those values as ideal

which patriarchy has taught her and when her daughter Virmati rebels against

such values she take it to be a rebellion against her own self.

Virmati revolts against her mother because her relation with her mother

does not let her realize her need for a separate identity and an independent

existence. Then finally she protests against her marriage. Along with studies it

is also the charm of the professor that keeps her away from arranged marriage.

She makes it clear that she wants to pursue her studies. This infuriates her

mother: “This girl with throw mud on our whole family, make us fall so low we

will have no name left” (Kapur, 80). So to fulfill her desire Virmati has to fight

against the power of the mother as well as the oppressive forces of patriarchy

symbolized by the mother figure.

Virmati does not want to involve herself in ‘useless love’, a ‘doubtful

marriage’, but having undergone ‘interiorized subjugation’ she wants to get the

professor’s love. To marry the professor she goes against her family. But

unfortunately this clandestine relationship does not give her any respite. She

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emerges as the emblem of the new woman of the forties who wanted to walk

hand in hand with men. She rejects the kind of life led by her mother, fights for

her independence and a respectable social status. But innocent Virmati cannot

understand the professor’s real intentions. He uses her only for his satisfaction

and pleasure. On the one hand, the Professor’s empty promises to marry her

‘soon’ land her in uncertainty; on the other, the scandal of an illicit relation

with a married man gives her social stigma. She understands her position and

meaninglessness of her activities she is being involved with. When Virmati’s

body becomes marked by the professor, she breaks her silence and asks him

about his plans for her. She insists the professor for regularizing their

relationship by giving it a socially accepted name, ‘marriage’. Seeing her

marriage unnecessarily delayed, she feels exasperated:

‘Hari’, Virmati spat out the name.

‘How long is it you say you’ve been in love with me?’

‘Three years.’

‘I break my engagement because of you, blacken my families

name, am locked up inside my house, get sent to Lahore because

no one knows what to do with me. Here I am in the position of

being your secrete wife, full of shame, wondering what people

will say if they find out, not being able to live in peace, study in

peace… and why? Because I am an idiot.’

‘Now you want to prolong the situation. Why don’t we get

married? You say your family makes no difference. But still you

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want to continue in this way. Be honest with me. I can bear

anything but this continuous irresolution. Swarna is right. Men do

take advantage of women’ (Kapur, 137-138)!

Virmati does not want to involve herself in ‘useless love’, a ‘doubtful

marriage’, but having undergone ‘interiorized subjugation’ she wants to get the

Professor’s love. Though she succeeds in marrying the Professor, who is

callous to his wife and frivolous with Virmati, her success is worse than her

failure because she is reduced to being merely the Professor’s second wife and

loses her spark forever. When she crosses one patriarchal threshold she is soon

caught into another where her free spirit is curbed and all she does is “adjust

compromise and adapt” Her fanciful flight of independence and her keen desire

of economic liberation drive her to tread on a path considered least honourable

in society. She is entrapped in a jaded affair where she neither gets happiness

nor gives it to others.

The novelist makes us realize that in our society the concept of morality

is different for men and women. When Virmati refuses to marry the Professor,

he talks about Indian tradition. “He says that in India there is tradition of co-

wives, “co-wives are part of our social tradition. If you refuse me, you will be

changing nothing” (Kapur, 112). Though Virmati considers herself a liberated

woman, she is not able to come out of the traditional mindset. She revolts

against her family but finds herself unable to shake off the emotional chains

that bind her to Harish. She goes on enduring his emotional violence with the

traditional belief that she is his for life, whether he ever marries her or not:

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“Her body was marked by him, she could have look elsewhere, never entertain

another choice” (Kapur, 163). These lines show that today also we are

entrapped in old traditions. A woman can’t look for more than one man though

a man can have more wives according to our tradition and customs. If a man

makes his choice, he is considered to be right but if a woman goes by her

choice she is considered to be sinful. In our patriarchal set-up man always

imposes his will on woman. More surprisingly, in such a society women serve

to be the worst perpetrators of women-oppression. The Professor’s mother

Kishori Devi accuses only Virmati not her son:

When the Professor introduced his mother with Virmati Kishori

Devi’s eyes blurred. She could make out the terrified look on the

face beside her son’s, but she had no sympathy for her. All this

was her fault. If she had not gone after him, he would not have

strayed, the family would not be torn apart now (Kapur, 192).

It is evident that Kishori Devi holds only Virmati responsible for the

destruction of her family. She considers Virmati a “shameless young Punjabi”

(Kapur, 193).Who has trapped her good son. Like Virmati, Kishori Devi also

fails to realize that the Professor has used Virmati for his self-assertion which

is missing in his docile wife. Like a lovelorn person he forces her to marry him

my threatening suicide. Virmati is blinkered in his love. She does not

understand that, “a man who is already married and a traitor to his wife can

never give happiness to any women. He is a worldly person caught in his own

desire. Nothing solid,” (Kapur, 85).

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She does not see the self-centred and disloyal attitude of the Professor.

She rejects all ties and marries him defying all conventional norms. But when

she becomes his wedded wife he clamps on her his conventional male rule. She

realizes ultimately that according to the Professor now her happiness depends

on the fulfillment of his wishes. After marriage, she finds that there is no milk

for her in the breakfast which she is used to having in the mornings, there is

only tea which Harish likes to have:

How could her system be properly evacuated with this unhealthy

stuff? She looked anxiously at the Professor and asks?

‘What is it, darling?’ she asks affectionately. ‘you know I drink

milk in the mornings, she said, pouting a little.

‘And you know I drink tea. I thought you liked to drink tea with

me.’

‘Yes, once in a while, I do. But in the morning I always drink

milk. Otherwise I can’t you know – I can’t – ‘Oh, I’m sure you

can, if you try, ‘he replied.

‘How would you like it if I asked you to change your habits?’

asked Virmati looking upset. She was twenty-five. How could

her body relearn something as basic as this (Kapur, 198)?

It is our social system that after marriage a husband expects that his wife

will leave her personal choice for him and accept his culture, tradition without

any complaints, though they don’t want to change themselves. With the

passage of time Virmati also imbibes the same values. When her husband

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wants to invite the poet at his place, she agrees despite knowing that there is

not much space to accommodate a guest: “A women’s happiness lies in giving

her husband happiness’, remarked Virmati, in a language she had learned ago”

(Kapur, 210).

She realizes that even after her marriage she remains a slave to others

will, this time her husband. She cannot do anything by her own desire nor can

she take any decision. Her marriage to a married man brings disruption in her

relationship with her own family. She brings disgrace to her family. She finds

herself responsible for the destruction of her family. Her mother says that she

has destroyed the name of the family and brought disgrace, shame for the

family. She is responsible for breaking a happy home. But Virmati can not

dissociate herself from her family physically and emotionally. When she visits

her mother, she abuses her in an utterly censorious manner. She is unwelcome

even on her father’s passing away, and is held responsible for his death: “Why

are you here?’ she managed, her eyes red and swollen. Because of you he died

otherwise is this the age to go” (Kapur, 221)?

Far from receiving external validation from society and her family,

Virmati becomes a victim of the rigid social norms. She becomes the same

silent suffering woman, “strong to bear the pain, silently, without anyone

knowing” (Kapur, 101). All that she is able to do is compromise and accept her

destiny. Thus her life becomes a series of struggle against all odds after she

becomes she second wife of the Professor.

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After marriage she becomes isolated, silent and withdrawn. Her mind

and her heart are constantly agitated with thoughts of her freedom. All the time

she feels herself alone and unwanted. For her nothing has changed. Her life is

as monotonous as ever. Ganga reacts in a natural way by not accepting her.

Virmati also finds it difficult to accept Ganga in Harish’s life. Though all the

rights are with Ganga yet the poor soul craves for her husband and fails to get

his love and admiration. She cries her heart out when she comes to know about

the illicit relationship of Harish and Virmati. She hates Virmati, her rival,

whom she blames for ruining her life.

The friction between them brings disharmony in the domestic life.

Ganga never lets her enter in the kitchen, do the household work or any work

related to the Professor. Virmati finds Ganga taking care of all the needs of

Harish:

From washing his clothes to polishing his shoes, to tidying his

desk dusting his precious books, filling his fountain pens with

ink, putting his records back in the jackets, mending his clothes,

stitching his shirts and kurtas, hemming his dhotis, seeing that

they were properly starched - Ganga did it all. His sleek and well-

kept air was due to her (Kapur, 200).

Virmati is deeply troubled by her own peripheral existence in the

household. She has nothing to do the whole day except be with Harish in bed.

She is made to feel unwanted and neglected. When she asks her husband what

kind of wife she is when Ganga does everything, he is evasive and says that

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being a housewife, she has to do the household work. Virmati is bitter about the

truth of her existence as she feels that she is only meant to fulfil the carnal

desires of her husband. She tries to assert herself as the wife of Harish but fails

miserably. Harish tries to convince her by saying that: “You are my other self.

Let her wash my clothes, if she feels like it. It has nothing to do with me. I

don’t want a washerwoman, I want a companion” (Kapur, 201). But the desire

to do something for her husband almost becomes an obsession. Hence she gets

up early in the morning and goes to take bath and to wash Harish’s clothes;

Where are you going?’ murmured Harish sat up in astonishment.

‘Now?’ he asked. ‘But it’s still dark. Why don’t you wait till I’ve

gone?’

‘I’ am used to early habits,’ said Virmati primarily.

‘Of course, darling’, said Harsh. ‘But you get up early and be

with me. After all, that is why we married. To be together.’

‘May be so. But people have to bathe. Or is there some reason

why you don’t want me to have a bath?’

The Professor hesitated. Let them all finish,’ he said. ‘My mother

bathes at five. Right after her toilet.’

‘So, she’ll be finished by now.’

‘And then the children. Their school, you know.’ ‘I’ll be before

them.’

‘And then the children. Their school, you know.’

‘I’ll be before them.’

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‘And then her, ‘he said reluctantly. ‘she has to bathe before she

enters the kitchen.’ ‘So I have to be last,’ said Virmati, sounding

mean and petulant even to herself.

‘But I also stay out of the way, sweetheart. Why do you want to

make life difficult ( Kapur, 200)?

The same husband, for whom she has left everything, wants her to

compromise with the situation. She does try to manage somehow, but it

becomes increasingly difficult for her to become so thick-skinned. Every day

she is made to realize that she is an outsider in the family. It is done in such a

subtle manner that even the Professor cannot notice. Sometimes she finds that

her lassi is too salty or too sweet, and anything offered to her for food is, “too

fried, too soggy, too stale and, if possible, too dirty” (Kapur, 212). She tries

once to go into the kitchen to make her own food, but “there had been such

ritual rinsing of every pot and pan to wash away her polluted touch, that she

felt intimated”. It is clear that “no inch of that territory was going to be yielded.

If Virmati had the bed, Ganga was going to have the house” (Kapur, 213).

Virmati’s anxiety and frustration is not shared by her husband who is

enjoying two women simultaneously, his first wife Ganga as a maid servant

and the second, Virmati as a companion in bed and in his academic space. To

get out of the stifling atmosphere at home, Virmati joins the job of a teacher at

a primary school opposite AS College, but at home things continue the same:

If it rained, her things were never brought in. if the dhobi while

she was in school, her clothes were never given, if she was late

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coming home, there was never any food kept for her. Whenever

she tried to play with any of the children, it was ‘Giridhar, come

here. Don’t disturb your new mother.’ Or to Giridhar, when she

was with the Professor, ‘Go quietly to your Pitaji. See that you

don’t make your new mother angry. She is the one you have to

love now (Kapur, 213).

Thus we find both Virmati and Ganga as suffering and insecure while

the man who is responsible for all this remains unaffected and indifferent.

Virmati feels isolated and left out. She realizes her mistake and is torn between

the traditional feminine and modern feminist; she undergoes psychological

turmoil and is quite unhappy. She wants to break free of marital bonds and she

tries to counter social norms but she is not successful. Usually we find that

women do think of ways to escape the atrocities of men, but not all women can

break free of marital bonds so easily. Kasturi and Virmati react against the

suffocation of male dominance, but their resistance is tepid and feeble in

nature.

Virmati feels that this isolation would continue till the end of her life.

Even her parents never forgive her. Her independence is loathed and looked

down with indignation. Her decision to pursue education and remain single is criticized

and brings her disrespect from her family members. Her father dies without forgiving

her. So does her grandfather. On her arrival in Amritsar, she writes to inform

her own family that she is married but nobody comes to see her, not even her

own brother or sisters to whom she had practically been a mother. However

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one day she decides to go her home. When she reaches there and her mother

sees her standing there, she is furious and hurls all possible harsh words and

asks her to get out of the house:

You’ve destroyed our family, you badmash, you randi! You’ve

blackened our face everywhere! For this I gave you birth.

Because of you there is shame on our family, shame on me,

shame on Bade Pitaji! But what do you care, brazen that you are

(Kapur, 204)!

She feels that her all blood relations seems cold and barren. Nobody

wants her, nobody likes her. Her false hopes are finally shattered; she realizes

that all ties between herself and her family are broken. The relations are

strained and broken to the extent that she is not even invited to her brother’s

marriage.

Her relationship with the children of her husband is also not good. They

all hate her without knowing the reason. They become indifferent in her

presence. Even her sister-in-law Guddiya who does not say anything indecent

to her and is not affected, like others, by her marriage, also feels uneasy in her

presence. When Virmati tries to be friends with Guddiya, she gets the same

hostile reaction:

‘Guddiya.’

‘Hoon, didi.’

‘Let’s talk.’

‘I have to do my homework.’

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‘Shall I help you with your lessons” I used to teach girls just like

you, you know.’

‘Why aren’t you teaching them now?’

‘Right now, I am here. I want to teach you. shall I?’

‘I have to help bhabhi in the kitchen’ (Kapu, 202).

Then she tries with Giridhar, her husband’s son as she feels that he is

young enough to be won over:

‘Come here, beta,’ she said, one day when no one was looking.

The door of the dressing-room was open and he peeped in, his

bright eyes curious.

‘Come,’ said Virmati, ‘here’s paper, I’ll show you how to draw.’

If only she could teach Giridhar to come to her! She would have

someone in the house.

‘Giri… Giri…’Virmati could hear Ganga’s voice calling sharply.

And then a pair of hands snatched the little boy up, scolding

violently. ‘What are you doing here? Who asked you to give

trouble where you are not wanted?’ A slap followed, loud wails,

Kishori Devi’s voice remonstrating, Ganga screaming, ‘you not

enough for that … that …’ (Kapur, 202-3).

Ganga hates her for snatching her husband away from her. When she

sees her, she turns her face away, or what is worse, “would stare intensely at

her, her eyes moist, her lips trembling, her big red bindi flashing accusingly”

(Kapur, 203). Even when they grow up, no signs are shown of their liking.

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Virmati never gets admiration from his kids. Even when they grow up, there

are no signs of their liking for their new mother.

Virmati’s simmering tension tells upon her health. She becomes

pregnant but loses the baby due to miscarriage. Ironically, she holds herself

responsible for this as three years ago, she had to abort her child as she was not

married at that time. She feels that God has punished her for robbing her own

womb and then another woman of her husband: “Ganga’s face, swollen with

hate and fear, had followed her everywhere, the venom concentrated in the

gaze of her evil eye” (Kapur, 227). As a result of her miscarriage, Virmati

becomes silent and withdrawn. Harish is worried over her deteriorating health

and decides to send her to Lahore to do an M.A. She acquiesces meekly as if

she has resigned to her fate. She takes up philosophy for her studies, a subject

which she hates but has to opt for as the Professor considers it the best for her.

Though she has no interest in this subject and finds this subject to be dull,

abstract and meaningless, she accepts it because she considers it as her only

means of escape.

In Lahore also she leads an isolated life: “Virmati’s life in Lahore was

isolated. She was married with a husband, a co-wife and two stepchildren. She

had had one abortion and one miscarriage. These barriers divided her from her

fellows” (Kapur, 232). Meanwhile the whole country is in the grip of partition-

unrest and Virmati is forced leave Lahore and go home to Amritsar. Harish’s

mother, sister and his family have already left for Kanpur, his home town, as

things become difficult. Finally, Virmati is back in a house that she can call her

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home. With no one around, she has all the space she needs. She conceives

again. She is also reconciled to her family as there is an outbreak of violence in

Amritsar, a city which is “washed over with the scourge of death” (Kapur,

253). Her mother realizes that she cannot carry her hatred and anger against

Virmati any further and she sends for Virmati who shifts to her mother’s. She

gives birth to a daughter, who is named Ida by her father. Here also she

becomes a victim of patriarchy when is not given the freedom to choose her

name. She suggests the name ‘Bharti’ because she is born at the dawn of

freedom, but Harish rejects it and names the child Ida. He says: “I don’t wish

our daughter to be tainted with the birth of our country.” When Virmati replies

doubtfully, “People might think it is a Persian name”, Harish irritably remarks:

“Let anybody think what they like. For us it means a new slate, and a blank

beginning” (Kapur, 255). Thus it becomes clear that a man who talks about

freedom does not provide it to his wife, even in such a trivial matter of keeping

the name of the newly born child at her will.

Ganga’s departure from Amritsar was meant to be a temporary affair in

the pressures and tensions of the moment, but somehow she is never able to

return. After Independence, Harish is offered a principalship in a college at

Delhi University. They move to Delhi and Harish’s children come to stay with

them because of their education. Ironically, though Ganga remains away from

her husband, her identity as a wife is inextricably intertwined with her

husband’s name. Even when she is not with her husband Harish, she applies

bindi, sindoor, bangles which signify her married status: “Her husband

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continued to be Ganga’s public statement of selfhood. Her bindi and her

bangles, her toe rings and her mangalsutra, all managed to suggest that he was

still her God” (Kapur, 257).

Virmati seems to represent the women of 1950’s who, in a patriarchal

society of that period were subjected to man–made injustices and indignities. In

this novel she appears to be the woman who has to undergo all the tortures and

torments of life just because she desires for freedom. In fact, not only Virmati,

but Ganga also becomes a victim of the Professor’s patriarchal domination. On

the one hand, he ignores Ganga and on the other, is cruel to Virmati, constantly

delaying their marriage. He cannot do justice with both, especially with the

vulnerable Ganga who, in the end, is abandoned by him. Ganga is an expert at

managing the household and serves her husband and his family with utmost

devotion. She loves to cook and she loves to see people enjoying the food she

makes. She has been trained both by her mother and mother-in-law:

The woman’s own mother had never read, nor felt the need. She

had taught the woman everything she knew. By the time she was

ready to leave for her husband’s house at the age of twelve, she

had mastered the basic items of a pure vegetarian diet.

She was quick and inventive with the embroidery and knitting

needle, as well as with the sewing-machine. After her marriage,

her mother-in-law made sure that she learned the ways of her in-

laws’ household from the moment of her arrival (Kapur, 37).

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Ganga is a dutiful and wife and devotes her life to the Professor and his

family members. She organizes her life centering on serving others. She

transforms herself into a submissive house wife. Like a traditional woman she

leaves her personal choice only for the happiness of her husband. For example,

she gives up blue colour forever only because her husband dislikes it. When

Virmati says to Ganga to buy blue bangles, she refuses:

‘How about these?’ asked Virmati, pointing to the blue ones light

and dark, rimmed with gold. ‘You are so fair, they will suit you.’

Then Ganga replies:

‘He doesn’t like blue,’ explained the woman, shaking her head. ‘I

wear nothing blue.’ Virmati looked at the woman. She and her

sister wore whatever colour they pleased except inauspicious

black. (Kapur, 39).

This proves how women often sacrifice to maintain affiliations which

they hold important in their lives. She fasts twice every week for her husband’s

long and prosperous life, she presses his legs daily and follows his order

without any question. She never argues, only does the things the way he wants

and tries to keep out of his way. She does all his work with devotion. But for

Harish this is nothing much. He does not seem to care about her household

skills at all. Her selfless devotion, instead of being rewarded, is punished by his

rejection. While consoling Ganga, Kishori Devi aptly sums up limitation of

female gender:

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He Bhagwan, we are all in your hands,’ … ‘who can predict

anything, or decide anything on their own? Whatever happens is

for some ultimate good, even if we don’t understand it at the

moment.

In this life we can do nothing but our duty. Serve our elders, look

after our children, walk along the path that has been marked for

us, and not pine and yearn for those things we cannot have. Since

our destiny is predetermined, that is the only way we can know

any peace. Duty is our guide, and our strength. How can we

control the things outside us. We can only control ourselves”

(Kapur, 194).

However, the Professor does not seem to care about her household

skills. He wants a companion not a house wife so he teaches her but he is not

successful. When his mother scolds him for marrying Virmati he becomes

angry and replies: “I do what I can for everybody. But, to satisfy to all of you, I

am supposed to live my life tied to a woman with whom I have nothing in

common. Who cannot even read” (Kapur, 193).

His second marriage is the result of his temperamental incompatibility,

his dissatisfaction and failure to educate his illiterate wife. His failure to make

her read the books he likes and to becomes his companion invokes in him an

urge to get the company of Virmati, an educated and extremely beautiful

woman. He is a typical male chauvinist. He is madly in love with Virmati and desires

to possess her completely. Though he wants her to pursue higher studies but still, as a

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typical male, is jealous of her proximity with others. He dislikes her “getting involved

with Swarna Lata, with Leela, with Kiran, with anybody and everybody except

your husband” (Kapur, 241).

Women do think of ways to escape the atrocities of men, but not all

women can break free of marital bonds easily. Ganga also tries to revolt but her

husband Harish says that if Ganga has problems with his second marriage, he

would move to another house. She becomes silenced by her husband’s threat of

disruption of their relationship. His threat silences and reduces her to a mute

sufferer. As a traditional woman, she is determined not to show anybody her

tears. Virmati and Ganga both blame each other for their predicament. No one

blames Harish, both desire for his love and affection though he is responsible

for destruction of their happiness. This shows that women hold men central to

their lives as if he holds the key to their happiness but women become enemies

of each other.

Kasturi, Virmati and Ganga react against the male dominance. They

protest but don’t revolt openly. Actually women want to escape from male

dominance but it becomes difficult for them to break free marital bonds easily.

They show streaks of rebellion but the main dictum dominating their lives is

‘compromise’. Women see themselves in relation to others. In order to

continue and save their relationships from disruption, they often compromise

with the situation. A traditional woman suffers mutely to meet her ideal which,

in Indian tradition, is not to voice grievances.

Miller puts it more explicity:

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The woman is not encouraged to take her own needs seriously.

To explore them, to try to act on them as a separate individual.

She is enjoined from engaging all of her own resources and there

by prevented from developing some valid and reliable sense of

her own worth. Instead, the woman is encouraged to concentrate

on the needs and development of man (qtd. in Singh, “Indian

Women”, 99).

Ganga suffers the apathetic attitude of her husband. She suffers till the

end of the novel. It is a male dominated society. A woman can’t go anywhere

without permission of her husband. And a man does not fee the need to tell his

wife before going. The Professor can’t be forgiven for doing wrong with her

and denying her marital rights and for using Virmati for his personal

advantage. But he does not feel guilty himself. Though Virmati feels herself

like a ‘murderess’ for robbing ‘another woman of her husband.’

She feels the shame and stigma of the second wife and intruder. She

feels frustrated for spoiling the life of the Professor’s first wife. She complains

to Harish also: “I should never have married you, she said slowly, and it’s too

late now. I’ve never seen it so clearly. It’s not fair” (Kapur, 195). She feels

pangs of guilt and finds herself this much guilty that even after her death she

wants to repent for her action:

When I die, she said to me, I want my body donated. My eyes,

my heart, my kidneys, any organ that can be of use. That way

someone will value me after I am gone… And she went on, when

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I die I want no shor-shaar. I don’t want a chauth, I don’t want an

uthala, I want no one called, no one informed (Kapur, 11).

Virmati struggles throughout her life. The fanciful flights of

independence and economic liberation drive her on the path that is not accepted

by society. She tries to counter social norms and she faces several troubles. Her

search for love and individuality indulge her in a jaded affair with the Professor

and as a result she becomes the second wife of the Professor. But this relation

neither gives satisfaction to Virmati nor her family. Even the children do not

relate to her. Girdhar opens a small chemist’s shop and marries one of his

clients. Chhotti, who always craves for her father’s attention, joins the IAS,

mainly for the government accommodation that would enable her mother and

grandmother with her. Through Virmati, Manju Kapur has tried to project that

in India when a girl marries according to her choice it destroys her prospects in

both the worlds. Today we have become free and independent but till now a

girl has no right to take any decision about her own self.

The novelist has successfully projected Virmati’s painful isolation.

Virmati has just one child, Ida. She does not find studies the ultimate goal of

her life, and wishes to live for herself, which Virmati also did in her time:

Ida refused to show any signs of intellectual brightness.

‘There are other things in life,’ she told her mother.

‘Like what?’ asked Virmati

‘Like living.’

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‘You mean living only for yourself. You are disappointing your

father.’

‘Why is it important to please him?’

Ida protested to her mother. She wanted to please herself

sometimes, though by the time she grew up she was not sure what

self she had to please (Kapur, 257-58).

Virmati is alienated not only from her mother but from her daughter.

She has learnt the lessons of life the hard way and she wants to protect her

daughter from such situations. This makes her unnecessarily strict with her

daughter. Ida could never ever relate to her as there was a tremendous pressure

on her to prove herself a good daughter which made her feel stifled:

I grew up struggling to be a model daughter. Pressure, pressure to

perform day and night. My father liked me looking pretty, neat

and well-dressed, with kajal and a little touch of oil in my

sleeked-black hair. But the right appearance was not enough. I

had to do well in school, learn classical music, take dance lessons

so that I could convert my clumsiness into grace, read all the

classics of literature, discuss them intelligently with him, and

then exhibit my accomplishments graciously before the

assembled guests at parties (Kapur, 258).

Virmati hates her mother’s interference in her affair with the Professor

but later she realizes that she was forbidding her only for her goodness. Now

she realizes her mistake so she tries to save her daughter from choosing such

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wrong path. Having learnt by her experience she tries to condition her daughter

strictly for a successful life. Ida remarks: “My mother tightened her reins on me

as I grew older; she said it was for my own good” (Kapur, 258). She wants her

to learn to adjust, compromise, adapt, the very things she herself ignored. Now

Virmati also becomes the same mother with whom she also could not

accommodate in her young age.

There arises a question as to why many women like Kasturi and Virmati

create problems for themselves and alienate their daughters by their

uncompromising attitude? It happens because of patriarchy, social norms and

taboos. Indian mothers treat their daughters are mere guests in their home since

after marriage they will go to another home. So they teach them virtues of care,

compassion and nurturing. They tell them that they are women and their aim

should be to endure and continue a relationship by virtue of self-sacrifice.

Since childhood they are conditioned for their role as ideal wives and mother.

Their roles are handed over to them by patriarchy. Mothers are troubled by the

thought that if their daughters do not fit into the frame work and image of an

ideal wife, daughter-in-law, and mother given by patriarchy, they will face

rejection and sorrow.

Ida also wants to leave her past behind and make a new beginning a

fresh. She makes a disastrous marriage. She marries a person who is an

academic but walks out of that relationship. Like Virmati Ida also undergoes an

abortion, having been forced by her husband to abort her child. Pregnancy and

abortion are female experiences. For a woman, abortion means tearing away a

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part of her body. It concerns not only her body but psyche also. After abortion

she suffers physically and mentally. It hurts her emotions and feeling. It is

morally incorrect. But Ida’s husband insists on it:

I knew, Mother, what it was like to have an abortion. Prabhakar

had insisted I have one. In denying that incipient little thing in my

belly, he sowed the seeds of our breakup – as perhaps he meant to

do. Yes, I knew what it was like. I had lain awake nights

wondering why wanted me to have an abortion, worrying

whether he was having an affair, feeling unloved, because he

didn’t want a baby from me. (Kapur, 144).

Ida does not tell anything to her mother because she feels glad that in the

choice of her husband at least she has pleased her mother: “He was what you

respected, a successful academic, a writer of books, a connoisseur of culture, a

disseminator of knowledge” (Kapur, 144). Now, after going through so much

of trauma, she understands her mother’s sorrow and suffering.

Thus, in this story of difficult daughters, there is one more daughter, Ida

who is the narrator also. The plight of Virmati becomes more significant when

we realize that she is rejected not only by her mother but also by her daughter.

In the very beginning of the novel we are informed that Ida does not want to

become like her mother: “The one thing I had wanted was not to be like my

mother” (Kapur, 1). She is a divorcee, childless and lives an isolated life like

her mother, a fact which her relatives associate with her mother’s way of life:

“But with Virmati for mother, it is not strange that such a thing should happen”

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(Kapur, 3). Ida does not have any clues about the extraordinary life of her

mother as she has always known her as a “silent, brisk and bad-tempered”

woman. After her death, Ida finds a faded photograph of her mother in her

youth which sets off the train of memories:

I peer at the face and see beauty and wistful melancholy. Should

my memory persist in touching her, the bloom will vanish into

the mother I knew, silent, brisk and bad-tempered. I stare at this

early photograph of an unknown woman and let despair and

sorrow run their course. I could not remember a time it had been

right between us, and guilt that her life had kept in check now

overwhelmed me (Kapur, 2).

The urge to read the unread pages of her mother’s life is not simply to

know more about her as a mother or as a woman, it also becomes a quest for

her own self. As Pallavi Rastogi points out:

Mother-daughter relationship marches from identification to

alienation. Years later – through Ida marching from alienation to

identification.

In Difficult Daughters we do not listen to Virmati’s voice. She

could speak out, being certainly situated at the juncture of two

operations – colonialism and patriarchy. What we have is her

daughter’s reconstruction and representation (Rastogi, 110).

The past of Ida’s mother had been kept a secret from her. After being

able to unravel her past life, Ida can identify with her. She used to blame her

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mother for her present condition, for her disastrous marriage and for being like

“a pencil notation on the margins of society” (Kapur, 258). But now she can

empathize with her, and understand her apprehensions and anxieties in a better

way:

For long periods I was engulfed by melancholy, depression, and

despair. I would lie in bed for hours, unable to sleep, pitying

myself for all I didn’t have, blaming my mother, myself. Now her

shadow no longer threatens me. Without the hindrance of her

presence, I can sink into her past and make it mine. In searching

for a woman I could know, I have pieced together material from

memories that were muddled, partial and contradictory (Kapur,

258).

Virmati’s cousin, Shakuntala is also a significant character in the novel.

She serves as an example of those women who dare to live their lives on their

own terms and are not dependent on men for their happiness. Shakuntala is a

lecturer in a college at Lahore whose responsibilities go way beyond a husband

and children. She decides to remain a spinster to pursue her career and is

happy, but her mother and her aunt seem unhappy. Kasturi remarks:

‘Still, it is the duty of every girl to get married,’

‘Hai re, beti! What is the need to do a job? A woman’s shaan is

in her home. Now you have studied and worked enough, shaadi.’

Here Kasturi’s eyes glistened with emotion. ‘After you get

married, Viru can follow.’ (Kapur, 102).

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In our society if a girl declares not to marry, she is not be accepted and

people make fuss about her as a patriarchal threat but if a man decides to

remain unmarried, he is accepted. Through the character of Shakuntala, the novel

presents the contrast between the non-acceptance of women freedom when the whole

nation was united together to fight for independence. The novelist hints at the attitude and

perceptions of the Indian society that does not consider women as free individuals. As

Shakuntala says to Virmati: “These people don’t really understand Viru, how

much satisfaction there can be in leading your own life, in being independent.

Here we are fighting for the freedom of the nation, but women are still

supposed to marry, and nothing else” (Kapur 15).

The novel Difficult Daughters is about a woman torn between family

duty, and the desire for education and love. It Through the sensitive portrayal

of three generations of women and their problems, Manju Kapur has given us

an unforgettable picture of the evolution of the Indian woman’s psyche

overtime, starting from the pre-independence period through the independence

era up to the time of the post–independence. We see feminist leanings at the

outset in the portrayal of Shakuntala and Virmati who make their own choices

in life. The later developments seem to spell out that women who go against

tradition are sure to be singled out and oppressed by society, rejected even by

their own mothers. Their relationship with their mother becomes the first

casualty. And the seeds they bear are handed down to the next generation. Due

to the difference in times, the generation gap becomes too wide to be bridged.

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Even the common experience of child bearing did not bring them together,

unlike in usual mother–daughter relationship.