Fasting Feasting by Anita Desai

‘Marrying Ameera’ is a novel written by Rosanne Hawke and it features a teenage girl called Ameera who is facing difficulties because of her father Hassan and his Pakistani cultural beliefs. Her father being greatly influenced by the Pakistani culture and beliefs wants his daughter to follow it too without any disagreeance. This makes him the creator of Ameera’s difficulties. Whilst Ameera lives in the Australian culture, she is making Hassan worried and Hassan is making decisions for Ameera, based on his beliefs and culture. Culture is also to blame for creating Ameera’s difficulties because honour is accomplished by the following culture.

In Santha Rama Rau’s story, “By Any Other Name,” she describes her experiences at the Anglo-Indian school to which she and her sister, Premila, are sent when Premila is eight and Santha is five and a half. Because the girls have been home schooled by their mother up to this point they find the transition to their new school strange and disconnecting. Santha’s sister, Premila, is initially willing to try and adapt to the culture and customs of her new environment; however, when a teacher is openly racist, Premila displays an impressive strength of character.

“Dadi’s Family” observes what a “traditional” family in Haryana, India is like and the issues / concerns the family faces in “modern” times. In the documentary "Dadi 's family", the film explores the concept of family and the roles that a woman play in life. The roles are daughter, sister, mother, mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, and sister-in-law. These roles are portrayed to us via various members of Dadi 's family. In this family, we have Dada and Dadi (grandmother and grandfather) as the head of the family. We have the two older sons, Meherlal and Mohinder who are married to Darshini and Sita respectively. The youngest son, Rajinder gets married to Kanta in the film. Dadi and Dada also have two daughters Anguri and Saroj who aren’t shown too much in the film but are married in other villages.

Dadi refers to the grandmother, "manager" of an extended family living in the Haryana region of Northern India. When dadi days family, she meant the male lineage with all their wives and children living as one economic unit. With everyone’s income managed by the oldest couple. This film explores the extended family and its problems, particularly through the women of Dadi 's family. The film also addresses the different roles women play in her lifetime, daughters, daughter-in-law, mothers, mother-in-law, sisters, sister-in-law, wives. It also reveals the difficult to fulfil each role. Some important aspect that the film touches on is also patriarchy and the influences of education in changing the status of women.

Other traditions in the family of Macarena she did not like was that for the Christmas dinner all had to be elegant because it was an important date. Macarena’s style was wearing jeans. Macarena’s mom had already bought a dress for the dinner event, but she did not know about it. Christmas day arrived and it was a labyrinth in the house of Macarena. Few hours left for the whole family coming. Macarena mom’s was stressed out, so they could not speak to her. The Christmas dinner started, the uncles, cousins and grandparents came. The house was full people, had laughter and happiness was throughout the house.

“Don't listen to him,” her mother says, taking her hand and leading her inside the small house, closing the door on him. “He'll come around, Awen, you'll see. Please, sit down. We have so much to get caught up on, and I just put dinner in the oven.”

An analogy has been drawn about how she was in the past and how is she now. She was a carefree person, demanding love in her life, wanting to take care of her children and become a house wife and now she works as a schoolteacher, has become a responsible person concerned about her husband and child, struggling for her son’s life, bearing tantrums of her sister-in-law and living in a small house in a small city. On the other hand, Komal, sister-in-law of Anjali is a character shown who seems to be frustrated from her life from the time she has lost her husband. The book has depicted another face of an Indian woman, who lives her entire life following the customs that the society has decided for a widow. Anjali tried to make her first marriage successful by taking care of small things like making her husband, his favorite cardamom chai and best of meals while Prakash’s second wife Indu was never concerned about any of his likings and gave priority to her own personal

"Oh look at the little picinanny" the grandmother exclaims, referring to a Negro child she sees as they are driving. She offers to tell the disorderly children a story if they will be quiet. She tells a them a story, in a dramatic fashion, about a man who she had once been courted by that she believed she

The door slammed several times as the church ladies helped by quickly carrying in the stack of dishes and the leftover food. Inside they peeked in to look at Ma for a last goodbye. The Miz Dovie made the mistake of asking if there was anything Alma needed before she left. Since she was sleeping peacefully, Alma let the preacher’s wife settle in the bedside chair to watch Ma, and raced to get as much done as possible in the few stolen minutes. She set plates and silverware in the sink in boiling water and soap and did the best to put away food.

Finally, Jayanti’s first exposure to the world outside her Aunt’s house and the events that lead after, changes who she really is,

The first characteristic of the Grandmother, in this story, is that she obtains everything what she wants. At the beginnings the reader can appreciate that she does not desire to go to Florida because she has family in Tennessee. She always tries to see the scene to her favor or her way when there is something against of her. Also, O’Connor creates an astute grandmother. An

The main character, the grandmother, gives an insight of the distraught tension within the family early on, exemplifying the existing relationships between family members. She convinces her son and his family to go on vacation with her to visit relatives, but ends up suffering terribly due to her poor judgment and beliefs, finally being forced to face the proper meaning of something bad. The grandmother portrays herself to be a good person by doing this, but is so much more evil than her facade in reality. In the story, O’Conner says, “In case of an accident, anyone

Having moved far from the misery of conventional archetypal women of long back, they think that its hard to stay as housewives. They soon find that their endeavors to accommodate themselves to homemaking just add to their sufferings. When they find that surrendering professional roles does not make them in at any rate happy at home, the female heroines look to escape from their domestic duties too. Giving up their roles as wives and mothers, they swing back to their parent's' homes. The parental homes get to be havens for their fretful souls. There they start their quest for knowledge and for an answer for their private hardships.

Sandra Cisnero grew up in a large family; she was the only daughter with six brothers. She had to try extraordinarily hard to prove that she was worthy and not only a girl but a human being. “Being only a daughter for my father meant my destiny would lead me to become someone’s wife.” When Cisnero was in grade five she informed her father that she was going to go to school. Surprisingly Sandra’s father approved of this notion but not because he was proud of her, but because he figured it was an ideal place to find a husband. Sandra worked hard in her studies and became a published author, but to her father’s dismay she was still unwed. Her father felt that she had wasted her education.” I wanted my father to understand what it was I was scribbling,

The novel Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee is an incredible story about the transformation and life experiences of a Panjabi girl from India. The life of Jyoti is told from her point of view when she is twenty-four years old, and pregnant with the baby of Bud Ripplemeyer, a crippled banker who is more than twice Jyoti’s age. During the span of two months in Iowa, Jyoti narrates her biographical experiences in Punjab and in America as she strives to become independent. Jasmine illustrates that when one’s relationships go through changes, it will impact one’s identity.