Rudali

Mahasweta Devi’s short story, “Giribala,” is about the life of Giribala, a girl of Talsana village located in India. Born into a caste in a time when it was still customary to pay a bride-price, Giri is sold to Aulchand by her father. From this point on, we see a series of unfortunate, tragic events that take place in Giri’s life as a result of the circumstances surrounding Giri’s life. There are many issues in Giri’s life in India that Devi highlights to readers. First, the economic instability of the village leads to an extremely poor quality of life for the lower, working classes. Next, the cruel role of women determined by men in society is to either satisfy the sexual desires of men or to reproduce offspring who can work or be sold off to marriages. There are also other social norms and beliefs which discriminate against women that will be discussed.

This paper attempts to examine the fictional projections of Indian girls, to see how they emerge in ideological terms. Their journeys from self-alienation to self-adjustment, their childhood struggles against the hypocrisies and monstrosities of the grown-up world, eventually demolishing the unjust male constructed citadels of power that hinder their progress- are the highlighted issues. The point of comparison between the two novels focused on here is the journey of Rahel in The God of Small Things and Sai in The Inheritance from a lonely childhood to a tragic adulthood passing through a struggle with the complex forces of patriarchal society. Both the novels portray the imaginativeness, inventiveness, independence, rebelliousness, wide-eyed wonder and innocence associated with these young girls.

Money can earn status and social responsibility. Despite her upper caste birth, Jashoda in ‘Breast-Giver’ is not in a dominating position because her family is awfully poor. On the other hand the Haldars, who hold a lower position in social hierarchy, can dictate terms because of their affluence. It is her stark poverty that compels Jashoda to earn her living by breast –feeding the children of the Haldar family where the daughters-in-law can afford to refuse to suckle their own children for keeping their figures attractive. Gayathri Chakravorthy Spivak in her essay ‘A Literary Representation of the Subaltern: Mahaswetha Devi’s Stanadayini ‘Breast-Giver’ has justly commented on the role of economy in defining subalternity. She argues that even the Brahminical identity of Jashoda is brutalized in this story: This --- identity is a cover for the brutalizing of the Brahmin when the elite in caste is subaltern in class. In the case of class-manipulation, Poverty(is) the fault of the individuals, not an intrinsic part of a class society, in the case of caste manipulation, the implicit assumption is the reverse, the Brahmin is systematically excellent , not necessarily so as an individual ( Spivak,

Dreaming of Tombstones (133-188): A Summary and Critical Analysis of Gender Issues in “City Requiem, Calcutta: Gender and the Politics of Poverty, Volume 10” by Ananya Roy

Gender inequality is expressed in India where women and girls do not have equal access to information and resources as men do. Throughout the documentary, I observed a great amount of inequality and discrimination based on gender and gender roles. Indian women and young girls are sadly mistreated, and neglected. For instance, young girls are forced to do manual labor as their bones are still forming, which is one of the causes of why Indian females have more fractures and severe back pain then males. Another reason why Indian women are abused is due to the massive amount of population causing criminal acts towards them to avoid human reproduction. Traditions and social norms remain extremely powerful in India, due to male dominance which empowers all. My perspective, based on this film would be conflict theory, which is a macro analytical view, as it looks at society as a competition for limited resources.

The oppression of women has plagued society for many centuries. Many cultures face despotism in various forms due to their cultures’ customs and beliefs. These cultures have set standards for women that have limited them in their abilities and choices. It is a problem that, to this day, women encounter. In literature, many authors have attempted to highlight the difficulties that women are faced with through their stories. Mahasweta Devi, author of “Giribala”, and Rabindranath Tagore, author of “Punishment” both discuss the issues of empowerment over women through the themes presented in their story; the liberation of women is a costly endeavor. Devi and Tagore both display a distinct idea of what liberation means, and how such freedom can be obtained with a cost through the depiction of two main characters who strive to gain their own freedom, and in the process, find themselves. Seeking and gaining complete freedom is a difficult task to fulfill. One must go to extreme lengths to escape the inequality that they are faced with.

The present paper focuses on Tehmina Durrani’s autobiographical novel My Feudal Lord, analysing the cultural and gender constructions, which are the source of women’s exploitation and their subjugation in a traditional society. It studies how the novelist is forced to encounter the brutal treatment by her husband. She faces the physical, sexual and psychological violence at her husband’s house. Yet at the end of the novel, the novelist gets ready to subvert all the cultural and gender roles assigned to her. Towards the end of the novel, she no longer remains a passive, subordinated person, rather by divorcing her husband in a conservative society, she proves herself to be an autonomous person having an identity of her own.

It also brings to notice the ever ongoing tussle between the will of heart and the will of the society, specially in the case of women who are forced by the society and by the already laid norms to defy what they actually want and be satisfied with what their family or the society want. The aspect of human selfishness, jealousy and greed are also depicted in the book.

Here Tendulkar develops a dramatic situation through unconventional ways of the protagonist. Sakharam, the protagonist, exploits women in the play. Tendulkar through Sakharam tries to establish a more dynamic and flexible vision of personal relationship in which socio–economic security is not the ultimate destination. The honest and unconventional relationship adopted by Sakharam seems to be a more desirable option to resolve the conflict born out of gender discrimination. Sakharm’s thesis of life presents a very vital argument that double dealing in the name of morality is more dangerous than the open display of the meanness existing in the human

In A Fine Balance, Mistry investigates the subaltern status of the Dalits and the impact of untouchability on politics. At that point, Mistry highlights the cruelty of political issues in this novel. Judith Fetterley expounds the power in politics: “Power is the issue in the politics of literature, as it is in the politics of anything else. To be excluded from a literature , that claims to define one’s identity is to experience a peculiar form of powerlessness” (492).

As an artist Kamala Markandaya’s fiction is concerned with change in feminine sensibility brought about by the social, economic and cultural forces, whereas Anita Desai’s major concern is about exploration of the psychological condition of the oppressed hyper-sensitive women. The synoptic views of Anita Desai and Kamala Markandaya’s portray the women protagonists in terms of the shifting sensibilities and changing attitudes of married Indian women. It also tries to analyze the portrayal of women characters that belong to rural and urban upper classes of Indian society. As an artist Kamala Markandaya’s fiction is concerned with

These literatures not only justify the injustice but glorify it. So Neo Dalitism is to critically deconstruct and reconstruct from the exploited point of view, the dalit

Later in the narrative, he shows the true colours of his male ego, abusing Haimabati for nothing, beating her at times, and jeopardising her professional life. At one point he got involved in a brawl with Haimabati’s superior at her workplace, and it was she who saved him from a legal action, by apologising for his conduct. He knew that he would never be able to earn himself, yet it was no longer bearable to his male ego to live on his wife’s income. Haimabati does not use any harsh word to describe these feats of her husband, but her sense of irritation is not always hidden, though she tried to wear a stoical calm and accept everything as God’s will. Her willing compromise with her husband’s abuses shows how internalised patriarchy could be: being otherwise so self-sufficient she kept herself subservient to the man who, she believed, showed the ‘generosity’ of remarrying her and providing her with a respectable status in society. These contradictions and complexities in Haimabati’s life, which Indrani Sen has also noticed (60) point towards an intriguing paradox in feminist history. Her struggle for identity, extraordinary despite all these contradictions, shaped her personality in two ways: by resisting patriarchy and by compromising with it.

History has witnessed where women were considered to be mere dependent individuals who does not have their own ‘self’ and ‘life’ as their faith before marriage was considered to be tied to their father and after marriage with their husband. That is why a widow’s life was considered as a burden on earth. Being a girl, none was motivated for education, no platform was built to set their career. But there are instances where history has also seen women in some of the powerful positions. As mentioned in the earlier chapter, while Jatra step down to Assam from Bengal, the women at that point had the only option to appreciate as a spectator from far off. The role of women was played by men itself and this continued for a long. By then came the theatre moment in Assam where women’s participation could not be considered so effortlessly. But later with the passage of time finally the presence of women can be marked both in Jatra and other forms of theatre. Girls would dress in different attires to represent mythological characters in Jatra. Young girls would love to dress up with heavy make-up and with great zeal and excitement, to perform their respective roles. People from nearby and far off villages would come to watch their performances. The loud applause of audiences give them immense motivation to carry on and especially being a woman to receive appreciation for their work

Anand Patwardhan’s documentary “Jai Bhim Comrade” is about Dalit movement and struggle for recognition of their identity and acceptance of their existence within socio-politico-economic milieu. The three hour long movie covers the time period of fourteen years, incorporating layered, personal narratives of Dalits, their aspirations and their desire to achieve what Ambedkar said in his one of the most radical texts “The Annihilation of Caste”, to dismantle the caste system. The film provides an insight into the cruelty and discrimination against Dalits, which has been ‘naturalized’ and institutionalized within our so-called progressive Hindu society. Patvardhan is trying to situate various personal narratives within the larger narrative of Dalit resistance and struggle. I personally found the movie extremely strong, which renders the audience literally speechless. It shakes one’s entire belief system and forces one to interrogate various pockets of society which collectively form the society as it is. The movie turns the notion of