Sudha Murty

According to Hinduism the female was created by Brahman as part of the duality in creation, to provide company to men and facilitate procreation, progeny and continuation of family linage. The Vedas suggest that a woman’s primary duty is to help her husband in performing obligatory duties and enable him to continue his family tradition. Her primary duty is to give birth to his children and take care of them. Hinduism is a predominantly male dominated religion. Woman play a secondary role. The situation is gradually changing. It is difficult to draw generalizations about the status of present day Hindu women because of society is complex. In general, life in cities is much different from life in the rural areas. Those who live abroad live in different conditions than those who live in the country. Yet, we have ample indications that women are still subject to many restrictions and disabilities in rural area as well as urban areas. The financial independence of woman and the education levels of the family play an important role in this regard. Women in urban areas face numerous challenges in their professions and personal lives. But overall, life is better for them compared to the past. Love marriage outside of the caste or community are scorned and sometimes the couples are killed or excommunicated by the elders in the family or village. Widows can now have a life of their own and even remarry. They draw a lot of sympathy. But

Occasion: Indian misconceptions, mistreatments, stereotypes, and discriminations all affected Alexie on his educational highway and served as a basis for the writing of “Indian Education”.

“Those who failed were ceremonially accepted by other Indians and appropriately pitied by non-Indians.”. According to Sherman Alexie the Indian culture are expected to fail and how the Indians accept that they all do not know much. He hates that this is the case so he wants them to change the way they think. He also talks about the lack of education in the reservations and how they can change it. The author expresses the struggle of bad reading and writing education for Indians, and persuades that he wants the Indian youth to have a better education.

Upper caste women may undergo dramatically different experiences than lower caste women. For example, lower caste women do not practice sati, because it is mostly prevalent among upper caste women. Thus, they may not comprehend how sati may function as a tool of control of female sexuality. On the other hand, upper caste women may not comprehend the experiences of widow-remarriage as practiced by lower caste women. Granted that, Mohanty makes a great point by asserting that it is impossible to analyze and treat Indian women as an ahistorical and monolithic group of people. Indian women are heterogeneous, and significant attention must be given to the components of race, class, imperialism. Furthermore, given their background, many of Western feminists in India were supporters of the colonial government and saw themselves as agents of the civilizing mission. They believed that Indian women were incapable of speaking for themselves, and thus were also incapable of liberating themselves. They disregarded that Indian women were victims of both British imperialism and the patriarchal Indian society, and thus the oppression they faced greatly differed from that of Western women. If anything, western women participated in their

They conclude with the huge difference that is being live between the two generations. But what they reflect is the importance that the Indian culture gives to the family, they say that the family is very important and whether they young folks are entering to a new world they still keep their roots with them.

As a result of these reviews, the ongoing reconstruction of the social status and roles of Hindu women has brought about many new changes in Hinduism. Some of these changes include changes in education, health measures, problems of early marriages, the positions of widows, and the representation of women in governing bodies (Desai, et al., 1995). For example, within Hinduism now,

A person’s heritage and cultural identity may be lost when moving to a new country where the culture is different and other cultures are not easily accepted. In the short story “Hindus”, Bharati Mukherjee uses setting, characters and the plot to discuss what it is like to lose your cultural identity while being a visible minority in America. Mukherjee uses the plot to describe the events that take place in the main characters life that lead her to realize how different the culture and life is in the America’s. She also uses the characters as a way of demonstrating how moving away from one’s culture and heritage can change a person’s perspective and ways of thinking. Mukerjee also uses setting in her story to identity the physical differences in culture between living in India and America. Alike the setting and characters, the plot helps describe the loss of culture with a sequence of events.

”xiii Indian society is no different when it came to what they expected of their women. In a song composed by a Buddhist nun Sumangalamata, the composer exclaims of her new freedom. She defines herself as “a woman well set free!” and explains that she is free “from kitchen drudgery” and free “from the harsh grip of hunger, from empty cooking pots, (and most importantly) free too of that unscrupulous man.

The voluntary practice of Sati, meaning “good women”, was originally linked to Hinduism in 908 CE. Although Sati was not required, about a hundred women a year practiced this custom. Women who burned themselves to death on their husband’s funeral pyres were seen as brave. Furthermore, Sati was said to bring redemption to the dead husband even end the cycle of death and rebirth for the families. Sati represented the traditional repression of women in Hindu India as well as the difficult lives and decisions widows had to face. Although the sacrifice of widows was at its height in the 6th century, it continued through the 14th century and was only abolished in the mid 1800’s (Sati). The caste system in India was the source for societal divides that dominated India. The caste system developed along with Hinduism and it controls everything from who can marry who, what work Indians can do and

Although every caste in the World State is meticulously conditioned to accept the hand they are given, there are still many citizens who are dissatisfied with the quality of life available to them in society. Knowingly or unknowingly, these outliers reject their conditioning and strive for something more, whether it be adversity, danger, or passion.

“Kochinnenako in Academe” by Paula Gunn Allen exposes the problems not only with the distortion of traditions/texts through interpretation, but the distortion of the purpose of life in general when perspective is limited. I strongly agreed with Allen’s statement regarding the translation of the harmonious, balanced tribal story into a very linear and shallow western story. Allen accurately states “Soon there appear to be heroes, point of view, conflicts, crisis, and resolution…the result is a western story with Indian characters”(Allen 31). After reading through the essay I drew the conclusion that prevalent forces such as western society, tend to obscure the “backgrounds” (other aspects of life), leading to the promotion of a unidimensional, unbalanced lifestyle that is heavily dictated by material gain and loss.

Since the beginning of the world woman has been considered or viewed as objects of man. Our place has always been at home cleaning, cooking, taking care of the children, and as sexual slaves of man. Comparing the situation of woman in the Ancient India with the one in the Inkan society, it is notable that even though years passed or culture changed women’s role was always the same, one more male chauvinist than the other but still the same repression with us. In the Ancient India, as in many traditional civilizations, males had superiority about females. According to the men of that society and many others, women were considered an economic burden, since women were viewed as being unable to do work outside the home.

The heterogeneity of the Indian experience reveals that there are multiple patriarchies, contributing to the existence of multiple feminisms. Hence, feminism in India is not a singular theoretical orientation; it has changed over time in relation to historical and cultural realities, levels of consciousness, perceptions and actions of individual

As India is a multi culture and multi identities country so it most or less affected by the problem of patriarchy. So in this term paper I want to explore the structure and problem of patriarchy as a social issue in India through lens of three different genres. I have selected a, Arunthati Roy as

On the other he has to undergo a heart-breaking loss. He has to tolerate, the loss of power and position to which he reconcile himself with plenty seriousness and concern. This loss of family relationship is one of major issues in Indian society that Kiran Desai relates in this novel.