##ity Of Life In Mahasweta Devi's 'Giribala'

To highlight this topic, Kristof and WuDunn relate the history of Meena Hasina, an Indian woman in her thirties as she walks down the street while adults stare at her, some even glowering – this reflects how bad gender inequality is in some developing countries, to the point of not even being able to walk on the street. Kristof explains that Meena was from a poor family that sold her to a brothel. Of all the possible ways to raise money like reaching out to a foreign non-government organization (which offers incentives to set up stalls so women can start their own business selling goods), or joining an activist group to promote education to young girls, her family simply saw no value in Meena and decided to sell her. Meena ended up in a brothel, but the authors also use this event to thoroughly develop on the abuse of women. Kristof clarifies that once women enter into the brothels business they feel worthless with no hope; in fact, society looks them as a sub-level of illiterate girls with the sole purpose of prostitution – which is absolutely false. The problem here is that women feel rejected by society and are psychologically traumatized as is the case of Ainul the family matriarch in Meena’s brothel. She had been herself a prostitute when she was young, and eventually her daughters were also forced into prostitution. Ainul was so shattered that eventually she became the woman in charge of beating up new girls and finally in charge of the brothel forcing the daughters of other women into prostitution. In this case, the authors pointed to the fact that society forces women into sexual slavery, and that they get punished when they try to escape, so in turn, women exploit more

She has been instructed that a woman’s only goal is to be a dutiful wife and daughter-in-law. She is a post-graduate and has served as a teacher in a school for eight years. She married Swaminathan who is qualified and well set in life. Her mother-in-law symbolizes the cruelty that woman carry out on womanhood. After bearing two daughters and a son, and serving her mother-in-law with uncompromising devotion for seventeen years she realizes the emptiness of her life. She is shocked to know that she has all along been exploited both by her husband and mother-in-law. Girija’s mother-in-law selfishly makes her observe strict rules of austerity and piety described in Tamil as “madi” and

Village girls are pushed into prostitution and middle-aged married woman end up divorced, when newly rich men dabble in vice. Yet when fast-changing lifestyles provoke a traditionalist backlash, patriarchy reasserts itself with a vengeance. Girl babies get aborted or murdered in their cribs to make way for male heirs, when inflation bids up dowries and social pressures depress birth rates,. When the resulting skew in the

In spite of the fact that the story is particularly about a West Indian mother's "sex preparing" her youthful little girl for her approaching female household part, it could be about any family, about any culture, and about any pre-adult girl's association with her mom. Its objectives, restrictions, mandates, cross examination, "how to's" and allegation propose the all inclusiveness of mother-little girl connections and the certainty

In the book, Arranged Marriage, by Chitra Divakaruni there are multiple stories that demonstrate arranged marriages from within the Indian culture. In some cases, arranged marriages work out better than others. However, in the short stories in her book, most don’t work out positively. In the short stories, “The Bats” and “The Disappearance”, the arranged marriages don’t work out. Chitra Divakaruni’s viewpoint on arranged marriages is clearly negative, due to violence, and the effect on children.

In Chapter one Mathangi Subramanian describes how she went back to India in 1999 when she went was nineteen. She describes how even though she was nineteen her grandmother was asking “ Mathangi when are you going to get married” and her mother tells her grandmother “ that I always told her and her brother that they should be independent”. This story remind me of my own mother who raised me and my siblings to be independent and that we should only marry someone if we are in love. She wanted us to focus on our education and the things that we love such as running, reading, and dancing. Many young girls are not taught independence at a young age, but pressure to get married before they become “too old”. In addition, in this article Subramanian

By nineteenth century, a myriad of men and women left the homes in their homeland and traveled to the exotic and mystified country of India, where they tried to replicate their own society. The women led hidden lives, out of the history books, often supporting their husbands’ conquests and even

To many, the talk of gender inequality would not come as a surprise because it is an issue of global interest. Women have been looking for their respectable place in societies in various ways and for various reasons. They continue to play their roles as wives or mothers and succeed in these roles due to their caring and motherly nature (Buddhanet.net, 2016). This alone is the basis of how women are generally perceived universally. Nonetheless within different societies and traditions, the role of women differs but yet entrains the footing mentioned earlier of motherliness and caring abilities. One example can be observed in the Kathmandu Valley, where there are young Newari girls regarded as Kumari’s.

In Hindu culture, the sex of a baby is more significant than in western cultures. In eastern countries, boys are revered and cherished while girls are considered “curses” since being born a girl brought to the father the burden of paying a dowry. This type of gender hierarchy is exemplified in Mukherjee’s novel by Jasmine’s statement, “I had a ruby-red choker of a bruise around my neck and a sapphire fingerprints on my collarbone after my birth. When I revealed this to Taylor’s wife, […] she missed the point and shrieked at my ‘foremothers’ […]. My mother was a sniper. She wanted to spare me the pain of a dowryless bride” (Mukherjee 40). Mukherjee utilizes Jasmine’s nonchalant description of her near death experience coupled with her rationalization to show that the brutal treatment of baby girls is a common occurrence in her culture. Conversely, the reaction of Taylor’s wife is a metaphor for the western perception that the conduct of Jasmine’s mother is a form of barbarism. By using Jasmine’s birth, Mukherjee exposes the realties of a male patriarchal society in which girls bring considered dilemmas to families.

The manner in which myth, religious dogma and tradition are used to control a woman’s freedom and block her natural impulses to live and grow as men do, and the manner in which her education and career are purposely delimited to deprive her of freedom from dependency are revealed as the two powerful social forces that delay the development of the Indian female child. Kapur’s female protagonists are mostly educated, hopeful individuals cages within the norms of a conservative

The main protagonist Prem, a Hindi teacher with a second class B.A., in Mr. Khanna’s private college in Delhi and the other representative of his class Sohanial confront against several social and familial realities which are the consequence of Indian planning. The break –up of the joint family and the mashrooming of nuclear family have created some problems in Indian society and then there is need for new adaptations and adjustments. This phenomenon as a feature of the new India comes in Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s fiction for

Once upon a time, she was a wealthy woman in Bengali, theere, she feed the poor on festival days. But after came to calcatta, she did not have any wealth, even, she does have good food to eat, wear dirty clothes and sleep on the old newspapers. Lahiri used ,some metaphors in this story, cocunut trees, cattle, rosewood and women with saries. Using metaphors described about not only person and also thing. She has given a plase by the Bengali people and every day, she sleep unter the letter box. Bengali people of those appartments give her food and other items but still, they considers her “as a refuge” and she consiter her herself also “ an outsider”. She feels herself, she has no place in the world. She faced double trouble, that is, she is not Indian and also belongs to the lower caste. According to Gayatri C.Spivak, the caste system of India is worse than “racism” of other countries and calls both India and United states “bad, but in different ways.”(13)

Haimabati’s persona in the narrative reveals two contradictory aspects of her position and situation in the social and medical history for women in 19th century Bengal. In a sense she was radical, taking decisions for herself, rejecting Brahminical Hinduism, remarrying a Brahmo, and pursuing at great risk her ambition to get educated and become self-sufficient. During her wanderings in search for education and a better life, after she left Benares, she met a woman ‘ruined’ and deserted by the man she hoped to marry. Haimabati immediately becomes sympathetic and calls her ‘sister’, showing true female solidarity. From her own experience of being a child-wife, subjected to the traumatic experience of a middle-aged man’s lust and attempted

Inside The Haveli is a novel that defines a few bad customs like purdah- traditions, narrow-mindedness, women exploitation, girls’illiteracy and child marriage prevailed in a Rajputana haveli of Udaipur in Rajasthan, India that is symbolic of prevalence of all these bad customs, rituals and rules in all over India. The novel is an attack on traditinal mam dominating society. Almost whole story revolves around the haveli where females are deprived of their right and liberty and where the birth of a girl- child is considered bad.

She serves with a hope of salvation. But irony of her fate prevents her dream to be fulfilled. She becomes the symbol of betrayed motherhood. Not only as a mother but also as a wife or ‘servant’ she is not given proper respect and honour. But hope does not die before the death of Jashoda. She expected till the end that someone would hold her hand. The tragic feeling is less forceful than the suffering she tolerated both physically and emotionally. Mahasweta Devi at some point rejected to be considered as a feminist in this context of the story of ‘Jashoda’. She perhaps tried to show her beyond sex, gender and class. The hypocrisy and domination of a capitalist society is probably the main concern for her where the person like Jashoda suffers as a ‘proletariat’ in the hands of patriarchal ‘bourgeois’ forces. Jashoda is a milk producing machine, who only produces for her benefit of its master and thereby, after losing efficiency rejected as a useless scrap. Religious beliefs and mythological concepts are used as only a hegemonic tool to control and exploit the innocence self of Jashoda. She is conceptualised as merely to expect from and provide, never to be returned in any term. Rather she is represented not worthy to be compensated at all. This condition of jashoda reminds us of a famous short story, The Ox by H.E.Bates where Mrs.Thurlow serves her family, husband and children like a ‘beast of burden’. At the end she is also betrayed and brutally left in this lonely world to suffer. So the patriarchal and capitalist domination in this materialistic world over the women has become a pattern through the Ages. Mahasweta Devi has furthermore extended the ambit of exploitation and treachery of this hypocritical world cantered only around money and power. The prolific exploitation of the political system is also a