In Anita Desai's Novels, Existential Perspective

1. INTRODUCTION

Anita Desai was born on 14th June 1937 in Mussoorie. She is of Indian origin and is famous as a fiction writer. She wrote novels, short stories and children‟s stories, and became well reputed in the field of Indo-Anglian literature. Like other contemporary writer‟s of Indian-English literature, Anita Desai paved way for her recognition in the global map. Today she is the source of inspiration for many young aspiring writers Anita Desai‟s birth place Mussoorie, a quiet little hill-station, is close to Delhi. Anita Desai, christened as Anita Mazumdar was born of a German mother, Toni, Name and a Bengali businessman father D.V. Mazumdar. She belonged to an unconventional family which contributes a lot to nurture writing aspirations in her young mind. In an orthodox family, one cannot think and act freely which are the essential elements to be cultured and civilized. [1] Had Anita Desai not been attached to a well refined and unorthodox family, she would not have been so reputed and significant personality. During her childhood, she was intended to learn different languages such as German, Bengali, Urdu, Hindi and English. Gradually she acquired deep and wide knowledge of many languages which compounded her passion for literature. Without having immense knowledge in many languages, a person cannot have profound perception of different facts. A particular subject doesn‟t contain sufficient knowledge of the universe. She received her early education from Queen Mary‟s Higher Secondary School in Delhi. After it she earned her bachelor degree in English Literature from Miranda House, University of Delhi in the year 1957. To pass her adult life she chose Ashbin Desai and married him in the year 1958. Soon after completing her graduation from Delhi University, she engaged herself in the martial relation to accomplish her activities more successfully. Ashbin Desai was the director of a computer software firm and the writer of the book „Between Eternities: Ideas on Life and The Cosmos‟. The couple was endowed with four children in the following years. Among their children, Kiran Desai was destined to follow her mother‟s footsteps. By her genius and diligence, she acquired name and fame almost like her mother. [2]

She is one of the most excellent and famous novelists in Indian fiction in English today. She has written the remarkable as well as notable masterpieces to the world of literature. She is among the prominent Indo Anglian novelists. Her novels present social situations but she keeps greater significance on the findings of the inner-self because it is the inner self that determines the mark of a person. Srinivasa Iyengar is aptly said….

3. EXISTENTIALISM

Existentiality is the term for a collection of beliefs and concepts that have been expressed today in the works of individuals such as Sartre, Heidegger, Marcel, Camus and Jaspers. Although existentialist authors vary in their theory, a number of basic topics are typical. They highlight the distinct and unique experience in human life. Every guy decides to be or do it. Awareness is a prerequisite of genuine being for such freedom. Existentialists have demonstrated an impressive insight in their psychological investigations and have offered explanatory ideas that expand the field of moral knowledge and self-confidence. This is why their works are widely appealing. The existential philosophy has inspired many famous authors, including Dostoyevsky, Graham Greene, Patrick White, Joyce Cary, Conrad, Kafka, Colin Wilson, Paul Tillich, Martin Buber, Samuel Beckett, J.D. Salinger and Thomas Hardy. Their works offer a clear image of a guy in his environment who is a stranger. In a homeless condition, he is eternally condemned to roam in silent desperation, disobedience and a defeated man. In the Indian literary world many writers have written about existing philosophy to the extent that Anita Desai is a realist, although many others like R.K. Narayan, Kamala Markandaya, Raji Narasimhan, Vikram Seth, Aran Joshi, Tara Ali Baig, Salman Rushdie, Bharathi Mukheijee, Sasha Deshpande, R. W. Desai, etc. have not exploded existential philosophy. [4] By its intrinsic transistorizes, John Macquarie avoids defining existentialism. He adds, He says, "Existentialism is a phenomena that is too protean to are concerned with freedom, decision-making, responsibility, and the search for meaning, endurance, guilt, alienation, despair, death, anxiety, boredom, nausea and human beings' emotional lives. [5] The fourth dimension of time, human connections, sexuality, the issue of truth, nihilism, loss is additional repeated topics in existentialist literature. Existentialism thinkers right from Soren Kierkegaard down to Jean Paul Sartre have defined existentialism variedly highlighting only certain aspects of it. But no better definition of existentialism is available than the one given by F. H. Heinemann for the purpose of relating it to literature:

Viewed with regard to Macquarie‟s existentialist themes and Heinemann's suitable description of existentiality, Desai is basically an Indio-English fiction existentialistic writer since she believes 'the lasting human condition' to be significant.

Anita Desai's books contain existential thinking and are thus called existentialist grassroots. More than time she claims that she's interested in people and not in societal issues. A fundamentally subjective writer Anita Desai writes about her character's inner emotional world fighting the absurdities of life or attempting very honestly to deal with existentialist issues. [7] In the unsubstantial world, Anita Desai is ever wrestling with the endless search for significance, worth, freedom and truth. She said eloquently in a Yashodhara Dalmia interview, "One's concern can only be a continuous quest for meaning, fort worth, for daring to express it, for truth." Desai aims to investigate the state of humanity separated from social security. There are doubtful social sensitivities. They are rejected by the fair character. In isolation rather than socialization, he or she answers. This requires the fundamental uneasiness married to the sense of being but not being. This developmental process creates a connection between the work of Anita Desai and existential thinking. As existentialism focuses on the personal experience, the work of Desai aims to understand how the individual portage of being by means of the criterion of inner consciousness and to account for the feeling of non-being in some manner. The characteristics of all her wives are Maya, Monisha, Sita, Bim, and Nanda Kaul. Her protagonists are extremely creative and never make impassioned efforts to gain order 1n from the unorganized environment they are in. They are all affected by the fact that they refuse to comply. Past cannot provide comfort to them and present offers them no comfort. This awareness gives them new agony. [8]

Some of the key philosophers among the well-known existentialists' fundamental philosophical concepts are discussed, showing that some major concerns of existentialist thinkers are integrated into the books of Anita Desai. In their philosophical beliefs the existentialists differ considerably. But they all emphasize the meaning of a person, his freedom and his duty to be what he is, his position and role in the world and his connection or lack of one with God.

The start of existentialism is possible up to Kierkegaard. There are people in every era who detest rigour and discipline and abstract thinking pretensions, and put more importance to emotion. There is a similar approach to romanticism, Nietzscheism and Bergronism and existentialism is the most recent manifestation of the same mood. Kierkegaard developed in his Fear and the Shrines (1843), The Concept of Fear and Sickness to Death (1848) and other writings the belief that man may succeed in liberating him from tension and dissatisfaction and achieve peace of mind and spiritual peace via God and in God. In other terms, Kierkegaard insisted on subjectivity as 'Truth.' He refused to consider the object of God. He thought that if "God is truth," subjectivity is truth. In so much as a spiritual person or a pure subjectivity he becomes truth. [9] A person is unique in nature to Kierkegaard and insists that finding his own vocation is the most important good for the individual. He stated in his diary that a person has to discover the truth that he can live for or die for. The person always becomes or becomes a consequence of his inner desire for freedom and a constant Endeavour. There is uncertainty around him yet he chooses to take chances. The choice and decision of the individual is very personal. In Him does not choose any God or absolute, but for his behalf He does so. The conviction of Kierkegaard that you need to select your own path without the help of universal objective criteria resonates with other existential authors. Of course, the evolution of these characters in Where should we go this summer is very interesting? And Mountain Fire and Kierkegaard combine fear with the unique spirit-finding nature of man as body and soul. As it is made up, man is susceptible to strain and, comments:

This despair may take any one form: desperation because it is not ready to be one's self-desperation, despair because it is ready to be another person, that is, to want a new self. He wants to be another; the immediate guy helps himself in a different manner. As an advocate of religion, Kierkegaard plays a constructive role in despair. [10]

An important characteristic of existentialism is that existence precedes essence. Heidegger distinguishes clearly between being and essence or existence. Essence is something that does not exist. Essence means something. In the case of the self, being is experienced alone and is termed existence. In other words, you experience existence yourself. In other words, the existentialists are concerned with existence and not about essence. [11] The fundamental philosophical issue, according to Heidegger, is "the dilemma of being in an authentic or inappropriate way." As mentioned before, "being" is what is termed existence in its genuine form and "symbolically believed" is what is called being in its incorrect form. The separation from the essence of one's existence defines one's metaphysical freedom. Mary Warnock says while talking about Martin Heidegger's idea of a genuine life:

The man would be just an abstraction if he didn't exist among his fellow creatures and if his ideas, emotions and decisions didn't come from his place in the world. According to Heidegger, the human being is thrown into the world with a specific inborn character and intelligences (hineingeworfen). The scenario is not selected by the person, but everything occurs without his awareness and help. In human life Heidegger labels this deciding element "fate" (schicksal). For Heidegger, "anguish" (Angst) is another basic human feeling. Agony is not about death, it is death's anguish that is the end, nothing (das Nichts). When people experience this agony, they feel a sense of emptiness. This shows indirectly that our life is

insists on his requests instead than following hazy notions. Anita Desai in her books does not promote escapism, and tends to highlight the growth and collapse of these notions. [12]

The work of Jean Paul Sartre, the hierophant of contemporary existentialism, is another significant issue for existential thinking. The man is born into a kind of vacuum in Sartre's view (Ieheant), leading to a passive existence. But he may emerge out of his passive life when he becomes aware of himself and feels "agnnoisse." Then he would sense the absurdity and desperation of his life. This awareness provides him the energy to adopt choices that would help him to live and to give meaning to life and the cosmos by applying his answer. These ideas examined in context, according to Eric Fromm, are psychological needs: The existential struggle of men generates specific psychological demands that are shared by all men. He is obliged to face the agony of detachment, impotence and loss and to discover new ways of connecting with the world to make him feel at home. They are based in the fundamental circumstances of human life, which I have named existential psychic requirements they are shared by all people and are as essential for man's continuing health, as it is required to satisfy his biological desire to be alive. [13]

The religious existentialists, Jaspers and Marcel, describe a third key concern of the existentialist movement. The secret is concealed to both Jaspers and Marcel. Man perceives himself in action and volition and therefore is connected with the consciousness and the universe and in time. Existential self has its own restriction, which can only be symbolically understood and which gives a deep meaning to the world's existence. The fictionalization of the quintessence of existentialism is philosophically Anita Desai's Fire on the mountain. [14] Jaspers believes that man is aware of himself and his limits in our contemporary era. He is experiencing the world's fear and his own impotence. He addresses challenging questions face to face and seeks release and atonement. This is responsible for his misery, Topic of fear is written by jasper: He sets himself the greatest objectives by aware of his limitations. In the depths of selfishness and clarity of transcendingness he realizes the absoluteness. advancement as going from the weight of being to liberation. To have involves to have a load and to be signifies free from burden. Freedom from all wealth comes when one prepares oneself for everlasting life at the moment of death, says Marcel. Marcel. Death does not imply emptiness for him, but a step towards eternity, which is why his perspective is frequently characterized as Christian existentialist. Anita Desai tackles the subject of dying in her second book Voices in the City. The death of Monisha becomes important in changing the views of the main characters.

Camus finds a fundamental principle of existence in the human struggle against the circumstances of life that are one of humanity's basic aspects. A man rebelled if he refused to subject himself to a situation he deemed unbearable or if he confusedly believed that his stance was right. However, as frequently said, rebellion doesn't have any significance outside society. When the person is persuaded of the folly of his life, the spirit of revolt becomes more intense. Sorrow is an individual in an absurd experience and this emotion is shared with everyone and the whole human race suffers from separation between itself and the rest of the planet. Sometimes this sensation of oddity leads to suicide and assassination. The sad self chose the dark triumph which destroys the world instead of the painful limits. [15]

This is what takes place in the troubled psyche of Maya, Cry the Peacock's protagonist. Maya's mental breakdown leads her down the terrace and hurls Gautama to her death. Monisha kills herself alone in Voices in the cities, yet her death acknowledges a value that justifies her life.

The aim is to link them to the substrate of existentialist thinking or tensions that characterizes the Anita Desai novels and to categories the existential novels of Desai into six principles of existential philosophy - the existence of the previous essence, anguish, absurdity, alienation.

First, the fundamental existentialistic standpoint predates existence. Man is a conscious subject and exists as a self-aware and not as defined. Existialism states, "My conscious existence is nothing else than my own." The individual's choice for itself is stressed by Soren Kierkegaard, Kafka, Camus, Proust a, Sartre and others. R.K.Shringy's comments:

Maya, the heroine of the Cry the Peacock, worries that the astrologer's forecast of one early death could not be removed from her consciousness by reasons that are artificial, and that her concept of death could not be absorbed in the awareness. Her preoccupation with death leads her to a strange folly. She can't take life altering and she can't be the same again. Maya wants to love Gautama ardently since her love gives her life purpose and assists her in fulfilling her goals. She is trying, but in vain, to enter her world. She strives to remove the picture of her father from her memory. She thinks Gautama has no right to live with his beliefs of denial. He's the one who should die, she tells herself. Her craziness triumphs over her common reason and she kills Gautama in the final analysis. Cry the Peacock is thus a tragic self-awareness that reaches its borders. [16] Voices in the city focus on human futility in the lives of three sensitive people – Nirode and Monisha and Amla, his two sisters. Bent upon escaping from the harsh truths of the world, Nirode is deeply fascinated with failures. Camus said, "Eternal pain would at least offer us a fate by fault of endless pleasure. But we have no comfort, and one day, our deepest agony ends. The death of Monisha puts a stop to his revolt. Nirode's ultimate reconciliation is his desire to touch, feel and immerse him and to participate in the pain of others. Like Maya, Monisha is a young bride who cannot conform to marital expectations. She insists on the limits of a conventional Hindu household. Like Nirode, Monisha is looking for freedom and loneliness and seclusion. Suddenly, she is aware that she has lost all the right to exist. She is confined to her own private jail for disengagement from the material worries of the family. Suicide of Monisha is an effort to give its self its significance in death. In contrast to her sister Amla could think clearly, and also her heart, and she places the focus on life, is on the correct spot. Therefore the basics of life are Nirode, Amla and Monisha. Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard believed that recognizing not just a fear of particular things but also a sense of anxiety that he referred to as terror is spiritually important. He saw it as God's method of asking everyone to dedicate themselves to a way of life that is personal. In the work of the 20th century, the term anxiety (German anxiety) is equally important. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger is convinced that fear leads to a confrontation between the individual and the null and the impossible to discover the ultimate explanation of his or her actions. Choice is key to human life and you can't avoid IT in his book The Courage to Be, Paul Tillich addressed the topic of worry. "Man is attracted to and lost his subjectivity in the realm of things. He points out. But he still knows what he lost or is losing continually. He is still a man sufficient to feel his dehumanization as desperation. The term nausea in the philosophy of Sartre is used to recognize the person's pure contingency and to recognize the complete freedom of choice that the individual faces at all times with the word pain. Maya finds it hard to accept her husband's and father's perspective of life. To embrace its perspective, it must renounce its destiny, and thus must die as the soothsayer predicted, so as to expire the crimes of an unforeseen existence. In a nightmare like this, Maya screams in anguish: "Father, Brother, husband, who is my savior, I've got one in need. This sorrow causes Maya to seek the moon's redemption.

The agony of Monsha comes from the knowledge that between death and mean existence she had to pick. It wasn't a hard decision, and she felt that death was best for her. The childhood of Nirode comes from his remembrance of her husband's unfaithfulness to her mother. The nights around Nirode's mother are also Nirode's way of working, testing the environment. Nirode, once wounded and deceived, believes that all communication efforts are futile and condemned to ruin. He is an eyewitness because he cannot bear the weight of his history and pursue a life of societal responsibility.

bsurdity is another existential thinking that distinguishes the books of Anita Desai. These statements are a manifestation of absurdity by Blaise Pascal who was also an early pioneer of existentialism and the French mathematician and Descartes philosopher:

do not know, I am afraid and I am amazed that I am not here, why not there. Mrs. Desai's non-conformist attitude indicates that reality is intolerable. They are ready to disengage from it by finding their participation harmful. But seclusion is not conducive to them. This causes individuals to realize that life alone is worthless, regardless of their chosen route. Arjuna rebel against his father's expectations, the demands of his family and the norms of high middle class living in Cry the Peacock, He asks his dad to purchase an ear for a bicycle, spends his time in lower class slums and makes friends with his own dhobi's kid Hari. He does everything because he considers life pointless, particularly since it is lived by his father who, without inquiry, follows all societal standards. [17] Voices in the City examine the fierce assaults of life in the metropolitan monster of Calcutta carefully. Their futile ridiculous life tortures Nirode, Monisha and Amla. In commenting on the absurdity of literature Eugene Ionesco, a prominent French author of ridiculous theatre, says that "man is lost from his theological, philosophical and transcendental origins; he is all meaningless, silly and unnecessary." Human beings are an isolated existing seeking in an alien world for truth, worth and purpose. Like a genuine existential, Nirode, the hero of the book, does nothing in the pursuit of a sense of life. This existential search for purpose in life ultimately leads him to a few achievements. Monisha, Nirode's married sister, is similarly empty inside and outside. Monisha's relationship with Jiban, who is quite well off, was mainly characterized by solitude and while she frantically attempts to find a true purpose in life, she ultimately feels totally dissatisfied. Amla, too, is by no means immune to the existential hollowness and absurdity of her existence. Sita, the heroine of Where Shall We Go This Summer, has a monotone, pointless, violent existence and refuses to live like this because it is impossible for her husband's family to accept women. She indulges her troubled mind in outlandish acts. "In a world abruptly without illusions and light, man feels a stranger, as Camus stated in the myth of Sisyphus (1942). His banishment is irreparable. This separation between man and his existence, between the performer and his environment, is really the sensation of absurdity.

The novelist's language and topic show crucial connections between the characters' psychological states. Mrs. Desai's main interest is the plight of the married lady in contemporary Indian culture. Her ladies become victims of old forms of living in the taught to be timid, modest, and obedient as children. She tries to portray the restrictive and unfeeling spousal relationship with this sort of traditional setting. As a result, Mrs. Desai depicts women's unhappiness in Indian culture. She has dealt with topics of violence against women in a creative and truthful manner.

[1] Mahajan, V.D. (1981). British Rule in Indian and After. New Delhi: S. Chand and Co, Ltd. p. 511. [2] Naik, M. K. (1984). A History of Indian English Literature. Sahitya Academic. New Delhi : Steriling Publishers, 1984. p. 31. [3] Shashi, Deshpande (1991). On the Writing of a Novel: Indian Women Novelists. Vol. 5. ed. R.K. Dhawan New Delh i : Prestige Publishers, p. 34. [4] Ibid p. 320. [5] Mahale, HS (1985), Indo – Anglian Fiction, New Delhi: Jamson [6] Maini, DS & Sharma, KK (1977), The Achievement of Anita Desai, in IndoEnglish Literature, Vimal, Ghaziabad [7] Maini, DS, Sharma, KK (eds.) & Ghaziabad (eds.) (1977), Achievement of Anita Desai, Indo-English Literature, Vimal. [8] Malhotra, MJ (1971), Anita Desai: A Writer with a Promise, in Bridges of Literature, Sunanda Publication, Ajmer [9] Maslow Abraham (1971), The Father Reaches of Human Nature, Harmandsworth, Pelican. [10] Meena Shirwadkar (1979), Images of Women in Indo-Anglian novel, Sterling, New Delhi. [11] Mehta, PP (1968), Indo-Anglian Fiction, An Assessment, Bareilly, Prakash Book Depot. [12] Moore, T & Harry (1977), The Collected Letters of DH Lawrence, London: William Heinemann Ltd., vol. 1. [13] Mukherjee Meenakshi (1978), The theme of displacement in Anita Desai and kamala [14] Narayan, A & Shyamala (1982), Where shall we go this summer: A review„, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, vol. 16, no. 2. [15] Pandeya Shiva, M (1989), Studies in modern fiction, Vikas Publishers, New Delhi. [16] Parikh Bharati Ashok (1984), Cry, the peacock: A critical analysis„, Journal of the Maharaja Sayagi Rao, University of Baroda, no. 34 [17] Prasad Madhusudan (1981), Where shall we go this summer? a critical study„, The Rajasthan Jounral of English Studies, no. 14.

Research Scholar, Swami Vivekanand University, Sagar