A Study on Contemporary Indian Women Writers

Exploring Women's Empowerment Through Contemporary Indian Literature

by Sangeeta Sharma*,

- Published in Journal of Advances and Scholarly Researches in Allied Education, E-ISSN: 2230-7540

Volume 9, Issue No. 18, Apr 2015, Pages 1 - 7 (7)

Published by: Ignited Minds Journals


ABSTRACT

Writers do advocate change as simplya friendly request however it remains a confined area. In today's reality, there are women though uneducated yet who might never give up. These writers do not really focus on any person going through mental issues, rather they focus on empowering women by describing accounts of gutsy women, showing them as guides to battle against the direcircumstances of their life. Though each of thenarratives need not have a methodology yet most narratives do have one. Innovative systems are not needed each time rather each portrayal must reach to the spirit of the perusers. The women writers whom I have chosen for my work have taken up issues identified with the situation/s with women in India. It is worth focusing that women have in enormous number taken up their pen since it has permitted them to make their own reality. It has permitted them to set the states of their presence/s, liberated from the immediate impedance of men. Therefore this composing turns into a protected spot from where they can investigate a wide scope of involvement fiction by women writers establishing a significant section of the contemporary Indian writing in English. All things considered, women despise an equivalent status with men. Indeed, even today a wedded woman who makes too much of her calling or academic career is disapproved of. In the current day literary world, it has led to at least a few incredible women as creative writers in every single Indian language.

KEYWORD

contemporary Indian women writers, advocate change, empowering women, gutsy women, dire circumstances, narratives, women's issues, Indian literature, female empowerment, gender inequality

INTRODUCTION

The women writers whohave been chosen here for this work, have taken up issues identified with the situation with women in India. It is worth focusing on that women in enormous number, have taken up their pen since it permitted them to make their own reality. It has permitted them to set the stage of presence, liberated from the immediate impediment from men. Composing thus, turned into a protected spot from where they can investigate a wide scope of involvement Fiction by women writers establishes a significant fragment of the contemporary Indian writing in English. All things considered, women detest an equivalent status with men. Indeed, even today a wedded woman who makes too much of her calling or academic career is disliked. In the current day literary world, there are a few incredible women creative writers in every Indian language. It is likewise a fact that every one of the women's composing need not really be consistently a women's rights activist. However, while going through the novels of these three extraordinary writers, it is assembled that women's activist understandings can arise through their ability to go against and can be interpreted in other ways too. It could be surmised that the establishment of marriage has been the focal point of fascination for most of them. The sufferings of Indian women, conjugal disharmony, existentialism, outrage, and double practice are the other significant subjects of women's activist composition. Among these women's activist writers - Kamala Markandaya, Anita Desai and Shashi Deshpande, the threesome of my examination subject here, possess a significant spots of the same. A quick look at their works and the basic topic would be significantly suitable in my first section. Kamala Markandaya's women characters, overall, are conventionalist i.e. they act as per set culturalnorms and morals concerning their relationship with their husbands, families and men. Undoubtedly, women are involved as focus of stage, in these novels like Nectar-in-a-Sieve, Some Inner Fury, Possession, and Two Virgins. Women in her novel are capable of the insight of give and take as well as change. They have a praiseworthy strength to confront the cataclysms of life. The title Nectar-in-a-Sieve itself doesn't recommend the weakness of the battle. The fundamental hero Rukmani is ready to acknowledge affliction, acclimate to better approaches forever, oblige other's perspective and excuse the slip by her kin. Rukmani can hold her distinction regardless of being conventionalist and conservative. Moreover, Sarojini in Silence of Desire faces the difficulties of existence with a feeling of good attestation. Aside from her dedication to the Swamy, Sarojini actually is an obedient spouse and a mindful mother. Dandekar figures out how to oblige her perspective and in this way they accomplish a Rice is very much penetrated in the ordinary thoughts of wifely obligations. She bears the neediness and endures it all , however not deceitfulness and impropriety. Her trade off has all the earmarks of being the after-effect of her vulnerable circumstance. The novelist utilizes flashback technique so effectively, having an indistinguishable resemblance to a cutting edge film. That Long Silence talks about the state of woman in a male overwhelmed society. The creator utilizes flashback technique. The hero Jaya goes through an extraordinary mental injury when she won't go secluded from everything with her husband. The husband was confronting an enquiry for his monetary irregularities. In Roots and Shadows, the novelists has utilized root for 'custom' and 'shadows' for 'culture'. The novel presents the inner world and musings of Indu, who as a youngster abhorred compliance and aloofness. It very well might be gathered that Shashi Desapande accepts that the completeness in the existence of a woman exists just when that woman gets on with the situation with an individual and isn't known as someone's little girl or spouse or mother. Mrs Markandaya's works inspire an emotional response that women are significant, simply not on the grounds that they establish a large portion of the numbers yet additionally in view of their commitment since the commencement of mankind. Kamala Markandaya's fictional virtue is so mystically imagistic. One can observe image designed hidden in her fictions. In her style she has imaginatively utilized images of house, tannery, wilderness, creepy crawlies, cycle, veil and even characters.

Kamala Markandaya

“Kamala Markandaya is among the top most Indian English Women Novelist among the contemporary writers in English. She is a cultivated novelist as far as handling of a foreign medium and credible show of the Indian Scene."1 I derive that she is basically a sociological essayist, and treats her ideas at the sociological level with an absolute vision of human life. This creator has extremely impressive Indian sensibilities which assists her with portraying and strikingly depict women issues, conditions, issues and quandaries in a practical manner. Kamala Markandaya's demeanor to feminism has been set up as close to home logical and exploratory rather than public, political or questionable. She doesn't make a woman world, she presents this present reality. She explores the real friendly and enthusiastic bonds that shackle women. A post Independence essayist; Markandaya took upon herself the drive to change the conventional woman into a 'renewed' person in her literary works. She has shown her perusers the essence of an advanced and engaged woman who looks for satisfaction of her women characters' feeling of personality, without reasoning and are additionally profoundly mindful of their worth system. These women get by out of their hardship and find their personality.

Anita Desai

Anita Mazumdar Desai was brought into the world in Mussoorie on 24 June 1937. She is an unmistakable Indian novelist and Emeritus John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has been short recorded for the Booker prize multiple times, and was granted the Sahitya Academy Award in 1978 for her novel "Fire on the Mountain", by the Sahitya Academy. Her Bengali dad had met her German Mother, an educator. They wedded, when it was as yet uncommon for any Indian to marry a European. They moved to old Delhi and their kids didn't have any lengthy organization of family members. At the point when Anita Desai grew up, she didn't know about her mom being a foreigner as her mom wore sari and prepared Indian food like some other Indian mother. At the point when her mom passed on, she and her sister incinerated (her dad kicked the bucket before) like any Hindu. She, an Indian novelist and brief tale essayist is known for her delicate depiction of the inner sensations of her female characters. Many of Anita Desai's novels investigate strains between relatives and the distance of working class women. In her later novels, Anita Desai composed on changed topics like German enemy of Semitism, the downfall of Indian traditions and customs and western cliché perspectives on India. Dr. R. S. Sharma in his book Anita Desai sees, that "with all endeavors at assortment, Anita Desai remains essentially a novelist of mind-sets, of persevering perspectives or mind. The majority of her novels are expanded narratives of conditions of being which don't stick into plot or design in the ordinary sense. Anita Desai sees the world as far as experience as it rises up out of the experience of the encountering self with the world outside. Her essential accentuation is, along these lines, on sights and sounds, on developments and examples both physical and mental as they encroach on the cognizance of her hero. Her heroes are normally delicate women, who, tormented by a curious feeling of destruction, pull out into their very own sequestered universe. Anita Desai harps on the assortment and complexity of this restricted world, with the sensitivity and imagination of a poet.”

Shashi Deshpande

In Modern Indian fiction the credit of addressing the quiet voice of woman goes to Shashi Deshpande, Anita Desai and Bharati Mukherjee. They manage the emergence of metropolitan upper working class,educated society and uncover the psychological misery of the multitude of female protagonists who

lecturing any one way of thinking. Shashi Deshpande started her career in 1980 with The Dark Holds no Terror. Her female characters are restless to have an acknowledgment of their singularity and personality. Shashi Deshpande's fictional philosophy has approached the contention of Veena Mathews as she expresses that Shashi Deshpande investigates new skylines and brings consciousness of the plight of Indian woman bearing the weight of family and relationship plus invests in an energy for elective space. Shashi Deshpande has a place with a conventional Brahmin family and was brought into the world in 1938 in Dharwad, a humble community of North Karnataka, India. She is the little girl of the renowned Kannada essayist and Sanskrit Scholar Sriranga. She acquired scholarly and flighty twisted of psyche from her dad. She sought after her schooling in Dharwad, Mumbai and Bangalore. She has avery sharp brain. She got degrees in economics and Law and was a Gold medalist. Subsequent to getting hitched to Dr. D.H. Deshpande, a neuropathology’s in 1962, she moved to Mumbai. During her visit in Mumbai; she chose to seek after a course of Journalism. Then, at that point, she took up a task as a columnist in the Magazine On lookers. She worked there for a very long time. Her brief tales were distributed in famous magazines like Femina, Eve's week after week and so forth Her maiden assortment of stories was distributed under the title Legacy in the year 1978. Her first novel The Dark Holds No Terror was distributed in 1980. On October 9, 2015, she left her situation on the Sahitya Akademi's overall gathering and returned her Sahitya Akademi grant. In doing as such, she joined a more extensive dissent by different writers against the Akademi's apparent inaction and silence on the homicide of M. M. Kalburgi.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1. To study on Contemporary Indian Women Writers 2. To study on Comparison Theme Of Kamala Markandya, Anita Desai And Shashi Despande

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The research methodology in the current review is exploratory, interpretative, evaluative and logical. Various subjects in the chose novels are thought about. All through the research work while showing the references and 37 references MLA Handbook’s seventh expansion is to be utilized.

Primary Data

Shashi Despande It is likewise gathered with the assistance of conversation with strategy producers, overseers, writer and youths. The secondary data is gathered from many assets like visiting to different Libraries, Books, Research Journals, Internet, Magazine, and Literary Columns in Newspapers, Official Website

ComparisonTheme of Kamala Markandya, Anita Desai and Shashi Despande Kamala Markandya Blacks Go Home, Some Inner Fury , The Nowhere Man,

Kamala Markandaya's novels have been perused with profound intrigue and have been broadly valued fundamentally. On Markandaya's more extensive assortment of subjects in her novel Mohit K. Beam and Rama Kundu states, "Her fiction displays a lot more extensive territory and offers a greater assortment of setting, character and impact, however her quintessential subjects are similarly not many viz. The East-West experience takes two structures an immediate connection among Indian and British: bringing about racial pressure, bias, social clash and conjugal strain, furthermore the effect of current metropolitan culture acquired by the British standard on customary Indian life making up rootedness and the contention among conservatives and advancement, battle for freedom, destitution, appetite, confidence and reason." Kamala Markandaya involves an outstanding spot among the Indian women novelists writing in English. Her strength as a novelist comes from her touchy formation of individual characters and circumstances which are at the same time illustrative of a bigger group. Multifaceted and interracial struggles are the repetitive topic in her novels. Some Inner Fury sensationalizes the existences of youngsters lost in the political disarray of freedom battle. In The Nowhere Man, the novelist studies an Indian outsider's involvement with Britain. In post-colonial social orders, the emergency of character regularly appears to abrogate all thought. In Markandaya's Fire in the Mountain, Nanda Kaul had an astounding existence, loaded with occurrences, had kids however with time and age, she has aged significantly dark and desolate. The novelist has utilized 'creeper' symbolically to show her young age. Character emergencies and distance are some of the best issues among present day man. Edmund Fuller comments that in our age, "Man experiences not just conflict, oppression, starvation and ruin however from inner issues… a conviction of separation, randomness and insignificance in his method of presence." Personality is made out of different factors as said by Sunita Rani in an article, "Personality is a trademark that characterizes an individual and effects after all through an investigation of various personalities and made a pledge to one however assuming he loses the feeling of individual similarity and verifiable progression he under goes character emergencies.

Anita Desai ‘The Fire on the Mountain’,(Clear Light of the Day and In Custody)

Anita Desai has given a new and noteworthy aspect to the Indian novel writing in English by venturing out into the dark spaces of her characters. She is principally worried about the considerations, feelings and vibes of her characters. She has won 'Sahitya Akademi Award' for her novel 'The Fire on the Mountain' though the last two novels were nominated for the renowned Booker Prize (Clear Light of the Day and In Custody). Anita Desai investigates the clairvoyant strains and tensions of today's woman and presents them in agreement to the current day's understanding. She utilizes the inner language not at all like Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Exploration of the mind has never been Jhabvala's strong point. Mrs Desai targets portraying the story strangely and dominates in it. She reproduces what she sees with unexpected humor. Her subjects manage human nature and human relationship. She has made non conventionalists characters who are oddballs in the customarily organized society. Anita Desai in a meeting to Madhushree Singh Rao comments, "There are the individuals who can handle situations and the people who can't. And my accounts are for the most part about the individuals who cannot. They end up caught in situations in which they have no control.

Shashi Deshpande the Dark Hold no Terror, Roots and Shadows a Silence of Desire

Indian women novelists have enhanced Indian fiction later the Second World War. Shashi Deshpande is a notable name in the field of Indian writing. She arose on the Indian fictional scene during the 1970s. She has by the by made a spot for herself in the universe of Indian women novelists in English. She has been marked as a 'women's activist' since her novels are principally founded on the existences of women and their concerns especially in the Indian setting. She has raised her voice against the torture on women and likewise made mass mindfulness through her works. So she comes out with a sure voice, who investigates individual and all inclusive female mind. In contrast to the women's activists, Ms. Deshpande doesn't make her characters un equalled renegades against man centric culture; she causes them to develop with their restored knowledge of their own selves on the planet they live in.The fundamental topic in Shashi Deshpande's novels is human relationship, particularly the ones that exist among father and little girl, husband and spouse, mother and little girls. In this large number of connections the women possesses the focal spot and fundamentally the portrayal shifts through her The female protagonists of Shashi Deshpande are not portrayal of customary Sita's images. They are the 'new women', who could be compared to the streaming waterways that track down a pathway into cleft and openings These women find hardships in change both prior and then afterward marriage. There will never be a way out. A sensation of is being caught in the personalities of the protagonists. The husband acknowledges the functioning spouse and yet don't encourage the 'women's activist self' in them .Saru in The Dark Hold no Terror, Indu in Roots and Shadows and Jaya inA Silence of Desire choose to stand up to her husbands and talk the make a difference to show up at arrangement. These women to escape from their home-grown jobs make their parental homes safe-havens for their fretful spirits. Mala Rengunathan in her diary composes on Ms. Deshpande's women, "In expecting new jobs or new perspectives towards old jobs, they break the psychological boundaries, which they had at first worked around them. They get familiar with their moms and steadily conquer their sensations of estrangement, disdain, hatred towards them. Their parental home doesn't give them any permanent alleviation from their sufferings. Anyway these brief retreats assist them with going up against their genuine 'I' and understand themselves better. It is here that they investigate the sexual and different makes that drove their marital frictions.”

CONCLUSION

The techniques utilized by the women writers, the focal topic is the depiction of the inner sensation of substance called woman. These writers needed to make where woman could articulate their thoughts, be on the planet which has a place with them. Writers do advocate change for a simply friendly request yet they have a confined area. In today's reality there are women however uneducated yet who might never give up. These writers don't need any person going through mental problems rather they need to encourage women describing accounts of fearless women, showing them guides to battle against the direst situations of their life. Every one of the narratives need not have procedure however most narratives do have one. Innovative systems are not needed however portrayal should reach to the spirit of the readers

REFERENCES

1. Prasad, Amar Nath and Singh, Nagendra Kumar, Indian fiction in English, Roots and Blossoms Vol. II , Sarup and Sons, New Delhi – 110002. 2. Dhawan, R. K., Indian Woman Novelist, Set-I: Vol.-I, Prestige Books, New Delhi – 110008, P.183.

4. Parameshwaran, Uma, A study of Representative Indo – English Novelists, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1976. P. 85. 5. Piciocco, Pier Paolo, A companion to English fiction in English, Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, P. 101 – 102 6. Krishnaswamy, Santha, The woman in Indian Fiction in English: 1950 – 80, New Delhi Ashish Publishing House, 1984, P. 229. 7. Ezekiel, Nissim, rev. of Two Virgins, by Kamala Markandaya, The Illustrated weekly of India (15 June 1979) 8. Krishnaswamy, Santha, The woman in Indian Fiction in English: 1950 – 80, New Delhi. Ashish Publishing House, 1984, P. 229. 9. Piciocco, Pier Paolo, A companion to Indian fiction in English, Atlantic Publishers and distributors, P.109. 10. Singh, Anita, Essential Dimensions in the novels of Anita Desai, Sarup & Sons, P. 105. 11. Sharma, R. S., Anita Desai (New Delhi, Heineiman, 1981). 12. Dalmia, Yashodhara: An interview with Anita Desai, The Times of India, 29th April, 1979, P 23.

Corresponding Author Sangeeta Sharma*

Assistant Professor