Female Protagonists in the Novels of Anita Nair and Namita Gokhale: A Feminist Perspective

Exploring Feminism in Contemporary Indian English Novels

by Subhash Nautiyal*, Dr. Naresh Kumar,

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

Volume 12, Issue No. 2, Jan 2017, Pages 1382 - 1387 (6)

Published by: Ignited Minds Journals


ABSTRACT

Feminism has been subtly handled in the massive work of English novels in India. Feminism is defined as cultural, economic and political movements that are focused towards establishing legal protection and complete equality for the women. In Indian writing feminism has been used as a modest attempt for evaluating the real social scenario as far as women are concerned. The Indian English novelists use oriental approaches of feminism. There are several novels in English literature of India that aptly portrays the actual status of the women in Indian societies. However, the modern aged women have realized that they are equally competent like the men and those they are not helpless. Unlike the past when men were considered as the sole bread earners, in today’s age, women too have become direct money earners of any household.

KEYWORD

Female Protagonists, Anita Nair, Namita Gokhale, Feminist Perspective, Feminism, English novels, India, cultural movements, economic movements, political movements, legal protection, complete equality, Indian writing, social scenario, women, Indian societies, modern aged women, competent, money earners, household

INTRODUCTION

Indian writing in English is currently very nearly 200 years of age. Notwithstanding, it is just generally that, it has gained the status of an independent writing for the most part because of the inventive endeavors of noticeable essayists in India. As Dr. M.K. Naik calls attention to, "Indian English writing started as an interesting side-effect of a significant experience in the late eighteenth century between a vigorous and venturesome Britain and a stale and tumultuous India."(Naik 1) because of this experience, F.W. Bain states that India a shriveled trunk all of a sudden shot out with outside foliage. One type of this foliage took was that of unique writing in English by Indians. However, shockingly enough, despite the fact that the Indians have been writing in English as right on time as the late eighteenth century, their writings were never considered as a piece of English writing nor were they viewed as an independent writing. The Indians' shyness and the Englishman's lack of interest were the undeniable purposes behind this situation. In his entering paper, "Contemporary, Indo-English Literature: An Approach" Amritjit Singh handles this issue and mentions an interesting objective fact: On the other hand, it is contended that if these essayists are Indians their natural mechanism for expression ought to be the Indian dialects or there will be consequences, does the association of English with India for almost 150 years qualify it as an Indian language however there is no proof in India of a living tradition of communicated in English that supports and sustains the literature in English from, state, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and West India? (Singh 2017) There is no uncertainty that there is no proof in India of a living tradition of communicated in English. Simultaneously, it's not possible for anyone to deny the way that the informed Indians utilize English for their scholarly expression. English is anything but an unknown dialect to us as we discuss say French, German or Russian. English has been truly and mentally embedded in our environment. In the event that despite everything anyone holds that English is an unknown dialect in India, he is plainly too diehard a person to be paid attention to. Additionally it is the innovative essayist's privilege to utilize a specific language for his expression. The decision of language on the piece of the author need not involve polemics. A.K. Ramanujan has something extremely adept to state in such manner, "I simply happen to write in English; it is for others to state whether it is any good or not.. I don't think individuals who compose have a decision in this issue." (Ramanujan 2013) Kamala Das, another extraordinary Indian English writer, in her sonnet "An Introduction" communicates comparative perspectives:I speak three languages, write in two, dream in one. Don‘t write in English, they said. English isn't your mother-tongue. Why not disregard Me pundits, companions, visiting cousins, Every one of you? Why not let me

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much an Indian essayist as one writing in Hindi, Bengali, Kannada and so on. Henceforth, Indian writing in English is a piece of Indian literature. Dr. M.K. Naik has something extremely adept and noteworthy to state on this point: Namita Gokhale additionally talks about the question of female sexuality however here too her view is definitely not feministic, surely not fundamentally feministic. A portion of her ladies characters enjoy pre-marriage sex yet it isn't in rebellion of conventional profound quality or the institution of marriage. Priya in Paro: Dreams of Passion engages with BR and tastes the taboo organic product before her marriage and Gudiya in Gods, Graves and Grandmother additionally appreciates sex with Kalki before marriage. This is in any case, not the aftereffect of the western freed way of life; it is an endeavor to satisfy her inward want for affection and communication. There are instances of extramarital sex additionally in Namita Gokhale; Priya's better half Suresh in Paro: Dreams of Passion overlooks her urgent and emotional desires. This separates her and she again enters the life of her supervisor BR. Let us see how various women protagonists seek to realize themselves in different books of the essayist. In Paro: dreams of Passion, the main novel of Namita Gokhale, Priya doesn't get the response she anticipates from her wealthy legitimate spouse and her marriage life stays unfulfilled. In spite of the fact that she doesn't rebel against her marriage, she will not be content with it. She buckles under to weights of universality and attempts to find some kind of harmony between her individual desires and familial and social limitations. Maybe the occasions are not agreeable to the full development and advancement of her distinction. Another significant lady character from the perspective of women's assertion of freedom is Shakuntala who has fallen an unfortunate casualty to a sex hungry explorer Nearchus from the terrains of Yavana. It is only Paro among Gokhale's women, who isn't presented to an threats and appreciates some opportunity like the women in the West who can have various illicit relationships with men. She is the thing that a lady can seek to be however can be only in an exceptionally uncommon case like that of hers. A large portion of Gokhale's women are in conflict with conventionality, which speaks to male qualities and male centric standards. In Paro: Dreams of Passions the marriage of Priya and her promoter spouse Suresh is loaded with tension in view of the conflict between universality and opportunity. A Himalayan Romantic tale offers a variation on the theme of conflict between women's longing for full life estimations of the male overwhelmed world are very little harmed. Gokhale has depicted the reactions of casteism in her novels. India is currently a free nation however it has no opportunity from destitution, dread, imbalance and foul play. Mukul in A Himalayan Love Story can't wed Parvati, the young lady he is infatuated with, on account of profound standing predjudices. Namita Gokhale is conscious of different dangers to opportunity in India. She is a fervent backer of vote based system and majority rule esteems. Man in Namita Gokhale's epic as in the public eye is more liberated and more advantaged than lady. He is goal-oriented and now and then couldn't care less for others. In quest for his ambitions, he loses his naturalness and his responses become unthinking. The self-satisfaction for man lies not just in accomplishing his ambitions for himself and power however in his capacity to expel the obstructions which keep him from identifying with others, from feeling for them and placing themselves in the position of others. For this opportunity from conventional ethical quality and social, religious and social biases is important. On the off chance that we take a gander at the male characters of Namita Gokhale, we discover two categories one of the individuals who lose all humankind in quest for their ambitions and preferences and the other of the individuals who can rise above the frontiers of their encompassed self and identify with others. Suresh in Paro: Dreams of Passion belongs to the main category. He is a captive to the conventional trinity of money, influence and decency. While he himself takes part in an extramarital entanglements with Paro after marriage, he can't persevere through the way that his better half had pre-marriage sex involvement with her chief. He is casualty of pietism and twofold principles. Naturally he neglects to comprehend his very own significant other and estranges her from himself.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

Anita Nair does not profess to be the women's activist, yet her female heroes show mental fortitude and face their circumstance after beginning stun they endure. The ladies in her novels face shamefulness, male-strength, physical brutality but they attempt to satisfy their residential duty. In her Ladies Coupe, Anita Nair has introduced ladies from various strata of society, however every one of them endure under man centric control.

Gokhale and Anita Nair. The exploration targets assessing the abstract and topical parts of the fiction of the two novelists in connection to its sociopolitical and social ramifications. The investigation is directed to substantiate the anecdotal compositions by utilizing two basic ideas Metaphor of Exile and Cultural Ambivalence. It assesses the compositions of the two novelists as far as postcolonial hypothetical viewpoints and rehashes the novels of the novelists to distinguish the degenerate method of composing and determines the Indian perspectives in the works of Namita Gokhale and Anita Nair.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

The term women's liberation came to be utilized in 1910, which demonstrated a development of ladies for their privileges and opportunity. Prior to that in the 19thCentury England there was a development of ladies for metro rights, social opportunity, advanced education, social welfare and appropriate to cast a ballot. These ladies were called Suffragists, who were engaged with welfare exercises for ladies just as in a development for a privilege to cast a ballot. The 19thCentury Women's development identified with equivalent open door in training and business, and rights to property. Ladies at that point had no open door in training and work. They didn't have property rights in England. The suffragist development wound up global in the main decade of the twentieth Century. In England, Women activists held road shows and mass walks. They disturbed the gatherings of male-lawmakers, prompting unstable conflicts with the police. In the correctional facilities they wouldn't eat and turned to craving strike. The ladies' development which therefore began to increase social and political rights built up a philosophy which was marked Feminism. As development Feminism needs to change the job of ladies as auxiliary natives and win for them equivalent status with men. They took Mary Wollstonecraft the law based scholar to be their guide, who in her life had challenged standards of sexual life. The Movement of Women in the nineteenth Century was for the headway of ladies for their political rights and for advanced education. They likewise needed occupations to have their own pay. Their development was then called 'Ladies Movement' which sounded rather ungainly. Subsequently in the twentieth Century the term Feminism came to be utilized. This new term with its 'ism' recommends that there is a belief system. Women's liberation doesn't confine itself to getting a privilege to cast a ballot. It looks to win for ladies equivalent status in varying social statuses. The women's activists presently requested the political rights, yet in addition evacuation of social and financial separation rehearsed against them. whom vote was just an apparatus, however their genuine objective was finished social revaluation which should empower ladies communicate completely, with no mental, social impairment. They dislike twofold standard of ethical quality, one for men and the other for ladies. They ought to have chance to make progress in each circle of open life. In the West it is for the most part accepted that ladies are battling for correspondence, which truly implies cancelation of sex chain of importance in the male-commanded society. The term women's liberation came to be utilized in 1910, which demonstrated a development of ladies for their privileges and opportunity. Prior to that in the 19thCentury England there was a development of ladies for metro rights, social opportunity, advanced education, social welfare and appropriate to cast a ballot. These ladies were called Suffragists, who were engaged with welfare exercises for ladies just as in a development for a privilege to cast a ballot. The 19thCentury Women's development identified with equivalent open door in training and business, and rights to property. Ladies at that point had no open door in training and work. They didn't have property rights in England. The suffragist development wound up global in the main decade of the twentieth Century. In England, Women activists held road shows and mass walks. They disturbed the gatherings of male-lawmakers, prompting unstable conflicts with the police. In the correctional facilities they wouldn't eat and turned to craving strike. The ladies' development which therefore began to increase social and political rights built up a philosophy which was marked Feminism. As development Feminism needs to change the job of ladies as auxiliary natives and win for them equivalent status with men. They took Mary Wollstonecraft the law based scholar to be their guide, who in her life had challenged standards of sexual life. The Movement of Women in the nineteenth Century was for the headway of ladies for their political rights and for advanced education. They likewise needed occupations to have their own pay. Their development was then called 'Ladies Movement' which sounded rather ungainly. Subsequently in the twentieth Century the term Feminism came to be utilized. This new term with its 'ism' recommends that there is a belief system. Women's liberation doesn't confine itself to getting a privilege to cast a ballot. It looks to win for ladies equivalent status in varying social statuses. The women's activists presently requested the political rights, yet in addition evacuation of social and financial separation rehearsed against them. They disposed of the title 'Lady Movement' as an

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which should empower ladies communicate completely, with no mental, social impairment. They dislike twofold standard of ethical quality, one for men and the other for ladies. They ought to have chance to make progress in each circle of open life. In the West it is for the most part accepted that ladies are battling for correspondence, which truly implies cancelation of sex chain of importance in the male-commanded society. It ended up vital for the women's activist scholars to build up their own techniques and hypothesis dependent on the investigation of their own abstract writings. The scholarly hypothesis and analysis in the West is chieflymale-situated just as arranged to the white race. Elaine Showalter in 1978, proposed the term 'Gynocriticism' to the investigation of ladies' writing by and large. In 1977 she distributed an investigation of the nineteenth and twentieth Century ladies essayists, titled as A Literature of Their Own (2014). The ladies pundits like Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar in their The Mad Woman in the Attic (2015) displayed itemized rehashing from women's activist perspective of Harold Bloom's hypothesis of tension of impact 9. They portray how the nineteenth Century lady author felt nerves in the male centric abstract culture. For instance, George Eliot needed to take a male pen name distribute her books. A great deal of writing was made on individual ladies scholars and the convention of ladies writers‟ directly from the medieval times. The ladies scholars needed to confront subjection in the standard writing and they needed to challenge it. The gynocriticism focused on the examination of abstract works of the female journalists indicating how ladies' compositions contrasted in the introduction of the scholarly classifications their structure and plot. The female pundits expect that the sexual orientation impacts artistic creation. Ladies can't deny that their lives have been impacted by being ladies. Sandra Gilbert (2017) for instance, inquires.It wound up important for the women's activist masterminds to build up their very own techniques and hypothesis dependent on the investigation of their own artistic writings. The scholarly hypothesis and analysis in the West is chiefly male-situated just as arranged to the white race. Elaine Showalter in 1978, proposed the term 'Gynocriticism' to the investigation of ladies' writing by and large. In 1977 she distributed an investigation of the nineteenth and twentieth Century ladies scholars, titled as A Literature of Their Own (2014). The ladies pundits like Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar in their The Mad Woman in the Attic (2015) If an essayist is a lady - in what manner can her sexual character is part from her abstract vitality. with her better half as an ideal spouse had been incredible, as she had conformed to his desires against her genuine nature. Her extra conjugal sexual experience with the more youthful sibling of her better half leaves her with no blame emotions. Actually her mentality to sex winds up unoriginal, with no enthusiastic contribution. She understands it as just a physical need, regardless of whether it is with her better half or with another man. After the unoriginal sexual act, she portrays an existential forlornness that she encounters. After at some point when Lalit is analyzed of Tuberculosis and needs to get conceded in Bhowali' sanatorium, Parvati makes a decent attempt to fund-raise for the Bhowali sanitorium. She composes a letter to Mukul Nainwal, and another to Masterji, requesting help. In any case, before she could post both of them, Lalit is dead: What amazed me about death was this: the spirit withdraws, leaving the body pitiful. The body leaves, it is removed, discarded, it deteriorates, decays, it is no more. The powder are tossed into sloppy streams, the crows come and eat the conciliatory rice, and on the thirteenth day even the light that aides the soul to the next world is doused. Be that as it may, things remain. Lalit's razor, with the thick obstinate development as yet adhering to the sharp edge, the handle worn with use. His shaving cream, and the limp crushed shaving brush. His nail shaper, a blessing from his dad, sits securely in the steel box that likewise holds his watch and wallet. His shoes still lie under the bed, pausing. They didn't die with him. His two suits hang in the cabinet; his shirts untruth collapsed, peaceful. I wonder in the event that they recall him, his smell and his body. (HLS 47) Different characters in the novel are film star Jayesh and his better half Anita. In A Himalayan Love Story Gokhale has given us looks at the inflexible arrangement of marriage in India which is chosen not based on similarity yet on position, religion, and share. She manages the inward universe of ladies in her novels and depicts her courageous women in a reasonable way. Essentially she expounds on the circumstance of ladies and their disappointment in the quick evolving financial milieu of India. She expounds on the contentions among custom and advancement in this novel. Parwati is the focal point of the novel. Her desires, endeavors, and disappointments are the primary concerns in this novel.The novel finishes with Mukul's note: I thought of myself, of whom and what I was, and the self I was abandoning. I thought of Parvati and of Irra, and different lives I was relinquishing. They

condions don't allow', I noted rationally, as I shut the document. (HLS 207) Himalayan Love story uncovers how powerfully Parvati communicates the dissatisfaction and frustration of ladies experience social and social abuse in the male-commanding society. The novel features the misery and injury experienced by ladies in male-commanded and custom limited society. Gokhale uncovered the silliness of ceremonies and traditions which just help to sustain the fantasy of male prevalence.

DATA ANALYSIS

Namita Gokhale is the writer of eighteen books, including nine past works of fiction and a few works of true to life. Her introduction novel Paro: Dreams of Passion, first distributed in 1984, was a parody on the tip top of Bombay and Delhi made a tumult because of its plain sexual humor.Gods Graves and Grandmother an unexpected tale about road life in Delhi was adjusted into a melodic play. Gokhale was determined to have malignant growth when she was only thirty-five and her significant other passed on a couple of years after the fact. The experience of sickness and misfortune educated her later books A Himalayan Love Story, The Book of Shadows and Shakuntala, the Play of Memory. Her books of true to life incorporate Mountain Echoes which investigates the Kumauni lifestyle through the eyes of four profoundly capable and individualistic womenand The Book of Shiva, a prologue to Shaivite theory and folklore. She had retold the Indian epic The Mahabharata, in a represented adaptation for youthful and first time peruses in The Puffin Mahabharata.The compilation In Search of Sita – Revisiting Mythology, co-altered with Dr.Malashri Lal, exhibits crisp understandings of this perplexing goddess and her permanent effect on the lives of Indian ladies through articles, discussions and critiques. Priya: In Incredible Indyaa, restored the notable characters from her introduction novel Paro. Namita Gokhale altered Traveling In, Traveling Out, a wide-going collection of movement pieces that is a takeoff from the conventional travel narrative. Himalaya: Adventures, Meditations, Life co-altered with Ruskin Bond, is additionally a movement treasury and unites an astonishing scope of voices that traverses the whole region: from the lower regions to the most astounding pinnacles of the Himalayas. With more than thirty supporters, the as of late distributed The Himalayan Arc: Journeys East of South-east endeavours to depict the feeling of shared lives and social availability between the occupants of this zone. Love Story, proceeds with Things to Leave Behind—It is 1856, in beautiful Kuma on. History has just started its unfaltering walk. Six local ladies clad in dark and red pictures group around Nainital Lake, endeavouring to rinse it of undermining new impacts. For, these are the times of Upper Mall Road (for Europeans and their ponies) and Lower Mall Road ('for pooches, workers and different Indians'). What's more, this is the tale of feisty youthful TilottamaDutt, whose uncle hangs when he challenges the authoritative request—and her girl, Deoki, who will go up against change as Indians and as ladies. which enlivens the blended inheritance of the British Indian past and narratives Nainital's hesitant passage into modern India. The novel brings alive the sentiment of the blended inheritance of British-Indian past. Brimming with the intriguing backstory of Nanometal and its reluctant passage into Indian history. In Lost in Time: Gattaca and the Game of Illusions youthful Chintamani Dev Gupta, on avacation in a feathered creature camp close Lake Sattal, is moved by means of a wormhole to the times of the Mahabharata. Caught in time, he meets Ghatotkacha and his mom, the demoness Hindlimb. In any case, the delicate monster, an ace of dream and awesome rakshasa innovation, employs his quality similarly just as he most likely is aware the well-established insider facts of the woods and the essential powers. What's more, in his illuminating organization, Chintamani ends up in the thick of the occasions of the most suffering Indian epic. Throughout the years she has additionally composed a few segments, articles and audits for presumed distributions, for example, The Times of India, The Indian Express, Outlook Magazine, among numerous others. Predominant subjects of her composing incorporates thoughts on writing, contemporary artistic practices, the spot of ladies in Indian society and the world everywhere just as legend and its orientation in the modern world.

CONCLUSION

Feminism is forming into a significant basic philosophy. It has developed as an idea that encompasses both a philosophy and development for socio-political change based on basic analysis of male benefit and lady's subordination inside a given society which provides an expansive spectrum on the feminist composition, with focus on lady's question and issue of sexual orientation. Anita Nair is one such burn bearers of feminism in India. Namita Gokhale has joined the developing number of women writers from India, as Shashi Despande, Arundhati Roy, Githa Hariharan, and Shobha De on whom the picture of the suffering yet stoic women in the long run breaking

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their women and their lives in post current India.

REFRENCES

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Corresponding Author Subhash Nautiyal*

Research Scholar of OPJS University, Churu, Rajasthan