Dr. S.
Sudha
Assistant
Professor of English
Dr. N. G.
P. Arts and Science College (Autonomous)
Coimbatore
– 641 048, India.
Abstract:
Modern
women of today are totally different from those of yesteryears. Unlike
traditional women of the past, they are equally educated and professionally
well placed like their men. Besides, they are more practical than their men in
devising ways and means for their betterment in life whenever some unexpected
but grave situations arise during their sojourn on earth because they have
independent income of their own. Thus, their empowerment has strengthened their
mind how to survive successfully as and when some dire need arises. But at the
same time, there are also some empowered women who remain rooted to their
traditional life as house wives and yet, they do not lose their hope of
survival when they meet with unfortunate situations in life. They have got
their mental inclination strengthened for their survival without much ado and
without dependence on anyone, either a relative or a friend. With their
strengthened survival disposition, they can adjust themselves cleverly to their
unpredicted predicament in life. They also take timely decisions then and there
to keep themselves completely free from any kind of domination and discrimination
for their betterment of independent life at home. But in doing so, they never
deviate from their destined ways of familial and marital life nor do they lose
their state of mind in their precarious situations. They find some meaningful
ways in their irretrievable situations. In the process, they prove themselves
practically wiser women in preserving their peace and happiness. In many novels
of Women of Indian Diaspora and those of the native women writers, it can be
clearly seen how women face their familial, marital and societal problems, and
then how with their positive state of mind, they establish their individual and
independent identity. Their self-confidence helps them carve out their
indelible name for themselves. This article critically analyzes how a deserted
mother and house wife with her three daughters in Shashi Deshpande’ novel A Matter of Time braves unexpected
hardships because of her being suddenly deserted by her husband, and how the
mother decides her own destiny without losing her state of mind and
individuality.
Key Words:
Positivity, Adjustment, Betterment,
Courage, Predicament
Introduction:
Fiction
is not completely fictitious nor is it purely imaginary in content. Everything
narrated is based only on the real life incidents, happening at home and in the
society. It is only the women novelists who highlight the indescribable
harassment that is meted out to women by patriarchy. As a woman novelist,
Shashi Deshpande is no exception. She portrays her women characters not as submissive
ones, silently accepting everything that is happening against their interest
and welfare. She has portrayed her women characters as women of individuality
because her women survive any patriarchal humiliation with positivity and
assert their independence in time of need. They have an optimistic attitude of
survival in any unfortunate and unexpected situations, arising out of their
life partners’ betrayal or desertion or death. Yet there are women who do not
have an inherent trait of survival disposition and such women easily succumb to
all types of discrimination and misfortunes without any semblance of fight and
traces of hope. If they are empowered and if their empowerment does not act as
the protective armour against any kind of patriarchal domination and
unfortunate happenings, they need not have education and profession. They could
remain as passive and voiceless traditional Indian women and accept all such
unpleasant and unfortunate things, happening to them as the ways of their
Creator.
Cordial
and understanding relationship between a man and his woman is the need of the
day. Man as a husband should display his trust and love towards his wife. As a
father, he should be an embodiment of paternal love and affection to his sons
and daughters. He should not show disparity in his love towards them. Every
unmarried man is the affectionate son of his mother till he takes another woman
as his wife through marriage. But every woman before and after her marital life
till the last days of her earthly life is always a mother’s daughter wherever
she is. This is what Emily Giffin, an American novelist, has also endorsed when
she has said. “A son is a son till he gets a wife but a daughter is a daughter
all her life [to her mother]” (Love One You’re with, goodreads n.pag). Life offers innumerable examples of unchangeable
and constant love and affection between mothers and daughters, irrespective of
the distances, they have between them and in spite of the misfortunes that both
experience in life. But as mothers experiencing misfortunes without any
remedial measures, they even fail to heed to the advice of her daughters by
asserting their individuality and continue to live in predicament, without
finding solutions themselves.
The
daughters, even after their marriage, are very close to their mothers than to
their fathers but it does not mean that there is no love in them for their
father. As daughters, they always identify themselves with their gender in
their mothers as mothers do with their daughters. Eric Daniels, Founder of Hope
Grows for Autism, has said in one of her quotes about the relationship between
a mother and her daughter:
There’s nothing quite as special as the unique
and unbreakable relationship between
a mother and her daughter [even before and after her marriage]. Mothers want what the best is for their daughters
and as the daughters they always look
up to their mothers for inspiration and advice wherever they are placed. The relationship may shift and change as time
goes on but one thing always remains the
same, and that is their
unconditional love that they have for each other. (6 Mar. 2020)
However,
this is the world where one can see a lot of changes in the mental make-up of
women playing different roles as mothers, daughters and mothers-in-law. During
the social progression, women shed off their old avatars as powerless and weak
and assume new avatars as powerful and mentally strong women. They decide who
they are and what they should do in time of crisis in a family so that they can
keep their morale strong. Their timely decisions even surprise all and sundry
around them. They do not act as per the expectations of men and society for
being the weaker and inferior gender. They change as per the situations arising
in their life and this change of attitudes to life can be seen in Sumi, the
mother of three daughters in Shashi Deshpande’s novel A Matter of Time.
Analysis:
As
a traditional house-wife, Sumi lives with her loving and faithful husband
Gopal. She has three grown-up daughters and they are Aru, Charu, and Seema. She
is leading her marital life with contentment and happiness with the earnings
that her husband brings to her. She never expects anything extra for their
still better livelihood from her well settled sister Premi who is a doctor. Nor
is she ready to accept any help from her mother or from the relatives of her
husband. She always establishes her individuality by being different from her
relatives and by living within the income of her husband. She does not want to stay
with her family in the big house of her parents. She wants to be independent
with her own family and lives in a rented house. Her marital life with Gopal
has passed nearly twenty three years without having any visible strain in their
relationship.
Usually as and when Gopal returns
home in the evening from his work, he used to sit beside his wife who is
watching TV and spend his time with her. But on one particular evening, on his
return home, he does not follow his regular habit. He draws an arm chair from
some corner and sits on it just a few inches away from his wife. It is quite
unusual in his behaviour but Sumi does not take it very seriously. Then he
informs her of his shocking decision that he is getting separated from her and
her relationship once for all never to return. After dropping a bombshell,
“Gopal looks at her for any kind of reaction, but Sumi still sits silently,
simply gazing at him just as expectantly, waiting for him to go on” (8). Her
way of gazing at him silently simply reveals her nature that she is a woman
having undisturbed state of mind and in that state, she does not appear to be
mentally upset. She digests the announcement of his desertion without any
traces of disappoint or sadness. She does not ask the reasons for his sudden
breakup of his marital life with her.
Though one of Gopal’s daughters
finds fault with her father, Sumi realizes who she is and what she should act
and do in an unexpected situation of her life. She cannot express her anger
like her daughter and simply looks at her husband without any expression. But
Gopal expects that his wife will plead with him to stay back but she does not.
This is her state of mind in any situation that she faces in life. Ashish Gupta
in his article “Quest for Female Identity” reveals the inner self of Sumi
showing her strong mind in any difficult situations. According to him, “Sumi
does not coerce him into coming back to her and her children. Her silence reveals her dignity. Moreover, she
explores the different ways of coming to terms with the painful reality of her present predicament and keeps
thinking how to lead her life without her husband” (3).
Sumi knows well that she cannot
change her husband. She thinks of the possibilities for his sudden desertion of
her but “her mind slides from one clarification to another, over and over
again” (9) but she cannot find any possible clues to his desertion. Next day,
as a deserted wife, she looks like a woman without either mentally disturbed or
losing a hope for a new and single life. She becomes determined that she has to
change her predicament something better for her and her three daughters. She
knows well that what has happened cannot be set it right nor does she want to
change it. She has the feeling that it is to happen and so it has happened. She
does not lose her heart and becomes strong-minded to establish her indelible
and independent identity as a new woman every inch without any traces of
cultural violations. Her appearance as if nothing untoward had happened to her
deceives everyone close to her and her daughters.
Sumi,
soon after desertion of her husband, comes back to her mother’s own big house
with her daughters. Though there is a forty year silent war going on between
her parents, she knows that they do not regard her and her three daughters to
stay in the big house as a burden or a nuisance. But on seeing her mother and
her concern about her plight, the silence of Sumi gives way to her awareness of
eternal loss of her life partner. However, she decides that she should not lose
her heart for all that has happened to her. Neither should she look upset at
the silent war going on between her father and mother for being with them. She
has to reconcile herself willingly to her life of uncertainty. She decides to
keep herself engaged in some other literary activity so that she can completely
forget her desertion and her uncertain earthly life. She starts drafting a play
with the title “The Gardener’s Son” for the school function. On seeing its
success and appreciation by others, she feels her heavy heart lightened and
appears to be very positive of her future without Gopal.
Sumi
displays the strength and maturity of her mind when she feels completely free
from the clutches of Gopal. She appears satisfied with her single life because
it will not be like the life that her mother and father lead together. Journey
of her marital life with Gopal till his separation from her thus creates
matured thinking in her heart. She feels, “Our journeys are always separate,
that is how they [journeys] are meant to be. If we travel together for a while,
[it is nothing but mere] coincidence” (212).
She knows well that it will take time for her to accept her status of
being a single woman with independence yet she is not completely free from the
feeling of alienation. However, she does not let others know what kind of
feeling she has in her heart. She remembers what Gopal has said before both
have become life partners through arranged marriage that “if either of [them]
wanted to be free [from their marital binding], [one] should let the other go
as they are not going to be tied together” (221). His words of the past
strengthen her mind in the present so that she can face the reality with hope.
She is also quite confident that her hope will neither disappoint her nor
weakens her mental make-up. She looks like the epitome of hope and she decides
to “rejoice in suffering [for being a single woman] knowing full well that
[Her] suffering [as a single woman] will produce perseverance; perseverance,
character; and character, hope. And hope will not disappoint [her] because God
is her hope [during her single life]” (Family
Devotional Study Bible, Rom. 5:3-5).
Sumi
is not like any other married woman shedding tears for being deserted. She is
against getting divorced legally though she appears to have got her heart
hardened towards Gopal. Hence, “She presents her image to the world as graceful
and courageous. She expects everyone to admire her [for her strong mental
make-up] instead of being pitied. She is also against her daughter’s advice for
a legal separation from Gopal. She does not want to be found fault with for
being legally divorced. She feels that just desertion by Gopal will not give
any chances for her neighbours to talk ill of her. S. Prasanna Sree correctly
judges the positive attitude of her desertion by saying in his book titled Women in the Novels of Shashi Deshpande: A
Study:
Divorce frees a woman legally but the memories
attached to the marriage cannot be
erased easily. The social stigmas associated with divorce in the Indian society
haunt her and she has to continue
to struggle and suffer at various levels- economical,
emotional and psychological. A woman may get relief from the painful life of a wrong marriage
through divorce, but it will not always re- establish
her socially, psychologically or financially. (108-109)
Sumi
is a woman who knows her situation fully and she does not like others to know
of her situation and pity her. She is what she appears to be and she never
likes the sympathy of others for her single life when her husband is still all
alive. Without minding the talk of the people about her predicament and the
pleadings of her daughters that she should get united with Gopal, she begins to
pursue her independent life and fortunately she gets a job in a school. If any
woman with very weak mind had been deserted by her husband without anything to
depend on, she would have ended her life. But Sumi is not like one. She has
emotional indifference as her indelible trait and she has been bestowed with
patience, silence, and endurance and she has shown them in the face of
adversity. Till her unnatural death due to accident:
Sumi maintains a stoic silence. Her silence is an emblem of
power rather than powerlessness,
the power, which is usually associated with male sex, is now her forte. It is in fact that her mother
Kalyani who has suffered a lot silently as a wife has been her indirect motivator to keep her morale strong
in all adverse situations (Ritu, Transcending Gender Confines n.pag.)
Works Cited
Daniels, Eric. “Mother-Daughter
Quotes: 101 Quotes that Are as Perfect as They Are.” ProFlowers.com, 6 Mar.
2020. www.proflowers.com/blog/mother-daughter- quotes. Accessed 17 Apr. 2020.
Deshpande,
Shashi. A Matter of Time. Penguin,
1996.
Giffin, Emily. “Love the One You’re
with.” Goodreads,
www.Goodreads.com/work/quotes/1470370-love-the-one-you-re-with. Accessed 17 Apr. 2020.
Gupta, Ashish. “A Matter of Time: The quest for Female Identity.” Galaxy:
International Multidisciplinary
Research Journal, vol.1, no.3, 2012, pp. 1-5.
“Romans 5:3-5.” The New Testament. The Family Devotional study Bible, The
Bible Society of India, 2006.
Ritu. “Transcending Gender Confines
in Shashi Deshpande’s A Matter of Time.”
The Criterion:
An International Journal in English, vol.6, no.1, 2015, n.pag. www.the –criterion.com/transcending-gender-confines—in-shashi-deshpandes-a-matter-of- time/
Accessed 19 Apr. 2020.
Sree, Prasanna S. Women in the Novels of Shashi Deshpande: A
Study. Sarup and Sons Publishers,
2003.