INTRODUCTION

Women Novelists’ Contribution during post-colonial period:

Feminist writings were of crucial interest to the Post-colonial discourse for two major

reasons. First, both patriarchy and imperialism could be seen to exert different forms of

domination over those subordinates to them. Because of this, it was important for the

experiences of women under the patriarchal influence to come out to the forefront and expose

the undue cruelty be held on them by men. It was necessary for the women to oppose this

male dominance over them. We observe that women continued to define the borders of

the community, class and race. They tried to exert feminism through their works. Though the

Indian women writers try to depict the women as strong and focused in their vision to

succeed in lives, they were, however, ablest to succeed in their lives only in the space allotted

to them by the men. However, the Feminist writers tried to stamp their authority in a male

dominated environment as best as it is possible to them. It was a very difficult path, as the

women had to break through years of male dominance, taboos and beliefs that had heavily

impregnated the society. In addition, critics argued that colonialism operated very differently

for women and for men. This was so because women were subjected to both general

discriminations as colonial subjects and specific discrimination as women addressed as

‘double colonization.

Indian women writers in English have made the most significant contribution in the

field of the English novel. Indian novel has grown considerably in bulk variety, and maturity.

The development of Indian novel follows certain definite patterns, and it is not difficult to

trace its gradual progression from the imitative stage to the realistic to the Psychological to

the experimental stage. In the growth and development of Indian English novel, the 1980s

occupy a unique position. During this period, some very promising women novelists
published their first works. Some old masters also came out with works, which show that

their creative powers have been intact all along. It is during the eighties that Indian women

novelists earned unheard of honours and distinctions not only in India but also in abroad. The

works by these Indian women novelists, like third generation women novelists, speak

eloquently about their originality and unprecedented inventiveness.

Indian English literature is now a reality, which cannot be ignored. During the recent

decades, it has attracted a widespread interest both in India and abroad. What began as a “hot-

house plant” has now attained a luxuriant growth, branching off in several directions. The

Indian women writers have made the most remarkable contribution to the sphere of fiction,

which as Mulk Raj Anand says, has “come to stay as part of world literature.” An idea of the

true potential of this form of literature in India can be had by comparing the early novels by

Indians with the recent arrivals in the same field of literary creation.

However, Indian writing in English in the Contemporary literary Scenario enjoys

equal status with the literatures of the other Countries. Especially Indian women writers have

made their voice heard around the World in the Indian way, expressing too artistically.

Moreover, Indian women Writers in English too in the recent times have managed to excel in

all areas of literature and achieved global recognition.

The Indian women writers expressed the role and position of woman through their

writings in English, have enlightened the literature with its quality and vividness. Truly, it

represented the culture, history, and all the variants necessary for the enrichment of the

literature worldwide. In fact, India is the third largest producer of the novels after USA and

UK. Although the writings profoundly deal with regionalism, they crossed the natural

boundaries with universal themes. India is the land of diversity with so many languages,

religions, races, and cultures. This multiplicity gave the writers an enormous liberty to deal

with various themes. The voice of Indian women writers also dealt with historical, cultural,
philosophical and much more basing their themes around mankind. The Indian women

writers have concentrated their themes around sociological, Diasporic elements, feminine

subjects, science and technologies, explorative writings, and much more.

The Indian women have significantly contributed to the overall world literature as

equal with men writers. This contribution of India has been chiefly through the Indian writing

in English, novelists being in the forefront in this respect. A number of novelists on the

contemporary scene have given expression to their creative urge in no other language than

English and have brought credit to the Indian English fiction as a distinctive force in the

world fiction. To attempt creative expression on a national scale in an alien medium has

seldom happened in human history, and it speaks of the prolific quality of the Indian mind to

assimilate the newly confronting situations and the complex dilemmas of modern World. The

new English fiction exhibits confidence in tackling new themes and experiments with new

techniques and approaches to handle these themes. The novelists come to their task without

any preconceived notions of what constitutes literary content. This encourages them to focus

on a vast and comprehensive canvas and to invest their themes with epic dimensions. All

these Indian women writers could compete with best in the World, perhaps that best in their

own right: “It would be no exaggeration to say that the best English fiction in the World is

being written by the Indian women writers or those of Indian origin” (Saikat, 21-22).

As far as Indian literature is concerned, it has perhaps been easier for these women

novelists to reflect the new challenges and changes because of the simple fact that its vehicle

itself is a globalised language. Again, the writers of the new fiction have mostly been a part

of the Indian diaspora. Living in the west, and using English almost like a mother tongue,

they have been thoroughly exposed to significant modern western literary movements like

Post-Modernism, and to various narrative techniques like magic realism. This has enabled

them to give a fresh orientation to fiction. At the same time, the best of them continues to
have strong roots in India, so that they remain true to the kindred points of India and the west.

It is significant that the spirit of the age is more pervasively and effectively reflected in the

Indian woman’s fiction than in other forms like poetry and drama. The novel, by its very

nature, is better equipped to deal with social reality, whatever, liberties it may take in

projecting it. It is hardly surprising therefore that the most substantial contribution of the

period comes from the Indian women writings of the fiction.

The voice of new Indian women writers through their writings, published in between

1980s and 1990s, has ushered in a literary renaissance is the third generation of women

Indian English writers like Kamala Markandya, Nayantara Sehgal, Anitha Desai, Arundhati

Roy, Shashi Desh Pande, Gita Mehta, Bharathi Mukherjee, Jhumpha Lahiri, Githa Hariharan

and others. These are the fore- most third generation women novelists and who hold

centrality in the contemporary literary Scenario. They have made a distinct mark on the

World literary scene with their rich cultural heritage and skilled language control. They have

received national and International recognition, fabulous royalties and prestigious awards.

These women novelists, as Anthony Spaeth has pointed out, are making conscious

efforts to redefine English prose “with myths, humour or themes as vast as the subcontinent.”

Moreover, Sehgal heself once told in an interview in 1982: “I think we (women writers) are

in a position to conquer English literature,” (Ibid, 552) and this is what precisely these

novelists are trying to do in their own ways. Thus, they demand a serious critical attention,

analysis, classification and, finally, definition as a distinct genre of fictional literature of our

times.

Kamala Markandya:

Kamala Markandya`s has been an outstanding fictionist of the1980s whose novels are

a remarkable study of society and culture. Her Pleasure City (1980) is the only novel that was

published after 1980. In this novel, the conflict between tradition and modernity is quite
conspicuous. While portraying the life of its protagonist, Rikki, Markandya gives a lively

description of a fisherman`s family. The novel is marked by the presence of humour, by

making fun of Ranji, an army officer and a budding English novelist, Adeline Lovat`s passion

for writing a novel about India. Rikki is an adopted son and has received his education by the

missionaries. Tobby Tully is a manager and belongs to the family of the Tullys of Copeland.

The novelist has portrayed human emotions and feelings in a realistic manner.

Ruth Pravar:

Ruth Pravar Jhabvala has been another marvellous author, whose novel, In Search of

Love and Beauty (1983), depicts the life of German and Austrian refugees in New York. In

this novel, for the first time, she has explored the life of those people who do not belong to

India and their fascination for India. Her tenth novel, Three Continents (1987), represents the

story of a young American girl, Harriet, who travels to London and gets married to Crishi, the

son of an Indian holy man. In spite of knowing Crishi`s love for her wealth, she deeply loves

Crishi and helps him in pretending the murder of Michael, her twin, as suicide. Her next

novel titled, Poet and Dancer (1993), narrates the story of Angelica Manarr, an intelligent

and hard-working girl who loves her mentally ill cousin Lara, who incited her mother to

commit suicide. Angelica`s mother, Helena has an Indian business partner, Mrs. Arora who

has a criminal-minded son who commits murders and thefts in order to get money. Her novel,

Shards of Memory (1995), once again has the theme of spirituality, in which she focuses on a

spiritual movement, begun by an enigmatic leader, a Master, who is to believe to have some

in search of spirituality, comes to India and meets several Indian saints and philosophers but

never get her spiritual goal of life. Angel`s mother spiritual power. Baby, the protagonist,

daughter of a Jewish American mother and a Parsi father. Elsa, the mother of Baby has been

attracted by the Master. His father lives in New York with his parent-in-laws along with
Baby. Nobody knows about the past of the Master; only a poor Russian knows that the

Master, in the past, has been a carpet-seller.

Anita Desai:

Anita Desai`s six novels have been published in the last twenty years. Her novel,

Clear Light of the Day (1980), represents the story of the two sisters, Bimla and Tara. Bimla

lives in New Delhi and takes care of her mentally retarded brother after the death of her

parents. Tara is married to an IFS officer who visits Bimla once in every three or four years

when her husband comes to India. Bimla`s elder brother gets married to their landlord`s

daughter and settles himself in Hyderabad, leaving everyone alone at the house. Bimla,

finally, realises that one can attain happiness when one acknowledges and accepts

circumstances of one’s life. Her next novel, The Village by the Sea: An Indian Family Story

(1982), belongs to the category of Children`s fiction. The novel deals with the life of two

children, Leela, a young girl and her teenage brother, Hari. Their father and mother are

drunkard and sick with anaemia respectively. They live on India`s west coast near Bombay.

A fertilizer complex is to be established on the coast and Hari protests against this rapid

industrialization. The novel showcases the life of poor slum-dwellers and their struggle to

maintain their existence against all the odds. In her next novel, In Custody (1984), Desai

depicts the life of a college lecturer. Deven Sharma is a lecturer in Hindi who gets meagre

salary to sustain his life but he has passion for Urdu, a language that becomes the national

language of Pakistan after the partition of India. Once, Deven`s friend, who is an editor,

suggests him to interview great Urdu poet Nur Shahjahanabadi for his magazine. When

Deven meets Nur, he realizes that poetry cannot give solace to a man, when he is internally

not at peace of his mind. Although Nur is a great poet, his life is troubled by frequents heated

arguments between his two wives who are unable to live with each other. The novel has been

written from Deven`s point of view. Anita Desai`s ninth novel, Baumgartener`s Bombay
(1988), is a grave drama of lonesome human beings dependent on the mercy of impersonal

forces which are too complex to comprehend. Baumgartener is the son of a prosperous

furniture dealer, till the Nazis take way his father. Baumgartener comes to India and runs his

business of furniture in Calcutta; his life takes a turn when Second World War begins and he

has to spend six years in an internment camp. Meanwhile, the communal riots start taking

place in Calcutta in 1947 and in these riots his business partner, a Muslim, is killed by the

mob. After moving to Bombay, he manages scraps for stray cats that he gets on the road. He

has a friend Lotte, a German young girl, who used to be a cabaret dancer in Calcutta. The

novel portrays the city of Calcutta and contemporary Bombay in a very realistic manner.

Desai`s tenth novel, Journey to Ithaca (1995), deals with the life of an enigmatic old woman

who is considered to be a spiritual Guru. A young man Matteo and his wife, Sophie visit

India and she gets back to Italy with her two children. Her husband, Matteo lives under the

spell of the enigmatic lady, the Mother in an ashram. The fourth part of the novel deals with

Sophi`s search for the past life of the Mother. The novelist has also discussed the theme of

childhood sexuality. Fasting, Feasting (1999), deals with the theme of encounter between

East and West. The whole novel is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the life of

Uma, who is not beautiful and intellectual and does all domestic works in her house. She

leaves her studies in the middle, in order to take care of her younger brother, Arun. The

second part of the novel is about Arun who goes to America for his higher studies. Uma`s

parents` preoccupation with his son is skilfully portrayed by Desai.

Nayantara Sahagal:

In the field of political novels, Nayantara Sahagal stands as a unique novelist. She

interweaves the political events with the stories of her novels in a realistic manner. Her

magnum opus, Rich Like Us (1985), describes the political upheavals during the times of

Indira Gandhi when she declared a state of National Emergency and enjoyed absolute power
for almost twenty months. While portraying the time of the Emergency, she boldly shows that

the Emergency was a carefully planned event which was thrust on Indians by the political

leaders and bureaucrats in order to serve their own purpose. The protagonist of this novel is

Sonali who is an administrative officer and narrates the whole story in a manner that opens

the secrets of the Emergency imposed during that time. Her father Keshav’s friend, Ram is

married to an Englishwoman Rose. Rose loves Ram passionately and comes to India to get

marry to him. Rose is free from racial feelings against Indians; even in India, she develops

great bonding with Ram`s first wife Mona. Kishori Lal, a shopkeeper, is the only middle-

class character in the novel who struggles very hard to earn his livelihood. He is harassed by

the police during the Emergency. Sonali is a modern educated woman who, having being

educated at Oxford, tops in the civil service examinations. Acting as an honest bureaucrat,

she does not sanction license to Mr. Neuman, a representative of an American soft drink

company, Happyola. But Mr. Neuman succeeds in getting his license by bribing the minister.

Sonali resigns from her post when the Emergency is declared. Sahgal takes a satirical look at

India and feels that spirituality and democracy are only superficial things. She realizes that in

this country women have been always ill-treated and given a secondary status in society.

Sahagal`s Plans for Departure (1985), depicts Indo-British relationship during nineteen-

twenties. The novel has its setting in Himapur, a hill station. Anna Hanson, a Danish woman

comes to India and departs when First World War begins in Europe. She returns to marry

Nicholas Wyatt who belongs to an old English family. Anna`s son gets married to an Indian

political activist. In her other novel, Mistaken Identity (1988), she opts for a male narrator to

describe the events. The protagonist of the novel is Bhushan Singh who is the only son of the

Raja of Vijaygarh. While returning from America to India, he has been arrested on a charge

of sedition and spends three years in jail among the followers of Mahatma Gandhi and

militant leaders, all trying to get India free from the clutches of British Empire. While in jail
Bhusan Singh remembers about his own past; his mother, his Parsi girlfriend in Bombay, and

his affair with a young Muslim girl too. With the help of this novel, Sahgal has tried to show

some of the very relevant issues of Indian history with her sharp description power.

Shashi Desh Pande:

The novelist with the most sustained achievement is Shashi Desh Pande who is

labelled as feminist novelist succeeded in depicting the plight of a successful educated

woman and problems of being a woman. She has written eight novels, six collections of short

stories, and four children’s books. Her popular novel The Dark Holds No Terror (1980)

portrayed the life of a woman who marries a doctor and becomes the victim of brutalization.

It is a story of courage and perseverance that she developed from within herself to break

loose of society’s traditional norms to gain her individuality and freedom. She has achieved

tremendous amount of popularity through her writings. She depicts the Indian middle-class

mentality in all her novels. Her protagonist emerges from cultural rootedness in middle class

Indian Society. Desh Pande generally has the heroine as the narrator and employs a kind of

stream-of-consciousness technique. In another novel Roots & Shadows (1983), the readers

are introduced to another rebellious woman who refuses to accept traditional family life and

escapes to the city to work. She later marries a man of her own choice. As time goes by, she

realizes that life in the city is no different from the village. Almost all her novels deal with a

crisis in the heroines’ life. Her work is women-oriented, but it would not be correct to term

her a feminist, as she consistently rugates with the feminist identity. She simply portrays, in

depth the meaning of being women in modern India.

Shashi Desh Pande’s novel That Long Silence (1988) is viewed as her emergence as a

major novelist. This novel won her the Sahitya Academe award for 1990, tells the story of an

Indian housewife Jaya, an upper-middle class house wife who maintained her silence in

Bombay throughout her life in the face of hardships that threaten to break it. The lack of
depth in a woman’s life is clearly depicted in this novel. She however, shows us that most of

the family rules like the idea of trying to secure one’s life by marrying a wealthy man and

establishing a name in society by sending children to good schools, is shown how mundane,

meaningless and mechanical a woman’s life really is partly self-imposed by women

themselves. In another novel A Matter of Time (1996), attempts to depict three generations of

female human relationships. In her latest novel Small Remedies (2000), as one reads this

novel, we realize her over possessive attitude. This is a novel that dwells into the various

aspects of motherhood. At last, Her, The Binding Vine, compels one to discover how the

‘binding vine’ of human emotions links and sustains diverse human beings as they go through

life.

Manju Kapur:

Manju Kapur is one of the foremost modern Indian Women writers who has

significantly contributed to the progress of Indian fiction. Kapur is a writer who instinctively

identifies with the position of women in a patriarchal society and deals with the problems of

women. Her novels present the ongoing struggle of women to establish an identity of their

own. A close look at the Manju Kapur’s novels draws one's attention towards certain

interesting facts. Almost all women novelists write from their personal experiences and

usually end up in one or the other form of feminism. Many of them give us their

autobiography in fiction and most of them identify with their female characters. Manju Kapur

depicts different histories, culture and different structure of values; the complexities of life in

relation to the sociocultural context; and, the patriarchal pressure, control and social

ostracism that women are subjected to. Her writings reflect the experiences of the woman in

the real world.

The dominating works of Kapoor can be critically seen in her significant novel

Difficult Daughters (1998), which is her first novel. It was awarded Commonwealth Writers
Prize for best first book, which has earned her very substantial success both commercially

and critically. The novel Difficult Daughters which has been well received by one and all.

The story of this novel is set around the time of partition, which is the story of a woman

whose battle for Independence engulfs. Her second novel, A Married Woman (2003) which is

a quite powerful as its predecessor and thematically even more controversial. But the novel

proving Indian and universal achievement.

Her novels portray the budding new woman, who is not a puppet in the hands of

others, but someone who tries to assert and carve her own identity in this all-man’s world.

She writes about personal experiences, problems, spaces and identity crises. She writes what

today’s women can easily relate to and can see her novels as an extension of their own life.

She deals with the predicament of the modern woman in accepting the traditional or

modernist ethos. Her writing steadily and firmly argues for the values like freedom of thought

and Expression, liberation from oppression and marginalization, and equality. The modern

Indian woman’s quest for dignity is the prime theme of her novels.

Bharati Mukherjee:

In the similar fashion, Bharati Mukherjee’s fame has shot up in the recent years as an

Indian American writer. Her novels Wife, Jasmine, The Holder of the World, Leave It To Me

and Desirable Daughters make a bold attempt to rewrite the origins of America’s history in

the light of wider American experience. For instance, her second novel Wife (1975), she

writes about a woman named Dimple, who suppressed by men attempts to be the ideal

Bengali wife, but out of fear and personal instability murders her husband. Her best fiction

Jasmine (1989) develops the idea of the synthesis of the East and West with a story telling of

young Hindu women, who leaves India for U.S. after her husband’s murder as an illegal

immigrant. Her fourth novel, The Holder of the World (1993), attempts to integrate
contemporary travelogue and ancient history. This novel too has the theme of transformation

and migration, but with a difference. Her fifth novel Leave It To Me (1997) is completely

American. The only Indian touch is the prologue, which retells the mythological story

of is the goddess, who killed the Buffalo Demon. This book is soaked in blood and reeks in

violence. Her last and sixth novel is Desirable Daughters (2002) which acts as a bridge

between transformation and migration and piles up meticulous details in the information.

However, Bharati Mukherjee recaptures history in the most aesthetic sense. She continues

writing about the immigrant experience in the most of her stories like in The Middle Man and

Other Stories, a collection of short stories, which won her the National Book Critics Circle

Award.

Gita Mehta:

Gita Mehta is also another woman writer who proclaimed about the problems of the

contemporary immigrant women with sublime standards. She wrote Snakes and Ladders and

Glimpses of Modern India in 1997. It has become most widely read book particularly by

those unfamiliar with India. In an interview, she said that her intention was “to make modern

India accessible to westerns and to a whole generation who have no idea what happened

before they were born” (24) (An Interview with C.J.S.Wallia). Gita Mehta’s first novel is Raj

(1989) which is a very powerful and enlightens readable novel. It is considered to be one of

the great historical novels of our time. Raj is the story of the Maharani Jaya Singh, as well as

the drama of India’s struggle for Independence. However, Mehta’s unique nature is to collect

the richness of living is this rarity of perspective that gives her a witty ability to define her

vision for India by her novels.

Gita Mehta, in her works, has allocated the contradiction of the old and the new as an

important element of Indian culture. Taking into consideration the opinions of scholars on

tradition, modernity, modernization and westernization, this article is an endeavour to study

and its modern rational present, their interaction and their impact on the Indian culture as

depicted in her nonfiction Snakes and Ladders: Glimpses of Modern India.

Arundhati Roy:

Arundhati Roy is the luminary among the contemporary women writers. She is one of

the women writers who wrote about the plights of the downtrodden and the suppression of

women in a male dominated world and the influence of Marxism on the lives of the

downtrodden. When women writers maintained their reservations in offering a critical

evaluation of Indian politics, Arundhati Roy emerged as a beacon of light to guide the Indian

women writers. She has got overwhelming reception with The God of small things (1997),

which has put her in the forefront of all the other writers.

Arundhati Roy is the only novelist, who being an activist, is constantly writing about

social problems. Her monograph, The Greater Common Good (1999) which reveals the truth

about the Narmada Project. The book also shows her talent as an essayist and social reformer.

Her earlier essay The End of Imagination (1998) which urged nuclear disarmament. She is

the winner of Booker Prize as well as the Sidney Peace Prize. These Feminist writers tried to

stamp their authority in a male dominated environment as best as it is possible to them. It was

a very difficult path, as the women had to break through years of male dominance, taboos and

beliefs that had heavily impregnated the society. In addition, critics argued that colonialism

operated very differently for women and for men. This was so because women were

subjected to both general discriminations as colonial subjects and specific discrimination as

women addressed as ‘double colonization.’ It is from these perceptions one should view the

contribution of women writers of the nineties like Anita Desai, Shashi Deshpande, Gita

Mehta, Gita Hariharan, Bharati Mukherjee, Uma Vasudev and Arundhati Roy. Undoubtedly,

it is understood that they have perceived a good job in exposing the fallacies of the male –
dominated society and letting the public beware of the various atrocities heaped upon women

who dared to cross the various rigid boundaries that were laid on them by society. The debate

in several colonized societies over the deleterious effects of gender or colonial oppression on

women’s lives continues to hold its significance in the analysis of the society. Feminism, like

post Colonialism, is concerned with the ways to which representation and language were

crucial in order to identify the formation and construction of subjectivity. Both for the

patriarchal as well as the matriarchal community, language was crucial in order to identify

formation and for the construction of subjectivity. Language subverts patriarchal power and

brings more authentic forms for negotiating gender equality.

Raji Narasimhan:

It is possible that Raji Narasimhan may be remembered for her literary criticism (she

is the author of Sensibility Under Stress, 1976, one of the earliest studies of Indian English

writing), book reviews, and translations, rather than her fiction. She has published five

novels. two of them before the nineteen eighties. Her third novel, Drifting to a Dawn (1983)

is not as good as her second novel Forever Free (1979). Forever Free revolves around the

central character Shree, but this novel just drifts from Raman and Jana, to their son Surya.

Narasimhan can handle the language with sensitivity – some scenes in the novel are well

written, such as the account of Loma’s unhappy home life, or the discomfiture of the South

Indian Raman and Jana when they are faced with their son's Bengali girlfriend. The Sky

Changes (1992) is Narasimhan's fourth novel; the protagonists of her earlier novels too were

girls unhappy in marriage, and Krishna, her latest heroine, suffers from a superfine

sensitivity. She tries to get away from her insensitive husband Jagat, but her mother Susheela

pressurizes her to return to him, though she herself has affairs with many lovers. The novel is

steeped in an atmosphere of inexorable pain and melancholy. Krishna considers herself

doomed to suffering, and her favourite poet (naturally) is Shelley, who is quoted frequently in
the novel. Atonement (2000), her fifth novel, also has unhappy filial relationships; the mother

believes that her daughter can make a success of life just by acquiring a college education,

while the father is very conscious of being a failure.

Anjana Appachana:

Anjana Appachana with her only fiction, Listening Now (1998), showcases the

feminine sensibility with her dexterous power of description. The novel is told by six female

narrative voices and covers the time span of sixteen years. The protagonist of the novel is

Padma who is a university teacher and lives with her mother, Rukmini along with her twelve-

year-old daughter, Mallika. She brings up her fatherless daughter with the help of her sister

and two caring neighbours, Madhu and Anu both are middle-class wives. The novelist, with

her use of simple and lucid prose, describes the condition of Indian women. Rukimini,

Padma`s mother had been a traditional woman who never named of her husband. Appachana

gives a realistic description of the lives of middle-class women who sacrifice everything for

the sake of their family. An Indian woman has no independent existence in a society which is

patriarchal in nature.

Mrinal Pandey:

Mrinal Pandey with her long career in Hindi journalism has produced some of the

very prominent novels in English. Her Daughter’s Daughter (1993), deals with the theme of

the gender discrimination in our society. Tinu, a little growing-up girl in the north of India,

lives in her maternal grandmother’s house and faces gender discrimination. In her

grandmother house, her cousin Kukki and her uncle’s son is given more preference to Tinu

because she is a girl of her own grandmother’s daughter. Her second novel, My Own Witness

(2000), represents her own experiences in the field of journalism, where she faced

discrimination against her mother tongue Hindi. At the same time, she also talks about gender
discrimination at the work place in terms of secondary status assigned to female reporters

who are supposed to cover female issues only.

Indelible contributions of minor women novelists:

In the era of the nineties there have been have quite a few women novelists who have

debuted with a single novel and have left their indelible presence in the field of Indian

English Fiction. They all have written about the life of middle-class women whom they know

closely.

Indu K. Mallah`s Shadow in Dream-Time (1990), represents the life of a widow, Sati

who is regarded as inauspicious, outcast and lives completely cut off from society. After the

death of her husband, she has to vacate the flat in which she was living along with her son

and daughter. When she comes to her parental house her step-mother considers her as an

unpaid domestic servant and she also gets no relief in her father-in-law`s house. When she

gets a job, she faces exploitation by her own boss. Finally, she feels that a widow has no right

to live in society which is patriarchal by nature.

Waiting for Winter (1991), written by Belinder Dhanoa, is the story of a girl Pratibha

in Chandigarh who belongs to a rich family. Having achieved higher education, she gets

married to an NRI who belong to USA and waits for her own visa. Meanwhile, her father is

killed in a terrorist attack and her brother joins Sikh terrorist group. Her mother, after the

death of her husband, comes to know that her husband is already married in to an American

woman. Dhanoa exploits flashback technique in her novel.

Zai Whitaker was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers` Prize for her first novel,

Up the Ghat (1992). The protagonist of the novel is Azara, who after being educated abroad,

comes to India and in spite of her doubts regarding success of her arranged marriage she gets

married to Hasan, an officer in Indian Administrative Service, chosen by her parents. Her

husband is an honest officer who gets transferred because of trying to help slum-dwellers in
Ooty. Hasan, along with his wife and school going children, comes to Denkal and supports

Tamilians who have been repatriated from Sri Lanka. Zai Whitaker, in this novel, making

something different, has portrayed the comic side of the troubles of Indian women.

Tara Lane (1993), is Shama Futehally`s debut novel. In this novel, she narrates the

story of Tahera, a rich aristocratic girl, who comes to know about the hard realities of life

after her marriage. In this novel, Futehally examines the relevance of moral and ethical

principle sto modern times. The novel treats of the theme of marriage and its relevance to

contemporary times.

Suniti Namjoshi`s fictions are well-known for her remarkable use of fantasy and

magic realism. She, being a feminist author, expresses her concern for women in the form of

fables and allegory. Her first novel, The Conversations of Cow (1985), has elements of magic

realism in which the protagonist, Suniti is a lecturer in a college and her Guru comes to her in

the form of a cow and they both move to Canada together. With their journey, the tale

transports us to the realm of fantasy. Her other novel, The Mothers of Maya Diip (1989), also

represents a world of women, where no man exists; all the women are living in an island

called Maya Diip. Maya Diip is an Indian kingdom and Jyanvi and the Blue Donkey go to

Maya Diip. At this island when a male child attains puberty, he is drowned in the sea after

taking out his sperm. In this novel, Suniti has tried to construct a matriarchal society free

from men but at the same time she has shown inherent human weaknesses such as jealousy

and competition for power. St. Suniti and the Dragon (1994), narrates the saga of love and

austere sainthood. Elements of magic realism, which have been exploited here, are talking

flowers, instructive angels, Grendel`s mother and St. Sebastian. Dramatic monologue, songs

and prayers all have been employed by her in this novel. Her other work of fiction, Building

Babel (1997), is a novel with hypertext links where readers have been invited to send their
contribution for this work. This kind of a collaborative work between the reader and the

writer have been a conscious decision by her.

Like Suniti Namjoshi, Auradha Marwah-Roy`s Idol Love (1999), also represents a

distressing picture of an imaginary Indian society of twenty-first century. The much hyped

Hindutva agenda forms the theme of the novel. In “Raminland” society has been formed on

the basis of the principles of Manu-Smriti and here women are free to opt for any career

according to their own choice. The novel raises the issue of caste discrimination among

Indians in a sensitive manner. Rajdhani, the capital of Raminland has been sanctified and

purified when people of lower section of society, enter the capital. They are given a special

pass exclusively made for them.

Nina Sibal`s famous novel, Yatra (1988), shows a skilful exercise of magic realism.

The heroine of the novel is Krishna Chahal who is gifted with a skin that changes its colour

like a chameleon. At the time of her birth, she has got very fair skin but gradually as the days

pass, it gets darker and darker. Her mother, Sonia who belongs to Greece is doubtful about

her father. The novel tells an interesting story of a girl gifted with magical qualities.

Region based women novelists:

Some of the prominent women novelists have tried their hand at best in the field of

regional fiction too. Life in Kerala has been portrayed by these women novelists with great

skill. Apart from Kerala, Punjab or Coorg have been the subject of these novelists.

The prominent name that figures in the genre of regional fiction writing is of

Arundhati Roy. The God of Small Things (1997) is her magnum opus for which she was

awarded the Man Booker Prize. In this novel, she has portrayed the landscape of Kerala with

her picturesque power of description. The lushness of vegetation and suffocative atmosphere

of a village have been delineated by her with the help of vivid imagery. The protagonist of

the novel is a young woman, Ammu who can share her twin-brother Estha`s experience of
life. The novel deals with ill practise of gender discrimination that is the root cause of poor

condition of our women in society. The novelist also talks about those women who

themselves discriminate between their sons and daughters and prefer sons to their own

daughters. The novel can be regarded as a protest novel in which a sense of strong revolt is

shown against the oppression of untouchables, innocent children and helpless women. The

novelist has given her voice to the poor section of the society and raises her concern for those

who are still suffering in the name of discriminating mal-practices.

Anita Nair`s debut novel, The Better Man (1999), narrates the story of a village

Kaikurussi of Kerala, in a manner, different from Arundhati Roy`s village. The protagonist of

the novel is Mukundan Nayar who undergoes a traumatic experience because of his

domineering father Achuthan Nayar. Achuthan Nayar leaves no stone unturned to suppress

the self-esteem of his son. The novel is full of local people and events that give it a regional

flavour.

Kavery Nambisan`s first novel, The Truth (Almost) about Bharat (1991), has received

accolade tremendously. It was published under the name of Kavery Bhatt. The hero of this

novel is Bharat, a medical student. He flees Delhi; as he thinks that he has murdered a

watchman and in order to escape punishment he travels Central India, then Mysore and

Kerala and finally comes back to his home where he faces the frequent quarrel between his

parents. The clash between his parents arises because of the different social status of his

parents. Her second novel, The Scent of Pepper (1996), covers the life span of three

generations in an estate in Kodagu, Tamilnadu. Nambisan for the first time portrays the life

of a minority group Coorgis. The protagonist Naniji, a Kodavathi woman, comes to a village

as a young bride. She helps her husband Baliyanna when his father commits suicide. Naniji is

a woman of great strength and fortitude who nurtures her deformed son with great pains and

manages her estate skilfully. But at the end of the novel, she becomes helpless, when her
grandson due to his excessive greed and avarice gets all the tree of estate cut. Her other

novel, Mango-Coloured Fish (1998), deals with the life of Shari, a young urban girl. Her

dominating mother arranges her marriage with Gautam but Shari loves a blind man. She

visits her brother Krishna and his wife Teji. Her brother Krishna is a doctor who is

considered to be a great fool, because with his MBBS degree he could have earned more than

enough in a metropolitan city but he is wasting his talent in a village treating rural people.

Contributions of Githa Hariharan:

The appearance of Githa Hariharan in the realm of Indian English Fiction during the

nineties is another noteworthy occurrence that includes her in the category of those women

writers who not only contributed to the field of literature but also brought radical changes in

society by standing up to a feminist and social cause. In 1995, she challenged the Hindu

Minority and Guardianship Act as biased in the Supreme Court of India and as a result of

this, mother and father both began to be considered as natural guardians of a child.

Githa Hariharan was born in Coimbatore and grown up in Mumbai and Manila. She

obtained a B.A. (in English) from Bombay University and MA (in Communications) from

Fairfield University. She first worked in the Public Broadcasting System in New York and

then with a publishing firm as an editor in India.

Any literary contribution of a writer can be described as a part of her struggle and

conflict he/she has undergone through her life. After seven years of independence, Githa

Hariharan was born (in 1954) in Coimbatore, India. Being born and brought up in Mumbai,

she had rich experience of cosmopolitan life to grasp social realities in a better way. Further,

Philippine being a pretty American state, she enjoyed free literal air in Manila as a capital

city of it in the United States. She worked as a staff writer with Channel 13. She led her life

in New York since 1979. Later on, she worked in the metropolitan cities of India such as

Mumbai, Chennai and New Delhi as an editor. Her close observations of social realities and
cultural changes around these cities find and expression in her literary work. Githa Hariharan

published her various works inclusive of novels, shorts stories, essays, newspaper articles and

columns. Literature is a mirror of the author’s live experiences. Githa Hariharan is not away

from this. Today, Githa Hariharan is one of the leading women writers of fiction in English in

India.

She has started her literary career with the publication of her debut novel, The

Thousand Faces of Nights (1992), for which she was awarded the Commonwealth Writers`

Prize in 1993. In this novel, she brilliantly blends the myths and legends of India with the

contemporary scenario of our Indian women. The novel is the saga of its protagonist, Devi

who comes to her mother, Sita after making herself free from the bondage of arranged

marriage. Her second novel, The Ghosts of Vasu Master (1994), deals with the life of a

retired, school teacher Vasu who tries to teach a mentally retarded student Mani. Mani creates

challenges for Vasu but at the end of the novel, he gets success in teaching Mani. With her

third novel, When Dreams Travel (1999), once again she deals with the theme of

discriminatory treatment of women in a male dominated society. In her fourth novel, In

Times of Siege (2003), she raises her concern for fundamentalism and extremism. In fifth

novel, Fugitive Histories (2009), she analyses the devastating effect of riots on the lives of

people of Gujarat.

Apart from this she has a collection of short stories The Art of Dying (1993) to her

credit. A book of short stories for children, The Winning Team (2004), is also to her credit.

She has also edited a volume of short stories for Indian children, Sorry Best Friend! (1997).In

recent years, she has published two books of non-fiction, Almost Home: Cities and Other

Places (2014) and From India to Palestine: Essays in Solidarity (2014).

There is a shift from traditional place of women within the patriarchal Indian society

to their place on the political forum. All these elements of activism, tradition, patriarchy
easily found in the various characters of Githa Hariharan. For instance, in The Thousand

Faces of Night, Devi is a modern woman and Mayamma is a traditional one.

The above elements come to sight in Githa Hariharan’s major works. Feminist is a

character that fights for the rights of women of her oeuvre. The position of women in Indian

society was always paradoxical. Born in Coimbatore, Githa Hariharan shuttled between cities

and has quite a lineage to her accord. She is not only a writer but also a contribution to the

social activity and a journalist for CNN 18 network. She spent her life in Manila and her

attitude towards the life is modest. This came clear when she challenged Guardianship act in

the Supreme Court of India that time facing challenges posed by the fundamentalist Hindu

groups. Activism, fundamentalism, political struggle are all the aspects easily seen in her

work. In one of her interviews with Anuradha Rao, in Hindu 2003, Anuradha Rao asked:

‘Did you have literary models?’ Githa Hariharan replied, “John Maxwell Coetzee, a novelist

essayist, linguist, translator and recipient of 2003 Noble prize in literature and Mahasweta

Devi.’ J.M Coetzee’s works like Age of Iron and Disgrace have always been the models for

her.” (xi)

Githa Hariharan was raised like a star at the same point when Indian women were

slowly awakening. She has given importance to women’s issues which are dealt with

psychoanalytically in her style of intimate understanding. Her novels indicate the arrival of a

new Indian woman, eager to defy rebelliously the well-entrenched moral orthodoxy of the

patriarchal social system, eager to find their identity in their own way. Her female characters

break all shackles of customs and traditions that tie them in the predicaments and rein their

freedom and rights. The characters are not against the entire social system and values but are

not ready to accept the system and values as they are. Her female characters are modern and

strong and take bold decisions to survive in the society. This secures her a position in

literature as a feminist novelist.

face many obstacles in the academic circuit which symbolized the effects of an educational

culture that radically restricts the scope of women’s intellectual exposure. It is said: “A study

of these writers reveals an awakening a result of introspection and an ability to take decisions

in the women characters.” (Kaushik 237-8) Githa Hariharan has portrayed her female

characters more boldly than that of the earlier writers. She has exercised her abilities in a

systematic kind.

Her works reveals the reality of the overwhelming majority of middle-class Indian

women who is struggling to adjust in the traditional society but her inner conscience wants

freedom from this phallocentric world. Githa Hariharan’s women are aware of the

shortcomings of their traditional culture and society they rebel against male-chauvinist

society but find themselves in a situation where they only have the option to adjust. The sea-

saw of individual desire and social expectation never reaches a balance but may indicate the

initiation of future change. Hariharan investigates the inner conscience of these women who

wants to achieve self-realization. Through her women protagonist Githa Hariharan candidly

presents the unnoticed aspect of women thoughts which was invisible to this outside world.

IN this regard Dr. S. Prasanna Sree writes:

Through this medium of expressing themselves in writing, women have

investigated and Published those aspects of their lives as sexual beings that have

not previously been acknowledged by society. Despite late 21st century, women

are still very far from attaining the required level of Socio-cultural, educational

and economic advantages usually enjoyed by men. (39)

In this dissertation, the scholar exposes the underworld faces of Indian women’s lives

and throws light on the emerging womanhood of Githa Hariharan’s The Thousand Faces of
Night and The Ghosts of Vasu Master and also identifying the unending fight for their rights

and their quest for self-identity in the present world.