Journal of Namibian Studies, 38 S1 (2023): 920-925 ISSN: 2197-5523 (online)

Treatment Of Women In The Novels Of

Namita Ghokale

S. PRIYA1 , Dr.R. PALANIVEL2

1
Ph.D. Research Scholar Department of English Annamalai
University.
2
Assistant Professor Department of English Annamalai University.

ABSTRACT
Namita Gokhale is an Indian writer, Editor, Festival director, and
Publisher. Gokhale is a founder and co-director of the Jaipur
Literature Festival and Mountain Echoes, the Bhutan Literature
Festival and director of Yatra Books, a publishing house
specialising in translation. Namita Gokhale is popular for
discussing about man-woman relationships. The treatment of
women in her novels is different . Namita Gokhale portrays the
female characters in her novels who long for true love in life but
they fail in it. Paro, Gudiya, Parvati, Rachita, Shakuntala, and
other female characters of Namita Gokhale fall in their love-life.
They face failures and disappointments in their life due to the
selfish attitude of their male partners. Ghokale portrays women
in a different perspective. Women are not merely toys in the
hands of man and object of pleasure but they should be treated
as equal partner. This article attempts to explore the treatment
of women in the novels of Namita Gokhale.

Kee words: Deprivation, Suppression, rebellion, Identity.

Introduction
Namita Gokhale novels represent the status of women in society
and in patriarchal system.
Namita Gokhale focuses on the problems between man and
woman. Paro: Dreams of passion is about Paro’s rebellion and her
rejection of the culturally imposed sexual repression. Paro created
her own world and thinks in a different way. Namita Gokhale
creates a sensation with the development of Paro who can be
treated as modern woman with her own ideology. Paro is the main
protagonist who boldly searches for her life and also a rebellion of

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women against the traditions. Paro tries to reject the patriarchal

rules in the Indian Society. Paro is a woman of pride and self trust.
She thinks herself as superior to men. Priya and Paro represent
the consciousness of women. Paro is ready to do anything in the
name of modernization which inspired Priya. She narrated the love
and failure of her friend Paro. She wished to be like Paro. Priya
loved B.R. but he married Paro which led to the misunderstanding
between them. Paro changed her life partner as that of changing
the objects. For her men are just tool for her enjoyment. Paro used
her sex to overpower men. In her teens she was abused by men
and remained a unforgettable scar in her mind. Whenever she has
a chance to encounter a male she dominates them with her sex.
Paro fulfilled her materialistic needs in the name of sex. Her
relationship with men is not out of love. She never worried about
moral and social ethics but firm to live an independent and
individual life. The society was responsible for Paro’s change of
behavior. She was raped by the art master in her school but the
punishment was given only to Paro. She was expelled from school.
This painful experience created a thought in her mind that women
can encounter men and gain power only by sex. Many men like
B.R., Bucky Bandhpur, Lenin, Shambu Nath, and Loukas are victims
to the sex of paro. Both Paro and Priya had their own choice but
failed to implement them. Paro is a symbol of modernity and Priya
is a symbol of tradition. Paro identified her asset is sex and
enslaved all the male to assert her power.
Priya states the attitude of Paro that she can twist everyone
around her little finger with her magnetic personality. She expects
the unexpected things and find pleasure in doing it. B.R.says that
Paro
‘ is definitely one of the crudest, most castrating, selfish women I
have never encountered.’(22)
Later on Paro realized that she can’t dominate men without her
beauty and physical charm. Paro’s family felt her as a shame but
she felt it as a victory in her teens. Later on she was disillusioned
with her lfe. Priya who believed in arranged marriage also failed in
it. Paro finally committed suicide and Priya finds herself empty and
lonely. Both Paro and Priya were not happy in the male dominated
society. Ghokale portrayed the domination of men and sufferings
and frustration of women through the characters of Paro and Piya.
A satire about Delhi‟s upper-class, Paro has been described as “far

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more witty and genuinely irreverent than any of De‟s novels”.

(Gokhale. From South Asian Women authors. Online)
Gods, Graves, and Grandmother deals with female liberation.
Grandmother , Gudiya and Phoolwati face major crisis in the male
dominated Indian Society. Guidya is the protagonist of the novel
who lived with her grandmother. Gudiya in Gods, Graves, and
Grandmother is contrast to the traditional view on man-woman
relationship. She fall in love at first sight with Kalki and is ready to
sacrifice anything for her love. She not even hesitate to surrender
her chastity to satisfy Kalki’s physical pleasure. She is not ready to
hear the advice of Phoolwati who is her grandmother's assistant.
Phoolwati was a strong , fierce , loyal, practical and caring woman.
First she was presented as an entertaining woman but later on she
is a woman of stability and dignity. “Grandmother had abandoned
her burka the day we arrived ………… a virtuous woman’s curses
may follow you.” (12). Gudiya decides to marry Kalki who is
worthless. Namita Gokhale picturised a different vision on women
.
Women is presented in the role of subjects and men as objects.
Kalki is presented as the object and Gudiya as the subject. Kalki’s
relationship with Gudiya is only to fulfil his material advantage.
Kalki does not have genuine interest and love for Gudiya. His wish
is to fulfil his sexual pleasure. Their marriage life is not blissful as
she expected. He marries Gudiya reluctantly but he has his own
ambitions and aspirations. Gudiya’s love for Kalki is true and feels
worried by his indifference after their engagement. Gudiya had
many expectations about her married life. She wished for his true
love but her expectations vanished day by day. Though their
physical pleasures are satisfied, Gudiya is tired and dejected .
Kalki’s uncultured behavior entirely wipe out Gudiya’s dreams and
desires. Gudiya’s dreams are totally destroyed and she is heart
broken , “that this was how my whole life might pass – in
indifference, indignities and calculated cruelties”3. Though her
love is true she decides to get rid of him. Gudiya’s stopped thinking
about Kalki and started thinking of her own life. Gudiya loves Kalki
but she prioritized her freedom and serenity. She wishes to be
happy in loneliness instead of living with a man whose love is not
true. This novel represented the modern women’s pathetic hopes
and fears and portrays the powerful women who are practical and
assertive. Female characters face their fate happily and powerfully.

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Rachita Tiwari is the protagonist of the novel Book of Shadows. She

is working in a college as a lecturer. She is a normal, beautiful
woman with enough money. Rachita’s fiancé Anand hanged in a
room and committed suicide at the very beginning of the novel
which is pathetic. His suicidal note makes it clear that he was not
happy with the marriage relationship. “Goodbye, cruel world! I bid
thee farewell! You have tried me sorely, you have abused my
trust!”(5). His sister made an acid attack on Rachita. Her news is
scandal is everywhere. All the female characters of Ghokale’s novel
feel to be lonely in their life. But Rachita decided to alienate herself
from the family as well as from the society. There is a total
transformation in her life after the acid attack. She was no more
beautiful. This resulted in her loss of peace of mind and also
confidence.
She wished to overcome this accident but felt that she needs some
more time to get rid of this scar. She planned to go to Raniket for
peace of mind. She follows the trick of engaging herself in a busy
schedule to forget all the events that happened the past. First she
thought that being silent is the only solution to come out of her
pain and sufferings. She was not even ready to face the students in
the college. Later there occurred a change in her mind. She
understood nothing can give her peace either money or beauty.
Peace cannot be sought outside but its within her. The injury in her
face cannot be changed but she can change her own life by
enjoying the nature. Each and every woman face problems in their
day to day life. The difference is that some seek for solution and
some worry about the problem.
Rachita first worried about the acid attack and was not even ready
to face his friends, students and neighbours. Later she realized that
her confidence will change her life. Instead of depending on people
for peace she spent time with books and listening to the stories of
Lohaniju. Her emptiness in life is consoled by the nature. Namitha
dealt with the emotional aspects of women’s life. Rachita is neither
weak as Anand nor revengeful as his sister. She cope up with the
realities of life and proved that woman is always strong. After
facing physical and mental trauma in her life she proved herself
courageous at the end of the novel and emerged from the shadow
in her life.
The world outside is full of change, and I do not
know if these memories can endure. This hillside

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will remain, as will the snow mountains that watch

over us, even if nothing else does. The garden will
bloom again, the roses by the veranda, the weeds
and the forget-me-nots by the gravel path. I think
I know that I will remain. (Gokhale 232)

A Himalayan Love Story which trails the lives of Parvati and Mukul.
Both Parvati and
Mukul grow up together in the Himalayan town of Nainital. One
gets trapped in an unhappy
arranged marriage and finally ends up in a mental asylum. The
other one flees the restrictive and
conservative hill tribes to live in Hong Kong. He returns in the
middle age to fulfill the last wishes of his former teacher, and to
search for an unrequited teenage love. This novel has a story of
fierce sexuality and unrequited love. It is one of the tenderest
stories of the genre. It has several themes that can be broadly
separated for discussion: the themes of human relationships,
women's bonding, death and fear
A Himalayan Love Story presents the oppressive, debilitating life
situation of a housewife.
This family life is firmly located in its middle class environs. The
silence and the silencing of the
woman as a gendered subject is the focus of the narrative. But
even as the family life is located in the middle-class environs, the
narrative maps the position of the middle class. The woman as a
gendered subject is the focus of the narrative. But even as the
family life is located in the middleclass environs, the narrative
maps the position of the middle class. After sometime when Lalit
is diagnosed of Tuberculosis and has to get admitted in Bhowali'
sanatorium, Parvati tries hard to raise money for the Bhowali
sanitorium. She writes a letter to Mukul Nainwal, and another to
Masterji, asking for help. But before she could post either of them,
Lalit is dead:
What surprised me about death was this: the soul departs, leaving
the body forlorn. The body departs, it is taken away, disposed of,
it disintegrates, decomposes, it is gone. The ashes are thrown into
muddy rivers, …His nail cutter, a gift from his father, sits safely in

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the steel box that also holds his watch and wallet. His slippers still
lie under the bed, waiting. They did not perish with him. His two
suits hang in the cupboard; his shirts lie folded, quiescent. I wonder
if they remember him, his smell and his body. ( 47)
Lalit's death and Raju's wedding are horribly mixed up in Parvati's
mind, a blur of weeping and
laughter, death and merriment. Lalit's family is initially
affectionate to Parvati and look after her
tenderly. They decide not to delay Raju's marrige because of Lalit's
death. When Lalit's family
goes to Bombay with the Barat, Parvati moves back to Masterji's
house and here she comes to
know about her pregnancy and is delivered of a girl child, Irra. She
then, apparently, goes mad. rts, and failures are the main points in
this novel. The present novel reveals how poignantly Parvati
expresses the frustration and disappointment of women
experience social and cultural oppression in the male-dominating
society. The novel highlights the agony and trauma experienced by
women-in male dominated and tradition- bounded society .
Namitha Ghokale occupies a prominent position in the portrayal of
women characters. Her female characters are courageous and
independent instead of demanding the rights from others. Her
image of women is in a different perspective. She projected the
sufferings of women in various dimensions and gave solution to
their obstacles in life. They are not silent rebels but are bold,
outspoken, determined, and action-oriented.
REFERENCES
1. Paro: Dreams of Passion. Penguin Random House India, 2011.
2. Gokhale, Namita „The Book of Shadows‟ New Delhi: Penguin Books
India Pvt. Ltd. 2001.
3. Gokhale, Namita. A Himalayan Love Story.Penguin Random House
India, 2017.
4. Nigam, N.ly{. Feminist consciousness in Namita Gokhale Feminine
Psyche : A Post Modern Critique. Ed, Neeru Jandon N*, Delhi: Atlantic,
2008.Print.

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