THAT LONG SILENCE
Part-I starts with a reflection that highlights protagonist’s present state of mind. Jaya wants to be a writer, not just the one meant for women’s journal. She had already gained a little fame as a typical women writer who wrote about girls destined to be mated themselves with the right men, that was not the real picture of life she now admits. And yet she projected that picture, because she was afraid to face the disturbances caused by the genuine pictures of life.
The novel displays the process of Jaya’s self analysis and self recognition that help her to immerse from her cosy corner that she had so longer preferred the reality. As she reflects “Self revelation is a cruel process. Looking for it is as bewildering as trying to know how you really look. Ten different mirrors show you ten different faces.” She knows that in order to be a successful writer, she has to detach her experience from her awareness of that experience, and then it may be possible for her to render a real picture of life.
She equates the process to that of childbirth when one is afraid because one has to loose control over one’s body. In her attempt to write about her married life too, Jaya is afraid and feels like loosing control over her. She is also puzzled to find out how much of the facts of her life would be relevant in the long time. She remembers how she once reduced her bio-data to three lines recording her birth, her father’s death, the birth of two children and the abortion of the third.
She equates the process to that of childbirth when one is afraid because one has to loose control over one’s body. In her attempt to write about her married life too, Jaya is afraid and feels like loosing control over her. She is also puzzled to find out how much of the facts of her life would be relevant in the long time. She remembers how she once reduced her bio-data to three lines recording her birth, her father’s death, the birth of two children and the abortion of the third.
The second section of part-I starts with a reflection on the pseudo-puritanism of the time after Gandhi’s death. Jaya recalls how his father despise her addiction to film song “ that disgusting mush” he would call and had tried his best to wean her from the habit of listening to Rafi and Lata and to make her love palushkar and fayaz khan instead. The shame that she felt then survived long. While going to cinema hall, she was afraid to tell Mohan that she likes to see from the very beginning not missing the ads, lest she being ridiculed but she tried frantically to get their on time. Getting the kids ready for going out. That she developed a detached view of life its clear from her recollection. Remembrances of the past are followed by the description of Jaya's arrival at the Dadar flat ten days ago and the reason behind that coming is exposed, gradually through several recollections. Jaya recalls how she desired a catastrophe not of course a personal one in order to get relieved of the boredom and monotony of life. But it was beyond her imagination that her long cherish longing for disaster would come true in the form of her husband being entangled in a scam case that he would be on the verge of loosing his job, bringing an unimaginable hardship to all in the family.
Coming back from the world of the past Jaya ventures to describe their arrival in the Dadar flat, an incident that took place seven days ago. The image of the bullocks yoked together not only suggests compulsion and relationship to be mechanical but also the silence that they have maintained so long. Keeping her detached from the scene, Jaya tries to describe how she and Mohan climbed the dingy stair of drab building in the heart of Bombay, met the maid servant Nayana and how ignoring Mohan the woman unlocked the door. At this point she recognizes the fact that she and Mohan are two persons having distinctness of their own and not just two bullocks yoked together. Mohan is by nature indifferent to others and now fear has been added to his indifference, leaving him a sad, obsessed man reconciled to failure, almost resembling a character in Graham Greene’s stories. Criticizing herself honestly Jaya comes to the conclusion that she has been continuing the guerrilla warfare. For many years, offering shuttle resistance to Mohan and it was often through silence.
Now that Jaya has left behind Suhasini, she is able to criticise the type of Suhasini as being selfish and creul. She equates Suhasini to the sparrow in the bed time story. The crow waiting for a long time and finally when it lets the crow in, it advises the crow to warm itself on the hot pan and was burnt to death. Jaya was horrified with the sadistic tale that was told to children. Later she found that the story carried a dreadful moral, the survival is the sparrow who is cautious, self centered, wise, dutiful and true. In the guise of providing sympathy and shelter, the sparrow kills the crow. And it does all this for its safety and security. Surprisingly, the victim in the story, the crow is a male and the victor sparrow a female. But Deshpande wants to show that the sparrow is the ultimate loser, because there is no such thing as safety and the female cannot be safe even if she is devoid of all moral values for the sake of maintaining her family safe.
Equating Suhasini to the sparrow in the story, the writer lays bare the inhumanity and deceitfulness of the traditional role of a women as a mother and a housewife, a role glorified by the society and accepted by the gullible women folk.
“I have a feeling that even if little boys can forget this story, little girls never will. They will store this story in their subconscious, their unconscious or whatever and eventually they will become that damnably insufferably triggish sparrow looking after their homes, their babies....and to help with the rest of the world and you are safe”
“I have a feeling that even if little boys can forget this story, little girls never will. They will store this story in their subconscious, their unconscious or whatever and eventually they will become that damnably insufferably triggish sparrow looking after their homes, their babies....and to help with the rest of the world and you are safe”
The story behind the equation of the sparrow in the story and a women like Suhasini are gradually revealed through Jaya's recollection. She recalls the unfortunate women Kusum, a distant relation of hers, whom she sheltered in the Dadar flat despite Morgan’s antipathy towards her. The children had always been their final argument, their justification for everything and Jaya was defeated but she argued that Kusum should be kept in a Dadar flat, away from her children and Kusum began to stay there despite Mohan’s contempt. Not only Mohan but also Jaya's two brothers and her mother opposed the idea of taking Museum’s responsibility, yet, Jaya struck to her decision though her sincerity could not save the poor women who was reported to have committed suicide. Jaya’s silent struggle against the limitation imposed on her by the husband and members of her family is recalled by her. She is also aware that such scattered cases of silent revolt are not enough for asserting her individuality. She began to prepare herself internally for making a fresh ground as a writer.
It is curious to note that despite the feeling of uneasiness attached to suffering Jaya has a sense of freedom that she has nothing to cleanse or to arrange in the household stop the monsters that ruled our life so long, gadgets that had be kept in order, the glassware that had sparkled the furniture, that had to be kept spotless and dust free have now banished leaving her enough time to be with. She is surprised that she thinks of them in terms of monster for it was she who hankered about these objects. The facts becomes clear to her that she would not choose for herself, but only made her fit for the kind of life Mohan wanted to live and that too in an unconscious way without analyzing herself to know if she had desired any other more of existence. This time also when she feels free she does not know what she wants. She only knows that the barrenness and ugliness of the place pleased her more than their carefully furnished home in Churchgate and that she had a queer sense of homecoming. When she enters a flat with Mohan this sense implies that her effort to run a happy family were not promoted by her genuine will. It was her surrounding her society that moulded her thoughts rendering her unable to exercise her free will. Her sense of freedom in the Dadar flat is a step towards her self-recognition.
The technique of revealing the past through association is used again when Jaya feels as if she were in Saptagiri's Ajji's takes her back to her childhood plays when she would go to Saptagiri’s her father’s ancestral home Saptagiri Ajji's was a representative of a traditional Hindu widow observing tenitence. She denuded herself of all those things that make up women's life. She had no possession except two saris, she wore. She could sit on bare ground and slept on her straw mat at night. The reconciliation of Saptagiri’s Ajji's remark that Jaya would be a disturbing factor for her husband because of her nature. She had question for everything and also retort for everything. Analysing her present predicament, she says that she has neither any question nor any retort for Mohan now and yet there is no comfort.
Jaya's experience in the Dadar flat is like going back to his childhood days of 'keeping house'. She used to play in Saptagiri's Ajji's house along with her cousins. While Jaya is content in keeping house in Dadar flat, Mohan prowls restlessly about the house unable to sit down in one place. The waiting is getting endowed. Jaya reflects that it is really hard for Mohan to wait as he has never been used to it. She also notes a subtle difference between a man's approach to waiting and women's.
"He did not know what waiting was, he had always moved steadily from one moment to the next. But for women, the waiting game starts early in childhood. Wait until you get married, wait till your husband comes, wait until you go into your in-laws home, wait until you have kids."
"He did not know what waiting was, he had always moved steadily from one moment to the next. But for women, the waiting game starts early in childhood. Wait until you get married, wait till your husband comes, wait until you go into your in-laws home, wait until you have kids."
For Jaya's, a waiting for disaster has been added to all these. She developed the belief that she cannot escape that disaster for long, that she must face it someday when Mohan told her of all the equations against him. Jaya felt that her waiting disaster come to its end. Unlike Jaya, Mohan had no belief in disaster. He tried to disown his responsibility and even justified his taking black money on the plea that no one can live just on salary.
The third part starts with a conversation between Ravi and Jaya who is trying the best to give a impression that every thing is going well with her family lest there be any suspicion in Ravi's mind with regard to Mohan's career. Ravi's pre wells up her childhood memories affecting her emotions. But he says that their mother complain about rare visits to Ambegaon to see her mother, uncle and aunt. Jaya is angry as she remembers the old stories of Chandu mama's financing her college views after her father's death. She has always tried to ignore the fact but at the same time cannot altogether neglect the three bold persons. She also expresses her anger when Ravi makes fun with the feminine desire of motherhood. While referring to Vanitamami, Jaya takes the responsibility of contacting the nurse known to them for Vanitamami's treatment and of bringing her mother and Vanitamami to her place in Bombay. Ravi expresses his inability to take them to his home as his wife Asha has gone to her father's place.
Ravi also asks Jaya to take initiative in settling up their conjugal quarrel. It is also revealed that Ravi heard about Mohan's trouble in office and even proposes Jaya to lend a helping hand through a political leader. Jaya however shows a common sense through her denial of any trouble. The strange relationship of Ravi and Asha reminds her naturally of the past days when Asha was pampered for her wealth and beauty.
With Deshpande the stream of consciousness technique is no more a strenuous effort on the part of the reader to follow the track of the protagonist thought process. The process is spontaneous and hence is quite natural. Jaya's sojourn in the past is this naturally disturbed by Mohan's enquiring about Ravi's intention. Jaya tells him that Ravi was enquiring about the trouble in Mohan's office and Mohan is naturally upset, that this scam has been disclosed. Jaya sees Mohan unmasked now, as he overtakes her with his repeated queries about what exactly Ravi has known. Mohan's concern leaves him almost a fanatic and he charges Jaya with total concerned in his problem. He even brings the accusation that Jaya's only concern has always been the comfort supplied by Mohan; though she hardly bothers about Mohan's problem in the office. Mohan takes accusation directly hers to the past days, leaving angry confusion.
Jaya feels that Mohan has armed himself with an anger and hostility underneath. He accuses her for not taking care about the children of isolating herself from the family and her over feeble defences fierce onslaught. She feels as if she has been struck down, pinned to her own place by his anger like a huge spear going through her and get living her fully conscious. He further says that all women are alike and there on Jaya interrupts with her question if he knows what type of women she is. As Mohan goes on describing in a changed tone that he has not failed to note her changes after they came to the Dadar flat. Jaya notes het childlike confusion in her face and just cannot check her hysteric laughter. Mohan stares at her in horror and then leaves home.
The fourth part of the novel shows no change in the setting. Jaya is still alone in her Dadar flat as Mohan has not come yet. But she has little time now for idle brooding. She goes to the hospital to arrange treatment for Raja Ram, the stepson of the maid Jeeja. Jaya visits the doctor on duty and luckily he happens to be her elder brother's friend, doctor Vyas. He answers that he will do whatever is needed. Jaya in this episode seems to move out from her own centralized position and help others unlike the sparrow hinting her emancipation from orthodox norms of aligning oneself to family concerns only. Jaya goes to their ChurchGate apartment, perhaps she expected Mohan to be there and gets a bit disappointed when she finds the house empty. A matter of concern has been waiting for her. Servants from the neighbouring household informs her that their phone was ringing continuously. No sooner the servants inform her, than the phone starts ringing again. She is horrified to hear the voice of her friend Rupa, who took Jaya's children with her on a family tour. Rahul has gone away without telling them anything. The sun going away points out the generation gap and the clash of different ideologies, which was not worked out by the parents. Jaya is left in horrified state and a relief only comes when Vasant informs her through the phone that Rahul is with him.
With so many confusing incidents, Jaya starts for the Daddar flat and waits under a bus shade. She notices two young man and a girl in objectionable posture and cannot resist shouting at them. The contempt of Jaya which was subdued and defined as not being womanly is poured out here implying her realself the bold Jaya, intolerant to something, wrong is now emerging. She reaches the flat somehow in an unconscious state suffering from high fever as Jaya comes to her senses and feels little better, she finds Mukta accompanying her. While answering Mukta's query, Jaya confesses that perhaps Mohan has left her. There in Mukta asks her if it is for Kamat. Surprised, Jaya tells her that Kamat has nothing to do in her case. Mukta then accuses Jaya of leaving die Kamat alone in his room. A new vista is opened up before her eyes. Her newly acquired knowledge about Kamat and Mukta helps her to recognize her own self too :
The loneliness of a man facing his death - Is their anything like it in this world ? His pain filled this room and we could both of us feel it. Mukta and I. The fellowship of pain seemed to bind us together. We were like two patients in a hospital suffering from the same disease lying on two adjacent beds.
At the end of the novel Rahul returns accompanied by Vasant and there is also Mohan's telegram saying all well. These outward facts are perfectly blended with the dimensional depth of Jaya's consciousness. Flashbacks are extensively used to trace the evolution of Jaya's consciousness and to show how she emerges as a writer who is true to her self. The process of her self realisation being complete, she goes back to the papers, in which she has been scribbling. She reflects on her frightened and desperate self, which is now subdued by her fearless spirit. She feels that the panic is gone. Earlier she thought that she must survive only as Mohan's wife and that the bids of herself that refused to be Mohan's wife must be cut-off. Now she understands that this kind of fragmentation is not possible. She recalls Daniel De words that :
" Fiction is a sort of lying that makes a great hole in the heart at which by degrees a habit of lying enters in."
Jaya likes little bits of fiction but cannot think of leaving a hole in heart. She now rejects the image of two bullocks yorked together for this doesn't give a real picture. In order to plug that hole in the heart she has to erase the silence between them. Deshpande's unique narrative skill blends the interior monologue with the ebb and flow of outward incidents including dialogue among several characters. The novel strength lies in its capacity to capture the reader's attention through a spell of narration.
Identity
The focus in the novel's Shashi Deshpande is on the urban middle-class women. Her novels raises questions such as what is a women's place at home and in society ? What is the attitude of the society towards her ? And why the protagonist seek answer to these questions, they also begin to search for their own identities. Deshpande Sahitya Award winning novel That Long Silence voices the anguish and conflict of the modern educated Indian women fought between patriarchy and tradition on the one hand and self-expression on the other. G. S. Armour points out in the Preface to the Legacy And Other Stories ( 1978 ) to find her identity as wife, mother and most important of all, as human being is. Shashi Deshpande's major concern as a creative writer and this appears in all her important stories.
Deshpande's other novels such as Roots and Shadows, The Dark Holds No Terror, The Binding Vine, presents her heroine's struggle to find their voice and continuously search to define themselves in a male dominated society where she is expected to be passive and unresponsive. The Androcentric Indian society pushes the women to the margin and she has to find her place and identity by fighting against the old established prejudices.
Women has a social category is culturally conditioned and constructed. Jaya had a completely different upbringing in her girlhood in comparison to the protagonist of the Shashi Deshpande's previous novel like Saru in The Dark Holds No Terror and Indu in Roots and Shadows. Her position and provisions were kept at par with the boys of the family. She was provided good education but she was not kept away from being imparted the knowledge of a patriarchal setup and the startups of a women in the domestic ambience. She was aware and sure that the marriage only was her destiny and future. Vanitamami's advice given Jaya before her marriage reflects the Indian Society being conditioned and the stark reality of women as a subjugated self.
" If your husband has a mistress or two. Ignore it. Take up a hobby instead, cats, baby or your sister's children. "
She said "A husband is like a sheltering tree, implying Jaya would have no identity of her own after her marriage. She would be recognized by her husband's name so she had to "keep the tree alive and flourishing even if she had to water or with deceit and lies".
A sheltering tree could provide meaning and magnitude in her life, otherwise her life would be dangerously unprotected and vulnerable.
In Indian patriarchal society there is no identity for a women. Manusmrit was the earliest which dealt with the social philosophy to perpetuate a dependent role for women. She must be kept in dependence by the male of their families. Her father protects her in childhood, her husband protects her in youth and her son protects her in old age. A women is never fit for independence according to Simone De Beauvoir : women is the other, she is seen only as a sexual entity and this limits the position of a women.
After Jaya's marriage to Mohan, the husband had taken it for granted that her wife should acquiesce and follow his thoughts and principles unquestionably. The early age of her marriage amazed Jaya for having unrestricted physical contact which was devoid of real love. Despite her marriage to Mohan and subsequently becoming a mother of two children, she lacks the respect and understanding from the husband. Deshpande uses a beautiful image to describe Jaya's married life.
" A pair of bullock yoked together. "
The bullocks so yoked shared the burden between themselves but no one knows whether they love each other or not. The image of the beast performing the duties mechanically undermines the husband wife relationship, who are supposed to be united in marriage for love and not for lending a mechanical life terminating into mutual hatred and distrust. Jaya resents the role assigned to a wife, when she is called upon to start at home, look after the babies and keep out the rest of the world. She becomes 'damnably insufferably priggish sparrow' appropriating herself to a new role of Suhasini, a placid and docile women.
Jaya learns to suppress her own wishes and act according to her husband's. She, for example likes to see advertisements that precede a movie show for they give her "an illusion of happiness" yet her husband does not like them, they start late. Over the years, she shapes herself to his desire that in the end she is left with no identity of her own, just emptiness and silence. However, it is Mohan who has a clear idea of what he wants to lead, the kind of home he would live in but Jaya is vague and non-committal. She says :
"to know what you want...I have been denied that"
It is also this self of Jaya which seeks to create a private life of her own. She does not have a well defined career, but she is a successful columnist and an aspiring writer of fiction. On her husband's suggestion she takes up writing her light humorous pieces about the travails of a middle class housewife called Sita are quite popular. This however does not give Jaya much happiness. She is an intense, thinking women eager to probe the meaning of marriage and love and of life itself. In fact she considers such writing as merely a firm of escape, a creeping into a safe hole. She longs to confront life directly through her fiction and she had made a good start too. Her story about a man "who could not reach out to his wife except through her body" was seen as an honest probing into life and even one apprised for its authentic depiction yet her husband had been much hurt by the story who believed that it was a literal presentation of their own married life. Feeling quietly and ashamed, she had stopped writing and turned to frivolous pieces, such as Sita stories yet. She continues with her guerrilla warfare and keeps writing serious stories and sending them to magazines.
One of them is about a child widow based on an actual story narrated to her by her father. She was humiliated in public because she hadn't shaven her head. They called her a 'whore', a fact which arouses Jaya's indignation and impels her to write a story. The story get rejected and Kamat tells Jaya what was wrong with it.
"its too restrain spew your anger in your writing women spew it out, why are you holding it in ?"
The irony has been that she can't belonging as she does to tradition bound culture. A women can never be angry says Jaya, she can only be neurotic, hysterical, frustrated. There is no room for anger in my life.
Understanding and growth of an individual lies in the domain of a true companionship. Mohan fails to offer any of it. He either provides any encouragement nor celebrates their relation. It is Kamat who treats her as an equal, is considerate and attentive. Jaya says "with this man I had not been a women. I had been just myself - Jaya". It is ironical that the friendship intentutive understanding which should be provided by her husband is extended by Kamat. Jaya's association with Kamat could be a kind of repressed desire which she yearns for, a relationship warm and friendly where she could exchange ideas, could express herself and feel free to be her ownself.
It is also in the Dadar flat that she tries to gain her original position, an individual quite independent in nature. The new setting instills a new setting a new confidence in her. Her refusal to give Mohan the keys of the Dadar flat a symbolic of the shuttle change in thir relation. In the changing circumstances, she refuses to be servile and opens the door herself. Her ruthless introspection makes her conscious of her reduced objectified position with no shame, no form of her own. Looking for it is as bewildering as trying to knock how you really look. Ten different mirrors show you ten different faces.
The traditional role model archetypes of Sita and Gandhari seem to fade away as she is able to distance herself from Suhasini, who seems like a stranger to her now. Her decision to give up writing Sita stories is a step towards a new individuality. The myth of Maitri who refuses husband’s of property and wants immortality, is a challenge to the male domination of sainthood and scholarship and provides a framework to the struggle of Jaya.
Deshpande, with her pragmatism as well as her traditional middle class background, does not take rebellion against a male dominated world to the bitter end. She feels along with the Apostle Paul, marriage may not offer the best of all possible worlds to a man and a woman, yet in the present dispensation, it is more or less essential and must be made to work, for neither a man nor a woman is complete in himself or herself. Both biologically and emotionally, need each other and if they can develop a measure of harmony in their relation, so much the better. Even Jaya begins to realise this and anxiously awaits the return of Mohan.
Deshpande makes us hope that a slightly different Jaya will return since she will make adjustments, but they will not be servile once. She rejects the image of two bullocks yoked together. Now she has belief in herself, she can choose the intense searching of the self has brought knowledge of life which cannot leaved in a vacuum. She realises that she too was responsible for her victimisation. Deshpande invokes the Bhagwat Gita and refers to Arjun’s knowledge imparted to him by Lord Krishna, “Do as you desire”. She must now exercise her choice and give up using Prakrit the language of the downtrodden. Women must assert and change themselves and hope that men will change too. ‘Its possible that we may not change even over a long periods of time but we can always hope without that life would be impossible and if there is anything I know now, it is this life has always to be made possible’.
THAT LONG SILENCE AS AN INDIAN NOVEL
That Long Silence is an Indian Novel not only because its setting is Indian Metropolis (Bombay). And its characters are typical indian, but also because the essence of indian thought and philosophy is introduced through its protagonist through a long interior monologue that blurs the distinction between past and present. Jay projects herself in four different roles. All these roles refers to the indian classics and myths, the role of Sita ( in the Ramayana), of Draupadi (in the Mahabharata), of the Gandhari ( in the Mahabharata), of Maitri (in the Upanishad).
Jaya starts with the role of Sita, the wife of Shree Ram who in all ways had been accepted as a model wife in the indian society. Jaya’s playing the role of Sita serves a double purpose at the home. The role of Sita is appreciated by her husband and her relatives, and Jaya receives applause and also a sense of security. As per her career the role of Sita helps her find a corner in a women’s magazine to which she regularly contributed much to the satisfaction of Mohan. The role of Sita demands sacrifice, Jaya had to sacrifice her individuality and had to mould herself. As per Mohan’s desire she cut her long hairs, did not go out for a job and among many other thing ceased to be self conscious writer with an urge for exposing reality. She later tried to give Mohan a list occasions when she was subdued.
"The job I wanted to take, the baby I wanted to adopt, the anti price campaign I wanted to take part in ....but even as I listed these to myself, it came to me that perhaps it had nothing to do with Mohan, the fact that I had not done these things, that I had left them alone perhaps I had not really cared enough about these things myself. Instead I said, and my voices sullen even to me, I have done everything you wanted to me."
Jaya's approach reveals a typical Indian attitude when a Hindu girl marries, she knows that it is a bondage souls and she is expected to merge her will in the will of her husband. Jaya tried to do what exactly she was expected by the husband as well as the society. The feminist critics would interpret such passages as compromising any of the ages from Jaya's list would have provoked the feminist to stand campaign against the suppression of women in the andro-centric society. Jaya did not do show as she had embraced the Indian tradition consciously and followed the path of the Indian philosophy which put am emphasis on consciousness. Deshpande therefore chooses a course of the rigorous process of self realization for her protagonist. The change in Jaya's role as Sita was all a pervasive. She accepted Mohan as her profession, and her means of livelihood. His approval seem to be the most important thing for her life as it was for the Sita in the ancient days. In the modern context, Jaya had also followed the advice of the fashion magazines in order to be the follower of her husband. She finds in retrospect :
"There had been time - it came back to me when I had so faithfully followed all the edicts laid down by the women's magazine. They had been my bible, and I would quote over the wisdom contained in them. Don't let yourself go. How to keep your husband in love with you. Keep romance alive in a marriage. The quality of charm in a women"
Jaya simultaneously also takes the role of Gandhari; the mother of one hundred Kaurvas and the wife of blind king Dhritharashtra. Since the day of her marriage, Gandhari had used a covering on her eyes so that she might be denied eyesight like her husband. Dritharashtra loss of physical eyesight was also accompanied by his moral blindness. His love for his children also made him blind to their faults. Gandhari feigned blindness also kept her unaware of the criminal acts committed by the son and supported by the husband. She just did not exercise her knowledge of good and evil. Almost in the way Gandhari chose to remain blind. Jaya also posed to be blind, not bothering about the ways adopted by Mohan forgetting a better quarter and then a transfer to Bombay.
Jaya says :
"Mohan had managed to get the job. I never asked him how he did it. If Gandhari bandaged her eyes to become blind like her husband, could be called an ideal wife, I was an ideal wife too. I bandaged my eyes tightly. I didn't want to know anything. It was enough for me that we moved to Bombay that could send Rahul and Rati to school that I could have the things we needed..."
Jaya in modern context plays Gandhari, without bothering about the moral good and evil. She ceased to be an individual who exercises her power of power of discrimination between the good and the evil. Only when, Mohan brought the accusation, Jaya was crestfallen. She had never imagined that she would have to take responsibility of Mohan's misdeeds. There was also a side role, that of Draupadi who merged with the role of Sita, when Jaya followed in the Dadar flat. When their husbands were in trouble, both Sita and Draupadi followed them in exile. Almost in the same way Jaya followed Mohan.
Jaya's self analysis is revealed to her that she could very well take the role of Maitri who rejected her husband's wealth on the ground that wealth would not lead to immortality. The fact is that Jaya was not prepared for making a choice of her own. It requires moral courage and a total hold on oneself when one makes a free choice. Jaya was lacking in both hence only a passive role could suit her. In her introspection in the Dadar's flat :
"The truth is that it was Mohan who had a clear ideas of what he wanted to know what you want. I have been denied that"
The idea of immortality suggested by Maitri still appeared crazy to Jaya but when her self scrutiny was compelled Jaya a courage to choose the course of her life. She is prepared for taking up the role of Maitri who dared to question the husband indicating that Jaya too would break the silence. She also understands the false idea to remain safe forever. Mohan's alleged malpractice, fear of being sacked had shaken Jaya's sense of safety and eventually Mohan's accusation brought on her the shattered illusion that Jaya had been maintaining so long. The roles of Sita and Gandhari did not fit in her changed sensibilities. The only role available to her is that of Maitri who did not require her husband's wealth either.
At the last stage Jaya is reminded her of her remark of Sri Krishna in Bhagwad Gita on the battle field of Kurukshetra. Shri Krishna told Arjun all about the different ways of worship and about the illusionary views of life. He told Arjun that he himself would have to make his choice 'Yathaecchasi Tatha Kuru' do as you desire. It is now when Jaya feels the implication of Arjun's remark but now I understand with this line after those millions of words of instruction Krishna confers humanness on Arjun.
"I have given you knowledge. Now you make the choices, the choice is yours. Do as you desire."
It becomes clear to Jaya that in order to assert her individuality she is to make a choice of her own. Her newly realised self can no more play the role of unquestioning Sita. Mohan will be back, all well, his telegram says. Does he mean by this that we will go back to being as we were...but it is no longer possibility. I will have to erase the silence between us...I learnt with a sense of outrage that its rigid rules ( sanskrit drama ) did not permit women characters to speak Sanskrit. They had to use Prakrit, a language that had sounded to my ears like a babies lisp. The anger I felt then comes back to me when I realise what I have been speaking Prakrit myself.
The entire process of Jaya's self realisation and her final choice that she would no more accept the term on life imposed on her but will argue at every point out the outcome of her realising the essence of the Indian Classics and religious scriptures that is why Jaya cannot be angry with anybody. If she would have acquired sufficient self knowledge beforehand and would not bother about her safety she could not be subdued by anybody. With this knowledge she cannot forgive herself and therefore stops blaming others.
Shashi Deshpande's insight into the complex texture of Indian ( Hindu Society ) is clear from her novel. She notes the existence of two simultaneous trend that had been prevailing in the Indian society since the days of the Puranas. There is a long tradition of worshipping goddess, and also the tradition denying the human status to women again, women are not treated equally under the same roof. In a family, the mother figure may be all powerful while her daughter in law are humiliated. Such keen observation of reality enable Deshpande to develop an unbiased view of the situation. The novel exposes her belief are the women themselves are not less responsible than men for their sufferings. This belief held her from being a radical feminist. In fact, Indian soil is not fit for the kind of protest, one finds in western novels. Both men and women in India have to broaden their consciousness to criticise their own feeling and attitudes in order to give equal status to women. Deshpande realised this and expressed it in her novel.
The traditional role model archetypes of Sita and Gandhari seem to fade away as she is able to distance herself from Suhasini, who seems like a stranger to her now. Her decision to give up writing Sita stories is a step towards a new individuality. The myth of Maitri who refuses husband’s of property and wants immortality, is a challenge to the male domination of sainthood and scholarship and provides a framework to the struggle of Jaya.
Deshpande, with her pragmatism as well as her traditional middle class background, does not take rebellion against a male dominated world to the bitter end. She feels along with the Apostle Paul, marriage may not offer the best of all possible worlds to a man and a woman, yet in the present dispensation, it is more or less essential and must be made to work, for neither a man nor a woman is complete in himself or herself. Both biologically and emotionally, need each other and if they can develop a measure of harmony in their relation, so much the better. Even Jaya begins to realise this and anxiously awaits the return of Mohan.
Deshpande makes us hope that a slightly different Jaya will return since she will make adjustments, but they will not be servile once. She rejects the image of two bullocks yoked together. Now she has belief in herself, she can choose the intense searching of the self has brought knowledge of life which cannot leaved in a vacuum. She realises that she too was responsible for her victimisation. Deshpande invokes the Bhagwat Gita and refers to Arjun’s knowledge imparted to him by Lord Krishna, “Do as you desire”. She must now exercise her choice and give up using Prakrit the language of the downtrodden. Women must assert and change themselves and hope that men will change too. ‘Its possible that we may not change even over a long periods of time but we can always hope without that life would be impossible and if there is anything I know now, it is this life has always to be made possible’.
THAT LONG SILENCE AS AN INDIAN NOVEL
That Long Silence is an Indian Novel not only because its setting is Indian Metropolis (Bombay). And its characters are typical indian, but also because the essence of indian thought and philosophy is introduced through its protagonist through a long interior monologue that blurs the distinction between past and present. Jay projects herself in four different roles. All these roles refers to the indian classics and myths, the role of Sita ( in the Ramayana), of Draupadi (in the Mahabharata), of the Gandhari ( in the Mahabharata), of Maitri (in the Upanishad).
Jaya starts with the role of Sita, the wife of Shree Ram who in all ways had been accepted as a model wife in the indian society. Jaya’s playing the role of Sita serves a double purpose at the home. The role of Sita is appreciated by her husband and her relatives, and Jaya receives applause and also a sense of security. As per her career the role of Sita helps her find a corner in a women’s magazine to which she regularly contributed much to the satisfaction of Mohan. The role of Sita demands sacrifice, Jaya had to sacrifice her individuality and had to mould herself. As per Mohan’s desire she cut her long hairs, did not go out for a job and among many other thing ceased to be self conscious writer with an urge for exposing reality. She later tried to give Mohan a list occasions when she was subdued.
"The job I wanted to take, the baby I wanted to adopt, the anti price campaign I wanted to take part in ....but even as I listed these to myself, it came to me that perhaps it had nothing to do with Mohan, the fact that I had not done these things, that I had left them alone perhaps I had not really cared enough about these things myself. Instead I said, and my voices sullen even to me, I have done everything you wanted to me."
Jaya's approach reveals a typical Indian attitude when a Hindu girl marries, she knows that it is a bondage souls and she is expected to merge her will in the will of her husband. Jaya tried to do what exactly she was expected by the husband as well as the society. The feminist critics would interpret such passages as compromising any of the ages from Jaya's list would have provoked the feminist to stand campaign against the suppression of women in the andro-centric society. Jaya did not do show as she had embraced the Indian tradition consciously and followed the path of the Indian philosophy which put am emphasis on consciousness. Deshpande therefore chooses a course of the rigorous process of self realization for her protagonist. The change in Jaya's role as Sita was all a pervasive. She accepted Mohan as her profession, and her means of livelihood. His approval seem to be the most important thing for her life as it was for the Sita in the ancient days. In the modern context, Jaya had also followed the advice of the fashion magazines in order to be the follower of her husband. She finds in retrospect :
"There had been time - it came back to me when I had so faithfully followed all the edicts laid down by the women's magazine. They had been my bible, and I would quote over the wisdom contained in them. Don't let yourself go. How to keep your husband in love with you. Keep romance alive in a marriage. The quality of charm in a women"
Jaya simultaneously also takes the role of Gandhari; the mother of one hundred Kaurvas and the wife of blind king Dhritharashtra. Since the day of her marriage, Gandhari had used a covering on her eyes so that she might be denied eyesight like her husband. Dritharashtra loss of physical eyesight was also accompanied by his moral blindness. His love for his children also made him blind to their faults. Gandhari feigned blindness also kept her unaware of the criminal acts committed by the son and supported by the husband. She just did not exercise her knowledge of good and evil. Almost in the way Gandhari chose to remain blind. Jaya also posed to be blind, not bothering about the ways adopted by Mohan forgetting a better quarter and then a transfer to Bombay.
Jaya says :
"Mohan had managed to get the job. I never asked him how he did it. If Gandhari bandaged her eyes to become blind like her husband, could be called an ideal wife, I was an ideal wife too. I bandaged my eyes tightly. I didn't want to know anything. It was enough for me that we moved to Bombay that could send Rahul and Rati to school that I could have the things we needed..."
Jaya in modern context plays Gandhari, without bothering about the moral good and evil. She ceased to be an individual who exercises her power of power of discrimination between the good and the evil. Only when, Mohan brought the accusation, Jaya was crestfallen. She had never imagined that she would have to take responsibility of Mohan's misdeeds. There was also a side role, that of Draupadi who merged with the role of Sita, when Jaya followed in the Dadar flat. When their husbands were in trouble, both Sita and Draupadi followed them in exile. Almost in the same way Jaya followed Mohan.
Jaya's self analysis is revealed to her that she could very well take the role of Maitri who rejected her husband's wealth on the ground that wealth would not lead to immortality. The fact is that Jaya was not prepared for making a choice of her own. It requires moral courage and a total hold on oneself when one makes a free choice. Jaya was lacking in both hence only a passive role could suit her. In her introspection in the Dadar's flat :
"The truth is that it was Mohan who had a clear ideas of what he wanted to know what you want. I have been denied that"
The idea of immortality suggested by Maitri still appeared crazy to Jaya but when her self scrutiny was compelled Jaya a courage to choose the course of her life. She is prepared for taking up the role of Maitri who dared to question the husband indicating that Jaya too would break the silence. She also understands the false idea to remain safe forever. Mohan's alleged malpractice, fear of being sacked had shaken Jaya's sense of safety and eventually Mohan's accusation brought on her the shattered illusion that Jaya had been maintaining so long. The roles of Sita and Gandhari did not fit in her changed sensibilities. The only role available to her is that of Maitri who did not require her husband's wealth either.
At the last stage Jaya is reminded her of her remark of Sri Krishna in Bhagwad Gita on the battle field of Kurukshetra. Shri Krishna told Arjun all about the different ways of worship and about the illusionary views of life. He told Arjun that he himself would have to make his choice 'Yathaecchasi Tatha Kuru' do as you desire. It is now when Jaya feels the implication of Arjun's remark but now I understand with this line after those millions of words of instruction Krishna confers humanness on Arjun.
"I have given you knowledge. Now you make the choices, the choice is yours. Do as you desire."
It becomes clear to Jaya that in order to assert her individuality she is to make a choice of her own. Her newly realised self can no more play the role of unquestioning Sita. Mohan will be back, all well, his telegram says. Does he mean by this that we will go back to being as we were...but it is no longer possibility. I will have to erase the silence between us...I learnt with a sense of outrage that its rigid rules ( sanskrit drama ) did not permit women characters to speak Sanskrit. They had to use Prakrit, a language that had sounded to my ears like a babies lisp. The anger I felt then comes back to me when I realise what I have been speaking Prakrit myself.
The entire process of Jaya's self realisation and her final choice that she would no more accept the term on life imposed on her but will argue at every point out the outcome of her realising the essence of the Indian Classics and religious scriptures that is why Jaya cannot be angry with anybody. If she would have acquired sufficient self knowledge beforehand and would not bother about her safety she could not be subdued by anybody. With this knowledge she cannot forgive herself and therefore stops blaming others.
Shashi Deshpande's insight into the complex texture of Indian ( Hindu Society ) is clear from her novel. She notes the existence of two simultaneous trend that had been prevailing in the Indian society since the days of the Puranas. There is a long tradition of worshipping goddess, and also the tradition denying the human status to women again, women are not treated equally under the same roof. In a family, the mother figure may be all powerful while her daughter in law are humiliated. Such keen observation of reality enable Deshpande to develop an unbiased view of the situation. The novel exposes her belief are the women themselves are not less responsible than men for their sufferings. This belief held her from being a radical feminist. In fact, Indian soil is not fit for the kind of protest, one finds in western novels. Both men and women in India have to broaden their consciousness to criticise their own feeling and attitudes in order to give equal status to women. Deshpande realised this and expressed it in her novel.
