Quest for Identity in the Novels of Shashi Deshpande

QUEST FOR IDENTITY IN THE NOVELS OF SHASHI DESHPANDE The Indian socio-culture system has never given, if we take into account the history ,both past and present ,due and responsible place to woman. Her roles in the family organization, consolidation of social norms and cultural tenets have always been neglected. The orthodox myths as well as folklorical assumption, we believe in, have controlled not our. The traditional Indian society and cultural tenets have enslaved woman from time immemorial till date. The Indian society in its legends and scriptures and even in the actual life never gave space to woman so that she can have her honour, her identity and opportunity to play equal roles in all the spheres of life ,in the family and society and in building of the cultural edifice. The self of woman, her desires and aspiration have been imprisioned by imposing the traditional notions on them. She is a colonized woman by culture fetters and shackles the superiority complex of male domiance. The traditional picture Indian woman is grave and pathetic in the society. She undergoes arduous journey in her life. When born in a family she belongs to her father, after marriage she is supposed to belong to her husband and in old age, she depends on the grown up male child. She is always a dependent. As N.D.R. Chandra has pointed out, “Indian woman’s identity is one that is usually connected to and defined by the socical and cultural norms of a practicable structure”1. She has been fettered physically as well as psychologically by the conventions and limitations supported by the culture, rooted in the mind of the individual and the memory of the society and surprised by the patriarchal temperament. Indian woman has been marginalized by denying her right in family property, family affairs etc. Shashi Deshpande has up literature as medium to assert woman’s voice freely and courageously in her novels and short stories.