Roots And Shadows Analysis

In the novel Roots and Shadows it was not a question of her dissatisfaction only but also of her male counterparts who suffered because of strong hold of traditions. Indu finds that like her, Hemant, her college friend is also dissatisfied with his married life. He calls marriage a “trap” where if once one entangled, entangled forever. The institution of marriage is the prime factor responsible for the hostile upsurge of personal relationship. He calls marriage a “trap” or a cage, “A trap? Or a cage,” May be the comic strip version of marriage…a cage with two trapped animals, glaring hatred at each other…isn’t so good after all. And it’s not a joke but tragedy. But what animal would cage itself” (61). Hemant is frustrated because
Naren was her girlhood friend. At present, he is involved into all sorts of irregularities. Indu remarks, “Naren I know is the most restless person in the world. In the company of Naren, Indu finds satisfaction because both of them were suffering with identical “Loneliness”. In the company of Naren, her creative talent was recognized and encouraged. Shashi Deshpande through her protagonist defends that each woman in her own way, demands the fulfilment of her inner self that is beyond and above socially accepted norms. Naren appreciates the stories written by Indu. He encourages her to resume her career as a journalist and to reproduce the experiences related with the frustration of women. Indu as a writer in the process of narration of the apathy of human experience becomes aggressive and violent. She unknowingly identifies herself with those experiences and perceives the reflections of her own helplessness. From an “Outsider” she becomes an “Insider”. Like most of the post colonial writers, shashi Deshpande is convinced that suppression and irrational hold of conventions give birth to a psyche of self persecution and it can seek its outlet in the form of violence, obstinacy or any other mode of distortion of human sensibility. Indu cries
For Indu, realization of womanhood works as barrier that does not allow her free movements as a sensitive human being. The first realization of womanhood comes with the beginning of menstrual cycle when a warning was given by kaki, “you are a woman? You can have babies yourself” (79). The realization of womanhood was not an elevation of her position but it was a realization of her weakness that could never permit her to seek “wholeness” in a male dominated society. Indu’s reflections on her own inner state of mind suggest that these feminine issues are not to be idealized and they must be estimated in context of the mental reactions of women who are subjected to it. Indu is disgusted with Jayant but she surrenders herself to the will of Naren. Corresponding either Indu’s consciousness. Jayant and Naren are two distinctive terrains corresponding with Indu’s consciousness. If Jayant affords physical contentment to her, Naren is her hope for emotional fulfilment. Naren feels the deep sensational thrust inside Indu and he openly confesses, “Why do you deny the fact that you’re a woman”. “She also feels an irresistible current of sensation in the physical contact of Naren. He challenges her futile idealism. Through Naren, Shashi Deshpande asserts that woman has every right to exhibit her desires. It is a natural response to innate instinctive behaviour. The male companionship is essentially needed in