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Research Scholar


Abstract







              







 and utilization where they wont be forced any
Manju Kapur is one of the renowned precincts. One peculiarity of the pictures of
Indian women writer and the representation women all over history is that social stereotypes
of the suffering but stoic female characters have been armored by archetypes. Where they
 wont have combat rules for them. That time
had a noteworthy consequence in her novels. would be ahead of social prejudice and then
She has mainly talked regarding esteemed we can say that the women are empowered. In
contemporary Indian English woman novelist. every era woman has been described either as a
Like Shashi Deshpande, Arundhati Roy, Gita mother, a wife, a mistress or an objective of allure
Hariharan, Anita Nair, Shobha De, Manju Kapur and their roles have been discrete in relationship
is one of the emergent Indian woman writers in to male equivalent.
English who live and write in India itself. Inspite Portrayals of women as achievers or
of some interruptions, protagonists of Manju leaders have been relatively only some. But even
Kapurs novels represents women of middle these outstanding representations of power
class families who bear on deportment towards      
empowerment and lead them to a world of qualities of women which inclined to overlook
their own individual, devoid of any prejudices the lives of the ordinary and adequate ones. The

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search for control over ones fortune represents upper middle class-woman who are at a loss
the key theme of the novel and refers to the to revile social convention and society. Manju
liberty desire to and achieved by a individual as Kapur represents two contradictory features
well as by a woman dwelling in between family of female image, betrayal and barrenness in
and self is primarily considered in Kapurs novel her most recent novel  . Kapur in
. The humanisms substance is feasible in her novel observes how woman has commence
Manju Kapurs  as feminist discussion not to cultivate as an individual and the primary
because she is a woman writing about womens centre of collide for her befalls the organization
issues, but because she tries to understand a of marriage which has, so far away, forms the
woman both as a woman and as a human being restrictions of her freedom. The woman now has
       stirred to the centre and has develops into a vital
illustrates a peep of feminism remaining in mind creature in the social situate. Kapur represents
the Indian background. Manju Kapurs          
deals with to be all together both Indian and        
Universal. The post colonial writers of Indo- confrontation to thwart patriarchal traditions
English novels settle with a new education and principles. She depicts a womanly character,
and sociability have diverse perceptions of the      
descriptions of woman in their works. In the appropriates its generative attitude throughout a
post colonial era freedom and liberty thought conscious inversion of patriarchal ethics. Manju
was carried in to our country and it was also Kapur represents two opposing feature of female
disseminated by western education. The woman    
novelists were liable for the new picture of in her novel . Betrayal authorizes a
woman besieged against the repressive social 
customs of the male governed society. The image replicates and preserves womens right to
of the woman in the post colonial novel is a longing, and the quest of the accomplishment of
              
The representation of woman as a curator egalitarianism politics.
     Kapur in her novel 
        woman has started to cultivate as an individual
archetype. The picture of woman in quest of her 
identity has comes out from the archetype image association of marriage which has, so far, forms
of woman in history. The researcher evaluates       
portrayal of women as described by Manju Kapur with the character of Shagun that woman now
in the novel  in this research paper. Upala has inspired to the hub and has become a crucial
Sen in reviewing the book in Hindustan Times component in the social organization. Kapur
writes: And what he (Dhondy does in this book demonstrates illegitimate relationship between
is not to restrict the telling) to a simplistic tale of Shagun and her husbands boss Ashok Khanna
pati, patni aur woe. If adultery is like a shadow to an 
individual, shifty and unshakable, that socio moral instrument of resistance to thwart patriarchal
 myths and values. She depicts a female character
story has an overt, regular, narrative and a shadowy      
adulterous subnarrative. Some very adult tales told appropriates its generative belief through a
with child like ease(qtd. in Kumar : 2013, p.189). consciousness of patriarchal principles. Her
         
Manju Kapur has well portrayed in  which she is empowered to employ her body
the irritation, anguish and travails of Indian       

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and patriarchal system of observation and Shagun has not capitulated to the notions of the
control. Shagun and Ramans marriage has been patriarchy society but deploys with her ability
approved beside ordinary appearance; she is the and potential to defeat troubles so to obtain
beauty, he is the one with glowing projection. pleasure in her new relationship. The supremacy
She convenes Ashok Khanna, a business man ensuing from investigation, elucidation and
who is attracted by her beauty. Kapur mentions 
            
Shagun is also enticed by his loving words and as an individual in Shagun. Shagun chases her
sterling elegance and leaves behind the essential heart and asks for a divorce from Raman and
 gets on a new life with Ashok. So, the association
       of marriage which in our country is much more
woman she worried from her love affair, her        
reservations about being trapped. As Kapur purity through divorce. Shagun tells Raman
mentions in the novel, In the beginning she had which clearly shows her longing for freedom in
so brave and matter-of-fact, now she was more her life, Dont make this harder. I have left you
fearful (Kapur, 2011, p.80). She encounters with the best part of the marriage. Surely my freedom
contradiction as she neither sustains the sturdy         
 2011, p.109). Shagun emerges as a new woman
nor restrains her perilous feminine wishes. She in the novel who recognizes the prospective of
        her being throughout a procedure of fetching
herself to social conventional or come out as by induction herself on personal struggle
dissenter is a problem for her. Her mother who with society on the basis of the precedence of
having patriarchy visions, her mother requests     
her daughter that not to convey disgrace to the She, as a woman, in this new correlation of her
 selection is an important and new literary create,
marital relationship. Her annotations show conscious of the preferences release to her and
social outlook and treatment towards a female 
        
support association for the female is inadequate disheartenment governing outlook.
in material world as society emits a malicious 


Kapur illustrates in  Shagun who milieu in upper middle class Indian society. Ishita
has vanished her individual person self in her is second leading heroine of this novel who wants
earlier marriage life with Raman now looking to freedom her bareness and represents with
for the missing self in her love affair with Ashok. depraved stepmother condition. Kapur shows
This relationship provides her an amusing the realism of modern marriages in which the
       characters like, Raman, Shagun and Ishita feel at
convinced, potent, self-governing and ingenious some accent emptiness and aloofness in their life.
 Ishita is simple looking Indian girl who believes in
reliant. She replicates her individual personality traditional marriage and who wants to surpass a
with boldly and then forms appropriate retort peaceful life with her husband Suryakanta. Ishita
incisively. Shagun delineates her wish, preference is victim of Indian patriarchy notions as her in-
 laws wants grand children for their family After
acknowledges herself. She considers in Ashok. the eighteen months of her marriage life with
As he states: Traditonal versus modern values, her husband Suryakanta, Ishita did not convince.
individual versus society( Kapur, 2011, p.81). She is criticized by her in-laws and society for

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that reason. In Indian culture, after freedom 

society has not changed their views yet. In Indian indigenous patriarchy and now with relationship
culture, infertility seems as womans liability and with Raman she acquires liberty with her body.
not the dilemma of the couple. Ishita went to Raman pleases the physical requirements of her
hospital for diagnosed her problem of infertility. 
She went for medical checkup, her mother-in-law as she celebrates a warm affecting attachment
is conscious about her childless problems. Ishita with Roohi. Ishitas and Ramans bodies and
budge from healer to seer, herbalist to hospital feelings harmonized, they get married in a court
worriedly looking for some decision, obsessed to begin a life anew departure after the pungent
with optimism, doubt and desolation. So, the wounds of their earlier broken marriages. Ishita
greatest component of her infancy is shattered prefers her life partner and takes pleasure in
in the chase to accomplish motherhood. A the matrimonial and motherly happiness in her
      
of her fallopian tubes is declared and she with love, care and fondness for Roohi and her
inveterate a childless woman. She collects very happiness is Ishitas main concern. She with
minute empathy, particularly from her in laws, assurance converses before the Judge in the
who deem themselves the distressed party.       
Her infertile issue makes in her marriage with Roohi declares Ishita by talking in her support
 and alleging her to be Roohis mother. Even if
abuse and psychological stress. 
Ishita recognition her matrimonial life to her genetic, but to her stepmother, Ishita who
with Suryakanta is stressed and infertility loves her more than biological mother Shagun.
interrupts the adoring relationship. Kapur In  Kapur depicts the gendered
describes the reality that in a conventional nature of custody which is battled in India.
society woman faces disgrace due to her infertile Generally men refuse to grant divorce while
body. Ishitas husband ready to give her divorce women usually have greater claim to the children
who was once did not live without her for a but she refuses to do so. Both the parties counsel
second, meanwhile Ishita thrown out from her the legal advice. The battle lines are drawn early
in-law house. She undergoes with ethereal as 
she is penalized for her imperfect body. Divorce between Shagun and Raman not only fuels itself
makes her life depressed and loneliness and but is complicated by the new stepmothers and
she began to feels sense of failure in her life. fathers acquired through second marriages.
Ishitas parent supports her lot to re-emerge in Kapur is adept at dealing with this complicated
       
of marriage life. Now, she tries to forget her to the step-parents as well as children. In Ishitas
unsuccessful marriage life and re-arranged in her plight, as see the second wifes desperate struggle
 to replace the biological mother, while Ashok
marriage. She takes her fathers name and gets presents a more ambiguous kind of care. Neither
         does she spend too long on whether Shaguns
a study which feels her unemployment issue      
of her life. Ishita subdues her incapability and how it affects her characters. The concept of
gives her motherly love on Roohi, a motherless        
and deserted girl. When Ishita meets Raman and the background, the women characters in Manju
knows about the reason of his divorce, bondage       
of relationship established among both broken think that marriage is their destiny and they are to
hearts. Ishita has faced in her body with only of obey their husbands. The women in the novels of

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Manju Kapur differs from this category of woman character in  as a person in her own
and breaks all social taboos, and conventions and precise is at formerly analytic of the authors
emerge as a new woman who is aware of herself. supplement of womens ambition as well as
The women in the novels of Manju Kapur are the deterrence of conventional customs. It utters of
 her aims to consider an idyllic character on one
Kapur tries to depict the susceptibility of side and on the other it illustrates the writers
woman: how a woman seems at herself and her capability to shatter the convention. However,
troubles.  is not only about infertility and 
 shows woman is associated with amends in
that the issue of divorce, dichotomy of modern womens position in Indian society. Feminine
society, and relationship between parents and aesthetics from time to time grounds numerous
child are various themes woven by Kapur. Kapur change between authorial perceptions and that
tires to show that woman should endeavor to of the character itself. While the characters
comprehend and apprehend herself as a human 
being and not just as an attachment to some male talk, the authorial tone points out her essential
life. In her all novels women stands for diverse incapability to speak up. Subaltern talk, in other
sorts of qualities. They do not suffer but preserve words, does not accomplish the dialogic level
their place. Kapur characterizes new principles,       
according to which woman is not to be taken as a aesthetics as it is but the tendency towards a
meager puppet, a creature of lust and temporary feminist aesthetics is what provides her hope.
enjoyment, but mans equivalent and honored It is this that set up the dialogue- the two way
 communication in her novel. It completed the
marital relationship with one person Ashok literary backdrop enlarge to contain as the centre
Khanna. Her both women Shagun and Ishita what was previously considered periphery.
are victims of a patriarchy Indian society which This prototype change may be observing in the
does not allow women to avow their privileges novels of Nayantara Sahgal, Anita Desai, Shashi
pertaining to their individual autonomy and Deshpande and more recently Manju Kapur
believe the very issue of identity-crisis as absurd       
concerning women. Kapur illustrates womens      
anguish in marriage-life and then choosing feminist concern in her novel . Kavita
to come out of the suffocating bondage by rightly observers : Manju Kapurs novels offer
choosing for divorce. She portrays in her women a fascinating glimpse into the workings of a
protagonist deciding to favor for divorce rather womans mind as she struggles to come to terms
than live a domineering life of prejudice and with her identity in a patriarchal world (Kavita,
anguish. Her women Shagun and Ishita leave 2013, p.179).
their husband or shatter the marriage which Hence,  is entirely representation
does not permit them to be liberated and living of Indian Modern woman, who tiled new path in
their life in their own way. Kapur shows that the peripheral world. Self boldness and seditious
through divorce they will be liberated from the       
torment and torture of a dejected or undeserved the new woman is rising in modern Indian
relationship it does not decipher the troubles and society. Kapurs novel divulges the unimagined
women have to persist to struggle and endure suspicions of modern marriage occurring in
       present time. The wifes perception of suffocation,
psychological. the husbands trepidation of inferiority and the
In conclusion, research has analysis in continuous shifting of children, like possessions,
this paper that the structure of the woman from one home to the other, are inducing with

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meticulous seriousness.  develops into A (ed.)  .

somewhat further than just social observations, Sarup and Sons, New Delhi pp.93-109.
but a novel that is really reveals to the universal 5. Lal, M.(1995). 
          . Indian Institute of
society, with its dilemma of independence. Advanced Study, Shimla.
6. Lomba, A. (2001). .
 Routledge, London and New York.
1. Kapur, M. (2011). . Random House India, 7. Manohar, M. (2007).   
New Delhi. .
2. Kavita. (2013).   : A Womans Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, New Delhi
Quest for a New Identity. In Sharma, R (ed.) Rise      
. Manglam of Inner Mind of Indian Women: A Feminist
Publications, Delhi pp.178-187. Perspective. In Prasad, A (ed.)   
3. Kumar, A.(2013). Adultery, Divorce and Custody  Part 3. Vol. 4.
of Children in  (2011). In Sharma, R Sarup and Sons, New Delhi pp.1-19
(ed.) . 9. Myles, A. (2006). 
Manglam Publications, Delhi pp.188-192. . Sarup & Sons,
4. Kumar Harit, S. (2010). Tragic Flight of the Female New Delhi.
Protagonists in Manju Kapurs Novels. In Kumar,

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