- Arnab Mukherjee; Exam Roll: 18214ENG036; Class Roll: 126;

B.A. 6th Sem;

Women and the short stories of Bharati Mukherjee.

“The prophet Moses feeds the grape, / and fruitful is the Promised Land.” Fresh from
a reading of Judith Wright’s poem “Bullocky”, Bharati Mukherjee’s own life, as well
as the characters in her stories, begin to make a grander sense, as if fitting into that
elemental pattern of man’s continued search for “the Promised Land”, a recurrent
exodus.
Colonisation did not just bring our fairer Western brothers in contact with their darker
Eastern folk, it also brought us in contact with them. For every Lord Clive that
travelled to India, there was a Ram Mohan Roy or a Syed Ahmad Khan that travelled
to England. Now, granted that these were visionaries of supreme intellect and chose
not to be carried away by the promise of a better life. However, the same could not be
said of simpler, more desperate people - Sundar Pichai or Amar Bose1 or Bharati
Mukherjee, for instance. The choice, for those lucky enough to be afforded it, was
easy between a post-colonial homeland in turmoil and a Western heaven where the
Summers were cooler and the futures uncertain, but brighter. And Bharati Mukherjee,
much like the characters in her stories, courtesy of her affluent father, was given the
choice.
The women in Mukherjee’s stories, much like the rest of the ensemble, are excellently
varied. From the exotic, fierce and wounded Maria in “The Middleman” to silent, shy
and confused Mrs. Bhatt of “A Wife’s Story”, then again, from the mature, grieving,
Mrs. Bhave in “The Management of Grief” to the youthful, spontaneous Jasmine, the
women in Mukherjee’s stories are panoramic. In fact, not just the primary characters,
those in the background, the women around them, they are just as unique – each, an
instance of the myriad people that come and the possibilities they bring with them.
Starting with the first story of her acclaimed collection, Maria is easily Mukherjee’s
most captivating female character. Objectified, snatched and wronged by power
hungry patriarchs, she is the vengeful soul who weaponised her sexuality on the face
of incessant lust. She has, as a result, learnt to swim with the sharks not as their prey
but as their mate. In doing so, however, her objective is only one – the eradication of
those sharks who wronged her. Her story is the most uncommon, almost heroic. One
might, at their first perusal, consider the narrator as the only ‘Middleman’ of the story.
However, Maria too is a ‘Middleman’, negotiating between the sharks like Ransome
and Gutierrez, on the one hand, and guerrillas like Andreas, on the other. The chief
distinction between Maria and Alfie, however, is that the former has a definite
ambition she’s working towards, whereas the latter, undesirably, is caught up in a
maelstrom – “How easily I’ve been recruited, when a bystander is all I wanted to be.”
Ironically, however, for all her captivating mystery, Maria is the simplest of
Mukherjee’s characters. Our next study, the seemingly simplest of the lot, is in fact
the most complex and conflicted. I speak of Mrs. Bhatt. She reminds me of Jaya, from
Deshpande’s “The Long Silence”. However, there are differences. In her case, the
silence isn’t as oppressive and her “Mohan”, a husband she almost never refers to by
first name, though troubled by a similar turmoil back home, isn’t in dire straits. Not to
mention that Mrs. Bhatt, unlike Jaya, who never spreads her wings, has already taken
flight. However, the life she left keeps tugging at her. The most obvious, almost
shocking instance of this, is the sudden request on her husband’s part to quit her
studies midway and go back home because apparently, he has noticed “how men
watch her”. In fact, Mr. Bhatt’s character, accurately sketched in the manner of the
typical, jealous, possessive, misunderstanding Indian husband is excellent.
Unfortunately, we can’t delve deeper into it due to spatial constraints.
Coming back to Mrs. Bhatt, it isn’t just the life she left that tugs at her, the life she’s
integrating into has its own challenges that fluster her. It is refreshing to encounter the
Panna within Mrs. Bhatt, occasionally, when she hugs Imre or “drinks odd bottles of
Soave” with him or when she herself, at the story’s conclusion, discovers, in a
moment of bare truthfulness, the woman she has become – “I stand here shameless, in
ways he has never seen me. I am free, afloat, watching somebody else.” However, the
insensitive Mamets of the new world, with “Their women…” jokes and stereotyping
“insult kits” don’t make it any easier.
Sometimes, the challenges posed may be fatal and unavoidable such as we come
across in “The Management of Grief”, a fictional take on the aftermath of a true
tragedy, and these come with challenges of their own. The story is an account of how
different people react to the abrupt capitulation of their new-built world in “the
Promised Land”. Personally, I found the third story the most tedious. It wasn’t down
to bad virtuosity on Mukherjee’s part, however. The overwhelming and prolonged
nature of the grief, with its multifarious examples, make the story difficult to digest.
It’s tedious in the way Orwell’s “1984”, feels tedious, though for different reasons.
Kusum and Mrs. Bhave are sketched as contrasts by Mukherjee. There is the spiritual
Indian woman who surrenders to God, in Kusum, and goes back to her own country,
adapting herself to its ways, taking the easy way out. Then, there is Mrs. Bhave,
adamant and resilient – a lady at tipping point, who never tips. She keeps a stolid
disposition on the outside, that, by professionals like Judith, may be mistaken for
inner stability. However, at every other occasion, she stumbles. She stagnates for
months in her own country, at risk of turning gradually into Kusum. Yet, she holds out
and returns to rebuild. Here is a very different sort of heroine than Maria, caught up in
a very different struggle. Maria’s foes are without her, Mrs. Bhave’s are within. Maria
can avenge her wrongs, but how will Mrs. Bhave avenge death?
I must admit that I read the stories in the exact order in which I analyse them and
reading “Jasmine”, after “The Management of Grief”, makes one feel so light. What
stands out at first glance is the third-person narrative style Mukherjee adopts here
which can be deceptive, because the viewpoint is entirely Jasmine’s own. This allows
for a sharper delineation of Jasmine’s character. One feels the resentment she nurses
for any fellow West Indians in this land. It’s as if this aspiring kid, with stars in her
eyes, considers them specs that mar the view. The Daboos, who settle for less and
limit themselves to shady business and their own kind, are beneath her. Their
endearing attitudes and inclusive gatherings stifle her. Even thinking of her own
parents has its disadvantages. She feels built for better places, like Ann Arbor and the
Moffitt residence. However, immigration has interesting effects on personality
development. Unlike Panna Bhatt, who blooms naturally, Jasmine, it almost seems,
tries to morph herself into something else that she’s not. Hence, the moments of
release follow. The Reggae night brings out her natural self – “She hadn’t danced,
really danced, since she’d left home”, so does the Christmas gathering when she tears
up. However, the change continues and the next dance she has is a sign of it. This time
she doesn’t dance to reggae any more, among her Island friends. This time she dances
in the Moffitt residence to love music, gently, with a white man, who, ironically, sees
her less as the “flower of Ann Arbor” she wants to become and more as the “flower of
Trinidad” she resents.
This symbolic conclusion highlights a universal theme when it comes to post-colonial
identity – conflict. Whether it is the speaker of Walcott’s “A Far Cry from Africa” or
a woman in Mukherjee’s stories, the conflict is omnipresent. The attempt at
integration is, at least for the first generation, never complete.
Annotations.
1. Founder of Bose Corporation, multinational audio equipment manufactorers.