Changing Faces Of Indian Women

Papers presented at the International Seminar on Women's Situations and Women's Studies, held at North Bengal University during 18-19 December 2006.

Collects 12 Essays That Try To Study The Fate Of Indian Women In A Conventional And At The Same Time A Fast Developing Society. Though All The Contributors Are Males But None Are Fanatics To Allow Their Prejudices To Cloud Their Vision.

The Constant and Changing Faces of the Goddess: Goddess Traditions of Asia contains essays written by established scholars in the field that trace the multiplicity of Asian goddesses: their continuities, discontinuities, and importance as symbols of wisdom, power, transformation, compassion, destruction, and creation. The essays demonstrate that while treatments of the goddess may vary regionally, culturally, and historically, it is possible to note some consistencies in the overall picture of the goddess in Asia. The book provides a comprehensive treatment of the goddess, culminating in the selections that draw from research on Indian, Nepali, Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese traditions, seldom found in other works of similar subject. The volume will be useful for students in religious studies, gender studies, Asian studies, and women's studies. With the intent of making the volume truly broad in scope, an effort has been made to include works written by art historians, sociologists, anthropologists, and religious studies scholars. Culture cannot be separated from religion; they are intertwined as an organic whole, and variations manifest themselves in the rituals and daily lives of the people. In this sense, all the essays are interconnected: the goddess manifests in many forms and appeals to differing aspects of a particular culture as a paradigm of the divine feminine.

Along with a range of socio-cultural, political and economic concerns, the focus on ‘self’ has been an inevitable assertion of writers during the last quarter of the twentieth century. Individualistic in tone, the contemporary women novelists are trying to portray realistically the predicament of modern women torn between the forces of tradition and modernity, their sense of frustration and alienation, the emotional and psychological turmoil and complexities of man-women relationships and subtleties of feminine consciousness against the persistent patriarchal social set-up. Cognizant of the evils originating from patriarchy, a positive sense of feminine identity has been recognized by them and the result is the emergence of a new woman in Indian society and its concept in the Indian English novel which has assumed a strident posture in the contemporary writings by women. The shift from submission to assertion, acquiescence to resistance and obedience to rebellion, however, has not been abrupt and effortless. Women are still in the process of negotiation with different limiting factors and thresholds of patriarchy to claim their due space and affirm their identity. The present study is an attempt to critically investigate the negotiations with cultural norms by the women characters in the selected novels by the contemporary novelists, namely Manju Kapur and Anita Nair. Almost all the women characters, major and minor, from the selected novels have been considered and positioned as per their ideological leanings and convictions under two thematic chapters namely “Women in the Clutches of Traditional Norms,” and “Tradition to Modernity.” The major issues around which the novels move – education, marriage, gendered space and mother-daughter relationships – are taken up to put them within the contemporary social conditions in which women characters live. The present book is divided into five chapters to make a critical and analytical study of the select novels of these contemporary Indian women writers in English. The present work is focused on five selected novels: Manju Kapur’s “Difficult Daughters”, “Home” and “Custody” and Anita Nair’s “Ladies Coupé” and “Mistress”.

I have gone through Dr. Rajesh Latane and Dr. Shehjad Sidiquii book entitled, “Feminist Perspective in Githa Hariharan’s Novels”, the book consisted Seventh Chapters the first chapter presents. The rise and development of feminism has been sharply focused. Further, a brief profile of life and works of Githa Hariharan is also put forth. A round-up review of major novels crafted by Githa Hariharan is neatly presented. Besides, literary influence on Githa Hariharan has also been given. Second to sixth chapters writer deal with the feminist perspective of Githa Hariharan novels like in “The Thousand Faces of Night”, “The Ghosts of Vasu Master”, “When Dreams Travel”, “In Times of Siege” and “Fugitive Histories”. The author has also significantly pointed out Githa Hariharan’s use of myth, fable, parable, fantasy, tradition, modernity, etc. as fictional techniques in an effective way. Besides, the novelist’s discussion on “Women’s Issues” is vividly presented through the technique of third person narration. The book has really presented the novelist’s works affected by the “otherness” and “opposition”. The study also investigates Githa Hariharan’s use of meta-fiction, inter-text and magic realism – unique features of post-colonial novel just to bring the feminist discourse in the forefront. A book is really acknowledged when it become a source material for the future researchers and comparatives. Dr. Latane and Dr. Shehjad’s book has that potential. I heartily wish a good reception to the book.