Histories that Matter: On the Limits of Gender and the Consequent Subjugation in Indu Sundaresan’s The Twentieth Wife

Abstract

One essential point about Indian English fiction is that it is consequence of multi culturality and multi linguism. Again, it can also be deemed the cultural consequence of multi traditionality. Hence, one can rightly point out that Indian English fiction encompasses a new literary endeavour created out of the mythical fiction with a colonial super structure. English as a language has now become inevitable. Yet the Indian writers can negotiate with and even rebel against the colonial hegemony in a calibanic way. As Amit chotalia and Heena Variya observes:

Literature is essentially a social and cultural seismograph, which records the throbbing pulse of time and transmutes it into the heart beats of eternity. The independent India witnessed a creative up-surge of ideas and resurgence of arts and literature, even though it was rocked by political disasters and social calamities of vast magnitude. (225)

Especially when it comes to women writers, Indian English fiction is evocative of women protagonists and the feminine interventions. Literature, in their hands has begun to witness a new kind of renaissance. Over the years, these women writers have begun to maintain a unique feminine decorum. At the same time, they have never failed to articulate the womanist sense of frustration, desperation and deprivation. Looking at the contemporary Indian fictional scenario there is an obvious marking of a stigma called nostalgia. The nostalgia in their hands is a stigmatic representation of the ancient myths and tradition and ironically the oriented deprivation accorded to women. No wonder their fictions have started to move towards a new direction having the humane as its central focus.