Demystifying the Diverse Shades of Women in Gauri Deshpande’s The Lackadaisical Sweeper
Abstract:
Women short story writers in India have judiciously balanced in their narratives the lived reality of a woman’s life with their own convictions. Gauri Deshpande too in her anthology The Lackadaisical Sweeper breaks the boundaries created by society and evokes a world of submerged emotions to explore the complexities of human behaviour. This article traces the myriad shades of relationships in structured society. It examines women as subject and object focusing on the rigid system of gender identity irrespective of time, language, place and strata in society. The characters portray the universal traits while describing their thoughts, frustrations and absurdities.
Key Words: Indian women, gender, patriarchy, interpersonal relations
Gauri Deshpande (1942-2003), a distinctive voice of contemporary Marathi literature, was strongly feminist and wryly humorous in her innumerable works. Her The Lackadaisical Sweeper (1997) is the only collection of short stories written in English where she has translated some of her Marathi stories into English. The fifteen short stories express her anger at power politics that exist in gender relations. The settings vary from place to place and deal with bold themes and untraditional couples. The fifteen short stories not just entertain but compel us to think about international relations and gender issues seriously. She has strongly and consistently expressed her anger at the power politics that exist in gender relations.
This article aims to study and interpret the background of the interpersonal relationships focusing on the female protagonists in the collection of Gauri Deshpande’s short stories titled The Lackadaisical Sweeper. It tries to study Woman as a subject and as an object and to find out the rigid system of gender identity in the stories with feminist approach. The patriarchal law which dominates woman through various institutions like family, education and cultural practices which are all designed to favour men will also be examined. It also tries to trace the variety of shades of man woman relationships, their thoughts and frustrations in the stories and the universal element in gender relations. It also tries to survey the fact that irrespective of time, language, place and strata in society all the women reflect similar attitude of suppression and oppression in the male dominated society.
Gauri Deshpande’s collection of short stories titled The Lackadaisical Sweeper contains a few stories written originally in English and a couple of stories translated from Marathi. The book deals with themes which are bravely bold and untraditional. The settings of the stories vary from place to place. The couples are not traditional ones. There is one level of modernity which sets the standard of thinking. Still there are some age-old issues that peep out through the conversations, at times explicitly or implicitly.
In this title story of “The Lackadaisical Sweeper”, two newlywed upper-middle-class wives, one Indian, the other American, stationed in Hong Kong with their businessman-husbands, meet and become friends as they take their daily morning walks. Initially the outward appearance of both these ladies convey the apparent difference between them. Yet they bind and socialize well with each other when they share their lives with each other. Seeta’s naïvetéd and submissiveness attitude becomes a cause to break this confidence in an unintentional way. Trusting her husband she reveals their secrets which he uses to destroy them. The reader is left pondering the sweeper’s judgment of Seeta, who may be a virtuous Indian wife, but is not a good human being. He looks unsympathetically at Seeta’s friendship with Sheila, who is a Jew and wife of an ordinary airline steward. Narain is a selfish Indian man who looks down upon women and the downtrodden people even in Hongkong. He takes disadvantage of Seeta’s innocent faith and friendship for his own economic benefit. The story deals with these two women describing their feelings and state in this foreign land. The sweeper, whom they come across with each day and who refuses to return their salutations, forms the backdrop of their conversations and the story.
In “The Debt”, the reaction of Indian father and American mother varies when it comes to abort the child that came in the most unwanted moment. Contemptuously she tells her husband, “In your country, they may think of women as just baby making machines but don‘t forget I am an American! I will decide when to have a child, if I decide to have a child at all.” (TLS 91) The traditional Indian reader will not be able to digest Sajan asking “How can you say that? Don‘t I have any right over the baby?” (TLS 91) Unfortunately on the same day Sajan meets with an accident and in a coma dies after four weeks. Anita gets no time for abortion. After the birth of her son she realizes the absence of Sajan in her life.
Here Sajan represents an Indian who cuts the bonds of home to gain material happiness in a foreign country. But at last he has to pay the debt of his father and the mother country after death through Anita. His father says “It is the duty of children to look after their parents in their old age.” It is more astounding to see Anita changed when she tells her little son whom she wanted to reject, “Remember Peter, children must look after their parents, ―The debt, have to be paid.” Thus the twist comes very unexpectedly at the end of the story. The symbol of debt implies discrepancy between what is said and what is meant. Anita is an American emancipated lady. She proposes and marries Sajan Singh, a submissive but intelligent Indian. His father opposes their marriage and Anita is surprised by the strange pride of Sajan’s relatives to disown a daughter-in-law like her who is well-educated, pretty, well-to-do and blond. On the other hand, all her friends and relatives are so liberal to accept Sajan Singh in spite of his strangeness. After marriage, Anita is quite satisfied with her job, research and with a co-operative husband. Gauri Deshpande thus stresses here that the man has to pay the debt of parents and mother country in his life.
“Brand New Pink Nikes”, deals with a woman who gets dismayed looking her image in the mirror. Her paunch, blue veined legs, slacking breasts brings her into tears when she reaches her fifties. She knew everyone grew old but her old age came to her unexpectedly which troubles her and she gets it hard to accept. The chance encounter with a lost tourist, his offer to have coffee together brings her old smile and happiness back. This chance element makes her introvert about the present phase of her life. The story presents a psychological study of a middle-aged bourgeois woman who is conscious of her beauty and looks. It records her journey from reluctance to acceptance of her growing age. Here Gauri highlights the role of an American tourist and a daughter in bringing out transformation in the mother.
Gauri reveals the hidden rebellious attitude of a woman who wants to reshape her life in her own accord in her story “Map”. This story echoes the psyche of every Indian woman who irrespective of her knowledge of western feminism wants a basic happiness, the way she wants without anybody allowing her to take it. It mirrors the Indian society and the place and psyche of an Indian woman. The female narrator narrates how he enters, sees and wins her. Here he is shrewd enough to win her trust as a cartographer, disinterested man. Then he flatters her and enjoys her beauty, youth and property. When he feels satisfied leaves her at 50. The metaphor in “Map” becomes all the more interesting when one realizes that the narrator woman is India and the cartographer the imperial power.. The history of women’s marginalisation and double colonisation is portrayed in this ground breaking story. It is a kind of rebellious awakening of a woman. She renames the map of her body, and comes alive at last. Thus, she asserts her independence and rejects the necessity of a man to give shape to her life. She says,
This is the map of my body-and these are the names of my body parts.
I have imagined them all, all by myself, and so they are mine, above all. (TLS 62)
In “Insy Winsy Spider” (translated from the Marathi original “Bhijata Bhijata Koli”), the mother daughter relationship and the revelation of self is portrayed very effectively. Vishalakshi, the mother has devoted her life to all intellectual activities and stayed away from household chores. She is under impression that she is a kind of a role model for her daughter, Maitreyee, who is in her teens. To the mother‘s surprise, one day this daughter announces that she does not want to pursue education and wants to get married when she was only 18 years old. She realizes her daughter is not like her. Another theme being dealt with is the quest to find out the meaning of existence. ‘Insy Winsy Spider’ deals with the search for one’s own self. Deshpande’s protagonist asks. “What are ‘we’ when we are ‘we’?” (125). She comes to the conclusion that though such a question can be answered negatively. Vishalakshi is a career-oriented, modern and working woman who has never given importance to household work. But her daughter wants to be a housewife. Thus, moving from the particular to the general, advancing from the difficulties faced by nonresidential Indians to the existential problems, Gauri Deshpande’s stories succeed in minutely analysing the emotions of the people.
The subject of “Dimitri in the afternoon”, is very delicate as Ulka goes with her husband abroad, to Greece. This situation that a boy settling in abroad, and after marriage the girl has to accompany him is a pattern of the elite and neo rich families in India. No one bothers to dig into the real happiness of the girl. This girl happens to meet a friend in whose company she finds real comfort. This boy is no way good looking. On the contrary, he is very hefty and sturdy. She calls him Dimitri, whose real name is Jack. However her bod with him was perfect in itself; an entire and complete communication between two human beings. Denzil is a Greek modern life partner of Indian Ulka. He allows her to wander in Greece and when she tells him about her visit to Dmitri, he accepts it playfully. Thus Gauri presents a foreign, handsome, broad-minded, friendly, considerate, loving and modern life partner in the character of Denzil here.
In her various stories like “Whatever Happened to…”, “Smile and Smile and…‟ Gauri Deshpande chooses Japan as a setting. She appreciates Japanese beauty, hard work, and discipline but at the same time she is critical about Japan. e.g. Japanese people give too much importance to manners and etiquettes, and hide their real emotions. The Japanese face is not built for smiling. But they learn from foreigners to smile to express goodwill. The Japanese are disinclined to create “situations”. However bad they feel, they behave and work as required. They, particularly males, do feel superior or perhaps they hide an inferiority complex under a show of superiority. They never deal with women as equals and prefer to marginalize women. The protagonist in “Whatever Happened to…” is a divorcee, living all alone and working in Japan. Being lonely she tries to get some joy by meeting her schoolmates and revising old memories. The narrator presents the two different attitudes of looking towards her – first her Indian gentleman schoolmate who appreciates her for her courage to live and manage all alone in Japan and secondly a girl schoolmate who is now a smart and worldly career-oriented journalist. who looks down upon the protagonist for living and working in “out of the way place”. However her gentleman friend lures this insecure lonely woman and takes her for granted to satisfy his lust.
According to the protagonist of “Smile and Smile and…” the Japanese are formal, traditional, rude and patriarchal by nature. They don’t show their real emotions and are very practical also. She meets such a representative of Japanese, Mr. Miyura in their Japanese office. He keeps on smiling hiding his real emotions behind his fake smile. Through the protagonist here the author expresses in clear cut terms her love for mother country, and disgust for the developed countries like Japan who marginalize Indians and women especially. Women’s low self-esteem is the major concern here. Lurking in the margins of many stories as “Vervain”, “The Lackadiasical Sweeper”, “Whatever Happened to…”this is suggested as one reason for women’s marginalization everywhere in the world, for the retreat of even successful, strong women into self-deprecation vis-à-vis any man.
“Hookworm, Lamprey, Tick, Fluke and Flea” is a “disguised” story because under its ironical surface is the “real theme: the symbiotic relationship between a parasite and its host”(TLS 212). Gauri suggests that women are willing hosts – society has dinned into their heads that they must sacrifice themselves. As they fall prey to this endless giving, they wake up one day in the middle of their lives to realize that not only have they been sucked dry, but they have no other option: they can only play host to a variety of parasites. The title, containing the names of such troublesome parasites, is an apt one. Here the narrator’s friend Jenny suffers because of her drunkard husband, Tony, and her destructive sons. One of Jenny’s friend Aysha’s Canadian cousin at last comes for her help. Jenny leaves her husband and becomes a “lady of leisure” when her sons get lucrative jobs there. She was happy to be an unpaid slave to her sons. The narrator refers to her as “the Stupid Samaritans” who is happy to be a parasite, dependent and unpaid slave in the male-dominating world.
“Vervain” is the story which makes us aware of the fact that a woman is taken for granted, and treated in inferior manner by the men and so the condition of a woman is the same everywhere in the world. Germany is the locale and Li-Ta is the protagonist of this story. Hans-Joachim is Li-Ta‟s adored father. He gives this unique name to his special daughter born a long time after three sons. But war, death of his wife and eldest son make him numb and insensitive to think about Li-Ta. She sacrifices her childhood for these three men – her father and two brothers. Brothers get educated and settle in Canada and Australia leaving their sister all alone after the death of their father. Further when she comes to know that her husband is faithless she gets mentally disturbed. Her brothers neither provide her emotional support nor a female friend in the form of their wives. Her sons also never care for her emotions. We feel at the beginning that there is the celebration of the birth of the girl-child. Li-Ta is very proud of her unique name but later she realizes that she is just a common woman, who had suffered war, famine, oppression, betrayal; and suffered because of men; she has to lose her identity but gets oppression, betrayal and restlessness in return. Finally she has to take a therapy and vervain tea to smooth her nerves and for sound sleep at night. One day she meets Indian friend DT makes her aware of her situation and advices to establish her own identity. In this sense this is truly the feministic story of war effects, gender discrimination and international relations.
The relationship between Indian migrant man and American native woman is clearly focused in one more story “Hello Stranger”. It is written from a man’s point of view. The male protagonist is an immigrant; he has migrated from India and settled in America. He marries an American lady whom he loves so much. In America he senses that his “foreignness” is neither understood nor accepted; it is merely tolerated, at times corrected. He experiences alienation in that foreign country, culture, people and atmosphere. He knows very well that nobody is interested in anybody’s past there. His past is also not interesting for them, not even to his loving wife. He is happy to see his own new-born son but then he feels disappointed to know that his wife has given birth to a son and not a daughter because he thinks that daughters demand less from their parents and have a perfectly workable relationship with the parents. He knows that this is a boy with American background. He will not be able to share the dark burden of his father’s loneliness. He addresses him as “Hello, Stranger" thinking that:
This child, this son of mine, would never know… what it was to face sorrow and loneliness and rejection and humiliation in an alien country. This son, who would forever be an alien to the father as the father was an alien to these shores; this son was the final goodbye and the first link (TLS 42).
In her ‘A Harmless Girl’, the girl narrates how she lived her life. She says, “I grew up practically non-existent. In my eternal endeavor to live harmlessly and carelessly, I learnt to tiptoe, to wear only flat, rubber-soled shoes, to eat and drink not only without making the smallest noise but even without making the smallest movement.”(TLS 125)
Taking a few feminist approaches as touchstones, these stories reveal interesting interpretations which reflect in the society around us. The household is a basic unit of society where individuals both cooperate and compete for resources. It is also a primary place in which individuals confront and reproduce societal norms, values, power, and privilege. Gender norms and differences that are expressed within the household are reflected in larger institutions of society. ―Gender relations are not confined to the domestic arena — although households constitute an important institutional site on which gender relations are replayed out — but are made, remade and contested in a range of institutional arenas‖. In other words, this is not simply a story of the household and its members, but about the shaping of gender identities by larger institutions, and the ongoing participation of family members in creating new gender norms. Gauri Deshpande‘s stories have this thought as a backdrop; the inner feelings and brainstorming thoughts, sometimes unarticulated, make the readers introvert about the reflections of her own life. Women‘s ―inferiority is used to justify discrimination and abuse in the household and in society at large and power inequity is reflected and reinforced by traditional and modern laws and institutional practices. The modern women who are educated enough to take their own decisions, can think of their own identity in a society also have certain barricades and have to struggle hard to overcome them in Gauri‘s short stories. All these stories present myriads of aspects of women‘s thinking under specific situations.
As per Juliet Mitchel‘s views, patriarchy creates and recreates the psychic conditions for women‘s subordination which are not the thin veil of false consciousness but the very flesh and blood of female subjectivity. The character sketches of women are the representations of the woman‘s psyche. Gauri Deshpande, probably wants to make the readers aware of the fact of women‘s suppression and subjectivity should not be looked upon as a destiny but it is up to the women only to think and to create their path in the given circumstances. Juliet Mitchell (1984) describes the same process in her essay ‘Femininity, narrative and psychoanalysis’. She says, “Here we are: women. What are our lives to be about? Who are we? Domesticity, personal relations, personal intimacies are our stories.”
Simon De Beauvoir believes that woman‘s inferiority in society is a result not of natural differences but of differences in the upbringing of man and woman. Male domination is not inherent or fated but conditioned at every stage of development. De Beauvoir says that ―Man learns his power. By the same token, woman is not born passive, mediocre, or immanent. Rather, she is socialized to believe that proper women must embody these characteristics and, subtly she is conditioned to believe that denying her true self is the lonely way to achieve happiness and gain acceptance. To bring about substantial changes in society, young boys and girls must be educated differently from the outset. Since they are born equal, the possibility exists of their being equal in adulthood as well as in childhood—but it is up to society to change its skewed perspectives. Elaine Showalter believes that the task is to concentrate on women‘s access to language from which words can be selected on the ideological and cultural determination of expression. In the Afterword, Raj Rao aptly says that these stories show a concern that women‘s low self-esteem is peripheral in many stories.
Gauri Deshpande’s stories are gynocentric. She has portrayed the educated woman of the modern age in different images here. These women belong to the bourgeois class. They frequently visit and stay in foreign countries. So we can observe modernity in their attire, lifestyle and thoughts. They have lots of native as well as foreign friends whom they respect more than other relatives. They are not under pressure of in-laws or children. They are free from such common tensions. But they have to struggle for their own independent existence. Man-woman relationship, man’s relationship with his mother country, celebration of the birth of a girl-child, modern woman’s experiences, woman’s low self-esteem, gender-relations etc. are the major themes observed in The Lackadaisical Sweeper.
Around this relationship there is a social system of gender produced out of other relationships. From the birth different social and cultural atmosphere created for girls and boys is termed as “gender”. It is a cultural construct which causes gender discrimination (Abrams 102). Gauri has revolted against the patriarchal mentality and gender-biased portrayal of men and women in fiction too. However, she never rejects the existence of man in woman’s life. The protagonist of almost all stories here is a married woman, exploring her relationships with her husband, parents, children, and friends.
In short, Gauri Deshpande‟s English short story collection deals with the various themes. But the leit-motif in her anthology is the travails faced by Indians living abroad which are expressed in the stories like “Hello, Stranger”, “Rose Jam”, “The Debt” and so on. Here we can observe the minute study of gender too. The stories like “Vervain”, “Smile and Smile and ...” “Map” etc. explain clearly the international gender discrimination. We have to salute Gauri Deshpande for writing a fine metaphorical story “Map” where gender relations theme is expanded on a wider scale. Most of Gauri Deshapande’s stories are written in a misleadingly simple style. However, Deshapande also deftly uses various stylistic devices. For instance, in the story “Hello Stranger”, she uses the stream of consciousness method. Thus these stories uncover the layers of various relationships of India with other countries as America, Japan, Hong Kong, Germany, Britain, Greek, Canada and so on. Migration, colonisation, marriage, travelling in foreign countries, education, international jobs in international companies create international relations and conflicts too which are depicted significantly in Gauri Deshpande‟s English collection of short stories The Lackadaisical Sweeper.
In all her writings, the portrayal of characters has fascinating shades. The male and female characters possess something unexpected from the ordinary way of life. The protagonist women characters stand different from the usual woman category types. They have special place in the hearts of all her readers. She sees her women not as types but as an individual. Her style of writing is not aggressive but certainly very strong, frank and true. The characters and their interpersonal relationships are so realistic and sensitive that every reader either feels that the author must have experienced this or it is more than astounding to see that she has articulated the feelings and thoughts of women at every phase. She has spoken the innermost thoughts of women‘s hearts. The book gives us the experience of reading about ourselves. At the same time it also displayed how women are represented, what the stories tell us about gender relations and sexual differences.
The book reflects the Universalist approach of feminism which deal and discuss the problems of women of different milieu, ages, civilizations and of varying psychic structures. The rule of patriarchy is mirrored as the social order in which man dominates woman through violent or sometimes in decent manner. Gauri Deshpande has surveyed a variety of shades in man woman relationships, their thoughts, frustrations and the truth lying at the background of all this. Her untraditional manner of presenting the situation and the relationships, her frank and bold yet sensitive narration of the stories attract the readers. The context, setting, characters, plot, literary devices, and themes give insight into the author’s perspective and bias.
Patriarchy or the law of the fathers is the social order in which women are dominated by men. Various institutions in the world such as family, religion, education and culture reflect how men are benefitted with this than a woman. Man, by default becomes the centre of human existence and women get place at the periphery of that circle. The word gender has got unnecessary importance in the social order. Actually it is not a biological construct but a social identity to see a place and a space of a man and a woman in the society. It is distinctly mirrored in Gauri Deshpande‘s short stories. The stories probe the truth about women, men and their relationships, thoughts, frustrations and absurdities. Outwardly they look un-Indian but the deeper we read them, the more we understand the undercurrents of her stories. It will not be wrong to say that they are universal in every way. They deal with various themes but the main theme is the way of thinking of the Indians living abroad. This background is not comprehensible to all the ordinary middle class families.
Most of Gauri Deshapande’s stories are written in a misleadingly simple style. However, Deshapande also deftly uses various stylistic devices. For instance, in the story “Hello Stranger”, she uses the stream of consciousness method. The story follows the course of thoughts, ideas and emotions of the protagonist whose mind is subtly revealed as he asks himself several questions, and talks to himself about his emotions, frustrations and confusions. The device of epiphany has also been used in the story “Insy Winsy Spider”. It is true that when a baby slowly beings to grasp the difference between itself and its mother, its awareness of its ‘self’ also slowly becomes stronger. The author skilfully makes use of irony and satire. The story “Hookworm, Lamprey, Tick, Fluke and Flea” is a bitter satire at girls who keep on bragging about their husbands and sons to just show off whereas at the same time all know about the uselessness and worth of their families.
The mode of her sentences, the intermingling of sentences within the sentences, the zigzag manner of writing makes the reader reread the context. Many a times we, as the readers’ experience that we stop to think over what exactly she means and again we are pushed in the gush to capture the theme. Giving surprises, unanticipated twists are the soul of Gauri‘s writing. The stories are narrated in a simple manner, without any pretence. They do not mean to reflect feministic point of view, yet the roots of gender relations and the feminism are present in them as any other basic emotion exists.
The anthology “The Lackadaisical Sweeper” portrays women protagonists who convey widely differed attitudes. The most interesting part of these stories is, they reveal the under streams of all types of relationships: friends, mother – daughter, husband - wife or any permutations and combinations of the myriads of the relationships. The gender relations are intricately narrated in the stories. They describe the women and their hearts in a manner that they pierce into the hearts of the readers. Some readers may not approve this outwardly, saying that this does not fit in Indian society and Indian culture. But Gauri Deshpande breaks the boundaries created by society, and takes the readers to the honest world of men and women through her stories.
Gauri Deshpande’s stories succeed in minutely analysing the emotions of the people. Like Anita Desai and Jhumpa Lahiri, Gauri Deshpande is also interested in exploring the diasporic experience. But unlike Lahiri, Deshpande is keenly interested in understanding the Indian woman. As the author explains in ‘Rose Jam’, this is not about other people’s India, it is about our India, and especially about our women, the middle-class, urban women. The author captures their reactions - naïve, sophisticated, alarmed, and confident. The women are very “identifiable-with”, however different their characters and situations are from the readers, because they are motivated in the search for self. They also portray the dilemma faced by the modern woman caught in between her duty towards the household as well as her career orientation. The characters have universal traits because Deshpande probes the truth about women, men, their relationships, thoughts, frustrations and absurdities. Through her characters, she evokes a world of submerged emotions and invites us to explore the complexities of human behaviour.
In Marathi or in English, in person or in print, the prolific poet, fiction-writer, and translator Gauri Deshpande (1942-2003) has a distinctive voice: strongly feminist, wryly humorous—usually at her own expense, confident yet self-critical, irreverent yet steeped in tradition, cosmopolitan yet grounded in her love for language and place. No matter who or where her audience is, she is bound to challenge their assumptions, producing both discomfort and delight. While Gauri Deshpande was unquestionably one of the most important and innovative writers in contemporary Marathi literature, and was well-known and respected throughout India and among scholars of Maharashtra, she began her career writing well-received poetry in English.
Like Gauri Deshpande herself, her stories confound readers’ expectations and the stories are often profoundly unsettling, jarring the reader out of complacency. In addition, they continually shift perspective, from India to the United States and back, from gender to caste-class, from mother to daughter, from the rational to the emotional, from the abstractly philosophical to the earthily physical, and back again. Further, the categories themselves are unsettled, as women resist femininity, Indians refuse to behave in a stereotypically “Indian” manner, and the direction of global flows are reversed, as Americans migrate to India and become entirely assimilated. As Shanta Gokhale wrote soon after her death, “How could this strapping, handsome, vibrant, gutsy, intense and intellectually passionate woman have just ceased to exist? Gauri had an insatiable zest for living, for experiencing new places and people, for friendship, for loving and giving” (Gokhale, “Woman of Substance”). As a writer and as a person, Gauri Deshpande has left a gap in English and Marathi fiction and society that is not easily filled.
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