Malgudi Women

R. K. Narayan, one of the foremost Indian writers of fiction in English, has created interesting women characters against the imagined ground of Malgudi representing the middle class society, examining their behaviour and attitude­ to life with remarkable observation and sensitivity. Though drawn from the local situation, the characters emerge as universal types whose psychological and existential concerns are shared by women all over the world. Narayan portrays a variety of women: traditional housewives, affectionate mothers, careful grannies, devoted artists and active social workers who are self-made and strong-minded, yet simple and ordinary. In their response to various problems in life, Malgudi women represent a new individuality, a new will and a new energy and even a new egoism prompted by a feminine awakening to the call of the modern.

Bharati, the heroine of “Waiting for the Mahatma”, is a sensible Malgudi Portia who turned her Bassanio (Sriram) from a mere irresponsible romantic hero into a self-disciplined leader capable of sacrifice, altruism and charity. She is cast in the Gandhian concept and mould of Indian womanhood, standing for his ideals of non-violence, personal integrity, social consciousness and responsibility and the amelioration of the status of women ­and love and compassion for the downtrodden and the socially disadvantaged sections of humanity. Her first aim is to participate ­in the struggle for national freedom. After independence and with, the approval of the Mahatma she marries Sriram and happily senttles down in life. She is an admirable Malgudi woman “who could mould mountains out of clay.” Bharati is the image of an ideal woman leader of Malgudi, who finally masters and achieves a dynamic balance between the claims of private individuality and those of public responsibility.

Susna in “The English Teacher” is a lovely Juliet married to a chastened Romeo, growing by the strength of her character and stability of aspiration into a middle class Miranda whose married life is at once a sacrament of love and a song of miraculous innocence. Her love and devotion to her husband makes her home a heaven. But unfortunately her life of happiness and felicity is all too short-lived as she dies of typhoid. Her husband finds life miserable and meaningless without her and resigns himself to a life of disillusionment. Then Susila’s spirit helps him to have contact with her through Raja Yoga and purges his mind out of grief and makes him feel “Grateful to Life and Death,” as the first title of the novel indicates. Susila stands as an image of the ideal Hindu wife. We see on her portrayal the girlhood image of Bharati becoming a successful housewife who could be at once a dedicated wife and a benevolent Goddess.

Savitri in “The Dark Room” is an unsuccessful Nora who­ attempts to revolt against the tyranny of her husband who is but a civilized brute. Ramani believes in the dominance of men and behaves ruthlessly towards her remaining moody and always taunting her, giving her little freedom and much less importance as an individual. The detestable dark room is the only place for such a miserable wife who does not have the advantage of formal education and economic independence. She becomes more vexed when she comes to know her husband’s relation with Shanta Bai. She can no longer tolerate her husband’s infidelity and in a last desperate bid for freedom walks out of the house intending to die instead of obliging a dishonest husband. After being rescued from drowning she decides to live independently by hard work. A measure of rice she receives for sweeping a temple is the sign of a new beginning for her independent life. But this joy ‘of’ deliverance cannot be for long. She imagines the hungry faces of her children with uncombed hair. Tears well up in her eyes and her revolt gives way and she at once returns home. The rebel in her is overshadowed by the mother. A traditional and ideal mother like Savitri needs a home and children more than independence. Motherly fulfilment illumines the darkest of the dark rooms like that of Savitri. She now becomes a staunch upholder of family integrity and honour which is within the moral frame work of her situation, as a great triumph to be belittled by her defiance and rebellion. But she is neither defeated, nor vanquished. She rather attains a new awareness of her own radical feminity. In the portrayal of Savitri we meet the wifehood image of Susila turning into that of a mother courageous.

Rosie in The Guide is well-educated and a born artist too. She is a graduate in Economics and a good dancer as well. As a devoted dancer she practises daily for full three hours at five in the morning. She spends an hour or two in the forenoon studying ancient works on the art of dancing. She consults Pundits to explain Sanskrit verse and looks into Ramayana and Mahabharatafor new ideals. She has plans to proceed with her research in this art, of course if her husband permits her. She is such a great dancer that one could almost hear the ripple of water around the lotus being formed with her fingers. The art of dance is natural to the tradition of “Deva Dasis” dedi­cated to the worship of God, to which Rosie belongs. Rosie gets married to Marco in the hope of a stable family life and decides even to sacrifice her art of dancing, if necessary. But she comes to understand that her husband only pays lip-service to castelessness and conventionless marriage and considers the art of dance as “street acrobatics.” She could have been an ideal educated wife to Marco if he only had provided the neces­sary inspirational motive to her who is a truly living replica of the sculptured images of dancers on the walls of Mepi caves to which he is so devoted in his own studies. But Marco remains cold and indifferent. Rosie tries her best to please him preferring “any kind of mother-in-law if it had meant one real live husband.” Her instincts for life and love of art are destroyed by her husband. She finds herself cheated in life by a husband who is entirely self-centred and insensitive to her individual needs and aspirations. In a fit of psychological recoil, she allows herself to come under the influence of Raju, not because she has lost her heart to him but simply because he is ready to minister to her vital human needs so steadily starved by an irresponsible husband. Once again she failed as Raju’s lover when the latter commercialises her art and offences her deep sensibility. Rosie fails both as a respectable wife and as a glamorous lover in spite of her pleasing qualities, being cheated in life twice by her husband and her lover alike.

Rosie represents the conflict of tradition and modernity experienced by many women in a transitional society. Rosie, the educated and the self-willed, is the rebel turned into Nalini enjoying enormous popularity as a great dancer. She decides to live alone and independently after her defeat in life. The tra­ditional woman in her is up in rebellion craving for independence but yet, paradoxically enough, she longs for marital relations. That is why she thrills at the publication of her husband’s book, frames a newspaper picture of her husband and places it on the table. The refrain “after all he is my husband” runs through her mind during the years of separation and her comment “it is better to end one’s life on his door-step” sums up the tradition of centuries lying hidden in her psyche. The portrayal of Savitri as a miserable wife and her eventual revolt is ex­tended in Rosie who has the courage to withstand the struggle in herself. The other reason for her not coming home is that she has no children who make the marriage bond more strong and stable. In a sense her situation represents one of terminal withdrawal into her own loneliness and isolation.

Daisy in The Painter of Signs is in charge of the family planning centre in Malgudi who lectures to men and women on birth control. She is a woman with a mind of her own and a room of her own capable of standing by herself with ability and independence. She does not depend on men and “she actually has no use for them as an integral part of her life.” Daisy experiences a conflict in her between her feminine temperament and the role of a job holder. Though, temporarily, she is unable to resist the love of the painter of signs, she finds it repugnant to her sense of sincere devotion to her principles and her job. A fruitful marriage naturally entails children, but the idea of children horrifies her. At last, as an ideal believer in birth control she decides to remain a spinster. It is indeed admirable that she never regrets her decision. Daisy is a far cry from the conventional feminine type and her resolution on independence is an authentic reflection of her selfhood.

In the portrayal of Malgudi women Narayan observes a gradual progression from the pre-independence times to the modern times, in sensitive response to the Malgudi milieu. Malgudi grows from the small taluka town into a cosmopolitan city with many extensions, sight-seeing spots and tourist centres, lots of visitors from all the corners of the world pouring into Malgudi, introducing different cultures, causing new social changes in Malgudi. Gradually Malgudi became a city with a busy family centre. Bharati of Malgudi has now become Daisy of Malgudi. In all these changes Malgudi represents modern India rooted in the ancient tradition, a compromise between age-old traditions and the compulsions of modernity, an odd mixture of old values and new ideas. Accordingly women of Malgudi respond to their problems in varying degrees of accommodation. Modern Malgudi women favour single families, economic independence, self-fulfilment and assertion of equal rights with men. At the same time they strictly observe the traditional customs of festi­vals, naming ceremonies, schooling ceremonies, matching of horoscopes and other traditional ways. Malgudi women well represent tradition and individuality.

Narayan is often appreciated as a most objective writer. In the delineation of women characters he leans towards tradition. Bharati, Savitri, Susna are ideal housewives who stand in contrast in their experiences of married life. In modern times it is un­usual to meet such yielding and self-sacrificing women in actual life. Malgudi women of modern times are not frogs in the well. They care for achievements and self-fulfilment. Narayan seems to say that bonds of human life are more decisive than the variable elements in human affiliation in terms of social roles. Savitri realising the bonds of motherhood returns home as a regenerated person. Rose and Daisy renounce their marital bond and values for self-fulfilment and achievement in life and have therefore to live in isolation. One wonders what these women gain at last. Is this the way one can escape from human limitation? Is total alienation the price of feminist glory of independence and individuality? These are some of the disturbing questions that emerge from a study of the predicament of the Malgudi women.

Narayan is temperamentally an artist of the average, finding the heroic argument in the normal, quotidian quality of life, and always avoiding confrontation with the disturbing depths beyond the rippling surface of social reality. Accordingly his Malgudi women, in so far as they are shown in the demons­trable particulars of narrative action, share their creator’s reticence and fear of over-dramatisation; but in what they show of themselves, despite their edited and exquisitely monitored responses towards their often paradoxical situations, they seem to imply an existential paradigm of Indian womanhood under the impact of change and claim attention as individuals affected, no less than their male counterparts, by the larger sociological issues of human identity, continuity and affiliation.