Triveni Journal

1927 | 11,233,916 words

Triveni is a journal dedicated to ancient Indian culture, history, philosophy, art, spirituality, music and all sorts of literature. Triveni was founded at Madras in 1927 and since that time various authors have donated their creativity in the form of articles, covering many aspects of public life....

Women in Modern Telugu Literature

Vemaraju Narasimha Rao

WOMEN IN MODERN TELUGU
LITERATURE

There has been a discernible, yet gradual change in the characterisation of women in the modern Telugu Novels and Stories, more so during the past 50 years, The modern Telugu Novel is about 100 years old starting with Kandukuri Veeresalingam’s RAJASEKHARA CHARITHRA. The women in the earlier novels were generally docile and concerned about their modesty than anything else, in the traditional mould of the Indian woman. They very rarely revolted and even if they did occasionally, they were later filled with remorse rather than pride at having broken the tradition.

Till 1947 broadly, women’s education generally stopped with learning the three R’s. The average parents ensured that their daughters knew enough to write an occasional letter to the husbands and maintain accounts of housekeeping. The very few women who went upto the college generally made their mark in some field or the other, including politics. The average education of a girl stopped with her school education and marriage.

This changed radically in the post­-independence era. Parents were particular of educating their daughters upto the degree level and there was alround rise in the level of literacy in both men and women. With increased literacy, there was increased thirst for general reading from the women in general. After sending the children to the schools and the husband to the work, the modern woman finds a lot of spare time on her hands, which was being spent in gossiping earlier. This class of readership turn to the various magazines and journals to quench their thirst and consequently there has been a spurt in the number of periodicals that cater to them, with short stories, serialised novels, stuffed with sentiment, love and romance, which easily appeal to them. A whole new generation of women writers sprang up pouring out hundreds of pages of fiction and at a certain stage, have far out-numbered the men in this line. Popular names like Sulochana Rani, Latha, Dwivedula Visalakshi, Chittareddi Suryakumari, Sita Devi and a host of other names come to the mind.

We shall take a broad look at the way the women characters are shaped in the sea of literature, though no study on such a broad and wide canvas can claim even remotely near to be complete.

Marriage continues to be an obsession with the women. The institution of marriage in any given society is an yardstick to measure the level of civilisation of that community. The Indian woman continues to look to the marriage as an end-all and be-all of life. The inter-caste and inter-religious marriages which were previously frowned upon being the order of the day, there has been a sea change in the attitude of the community towards such marriages.

Due to the social inhibitions in the previous generations courting and lovemaking were confined mainly to cousins and those in the neighbourhood. With the women competing with men in all walks of life, the scope for lovemaking and courting has become very wide. There are any number of situations open to today’s youth, besides colleges, workplaces, trains and other modes of travel when they meet and indulge in this pastime.

Instead of the arranged marriages, the young men and women now fall in love and marry. Even after they are married, they stick to their old ideas and habits and start nagging their partners. They do not make any effort to save the marriage of their choice by making the necessary adjustments or compromise.

The heroine pines endlessly on her not being properly married off as if it is her life’s ambition. She sheds copious tears when she is jilted and often commits suicide or gets mad. In real life, we very rarely come across a woman who do that if the marriage of her does not materialise.

In all these situations the average woman is conscious that she has to get married and once she is married, the novel comes to a close. The writers therefore ensure that the pair does not get married that easily. Any number of twists and turns, misunderstandings and villainous treachery come in between to delay the final event. Perhaps, this is as it should be, for they get paid by the number of pages of their output.

One finds an urge in these women to keep up their individuality and identity. Where earlier they shied away from even the touch of a man and did not look into his eyes directly, for reasons of modesty, now, thanks to the Western civilisation, they no more overly bother about mixing and rubbing shoulders with men during the of work or otherwise.

These heroines worry themselves endlessly that they are not properly understood by others properly. Men’s cruelty, tears and handkerchiefs accost us at every stage.

The typical heroine in yester years was somewhat on these lines. She has to take care of her ailing father, who took great pains to bring her up and the younger children are still growing. She helps her mother who always worries about getting her married, in her chores, prepares the younger children and sends them to school, gets sandwiched between the vultures in the office where she works and the misunderstanding of the man she loves, and returns home dead tired bringing medicines with her and a nagging headache. She has only tears in her eyes when her brothers or sisters accuse her of any misdemeanour or not caring for them.

However in the end, she generously excuses everyone and poses with a smile, by the side of her lover forgetting all the mischief done and the ugly scenes created by him. When he asks her with a straight face, “Won’t you forgive me, Susi?” she melts and replies shyly, “What is there to excuse” If I were a woman, I would not allow such scoundrels even in the last the lat page of my novel. Contrast this to Sita of Ramayana. After Rama banishes her to the forests, knowing that she is innocent and pure, she refuses to go to her husband when they meet again. She cannot bear the insult and would rather go to Mother Earth than to her husband.

The harm that a woman is capable of inflicting on the psyche of another woman far exceeds that a man is capable of. It is in Sarat Babu’s “Palleeyulu’” that the mother admonishes her daughter – “You have cast undue aspersions on another woman. Even God will not forgive you!” We rarely come across such sentiments in the modern heroines.

As regards sex and lovemaking, our heroines generally are not aggressive in lovemaking - in the typical traditional mould of the Indian woman, who is passive, submissive and reacts only to the overtures of man, who holds the key. She is merely a doll in his hands. We have at this juncture to ignore the soft and hard porn, where the characters live every moment of their lives for sex only and do not have any scruples or inhibitions. Except in novels of Chalam and a few others, they rarely take initiative in matters of sex.

One character that comes to mind at this stage. A unique and appealing one at that. It is Geetha in Chandidas’s “HIMA JWALA” While eandeavouring to preserve her individuality and sticking to her values, she depicts very sensitively her natural sexual urges and the frustration at having to put up with a man who is unable to measure up to her psychologically and incapable of meeting the demands of her body, her efforts to get along with a chauvinist man. The myriad moods are portrayed very sensitively, aesthetically and convincingly by her. She comes out in flesh and blood.

Very few characters are lasting ­like Madhuravani in KANYASULKAM or the mother-in-law of Bhanumathi’s stories, “ATTAGARI KATHALU”. We do not remember all the colourfully dressed people that pass on the road and very few of them make their impression on us. Geetha is one such rare character.

Even declaring in the title ­“Sashesam Jeevitam,” Chandidas gets her brutally murdered by her psychotic husband. She does not deserve that violent death. She outgrows the author’s scheme of things like Shakespeare’s Falstaff and she refuses to die. She gains our sympathy even in her death, at which one is very unhappy with the author’s handling of the story. She stands out for her realistic portrayal.

Vimala of Ranganayakamma - as opined by Palagummi Padmaraju is a combination of all that is desirable in a woman, the glitter and glamour, the colour, smell and the taste, the dynamism and softness all rolled into one. She is able to manage to have her way, only because, Buchibabu happens to be her husband. If it were any other of the average Telugu husbands she would have been greatly disappointed. Like a shrewd mother-in-law nagging her daughter-in-law behind the cover of an inbecile son, Ranganayakamma handles her heroines from behind the screen they do not come out in flesh and blood. Only she is seen in them and only she is heard thorough them.

Yet another character that comes to mind is a more recent one in Vennelakanti Vasanthasena’s novel. The story starts with the heroine recollecting her story on the operation table about to be aborted. She has the verve, the dynamism and the honesty and basic respect for human values. Above all she respects herself. She graduates from the school of life by trial and error and she becomes the darling of the readers for frank and uninhibited assessment of herself and others. The woman in modern Telugu novel has indeed travelled far in the path of her liberation.

There has been a trend in recent times, more so till a decade , to produce novels with a view to getting them filmed. The writers consciously treated the story with an eye on the film, what with several novels successfully getting on celluloid. In action films, such as the Westerners, the woman is only a sidekick to the hero who does all the fighting and stunts. She merely oozes oomph and glamour and has no role to play or act seriously. In the socials, they ensure that the baser urges are well catered to - the rapes, the cruelty to women and children, and tear jerking situations with an eye on the women audiences. A rape or an attempted one is a common feature. In one case, the heroine quarrels with her husband and leaves in a huff without even informing him. She travels in the second class coach of an express train and as the writer would have it, there is no one else except a huge bully out to rape her. She fortunately faints and passes out. When she opens her eyes again, the hero is seen smashing the villain. He travels by his car in pursuit and manages to catch the train and get into the same coach just in time to save her. One wonders when our second class coaches in trains are so deserted of passengers and how the hero could scent the train and coach and manage to get there in time. Cinematic indeed!

At the other end of the spectrum, there is Malladi Venkata Krishna Murthy’s heroine, a young college girl of Indian origin, whose parents have settled down comfortably in America that dreamworld of all youngsters. Her parents, as you will see, though living in cosmopolitan society and highly educated and well placed, are great sticklers to caste and sect, when it comes to the question of their daughter’s marriage. They would rather have one of the cousins in India in their village to have her in marriage. The heroine is packed to India. home, she reciprocates the advances of another boy of a different caste and the parents set their foot firmly down. She reminds them that she a born American and has a right to choose her life’s partner. The father sets what he considers to be an impossible target. The boy of her choice must come to America within six months and she promptly accepts the challenge. The father ensures that this does not happen by promptly notifying the immigration officials who refuse to give him visa. She comes to know of this and adopts a novel way of protest by attracting the attention of the media and approaching the President of the US who intervenes at the nick of time. Here the heroine uses all her ingenuity to beat the father in his game and ensure the marriage of her choice.

Then there is a memorable characterisation of an old woman in a short story - MURUGU (Bracelet) by Ramana. Her favourite grand son incurs the wrath of the visiting Swamiji and his entourage who are revered guests of the father, a very pious and religious man. In a fit of anger at the boy’s indiscretion, the Swamiji refuses to pour the thirtham to any one and the father beats the boy. The granny is naturally very much upset. The next day when the Swamiji gets known his preference to arvselu (cookies made of jaggery) for snacks, she bursts out with a blast. "Ariselani jayinchaleni vadu arishadwargalani jayisthadata” (He who cannot resist ariselu claims to have resisted the six evils) The Swami is effectively tamed and resumes his good terms with the grandmother and the boy.

Then, she has a gold murugu (a bracelet) on her hand, which she got as a young bride and several of the family members including her daughter have an eye on it. They expect to grab it when she is gone. But the old lady has different ideas. When she finds that the match fixed for her grandson is about to break down as the father is unable to raise the required dowry, she encourages the boy to go ahead with the marriage and ensures that the marriage is performed alright. It is only when she dies later, they find out that original gold murugu was melted down for the marriage of the boy and what is there on her hand is a fake. The grandmother’s character is etched clearly and appears in lively colours and the reader empathies with her.

This is indeed a fascinating study. The Telugu writers of today deal with a whole spectrum of women from one end to the other, from the pious woman who lives only for her husband to the shrew to the almost independent one who refuses to obey the unreasonable restrictions imposed by the society. The characters are live ones taken from every day life and to that extent, the contemporary life is depicted in the literature. Of course, fantasy and thrillers are also churned out occasionally, but they are few and far between.

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