LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Manju Kapoor's Difficult Daughters
A Saga of Feminist Autonomy and Separate Identity

Mayur Chhikara, Ph.D.

Abstract

Manju Kapur presents the yearning for autonomy and separate identity in her women protagonists in this post-modern novel in a traditional thread. The novelist has portrayed her protagonists as women caught in the conflict between the passions of the flesh and a yearning to be a part of the political and intellectual movements of the day. Thematically the novel supports a romantic story of Virmati and her intellectual yearnings. In the chain growth of the events, Virmati becomes the difficult daughter for her mother as well Ida for her.

Stoic Women in Difficult Daughters

Manju Kapur in Difficult Daughters presents the image of the suffering but stoic women eventually breaking traditional boundaries in the backdrop of traditional narrative thread. In post-colonial era, partition (traditional narrative thread) has ever been the most prolific and prominent area for creative writers. "A number of novels were written on the theme of the destruction it brought and the plight of the refugees. They faithfully record the reign of violence that characterized the period and provide a sad, telling commentary on the breakdown on human values". (Dhawan 14)

The Traditional Narrative Thread

Using the traditional narrative thread, Manju Kapur has invigorated the English language to suit narration of what she felt about her women and their lives in post modern India in a culture where individualism has often remained an alien idea and marital bless-the women's role at home is a central focus. Dora Sales Salvador (356), in her note to her Spanish translation of the novel, appropriately stresses: 'Kapur emphasises the efforts made at that time by numerous women who, while demanding equal opportunities, equal access to education and life-opportunities going beyond convention, were a visible force in the non-violent resistance to the British'.

Likewise Christopher Rollason (2004) comments that the search for control over one's destiny, surely the key theme of Difficult Daughters, refers to the Independence aspired to and obtained by a nation (despite its cruel division by a fateful Partition), but also to the independence yearned after (and finally not obtained) by a woman and member of that same nation (or of one of its rival communities).

Manju's Women Characters

Manju Kapur, in her novels, presents women who try to establish their own identity. In Difficult Daughters, Virmati, in her quest for identity, who is also the central character of the novel, rebels against tradition. She is impelled by the inner need to feel loved as an individual rather than as a responsible daughter. Mrs. Kapur herself asserts that "conflict between mother and daughter is inevitable and I suppose I was a difficult daughter. The conflict carries on through generation because mothers want their daughters to be safe. We want them to make the right choices-'right' in the sense that they are socially acceptable. My mother wanted me to be happily married; I want my daughters to have good jobs." (Bala and Chandra 107)

The very title of the novel Difficult Daughters is an indication to the message that a woman, who tries in search of an identity, is branded as a difficult daughter by the family and the society as well.

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