The most striking thing about both these works is the similarity of the family structure in them. These books deal with generations of the same family and in turn their extended families. Why does the author use the traditional set up for her books? Is it that she wants to show the movement, the flux in the characters of each generation or does she want us to understand that only outwardly changes take place and otherwise each generation was intrinsically the same, making the same mistakes all over again? All Manju Kapur’s novels take shape in the family background.
Family Structure in Difficult Daughters
Difficult Daughters is about the saga of three generations set during the partition times. The family compromises of Lala Diwan Chand who has two sons Suraj Prakash and Chander Prakash. Essentially the story is of three generations — Kasturi (the mother of Virmati), Virmati (the main protagonist), and Ida (the daughter of Virmati).
Lala Diwan Chand was vehemently opposed to any kind of division in the family. Indeed the joint family structure can be a blessing for the old who are looked after and get companionship, the children who have the support and help of both the elders and the youngsters and the ill and sick are looked after.
Virmati is caught between familial and romantic love. She is inextricably drawn to the Professor who woos her on the pretext that his wife is not his companion and he yearns for a stimulating intellectual partner. Virmati revolting against deep rooted family traditions marries the professor and comes and stays with the professor’s family which compromises of his first wife, mother-in-law, sister-in-law and children.
Born out of typical Indian family, Virmati is caught between tradition and modernity. It results only in self-alienation and she becomes a symbol of female imagination, responding to pressures.
Ida, Virmati’s daughter and the book’s narrator, understands their family structure. She says “when I grew up I was very careful to tailor my needs to what I knew I could get. That is my female inheritance. That is what she tried to give me. Adjust, compromise, adapt.”
Family Structure in Home
In her next book Manju Kapur, once again goes back to her theme of three generations residing in one house, the women existing within the joint family set-up. Home is about the home of Lala Banwari Lal, a patriarch who firmly believes in living in a joint family. He has two sons — Yashpal and Pyarelal, and a daughter Sunita.
The novel focuses on three female characters — Sona (daughter-in-law of Banwari Lal), Rupa (Sona’s sister) and Nisha (Sona’s daughter) — who claim their identity in their own ways. The family of Banwari Lal is traditional and patriarchal. He believes, “United we stand, divided energy, time and money are squandered.”
Nisha, the main protagonist and the daughter of Yashpal and Sona, emerges as a self-dependent woman in the novel. She refuses to reconcile with the patriarchal and male dominated family structure and tries to make her own individual identity. With the help of her father, she starts her own business, a boutique, named ‘Nisha’s Creations’. She gets heavy orders and becomes a successful and known ‘businesswoman’ of the Karol Bagh market.
Manju Kapur seeks freedom for the Indian woman but within the Indian socio-cultural values. She always bears the process of oppression and gender differentiation within the institution of the family and the male centered Indian society.
Works Cited
- Agrawal, Malti. “Manju Kapur’s Home: A Chronicle of Urban Middle Class in India.” Impressions: Bi-Annual E-Journal of English Studies, No 1, January 2007.
- Bala, Suman, Subash Chandra. “Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters: An Absorbing Tale of Fact and Fiction.” 50 Years of Indian Writing. Edited by P. K. Dhawan. New Delhi: IAES, 1999.
- Chowdhury, Anupama. “Manju Kapur’s Home: A Feminist Reading.” The Indian Journal of English Studies, Vol.XLV. Cuttak: Bani Press, 2008.
- Irigaray, Luce. And The One Doesn’t Stir Without the Other. Helene Vivienne Wenzel. Signs (Autumn 1981). p.66.
- Kapur, Manju. Difficult Daughters. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1998.
- Kapur, Manju. Home. New Delhi: Random House, India, 2006.
- Mathur, Malti. “Crossing the Threshold: Women in Shashi Deahpande’s Small Remedies and Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters.” Critical Response to Feminism. Ed. Binod Mishra. New Delhi: Sarup & Sons, 2006.
- Milhoutra, Ruby. “Existential Images of Women in Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters.” Prasad, Amar Nath. New Lights on Indian Women Novelists in English. New Delhi: Sarup and Sons, 2005. 164.
- Nubile, Clara. The Danger of Gender Caste Class and Gender in contemporary Indian Women’s Writing. New Delhi: Sarup Book Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 2003.
- Rishi, Jaydeep. “Mother—Daughter Relationship in Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters.” Ed: Sheobhushan Shukla and Anu Shukla. Indian Association for Studies in Contemporary Literature. New Delhi: Swarup and Sons, 2002. p.92.
- Sethi, Anita. “Home is where the ghosts are.” Rev. of Home. The Sunday Times. London. 16 Apr 2006.
- Singh, Jai Arjun. “Meeting with Manju Kapur.” August 2008.