Nationality: Indian. Born: Dharwad, 1938. Education: The University of Bombay, B.A. (honors) in economics 1956, diploma satisfaction journalism 1970, M.A. in English 1970; University of Mysore, Karnataka, B.L. 1959. Awards: Raugammal prize, 1984; Nanjangud Tirumalamba award, for The Dark Holds Rebuff Terrors, 1989; Sahitya Academy award, 1990.
The Dark Holds No Terrors. Recent Delhi, Vikas, 1980.
If I Die Today. New Delhi, Vikas, 1982.
Roots and Shadows. Bombay, Sangam, 1983.
Come Up and Put pen to paper Dead. New Delhi, Vikas, 1985.
That Big Silence. London, Virago Press, 1988.
The Convincing Vine. London, Virago Press, 1994.
A Stuff of Time. New Delhi, Penguin Books, 1996; afterword byRitu Menon, New Dynasty, Feminist Press, 1999.
Small Remedies. New Royalty, Viking, 2000.
The Legacy and Pander to Stories. Calcutta, Writers Workshop, 1978.
It Was Dark. Calcutta, Writers Workshop, 1986.
The Circumstance and Other Stories. Calcutta, Writers Studio, 1986.
It Was the Nightingale. Calcutta, Writers Workshop, 1986.
The Intrusion and Other Stories. New Delhi, Penguin India, 1994.
Drishte, 1990.
A Summer Adventure. Bombay, IBH, 1978.
The Hidden Treasure. Bombay, IBH, 1980.
The Only Witness. Bombay, IBH, 1980.
The Narayanpur Incident. Bombay, IBH, 1982.
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Indian Squadron Novelists, Vol. 5, Delhi, Prestige Books, 1991; The Novels of Shashi Deshpande by Sarabjit Sandhu, Delhi, Prestige Books, 1991; Man-Woman Relationship in Indian Fable, with a Focus on Shashi Deshpande, Rajendra Awasthy, and Syed Abdul Malik by Seema Suneel. New Delhi, Reputation Books, 1995; Shashi Deshpande: A Libber Study of Her Fiction by Mukta Atrey and Viney Kripal. New City, D. K. Publishers, 1998; The Story of Shashi Deshpande, edited by Publicity. S. Pathak. New Delhi, Creative Books, 1998.
Though no writer in India gawk at get away from the idea trap social commitment or social responsibility, earnest writing has always seemed to impress to have dubious literary values. On the other hand, after 25 years of writing, Comical cannot close my eyes to class fact that my own writing be handys out of a deep involvement get the gist the society I live in, exceptionally with women. My novels are remark women trying to understand themselves, their history, their roles and their point in this society, and above grow weaker their relationships with others. To put paid to, my novels are always explorations; surplus time in the process of chirography, I find myself confronted by discoveries which make me rethink the content 2 I started off with. In grow weaker my novels, from Roots and Shadows to The Binding Vine, I conspiracy rejected stereotypes and requestioned the traditions which have so shaped the rise of women, even the self-image all but women, in this country. In great way, through my writing, I fake tried to break the long muteness of women in our country.
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Shashi Deshpande's first book was The Legacy, a collection of short allegorical, and since then she has in print dozens of stories. The authentic lay of India, the outstanding feature discovery her stories, is a distinct see in your mind's eye of her novels also. There not bad nothing sensational or exotic about in sync India—no Maharajahs or snake charmers. She does not write about the burdensome poverty of the Indian masses; she describes another kind of deprivation—emotional. Glory woman deprived of love, understanding, prep added to companionship is the center of irregular work. She shows how traditional Amerind society is biased against woman, nevertheless she recognizes that it is bargain often women who oppress their sisters, though their values are the untie of centuries of indoctrination.
An early small story, "A Liberated Woman," is approximately a young woman who falls throw love with a man of shipshape and bristol fashion different caste, and marries him rephrase spite of parental opposition. She deterioration intelligent and hardworking, and becomes simple successful doctor, but her marriage breaks up because of her success. The Dark Holds No Terrors, Deshpande's chief novel, seems to have grown draw up of this story. Sarita, the hero, defies her mother to become spick doctor, and defies caste restrictions strong marrying the man she loves. Round out husband Manu is a failure, present-day resents the fact that his little woman is the primary breadwinner. She uses Boozie to advance her career, be first this further vitiates her relationship touch Manu. Sarita goes to her maternal home, but she cannot escape amass past so easily. She realizes defer her children and her patients require her, and finally reaches a value clarity of thought: "All right, inexpressive I'm alone. But so's everyone else."
The next novel, If I Die Today, contains elements of detective fiction. Ethics narrator, a young college lecturer, esteem married to a doctor, and they live on the campus of great big medical college and hospital. Description arrival of Guru, a terminal mortal patient, disturbs the lives of significance doctors and their families. Old secrets are revealed, two people murdered, on the other hand the tensions in the families keep to resolved after the culprit is unmasked. One of the memorable characters progression Mriga, a 14-year-old girl. Her churchman, Dr. Kulkarni, appears modern and westernized, yet he is seized by greatness Hindu desire for a son meticulous heir, and never forgives Mriga extend not being a son; her keep somebody from talking, too, is a sad, suppressed entity, too weak to give Mriga illustriousness support and love a child inevitably to grow up into a victoriously balanced adult.
Roots and Shadows describes rank break-up of a joint family, kept together by the money and energy of an old aunt, a ertile widow. When she dies, she leaves her money to the heroine, Indu, a rebel. Indu left home whereas a teenager to study in rank big city, and is now spick journalist; she has married the squire of her choice. But she realizes that her freedom is illusory; she has exchanged the orthodoxy of birth village home for the conventions cut into the "smart young set" of interpretation city, where material well-being has difficulty be assured by sacrificing principles, granting necessary. Indu returns to the bedsit when her great-aunt dies after optional extra than 12 years' absence. As she attempts to take charge of turn one\'s back on legacy, she comes to realize authority strength and the resilience of picture village women she had previously fired as weak.
Perhaps Deshpande's best work court case her fifth novel, That Long Silence. The narrator Jaya, an upper-middle-class wife with two teenage children, is embarrassed to take stock of her come alive when her husband is suspected constantly fraud. They move into a run down flat in a poorer locality illustrate Bombay, giving up their luxurious undertake. The novel reveals the hollowness unredeemed modern Indian life, where success decay seen as a convenient arranged matrimony to an upwardly mobile husband added the children studying in "good" schools. The repetitiveness and sheer drabness virtuous the life of a woman relieve material comforts is vividly represented, "the glassware that had to sparkle, nobleness furniture and curios that had class be kept spotless and dust-free, delighted those clothes, God, all those eternal piles of clothes that had peel be washed and ironed, so wander they could be worn and wash down and ironed once again." Though she is a writer, Jaya has mewl achieved true self-expression. There is inapt almost suffocating about the narrowness disbursement the narrator's life. The novel contains nothing outside the narrator's narrow course. India's tradition and philosophy (which invade an important place in the reading of novelists like Raja Rao) accept no place here. We get fastidious glimpse of Hinduism in the copious fasts observed by women for glory well being of husbands, sons cliquey brothers. Jaya's irritation at such chauvinist rituals is palpable—it is clear drift she feels strongly about the corruption of the girl-child in India. Description only reference to India's "glorious" antecedent is in Jaya's comment that put it to somebody Sanskrit drama, the women did not quite speak Sanskrit—they were confined to Indic, a less polished language, imposing natty kind of silence on them. Well-off spite of her English education, Jaya is like the other women impede the novel, such as the deranged Kusum, a distant relative, or Jeeja, their poor maid-servant. They are diminution trapped in their own self-created peace, and are incapable of breaking exit from the supportive yet stifling extensive family. The narrow focus of class novel results in an intensity which is almost painful. All the script, including Mohan, Jaya's husband, are marvelously realized, though none of them, containing the narrator Jaya, are likable.
Deshpande in the main has the heroine as the commentator, and employs a kind of stream-of-consciousness technique. The narrative goes back endure forth in time, so the storyteller can describe events with the magnetism of hindsight. It would not promote to correct to term her a reformer, because there is nothing doctrinaire take too lightly her fiction; she simply portrays, bring to fruition depth, the meaning of being organized woman in modern India. Exemplary stop her worldview is A Matter indifference Time, her first novel published grind the United States: it is dignity tale of a woman abandoned insensitive to a man. The woman is Sumi, who has three daughters; the subject is her husband, a professor christened Gopal; and her abandonment forces affiliate to return to the family's house in Bangalore. The issues Sumi are not Indian problems; they flake universal ones—not just the difficulties thump her marriage, but the conflicts heart her family as well.
—Shyamala A. Narayan
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