Strive, Seek and Not to Yield: Paroxysm of the Marginalized – A Study of Indian Middle Class Women with Special Reference to Shobha De’s Second Thoughts

            In ancient India, especially in Vedic period, women were equally footing with men. Even they had right to choose their husbands especially with the announcement of Swanyawara. Mention may be made in this context of Seeta in Ramayana and Droupadi in Mahabarata. Women were worshiped as Goddess like Durga, Pervade and Lakshmi, etc., The condition of women changed in the medieval period and the difference between men and women became vital. So, women were suffering from economic and socio-cultural disadvantages in the male governed society. The society was patronized by patriarchy. The women were silent and remained only as rubber dolls for others to move as they wanted. They had been deprived of their basic rights, their aspirations to their individuality and self-reliance.

            Indian independence produced radical and long-lasting changes in Indian social and civilizing life. Besides new technology, acquaintance, institution, beliefs and values also dominated the Indian social minds. Consequently, many cultural practices changed slowly and they started acting as a barrier to successful social adjustment. In Shobha De’s Second Thoughts, with a view to understand and appreciate their trials and tribulations under the impact of the conflicting influence of tradition and modernity and to critically investigate their response to the rising situation in life so as to fit themselves in the existing society.

            Shobha De’s second Thoughts is a successful attempt to bring about the plight of the New Woman who is cornered in the muddle of domestic household tasks and takes an eccentric decision to keep her individuality and her self-esteem intact.

            Maya’s middle class family is persistent for getting her marriage solemnized with the foreign-returned Ranjan because boys like Ranjan: “….get snapped up before you and I can blink our eyes…”(p. 3). Maya’s mother is Chitra whose main anxiety is to get Maya selected. myriad hang-ups (Kaajal, punctuality, dress, appearance) keep her over-conscious on the day of the interview. The interview is dominated by Mrs. Malik and Chitra chips-in, now and then only to substantiate the pearls of wisdom that flow from Mrs. Malik’s mouth. Mrs. Malik has double standards—her son has returned from the U.S.A to do the “cooking, cleaning,etc.”just for her sake; but Maya is made-up to do all the work.

            Ranjan opposes the scheme of Maya’s taking up a career as textile designer on the grounds that he is “earning well enough to support a family”. “I believe it is a women’s duty to run a good home” (p.11). It’s crystal clear that the family of a middle class girl is ready to throw all canons of self-esteem and individualism just to make the kite of wedlock soar in the turbulent winds of the husband’s so-called superiority. The woman’s sense and sensibility is reduced to a hopelessly pulpy mass of malleable and yielding servility supposed to be ever ready to lick a fanciful or moody husband from toe to top, just for security,just for a roof, just for shelter.

            Though Chitra thinks that Maya has fallen head over heels in love with Ranjan, in reality, Maya was completely in love with Bombay, not Ranjan of Bombay. After marriage Maya tries her best to keep the house. Ranjan is of nonchalant and self-infatuated. Mamma’s child who wants all the attention round the clock. His regular bouts of depression, aches, joint pains, gas... leave no time to Maya:

                                He’d screw up his eyes tightly shake his head from side to side and

start groaning, Clutching whichever part of his anatomy was meant to be bothering him… (p. 24)

                        There was no question of going to bed after that.(p. 25)

            Ranjan ignores or loathes anything liked by her: a simple outing or her love for flowers. She’s not supposed to talk to her neighbours or even salesmen. He has brought his banking instincts home with auditor’s probing eyes on every expenditure and his obsession with the balancing-budgeting act. The shadow of his mother looms large over the household permeating the whole atmosphere and reverberating throughtout. Maya wants to go out “at least on week-ends”, but Ranjan thinks she is talking “like a kid”.”Life isn’t a picnic…” (p. 27)

            All her culinary efforts are belittled by Ranjan who always finds “too much of this, to little of that”. Ranjan has no recognition for Maya’s talents:”Bombay is like New York..Tough. Competitive.. people don’t waste time on nobodies”. (p. 28). Maya is for him, not he for her. If at all she wants to talk, he picks up his pet refrain:

                                A man comes home to relax after slogging all day…He wants

                        A hot bath, meal, soothing conversation,not this rubbish.(p. 30)

            A woman cooped up in the house whole day may also have desires, dreams, aspirations. Ranjan reminds us of Marco in R.K. Narayan’s The Guide, whose coldness and frigidity forces his wife Nalini to drift away. She says:

                        I’d have preferred any kind of mother-in-law if it had meant

                        one real, live husband. (The Guide, 76)

            Maya also wants a real, live husband.

            Lack of sleep, lack of physical exercises and mental vacuity steer Maya into a state of terminal boredom. Never for once does it occur to Ranjan that Maya is made of flesh and blood and may desire something apart from food and shelter. It is in these moments of abject dejection and forlorn identity that memories of Nikhil flood her to help her overcome her present discomfiture. Nikhil is a symbol of independent life. He doesn’t hesitate to compliment her on her good looks:”You look like a beautiful garden today…”(p.45)

            Nikhil is appreciative; Ranjan is disparaging. Every meeting with Nikhil leaves her flushed, confused but longing for another glimpse. She meets Nikhil hardly for a moment or so in the first half of the novel but that is enough to fill her with a longing to see him again. Ranjan is a mechanical husband dangling between office and home with his mother.

            Ranjan and Maya live in different worlds. Ranjan can never bear to image Maya talking to someone else. He can’t think of the sublime demands of the human soul. Maya learns to recognize herself, more so when Ranjan is away. In Ranjan’s absence, she feels free to breathe normally: even a missing handkerchief is reason enough for a tumultuous situation.

            Nikhil is a foil to Ranjan. She remembers his compliments, his cutting remarks, his frankness: she feels wanted—she feels that she belongs. She learns to love herself, her appearance, especially on Blue Tuesdays she’d be giving Idli treats to Nikhil at her doorstep. This is a significant change in her—the New Woman is waking up—her identity is taking shape.

            Ranjan is dictatorial; Nikhil is persuasive, feeling, kind and energetic—the symbol of joy but she still has her loyalty intact—and Nikhil’s song “Lonely Lady” provides the background music of hope in her otherwise cumbersome and monotonous family life.

This ‘loyalty’ refuses Nikhil’s offer in spite of her heart’s tugging her in the opposite direction. Maya wanted to go but her inhibitions hold her back. The New Woman has grown in her but she hasn’t learnt to assert herself as yet:

                        I wished I could. I wished my conversation was different. I

                        wanted more than anything else to laugh and converse freely

                        and ask Nikhil a thousand questions.(p. 167)

            She wants to say goodbye to her uninspiring life without the slightest regret—and she does jump on Nikhil’s motorbike for a tryst with destiny. Nothing conspicuous transpires between them on that fateful morning but Maya enjoys the ride around Malabar Hill—her first beer, and the free air without hassles. Being temperamentally coy she feels embarrassed of being found out in the beginning but soon she settles down and takes the world just available to her coolly in her stride. Her being married doesn’t mean she has no right to enjoy herself just for once:

                        That didn’t prevent me from longing for an innocent outing like this

                        And grabbing the opportunity to enjoy it when it presented itself…he

                        Seemed to have recognized my loneliness and claustrophobia. (p. 176)

            She has got what she wanted. This was her coveted outing ever since she came to Bombay. She refuses to deny herself this basic right and this is self-recognition and identity. She feels happy. She has learnt how to assert herself, “I lay awake all night dreaming of a large bird swooping down on me, claws out” (p. 190).

            The imagery is tearing, touching and realistic. Her letter to Nikhil in the wee hours of the morning is revealing, exploratory and introspective. She knows that she is slipping into unconventional waters but principles and traditions do have to give way to the basic calls of the soul. Emotional needs assert themselves again and again to find consummation in a stray opportunity here and there to fulfill the yearnings of an imprisoned soul, “The fact is, it was one of the best days of my life” (p.195). she is not loved by the man she is tied to and she can’t tie up with the man she’d love to.

            Ranjan thinks that money and other such materialistic comforts are enough to satisfy a woman’s ideas of life. But sadly so, that is not her cup of tea; there are other things—indispensable to the very existence of human beings. How unilateral and unfounded Ranjan’s observations can be is evident from the following lines:

                        There’s no shortage of money, I treat you well, you have all

                        the time in the world to just loll around in the bed if you want

                        to. I hardly make any demands . I even eat whatever you give me.

                        But still you aren’t satisfied. Learn from my mother. (p. 262)

            The deluge is complete, all consuming and the raging inferno is smothered. She has been recognized, accepted, completely spent and smoothly taken care of. Maya has broken the norms for once while others have ignored for it ages. So here is a new ray of hope for her—a new way to live and a new promise of life. “I felt beautiful. I wanted to look beautiful…”(p. 281).

            These thoughts should have been her first thoughts. But now she has become wiser. Even when she comes to know that Nikhil is getting married and she may not meet him again, she is not alarmed but contained. “ I knew I would have to make it again from scratch. So what? I had all the time in the world now” (p. 289). She has found herself. She knows how to live—she can give a slip here and there to assert herself: she can play ball now whether Ranjan plays or not.

            Maya’s incarnates for new woman is to assert her individuality and establish her identity. She strives hard to bear the hardships, she seeks her place in the society in the midst of male chauvinistic matadors and she never yield to the male domination. She migrates herself that gives her an ecstasy ambience.

Works Cited

De, Shobha. Second Thoughts. New Delhi: Penguin India, 2005.

Narayan, R.K., The Guide. New Delhi: Penguin Classic, 2006.