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74 HEDONISTIC APPROACH AND SELF SOLACE- THE VINE OF DESIRE BY CHITRABANERJEE DIVAKARUNI Dr. Chhavi Giri Goswami
(Assistant Professor, SGSITS, Indore, M.P.)
Abstract- “There is no act of man which is free from desire; whatever a man does is the result of the impulse of desire” (qt. in Bhatia 2.13).
This line is the manifestation of ancient Indian philosopher Manu in his work- Manusmriti. In this book, he presents that behind every action of an individual, there lays a desire. Every human being is trapped in the vines of several desires. That‟s why if someone desires for virtuous things, one gets sublime and if someone desires or expects or longs for evil things, his life will end in abyss or chaos. Moreover, if someone becomes independent and strong to resolve life‟s crisis, one reaches the desired goal. If one remains dependent on others to fulfill one‟s desires, the dependent will remain entangled in the vines of one‟s desires and illusions, and will never be able to get the desired things.
The novel The Vine of Desire paradoxically relates to the personal struggle of the protagonist Sudha and Anju (immigrants in America) with the outward circumstances which may be good or bad and with her own self identity and self desires which may be at times steady or unsteady. It is apt to quote Lord Krishna‟s preaching to Arjuna- „The dangerous senses, O son of Kunti, forcibly carry away the mind of a wise man, even while striving to control them” (“Bhagavad Gita” 01). This paper tries to solve the problem of migrants who are affected by Westernized notions of self-happiness and predicament due to native cultural ethos. Joel Kuortti aptly says that: “Diaspora can be a positive site for the affirmation of an identity, or conversely, a negative site of fears of losing that identity”
(Kuortti 03).
Keywords: Desire, Expectation, Reality, Post-Feminism, Man-woman relationship, The Vine of Desire, Self-identity, Immigrant predicaments.
In the novel The Vine of Desire, which is the sequel of Sister of My Heart, the novelist explains through female protagonist, the life of expectations, wish fulfilment and interdependency which at times become a hurdle in one‟s self- reliance or at other times it opens up their self-perception and conflict between their desire and their attitude. The novelist enumerates upon the deceptive reality of dependency- which either weakens inherent qualities of the dependent or disables their inherent (intrinsic) virtues to get an outlet to grow. If the female protagonist falls into this frozen trap of their inner inhibitions, barriers uncertainty, and confinement; it results in being alone, especially when a character is in an alien land, far from her home land, that is if she is an immigrant.
The hesitant personality endangers engendering of individuality.
Subsequently, it leads to a cultural clash, social maladjustment, psychological conflict, and predicament. Divakaruni has vividly portrayed migrant women‟s difficulties in the emotional framework that juggles between the concept of sisterhood, migrant, racial body and
woman‟s body. The novel The Vine of Desire problematizes the Western cultural values regard to the relationship between sisters in the context of siblings and as immigrants.
Set in the land of America, the novel deals with immigrants‟ experience, their problems, and their predicaments.
Divakaruni‟s artistic mind probes inside women‟s mind, when they try to live in the frame of sisterhood in their womanhood phase also; they face a reality that their womanhood image becomes a hurdle for their sisterhood image. They commit a mistake by neglecting their male counterparts, and they disturb the equilibrium of the society to fulfill their wishes for saving their sisterhood image.
Due to their wrong negotiation in their lives, their several longings affect their relationship with their husbands, as a result of it, their husbands feel ignored and unattended.
The novelist interrogates the entity of women in man-made dimensions regarding woman‟s body. She also examines how the conflict of interest disturbs women‟s idea of sisterhood in man‟s orientation of womanhood. What
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75 evil consequences a man does face in hislife while encountering the reality of his mistakes? What women get after disturbing the balance of the society that is based on the man-woman relationship?
Simone de Beauvoir points out the reason between male and female conflicts and says that: “The fact is that neither men, not women are satisfied with each other today. But the question is, whether it is an original curse that condemns them to tear each other apart or, whether the conflicts that pit them against each other”
(Beauvoir 843) In this novel, Divakaruni has made women revaluate their life and the worth of their notions towards their relationship with men and women. She has delineated upon the inner psychology of male and female both, especially within the notions of the clash between Eastern and Western values. The novel‟s narratives open a way to understand the pattern of life in an alien culture and to build one‟s capacities to negotiate their lives and their relationships in an alien land.
Divakaruni divides the novel into two parts. Part one „Subterranean Truths‟
presents the truth of Anju, Sudha and Sunil‟s subterranean or underground desires and illusions about love, about life and about each other. In this part, Divakaruni depicts the true nature of love that binds these three people with each other, which can be well-understood in Robert Calasso‟s notions about love or Eros that: “Eros is strength abandoning itself to something elusive, something that stings” (TVD 02). This part also examines the aptness of sisterly relations and about the hidden truths of Sudha‟s personality, when she commits a horrible mistake in her life and disturbs everyone‟s life.
Divakaruni writes: “The Subterranean truths of Sudha‟s life are the ones we crave” (TVD 23). This part reveals the reality of the illusions that the three people formed in their respective life for themselves and for each other.
The second part of the novel
„Remembrance and Forgetting‟ portrays the result of being in making illusions and following the mental and physical desires.
Divakaruni writes: “What happens to a desire deferred” (TVD 223). Affected by Western notions of self-happiness, these three people re-examine the correctness of their notions and their deeds disturb their
mental peace. This part describes their attempts to forget their past memories and nostalgia. What do they do to change themselves and to build their independent personalities? What do they keep remembering about their own self and others? What do they forget and forgive about their self and others to survive in the world? What do they learn from their mistakes? What do they finally inherit from their value system and cultural roots?
The Vine of Desire starts from where the Sister of My Heart ends. Sudha and Anju‟s reunion causes drastic changes in their life, despite their expectations of being happy. Their childhood sisterly bond renews in San Francisco, America, which makes them happy to an extent. They sit and chat for hours with Dayita playing in midst of them. Anju looks after Sudha‟s and Dayita‟s needs. Anju regains her childhood role of savior of Sudha. Anju thinks that she can help Sudha in getting her identity in America. Sudha too hopes the same to help Anju. Sudha says about Anju: “The possibility of arranging one‟s life- she‟ always liked to believe in it” (TVD 36). Sudha engages herself in household works and tries to please all in Anju‟s family with her culinary skills.
Both Anju and Sudha have been aware of their reality as an individual whose individual existential problems are different, whose life goals have been different due to their being adapted to the different culture. Yet being in the illusion of their early sisterhood relationship, they can‟t detach themselves; as a result of their attachment, they have developed the notion of shouldering each other. They think that it will help them to be independent and will make a new life in America. Sudha has a dream of becoming a designer and Anju has a dream to continue with college studies. They both support each other emotionally, but they find themselves unable to impress each other with their own separate identity and individuality in an alien culture. The lonely feeling of immigrant Anju and her encounter with Sunil‟s masculine reality compels her to long selfishly for Sudha‟s company and the betrayal faced by Sudha from Ramesh forces her to depend upon Anju again in her life.
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76 They can manage their problemsindividually, but as they are both replete with western notions of powerful bonding of sisterhood; they expect mutual support from each other to achieve their independency. Feminist Bell Hook says in her book Feminist Theory about the Western notions of sisterhood that: “We must learn to live and work in solidarity…and value sisterhood” (Hooks 63). Anju and Sudha‟s bonding also strengthens their sisterhood while being together once again. With their feminist thinking they neglect their husbands.
The novelist ideologically sensitizes the present generation women;
she technically raises the question on women‟s psyche with regard to her compatibility with her counterpart.
Whenever a woman feels a gap, she results to seek space in the bonding with another woman. In Divakaruni‟s novels, women‟s search for reciprocal love and attention is the major issue. To seek that in other women, they neglect their own male partners. Urbashi Barat aptly quotes: “Shut in by men, women, in turn, shut out men, and form lasting female bonds within a women‟s community”
(Barat 50) Anju and Sudha also do the same mistake of neglecting their male counterparts. Sudha leaves Ashok for Anju and Anju neglects Sunil. Sudha ponders about Sunil that: “We made him feel unnecessary, he knew he was an interruption to our reunion” (TVD 31).
Divakaruni presents that in order to preserve sister like relationship; women tend to ignore their phase of womanhood.
Males in turn when facing the ignorance from their female counterparts; shift their attention to another woman. Thus the various self-centered longings of women in their lives affect men also and compel them to form new contradictory desires in their hearts to fulfill the gaps of their life and to satisfy their unsatisfied passions.
When a man doesn‟t get a reciprocal relationship with his wife, often he falls into an extramarital relationship. Janell Carroll aptly quotes that: “Although many people think that sexual desire drives an extramarital affair, research has found that over 90% of extramarital affairs occur because of unmet emotional needs within the marital relationship” (Carroll 271).
Sunil tries his best to re-establish emotional and physical intimacy with
Anju in order to let her be away from Sudha, but Anju doesn‟t reciprocate. The omniscient narrator in the novel writes about Anju that: “She pushes him off and feels the failure, thick as slush, settle in his bones. She opens her mouth to tell him she‟s sorry, she knows how hard he tried. She tried hard, too. But she just can‟t. And remembering how it had been once was no good, it would never be that way again” (TVD 25). Anju fails in overcoming her sorrows of her miscarriage and to get reunited with Sunil. Sunil who remains lonely as a migrant in America struggles with the pain of his wife Anju‟s sorrows for losing an unborn child. Anju remains lost in her pain and does not notice that Sunil too is going through the same crisis. Meanwhile, Sudha appears in Anju‟s house as a filler to forget pain which they have been going through. The author writes about Sunil that: “He whispers a name into the pillow his wife has left empty. A moth-wing of a name. Sudha” (TVD 27). Sunil tries his best to control himself. To divert his attention away from Sudha, he focuses his attention on Sudha‟s infant daughter Dayita and loves her dearly. He attempts to share work and cares about the feeling of Dayita who is so small to understand anything.
Divakaruni presents the male psyche that how like women, men do need a partner with whom they can share their worries and happiness. When a man doesn‟t get space in his relationship with their wife, he tries to focus his attention on another woman, to forget his silent sorrows and to escape the reality of being deserted. Sunil appears to be advancing towards Sudha for fulfilling his sexual and emotional needs. Her beauty attracts him even before he marries to Anju.
Sudha gets engaged with Ramesh, that‟s why Sunil doesn‟t get a chance to marry Sudha, and he accepts Anju with an illusion that he will get love from Anju also. When he doesn‟t get emotional or physical satisfaction with Anju, he begins to imagine possessing Sudha. He confesses his emotions to child Dayita:
“You don‟t like being ignored either, do you…Who knows how many lovers are separated by the wills of others, or circumstances, or their own misunderstanding of duty?...There‟s too much pain in it…How many unhappiness
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77 they lead us into. Who can ever say whathonor is? Isn‟t it right for us to pursue happiness? Isn‟t that our first right” (TVD 32-50). Sunil as a migrant from India was forgetting his Indian culture and started thinking about self-happiness with Western notions.
Sudha becomes aware of Sunil‟s attraction towards her. Sudha senses that: “He wanted to lick away the worry lines at the corners of my eyes” (TVD 32).
Sudha faces the reality of her illusions and thinks that she imagines that coming to America is to find cousin Anju as a resource to help her and to seek her own identity too. On the contrary, her interference in Anju‟s life has brought a distance in Anju and Sunil‟s relationship.
She finds that both as a couple after Anju‟s miscarriage has lost emotional intimacy. There seems to be a communication gap between them. Sudha mourns that: “I would hear them, of course, Anju and Sunil. Halted, formal sentences, mostly about Dayita. In a few minutes, silence. There is no silence like married silence. It's an undertow of reproach. When I brought Dayita back, they reached for her with panicked fingers, as though they‟d been drowning”
(TVD 38). Sudha realizes her mistake.
Sunil and Anju focus their whole attention on loving and playing with infant Dayita to escape the reality of their destructed relationship. They bear an illusion in their life that Dayita can heal the wounds of their fractured love, and they never resort back to their normal self for seeking between each other mutual love. Yacobi aptly quotes about the nature of illusion that: “The limits of perception, interpretation, and cognition do not allow a complete understanding of reality”
(Yacobi 203). This escape from their reality makes Anju and Sunil weak in encountering the reality. It deprives them to do the efforts themselves for their reunion. Anju knows about her husband Sunil‟s attraction for her sister Sudha, but she blindly trusts Sudha and ignores Sunil‟s infatuation towards Sudha.
Silently but slowly tension creeps in the household and disrupts the search for happiness. When Sunil returns from his office, there seems to be a certain botheration in all beings existing in the house. Sudha ponders: “The evenings after Sunil returned, were the worst. Each
atom of air tense, resisting inhalation.
The walls loomed inward, swollen with claustrophobia. Guarded greetings all around…Dinner would be full of fractured words, Anju talking too much, trying to pretend everything was fine. I needed all my energies just to swallow” (TVD 37).
Each one of them seems to be afraid of Sunil‟s hidden feelings for Sudha. All three of them pose themselves busy with their work to escape the reality.
To forget about the emotional pit between herself and her husband, Anju tries to become chirpy intentionally to run away from the reality of her sorrows. Sudha, in turn, tries her best to keep herself far from the sight of Sunil with an illusion that by doing so, she will save herself from Sunil. She occupies herself in household chores and nurtures Anju as a child. The author mentions that: “When the apartment door closes behind Anju, Sudha leans against it and shuts her eyes. Eight in the morning and she is tired already. The effort of staying out of Sunil‟s way until he leaves for the office, the effort of getting Anju ready, in the little time that is left” (TVD 54).
Sudha inspires Anju to begin her creative writing classes and to focus her whole attention on her studies in order to release her tension. While Anju begins writing secret letters to her dead father to express and relieve herself from her worries and starts spending extra hours in the library after her college classes.
Anju writes to her late father that: “One knows people best through their fears- the ones they overcome, and the once they are overcome by…These are what the people closest to me afraid of” (TVD 64).
Sunil sinks himself in his work of computer projects and in caring and cuddling Dayita, but finds himself unfocused on his work due to his attraction for Sudha. He expresses his fears to Dayita and says that he feels like:
“drowning…and my struggle has just started…How tonight, serving spinach dal, your mother curved her fingers around the ladle. Her slim bare wrist at once strong and fragile. Her unpainted, glowing nails. I followed the silvery straightness of her arm up, up until it disappeared into her blouse…A longing to touch it shook me so hard, I thought I wouldn‟t be able to stop. I had to get up and leave the table” (TVD 46-49).
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78 Divakaruni also discusses how amale perceives himself in his self-created various illusions, for example, his wife‟s sisterhood relationship with another woman who lives in his own house. How a masculine gaze interferes with his desires towards her wife‟s sister and gradually he seems to assume her as an object in his own possession. Divakaruni has beautifully portrayed that how women assume that sisterhood is a relief for them to escape from the masculine gaze and patriarchal structure and how masculinity or patriarchy finds sisterhood relationship among women as interference in the man-woman relationship. The relationship between women is emotionally closer and they can share strong feelings with each other than with men. Men don‟t like to be ignored by women so they disregard women‟s sisterhood. Caplan also said that: “In so far as it is true that males find it more difficult or uncomfortable to deal with strong feelings, one would expect them to feel threatened by the idea of the close relationship between two women. In fact, men often find such relationships disturbing” (Caplan 61). Sunil is also disturbed due to his ignorance caused by Anju and Sudha‟s sisterhood and wants to threaten it.
Sunil seems deliberate to gratify his passions towards Sudha. He finds himself incapable of staying in his office and focusing on his projects. When Anju gets late from her college, he comes home and unconsciously committed the forbidden act of kissing Sudha while she is in her sleep. “He kneels by the bed. He kisses her. He will crush her into himself, he will swallow her if that‟s the only way for them to be together. This is the kiss he has imagined over hundred unsatisfied nights” (TVD 63).When Sudha rebukes him, he gets to his self-consciousness and goes out of the home. Divakaruni presents that how an individual falls into the trap of his desire and commits a mistake, which he can avoid by facing the reality of his being and by making his inner soul strong. A philosopher Anoop John comments on desires that:
When I think about human mind there are two separate sets of aspects that I am interested in.
One set concerns thoughts and related process that are within
your conscious control and the other is the set of emotions and desires that are not normally within your conscious control. My hypothesis is that a person will be able to lead a happier and more successful life if the conscious/thinking part of his mind is in control over all his thoughts, emotions and desires.
(John 01)
Sunil also surrenders in front of his desires which he can control and commits a huge mistake. He can control his desires by controlling his senses, but affected by Westernized notions of self- happiness, he starts thinking of satisfying his senses and soothing his desires. He can stop himself from indulging in the trap of vines of human desires by strengthening his Indian cultural ethos that preaches and teaches to control the senses and desires to get true success in life but forgetting his root culture Sunil uproots himself in his own and in his family‟s eyes.
Sudha also realizes her mistake of coming to America. She recalls aunt Pishi‟s words: “A woman‟s beauty can be her wealth, but also her curse” (TVD 69).
Sudha decides to leave out of their apartment, till Anju doesn‟t return from her college. She feels helpless and lonely in America with her secret fears. She doesn‟t reveal anything to Anju because she doesn‟t want to hurt her sister. Here Divakaruni questions the sisterhood of both the women by presenting Sudha‟s nature of hiding secrets from Anju.
Describing sisterhood Clenora Hudson explains that it is “an asexual relationship between women who confide in each other and willingly share their true feelings, their fears, their hopes and their dreams”
(Hudson 65). Sisterhood can‟t be based on secrets rather it should be based on sharing and facing truths and reality, even though how bitter the truth is. If the women don‟t follow the rules of sisterhood they can create a problem for each other.
Sudha keeps wandering into the gardens and streets of America, she keeps analyzing American culture in which individual pleasure is primary. She meets an Indian-American woman named Sara in a park whose spirit swings high with happiness and freedom. Sudha too longs for happiness and freedom in America.
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79 Sara is a nanny of an American child. Shearrives in America from India, on the international educational exchange and doesn‟t return to India because she doesn‟t want to be caged in the ties of marriage and children. Sara tells Sudha that America is full of freedom so she has forgotten Indian culture. One can enjoy whatever one wants to enjoy in America.
Seeing corrupted Sara‟s happiness, Sudha misleads herself and starts yearning for her own happiness in America. She tells Sara to find a job for her also so that she acquires independence and own a new house for herself.
Affected by Western culture, Sudha starts feeling unsatisfied and lonely in Anju‟s house. She alike Anju too has dreams in her life before coming to America, but she turns herself mere as a house keeper of Anju‟s house. She faces the reality of her blank future and no scope in America for her. Her expectations from America have been to attain independent identity, remain foiled. She questions herself and frowns: “This is what she has come to America: to set her cousin‟s life in order…All the rules are different in America, and she knows none of them yet” (TVD 58). Sudha‟s hesitation to return to India signifies her lack of courage to face the reality of a divorcee in the Indian society. Sudha‟s diffidence in leaving, Anju‟s house indicates her weakness to face struggles in an alien land independently. She ponders: “I can‟t go back to India, to the way I was.
Helpless, dependent- I can‟t bring up my daughter to think that is how a woman needs to live…I can‟t stay in my cousin‟s home. My presence saws at the frayed rope that holds Anju and Sunil together.
Maybe it would anyway- but I can‟t bear to be the reason” (TVD 104). These inner apprehensions dominate her path away to mobilize her life confidently both in India and in America.
Sudha finds herself in a state of confusion that which culture she is to follow and what to do in her life to get her existence. In her loneliness and dilemma, Sudha builds an illusion in her mind that by overcoming her inhibitions, she will get satisfaction and mental peace in her life in America. Her dilemma is evident when she utters to herself: “Even my teeth hurt with loneliness…The river of my life is
speeding toward an abyss. What shall I do? I want an existence iridescent as nail polish. I want sleep. I want to bite into the apple of America. I want to swim to India, to the parrot green smells of childhood. I want a mother‟s arms to weep in. I want my weathervane mind to stop its manic spinning. I want Sunil” (TVD 87). Sudha, in order to compensate her vacuity and nothingness in life, succumbs to her primordial desires. Her cultural conflicts, despair, dilemma, and loneliness in America as an immigrant entangle her spirit and body, leaving her in a state of disillusion and misjudgments. Divakaruni poignantly illustrates that Indian immigrant sensitivity is itself a burden and to unburden oneself from the inner crisis, an immigrant needs to distance oneself from hesitation, insecurities, fears, and uncertainties. He or she has to just indulge into his or her loneliness without judging priorities or without feeling guilt in compensatory activities. A.
Padmaja quotes about immigration that:
“Migrants are caught in the interstitial space between the home culture and the culture of the adopted world” (Padmaja 39).
Divakaruni has caught the accurate pulse of migrant experience and perplexity in her novel and suggests through character psychological portrayal that how to overcome the feeling of loneliness. Immigrants generally adopt wrong notions regarding American culture. Sudha thinks about her own happiness. Sudha notices Sunil‟s love for her daughter Dayita, which she doesn‟t get from Ramesh and Ashok. Once seduced by Sunil, Sudha doesn‟t resist her feelings of getting more out of her life.
She thinks: “I fear my body. I fear his.
Because bodies can pull at us, whispering. Why not. I deserve more. I am young, and life is passing. What will our bodies do, the next time they are alone”
(TVD 80). Sudha begins to have an infatuation for Sunil.
Anju occupies herself in her studies and ignores her mother‟s advice through her letter that, she should spend some time with Sunil because Sunil also doesn‟t have any close relation in America except her. The distance of time and space creates a big communication gap between Anju, Sudha and Sunil‟s family in India. Expressing the emotions of the
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80 family towards these characters inAmerica, and the reciprocal reactions and correspondence of these three towards their Indian family is well narrated and composed by the novelist to delineate homelands versus Imaginary lands and cultural difference and cultural adaptation. Divakaruni has shown through epistolary (letter writing) technique, how time and space create distance in the relationship between close people. Bhurga aptly quotes about migration and its impact that: “Migration involves the loss of the familiar, including language, attitudes, values, social structures and support networks.”
(Bhurga 01). Anju, Sunil and Sudha‟s social values have also changed due to their migration and they have started making themselves far from their native family, their native culture, its ethos and its values.
Anju gets to the nerve of the increasing tension in her house, but hides everything from her mother and doesn‟t write about their actual condition in the letters to her mother. She lies from her mother that they all are well. All these three peoples‟ families try to call them back to India to re-establish a connection with them but, they conveyed that they are busy and ignore them. This behavior also symbolizes that how immigrants in their cultural conflicts ignore their native people and cultural values to adopt the Western way of living. They remain in the illusion that by forgetting their roots, they can develop themselves in an alien land.
Anju alienates herself from everyone and centers all her attention on her studies, in which, she begins getting merits. She joins a writers‟ group from Iran and starts spending her time with them learning new skills of creative writing. Anju also escapes from the reality of her husband‟s distraction and keeping up an illusion for nothing will go wrong, she keeps ignoring him and leaves him alone to suffer. She confesses her fears in her college assignment, in which she writes about a mysterious “She” who “flew all the way from India” to cast a spell on Sunil who
“kicked off morality and obligation like a pair of worn-out shoes” (TVD 166). Anju has an alternative to keep Sudha at some other place in America but fails to do so for she too has an affinity with her sister that she can‟t shake it off. Finding herself
in dilemma she suffers intensely. She rejects neither her husband nor her cousin. Fully aware of the situation, Anju detects the gradual corrosion of her sisterly relationship with Sudha. The omniscient author probes into the mind of Anju which seems burdened with thoughts, but unable to articulate. The author illustrates poignantly the innate pain that her longing for Sudha‟s company gives:
And yet it is her life– just as the woman inside is her much-beloved cousin, though of late their minds repel each other like the opposite poles of magnets. The cousin she herself called to America (but why?
She cannot quite remember), and to whom her husband is (still?
once again?) attracted. Ah, did they think she doesn‟t see? She sees it all. What she cannot ascertain is how she feels. (TVD 125)
The sisterly relation sails through the dichotomy of dilemma and changing overtones. Anju herself starts feeling guilty about her decision for calling Sudha to America. The study of Sunil‟s psyche reveals patriarchal thinking towards women. Kate Millett writes about patriarchy, that it is a format where one group dominates through the subordination of the other. She says that from ages in patriarchy “one group of people is controlled by another” (Millett 23). Sunil also wants to make Sudha his subordinate by his love. He showers his love on Dayita and teaches her to call him Baba (father). He even takes Sudha with him and Anju, in a party of Sunil‟s rich client- Mr. Chopra, saying Sudha that, she is also a part of “Sunil Majumdar and family” (TVD 113). For Sunil, Sudha is an object, he must possess. Sunil‟s trials to lure Sudha symbolizes, the typical male ideology of seducing the female to feel the need of freedom. The more she resists, the more there is a sense of realization of self in powerlessness. One of the feminist critics expands women‟s internal barriers to agency and choice viz-a-viz shame upon herself which in further explanation that “Men‟s freedom...is contingent upon women‟s un-freedom...rather than on the presence of a freely maneuvering antagonist” (Deveaux 225-26).
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81 In consequence to her dichotomyof shame and resistance, Sudha drinks and dances whole heartedly in the party and the author presents the true subterranean image of Sudha, who becomes careless of people around her. In the party when Sudha and Anju become friendly with a U.S. based doctor- Lalit, Sunil gets jealous and in agitation quarrels with the gate keeper, who abusively says: “Fucking Indian, showing off” (TVD 138). With this incident, the author presents that how every Indian faces humiliation on account of racial confrontations in America. Sunil even doesn‟t favor Anju and Sudha‟s decision of Sudha‟s acceptance of Lalit‟s proposal of going on a friendly date. Sunil treats Lalit in an unwelcoming manner in his house and offers him extra spicy pancake, which almost chocks Lalit to death.
Sudha becomes indifferent towards everyone and proceeds to meet Lalit on a date and makes him listen about the sorrows and loneliness of her life in America. Sudha thinks that her devotion towards Ramesh‟s family turning futile and even after coming to America, she has not found anything in her life.
Sudha‟s indifference can be understood through her communication with Anju while Sudha speaks to Anju: “I‟ve given up sacrificing myself for others” (TVD 92).
Sudha transforms herself in a negative shade and starts feeling her own daughter Dayita, for whom she sacrifices everything till yet, as an obstacle in getting her own happiness. She utters to Dayita that:
“Sometimes I feel trapped by you” (TVD 189). Sudha tries to follow Indian tradition through an Indian calendar, but in her despair, she feels it will be tough to continue the same in America. Sudha gets lured by the hedonistic Western vision of existence which expresses that: “Live for yourself.” Sudha feels that “there‟s a terrible pull to the idea of living for myself…I can‟t go back to the old way, living for others” (TVD 177). It is apt to illustrate in this context the novelist‟s critical Foucaultian formulations with reference to „three axes‟ of genealogy at play while negotiating relationships and sexuality in personal life. Foucault says:
“First a historical ontology of ourselves in relation to truth, through which we constitute ourselves in relation to a field of power; through which we constitute
ourselves as subject acting on others;
third a historical ontology in relations to ethics through which we constitute ourselves as moral agents” (Michel 262).
From feminist perspective, the author relates Sudha‟s longing as provocation to cross her private life, while on the other hand the author projects “the micro politics of private life” (Sawicki)
When Sunil passionately tells Sudha that, he never loves Anju and wants Sudha‟s love, as he admires Sudha from the very first day of her glance, and he wants to marry her. Sudha for a while falls into the trap of attractive illusion and of an opportunity that her life has thrown at her and she feels that moment in the words that the author draws for Sudha that: “The air into me could be frozen crystal, it is so hard to draw into my lungs. Whoever could have imagined that I, Sudha, the luckless one, would be loved one day with such absoluteness? The hunger in him is a black hole into which I could so easily disappear” (TVD 194-95).
Sudha surrenders herself in front of her bodily desires and lustfully commits the sin of being fallen into a physical relationship with Sunil. The narrator describes Sudha and Sunil‟s sexual intercourse very boldly in the novel and says that: “Her body pitches like a boat in a storm…her conscience buried under his lips” (TVD 199). When Sudha regains her conscience back, she repents and says:
“What have we done?...My sister‟s husband” (TVD 199). Sudha feels unable to confront Anju after her drastic folly of incest. Sudha feels guilty, and she calls Lupe a friend of Sara and tells her to pick her up from Anju‟s house as soon as possible and finds her a job urgently.
Sudha leaves hurriedly Anju‟s house forever with Dayita, without any information of her whereabouts to anyone.
Divakaruni presents that how Indian immigrants in America aspire for happiness, independency and individuality. The hedonistic Western philosophy makes them self-centered and stops them from feeling guilty for not following their native culture‟s ethos.
Later after facing a mishap, people repent on their mistake of forgetting their native culture and feel that they can‟t totally uproot themselves from their native culture so they must follow their culture
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82 only to save their identity fromfragmentation. Joel Kuortti aptly says that: “Diaspora can be a positive site for the affirmation of an identity, or conversely, a negative site of fears of losing that identity” (Kuortti 03).
Divakaruni has also shown through the character of Sudha that how people have to lose their natural native identity by committing a mistake of adopting the Western culture.
The author also appears to convey through the character of Sudha that every immigrant woman must try to become strong so that she can preserve her own native cultural values besides assimilating, appropriating the foreign culture in one‟s life, because to strengthen oneself, one‟s cultural roots are formidable in letting one keep pace with the process of acculturation. Patrick Luyeye‟s comment aptly describes both Sudha and the author‟s aspiration in these words: “It‟s important to know that every one of us has our traditions from the places of our birth. You can‟t totally mimic the traditions of others; you have to have something that reflects your originality” (Luyeye ch.14).
Divakaruni who herself is a harbinger of the Indian tradition in America through her writing skills and actions in her life, emphasizes on the huge need to preserve Indian culture, even being in America. She portrays her three protagonists to revaluate their life and to face their reality. Sudha encounters her reality when she faces her troubles independently, and till then she seems to escape from her reality of a dependent being and running away from one place to another with her several illusions. She grumbles to herself: “It‟s becoming a pattern in my life, shedding belongings as I flee- first from Ramesh‟s house, then the mothers‟ flat in Calcutta, now from Anju‟s” (TVD 202). Sudha realizes that she should guard herself against males because they just want her physically not emotionally. She realizes:
“Is that why the men are drawn to me, one after another” (TVD 205). Hooks‟
statement regarding the problem of sexist oppression of women by males is that:
“Sexist oppression is of primary importance not because it is the basis of all oppression, but because it is the
practice of domination most people experience” (Hooks 36).
Sudha doesn‟t want to be dominated by any male and doesn‟t wish to become mere a commodity in her partner‟s life, that‟s why she leaves Ramesh, Ashok, and Sunil. She is self- propelled by the latent voice inside her which is expressed by the words of a feminist that: “I want something more than my husband and my children and my home” (Freidan 32) Sudha forms an opinion that she has been mere an object of desire and her subjectivity has no place, for which she has primarily lived in her life. Sudha re-examines her old faulty ways to get an existence in her life from the support of others. She transforms herself and joins a job of a caretaker for an irritating paralyzed Indian old man named Mr. Sen. She attempts to conquer her fragility and fragmented self which seems fantastic as everything will turn right in her life and she will get an identity in America. The old man‟s if and on seeking attention attitude and crabby nature due to his illness sometimes becomes a humiliating experience for Sudha. Sudha misses Anju due to the hardships of her job, but Sudha lets herself suffer alone because she wants to do the penance of her sin. She feels that she can‟t forget her Indian culture and ethos, she can‟t stop feeling guilty of her selfish behavior. Gradually Sudha probes her inherent conscience‟s reality and analyses that in-spite-of trying to adopt western culture, she should strengthen her own cultural values and, should seek mental solace through penance to purify her body and soul. She becomes conscious towards her conscience rather to her body that has caused her to entangle into the vines of her desires.
Sudha has learnt to control her desires.
She says to herself that: “Let the skin crack and peel. That will be your penance for opening yourself to desire” (TVD 229).
The novelist debates through Sudha “the essential metaphor of woman, the relation between art and woman”
(Derrida 49). The character of Sudha in the novel The Vine of Desire projects woman‟s world of dreams, fantasy, art, pleasure, and desire in which she forgets her actual positioning, she turns her life to follow patriarchal phallocracy which Derrida explains elaborately in these
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83 words: “There is no such thing as theessence of woman because woman averts, she is averted of herself...there is no such thing as the truth of woman,...woman is but one name for that untruth of truth”
(Derrida 49). He further says that “if woman is truth, she at least knows that there is no truth, that truth has no place here, and that no one has a place for truth. And she is woman precisely because she herself does not believe in truth itself, because she does not believe in what she is, what she is believed to be, in what she thus is not” (Derrida 53). The author of the novel constantly here in case of Sudha‟s mundane and ordinary experiences of disempowerment applies rigorous rational thought to solve the uncreative rationality of the myth regarding woman which is centered around the logic of domination, difference, exclusion or as men‟s compliments, sexual symmetries.
To forget about her past mistakes, Sudha absorbs her „self‟ completely into the care of the fussy old man, who wants to return to India only. Sudha tells the old man, that she will take him to his homeland when he will be cured. Sudha‟s care enables the old man to recover from his illness. Sudha‟s adoption of Indian cultural values helps her to look after the old man. The self-centered Sudha turns into a positivist identity, which the novelist paints in the given lines: “What I couldn‟t do for my father, perhaps I can do for the old man” (TVD 284). Sudha turns down Lalit‟s proposal saying that she doesn‟t want to repeat the same mistake again in her life. She confesses her mistake in front of Lalit and says that:
“I always allowed myself to be dependent on someone else‟s goodwill…I‟m crestfallen” (TVD 331-32). Sudha‟s Indian boyfriend Ashok comes to America to pursue her for marriage again but she rejects his proposal also, saying that the idealized old Sudha doesn‟t exist anymore. Sudha gets her first earning through her job. Divakaruni presents, how a woman who struggles to be independent needs the strength to encounter any problem of her life without any outer support. Beauvoir also says that: “Once a woman is self-sufficient and ceases to be a parasite, the system based on her dependence crumbles” (Beauvoir 289) Sudha also feels that if she has
learnt to live independently with freedom, then she needs none else in her life to depend on.
Anju and Sunil when finally come to know that Sudha has disappeared from their house, they face their reality that their relationship is dependent on Dayita and Sudha‟s presence in their life only.
They say to each other: “What will happen to us now?” (TVD 225) Anju, who has sensed the reason behind her cousin‟s disappearance from her house, quarrels with Sunil. Sunil suffers the verbal and physical abuses of Anju silently with an air of indifference. Finally, he tells Anju about his firm decision of legally terminating their marriage. He tells Anju:
“We aren‟t any good for each other anymore- you see that, don‟t you?” (TVD 238) Sunil leaves Anju alone in the house and goes to Houston where he gets transferred through his promotion. Anju frowns upon Sudha: “Dear Sudha, thank you very much for breaking up my marriage?” (TVD 322)
Anju re-examines her life and repents on her emotional dependence on Sudha who has betrayed Anju. She repents that she has not listened to Sunil‟s advice that, she should not call Sudha to America. Anju recalls: “When she asked him if she could bring Sudha over? His eyes said, Don’t put her so close to me. The pull between us is so strong. I won’t be able to stop our lives from colliding” (TVD 263). Anju calls her friend from her writing group and goes to live in her friend‟s house. Anju feels that being the victim of her own dependence she can neither save her marriage nor her friendship. Anju decides to transform herself into an independent being. To forget her past follies Anju makes herself rapt into her studies and starts getting merit in her studies. The sisterly bond that has been built in Sister of My Heart gets disintegrated in the novel- The Vine of Desire.
Sunil looks for Sudha in America but he doesn‟t find her. He faces the reality of his illusion in which he thinks that after making physical intimacy with Sudha, he will be able to pursue Sudha and will be able to marry her. Divakaruni has elaborated the male psyche with their false prejudices about women. She has also depicted that how men feel when they do not get their wish fulfilled and she
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84 presents their silent sorrows. Divakarunimakes Sunil revaluate his life during his father‟s funeral in India and he realizes that he has committed a big mistake by betraying his wife and by surrendering to his bodily desires. Sunil goes into oblivion and starts wandering into deep forests and develops a skill of creative writing to gain the power to transform himself by being inspired by nature. He writes in his notebook: “Old desires run deep…I am determined to overcome myself” (TVD 365). He decides that he will meet Anju and ask for her forgiveness and their reunion.
Anju also finds that she fails to get anything from her feeling of taking revenge from Sudha and Sunil.
Henceforth she decides to forget everything and forgive them. Like her name- Anjali that means- „a good woman who offers up her life for others‟ she forgives Sunil and Sudha both. When Sudha meets Anju and wants to tell Anju about the mistake she has committed, Anju replies as a practical woman that she doesn‟t want to remember about her past. Anju tells Sudha: “I tell myself that it's like the dream I had last night. What does it matter if it was a good dream or a bad one? Neither kind is going to help me live my life today, is it?” (TVD 362) Anju decides to live in America with her freedom. Anju becomes an emotionally strong woman and she knows that now the ups and downs of her life can‟t disturb her. She learns Para-gliding to forget her grief. Anju finds fulfillment and independence in joining a writers group and learning para-gliding. She tells Sudha that she has “learned to fly” (TVD 368) that metaphorically means that she has learned to be independent. She gets a victory in her life by achieving satisfaction.
Sudha, on the other hand, decides to return to India with the old man Mr.
Sen in his village Jalpaiguri (a hill station in Bengal, India). Sudha can live and survive in America also but because she has the habit of escaping from her difficulties, she decides to go at a strange place again. She repents on her decision of coming to America and tells the old man that: “America isn‟t the same country for everyone you know. Things here didn‟t work out the way I‟d hoped”
(TVD 320). Sudha informs everyone that
she has departed America to settle in Jalpaiguri. She writes Sunil and tells him to forget their mistake. She confesses him her guilt that: “I came to America in search of freedom but was swept away by the longing to be desired” (TVD 350). The old man tells Sudha that she will get a handsome income from him for her job of taking care of him. He even attempts to convince Sudha that he will look after Dayita as his own granddaughter. But boldly Sudha answers that she does not need to depend on anyone in her life for money and she will send Dayita in the best convent school of Jalpaiguri by her own earned money only. Sudha‟s senses satisfaction with her freedom and self- sufficiency, with her, set life, and with the happiness of her daughter but her unsatisfied soul questions herself: “But where am I? In this picture, where am I?”
(TVD 341)
Divakaruni has presented two types of women in the novel one Anju who feels satisfied in her life by facing the reality of her life and gets victory over her life. The other is Sudha who keeps running from places to places with an illusion of freedom of perfect life and remains unsatisfied and gets a failure in her life. With the life of two cousins, Divakaruni points out the importance of individuality and independency with satisfaction in one‟s life. She presents that there is no freedom and no perfect life in the world. It depends on a woman that is she happy and satisfied with her life or not. If she is satisfied and has mental peace, she is a free woman and owns a perfect life and if she doesn‟t think so she doesn‟t have a perfect life. So the meaning of freedom and perfect life varies from woman to woman. Divakaruni presents that when a woman doesn‟t understand the true meaning of freedom, she remains in illusions throughout her life. Yacobi aptly quotes that: “The inability to identify the limits and boundaries of freedom and free will can result in the illusory perception that they are boundless”
(Yacobi 207).
Divakaruni tells that freedom or self-satisfaction or mental peace can be achieved by independency only. She says that by controlling one‟s desires or longings or expectations from others, one can get whatever one wishes in one‟s life.
She preaches that by encountering the
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85 reality of one‟s outer and inner world, onecan get success in one‟s life. She presents a message to present generation of women by the novel The Vine of Desire that they should neither expect from males nor from the females in their lives to achieve their feminine existence. With the story of the sisterly bond of Anju and Sudha, Divakaruni also gives a message that sisterhood relationship is a part of womanhood phase, while womanhood is the wholeness of personality and woman‟s image. The novelist here in this novel theorizes “problematization of body and sexuality, besides the representation of the body and its subject positions in the context of desire, conventions, subjectivity and anti-normative politics” (Hutcheon 141).
Some writers have taken the wrong notion of the novel through its denotative or textual meaning which presents the novel as a saga of victorious sisterhood. As C. Bharati also quotes about the sisterhood relationship of Anju and Sudha and says that: “they come to terms with the fact that one can still love someone, even when one has been betrayed” But I oppose this notion and want to focus on novel‟s lines that say that the sisterly bond can‟t be re- established again as before after betraying each other. It can be justified by the lines from the novel‟s text only when both the sisters meet and think that: “What shall we do about the love that‟s lost, the love that can never be recovered all the way?
What shall we do with our thwarted desires, which is also our grief?” (TVD 366-67) That‟s why The Vine of Desire can‟t be called a novel which celebrates women power and sisterhood but it gives a message to the women that happiness lies in individuality only. Aparupa Mookherjee aptly quotes about the two sisters that: “”They rethink their roles as women, and pursue their dreams only to find happiness in being themselves”
(Mukherjee 189).
Divakaruni presents that although Sudha tries to find meaningfulness in her life by serving the dying old man, but she finds nothingness in her life due to her unsatisfied nature and doesn‟t even get mental peace in her life. But to survive in her life she keeps following several illusions in her life and finally returns to India. Divakaruni emphasizes on
preserving one‟s native culture and to face one‟s reality to get the strength to live in an alien country. With her fantabulous novel, The Vine of Desire, Divakaruni has shown a way to the immigrant community to lead their life successfully in America.
Divakaruni quotes in her interview that:
“Actually, though I think of my female protagonists as having both strengths and weaknesses. They are complex characters;
they often make the wrong decisions.
Perhaps, what distinguishes my characters is their courage and spirit and a certain stubbornness which enables them to keep going even when facing a setback” (Ghose 06). This unique character portrayal of Divakaruni‟s protagonists has made Divakaruni different from her contemporary writers like Anita Desai, Arundhati Roy, Jumpa Lahiri, Bhartee Mukharjee, Shobha De and others.
Through the novel The Vine of Desire, the author has presented a way for women to lead their lives neither in deprivations nor in expectations. Sudha and Anju too live as fatherless sisters.
These women try to escape the reality in their lives to forget their sorrows. These women develop several illusions and dreams in their life for better future and expect from others to support them in fulfilling their dreams. Anju and Sudha‟s attachment and memory never inspire their own being to take responsibility for their life personally. To achieve their dreams, their anticipation level and their fragile longings indeed inspire them to rise high, but their self-endeavour always desire to stand by the stereotypical societal norms followed for gender construction and by gender lens. Their feminine existence does not recognize the truth of their essence. Anju, and Sudha also remain away from their real womanly essence. They commit the mistake of going against their male counterparts.
Their feminist thinking has caused difficulty in their life. They have found a way for their existence but their existence can‟t be called meaningful and complete.
Post-feminist critic Myles also says that:
“The dire need of the hour is to dissolve all separatist „ism‟ and accept each-other as human beings” (Myles). Divakaruni also wants to convey the same message through the tragic life of her women protagonists in her novel. These women
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86 search their liberation in seekingillusionary falls outs to fall in the path of self-sufficiency and self-existence. Their trajectory to feel independent indeed drive their life to a kind of self-realization, yet somewhere, in the end, their concerns to build their identity march them to incapacitated pathways, that leave them again to realize that they fail to secure their life with mental peace.
So to maintain one‟s completeness and mental peace or to achieve true victory in their lives these women should not run away or escape the reality of their feminine role but they should face it by becoming independent and by getting inner strength to understand and recognize the significance of other individuals in their lives. Beauvoir who talks about feminine emancipation through feminine existence quotes about the way to overcome the conflict between men and women‟s relationship that: “The conflict can be overcome by the free recognition of each individual in the other, each one positioning both itself and the other as object and as subject in a reciprocal movement” (Beauvoir 193).
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