32 Notions Yol.
6 No3 2015
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Woman's Painful journey of Self{iscovery in
Jaishree Misra's Ancient Promises
GVenkatalakshmi*
6 Dr. J. Uma Samundeeswari**
Abstract
Ancient Promises is a semi- autobiographical novel of
Jaishree Misra. It is a story of Protagonistb constant struggle tlut
goes on her lde cN an affectionate and submissive daughter, an
empathetic but guilty love4 a restless and depressed wife, a lulpless
otd desolate mother - a woman constantly in search of ot identity,
a womon pursuing her righful shue of happiness. The issues which
have been treated largely in her novels te love, morriage, divorte,
and problem ofrehabilitation after divorce, extend of liberty and
freedom to the female desire for bondage. In Ancient promises the
life of Janu (Protagonist) can be compared to corrrrnon traditional
Indian women where the troditional system extends women suffering.
Janu marries Suresh of Maraar family with an expectation of
beginning a new life but she soon realizes tlwt she is only a namesoke
wife leading a loveless life by gaining respect and honour of being
a wife, daughter- in- lot of a wealtlry fanily in Kerala. Her life is
become even firone in the path of tragedy when sle comes to htow
that her child is mentally disabled. After certain period Janu desires
to get out of the traditional bomils and live an independent life by
keeping her daughter as a heart reosonfor leoving the home.
Key lVordsz Love, Moriage, Divorce, Motherhood, Search for ot
identity
+PhD Research Scholaq Dept. of English, [Link] Sri Pushpam College
(Autonomous), Poondi, Thonja,ur
++lssr. Prof, and Resemch Advisori Dept. of English, A.\|Y.M Sri Pushpant
College (Autonomous) Poondi, Thanjavur
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A free and autonomous bing like all creatures - (a woman) finds herself
living a world where men compel her to assume the status of the other.
- Simon de Beauvoir
Feministliterature in English is certainlynot arecent innovation.
It has been there ever since perspectives on life were recorded in the
medium of literature, though it certainly has come to its own of late of
recent origin again is the feministperception of literature.
Modern Indian writers tend to depict the oppression of women
with greater self - consciousness, a deeper sense of involvement and
often with a sense of outage. Earlier writers had deified and eulogized
women's sufferings but the writers of the later part of the post
independent period have unpalliativelypresented treir suffering with much
greater realism. In the contemporary Indian fiction Ruth Prawer Jhubval4
Anita desai and many others are well known women novelists. To this
list of women writers Jaishree Misra a woman novelist may be added.
Inthe lateryears, the gradual growth offiction in India is made by gradual
shifting of focus us from the external world to the inner world of the
individual. The women novelist of present period concentrate on the
complex problems of battle of women namely the career, motherhood,
marriage, sexual and economic freedom. In this instance it is important
todiscuss the prominentpostcolonial authors who are the contemporaries
ofAnita desai. Jaishree Misra is an eminent writer who beautifully portays
about a woman how she tttinks and feels and behaves when it comes to
love and marriage. Misra's protagonists are liberated women, they are
educated and able to live individuallythey do not depend on men. The
issues which have been treated largely in her novels are love, marriage,
divorce, and problem ofrehabilitation after divorce, extent of liberty and
freedom to the female desire for bondage, recognition to the quest for
bondage and crisis ofconscience and values.
In atraditional Indian society, marriage is not an end. Mariage
restricts the movementtowards a perception ofherselfas an independent
human being and not buffeted by the circumstance or the social
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prescriptions. It signifies the equal partrership and intimate relationship
between a male and a female. A family consists of members related by
blood as well as by marriage. Family structures and role relationships
differ from community to community. The familial rules and the codes of
behavior prescribed were in favor ofpromoting pahiarchal values. Since
the beginning oftime, man has been rplated to power and strength. Man
controls, subjugateq and has always enjoyed his pre - eminence. Awoman
carries out her duties without expecting any recognition. The roles and
behavior deemed appropriate to the sexes were expressed througfo values,
customg laws and social [Link] disparity between man and woman is
a result of the complex operation of economic, political, social and other
factors. In spite ofthe significant changes in woman's position in society
in the post- independence era, she is still nottotally emancipated. These
contradictions can best be understood by examining the Indian social
sfructure that comprises institutions like caste, joint family and religious
values and practices consolidating women's subordinate position.
Awoman in Indian societymarries notjustthe man butalso his
family and subsequently loses her identity in marriage, relinquishes her
freedom and sets about pleasing everybody. But the new generation of
women with their new-found release from matrimonial bondage adopts
different perspectives, and revolt against the old order. Jaishree women
are such liberated individuals in search of a niche in their lives through
escapades.
Jaishree Misra novel basically porfrays quest for kind texture in
women's life in the busy patriarchal society, where in men have all the
privileges, and woman are burdened with only responsibilities. Her novels
are also built in the question of marriage and fidelity in the family system.
The Protagonist's painful journey of self discovery in Ancient
Promises: Jaishree Misra in her *Ancient Promises" highlights the
constant struggle that goes on between the protagonist Janu and her
parents because of her love affair. It is a novel that gives equal importance
to the anxiety that parent ofa teenage -girl undergoes and the urgent
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need for girls like Janu to be understood by their parents. It is the story of
Janaki (Janu) and herjourney from a teenager girl to a traditional wife,
daughter-in-law and then mother of Riya with learning disability.
Janu's first meeting with Arjun happened through kena her
classmate. After a couple of weeks of their encounter, Janu and Arjun
started having casual meetings. They shared some interests. Janu was
worried if, she, a sixteen-year-old was readyto experience that splendid
feeling called "love". When she was cat on the wall, not able to identiff
it was love or not she thought about her parents. She had never before
kept a secret unknown from her parents. But now, the secret of loving
Arjun and hiding it from her parents was sheer thrill.
Janu's father was totally against the concept of love malriages.
He hadnever likedyoungpeople falling in lovenorwanted his daughter
to get influenced by all the 'love' ideas that go around her. Janu's parents
ledaconventional life andwishedthe same fortheirdaughter. The idea
ofa child taking a decision regarding her future partrer was unimaginable
to them. They believed in children settling in life with treir parents choicest
blessings. Both Janu's mother and father had left the most important
decisions in their lives to be taken by their parents. They firmly felt that
their parents knew what would be best for them.
Janu andArjun started to meet at Chor Minar. The excuse that
Janu gave at her home was 'drama practice' and 'Mathematics Tuition'.
Soon, Janu was caught red - handed by her parents and it was here that
she lost the trust and love of her parents, especially her father's. Her
father became enraged when Janu lied; from then on Janu lost all her
freedom. She started spending all hertime in her room and kept looking
at her text books. After Janu finish her schooling she desired to continue
her education. Bu! her parents had given up all hopes in sending their
Janu to college. Janu, during her visit to Kerala, was engaged to one Mr.
Suresh of Maraar family. Janu agreed to it as she wished to compensate
for upsetting her parents. Meanwhile, Atjun had secured admission at
Hull University and decided to join his mother in England.
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The wedding was took place at Guruvayur temple one ofKerala's
holiestshrines.
*On my eighteenth birthday. It
would be a double blessing,
everyone said a birthday and a wedding at Guruvayur."
Janu's married life was not very good but it was not very bad.
Her in- laws allowed her to continue her studies, made her parher in the
family business. On the other hand her husband was ignorant due to his
business and mother in law was sharp tongued. Janu thought that an
entry of grand child will bring new respect and love from their Maraar
family; she gave bffi to a beautiful girl child and named her as Riya but
to her shock that child was mentally disabled. She could not bear the
words of the pediatrician who examined Nya:
"This child is definitelymentally handicapped. There doub!
is no
see she has all the features, high arched palate, tongue-thrus!'
concluding with a flourish, 'in fact I think that she will never
even speak."
The lvlaraar's remained untouched with Riya like Janu. She could
not rationaliznthat because Riya was theirs own flesh and blood. She
decidedto give full supportwith all sidesand first Shewantedto giveher
child a good education so she got admission in the local school for Riyq
from where Janu got the advice about the education for mentally disabled
children and also for her studies with scholarship. So she decided to
leave for her daughter's heatnent, to pursue her studies and, to escape
from her marriage because she did not get any support from her husband
who always had the mind to escape from the problem without facing it.
She adjusted in the family about ten years with all these problems and
with little remembrance ofArjun.
When she came to Delhi to attend the interview for scholarship
study she happened to meet Leena as a married woman and a mother of
achild. In her house Janu also metArjun. She coincidently collided with
Arjun, carried away by their old deep emotions she literally betrayed her
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husband, and decided to go to England to bewittrArjun. She desperately
wanted to end her marriage and had a plan to go England with Riya.
After she returned from Delhi to Kerala she was waiting for a
good time to speak to Suresh about her love with Arjun. When they
picked up Riya from Janu's mother house who left her there during the
absence of Janu in Keralq they stopped in a restaurant for a coffee,
during that time Janu opened her mind without any hesitation. This made
Suresh enraged over Janu. He thought if Janu went along withArjun, the
surroundings will talk ttrat Suresh's wife eloped with someone else. So
he wanted to stop her idea by telling (spreading the rumor) that she gone
mad. The whole Maraar family tortured her in words. She fought against
beyond her limits andthen shewas takenbyhermother. Janu was taken
to Chottanikara; it's a place where evil spirits have gone out ofthe body
which fighting to get hold oftheir minds. Janu told the incidents happened
in the Maraar family to her mother.
When Janu's mother heard and came to know about the Janu's
bitter experience in the Maraar house she dropped the idea of sending
back her daughter to that house. She also preferred divorce for her
daughter through proper manner and they approached [Link]
Menon, a lawyer for supporting theirs. On the other side Suresh didn't
accept for divorce. So Janu came out of the house and demanded for
Riya to be with her to England. But Suresh didn't send Riya with Janu.
He kept her with him and Riya lived in the Maraar family.
Janu went to England and wish to study special education there
and also start her new life. After spending three and half months with
Arjun, she realized that her daughter was her first priority and she cannot
live without her. She came back to Indiq where her mother struggled
with Suresh for divorce during Janu's absence. This time Janu got divorce
and custody ofher daughter.
'An unhappy marriage would have been a price worth paying
for my own daughter to have had good marriage prospects"
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The story ends on a hopeful note that someday day Janu will
marryArjun and theywill live happily everafter.
In a patriarchal male dominated society, it is the male who shou! hurl,
abuses, bully, reproach, criticize and it is the women who listen, tolerate
and nemain passive. But Jaishree women are different. They are new
woman who resist back and win in their life.
Here when we discuss about the Meta ethical perspectives that
Janu's reunion withArjun is unbearable one in orthodox Indian family
and ofthe Indian culture. She was also grown up in well and good family
but she done it means, something makes her to take that bold decision.
She expects the some love and honour from the husband's family but
she never gains that till her life in the Maraar family. So her love with
Arjun in the deep heart induces her to choose the life which she wants to
live. Before that she wants to free herself and her daughter from the
miserable condition where there are birds in a golden cage.
Jaishree Misra does not argue against marriage but she is against
the parent's compulsion of marriage and she demands for an equal
importance and some freedom in Man-woman [Link]
to our Indian society, a woman leaving of home with her boy friend is a
very great offence especially after malriage. She knows that very well
but she crosses the ethical rules when she comes to the conclusion that
she may not live happily in this house and also it spoils the life of her
child.
Thus the present day feminist thoughts seeks to destroy hierarchy
of masculinity but not demand them to give respect but they want the
masculine to just give their ears to the words of the feminine part. For
this changes and revolutions take place and women are too advanced to
acquire their own identity in the society.
Misra, Jaislree. Anclent promises. London: Penguin Books,2000
Canfield, Jac\ et al, eds. Chicken Soupfor the Mother b Soul. Deerfield Beach:
Health Communications, Inc., 1997