|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Moving On
In Moving On, Shashi Deshpande gives us Jiji, a complex character trying to reach her real self through the conflicting demands and roles of her life. In understanding Jiji’s struggle, one is forced to rethink one’s role in the tapestry of life. Are we following stereotyped roles thrust upon us by society or are we able, as Jiji was, to break free from the past and "move on"? Moving On alternates between two voices—Jiji’s, and her father Badri Narayan’s. Badri Narayan’s voice comes through the diaries he has left behind after his death. The diaries help us understand the child Jiji, who dotes on her mother and whose entire existence depends on her parents’ approval. Then one day this girl suddenly decides to rebel, and to such an extent it causes a permanent rift between her and her family. The answer to this seemingly uncharacteristic behaviour lies somewhere in society’s elaborate rules that deny a woman the expression of her sexuality while allowing this freedom to the man. Raja, a childhood companion to Jiji, is the perfect foil to her. Conservative to her daring, always focused on his career and life, he cannot be more different from the bumbling Jiji, the "ghodi" who always wears blinkers and is unable to see the reality of how others view her. Yet it is finally with him that Jiji finds peace and security that has been lacking in her life. This, too, seems out of character till we realise that there are many facets to Jiji’s personality, and on a deeper plane Jiji still remains the "eager to please" young girl that she was as a child. The estrangement between Jiji and her parents is initially only hinted at and the reader is left wondering if they have imagined it. However, by and by the story unravels the details of the tragedy behind the estrangement. The novel is about the conflict between a woman’s intellectual and emotional being. Jiji, when she does get rid of her blinkers, views the world with painful honesty, in a way only a woman is able to view her relationship with others. Maybe this is her tragedy, that she cannot spare herself and hide behind half-truths anymore. Reality has to be accepted and shared to become real. In Moving On, Shashi Deshpande has left behind the raw anger of her earlier works like The Dark Holds no Terror, The Long Silence and Roots and Shadows, and presented us with a much more mellowed work, as if she herself has "moved on" to other, softer, forms of writing. Boris Pasternak once said, "It is not your subject that matters, but how much you are involved in it`85this is the crux of good writing", and Deshpande, in Moving On, has written a novel of great strength and intensity in which her involvement comes through. It is almost as if she has submerged herself in her protagonist. Her ease with the medium she writes in makes the book a treat. A skilfully written work, it repudiates a label of "mere feminist writing" being attached to it. |
Asked
to imagine a woman, most of us would probably see a woman in her role as
a daughter, a sister, a friend, a wife, a lover`85her intellectual self
may not be of significance.