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December 11, 2001
REVIEWS (ENGLISH): Single and happy?
Until recently, women from all classes in India were not allowed to wear revealing clothes or behave “immodestly”. In other words they could not openly display affection for members of the opposite sex. The story, in the book under review, is about Akhilandaswari (Akhila for short), a 45-year-old female income tax clerk living in the claustrophobic India of the 1980s. Unmarried and urged by a more extroverted friend, she has decided to take a holiday all by herself at a seaside town. Of course many eyebrows are raised by her own siblings, her only family.
While waiting for the train, her story unfolds. Born in a Brahmin family she watched her mother become the “perfect” wife by submitting to all her husband’s whims and finding excuses for his faults. She also discovered the disdain her mother showed when as a child Akhila asked her to give singing lessons to earn some extra money for her daughters’ pocket money.
Akhila was exposed to the male chauvinistic society when a family living in the neighbourhood loses the father and is forced to vacate their home when the daughter is accused of prostitution. Her sin? She turns to modelling to help support her family. When Akhila’s own father dies, she gives up her youth for her mother and siblings, and takes up a job as a clerk in a government office. Along the way, she meets and falls in love with a man younger to her. But she turns away from him for fear of being reprimanded by society for marrying somebody younger.
On the train journey, she finds a seat in the ladies coupe similar to the ladies compartment in trains in Pakistan. She meets five women and through them is exposed to the five choices they are faced with. Some have compromised and adjusted to their husbands. Others are living in the dungeons that their homes have become. Yet others have broken free to make their own way in the world.
Margaret Shanthi married her husband at an early age imagining her life to be filled with wedded bliss. She had not bargained for a man who attached no importance to her emotional needs. He was a man who prided himself on his slim waist, and Margaret exacts her revenge by turning him into a fat and ugly man through her delectable cooking and hence totally dependent on her.
Marikolanthu was impregnated by a rape for which she was blamed by most people, including her mother and siblings. She hates the boy she gives birth to, and sends him to work in his father’s factory.
Prabha Devi was born when her father wished for a daughter instead. A lone sister to a string of brothers, Prabha led a happy life. Married at a young age, she discovered the mellowing down of affection.
Janaki was a pampered wife, and a confused mother, hopelessly devoted to her family and hence the embodiment of the “perfect wife”.
Sheela is a fourteen-year old, attached to and yet repulsed by her maternal grandmother, who is the base of frequent disputes and shouting in her home. However, on her death, Sheela, paints her grandmother’s face because that is how she would have liked to have died — beautiful.
The book ends with Akhila reaching her destination and finally finding her salvation in breaking the chains that bound her to live a controlled, affectionless life.
Ladies Coupe is a book close to the heart of any educated Indian or Pakistani woman, who wants to be able to make her own decisions instead of conforming to the guidelines laid down by the male-oriented society in the Indo-Pak subcontinent.
Ladies coupe
By Amita Nair
Penguin Books, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India.
Website: www.penguinbooksindia.com
ISBN 0-14-100545-5
276pp. Indian Rs250
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