Mother-Daughter Relationships In The Difficult Daughters By Manju Kapur
Abstract
The Difficult Daughters novel by Manju Kapur is a story of a daughter's journey back into the painful past of her mother. It spans the genres of fiction and history, and in both of them falters. Clearly portrayed the dream of independence and decolonization. Incidents such as rape and murder orgies have been staged in the name of liberty. At first, Ida, the protagonist's narrator and sister, it turns out that seeking to recover the secret life of her mother is the main story. In the turbulent and optimistic 1040s, Virmati was a child of a conservative Hindu family. It was considered the time for the educated Indians to transform. Virmati is introduced to the taste of the new wine of liberty and meets freedom fighters of all faiths and persuasions, Virmati encounters the freedom fighters of all faiths and persuasions, falls in love and marries a professor who is already married. Virmati uses higher training as an escape route, sequestered with mother-in-law, co-wife and stepchildren. It's real here, 'Education led to autonomy and loose conduct.' Her success mirrors the new-found freedoms of educated Indian women, but double norms prevail, raising awareness of the ties that bind. This paper highlights the mother-daughter relationships in the novel. Difficult Daughters is a tale of three women's generations: the protagonist, Ida, who is a divorcer. Virmati, her mother, who marries a love professor who is already married, and Kasturi, her grandmother, who comes to terms with Virmati, a difficult sister. It wasn't a fictitious family, but the story of a real middle-class home with parents, mothers and sisters that one saw and he dealt with it. The Partition, which 50 years later seems to be the seminal occurrence in modern India, was to bring them together. In short, their popularity rested on their accurate documentation of the life and times of the early years of this nation, giving us a picture that was like going through a family photo album where half-forgotten people and events jumped back into our disadvantages. Virmati is drawn to an English professor who is passionately in love with her because his mother has never been able to prove a soul mate. Virmati alone must bear the brunt. She is forced to abort Harish's child as the professor is scared — rather scared— to marry her. Finally, at a friend's insistence, the teacher is forced to marry her. But the hardships of Virmati don't end here, they just change colors. Maternal apathy causes most of her sufferings. Virmati has no sympathetic shoulder to cry on, which aggravates her pain, suffering from the hands of the parochial community, her friends, and above all her paramour. Difficult Daughters is set in Amritsar and Lahore at the time of partition.
The life of Virmati would have ended at an important point if she had agreed to marry the eminently fitting boy, a channel engineer, finding her family for her. But, luckily, there's a dramatic change for her and more for the reader. Virmati spends her time in the housework helping her ever-pregnant mother take care of and study the younger siblings. Virmati's family believes that she is eligible for marriage because she knows how to stitch, cook and read. Simultaneously, the young professor, fresh from Oxford, fascinates Virmati. Sophistication she sees in the life of the Professor – the ability to understand English literature, particularly poetry, her preference for tea in delicate china cups, and her gramophone attracted her a bit. She discovers that finding answers inside the house is pointless. When we look at the women in this novel around, one can dig into family history and discuss grandmothers and grandmothers. Almost every person has a story to tell that I'm just an insignificant cog in the façade of the wheel behind their cheerfulness. They might not think their lives worthy enough, but we have a lot to thank our foremothers for, from equal participation in politics to the right to education. Being the eldest of the kids, Virmati spends her time as a nurse and mother, while her mother, Kasturi, spends her life reproducing her, Virmati goes to school and school. Fortunately, she has a liberal father, and she sees education as an escape from family life's rigors. Virmati is setting up an academic program that does not radically change her mindset, but gives her the gumption to suggest that she make her own mistakes. The catch is she's marrying a two-kid boy. Their love is discovered. Harish appears unscathed. On the other hand, Virmati is ostracized and kept in prison at home until she agrees to marry someone she chooses to marry. She refuses, firmly holding on to her Harish love. She's sent to higher study as desired. Her lover marries her as a socially accepted second wife after five years. Girls ' education has always been seen as a path to immorality. With regard to Virmati, education is an escape. Yet her family believes it has contributed to her moral degradation. Her falling in love made her a girl who had fallen. Manju Kapur successfully portrayed Punjabi life in the early 20th century and captured the relationships effectively. It is true that she is the mother from whom Kapur writes, but she is also the center of the character that Kapur portrays so lovingly. Difficult daughters start with a daughter returning to Amritsar carrying ashes from her mother to meet her mother's family.
The story then alternates between past and present with the mother and daughter speaking to each other through places and events. Both the history of the remarkable life of the mother and the turmoil of the years preceding our country's independence are traced within this framework. Amritsar is that time has been a very different place than it is now because it is not now. Towns like Amritsar had what was called a ' genry ' that counted among their class eminent educators, teachers, lawyers, and landed families. Virmati belongs to a family like that. Her grandfather is an influential landowner and passionate, women's education committed Arya Samaj. Because he makes Virmati stand up to her level. His sons run a successful jewelry facility and have a large children's brood. Virmati is the youngest of 11 siblings and divides her time among helping her sluggish mother deal with and studying housework. It doesn't mean she was doing it with all her soul. The interest of Virmati in studies is incomprehensible to her family, which thinks that she is sufficiently skilled to handle life, equipped to handle sewing, cooking, reading and writing. Then the story alternates between past and present, showing little by little the life of Virmati from the knowledge Ida receives from the family, brothers, sisters and acquaintances of her daughter. 'This book weaves a bond between my mother and me, each word a brick in a house I built with my head and my heart. Stay in it now, Mother, and let me be there. No longer torment me. Virmati must be a mother to all her ten siblings in Difficult Daughters. Mother Kasturi is involved in procreation alone, leaving the young to tend to Virmati. The absence or lack of sympathetic mother's hands at home causes these daughters to look outside for sympathy, which in turn leads to frustration. Sometimes Virmati was anxious for affection, for some special sign. However, Kasturi would get irritated and push her away when she put her head next to the youngest baby, feeding in the arms of the mother. 'Did you see their studies of food-milk-clothes?' The poor girl is doing her best to please her mother while pursuing her studies at the same time.
While the world may not love a husband, it certainly loves a mother, a daughter may love her mother at the same time. The world is full of love, affection, selfless devotion, and everything in human nature that is soft and sweet and noble. There is trust and affection between a mother and a son. This should be particularly true of a relationship between a mother and a daughter. 'After I'm gone, what will happen to you?'It's her favorite Ida lament. Because she's nothing, childless and husbandless. She feels herself standing on the margins of society like a pencil notation. Daughters aren't all that dependent, they admire a lot and moms aren't all that do, sacrifice one. Their relationship is shaped by the prevailing circumstances. Because it is from their mothers that the long chain of women's oppression begins. Moms, being female, were themselves first influenced by their mothers and culture as a whole into patriarchal society's standards. India's ancient tales and legends have a rich tradition. The tales not only entertain but also focus on the prevailing culture. They also preach moral values and philosophy, rich in meaning, apart from excitement, adventure, and emotion. The novel offers us a criticism of the relationship between mother and daughter, tracing it through three generations to come. Through the delicate portrayal of three generations of women and their problems, Manju Kapur gave us an unforgettable picture of the evolution of the psyche overtime of the Indian woman, starting from the period of pre-independence through the era of independence up to the time of the post. In the representation of Shakuntala and Virmati, who make their own choices in life, we see feminist leanings at the start. The later developments seem to suggest that women who follow tradition would certainly be called out and marginalized by society, even rejected by their own mothers. Their relationship with their mother is the first chance. And they pass on the sears they bear to the next generation. The generation gap becomes too large to be bridged due to the time difference. In contrast to the usual mother-daughter relationships, even the common experience of childbearing did not bring them together. Partition's stressful times and its aftermath may have caused a rift in relationships, much elaborated in the novel. The ghost is laid to rest only with Virmati's death, and Ida becomes free to lead her own life, not threatened by her mother's shadow anymore. The novel is a pointer to how, under different circumstances, the influence of a mother might be unsettling for the daughter. Why filial love and affection can be replaced by hatred and anger, how a mother can become a sign of selfishness and resentment towards her children, historically the epitome of devotion and goodness.
