Saturday, December 02, 2017

Shashi Deshpande

Self-revelation is a cruel process. The real picture, the real you never emerges. Looking for it is as bewildering as trying to know how you really look. Ten different mirrors show you ten different faces. SHASHI DESHPANDE

It's unfortunate that I got introduced to the works of Shashi Deshpande through her novel, The Dark Holds No Terrors. It was part of my BA Syllabus and somehow I disliked this classic of Indian feminism that openly attacked the patriarchal values of repressing women.

Now almost a decade later, I read her novels Moving On and Roots and Shadows. To my own amazement, the books were well-written and very readable though her books follow a particular structure and form just like all the thrillers of Dan Brown are made of the same mould.

Somehow I felt betrayed as a literary student when I realised that what I studied as a student was one of her earlier works written in 1980, while Roots and Shadows belonged to 1983 and Moving On was published in 2004.

Though so late, I have become a fan of her writing and is happy to find that can keep the suspense of the story intact till the end while writing in a simple yet precise style.Written mostly in the stream-of-consciousness technique, the novels reveal the inner lives of women who try to liberate themselves from the shackles of family and society.

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