Aruna in fasting and feasting Essay

2007 was the year in which I failed to finish the Indian invigorateds I started. I read 2 and faltered at the 500 page mark in twain. I found Vikram Chandras amalgam of literary fiction and crime in Sacred Games unco tedious. But my failure with Vikram Seths A Suitable male child was downright weird. An absolute 5-star epic, I was enjoying it. Unfortunately I had listened to an abridged sound a few years forward, so I knew where it was heading and I couldnt motivate myself to read the extra 1000 pages I take to reach the end.So 2008 heralds a change of tactic. For starters, a short novel by an Indian authoress.Desai was born and educated in India and has spent umteen years teaching in the States. Well placed, therefore, to write about the similarities and differences of both cultures and she does this with a text that is by turns witty, farcical, poignant and shocking. Its quite a mix and matchless that kept the pages turning .. right to the endIt could be argued that this no vel is actually two novellas linked only by the function who moves from India to America. Each section is self-contained. just separating them would dilute the impact of the message that neo culture (be it Indian or American) is dissatisfying with gender inequality rife in both.In India, MamaPapa (so in tune with each other, they cannot be divided) argon training their two daughters and a son. Aruna is beautiful. Uma is clumsy and plain. But both must be married attain. Aruna has her pick of suitors but line uping a bridegroom for Uma is a desperate task and the squandering of two dowries is fount of much entertaining farce. Flip the coin, however, and the farce becomes tragedy.A failure to link up means a life of humiliating servitude to parents and a life of spinsterly aloneness and suffocation. My heart aches for Uma but it bleeds for Anamika (Umas cousin), denied her Oxford scholarship and married off to a family who cared little for her.She endures 25 years of servit ude and married loneliness before . well, youve heard the rumours of what happens when unloved wives grow old and a second component part is required.Desai barbecues American family life as thoroughly as Mr Patton does his steaks. America, the land where freezers are full yet the food cannot be eaten because what would we eat in an pinch? Housewives wear t-shirts with born-to-shop slogans because that is all they are good for Keep the cupboards full. Well help ourselves. The tv is king forget spending time together and eating at the dinner table.Eating disorders are both cry for attention and ascent against the profligate overconsumption of the West. Mrs Patton, as neglected as many as Indian bride. seeks to keep herself cheerful with the shopping and her sun-bathing. One day Arun comes home to find her bikini-clad and oiled-up ready for her day in the sun.She might have been on divulge in the Foodmart, a special offer for the summer, gleaming with invitation. Almost, one feels , one might see a discount sign above it. strike that Desai has painted this incident with so cruel a brush? Yet a major point of the novel is that daughters suffer most when their mothers unquestioningly comply with traditions or the lead of their men-folk. Actually not only daughters. Sons too.Arun is dishonored by the excess of education and the weight of familial expectation. Seeking seclusion and anonymity (the ultimate freedom) when he reaches America, his behaviour unconsciously mirrors that of his sister Uma, masking at home. Just one of many echoes which Desai uses to tie her two stories together.Shortlisted for the 1999 booker prize, Desais novel was, in effect, the runner-up. In a rare glance of the judging process, Gerald Kaufmann, the chair that year said, If we could have a chosen a runner-up, we would undoubtedly have given the runner-up award to Anita Desai and Fasting, Feasting a most beautiful novel, very moving, very funny, terriblyillustrative of what happen s to women in different parts of the world.