Article Details

New Lights on Indian Novelist – Kamala Markandya |

Neelam, Dr. S. D. Sharma, in Journal of Advances and Scholarly Researches in Allied Education | Multidisciplinary Academic Research

ABSTRACT:

Thispaper attempts to examine and explore the study of Woman as a Major Character in Kamala Markandaya’s Novels: Nectar in aSieve, Some Inner Fury, Possession and Two Virgins. Markandaya is apseudonym of Kamala Purnaiya Taylor who is one of the prominent and mostdistinguished Indian novelists in English of the post colonial era and isrecognized for her masterpiece ‘Nectar in a Sieve’ published in 1954. She was apioneering member of the Indian Diaspora. Despite the fact that she hadremained away from India for long time, she was highly attached to the Indian society.This is reflected in her minute observations and discussions on the problemsfaced by the working class women and peasants in India. She belongs to a group ofthe writers associated with social novels like Ahmed Abbas, GV Desani, ZeenuthFutehally, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Nayantara Sehgal, Anand Lall, Attia Hosain,Sachindra Muzumdar, Khuswant Singh, Havana Bhattacharya, Manohar Malgonkar,Balchandra Rajan, Sudhindra Nath Ghose, M Anantanarayanan, Arun Joshi etc andthe pioneering group of women writers in India who made their mark, not justthrough their subject matter but also through their vividly polished literarystyle. Markandaya’snovels are marked for their use of women characters as her spokespersons. Shepublished Eleven impressive novels like: (1) Nectar in a Sieve (1954); SomeInner Fury (1955); (3) A Silence of Desire (1960); (4) Possession (1963); (5) AHandful of Rice (1966); (6) The Nowhere Man (1972); (7) Two Virgins (1973); (8)The Golden Honeycomb (1977); (9) The Coffer Dams (1979); (10) Pleasure City(1982) published later as Shalimar (1983); and (11) Bombay Tiger (2007) and inall the novels the characters of woman are glorified. The key protagonists inmost of her novels are female characters who are in constant search for meaningand value of life. In some of her novels she presents an existential struggleof a woman who denies to flow along the current and refuses to submit herindividual self. Markandaya was master in the depiction of female characters inher novels.