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Anita Desai is one of India’s best novelists in English. Anita Desai was born on

24th June, 1937, in Mussoorie, near Dehradun. Anita Desai’s mother was a German

Christian and her father was a Bengali Indian. This mixed parentage of complex origin

gives Anita Desai the advantage of looking at life from different perspectives. She was

educated in Delhi. She married on 13-12-1958 to Ashwin Desai – a Gujarati

businessman. Anita Desai is a multilingual. She has lived in many cities like Culcatta,

Mumbai, Chandigarh, New Delhi and Pune. Her first novel was Cry the Peacock

(1963). She has written more than a dozen novels. She is considered to be a leading

feminist voice amongst the Indian women novelists. Ludmila Volna opines.”

Anita Desai is recognized as the first Indian author writing in English

who addresses feminist themes seriously, focusing on the condition of

women in India. Unlike Nayantara Sahgal and Kamala Markandeya, for

example, who respond primarily to the external social and political

circumstances of their female characters, Desai concentrates on the

exploration of the psychological condition of the oppressed heroines

(Volna, 2).

Anita Desai knows the plight of women in Indian society and has portrayed it

effectively in all her novels. India being a patriarchal society it has male dominance

and people are obsessed with having a male child. The female gender is an oppressed

and discriminated lot. It happens because of the false sense of male ego. In her novel

Anita Desai depicts women characters not only superfluously, but as made of flesh

and blood, having their respective strengths and weaknesses also portraying women

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characters who are governed by a sense of compromise, sacrifice and surrender rather

than, complete revolt against the system for the sake of physical and emotional liberty.

Desai is often regarded as a feminist writer but she does not like being

labeled as a feminist. In an interview in 1979 she stated, “I find it

impossible to whip up any interest in a mass of women marching

forward under the banner of feminism. Only the individual, the solitary

being, is of true interest” (quoted in Mann 1995, 173). She has also

pointed out that the purpose of her writing is not to make societal

statements: “My novels are not reflection of Indian society, politics or

character. They are my private attempt to seize upon the raw material of

life” (quoted in Singh, “Indian Women”, 85).

The women who are idealized, praised high and made a divinity in scriptures

are abused and exploited by society in practice. In this novel Anita Desai has

presented the grim reality of our society. On the one hand Anita Desai writes of pure

housewives, working women, social workers and on the other hand sisters, wives,

daughters, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law and aunts. Her novels are basically female

oriented. She probes into their problems, be it of a mother, a daughter, a sister or a

wife. She describes woman as a victim in a patriarchal, patriarchal, and father-

dominated Indian family. In India women are dependent upon male members of their

family, be it the father, the brother, the husband, or the son. After independence the

Indian women became conscious about their suppressed position though she is an

‘Other’ thing that they did not make much effort to pull themselves out of this

subjugation.

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Fasting, Feasting (2000), so far Desai’s latest novel, is, above all, a

work whose main concern is the condition of women in India and is

related to women in general. To deal with the situation of women in

India, however, it is impossible to stay simply with what is termed

“feminism” in the Western sense (Volna, 2).

Desai in this novel looks gently but without sentimentality at an Indian family

that, despite Western influence, is bound by Eastern traditions. The title Fasting

Feasting (2000), also suggest that implies, the novel is divided into two parts. At the

heart of Part One, set in India, is Uma, the eldest of three children, the overprotected

daughter who finds herself starved for a life. Plain, myopic and perhaps dim, Uma

gives up school and marriage, finding herself in her 40s looking after her demanding

if well-meaning parents. Uma's younger, prettier sister marries quickly to escape the

same fate, but seems dissatisfied. The book deals with two different cultures. First

part of the book highlights the Indian traditions, cultures and mostly the place of a

woman in an Indian family. It’s an excellent job in describing the Indian family to

every single detail of existence. Though this type of families still exists in India.

Part One is about Uma, a child woman growing old on the veranda with Mama

Papa (her parents evolved into one controlling entity). She is pulled from the convent

school in the early grades to help at home when the long-desired boy child Arun

arrives. It is she who years later must box up the tea and shawl to warm her brother,

studying in America. Plain and myopic, Uma hides behind her spectacles and boxes

up her dreams as carefully as her collection of gilt edged Christmas cards carefully

keeping them both without quite knowing what to do with either. First part deals with

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family intrigue through socio-cultural and spiritual experience in India, the second,

with familial existentialism in America. There is a comparison between the traditional

lifestyle of India and it unpicks to the materialistic scenario of the west as contrasting

cultures which shows that women are enslaved in both.

Part Two is set in Massachusetts during the summer between college terms

when Arun is bunking with an American family. It is an overwhelming experience,

but if America is a feast in the bounty displayed in the supermarkets and on the

suburban grills, Arun cannot partake. Arun’s well-meaning hostess, Mrs. Patton,

ignores her meat-loving husband and bulimic daughter and focuses on Arun,

swamping him with raw vegetables and dry lentils.

Fasting, Feasting is a story of a lawyer’s family consisting on husband and

wife, two daughters and a son. The story moves around the plight of an unattractive,

not so intelligent elder daughter, a girl child, who is forced to live a life of

subjugation-first in her parents’ home and later in her-in-laws’ She starts her story

with a busy domestic scene, as the parents -- who have such a fused authority that they

are often referred to simply as Mama Papa -- fussily ask whether daughter Uma has

given orders to the cook and prepared a package for son Arun, who is studying in

America.

ON the veranda overlooking the garden, the drive and the gate, they sit

together on the creaking sofa-swing, suspended from its iron frame,

dangling their legs so that the slippers on their feet hang loose. Before

them, a low round table is covered with a faded cloth, embroidered in

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the centre with flowers. Behind them, a pedestal fan blows warm air at

the backs of their heads and necks.

The cane mats, which hang from the arches of the veranda to keep out

the sun and dust, are

rolled up now. Pigeons sit upon the rolls, conversing tenderly, picking at

ticks, fluttering.

Pigeon droppings splatter the stone tiles below and feathers float

torpidly through the air.

The parents sit, rhythmically swinging, back and forth. They could be

asleep, dozing - their

eyes are hooded - but sometimes they speak.

'We are having fritters for tea today. Will that be enough? Or do you

want sweets as well?'

'Yes, yes, yes - there must be sweets - must be sweets, too. Tell cook.

Tell cook at once.'

'Uma! Uma!'

'Uma must tell cook-' '

E, Uma!'

Uma comes to the door where she stands fretting. 'Why are you

shouting?'

'Go and tell cook-'

'But you told me to do up the parcel so it's ready when Justice Dutt's son

comes to take it.

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I'm tying it up now.'

'Yes, yes, yes, make up the parcel - must be ready, must be ready when

justice Dutt's son

comes. What are we sending Arun? What are we sending him?'

'Tea. Shawl-'

'Shawl? Shawl?'

'Yes, the shawl Mama bought-'

'Mama bought? Mama bought?'

Uma twists her shoulders in impatience. 'That brown shawl Mama

bought in Kashmir

Emporium for Arun, Papa.'

'Brown shawl from Kashmir Emporium?'

'Yes, Papa, yes. In case Arun is cold in America. Let me go and finish

packing it now or it

won't be ready when justice Dutt's son comes for it. Then we'll have to

send it by post.'

'Post? Post? No, no, no. Very costly, too costly. No point in that if

justice Dutt's son is

going to America. Get the parcel ready for him to take. Get it ready,

Uma.'

'First go and tell cook, Uma. Tell cook fritters will not be enough. Papa

wants sweets.'

'Sweets also’ (Desai,1)?

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In the character of Uma, Anita Desai has presented a very dismal picture of

India. Within her own family, she is treated no better than a servant, always carrying

orders of parents and helping in running about household, even though there is a cook.

Uma is a poor girl, neglected in the family and denied education.

This elder daughter name is Uma.Uma is the protagonist. Uma is a gray-haired

spinster living under Mom Dad's demanding rule She is a simple girl with a mystical

bent, suffocates in a patriarchal system of arranged marriages. She has neither the

looks, intelligence nor self-confidence to attempt a career, an option her mother and

father have vetoed in any case. In this novel there is never a mention about her looks

and complexion so we do not know whether she is unattractive but situations prove so.

Uma's life is full of childhood laughter and pain which she herself cannot

realize, there are women around her who would want to segregate her and crush her in

to the same hidden dark corners of life that they have seen, that too with a revenge,

but she though accepts it as her fate , her influence, her willpower and her passion

escalates her to have her own escapades in brief intervals. Uma is an icon of all

women who succumbs but has a will to survive on their own little dreams of freedom.

Interestingly parents are not named in the novel; it exposes a typical middle class

Indian ruling over the family. Uma’s father is an anglophile, a middle class man going

to club and playing tennis who has only two desires- one is for a son which gets

fulfilled and the other is to earn dowry for the son. He wants to fulfill his dreams

through his only son. Uma’s mother, who is a housewife, has just experienced two

emotions, the burden of two daughters, and pride of having a son. Her parents remind

us many of similar set up at home who want to govern whole life of their children.

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Uma is repressed, suppressed and imprisoned at home. We see that Uma’s

father had so much craze that even before the second child is born, it is named Arun.

But he becomes dejected when a female child is born, and named Aruna instead Arun.

Late in life, Uma’s mother becomes pregnant again, which is rather embarrassing.

Now again he hopes for a son, this time God fulfills his desire. His wife delivers a

baby boy after suffering so much for the boy. This news of boy bursts him with

happiness and he is named Arun. Though he was weak and unpromising but Parents

were happy because he was a boy. They feel proud on the birth of a boy-“The whole

family came to a standstill. Around Mama’s bed, in the hospital, peering at this

wonder. Even it Aruna did say, so red – so ugly before she was nudged into silence

and Uma approved incapable of holding something so fragile and precious , they

were acutely aware of the wonder of it” (Desai, 16-17). Uma’s father bursts with

enthusian at the birth of a son.

Arriving home, he sprang out of the car, raced into the house and

shouted the news to whoever was there to hear, servants, elderly

relatives, all gathered at the door, and then saw the most astounding

sight of their lives – Papa leaping over three chairs in the hall, one after

the other, like a boy playing leap frog,… “a boy!” he screamed, “a boy!

Arun, Arun at last” (Desai, 18)!

After the birth of her brother, it is Uma who starts suffering. She had to sholder the

responsibilities and do the manual work for which she was too tender. Anita knows

the plight of women in Indian Society and has portrayed it effectively in her novels.

India being a patriarchal society it has male dominance and people are obsessed with

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having male child. Now when Uma’s mother comes to home, weak, exhausted and

short tempered-

She tried to teach Uma the correct way of folding nappies, of preparing

watered milk, of rocking the screaming infant to sleep when he was

covered with prickly heat as with a burn. Uma unfortunately, was her

clumsy, undependable self, dropping and breaking things, frightendly

pulling away from her much too small too precious and too fragile

brother (Desai, 17-18).

Then Uma protests: ‘I have to go and do my homework’ she told her

mother I have got to get my sums done and then write the composition.

‘Leave all that’, mama snapped at her’. … Mama had never taken

seriously the need to do any schoolwork nor having gone to school

herself, does Uma’s mother say, we used to have a tutor she said airily

when the girls asked her how it was possible that she had not gone to

school. He used to come to the house to teach us- a little singing –a little

Hmm - she became vague. ‘We used to run away and hide from him’,

she admitted with a giggle. So Uma tried to explain that if she did not

get her homework done she would be sent to Mother Agnes with a note.

But we are not sending you to Mother Agnes or to school again, mama

said (Desai, 18).

“The convent school for her is streaked with golden promise” (Desai, 20) she

always goes early to school and they search an excuse to stay on there for a longer

time. It was a place for her where she could take a breath of relief. At her home, her

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condition is not better than a servant. She is an unpaid servant for her self-centered

parents. So she wanted to spend her time more in her school- “There were the

wretched weekends when she was plucked back into the trivialities of her home,

which seemed a denial, a negation of life as it ought to be, somber and splendid, and

then the endless summer vacation when the heat reduced ever that pointless existence

to further vacuity” (Desai, 21).

After the birth of her brother she could not continue her study. She does not get

proper time for her study and as a result she fails in exam, then her mother compels

her to stop her study. Saying this that she is not very good at studies, her schooling is

stopped.

As a result after the birth of her brother, Aruna and Uma were compelled to

quit her academic. Her mother thinks that it is essential to learn the art of baby sitting

and household affairs because that is future of every Indian girl. In our patriarchal set-

up, masculine and feminine traits are not different but are valued differently. As care,

empathy and nurturing have been considered as feminine virtues. As a traditional

women she also thinks that to learn the art of household ways is very necessary for

her. Being a girl, her duty is to live for others and take care of others’ needs. Though

when Arun grows up, tutors are appointed for him though he had no interest in study

and great care is taken of him. His father wants him to eat meat, but he does not like it.

In spite of this he used to bring meat for him. He desires to make him an athlete but

after school, he gets so exhausted to do it. Against Papa’s ideals, Arun is characterized

by physical weakness: as a child, he catches all the possible infectious diseases from

mumps to measles. He also shows a reluctance to eat meat, which Papa finds

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incomprehensible. Neither is he interested in sports: if he could choose, he would

rather stay in his room reading comics rather than go and play outdoors. Instead of

accepting Arun as he is, Papa tries to “promote” Arun’s masculinity by pressuring him

to study and exercise. Since Arun’s childhood, Papa makes every effort to give his son

the best education he can.

In India, girls are trained in household skills at an early age. By childhood, they

are prepared to be ‘ideal’ women. That is why her mother asks her to take care of her

baby brother and help her in many cores of the baby. Though, Uma wants to continue

her education, but she finds herself unable to continue her schooling. She thinks that

her father will try to understand her and he will support her but he also

disappointments her. After stopping her schooling, at her home, there is an oppressive

atmosphere, she is imprisoned at home. To grow up as a girl is different from growing

up as a boy. Today also we find ‘rejecting a girl child and craving for a male child.’

The desire for a male child is manifest in words like ‘the birth of a girl grant it

elsewhere, here grant a boy’ and the birth of a girl is looked upon ‘with resignation, if

not sorrow.’

In Fasting Feasting Uma says about her mother- “He had not only made her his

wife, he had made her the mother of his son, what honour, what status, Mama’s chin

lifted a little into the air, she looked around her to make sure everyone saw and

noticed. She might have been wearing a medal” (Desai, 31). “Uma also noticed how

Mama and Papa looked upon Arun with an identical expression: a kind of nervous,

questioning, somewhat doubtful but determined pride. He was their son, surely an

object of pride” (Desai, 31). Such differences between two sexes often fills the girl

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children with jealousy and rebelliousness. Uma’s mother in Fasting Feasting remarks

– “… you know, we can’t leave the baby to the servant, ‘she said severely. ‘He needs

proper attention. ‘When Uma pointed out that Ayan had looked after her and Aruna as

babies, Mama’s expression made it clear it was quite a different matter now, and she

repeated threateningly: ‘Proper attention” (Desai 30).

India is a society where the birth of son has always been preferred to a

daughter, where a daughter is considered a source of misery and trouble, and the son

is the saviour and hope of the family growing up for a girl child becomes an issue of

survival. Girls and even mature women characters in the novels under study resent the

discrimination and feel less loved. Uma’s mother tells her children how, when she was

a child, girls were given inferior treatment. Mama said,

In my day, girls in the family were not given sweets, not good thing to

eat. If something special had been bought in the market, like sweet, or

nuts, it was given to the boys in the family. But ours was not such an

orthodox home that our mother and aunt did not slip us something on

the sky. She laughed, remembering that sweets, slys (Desai,6).

Though Uma is a hard working that is why the teachers of school call her on all

occasions to help in arrangements. But her parents think that her teachers want to

convert her religion and so they used to call her that is why they don’t allow her to

keep any relation with them. One day Uma receives an invitation for a coffee party

from Mrs. O’Henry, but her parents refuse to send her to the party because of the

apprehension that Mrs. O’Henry might ensnare her and convert her into a Christian

nun.

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Now her life becomes isolated. After her schooling is stopped she is not even

allowed to take music lesson. She wants to continue her association with her school by

attending school functions. She is called on such occasions by her teacher for help but

her mother does not allow her to do so. Because she thinks that the Christian teachers

are affectionate to her because they want to convert her. And she could not dare to go

against her family because in our society women are made to feel guilty if they pursue

their own development or interests, ignoring the activities they are traditionally

supposed to do.

After her schooling is stopped her mother makes her able in the kitchen work

because that ultimately is the future of an Indian girl. In India, girls are trained in

household skills at an early age, even before they enter puberty. Later childhood

marks the beginning of an Indian girl’s deliberate training. She learns that the ‘virtues

of womanhood which will take her through life are submission and docility as well as

skill and grace in the various household tasks. In Indian tradition, an ideal woman

should able in all household works; her happiness should lie in the happiness of others

and should suffer all kinds of adversities without any complain. That is why Uma’s

parents don’t feel need to continue Uma’s study.

In this novel we find that Uma’s father is supposed to belong to the upper

middle-class, having a car, bungalow, cook and a Mali. They don’t allow Uma to

make any phone call. He always keeps it lock but one day he forgets to lock the

phone. Then when the parents were outside she rings up her favorite teacher but

unfortunately she forgets to lock the phone and when they return they know that she

had made a call to her favorite teacher. They scold her for unauthorized use of phone.

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Her parents isolate her and stopped all ways of her amusement, a prisoner at home,

though her father gives all comforts and luxuries to his son Arun. Arun didn’t interest

in study but his father was so conscious for his studies. He wanted to give him the best

and the highest kind of education. Therefore, Arun gets admission in the best school

of his time. After returning from school his mother gives him milk daily, though he

does not like it. For good study, his father arranges tuitions of Physics, Chemistry and

Hindi etc.

Tutors came in a regular time, an hour allotted to each, for tuition in

moths, in physics, in chemistry, in Hindi, in English composition-in

practically every subject he had already dealt with during the hours at

school. Uma and Aruna were warned to keep away,… but Uma often

peeped into Papa’s desk, squirming, chewing his pencils down to the

lead, his erasers to mousy shreds of rubber, while the tutors leant back in

papa’s armchair, some fiddling inside their ears with a pencil, others

scratching dandruff out of their hair in clouds, or wigging a foot

frantically up and down under the desk, to help them through the rigours

of drumming theorems, dates, formulae and Sanskrit verses into Arun’s

head which began to look like one of the rubbers he liked to chew, or the

bitten end of a pencil (Desai, 118-119).

He wanted to make him athlete but after school, he is too exhausted to do it. After

tuition he calls Arun, “Son! Bring your badminton rackuet out- or your cricket bat.

You must have some exercise, healthy mind, healthy body, ‘but Arun would not stir,

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and Mama would make a little clucking sound of sympathy and prevent papa from

drugging him out bodily” (Desai, 119).

Papa’s brother Bakul has two children: the beautiful and intelligent daughter

Anamika, and the son Ramu, who has rejected the conventional way of living and who

therefore is considered the black sheep of the family. He is unmarried, and spends his

time travelling around; there are even rumours of an alcohol or drug problem. Once he

pays an unexpected visit to Uma’s family. Whereas for Uma, the rare visit of her

favourite cousin adds variety to the greyness of her everyday life, Mama and Papa

cannot share her delight; they are highly disapproving of what they regard as bad

manners and impudence. Uma sees him and shrieks with happiness, “oh, Ramu bhai!

It is Ramu bhai! And goes hurrying down the steps so fast that her slippers strike at

her heels-slap, slap, slap” (Desai, 45). Though Uma’s parents are not happy. “It is

clear they don’t share Uma’s delight in seeing the black sheep of the family who has

the bad manners to turn up without notice Both the parents draw their feet together as

if to avoid a gutter that runs too close’’ (Desai, 46).

In the evening, instead playing a game of cards with his uncle and aunt, he

shows restlessness. Seeing him Uma thought that he has need to whisky because in

her childhood she had heard gossip about Bakul Uncle’s son- some thought it was

drink, other drugs. So she goes to Carlton hotel’s dining room he entertains her there.

Uma rolls against the red rexine seat, her hair escaping in long strands

from the steel pins that usually keep it knotted tightly in place. It lies

untidily about her cheeks and neck. Behind the thick lenses of her

spectacles, her eyes roll in time to the music. She takes another sip of

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the shandy Ramu has insisted she drink and hiccups like a drunkard in a

farce about fallen women.

‘Oh, Ramu-bhai,’ she hiccups, ‘you are so-o fun-ee!’

‘I am so fun-ee,’ he sings the line, improvising to the tune of ‘My

Darling Clementine’. I am a bunn-ee –‘

‘Ra-mu!’ Uma squeals, spluttering into her glass.

‘Hop, hop, hop,’ warbles Ramu, making his fingers dance across the

tabletop towards her.

‘Stop, Ramu, stop’

‘Stop, stop, stop,’ he sings, making his fingers dance backwards. ‘Funny

bunny, funny bunny.’

Uma is choking with laughter. She has laughed so much, she has tears in

her eyes. They run down her cheeks.

‘Don’t cry, Uma,’ Ramu breaks off to say in concern. ‘You remember I

looked after you when you ran away, I fetched you home that time? I

want you to enjoy yourself. Have another drink.’ He snaps his fingers at

a waiter who has propped himself up against the bar and will not move.

‘Waiter!’ he calls again, ‘another round!’ (Desai, 50-51).

Once in night Mira Masi, an old widow relative comes but Uma could not

notice her. Next morning seeing her Mira Masi she fills with happiness and becomes

busy with her. One day Mira Masi becomes ill and gaunt. She lays on her mat while

she is on her way to an ashram. When Uma’s mothers tried to dissuade her-

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There are no doctor there, no medicines –but her mind was set. What she

said was, I will get it better there let Uma come and help. Let Uma come

with me. Uma heard her and her eyes went round as these of a fish with

disbelief. Having voiced concern how she could not refuse and Uma was

allowed to go (Desai, 55).

She experiences a brief repose of happiness and freedom when she is allowed

to accompany her ailing aunt Mira Masi on her pilgrimage. Sometimes she traveled

along with Mira Masi to the temple for the evening prayers and sat on the terrace for a

while, listening to a protest with blaming fanatical eyes play the harmonium and lead

the other in singing impassioned hymns-

‘O blow the conch

Light the incense

As the lord,

Holding fire in his hand

Dances to the sound of the drum

On the burning ground…’ (Desai, 58)

Uma tries not to look into the priest’s face or listen to the words of the hymn

either there was an air of abandonment about them that her feel uneasily as if mama

papa, those charming of abandoned, were standing behind her and watching her and

all of them with scorn. One night when she stayed in an ashram; she feels a strange

kind of relation of her life with the barks and howls of the dogs-

At night she lays quietly on her mat, listening to the ashram dog bark.

Then other dogs in distant villages, out alone the river bed and over in

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the pampas grass, or in way side Shacks and hovels by the highway-

barded back. They howled long message to each other. Their message

travelled back and forth through the night darkness which was total,

absolute. Gradually the barks sank into it and drowned. Then it was

silent. That was what Uma felt her own life to have been –full on barks

howls message, and now- silence (Desai, 61).

After a few days Ramu and Arun goes to ashram to take Uma and Uma gets

back home with despair.

Like Uma Anamika also suffers alot was lovely as a flower, soft, petal-skinned,

bumble bee-eyed, pink-lipped, always on the verge of bubbling dove like radiance on

her.

Anamika was not only pretty and good, but an outstanding student. In

fact, she did so brilliantly in her final school exams, that she won a

scholarship to Oxford. To Oxford, ever hope to go! Naturally her

parents would not countenance her actually going abroad to study-just

when she was of an age to marry everyone understood that, and agreed,

and so the letter of acceptance from. Oxford was locked in a steel

cupboard in their flat on Marine Drive in Bombay, and whenever

visitors came, it would be taken out and shown around with pride

(Desai, 68-69).

Anamika’s parents don’t let her go to Oxford, where no one can suppose to go

easily. They don’t give her permission to continue her study. They think that she has

got sufficient education. It is a time of her marriage.

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The admission letter is shown to people as a testimony of her intellectual attainment,

though she never joins the University. This view is shared by most people, who think

that girls should not go for higher goals of self-development or should be married

early before they develop their own will.

Now as the scholarship of the qualification they begin to search a husband for

her. The scholarship was one of the qualifications they were able to offer when they

started searching for a husband for her, and it was what won her a husband who was

considered an equal to this prize of the family (Desai, 69). After getting a boy they

arrange her marriage with him. The boy was so much older than her.

Uma, Aruna and all the other girl cousins crowded around to see the

match when he came, a bridegroom, to the wedding, and they fell back

when they saw him, in dismay. He was so much older than Anamika, …

The children saw that too – that she was marrying the one person who

was totally impervious to Anamika’s beauty and grace and distinction

(Desai, 69-70).

But Anamika doesn’t go against her family and becomes agree. Because in Indian

tradition an ideal girl is one who goes with her parents and never oppose them. Her

marriage brings disaster into her life and destroys her.

After sometime Uma and Aruna hear gossip which is deeply troubling that

Anamika has been beaten, Anamika is beaten regularly by her mother-in-law while

her husband stands by and approves or, at least, does not object. Her husband remains

a dumb observer. This charming girl is married in a family that ill-treats her. After

marriage she leads an isolated life. She spends her whole time in the kitchen, cooking

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for his family which is large so that meals are eaten in shifts- first the men, then the

children, finally the women. She herself eats the remains in the pots before scouring

them. If pots are not properly scoured, her mother-in-law throws them on the ground

and made her do them all over again. When she is not scrubbing or cooking, she is in

her mother-in-laws room, either massaging that lady’s feet or folding and tidying her

clothes. She never goes out of the house except to the temple with other women. She

never goes outside alone with her husband. Her loneliness and frustration intensify

day by day because she had nothing to look forward. She is beaten up by her mother-

in-law, which causes a miscarriage after which could never have children. Uma’s

parents also gets this news that Anamika has been hospitalized she has a miscarriage

at home. It has happened because of beating and they have beaten her because she said

that she can’t bear more children. Getting this news Uma’s parents go to see her. After

this now everyone was waiting to listen that will she return back to her parent’s home?

Or stay with her husband. Then Uma said- “I hope they will send her back. Then she

will be hope with Lila Aunty again, and happy” (Desai 71). Then Uma’s mother says,

“how can she be happy if she is sent home? What will people say what will they

think” (71). Then Aruna cries, “who cares what they say? Who cares what they think”

(71)? In reply her mother again says,

Don’t talk like that, Mama scolded them. ‘I don’t want to hear all these

modern ideas. Is it what you learnt from the nuns at the convent?’ … so

then Mama glared at Aruna. ‘All this convent education – what good

does it do? Better to marry you off than let you go to that place.’ She

laid about her with the palm – leaf fan (Desai, 71).

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In a patriarchal social system, generally, marriage is projected as a norm and an

end all and be all for women in the society. Since childhood a girl is conditioned to

think of marriage as her main goal of life. Our Indian community expects that till

death she will live for this relationship and till the end of her breath she tries to save

this relationship. Because since childhood she is conditioned to think that after

marriage she would have to devote her life for others, her happiness will be in her

husband’s and other’s happiness. So they try to save their married life and they accept

their married life as their lot and become mute sufferer. If any way she breaks her

marriage she will be considered ill-fated by all. She will be see as she has committed a

crime. For others it will be matter of humiliation and her ruin. So Anamika also

returns back to her husband.

The moment Uma comes of age frantic efforts are made to get her married.

Uma’s father sends letters to his relatives that Uma is considered of marriageable age,

in reply they send many photos of boys. Uma’s family selects one of them and invites

to visit them along with sister and brother in law who live in the same town and even

knew their neighbors.

When a suitor does come to see her, Uma’s mother try to decorate her as a

show piece

Mama lent one of her own saris to Uma for the occasion – a cream

georgette with little springs of pink and blue roses embroidered all along

the border. (‘Old fashioned!’ sniffed Aruna,‘granny sari !) She also did

Uma’s plaits up in a roll on her neck and stuck a pink flower into the roll

with a long pin. We should powder your face a little, she said, peering

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into Uma’s face with an expression of dissatisfaction. ‘It might cover

some of the pimples. Why have you got so many pimples today? They

were not there yesterday,’ she accused her… she scrubbed at Uma’s face

as if it were a piece of hide to be offered for examination (Desai 75).

Uma’s mother says to her that “now if Mrs. Syals asks if you made the samosa, you

must say yes” (Desai 75). It is our patriarchal thinking that girl should be able in all

household works when Uma asks her mother “what if she asks me how? I won’t

know! Uma cried” (75).

Then her mother becomes angry and scolds her,

why don’t you know? Didn’t I tell you to go to the kitchen and learn

these things? For so many years I have been telling you and did you

listen? No you were at the convent, singing those Christian hymns. You

were playing games with that Anglo Indian teacher showing you how to

wear skirts and jump around. Play, Play, Play that is all you ever did.

Will that help you now (Desai 75)?

In this society girl means to live for others. A girl can’t have her choice. She should

not fulfill her interest. Before marriage she passes her life in learning how to serve

other and after marriage she serves others. This patriarchy says that a girl should live

her life for others. When the suitor comes and meets they demand the hand of Aruna,

the younger sister rather than that of Uma.

Now Uma’s mother becomes so anxious, Aruna says

Mama worked hard at trying to dispose of Uma, sends her photograph to

everyone who advertised in the matrimonial columns of the sunday

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papers but it was always returned with the comment ‘we are looking for

someone taller, fairer, more educated for Sanju, Pinka, Dimpu’, even

though the photograph had been carefully touched up by the local

photographer... (Desai, 86-87).

When they come to know about another boy through Sunday news paper they

went to meet them, that was a merchant’s family. But when they reached “the father

explained- disarmingly- they could not proceed until they came into some money, ...”

(Desai, 81).

Then Uma’s parents become agree and negotiated sum was made over as

dowry and the engagement ceremony arranged simultaneously. After a few days when

Uma’s parents go there to pick a date for the wedding they find that-

…, the merchant was not nearly so expansive and cordial as before.

Seated cross-legged on a white sheet on the floor, his forehead freshly

smeared with red power after some religious ceremony he had just

attended, he did not seem at all pleased to see them. Quite abruptly,

drumming his fingers on his thigh, he informed them that his son had

decided to go to Roorkee ‘for higher education’ and felt he should not

be hampered by an early marriage at this stage and had asked for the

engagement to be indefinitely postponed. If this did not suit them, they

were free to break it off. Mama grabbed her hand to her bosom with pain

and horror, while Papa stammered, ‘And the dowry? The dowry? What

about that’? The merchant shifted into a more comfortable position

leaning back against a pile of white bolsters under a framed picture of

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goddess Lakshmi and could have incensed and told them that it had been

spent on the house (Desai, 82).

When Uma’s mother goes to Mrs. Joshi to tell all this Mrs. Joshi replied-

If you had come to see me before you went into this, I would have

warned you. That Goyal family everyone knows they have played that

trick before. Did they not do the same to the Gunga Mull family? How

do you think they bought that land in Khushinagar and started building

such a posh house? The Ganga Mull to handed over a dowry, and then

the engagement was broken off such wicked unscrupulous people- who

in this town does not know that (Desai, 82-83)?

The Uma’s mother says to it happened in hurry. She was in hurry because

Uma’s cousin Anamika is already married. Mrs. Joshi further replied

‘Yes’ that is why the Goyals are able to do such things because of the

parents, being in too much of a hurry. If parents will not take the time to

make proper enquiries, what terrible fates their daughters may have! Be

grateful that Uma was not married in a family that could have burnt her

to death in order to procure another dowry (Desai, 83)!

Through Mrs. Joshi Anita Desai has tried to raise her voice against such families as

Goyal family. Who do such kinds of activities for their personal advantage? Who has

made marriage a business?

The man who finally approved of it and considered it good enough for him was

no so young; ‘he was married before,’ his relatives wrote candidly, ‘but he has no

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issue.’ Uma’s parents accept this proposal because they were in hurry and Uma was

not so beautiful and they were not able to give more dowries.

After marriage when she goes to her husband’s home after few hours he leaves

her and goes to Meerut without informing her. She could not know reality and was

waiting for his returning. After few weeks her father comes and makes her aware with

reality that her husband Harish is already married and has a wife and four children in

Meerut where he runs an ailing pharmaceutical factory to save which he had needed

another dowry which had led her to marry again. Uma gets overpowered by a

complete sense of dejection resulting in greater emotional upheaval within her. Now

Uma comes back to her parent’s home and try to resemble her shattered life. Having

cost her parents two dowries and no marriage, Uma was considered ill-fated by all and

no more attempts were made marry her off.

Dejected, frustrated, isolated, alienated Uma stands nowhere, neither belong

the category of an unmarried girl nor of married women. She loses her identity.

Happiness goes far from her life. Now she becomes frustrated and lives as she has

committed a crime. She keeps her head wrapped up in her sari in an effort to screen

her shame. For others it was a matter of humiliation and her ruin. And afflicted by an

acute sense of failure Uma silently bears the humiliation inflicted upon her.

But the time Mira Masi comes in her life and gives her consolation, she helps

Uma to make her into a stronger woman and aids in compromising with life. There are

moments of respite when she gets company of Mira Masi. She plays subsidiary role

amongst her relatives. Ever since Mira Masi became a widow, her religion became a

source of solace to her. She also tells to Uma that religion is a source of solace; she

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should be not dejected because- “She is blessed by the Lord. The Lord has rejected the

man you chose for her because he had chosen her for himself” (Desai, 96).

Mira Masi remains satisfied with minimum interaction and by small

requirements in life. When Uma’s mother talks to Mira Masi about it that “All those

astrologers we consulted about her horoscope, what liars they proved to be’, only to

have Mira Masi reply, ‘It was not to astrologers you should have taken her, but to the

Lord Shiva, to pray for his blessing instead.’ ‘And you think your Lord Shiva would

have blessed her” (Desai, 96)? In the novel Mira Masi delineated on a religious

spiritual level but so far as worldliness is concerned by her compromise with life.

There is no doubt that she was religious but during her travel whenever she meets her

relatives, she participates whole heartedly in their lives, gives advice and provides

comfort and companionship to them like Uma.

Mira Masi many times tries to console Uma by saying that she is blessed by the

Lord and the Lord has rejected her husband because he has chosen her for himself and

gets success to some extent. But Uma becomes more dejected while thinking- Will he

put his arms around her? Then she realizes, that no, he will not. Then what is the use

of such a husband. She experiences a brief repose of happiness and freedom when she

is allowed to accompany her ailing aunt Mira Masi, on her pilgrimage. One night

when she is stayed in an ashram, she felt a strange kind of relation of her life with the

barks and howls of the dogs. She tries to search interest in other things like Mira Masi.

For this she tries to indulge her in other things. Situations become more sores and

complicated when Uma’s mother forbids her any sort of diversion like visiting

neighbors, or talking to friends, or reading books and magazines, any kind of

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amusement or even working. Her life becomes a burden for her Uma surrenders her to

the life of silence and loneliness. She surrenders the finer impulses and accepts

bravely the humiliation and desolation etched on her destiny; she realizes that she

would have to accept her lot because she has not any other way.

After sometime the daughter of a family friend Justice Dutt offers her

the job of supervising the nurse’s hostel which she runs. She was an unmarried

medical practitioner. Though Uma shows her interest in this job but her parents were

not agree, so as a result the offer is turned down by her father.

Like a typical middle-class Indian her father also considers it against his

dignity. He looks down upon working women as if it is a stigma. Though her father

pretends to be progressive but in practice her father was a typical middle-class Indian.

Uma says- “Papa was quite capable of putting on a progressive, westernized front

when called upon to do so in public, in society, not within his family of course”

(Desai, 141).

When Dr Dutt pleads him for Uma to work, he frowns- “the frown was filled

with everything, he thought of working women, of women who dared presume to step

into the world he occupied” (Desai, 145). When Dr. Dutt asks about Uma’s opinion,

he simply dismisses the idea and her mother speaks-

It was Mama, who spoke, however, as usual, for Papa. Very clearly and

decisively- ‘Our daughter does not need to go out to work, Dr. Dutt,’ she

said. ‘As long as we are here to provide, she will never need to go to

work.’

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‘But she works all the time!’ Dr. Dutt exclaimed on a rather sharp note.

‘At home now you must give her a chance to work outside.’

There is no need, Papa supported Mama’s view. In double strength, it

grew formidable. ‘Where is the need?’

Dr. Dutt persisted ‘shouldn’t we ask Uma for her view? Perhaps she

would like to go out and work (Desai, 143)?

But her parents did not care about their daughter’s desire. Like a typical middle

class Indian he looks down upon working woman as if it is stigma. Today also this

view is shared by most people, who hold that girls should not go outside. They don’t

allow them to go for higher education and they believe that it is below dignity for a

daughter to work howsoever decent the job may be. They think that it is an

undesirable instruction in the male world. In such a patriarchal society where peoples

are like Uma’s father, the woman’s wish does not exist. She is treated as a non-entity.

Being dejected from life Uma tries to search interest in other things. But she

becomes more dejected when her mother forbids her any short of diversion like

visiting neighbors or talking to friends or reading books and magazines any kind of

amusement or even working. Now she realizes that her life has become a burden for

her. Now she surrenders her to the life of silence and loneliness. She learns to

compromise with her claustrophobic existence. She surrenders the finer impulse and

accepts bravely the humiliation and desolation etched on her destiny. Now she realizes

that she would have to accept her lot because she has no any other way. In this way

we find that Uma’s parents also play the role of patriarchy with society. They are

narrow minded and parochial attitude.

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In the novel, Uma has also a younger sister Aruna, the marriage proposals for

Aruna continue to arrive. She is more attractive than Uma, she makes a expedient

choice and marries “… the handsomest, the richest, the most exciting of the suitors

who presented themselves” (Desai, 101). Though, her parents are against her choice of

the boy Arvind, when Aruna had made up her mind, then no one could stop her, and

she had her way. She marries to Arvind, who has a job in Bombay and a flat in Juhu.

It is a dream for her which has come true. To live this dream life, she transforms

herself, cuts her hair, and takes her make-up kit wherever she goes.

Many times she tries to change Uma’s physical appearances and behaviors but

Uma doesn’t try because of her mother’s fear and her mother also doesn’t feel any

need of it. She calls her mother and sister villager because they rejected to accept her

sophisticated and high life style.

Then she avoids visiting her parents’ home, and blames the untidiness of the

surrounding and the inhabitants. When ensnares herself in her mad pursuit towards a

vision of perfection. Even she goes to the extent of scolding her husband when he

splits tea in his saucer, or wears a shirt, which does not match, with his trousers; she

tried to live a happy and successful life she could not succeed.

After few days of Aruna’s marriage Uma receives a Telegram! And by reading

that telegram they come to know the message- ‘Anamika is dead’. Now the final

tragedy comes. Her agony was short lived for she died a violent death after twenty

five years of marriage. Uma’s family is informed that Anamika has died of burning

and it is projected by her in-laws that she has committed suicide.

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Some of the neighbors said was that she herself, possibly in collusion

with her son, had dragged Anamika out on the veranda at that hour when

it was still dark – possibly before four o’clock – and that they had tied

her up in a nylon sari, poured the kerosene over her and set her on fire

… what the mother-in-law said was that she always had Anamika sleep

beside her, in her own room, as if she was a daughter, her own child.

Only that night Anamika had insisted on sleeping in her own room. She

must have planned it, plotted it all.

What Anamika’s family said was that it was fate, God had willed it and

it was Anamika’s destiny (Desai, 151)?

Though this tragic incident happened, Anamika died but Anamika’s parents don’t

consider wrong to Anamika’s in-laws or themselves they say that it is her fate and it is

Anamika’s destiny (Desai, 151).

In our patriarchal system most Indian women are taught by other women that

they have no choice after marriage they will have to live with in-laws in every

condition before death they can’t leave their in-laws home otherwise their parents will

have to face shame and humiliation. That is why they don’t dare to revolt against

anything and become mute sufferer. This happened with Anamika also.

Thus, in the novel through the character of Anamika, Anita Desai has tried to

present a very dismal picture of a woman in our patriarchal set up. Uma also presents

a very miserable picture before us, suffering throughout her life.

In this novel through these three characters, Uma, Anamika and Aruna Anita

Desai has tried to convey that in the patriarchal society woman suffers in every

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condition, whether she is beautiful or not or liberate from the customs and dominating

rules. The society doesn’t allow her to liberate herself from this patriarchal system and

live a happy and peaceful life. Uma feels utterly friendless and alone, even when she

at home surrounded by her parents in desperation, she thinks of writing a letter to a

friend to share her grief but it only ends up with the realization that she has no one to

confide with.

She could write a letter to a friend- a private message of despair,

dissatisfaction yearning , she had a packed of notepaper, pale violet with

a pink rose embossed in the corner- but who is the friend? Mrs. Joshi?

Since she lives next door, she would be surprised Aruna? But Aruna

would pay no attention; she is too busy. Cousin Ramu? Where was he?

Had his farm swallowed him up? And Anamika- had a marriage

devoured her (Desai, 134, italics in original).

In Uma’s mother also we find the attitude of compromise. Uma’s father is a

typical middle-class Indian. He rules over the family. No one is supposed to question

him or his decisions. Nothing can happen in the household without his permission.

Uma’s mother is like a loyal Indian woman. In the beginning she realizes her

husband’s temperament and soon compromises by playing the role of a submissive

and obedient wife and follows him meakly. Nevertheless, she is unable to off her

hypocrisy completely and in his absence she becomes dictatorial towards her children

and servants, visits friends to play cards but returns home before its time for her

husband to come back. In this way she maintains a balance between tradition and

modernity.

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The female experience of growing up in a patriarchal society, which enjoins

them to uphold the spirit of kinship and arrange their activities and lives centering on

others, has a corroding impact on their psyche.

Once, Arun’s mother tells that Arun may go Bombay for a little holiday. Then

his father becomes angry.

Papa treated the suggestion with contempt. ‘Holiday? In Bombay? Is

that what will get him into good University? He has to take his entrance

tests now and he has to prepare his applications, we have to make lists to

collect information’-- … there was no end to the paperwork involved, if

Arun were to go abroad for higher studies (Desai, 120).

Father makes differences between a boy and a girl. He stops Uma’s education and

does not allow having her studies though he sends Arun abroad for higher education.

He desires a job for Arun in foreign but about daughters his thinking was different, for

a daughter, he considers it against his dignity. She has to do household works, her

presents project themselves quite progressive, but not in practice- “Papa was quite

capable of putting on progressive, westernized front when called upon to do so- in

public, in society, not within his family of course...” (Desai, 141).

In part two, scene shifts to America, Arun was studying in America but when

summer vacations arrive he heard dorm needed to be emptied. The university wanted

every room back for its summer courses and conferences from which it made a

sizeable income so. Arun was in search of other room. He did not want to live with his

fellow Indian Students. After searching a lot Arun gets a room. But Arun’s father

came to know about the room by Mrs. Joshi in Mrs. Patton’s family who was sister of

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Mrs. Joshi, their neighbor. He finalized and said to Arun ‘it was a kind offer,

generously made and not to be rejected’, and Arun didn’t feel happy.

Immediately Arun was overcome by the sensation of his family laying

its hands upon him pushing him down into a chair at his desk, shoving a

text book under his nose, catching that nose and making him swallow

cod liver oil talling him spooning food into him, telling him: Arun, this,

Arun that, Arun nothing but... (Desai, 175).

Mrs. Patton had a son Rod who was always busy in jogging and a daughter

Melanie who suffers from bulimia and always vomits. Mrs. Patton’s joy lay in

purchasing hoard form the maze of the super market, soaring it in cupboards, her

refrigerator and freezer without any need. She thinks that her refrigerator should be

always full. Seeing all this, Arun thinks “one can’t tell what is more dangerous in this

country, the pursuit of health of sickness.

Through Arun's eyes we look the Patton family - a "barbecuing", dissatisfied

father, a panicky, vague, aspirant vegetarian mother, a body-obsessed, jock son and a

bulimic, neurotic daughter. All of them go through some form of corruption - of will,

of fun, of passion and of love. In one gloomy minute, Arun recognizes in the Pattons'

bulimic daughter an account of his own unhappy sister Uma, and the shock provokes a

reflection on these two frustrated women.

Separate names for characters are not given by the novelist. They are addressed

as Mama and Papa only. Andrew Robinson, a reviewer of Fasting Feasting

comments:

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In Papa and Mama, the Indian parents, she [Anita Desai] creates two

monsters of almost Gothic proportions, locked into inseparable marital

disharmony, determined to inflict on their two daughters and only son

every ounce of the prejudices and disappointments of their own lives, as

a respectable barrister and his wife in an undistinguished town. (qtd. In

Singh, “Parent Child”).

The story is very simple: parents, their first daughter Uma who is the main

character is still unmarried and they are caring for them, other daughter Aruna who is

pretty, ambitious and smart, but eventually also a victim of her choices is already

married and away; a son Arun in whom parents put all their dreams and hopes.Arun is

in USA, who is also a sensitive and unhappy, trying to find his way in the midst of all

the expectations under which he is weighted down. It can be clearly seen that this

book is in two parts. First part describing Uma's life in India and the second part of

her brother Arun days in America.

Thus Desai takes on a task that many Indian and expatriate authors have

deemed Herculean in nature, a task that involves delving into the inner sanctum of an

orthodox Indian family in India. Many who have attempted this challenge failed and

come out looking ignorant and insensitive of certain aspects of the culture. Few have

succeeded, and among them is Anita Desai.

In her novel Fasting Feasting Anita Desai has presented Uma as an isolated

woman. Like this her depiction of such isolated women in her novels make aware of

them, the rights in a modern social set up. She has tried to say that women can

extricate themselves out of the trauma of mental psychosis by realizing that they have

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the power of sustaining others. In her novels we find that women don’t give up strife

so easily. They indulge in self-analysis and compromise with the situation to live life

stoically.

In Fasting, Feasting Uma’s claustrophobic existence in a tradition bound

society throws ample light on the plight of women in postcolonial India.

For an Indian woman, her role is circumscribed within the emotive immersion

of herself, which results in the exploitation and conflict. In the novel Fasting Feasting

Anita Desai has portrayed a character of Mira Masi, an old widow relative of Uma’s

family. Uma as a child was fascinated by Mira-Masi. Through the character of Mira-

Masi Anita Desai has tried to bring out the practicality of the confluence of the social,

the religious and the spiritual. In this novel she is delineated on religious and spiritual

level but she presents a picture of contentment by her compromise with life. After

being widow her religion became a source of solace to her. She remains satisfied with

minimum interaction and by small requirements in life.

Now, coming to the novel, the first thing that attracts is the title, the unusual

but apt. The main characters in the novel are, the Parents, Uma, Aruna, Arun and

Patton’s Family. Talking about the parents first - they are the typical parents you

would find in India, working dad who has only two desires…one is for a son which

gets fulfilled thankfully and the other is earn enough dowry for the respective son in

laws. He wants to fulfill his dreams through his only son which is again a common

habit with many dad’s. The mother is a housewife working her way out with limited

income & endless household chores. She just experiences two emotions. One is the

burden of two daughters and the other pride of getting a son! The parents would

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definitely remind many of us of similar set up at home. The usual bickering of a

mother is about what to do and what not to do. There are endless moments where we

feel that the world should come to an end, and even sometimes wishing to have one’s

own life. The central character of the novel is no doubt Uma, the eldest one. She is

clumsy and has no major achievements to her credit except that she took care of his

small brother and failed her school exams regularly. The character does evoke

sympathy. The life which she leads has not been chosen by her but gifted to her by her

family. Her only fault is she obliged them. Perhaps the irony of Uma’s past, present

and future is felt very strongly in the story. She is engaged twice but both do not lead

to a “successful” marriage. And so the enviable happens. Her parents decide on not

marrying her off. She lives her life as a spinster who is flaccid in her happiness.

Aruna is happy character in the plot. She is someone who knows how to get things

done and is successful in everything she does. That’s what her parents think about her

and is proud of the fact that she managed to get married and that too with a person

who is rich and non fussy. Again a stark reality in our society wherein the only

achievement of a woman sometimes is carrying off a marriage. Arun is the pride of

the family forward. He is the only son who would study hard, land up in a good job,

find a suitable wife and eventually carry the name of the family forward. He is the

only one who goes abroad for higher studies and is trying to cope up with all the

responsibilities and expectations which is becoming more of a burden for him. He is

living with the Patton’s family which reminds him of his family each day. He is

sensitive but not emotionally attached to either his family in India or to his surrogate

family in America. Patton’s family is the typical American family comprising of the

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parents and kids, all doing what they want to do. No dependencies, no interferences

from anyone.

There are other characters as well like Anamika who has a tragic end in a

disastrous and claustrophobic marriage. She is a character which runs parallel but is

not all over the story. She dies a silent death like many in our country. Fasting

Feasting is a bleak book by all standards. The words, situations and the character

evoke sympathy but you don’t feel for them. The style is lucid and simple. The novel

is correct in its treatment and the contrasts have been worked out well accurately. But

the novel doesn’t make for a happy reading.

Fasting symbolises deprivation, unhappiness and tragedy of one daughter Uma

in India. Feasting is the celebration of the opulence of America and of the daughter

living there. The novel also conveys the message that parents, siblings, family ties,

country boundaries are all threads that bind us as human. These are ties which are not

made by choice. We inherit them and live with them.

Thus in the novel Fasting Feasting, Uma, Anamika, Aruna present the female

versions of entrapment in patriarchal, male-centered society. In the character of Uma,

we find her unattractiveness leads to her entrapment and her sister Anamika who was

very beautiful and innocence. Her innocence makes her victim of disaster and

isolation. Her beauty could not save her from this entrapment. Aruna, the younger

sister of Uma also suffers from isolation. Though she wanted to save herself from

such critical conditions and to live a successful life but unknowingly she also becomes

victim of isolation. She accepts western lifestyle instead a traditional life style. To

make herself a ‘modern’ woman she neglects the conventional role of an Indian wife,

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daughter-in-law and mother in favor of western ways. She cuts her hair, takes her

make-up kit wherever she goes and calls her parents and Uma as “villagers” when

they don’t accept her sophisticated and flashy life style. Often she blames the

untidiness of the surrounding and the inhabitants. Even she scolds her husband when

he splits tea in his saucer.

Oh, you have again split tea in your saucer. Now it will drip all over

you,’ she would cry, or pull at his shirt and say, ‘But this shirt does not

go with those trousers … Seeing Aruna vexed to the point of tears

because the cook’s pudding and solid, or because Arvind had come to

dinner in his bedroom slippers or papa was wearing a shirt with a hole

under one arm, Uma felt pity for her: was this the realm of ease and

comfort for which Aruna had always pined and that some might say she

has attained? Certainly it brought her no pleasure: there was always a

crease of discontent between her eyebrows and an agitation that made

her eyelids fltter, disturbing Uma who noticed it (Desai, 109).

In this way Aruna also entraps. Now Uma feels isolation and despair because

she has ostracized her parents’ and sister as uncouth. Now she does not have anyone

whom she can call for succor in need. Though she liberates herself from traditional

roles but she ensnares herself in her mad pursuit towards a vision of perfection.

Finally Aruna also could not lead a happy and successful life. She leads a miserable

and frustrated life.

Through her exploited and isolated characters Anita Desai tried to make aware

women with their status and rights in this modern society. In part two of the Fasting,

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Feasting, scene shifts to America portraying two women characters Mrs. Patton and

her daughter Melanie. Arun stays there during his vacation. Melanie is a victim of

loneliness and isolation. Both Mrs. Patton and Melain find the western environment

stifling. Uma and Melanie are two women of different cultures. They react to the

claustrophobic unwanted social norms in their own way. But they didn’t’ have strong

will power that is why they could not get success. They could not revolt against the

existing social norms. And as a result they live isolated life. Their excessive freedom

led them to a suffocating environment and loneliness. Sini Siukonen writes:

Being a man in India does not automatically mean being privileged; one

also has to meet the standards of patriarchal masculinity and support

patriarchy, otherwise one ends up in the same situation as Arun, who has

to balance between his real opinions and the surrounds values. On the

other hand, the characters of Papa and Mr. Patton show that a powerful

position is not a guarantee of happiness; in their endless effort to affirm

their masculinity, they lose their ability to feel true intimacy in their

closest personal relationships (Siukonen 40).

Thus children neglected by their parents often become hysterical. Like Uma,

Melanie does not have any outlet to relieve her frustrations. Same is the case with

Arun too. Such isolated children have nothing in store but only bulimia, anorexia,

depression, withdrawal, compulsive behavior and hysteria. Anita Desai, through her

present novel, tends to show that excessive concerns of parents in case of Arun and

complete disinterestedness in case of Uma and Melanie leave the children completely

shattered. Fasting, Feasting is both a plea and warning to those parents who venture

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into their own individual worlds by rejecting their children’s right to be loved and

cared. Such negation of parenthood would render the future generations crippled.