The Intrusion

The intrusion a story of a troubled marriage, a story where a woman becomes an object of pleasure, or in clearer sense a sex-toy; the story begins with the depiction of a married couple who are just fresh out of an auditorium, going to their honeymoon spot. Here the couple are described as total strangers, and are about to start their martial venture. The narrator here is the wife in the story, who due to a husband with an obsession for sex is subject to marital rape. Before I describe the scene, I believe that an introduction on Indian marriages needs to be given. Marriage, today in the Indian society is something that is absurd and strange. The reason for it is that, marriage was once and still is (in some cases) an institution that was taken for granted with certain fixed notions on how the people involved in the relationship are expected to behave. But this is not the absurd bit in marriage, but it is that this involvement was not expected from both the partners in the same degree. A man or the husband in a relationship was never expected to strictly adhere to his set of rules that are set in a marriage, and it is only the woman that is expected to be the obedient, submissive and the lobotomized dummy incapable of thinking or reacting in a relationship. And Shashi Deshpande was someone who had devoted her life and career as an author to bring to light these things. All her novels had dealt with the same topic, which are about the flaws in the Indian marital system marital system.

In India, there is an age old saying that ‘pati parameshwar’, the “paremeshwar” here means god Shiva, who according to mythology was the perfect husband. There is nothing wrong in believing or adhering to that, but there is one question which one can ask oneself regarding this. And it is that, the wife of Shiva or Parameshwara is Parvathy, so a woman needs to be as elegant and gracious as Parvathy then should not the husband be as good, capable and lovable as Parameshwar? This question is indeed very valid, as in one sense if the husband asks the wife to be good should she not also be as good as the husband? Why can’t a wife expect the same treatment from a husband who she treats nicely in all the senses of the term and is it just a man that matters in a relationship? Does not the woman have a role? All these questions could be raised when this question is brought into light. But here arises another problem of the women Indian society, and it is that they shall most probably never complain and just face the “relentless pounding” and keep mum. There might be umpteen number of reasons behind it like a woman might not feel so secure to share it even with her parents, or else she might be expecting only such treatment from her husband in her marital relationship. I shall not be prodding into those details now as I here am concerned only about a particular short story by Shashi Deshpande “the intrusion”. As that story also portrays “the relentless pounding” which a woman has to suffer in every avenue of their marital relationship.

So as the story continues we see the couple checking into a hotel, the wife at first wants to see the place, and discover it. While the husband advances towards her for the consummation of their conjugal love or in simpler, crud and more precise terms he advances toward her for sex, the very intention for which the wife is taken there; made clear by the “silence” he leaves in the scene was for sex even the emphasis on the words “complete privacy” shows us the reason for their arrival. Even the reason why the narrator got married was because of the dowry that they had offered her family, and the reason the father gives her for its conduction is that “I have two more daughters to be married”. She at first asks him whether they could go down to the sea and admire the view, but he replies negatively saying that it is about to get dark. Afterwards she asks him to stand out and admire the surroundings he again denies and pulls her close to him for conjugal union, but she

denies that, this makes her not so better half angry, she then gives the reason as to why she did not do it and it was that they or rather she did not know him. He is surprised by her reply and says that “Know each other? What has that to do with it? Aren’t we married now?” the reply which the husband gives is quiet important as it is the usual reply that almost 70%-75% Indian husbands have. Marriage for a man (but not all men) is something like an all you can eat buffet. Men always expect sex in marriage whether the partner is willing to give it or not. This is again mentioned in another of Deshpande’s story where a mother overhears her daughter and son-in-law’s shallow and extremely physical relationship where the son-in-law demands and the daughter offers it, after the act they continue with their lives. And so the wife wanted to say to the husband that she wanted to know him and what he felt and why he agreed to marry her etc. But she did not say any of these things to him as she knew from his expression that the reply to her question would not be favourable or given. Then the narrator/wife tries to sleep and later is woken up by the noise of a “relentless pounding” and that pounding was her husband who to her was a stranger, trying to intrude into her most personal self. And it is not the physical pain that a virgin experienced during their first conjugal “sleep-over” that hurt her more but it was the pain of her personal life which was slaughtered like a lamb which had hurt more. The sexual act between them was agonizing (physically and mentally) and very, very shallow. Deshpande described the act as if it is rape, which in reality it is. But this rape the very famous marital rape was or is (even now in some cases) never known.

Marital rape was a commonplace situation in olden times, it is only now that it has been made into a legally punishable offence. Even in front of law or lady justice a woman was just an object, and did not even have rights, their suffering can only be called ‘objectification’ and not ‘othering’, as other has always been assigned some properties, and is given some value no matter how meagre it may be. But they were just objects or gooses that laid a golden egg, which gave eggs to its mater sometimes one, at other times many; regardless of whether it wanted to or not. The woman in this case like De Beauvoir says was objectified, and through this objectification she is not even given the value or the position of a prostitute as a prostitute is at least paid for her services while a wife never is.

To conclude I would say that Shashi Deshpande shows us the situation of a woman who was denied an agency in the act of “relentless pound” by her not so better half, and thus gives us an insight into conservative/commonplace marital relationships. My personal take on marriage and sex is that. Sex is a necessity and it’s never a self service nor is it even a service for that matter. As, in sex the involvement of both the parties are needed equally. As to me sex is not just a mad race to the finish line of pleasure but it is something quite delicate and it involves serving as well as being served. Through this short story we get to see the story of a wife, who if spoken in terms of golf was given just the place of a hole in which a putt needed to fall. Here in the story we see a complete objectification of the female sex, and Deshpande also through this story tries to tell us that sex is not just the only thing that is needed and necessary in a relationship, but there are other things also that matter.