SEEKING A SPACE OF HER OWN: VIRMATI IN MANJU KAPUR‘’S DIFFICULT DAUGHTERS

Abstract

This paper is about the quest of Virmati, in Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters to find a space in the world of patriarchal supremacy, female marginality and centrality of stereotypical definition of women. Through this award-winning novel, Kapur weaves a tale that is set in the British India of forties about a woman Virmati, who defies the rigidity of her traditional household, dares to fall in love with a married man, enlightens her mind through studies and finally gets married to live as a co-wife of her beloved. Her journey is marked by struggle to find a place of her own amidst the chaos in her family that finds expression in the political upheaval of those times. She gets inspired by Lahore where she discovers a possibility of freedom, an opportunity to taste the modernity which allures her and a chance to get redemption by overcoming her inhibitions by participating in the Indian freedom struggle. Instead, she chooses to fight for her personal struggles - with her family, her morality, and her will to marry the man she loves. Virmati’s quest for a space allures her throughout the novel. Although she is able to lead her life on her own terms, she is never able to find a total reconciliation within herself. Perhaps that is the tragedy of Virmati, she finds another Virmati in her own daughter, Ida- who refuses to tread on the path defined by her. Eventually, Ida becomes a difficult daughter for Virmati just like she was for Kasturi-her own mother.