Did You Plan Your Wedding Yet?

Juie Gune
TYBA
2020-21

As examined in the last article, women play multiple social roles throughout their lives. One of them is that of a wife. Marriage, in fact, is one of the universally acknowledged purposes of a woman’s life. It is often assumed that a woman above the age of 23 must inevitably be looking for a husband. If the woman, God-forbid, is single at 27 (insert sharp intake of breath), she must be “doing something wrong.” It is hardly surprising, then, that this all-important aspect of a woman’s life is abundantly represented in media. We will be looking at the representation of marriage in Chitra Bannerjee-Divakaruni’s collection of short stories (aptly entitled “Arranged Marriage”) and some Indian wedding songs.

Chitra Banerjee-Divakaruni, in her story, “Doors,” talks about the dynamics of space as a physical and psychological reality. The need for personal space is often defined by the culture one belongs to. What happens when husband and wife have different frames of reference, so that while the former likes to leave the door open, the latter likes it closed? Deepak, who has grown up in a large family, sharing a bedroom with his two brothers is not really familiar with the concept of personal space. In his family, they “constantly spilled into each other’s rooms” (Banerjee-Divakaruni, 2016, p. 189). Preeti, on the other hand, is a private person since she grew up as an only child. She does clarify that she is not shutting Deepak out.

Deepak, who initially respects this attitudinal difference, soon starts to lose his temper all too frequently about Preeti’s desire to be alone at certain times of the day. This is a clear representation of Simone de Beauvoir’s “Subject-other relation.” She talks about how women are always seen as “the negative of… men, where man was the ideal, the norm and the woman the deviant or the Other” (Nayar, 2017, p. 88). In this case, Deepak finds Preeti’s need for personal space “paranoid” and thinks she “should see someone about it.” Just as de Beauvoir says, Deepak sees Preeti “not as unique or independent, but as a variation, a flawed version” of himself (Nayar, 2017, p. 88). He can’t reconcile to the fact that her attitudes and opinions are different from his own. If they’re different, they must be wrong.

Another story is used by Divakaruni to talk about gender and performativity. Judith Butler argued that gender is not a “set of fixed, stable values and roles assigned… by society,” but a “performance enacted by individuals… validated by society.” Thus, gender identity is “constructed through repeated performances” which involve “clothing, mannerisms and speech” (Nayar, 2017, p. 91). Wearing a particular kind of clothing and using language in a certain way are media through which identity is declared.

“Clothes” is the story of Mita, an Indian small-town girl and the significance of clothes in shaping her identity. The major events that shape Mita’s changing life are never explicitly described. The narrative is built through Mita’s internal monologue (the voice inside her head) which is influenced with Mita’s experience of knowing, adopting and using clothes. We see the changes in Mita’s identity from a girl, to a wife and finally, a young widow through the clothes she wears. The comfort she finds in the sandalwood packets packed between the silk saris of her wedding trousseau, the change in her tone and dreams of a career when Somesh (her husband) buys her a crisp, white blouse and cream skirt and her rejection of the widow’s sari represent the transformation of her identity. The way she thinks of herself changes with her clothes. Her identity is, in many ways, either shaped or expressed through the clothes she wears.

The idea of performativity is also represented in the Bollywood song “London Thumakda.” The upbeat song talks about Rani, the bride-to-be’s captivating, sinuous gait and the make-up she applies. Both of these performative expressions, which are often associated exclusively with feminine identity, make Rani more “desirable”, as the song subtly suggests.

“Hila de chaldi tuk tuk tu kardi
Make-up tu kardi yaar”

The song also indirectly associates the urge to “gossip” with the feminine identity, as has been done countless times before, through various media. In fact, this characteristic is often seen as positive when it expresses itself in a woman.

What struck me as interesting is that Rani is expected to learn how to speak in English, wear Western clothes and apply make-up because she will be moving with her husband to the UK. Before the marriage is arranged, she is represented as the ideal woman who excels in the domestic sphere, is demure and reticent. Later, she has to change her socially-approved identity drastically because the culture she will be a part of after marriage has different social expectations of women. Her own will has almost as much importance as a corn husk, floating away wherever the breeze takes it.

“London Thumakda” basically celebrates the bride’s marriage and the fact that the young Rani now belongs to her husband, as the phrase “tu ho gayi munde di” suggests. The same allusion to women being passed on from one family to another, which is an epitome of the commodification of women, is seen in the song “Dilbaro.”

“Dilbaro”, unlike “London Thumakda”, has a brooding, sombre tone. In a problematic analogy, the song compares the bride to the yearly crop of a farmer.

“Faslein jo kati jaye ugati nahi hai,
Betiyaan jo byahi jaaye mudti nahi hai
Mudke na dekho, Dilbaro”

These lyrics represent what is a common assumption in Indian society. Once a girl is married, she has to cut off all ties with her “old” family and begin to assimilate herself in her “new” family. This expectation is akin to a metamorphosis of sorts. One leaves the old identity behind and accepts a new, socially-prescribed identity. Alas, neither family attachments nor identities are as feeble as cotton yarn!

Marie Shear wrote that “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.” As a society, we often define women according to the roles they play. “She’s a mother, so she must be kind. She’s a professional, so she must be ambitious,” we say. We don’t realize that a woman doesn’t play only one role in her life. She could be a daughter, a mother, a sister, a professional and a wife. No single one of these roles defines her identity. She is a person and like every other person, she has multiple layers. All we have to do is start peeling and looking past the first one.

This is the third and the final part of the three-part series 'Femme With Extra Foam.'

References:

Banerjee-Divakaruni, C. (2016). Arranged Marriage. London: BLACK SWAN.

Dilbaro- Full Video. (2018, July 05). Retrieved August 17, 2020, from https://youtu.be/WqUXVw0WlXc

Nayar, P. K. (2017). Contemporary literary and cultural theory: from structuralism to ecocriticism. Uttar Pradesh, India: Pearson India Education Services Pvt Ltd.

Queen: London Thumakda. (2014, April 21). Retrieved August 17, 2020, from https://youtu.be/udra3Mfw2oo