MASKS
AND DISGUISES
Shashi Deshpande
Shashi
Deshpande is one of the prominent voices to arrive on the scene of Indian
literature in English. She has created a
place for herself in the galaxy of Indian women novelists in English. She excels in projecting a realistic picture
of Indian middle-class educated women, who though financially independent are
confronting the dilemma of existence.
Shashi
Deshpande’s Masks and Disguises is
taken from her famous collection of essays titled Writing from the Margin and Other Essays. This is a representative
essay of Deshpande in which she enumerates the problems of women in general and
the women writers in particular. She
argues that the women writers wear masks and disguises in order to hide their
real self.
Deshpande
begins her essay by recollecting an incident that happened in her life in the
past. She was scolded by her parents for
writing her name in a public building.
As a child, Shashi Deshpande did not know why she was rebuked but later
when she came across a passage in Mahabharata
she understood the reason for it. In the passage, Draupadi was advising
Satyabhama to hide her thoughts and remain silent to win the love of her
husband, Krishna.
This
advice of Draupadi makes Shashi Deshpande to get upset. She argues that this is an injustice done to
women folk. She says that as a writer she has to think and share those thoughts
with the world. But the age old customs
and tradition advocate the women not to reveal their thoughts in public. Another
problem which women writers face is that whatever they write is associated with
themselves. They are identified with the
characters they create. Deshpande is of the opinion that it is easier to write
women’s problems in general but harder to write of a specific woman’s sexual
abuse by her husband.
Shashi Deshpande
observes that the way men and women are looked at and the way their actions are
judged in the world are different. The
reactions to their writings are also different. Devadas, the hero of Sharat
Chandra’s novel, is considered as an admirable hero when he drinks himself to
death because of failure in love. Deshpande asks if Parvati does the same thing
will the world give the same status to her.
She is quite sure that Parvati would just become a debased figure.
Shashi Deshpande says
that women are given less space or no space in the outer world. They are confined within the domestic walls.
The moment the women step out of their self is the moment of revelation and
pure knowledge for them. This is what Jaya, the protagonist of Shashi
Deshpande’s That Long Silence does
in the novel.
The early women writers
believed that telling things slant was one of the defensive mechanisms by which
they could save them from sharp criticism. Today also many women writers follow
different techniques to escape criticism. Some use the term ‘Anonymous’ and
some others use ‘By a Lady’ . Shashi
Deshpande calls such techniques as mask and disguises.
Women writers prefer to
write only poetry and fiction because they help them to make them partly
invisible. This is not possible in an
autobiography. In an autobiography
neither masks nor disguises can be used.
But the autobiographies of an early era written by women writers kept
the woman writers in the background foregrounding their counter parts. But the
Women Liberation Movement and its struggle against the patriarchal society had
shaken off the rigid social restraint imposed on women and gave much freedom to
women writers as well. The autobiographies
of Sunita Deshpande and Kamala Padhye, wives of eminent men have been more open
about their feelings, more analytical about their marriages and often critical
about their husbands.
The most difficult thing for the women writers to write
about in public is sex. Shashi Deshpande
recollects that she felt very uncomfortable when she wrote her short story ‘The
Intrusion’ which deals about a woman’s first experience with a man. Many forget the fact that sex is as much part
of women’s lives as it is of men’s.
Language is also a problem and a
disguise for women writers. Many women
prefer to write in another language as it gave them a freedom of expression and
a shield to protect them from slings and arrows of their own men.
Shashi Deshpande finally concludes the essay be saying
that today a few women have managed to break the barriers and remove their
masks and disguises. They are no longer
silent but are bold enough to articulate their deepest feelings, their dreams
and frustrations. Shashi Deshpande is quite optimistic that soon many others
would also remove their masks and show their real self.
