Summary Of Devi's Life

Devi belongs to a traditional Hindu Brahmin family that believes that marriage is the ultimate goal of a woman’s life. Devi exhibits enough control compromising with her individuality agreeing for an arranged marriage. The narrative also takes us to, Devi’s childhood, Devi’s grandmother’s house where the seeds of such a conflict were sown. It was here that Devi learns the rules of being a good girl. She does not pursue a career after her graduation from USA. In US, she is with Dan but Dan’s culture was totally different from Devi’s and she felt like a stranger, different and unfit for Dan. She hears her ‘culture calling’. She leaves her past life in U.S and comes back to India to marry. Devi is tamed by ‘memories’ of all the stories told by

Two weeks a month when the shadowy stranger who casually strips me of my name, snaps his fingers and demands a smiling handmaiden. And the rest? It is waiting, all over again, for life to begin, or to end and begin again. My education has left me unprepared for the vast, yawning middle chapters of my womanhood” (54).

Kakkar and Katherina talking about marriage while discussing ‘Indian women- traditional and modern, asks, ‘is love necessary Devi has no desire to have children but Mahesh believes that she should have children not out of love but because everyone has them. Mahesh is practical enough to understand that children are the logical outcome of a marriage. He is one of those members of traditional society who consider motherhood as the final goal for attaining womanhood or becoming a complete woman. She visits the hospital regularly so that her ovaries can be ‘mended, an efficient receptacle for motherhood’ (89). Mahesh begins to abandonment her more when she is unable to conceive despite extended efforts. She can sense this alienation. She says, ‘I feel myself getting blurred in Mahesh’s eyes. The focus gets softer and softer, till everything dissolves into nothing- ness, everything but my stubborn, unrelenting womb’ (93).Mayamma suggests other ways out, through pleasing gods- her room is full of gods and goddesses, as she herself had