Analysis Of Gowda's Secret Daughter

To save her child from a horrible future, Kavita gives up Usha for adoption. From the text, it can be ascertained that Asha would have grown up with the resentment of her father for not being a boy and for being a burden on their family. She would have blamed for everything and hidden away. She would have never been able to become a journalist, she would have had to be a housekeeper, or even a prostitute, considering how destitute her real family was. In Shilpi S. Gowda’s Secret Daughter, Kavita was right to give up Usha for adoption because she has to deal with the resentment from her father, the suppression from Indian culture against women, and is too poor to lead a good life. In Secret Daughter, it is expressed that girls are unwanted,

Apart from being a female, Usha would have been looked down upon in India simply for being a poor, village girl. Once again, Jasu even says as much to Kavita after she gives birth to Usha; “As it is, we can hardly afford one child, how can we have two? My cousin’s daughter is twenty-three and still not married, because he can’t come up with the dowry. We are not rich family, Kavita. You know we can’t do this.” (Gowda 15). Jasu desperately tries to explain to Kavita why they cannot have this girl. He explains that they could never come up with the dowry, or any other expenses for that matter. In Dahanu, Usha would never have gone to school, to university, or any other academic or leisurely activity. The life that she could have lived in India would never compare to the life that was given to her in America by Somer and Krishnan. Even if females were suddenly accepted as equals to males in India, Usha would never have been able to lead a life of her choosing. She would have been handicapped due to her family’s monetary stature. And considering the scenario in which Kavita and Jasu had kept Usha and had moved to Bombay, it is unlikely that they would have ever escaped Dharavi, the large slum where Kavita, Jasu, and Vijay briefly lived. Usha would have grown up in the conditions that Kavita describes upon first entering the