Patriarchy In Delhi

As a Keralite growing up in an army family in Delhi, Janaki lived an apparently Western lifestyle. But the values and ethos of a southern culture that lie ingrained in her psyche prevent her from merging with Delhi ways and practices. She describes this uncertain condition thus: “The odd thing was that Delhi had never taken me completely to her bosom either, possessing as I always did that faint Kerala edge” (AP 169). The novel, according to Varghese Leena, “is the story of a woman who bears the brunt of displacement through marriage and tries to submit to an alien culture and finds rejected every time an earnest attempt is made. She is not tailor-made according to the ideological constructs handed down by a seemingly protective patriarchy” (86). She complains that Kerala had abysmally failed to accept one of its loyal daughters which show the failure of the conservative society to accept inevitable social and cultural changes. Despite

Just like Mammachi in The God of Small Things who was made a sleeping partner by Chacko in his pickle business, Janaki was made a partner in their business and her job was to sign papers and not to question her husband’s accounts and bank balances. Such reactions would have been termed avaricious and undignified. “I was gradually beginning to see how a good upbringing was really a terribly unhelpful thing for a girl in Kerala” (AP 199). Traditional upbringing teaches a woman not to question the authority and decisions of her husband. Her role is that of a meek, submissive wife whose concern should be centered on the family, her relatives, and her children. She turns to her mother for comfort but she too is equally helpless: “I knew she was wondering … why she had failed to teach me acceptance. Wasn’t it merely arrogance to think that we could take matters into our hands? To take over the writing of our own stories?” (AP