The Inheritance Of Loss By Kiran Desai

The Inheritance of Loss” by Kiran Desai is one of the Booker prize winning novels which implicitly reveals the male chauvinism and subsequent abuse of women in a patriarchal society. The novel deals with domestic violence through the character of Jemubhai Patel, a judge and his exertion of ill-treatment on his wife, Nimi. Domestic violence refers to violence against women generally found in matrimonial homes. Domestic violence is recognized as the significant barrier in the path of women empowerment and also appropriates the women’s rights. India has specifically legislated Domestic Violence Act in 2005 to reduce the violence against women. The law came into force on the 26thOctober, 2006 and it was during this time the novel published reflecting

Jemubhai was filled with anger and grabbed at his wife but she slipped, such running and chasing went on, inside a locked room. Jemu tried to force her for sex, “he grabbed at her again…he came at her with a look of murder…he blocked her. He clamped down on her, tussled her to the floor…in a dense frustration of lust and fury- penis uncoiling, mottled purple-black…he stuffed his way ungracefully into her.” (TIL p.169) Though she was uncomfortable with a forced sexual intercourse with crudity, hatred and fury, he repeated the gutter act again and again. In all sorts of mood he continued to have same physical extortion with his wife. “This distaste and his persistence made him angrier than ever and any cruelty to her became irresistible.” (TIL p.170) He grew more detached from her and never spoke to or looked in her direction publicly. Even after long gap of five years straight after his marriage, he never spare time for her, never expressed love, care and concern for Nimi. This routine loneliness has made her accustomed to icy relationship. She received “the same blank look of a dog or monkey humping in the bazaar.” (TIL p.170) Until an abrupt look at her out of blue and took his face off her as if a stranger. Nimi has to suffer the psychological torture from

He provided her with a companion for her to spend time. He hated her looks because she didn’t look like typical English woman. “Nimi did not accompany her husband on tour, unlike the other wives, who went along on horseback or elephantback or camelback or in palkis… Nimi was left to sit alone in Bonda… she had spent nineteen years within the confines of her father’s compound and she was still unable to contemplate the idea of walking through the gate… She was uncared for, her freedom useless, her husband disregarded his duty.” (TIL p.171) She just has to enjoy the view around within the residence and is left without any joy which normally a woman needs to have in her life. Her life is restricted into four walls, “She climbed up the stairs to the flat roof in the slow civility of summer disks, and watched the Jamuna flowing… Cows were on their way; bells were ringing in the temple; she could see birds testing… she could see the ruins of hunting lodge…” (TIL p.172) This confinement made her desolated. Her life is ruined. “She had fallen out of her life altogether.” (TIL p.172) Even the servants were treated her badly as if she is not human. “Weeks went by and she spoke to nobody, the servants thumped their leftovers on the table for her to eat, stole the supplies without fear, allowed the house to grow filthy without guilt until the day before Jemubhai’s arrival when suddenly it was brought to luster again.” (TIL