The Sari Shop Analysis

CLASS AND GENDER IN THE WRITINGS OF RUPA BAJWA Ms. Pavani Gonnuri Research Scholar (M.Phil/PT) EmailId:[e-mail] Andhra University Visakhapatnam

ABSTRACT; Rupa Bajwa in her novel The Sari Shop portrays the lives of the rich and poor of Amritsar intersect. The ritual of buying a sari is used to give insight into the female psyche “women rarely, almost never bought a sari alone." Bajwa manages to capture the heartbeat of a small-town with its petty

They are all in one way or the other products and victims of the consumerist world .One category of women portrayed in the novel are the educated, well respected women who lead a life of empowerment and independence and of individual choice and (sexual) pleasure. They are governed by consumer culture, fashion, hybridism, humour, and most of them show a renewed focus on their female body. One can aptly call them the post feminists. Many of them are house wives who have redefined and re signified domestic sphere as a domain of female autonomy and independence by severing its previous associations with drudgery and confinement. To them men are equal partners and never a rival or their victimisers. The all belong to the category of the urban elite. They are the liberated women whose tragic flaws are their hypocrisy and snobbery. They are the products of the consumerist world and the pivotal hinge on which consumerism survives and surges ahead. Apart from these attributes the women of this elite class are totally indifferent to the economically underprivileged. For them the poor are the lesser mortals meant to serve them and nothing more. The other category of women is the ones who inhabit the lowest strata of the society and has not really made it and continue to live in conventional relationships where hope and violence are permanently entwined. These women though raises

She has a compelling ability to write about and portray daily life in her hometown of Amritsar, India. She captures the culture and transfers it into words that make you feel YOU are THERE, in Amritsar. We could hear the sounds, see the sights, smell the smells and listen to the people One can find here, at the same time, an emancipated woman and her emaciated counterpart. But the women in India cannot confidently embrace their own power unless they balance the disparity between the economic classes and free all women from the strands of victimization. What women want and need today is a secure gainful employment, the right to equal work, the right to make decisions about their bodies and sex lives without moral intimidation, and the right to be treated as full human beings even if we are not beautiful, skinny, fair and wealthy. The Sari Shop through its women characters presents before its readers the microcosm of India and opens our eyes to the real India of the twenty first