Journal of Xi'an University of Architecture & Technology ISSN No : 1006-7930
Repudiation of Rights and Subalternity in GithaHariharan’s
The Ghosts of Vasu Master
*Dr Sheeba S. Nair, Assistant Professor of English, SreeAyyappa College for Women,
Chunkankadai,Affiliated to ManonmaniamSundaranar University, Tirunelveli
*Dr. R. Janatha Kumari, Assistant Professor of English, SreeAyyappa College for Women,
Chunkankadai, Affiliated to ManonmaniamSundaranar University, Tirunelveli.
Abstract:
The culturally diverse country like India experiences a breach in establishing equality due to the prevalence of so many behavioural patterns, beliefs and ideologies both social and political. This results in the culmination of some culture attaining hegemony over others and discriminating the people of these cultural practices and suppressing them. This is an issue of high social concern which the eminent diaspora writer Githa Hariharan addresses in her fiction The Ghosts of Vasu Master. This paper looks at different factors that accelerate the repudiation of rights including physical deformity. Besides remonstrating such discriminatory factors, this paper strives to highlight the need to establish equality in the society which is inevitable for the humanity to thrive in this global world. Key Words: Diaspora; Culture; Human rights; Subalternity; Normalcy; Feminism.
Refutation of human rights is a global phenomenon which is increasing day by day
especially in developing counties like India. India being a pluralistic country is known for its
diverse cultural patterns. These cultural patterns are decided by different religions, languages,
castes, community, class and creed. These classifications divide the people of India into various
strata and there is constantly a cultural pull among the people belonging to these diverse groups.
With the advent of Marxism in the nineteenth century “people have come to think of culture as
being political. Culture is both a means of domination, of assuring the rule of one class or group
over another and a means of resistance to such domination, a way of articulating oppositional
points view to those in dominance” (Rivkin, Ryan 1025).There is a power play in which the
affluent people try to occupy the center and there is also a tendency to drive the ‘others’ to the
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periphery. The limitation may be enforced on them in the name of class, creed, religion, gender,
economic disparity and so on. AsJamuna rightly avers,
Any multi-cultural mosaic, even in India, often fails miserably because of the anti-
accomodationist stance of the dominant community. Multiculturalism should be able to
negate exclusionism of minorities through acceptance and accommodation; instead the
dominant community often creates an ideology of power, thereby paving the way for the
inevitability of disarticulated subalternity within the nation. (121)
There are various factors that vie with one another in inflicting discrimination in the
Indian soil. Among them, the Caste system in India plays a major role in suppressing the people
and thereby denying them a dignified life which is their genuine right. People in India are
generally discriminated in the name of caste.Caste is a social evil which is practiced even today
in India and it has become a part of Indian culture. And “Caste is defined at birth” (Young
119).It is about two thousand years old.
This system which is an integral part of Hinduism, divides the population into four major
groups. The Brahmin (priestly caste) at the top, followed by the Kshatriya (warrior caste),
then the Vaishya (commoners, usually known as trading and artisan castes), and at the
bottom the Sudra (agricultural labourers) some of whom are beyond the pale of caste and
are known as untouchables. The caste system is not only structural, but has a cultural
dimension as well. (Khushu, Lahiri 112)
The caste system which was introduced in the Indian society, to carry out the smooth
running of its various institutions, slowly lost its motive, and used as a force to suppress the
weak. They are called untouchables, the term which is replaced with ‘Dalits’.
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A quarter of the Indian population is made up of such Dalita, as they call themselves
(Dalit means ‘the oppressed” or ‘the broken’). They do the most menial jobs…. They
have little access to education or health care, and are forced to suffer daily the indignities
of being considered unclean and polluting the rest of the population…. At the same time,
the upper castes exploit them economically, materially, and sexually, and subject them to
constant mental and physical abuse. (Young 119)
This being the cultural practice seen widely in India and it has been transmitted
generation after generation socially committed writer Githa Hariharan remonstrates against this
cultural discrimination.
Hariharan registers in her novel The Ghosts of Vasu Master that people in India are
discriminated in the name of caste and it is conveyed through Ganesan, the neighbour of Vasu
Master’s father who sows the seeds of bigotry in the minds of other Brahmins. He avers, “with
all these other people all over the place, you know (he coughed delicately), we Brahmins must
keep together. Otherwise what’s the use of independence” (239). Hariharan announces her
protest against such inequity in the name of caste through Vasu Master’s father who condemns
such people which indeed gives a peep into the Indian society: “We live in a divided house and
you talk of a bigger, bloodier share. Go if you want- go spread some more of the poison that is
choking all of us” (239). And his questions, “who murdered Gandhi? Who is murdering his
child?” (239), are highly stimulating and thought provoking and these evocative questions
convey the bitter truth that such discriminations in the name of caste aggravate clashes and
creates havoc in the society
Hariharan teases the post-colonial Indian belief that oppressing others and denying them
their human dignity is the best means of survival through her character Venkatesan, the
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colleague of the protagonist of The Ghosts of Vasu Master. It is unfortunate that divine
institutions like the educational systems that promote such discrimination. When Vasu Master
behaved very kindly towards his students, his colleague Vengatesan rebukes him by asking him
not to be so patient and kind with his boys for he feels that, “In a few years they will find out that
there is very little kindness or patience in the world outside”, and so the teachers must equip their
students to get accustomed to the behaviour. He continues that it “would be the kindest thing you
can do for them” (207).
Hariharan very artistically brings forth the truth that anything which goes below or above
the ordinary is reprimanded by the majority and looked down upon by them in this modern
world. As part of their eccentricity, they are renounced as minority and as a result, they become
weaker and their needs are marginalized. The chapter entitled “The Sling in the Scorpion’s Tail”
in the novel reveals symbolically how this weaker section of the society is crushed by the
suppressive evil forces which the author calls as scorpions. However, the little fly Diamond who
represents the weaker strata of society strives hard to eschew the evil effect of scorpions, but it
could not succeed. The singularity of existence is not welcomed by the majority and it is also
symbolically suggested through the hegemonic claim of the scorpion: “the astonishing variety of
insects in Heart of Forest was unnatural; that the different colours of their glow hurt their eyes;
that the forest had lived in perpetual darkness in its golden age a million years ago. Hariharan’s
scorpion stands for that part of society which keeps discrimination alive.
Hariharan too dabbles with the discrimination inflicted on individual in the name of
impoverishment in The Ghosts of Vasu Master. It is “Another great divide one observes in the
society [that creates]… the gulf between the rich and the poor or in the communistic terminology
the divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’. (Pinto 111). At the school in which Vasu
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Master taught, the students are given three different grades of punishment. “The first and
mildest sort was reserved for the sons of the very rich” (46). Hariharan adds that usually it was
only the old rich families that would send their sons to the Convent and Bishop’s Boys School
and Vasu Master’s school “got the rich shop keepers’ sons” and “The teachers were not expected
to punish these boys”, they had to be sent only to the Head Master who “ would lecture to him on
how he was the pride of PG and if he did not behave like a model pupil, who would the other less
fortunate boys look up to” (46-47). The second degrees of the boys are put to work. They do
dusting books, sweeping and to polish the schools’ furniture. “The third and most dire grade of
punishment was reserved for… the poorest boys. Several of them were made to fail year after
year.” (47). Through such writings, Hariharan demonstrates her condemnation against the Indian
educational system which instead of enlightening and guiding the younger generation and
leading them in the path of equality, instils discrimination in the young minds and paves the seed
of marginalizing the weak. Her contempt gets revealed through Vasu Master: “I knew something
of Veera Naidu’s tactics, for example, of luring pupils with rich fathers and squeezing the last
few drops of blood from a poor boy’s family” (101). Hariharan also highlights how such blind
craving for money kindles one to transgress from the path of virtue. She derisively remarks that
Veera Naidu, the Headmaster who has preached “honesty is a pearl, simplicity an uncut
diamond” (152), accepts bribe to make Raman who failed in his examinations pass by accepting
bribe from his father.
Aged people in general are denied self-respect and their right is scampered to a larger
extent. Hariharan also records how aging can also be one of the factors of discrimination that
annihilates one’s identity. This is proven validly through The Ghosts of Vasu Master. It unfolds
how old age and retirement from job makes one like Vasu Master feel marginalized. He deems
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as if he “was on the last page” (5) of his life. He begins to think himself as a lowly creature like a
crow or a mouse or a spider, sometimes even lower than these insects and animals as “they went
about their business” (6), whereas he has nothing to do. As a result, he begins to consider them
especially the mouse as his companion and “had arrived at an unspoken point of co-existence”
(7).
Vasu Master is afflicted with identity crisis that comes to many along with old age.
Hariharan insinuates this beautifully through an incident in which he looks at his wife’s mirror.
He appears a stranger to himself and describes that the stranger “had grey, thinning hair. His face
was scarred: pock marks, creases, a map of lines and grills” (40). The eyes are the most striking
one. They look as though “They were a [sick] hounded animals” (40), which verbalizes his lack
of self respect. It affects his career as a teacher also. His pupils also resent respecting him. All
these bitter experiences along with the physical weakness which makes him comment
pessimistically “I could see (and still see) how tempting the gods are. Luckily, I found it difficult
to succumb to this temptation. (They are all but stomachs, and we all but food: They eat us
hungrily and when they are full, they belch us)” (99). Generally, all human beings believe that
god is there to provide help and protect them, but the contrary view expressed by Vasu Master
explains how affected and marginalized he is. He laments over the fruitlessness of life. He
perceives life as a race. “The only way we know (and teach) is running an obstacle-race. You
jump over a hurdle only to find you are facing the next. Battle again; then yet another hurdle. To
overcome each, you need the password someone else made up” (119).
The intensity of marginalization that Vasu Master undergoes is beautifully articulated by
contrasting it with the resilience and confidence displayed by young Gopu, the brother of Mani.
Hariharan presents how Vasu Master’s timidity and lack of ambition drive him to the margin of
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life whereas, ambitious people like Gopu get priority. And Vasu Master expresses his
vulnerability thus: “In spite of my nightly tussles with the ideas of guru and shishya, I became
Mani in the presence of Gopu. I faced a wall, not blank however, but inscribed with labels,
jargon, rhetoric” (162). Gopu’s presence always makes him uncomfortable. He “quavered at the
thought” of Gopu as of “a gun or a homemade bomb” (162). His anxiety is conveyed at her best
through the story of Bandicoot that the weak one will be haunted and destroyed by the strong.
The miserable life such weak ones lead in a society is illustrated thus: “… fear is the millstone
round every neck Venkatesan, Mani and I – and perhaps even Gopu…- are weighed down by
these private monsters. We live in a perpetual state of siege; or even open warfare” (181). This
fear crushes his spirit and undergoes total loss of identity and he laments pathetically “I – where
did I or Mani for that matter, fit in this battlefield” (189).
Hariharan shows how a little deviance from normalcy also deprives people of their self-
esteem and ushers in discrimination by the majority. The delineation of her character Mani
provides ample evidence for it. He is marginalized by everyone in the society just because he
looks a little different. His head is little different. It is a bit longer than the rest of the body. This
results in the reaping of humiliation by this simple soul. Hariharan tries hard to hide her anguish
against the inhuman attitudes of even the well educated people like the teachers and thus she
expresses her protest against this inhuman practice: as the result of Mani’s eccentricity “The
children in school (and let me add with anguish, even the teachers) made fun of him” (9). To
protect himself this Mani becomes violent. “…he used his big hard head like a charging bull and
butted anyone who spoke to him or came near him” (9). Thus, Mani becomes a subaltern just
because he is slow to pick up things. He is also expelled from several schools and is also beaten
continuously. “He was forgotten for days together. Caned, shouted at, ignored, tied up, he grew
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into a restless, untrusting boy. He was wary of everyone, and almost never opened his mouth
except to eat” (9). Worst of all discriminations, “His father had learnt to forget about him,
turning his attention instead to his two other sons” (11).
How Mani is neglected and marginalized in his own home evokes pity. His parents do not
bother to give him the food that he likes. Hariharan unravels the negligence Mani experienced at
his home and it is emotively conveyed thus by Vasu Master: when Mani is hungry he prepares
food and “added large spoonfuls of sugar to everything. (As I watched him eat, I knew that I was
right. My poor boy, deprived of kind words and caresses, had a sweet tooth)” (227). The worst
kind of neglect that Mani receives at home is narrated by the author in saying how one day
everyone at his home forgets to take him home after his class and he sleeps with Vasu Master.
The next day Mani’s brother comes to fetch him and his behaviour surprises the master. The
brother “did not seem surprised that no one had come for Mani; nor did he ask why I had not
taken him home myself” (228). This explains how little Mani is cared at by his own family. This
sort of marginalization belittles Mani to the status of “a hounded animal, always on the alert,
might do when it identifies danger and prepares itself for escape” (13). He finds himself unable
to sit in a place and study. “He wandered around the small room, a strange captive animal” (13).
The physical deformity relegates Mani to the status of an animal that too hunted or captive
animal, easily vulnerable.
Hariharan suggests that Mani does not deserve such a bitter treatment. A little deed of
benevolence will help him acquire a normal life. This is implicated through Vasu Master whose
stories help Mani attain peace. When Vasu Master opens his mouth to tell a story, “All his
agitation was stilled; his restlessness vanished. He sat down, his mouth slipped open, and he took
off slowly, smoothly on some inward voyage I could make possible, flag off, but never share”
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(94). However, the society is not ready to extend a helping hand to them and as a result people
like Mani suffers and the intensity of their sufferings is best communicated through the story of
Blue bottle narrated by Vasu Master. The deplorable plight of Mani to establish in the society is
best explained thus: “Before Blue bottle could discern in the natural course of things what being
blue meant, he had been named set apart. To make themselves feel better about it all, the other
flies began to pity him” (104). Even the “father fly said to another “what a responsibility”” (105).
“All civilized countries of the world have abolished slavery as inhuman. But what does
one do when one is born in slavery? Women are born in bondage and are therefore, bonded from
birth” (Chatterji 120). This is indeed true. From time immemorial, women have been relegated to
minority status and irrespective of the locale and time they live in, they are tried to be suppressed
and overpowered by men and rendered silent in this patriarchal social setup.
In the mouth of a man the epithet ‘female’ has the sound of an insult, yet he is not
ashamed of his animal nature; on the contrary, he is proud of someone says of him: ‘He is
a male!’ The term ‘female’ is derogatory not because it emphasizes woman’s animality,
but because it imprisons her in her sex; and …this sex seems to man to be contemptible
and inimical…. (Beauvoir 1)
“Marriage: It is a sanctified bond that is attributed with religious sanction and piety,
blessed with the charm of eternity” (Chatterji 121). However, marriage has been seen as a root
cause for female subjugation and deterioration. They go by the words of Engels who points out
in his The Origin of the Family “that the Latin word “Familia” means the total number of slaves
belonging to one man. Marriage, he says, is not a “reconciliation of man and woman”, but the
subjugation of the female in the interest of perpetuation of slavery and the private property”
(Swami 137). Quite interestingly and if analysed historically
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Our Epics, Vedas and Puranas envisage marriage not as a mere social instrument, but also
as a moral weapon to both stabilize and elevate the moral stature of an individual. But
unfortunately, it is an irony of fate that in a post-modernistic world, such esteemed
institutions are currently subject to doubt, cynicism and erosion (Sarada 57).
However, “…. the institution of marriage occupies a prominent place in the social institution of
India” (Atlantic Review 86).
Hariharan meticulously points out that “If the elite women in a neo-colonial society are
subjugated, the subaltern women are double subjugated. They are designated to mere sex
objects” (Jamuna 191) and they are as Parry points out following Spivak that subaltern female
“is positioned on the boundary between human and animal” (39). It strengthens the view that
“Even the poorest Indian male is fortunate in having opportunities for releasing his impulse to
domination and the fury of his frustrated ego, because he always has a wife whom he can treat as
an inferior” (Swami 135).
If women ever show the audacity to come out of these suffocating relationships, they are
mercilessly crucified by the society which being patriarchal favours only men. Indian society
believes “dependency is feminine, submission is feminine, loyalty is feminine, helplessness is
feminine- and all these are the result of the age-old disease, that of male dominance inside the
family and in the society as whole” (Shankar 91).
Hariharan in her second creation The Ghosts of Vasu Master exhibits marriage as an
institution which denies women their right to a dignified life and brings in ignominy and reduce
them as mere shadows. Shakuntala, a cousin of Vasu Master came to his father for an ayurvedic
treatment. Hariharan describes her as “a frail twenty-year old who had been married a year back”
(15), who retched like anything. She also provides the reason for Shakuntala being so worn out.
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Vasu Master’s grandmother told that it was because “the girl was put to work by her in-laws very
hardly. These words of the novelist very subtly point out that woman’s life is always put to
hardship and lack of concern at her husband’s house. Further she provides the proof by saying
that Shakuntala felt better after coming to Vasu Master’s house and adds that the reason is to be
found if “it was the food or … rasayanam or a chance to rest” (16), which had helped her to
overcome her disease. However, “she died about six months after she returned to her husband’s
family” (16). It implies that it is the lack of care and proper treatment that brought about her
death at this early age of her life.
Hariharan who has painted on her canvas so many causes for marginalizing human
beings continue to register the inabilities forcefully implemented by the society on the traditional
Indian women. She is mostly considered as an unwanted element, a recluse in a patriarchal
Indian family. The life of the protagonist Vasu Master’s mother depicts the social constraints
inflicted on women. A woman’s inability to give birth to a son is considered a crime by the
patriarchal setup. The parents dreaded the society and “they couldn’t bear the thought of people
laughing at them on witnessing their failure” (31) in giving birth to a son. The girl child who is
given birth to instead of the long-awaited boy also has her due share of affliction for no cause of
her own, which haunts the child’s mind till death and results in her deterioration. “According to
Alder, the sense of helplessness in child is exaggerated in two ways. (1) Unsuitable treatment
and unfortunate environment and (2) Organ inferiority. In the case of Vasu Master’s mother, it is
the unfortunate environment- ‘the sixth daughter’ and also unsuitable treatment by parents, the
husband and his kin that leads to the aggravated sense of inferiority” (qtd. in Shinde 123). This
treatment brings three kinds of responses. They are
“(1) Successful compensation
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(2) Defeat or some form of retreat and
(3) Compromise.
Lakshmi failed to compensate for her feeling of inferiority and meekly accepted to succumb to
the pressures and environment. Githa Hariharan is critical of the immediate constraints on
woman’s individual development –the constraints of domestic life and dominating patriarchy”
(Shinde 123).
A woman in the Indian society is denied of an individual identity. Her identity is always
associated with a man who plays various roles in her life as father, husband and son. This is
proven beyond doubt by Hariharan through her character Lakshmi, the mother of Vasu Master.
She “did not have a name for almost a year because her parents did not want to spend money on
a naming ceremony for one more daughter. They also feared that people would laugh at them, for
not producing a son” (123). Finally, a name was supplied by the sweeper woman as Lakshmi,
that too with the hope that she would fill her husband’s house and life with prosperity. This
clearly proves Shashi Deshpande’s words that “Everything in a girl’s life was shaped to that
single purpose of pleasing a male” (The Dark Holds No Place 163) and every Indian “girl is
brought up to think that the least fulfillment out of life can be attained only through wifehood
and motherhood” (Chatterji 6).
Lakshmi was brought up as an unwanted thing in her family that entrenched in her mind
the seed of inferiority complex which took root as she grew up. Vasu Master recalls: “Her
ambitions were on a lower scale- escaping her husband’s unpredictable explosions of temper,
surviving her mother-in-law’s jealous rule of the household” (32) and keeping the house and its
members neat and tidy. “She had never exchanged more than six words” to her neighbours. They
always heard her but whispering: “Lower your voice shut the door. Bathe and change your
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clothes before going out” (32). These were predominantly the words spoken by this lady in all
her life. Such restrictions imposed by the family as well as society ended up in the melting away
of Lakshmi “as a shadow and passed away when she had given her due to her husband”.
Hariharan ironically conveys through Vasu Master that “she lived just about long enough to give
my father his heir, and obviously even that was a shoddy job” (32). Her brought-up has declined
her growth and “she failed to compensate for her feeling of inferiority and meekly accepted to
succumb to the pressures of environment. In portraying the life of Lakshmi, Githa Hariharan
condemns the social constraints of Indian society which impede the growth of women and
reduces them as disabled creatures.
Mangala, Vasu Master’s wife is yet another woman who is reduced to the status of a
ghost, devoid of any identity. She is a submissive character whose presence is scarcely noticed
by her husband. The most unfortunate thing in a woman’s life is her inability to achieve
recognition from the husband, her so called better half. She would have devoted her whole life
for the sake of her husband and children. But no one appreciates her for this. And as Ortner says,
“The secondary status of women in society is one of the true universals, a pan-cultural fact” (qtd.
in Bharucha 94). Vasu Master lived with her for fifteen years, she gave him two sons and in
spite of that he confesses that she was to him “a cloudy memory than a person…. Pale and
insubstantial, a figure perennially on the retreat” (41). She was to him a mere provider of
physical comfort and never gave her any importance. He remembers how when he was laid on
bed with fever, “she would hover around my bed with strips of cloth dipped in cold water when I
lay groaning with a fever; on she would sit up, night after night mending the boy’s shorts and my
vests…” (123). Still she is not remembered by the unthankful husband. Though she has done so
much to him and his family, his “most vivid memory is her death” (122). Hariharan
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unmistakably suggests that it is not because death is something that lingers in his mind. For she
illustrates that “Though I laid the log of fire on my father’s broad chest that would swell and
heave no longer, I rarely think of him as dead” (122). On the other hand his mother and wife who
devoted their life in his service were “unnoticeable; inconspicuous,… memorable only as an
absence” (123). Vasu Master has very vague idea about “what she actually was. But he in her
absence thinks about “what she might have been” (123). How Mangala lacked the very essential
quality of individuality and how deep her sense of loneliness is suggested by the author thus:
“She said very little about either her belief or her fears” (138). As days went by, she became
more passive. “She went about her daily tasks as wife and mother with a delicate, feministic
modesty. It was only after she had died,” that they “could not fill her place, even the three of us
put together” (138). But while alive Mangala is a ‘pale and insubstantial’, ‘a figure perennially
on the retreat’. (41). Vasu Master recalls how his wife seemed more a ghost than human to him
thus: “I always saw her in my mind against a seashore in the background, the monotonous slosh
and thud of waves against rock and sand drowning out all possibility of words” (41).
As a typical Indian husband, Vasu Master purposely ignores her individuality and so she
remains “the awful unknown, never bothering to know her real woman-being, always dismissing
her as an insignificant person” (Shinde 124). Vasu master reminisces: “She was unnoticeable,
inconspicuous; like my mother, memorable only as an absence. I knew my wife and my affection
for her only when I lived with her ghost. This ghost had a frail, vapour body; made more
insubstantial by my lapses of memory about what she actually was” (123). But he remembers
very well Jameela, the friend of his wife, whom he has very seldom seen. This has happened in
Mangala’s life just because she is so weak that she even fails to assert her personality as a wife
and mother just as any typical woman in India. This reduces her identity and self-respect and
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drives her to the status of ghost whose presence is not at all recognized by the living and hence
ends up in mute suffering. This makes Virginia Woolf’s claim highly appreciable. She aptly
commented “that women as a class “are comparable to the humblest domestic servants…” and as
Virginia Woolf suggested “that women may be likened the lowliest, and most familiar subject
race of all” (qtd. in Saini 99).
It is this insignificance of her existence that makes Vasu Master spit out, “Jameela
slipped out of my life, so did Mangala as a vivid, tangible woman. Henceforth she would only be
an image- and a ghostly one at that” (70). Such sour remarks of the protagonist of Hariharan’s
text seem to register the resentment of the author against women who are meek enough to bear
anything and every thing and she avows that this attitude renounces them as handicaps. This
thought has been echoed by Shinde who opines that “Both Mangala and Vasu Master’s mother
Lakshmi were unable to assert their right to separateness of being and this led to their mute
suffering” (124). She also criticizes men’s strange love and consideration for women other than
their wives. To Vasu Master his wife is a mere shadow and thus easily dispensed with, whereas
her friend Jameela whom he has met very rarely lingered in his mind and he longs for the
warmth of her body. His mind longs for her “it cried aloud, where are you? Why are you
hiding?” (132). Through the portrayal of Vasu Master’s married life, Githa Hariharan suggests
that
man always struggles to make woman part of himself, the extension of his will. The
knowledge that she is other than himself is torture to him. He never tries to unravel the
mystery that she is and to know the reality of her and this consequently leads to the
distance in the relationship. What is needed is the acceptance of woman’s otherness.
(Shinde 124).
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Hariharan also proves that man never loses any opportunity to exploit women by
adapting any tactics. The story of Eliamma explains this. An invisible man cheats her by
professing help in The Ghosts of Vasu Master. Here the insatiable quest for freedom for a woman
is beautifully represented by Eliamma who, fed up with restrictions comes forward to pledge her
body to a man believing his words that he would return the body if she demands it back after a
month. Eliamma too in her enthusiasm to travel far into the sea falls a prey before his sweet
coated words. She enjoys a few weeks but soon she realizes “why the stranger has been so
generous; so quick to part with his riches: to be completely invisible was to be lonely in a way
the living did not know” (130). ). And as has been rightly remarked by Shinde, “Eliamma’s story
points also to woman’s aspirations which are either totally ignored or deliberately suppressed by
the dominating man” (128). This story also has a hidden threat which suggests that the life of an
ambitious woman would be punished beyond redemption.
Hariharan through this novel The Ghosts of Vasu Master remonstrates the patriarchal
social set-up of India which restricts women and emerges herself as woman with feministic
disposition. She feels the immediate urge to fight against the atrocities done to her fellow sex.
Talking about it she has remarked: “I have considered myself part of the Indian Women’s
movement for the last twenty years…. To begin with as a student in the mid-seventies, my
political concerns more almost exclusively directed and shaped by feminism. Perhaps this was
because I was then a student, in America, and this was the time of passionate debate of ERA
(Equal Rights Amendment) and so forth. But once I returned to India in 1978, I saw that any real
participation in movements for social change had to come to terms with the big class-gender
issue” (Tejero 207).
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Githa Hariharan, being a feminist does not seem to sympathize with this type of women
who willingly subjugate themselves to the whims and fancies of man. She seems to invoke the
message that a woman should aspire to become independent and assertive like the grandmother
of Vasu Master. She was a strong-willed woman, who had a definite concept of her own, never
yielding to the unjust dominance of her husband or her son. Vasu master recalls his grandmother
thus: “My grandmother was a thin, shriveled old woman whose flesh hung over her sharp-edged
bones. She was a formidable bully. Even when her knobby hands stroked my head in a rare
caress they poked and prodded, all knives and Knukkles” (34). She used food as medicine and
ate chilies as medicine and ate them raw. “She looked a little like chilly herself- thin, long and
sharp-nosed, with grasping hands, a stinging tongue and teeth that jutted out her mouth as if she
would swoop down on you any minute and bite” (35). Defying her husband’s protest she donated
her gold bangles to the freedom struggle. She also had the potential to flout the wrongs
committed by men and to take challenges. Above all, it is her view about a husband that reveals
her traits of a feministic self. She views that a husband is “Just a hungry stomach and a few other
things, never mind what. But all equally greedy, swallowing like a big red swollen mouth, then
chewing and belching” (174). This reveals her undaunted spirit, and this supplies uniqueness to
her character. As Sushila Singh asserts in “Recent Trends in Feminist Thought: A Tour de
Horizon” “Women have been able to carve out a separate space of their own” (31) Vasu Master’s
grandmother “does that even in domestic sphere” (130). The powerful portrayal of this bold and
spicy grandmother also suggests that Hariharan wants the women to proclaim their mettle in this
patriarchal set-up for which she is well equipped for. But very few women have the courage to
overcome their disabilities inflicted by the society as well as by their own traditional brought up.
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The close analysis thus makes it evident that however one cries for gender equality and
identity “The Indian traditions do not support her at all during her struggle to redefine herself”.
(Mukesh 197). And it is no exaggeration to comment that:
the poor status of women, their oppression and exploitation, cannot be examined as an
isolated problem in Indian society. Although the status of women constitutes a problem in
the rigidly hierarchical and inequitable social structure which exist in India, the relative
inferiority superiority of various roles is much more clearly defined. The inequality and
subordination of women is an instrument or function of the social structure. (qtd. in
Khatri 96)
Yet she “has to work for her liberation without resigning herself to her destiny” (Mukesh 197).
Thus, a study on Hariharan’s novel The Ghosts of Vasu Master unveils number of factors
that deny equality to people, who eke out an existence of endless struggle to survive in the highly
discriminatory social scenario. In taking up the voice of the voiceless, Hariharan strongly
remonstrates the power ridden society, demanding it to display empathy for the subaltern and
thereby cry for tolerance and equalityto be established in the society making it a better abode for
every inhabitant.
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Hariharan, Gita. The Ghosts of Vasu Master. Viking, 1994.
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of Vasu Master.” Contemporary Indian Women Writers in English: A
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