CHAPTER EIGHT

CONCLUSION

This is a concluding chapter of the study. Sudha Murty has been writing for more than ten years now and has been publishing regularly. This study has critically analyzed, interpreted and commented upon the literary works of Sudha Murty which include four novels, two novellas and four collections of short stories. Sudha Murty came into limelight with the publication of her first novel, Dollar Bahu in 2005 and since then she became one of the notable writers in Indian English. She got the following awards for her writings.

1) „Attimabbe‟ award for her book „Computer for School Children‟ in

2) „Karnataka Rajyotsava State Award‟ for her achievement in the field of literature

and social work.

3) „Millennium Mahila Shiromani‟ Award

4) R. K. Narayan Award for Literature in 2006

5) Doctor of Laws in 2011

Awards she got for her literary writings show her place and potentials in the field. No serious study in Indian English Literature can proceed without taking into consideration her contribution to the area.

The first chapter of the thesis is introductory in nature. It explained the meaning of the term „Critical Study‟ in the beginning. E. M. Forster in his seminal book Aspects of Novel has specified four important aspects of fiction as theme, characterization, narrative

265 devices and setting. Murty‟s literary works have been analyzed from these four perspectives. The study explained the meaning of these terms in the first chapter to facilitate the critical analysis of the works in the succeeding chapters. Various themes that she dealt with, her art of characterization, narrative techniques she employed and setting of her novels have been commented upon in the main body of thesis. Beides literary writings, Murty has done the voluminous writings in non fictional area. Sudha Murty herself has divided her writings in three major categories. They are fiction, non-fiction and child fiction. The study did not take into consideration her non fictional works for critical analysis.

MAJOR THEMES

Social, cultural and historical forces in the home country have their immediate and inevitable impact on the choice of themes for the writers. Indian writers like Mulk Raj

Anand and R K Narayan wrote on the poverty, superstitions, child marriages, illiteracy before independence. Raja Rao dealt with the cumulative effect of freedom struggle on

Indian villages during Gandhian era in Kanthapura. Brutal happenings during partition of the land became major issues in the writings of Khushwant Singh, Chaman Nahal,

Manohar Malgonkar in the fifties of the last century. Rajeev Patake suggested “We could do with fewer novels on British Raj, on partition and communal riots, on child marriages and sutti, on the Englishman in and Indian abroad.”1

Whirlwind of globalization in India and its damaging effects on the domestic and social fabric had to be dealt with by the writers towards the end of the twentieth century. SM was the most eligible person to handle the theme of eroding effects of liberalization on

266 the Indian youth as she herself was closely involved in the process of globalization through her Information Technology company .

Sudha‟s marriage with legendary Narayan Murty and her active association with the voluntary social services through have an indelible impact on her writing. Her themes emerged out of her first hand experience of the individuals working in the field of Information Technology. India gave up its pernicious lease and license policy and plunged into new competitive world economy. It brought innumerable opportunities to the doorstep of new generation in India. Sudha Murty dealt with the theme of eroding effects of the globalization on the domestic relations in neo-rich couples in the new era in India.

Chandru in Dollar Bahu, Anand in Mahashweta, Sanjay in House of Cards and Shrikant in Gently Falls the Bakula came from struggling middle class families. Chandru obtained highest Bachelor‟s degree in Information Technology and migrated to America with his wife for better career opportunities there. Shrikant acquired a Bachelor‟s degree in

Technology and rose to a position of Vice President of a multinational company in India.

Anand and Sanjay became specialized doctors through tireless striving. This shows that

Ms Murty chose to write on the boys and girls who took advantage of the liberalizing atmosphere in India. But the same boys were spoiled by the money and position they got in the latter part of their life.

The boys protagonists of her novels got married with the girls of their choice without being unduly pressurized by the old fashioned members of their families. Though there were some hick ups, they overcame them and had their weddings in traditional manners.

267

Anand got married with Anupama because he liked her melodious voice and stage skills.

In spite of initial opposition, Sanjay and Mridula got married due to their unadulterated affection for each other. The same was true about Shrikant and Chandru.

Sudha Murty has successfully demonstrated that all the couples led happy and contented life through their attachment to each other in paucity. Financial needs kept them together in the initial phase of their married life. Tables turned with the unexpected influx of money in their life. It made them phobia restless to have more of it. The four boys in four novels of Sudha Murty who were deeply concerned with and sincerely possessed by the four respective girls in their life, gradually drifted away from them. They had neither love nor inclination to have amiable dialogue with their wives. The promises that they had made to each other and vows that they had taken were conveniently forgotten by their rich and reputed husbands.

Life of the lovers that had started with big hopes ended in disillusionment and separation.

The richness made the boys arrogant to their wives and other members of the family.

They were blinded to the domestic facts of life. Money became their God and they were ready to do anything to propitiate it, because they had experienced the truth that Goddess of Lakshami was more venerated than the Goddess of Saraswati in modern times. The moral values lost their significance in their life. Ethical practices became a thing of bygone days for them. Dr. Sanjay who fought against rampant corruption in government hospitals began to practice unjustifiable treatment to the patients in his private hospital.

Money corrupted all of them and this is what Sudha Murty highlighted in her novels.

268

Husbands in Chandru, Anand, Shrikant and Sanjay forgot to keep the promises that they had given to their wives before their marriages. When their wives reminded them of the days before marriage, husbands had no time to heed to them. They unexpectedly became arrogant to their own wives, which created a chasm in their relations. The gap gradually widened and resulted into their separation.

Modern day mantra is 24x07. The aspirants ran from pole to post first in search of lucrative jobs and then in order to keep them. It must be noted in all the four novels that the boys had to cut off their filial relations with their parents and other close relatives in order to be able to run at will. Chandru was so busy in his work in America that he hardly spoke to his mother Gauramma there. Anand did not have much to do with his mother

Radhakka in India. He avoided communication with her when he was in the US.

Sudha Murty has been successful in bringing out the brutal effects of money on family relations in modern India. She showed that Indians have become globalized but their perspective remained stagnant at local level. They equated their success with the amount of money they earned and spent. Sometimes it meant severing their ties with their close relatives. Wife, sister, brother, mother and father were gauged and evaluated only by the financial yardstick and measurements. It acquired the most hideous dimension in Gently

Falls the Bakula when Shrikant squashed the thought of having a child because he felt that it will work as an impediment in his personal progress. He did not accept his wife‟s request to have a child because he thought it as a challenge to his autocratic nature.

Sudha Murty has shown the dark side of globalization in India. Indian culture for a long time believed in mutual cooperation and peaceful coexistence. The agrarian nature of the

269

Indian economy created and maintained the community life. Their life blossomed along with the blooming of crops in fields. The surrounding goats, dogs, cows, bullocks and buffalos were the part and parcel of their existence. They breathed together. Though these people did not voice their concerns for their wives, they had deep seated sense of belonging to each other, particularly to the women section of the family. Honour of the family was closely linked with the honour of the girls and women of the family.

All this was blasted and torn off into pieces by the advent of air- conditioned wooden offices and lifeless gadgets there. People lost direct contacts with each other and preferred to establish virtual world around them. As a result they have online followers but not close blood relations. Sudha Murthy‟s men protagonists refrained from personal and public talk with others. Two lovers wrote to each other before marriage. Shrikant wrote emotionally charged love letters from Bnagalore to Shrimati in Bhandiwad. Anand sent letters to Anupama regularly before marriage. Sanjay depended upon Mridula in the initial phase of their married life. Anand and Anupama took a round to Elephanta Caves in Bombay before marriage. Suddenly marriages changed the attitudes of the boys to their erstwhile girlfriends who became their wives.

Second major theme in her novels is the destructive effects of marriage on women. Sudha

Murty did not advocate the resurrection of old value system and family structure of bygone days. She neither said nor suggested that modern technological world was essentially bad and must be abandoned. Though she seemed to be disappointed with the changes in personal relations in modern India, she did not expect the old world to return.

She expected the new world to modify itself by picking the best from the old.

270

Sudha Murty wrote on love-cum-arranged marriages in all her novels. Shrikant-Shrimati,

Chandru and Jamuna, Anand-Anupama, Shrikant and Shrimati, and Sanjay-Mridula got married through close acquaintances and adolescent passion. Sudha Murty believed in the age honoured marriage system in India which took the elders of the house into confidence. She showed the ideal blending of traditions and modernity in marriages in all her works. Her male protagonists and their parents consulted horoscope experts before finalizing the marriages. This showed her belief in the spirit of domestic harmony through marriages. At the same time, quite unusual to the traditions, boy‟s side took the responsibility of wedding expenses. Marriage for Sudha Murty has been a pious convention that brought together two families along with the concerned boy and girl.

In spite of all this, marriage has an eroding and belittling effect on the girls, because “For ages, it was seen that the institute of marriage has proved beneficial for the male members of the society and led to gradual cessation of women‟s identity. Marriage is a patriarchal weapon with the help of which the male member of the society acted for complete subversion and obliteration of woman by determining her code of behavior and boundaries of her space, exclusions and invisibility etc. All these were used as strategic devices for patriarchy to fore ground the image of ideal woman.”2

Sudha Murty did not advocate the resurrection of old value system and family structure of bygone days. She neither said nor suggested that modern technological world is essentially bad and must be abandoned. Though she seemed to be disappointed with the changes in personal relations in modern India, she did not expect the old world to return.

She expected the new world to modify itself by picking the best from the old.

271

CHARACTERIZATION

Characterization is an art of showing various shades and sides of characters in the work of art. Introduction to, development of and ultimate impression of characters demonstrate the writer‟s skills in characterization. Skill with which writer narrates the inside and outside of characters decide the success or failure of writing. Shakespeare was a master of character delineation in which he brought out different moods and emotions of his characters. Personality of an individual is a sum total of his emotions, attitudes, actions and reactions. His/her physical as well as mental make is important in his/her character sketch. Living human being carries the feelings of anger, love, sadness, happiness, apathy, desperation and satisfaction etc. Person is affected by forces like success and failure in its personal and professional life. No human being is an exception to the vagaries of his / her nature.

Success of the work of art depends upon the writer‟s skill to bring out the whole of the characters‟ personalities. Writer uses linguistic and stylistic devices to present characters.

The events and happenings that the writer describes, monologues and dialogues that writer sows in between plain narrations, involvement and distance of writer from characters are the deciding factors of the effectiveness of the characters in a work of art.

First appreciable thing about Murty‟s writing is that she chose the boys and girls from the emerging field like Information Technology and Medicine in India. She chose youthful boys and girls from lower middle class families from rural background and showed their journey from struggling individuals to economically well placed persons. Shrikant came from Bhandiwad, Anand and Chandru from suburb Jayanagar, Sanjay from Aladhalli.

272

These boys strove hard in the formative years of their life to pick a job and later on to stick to it. The same boys failed to maintain integrated personality after they settled down in life. Success made them blind to the actual facts of life.

Secondly, boys and girls in Murty‟s novels took limited liberty in their love adventures.

Chance meeting commenced their affair and traditional marriage ended it. Anand in

Mahashweta met Anupama in his professor‟s house, Shrikant and Shrimati fell in love during their college days. Sanjay met Mridula in a train. The pairs had no courage to ignore their respective families in transforming their affairs into marriages. Elders of the families matched their horoscopes before celebrating their marriages in traditional fashions.

Sudha Murty knew the Indian social and cultural conditions very well. She knew that newly educated boys and girls in India were attracted towards new fangled ideas like friendship, companionship, love etc. The same boys and girls however did not go against their parents wishes in finalizing their marriages. Lovers and beloveds in these novels belonged to the same castes and had compatible horoscopes. This showed that her characters enjoyed limited freedom only. Murty did not choose revolutionary characters and revolutionary themes. Her characters were the mixture of old and new. If we observed the nature of Indian boys and girls of the nineties of the last century, we find that Sudha Murty‟s characters befitted her themes and settings.

There are quite a few shortcomings in Sudha Murty‟s art of characterization. Though she chose the right characters to suit theme, she failed to delineate them properly. She demonstrated only the linear progress of her protagonists. All of them struggled to stand

273 in their life in the beginning, they succeeded in getting lucrative jobs, ultimately they withdrew from the challenges of life. Boys and girls who were lively human beings in their twenties gradually became machine employees in their thirties. They could not laugh with anybody, share their feelings with others, go for long trips with the members of the family or participate in social functions. Life for them had only one meaning.

Money and position became their only Gods. The same gods pushed them into sufferings.

It brought self imposed aloofness in them.

Sudha Murty did not portray different features and trends of characters in her novels. She could have shown her characters in different events and situations in order to bring out their actions and reactions to them. After all real character of a person is tested in outdoor conditions. Murty‟s protagonists, with a few meager exceptions do not laugh, quarrel, discuss, argue or express themselves in loud voices. The so-called success in their jobs pacified them to such an extent that they seemed to have lost the virility of life. That is why we find a silent cry in her protagonists. Shrimati left Shrikant, Anupama chose her own way of life by leaving Anand, Mridula broke away from Sanjay. Boy protagonists seemed lost in such emergency circumstances. Though they met their estranged spouses later, they did not know exactly what to do to persuade them to accept them once again.

Their life had taught them only to do their jobs with meticulous regularity by completely ignoring other aspects of life.

Term character, like a word personality is an open ended and multidimensional. It includes internal and external features of a person. Person‟s anatomical features like complexion, height, weight etc. come under external features. Though all these are important aspects of personality, they do not make the entire personality. Emotional and

274 attitudinal make up of a person, his/her approach to interpersonal communication, his/her reactions to happenings in the world, his/her reactions to environment, the role he/she plays in shaping others, speed with which he adjusts to the changes are all important dimensions of character. Writer has to build a character in a score of situations placing it in the context of other persons. Sudha Murty could not do it. Her characters are not seen beyond their families and houses. That is why her characters become lopsided. Sanjay,

Shrikant and Anand do not have anybody to go to in the face of personal calamity.

Cahndru seemed tongue tied in front of his wife and mother.

Construction of a plot and process of characterization go hand in hand. Major characters of Sudha Murty are flat and minor ones are like wooden blocks. Plot becomes complicated obscure and challenging in proportion to the character building. Murty‟s men came from ordinary social and financial background. Their personal striving stretched them to mundane success. They got married and settled down in life. Murty‟s girls also carried an ordinary path of life. They fell in love secretly with compatible boys.

There were no serious challenges to their love affairs. Hence they succeed in getting married with the boys of their choice. Distance was created between the two within a short time after their marriage. Story ended with their separation. There were no great upheavals in their life.

Thus Murty has presented the factual picture of new Indian middle class youth in all her novels. India‟s social, political and economic picture has drastically changed after the introduction of globalization. Though it has become easy for Indians to migrate from rural places to urban places recently, it has created problems in domestic life. Individuals

275 are leaving the places and unfortunately their roots also. The emerging picture has found its role in the characters of Sudha Murty.

NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE

Sudha Murty has been a very good story teller in the traditional Indian fashion. Sudha

Murty assumed a large group of listeners belonging to various age groups in front while weaving stories of daily concerns. She took her audience into confidence by choosing the language that appealed to them. She never deviated from the chosen topic and related arguments. That is why she seemed to be talking to the audience rather than writing for the readers.

The old Indian stories always had moral tag attached to them. They carried the simultaneous function of entertainment and instruction. Characters were generally divided into good and bad having a conflict between the two. The ultimate result was a victory of good over bad. Sudha Murty did not deviate from this pattern. She chose virtuous characters in Anandand Anupama, Shrikant and Shrimati, Sanjay and Mridula,

Chandru and Jamuna. Pairs fell in love and then duly got married without much ado.

They settled in life. Money and success maddened them later on which resulted into their separation. There is a message for the readers that money has monstrous effect on the close domestic relations in India.

Sudha Murty‟s plots in these four novels have interesting beginning, prolonged middle and satisfying end. All her novels have predictable beginnings and equally predictable ends. The action always moves forward. Though she narrated the memories of the past

276 sometimes, she did not extend it too much. This shows that Murty did not want to tax her readers with backward and forward movements of characters and incidents in their life.

Though she did not use figurative language in narration, she did use literary devices like symbols, metaphors, anecdotes, allusions etc. to enrich the stuff. Bakula in Gently Falls the Bakula symbolized nature‟s force to unite. Bakula united not only the two lovers in

Shrikant and Shrimati but also united two enemies in two Dehspandes. Sudha Murty wanted to suggest that nature brought two opposite ends together but the avarices of man spoiled the natural fragrance of relations. Shrikant and Shrimati were basically good.

That is why they could share each other‟s academic successes openly. Goodness in them transformed the long standing enmity into close companionship. The same bakula fell slowly. Nature lost its basic goodness in the rude forces of bazaar economy. Shrikant could not stick to his initial goodness after he acquired success.

Sudha Murty has employed a straight forward narrative technique in all her writings. Her children fiction constituted child like innocence in its narration. This happened because

Sudha Murty believed in the reformative and instructive function of fiction. Whether art is for art‟s sake or it is for the sake of society is an old debate. Without going into it,

Sudha Murty looked at its social dimension. She has always shown the conflict between good and bad, old and new, between tradition and modernity, between male and female and even between woman and woman. Nature of conflict was simple. It did not contain the metaphysical questions of existence. Sudha Murty believed in the enormous power of education to elevate one‟s economical and social status in India. Murty therefore selected her male and female protagonists from middle class milieu. Shrikant, Sanjay, Anand and

Chandru were graduates. Their wives were also graduates. Murty showed their journey

277 from struggling young boys to arrogant though successful individuals. Sudha Murty used the similar pattern in all her works. Hence one can affirm that her narrative style has an element of predictability.

Sudha Murty is thoroughly familiar with the customs, conventions and traditions of the rural Indians. She was well versed with their superstitions and blind beliefs. They strongly believed in caste and gender discriminations. Horoscopes played major role in deciding the crucial domestic matters. Her boys and girls did fall in love but could get married only after matching their horoscopes. All this is reflected in her narration.

The most noticeable feature in the depiction of literary material is the writer‟s careful distance from it. It is true that Sudha Murty has used mouthpieces. But she kept her distance from them. She refrained from commenting upon their customs and conventions.

She did not pass value judgments. She seemed neither for nor against the people who followed these practices.

Sudha Murty firmly believed in the principle of victory for good and defeat for bad. Good for her was the old family structure, value based education system and respect for woman. Bad for her comprised of arrogance, corrupt practices, inhuman dealings with one‟s own people. She made wrongdoers repent in the end.

Epistolary nature of her writing is obvious in all her novels. Shrikant and Shrimati exchanged the deep feelings of their first love through postal mode secretly. It served two purposes. It contained a message of mutual attachment in the face of family feud. It also saved them from being exposed. It is noticeable that neither of them referred to these letters after their marriage. Sanjay in House of Cards also wrote a letter to Mridula with

278 an apprehension that she would be wild with his unilateral love. Anupama in

Mahashweta in distress at home wrote a confidential letter to Anand in England, looking for some immediate help from him. Chandru in Dollar Bahu wrote a letter from the USA to Vinuta in India requesting her to wait for him to marry. Sudha Murty used letters in all her four novels for four different reasons.

Shrikant and Shrimati‟s letters continued and confirmed their infatuation. Anupama‟s letter to Anand contained a pitiable appeal for help. Sanjay‟s letter to Mridula was a careful proposal for marriage. Vinuta‟s letter was just an initiative to start in life. Except

Shrikant and Shrimati other three letters were not responded to by their recipients.

There is an element of anachronism in a sense that people involved in correspondence came from the field of Information Technology and Medicine. They must have been acquainted with modern computer based technology. Why is it that they did not communicate through e-mails. Sending letters by post carried the elements of uncalled for slyness or of an unnecessary formality.

Sudha Murty has alluded to Indian mythological figures like Hanuman (GFB-09), Arjuna

(GFB-21), Sita and Draupadi (HOC-167) to describe the character stick features of

Shrikant and Mridula. There are references to the Goddess of Lakshami in HOC (162).

Jamuna in DB was venerated as Mahalakshami initially by Gauramma (54). Anupama in

Mahashweta glorified her love for Anand as, “My love for him is as firm as Himalayas and as clear as the waters of Manasarovar.”3

Sometimes she referred to Indian cultural traditions like Buddha Purnima, Narasimha

Chaturthi (HOC-44). Gouramma carried Hindu panchanga to America in order to be able

279 to find out auspicious and ominous days there. She looked at America as a place of

Nirvana (72) a final destination for a mortal being in India. The title of a novel

Mahashweta came from Bana Nhatt‟s Kabambari (13). There are references to Kalidas, his birth place Ujjain in GFB (111). The Indian flowers Bakula and Parijataka have been personified in DB (10). All this showed that Sudha Murty‟s writing is firmly rooted in

Indian soil in all respects.

Sudha Murty has used an element of surprise and coincidence in all her novels. Sanjay was possessed by the melodious and lingering voice of Mridula. He found her hair band to keep his memory alive. (HOC-23). Chandru was travelling by train to Dharwad.

Vinuta had boarded the same train. Incidentally, they were allotted the same berth G-

28(03). Shrimati and Shrikant, the two competitors in school travelled by the same compartment of a train from to Dharwad. (25) Anupama met Dr. Anand at Dr.

Desai‟s bungalow by chance, which joined them together in wedding knot later.

Sudha Murty has ended all her novels dramatically. Gouramma landed in India from

America. She opened the purse to retrieve the keys. Hundred Dollar bill fell out. Writer ended the novel with, “The invincible Dollar had fallen-----“4 The novel Mahashweta ended with a former actress Anupama playing the role of a director of the same play.

Shrimati left Shrikant because there was no other way left for her by Shrikant. He saw

Shrimati‟s plane fly over his head in Bandra sky helplessly. Though Mridula left Sanjay in fury, she hoped that Sanjay would rectify his mistake. She dreamt, “Sanjay was holding the swing with his one good arm.” 5

280

Sudha Murty liked to play the role of social reformer rather than a famous writer in the presentation of her material in novels and short stories. She put forward the importance of timely help to the poor and needy in her stories. She also conveyed the message of unity in all the sections of the family in modern India in order to reap the rich dividends of modernization and liberalization of Indian economy. .

SETTING

As Sudha Murty herself has mentioned in a preface to Gently Falls the Bakula, she purposefully set her novels in the rural parts of Karnataka state. Shrimati and Shrikant both came from Bhadiwad and Anupama from Aladhalli. Sudha Murty has been well acquainted with the life of rural people, their customs, conventions and traditions, their festivals and ceremonies. She made use of all this knowledge to present behavioural patterns of her characters. The marriages mentioned in her works are fixed after confirming the validity of horoscopes of the concerned boys and girls. Gouramma carried panchanga to America to celebrate Nag Panchami, Narli Pournima, Lakshami Pooja and

Deepawali there.

Sudha Murty has used the actual places, the really existing locations as the settings of her works. She did not create „imaginary maps‟ as described by G N Devy in his article on

Mahashweta Devi in Indian Express on 28th July 2016. Unlike R. K. Nrayan‟s „Malgudi‟ her Bhandiwad and Adalhalli, and Bombay are available on Indian GPS.

There is a remarkable difference between the people from villages and those from cities.

Village women many times are engaged in harmless gossiping. Anupama got vitiligo after marriage. It became a topic for public talk. Her husband did not remain in contacts

281 with his wife and mother in India. Women alleged him of having extra marital relations there in England.

Sanjay‟s mother (HOC) invested her money in chit fund to gain exorbitant interest.

Shrikant‟s mother (GFB) gave private loans to villagers at heavy interest rates. Marriage negotiations were an integral part of villagers‟ socio-cultural life. All the four couples in all the four novels could get married only after the consent of the elders of the families.

All this showed that Bhandiwad, Aladhalli, Jayanagar were not mere names in

Geography of Karnataka. They had their own characterstick features which Sudha Murty made use of in the best possible ways.

Sudha Murty has also made use of metropolitan cities like Bangalore and Bombay for the setting of her novels. Aborigines of these cities lead self complacent and secluded life without any interest in other human beings whereas the migrants to these places carry over their rural habits there. Anupama was helped by Sumibecause both had rural background. Gouramma in America reached out to Indian women like Rupa and Malati,

Mridula was helped by Anita during the times of her distress.

MAJOR FINDINGS

Sudha Murty has dealt with the new Indian woman and her relations with her husband, other members of the family and the society in the age of globalization. All of them have got married with the boys of their choice with the consent of the elders. But relationship between the same girl and her husband later on becomes tense to the point of break.

Unfortunately, the main victim of the clash is the girl. Who loses her identity and suffers the pangs of loneliness.

282

Globalization has brought new opportunities of career development to the young boys and girls in India. Boys and girls from rural India obtained degrees in Engineering medicine and management. They have acquired lucrative jobs in national and international establishments. But unfortunately newly acquired riches tore them away from their own people. Boys in particular, become arrogant with their own wives. The erstwhile close relations broke into pieces. Money, instead of bringing the people together caused their separation. Sudha Murty wanted to show the eroding effects of money on the close relations.

Her female protagonists are rare combination of tradition and modernity. Though they fall in love, they get married only after they are permitted to. They take care of their mother in law after marriage. Secondly, though they suffer a loss of their personality they do not react disastrously. As long as possible they compromise with the situation. Even after they leave their houses they do not malign their image in the public.

Female writers generally put the blame on the men for women‟s sufferings. Sudha Murty also showed this conflict but did not squarely blame the men for it. She blamed the other women of the family in equal proportion. She showed the tug of war between daughter in law and mother in law.

Sudha Murty‟s art of characterization has a fixed pattern. She can portray the psychological upheavals in her female characters well. It seems that she knows the female psyche more than the male psychology. As a result her female characters are living characters but male characters are like wooden blocks. Her female characters act and react; male characters seem only to be acting. Three of her four novels have been

283 titled after her female characters. Sudha Murty has divided her characters in good and bad categories. As Sudha Murty believed in the traditional Indian value system, good people win and bad people lose. Binary division of her character makes her characterization simple and straightforward.

Sudha Murty has set all her novels in rural and urban centers. Generally the boy and the girl come from rural background. They have their roots in the social, cultural and economic activities of the villages. Sudha Murty seems to be well acquainted with the various customs, conventions and traditions of the village life. She knows the habits and hobbies of the people in the villages and she made use of this knowledge in the plot, story and action of the novels. Second part of her novels is set in the cosmopolitan cities like

Bangalore and Bombay.

Villagers carry superstitious ideas. They believe in horoscopes and their reading before finalizing their marriages. Villagers get free time after the season of harvesting which they use for harmless gossiping. Sudha Murty has made use of these features in her writing. Her characters shift to the metropolitan cities for jobs. Mad rush there takes their lives out of them. They run after money, position and physical facilities so much that they lose their human qualities in the process. Naturally close relations are strained and broken.

Sudha Murty alludes to Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, ancient stories of wisdom and folk tales in her narration. Her narrative technique has a predictable pattern of straightforwardness. Boy and girl are attracted towards each other. They get married

284 with the consent of their parents. They settle in big cities and ultimately fall apart.

Marriage has derogatory effect on woman and money has diabolic effect on man.

Pedagogical Implications of the study

Indian writing in English has become a core course in many Indian universities. Sudha

Murty‟s novels have been prescribed for undergraduate and post-graduate classes there.

This study will help them understand Sudha Murty‟s writing in depth. Sudha Murty‟s literary works are simple and straightforward. They are read by house wives. This study will help them comprehend Indian writing in better ways. This study will help research students as a reference work.

Avenues for Further Research

This study is limited to critical analysis of the literary works of Sudha Murty. Others can study her works from linguistic and stylistic point of view in future. Researcher has selected only the novels, novellas and short stories for study. There are three non fiction prose writings by Sudha Murty. Some body can certainly take up a study of these books for M. Phil. degree. Sudha Murty has been working for the tribal children in Orissa and

Tamil Nadu. One can study the relationship between her life and her works. All her novels have been translated in Marathi. A student can compare the original English and translated books.

285

REFERENCES

1) Patake, Rajeev. Wanted a Good Indian Writer in English. New Quest; Sept. Oct.

1986. Volume 59. Page 319.

2) Ali, Farzana. Novels of Manju Kapur; A Critical Study. Nagpur, Dattsons. 2015. P.

17.

3) Murty, Sudha. Mahashweta. Madras, East West Books Private td. 2005. P. 06.

4)

5) Murty, Sudha. Dollar Bahu. Madras, East West books Private Ltd. 2005. P. 142.

6) Murty, Sudha. House of Cards. New Delhi, Penguin Books India.2013. p. 232.

286