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SUBMITTED TO: PROFESSOR SABA BASHIR,

DEPARTMENTOF ENGLISH,
JAMIA MILLIA ISLAMIA, NEW DELHI.

SUBMITTED BY: SAHER HIBA KHAN, (20185826), SEMESTER-5,


ENROLLMENT NUMBER: 18BLE054,
DEPARTMENTOF ENGLISH,
JAMIA MILLIA ISLAMIA, NEW DELHI.

PAPER: LITERATURES OF INDIA

ASSIGNMENT ON “CHALAM IS CONSIDERED THE FIRST FEMINIST WRITER IN


TELUGU LITERATURE. WITH REGARD TO THE SHORT STORY ‘WIDOW’,
ELABORATE ON THE SYMBOLS OF PATRIARCHY THAT ONE CAN READ.”
(WORD LIMIT- 800-1000 WORDS)

The story of a seventeen-year-old widow, the girl in Widow by Chalam reflects her frustration
and anger. While reading the story, you can feel her plight, her helplessness and the cruelty
forced upon her by her own people, will make you shiver. She is pregnant and is scared about the
consequences, when people will get to know about her. The era she’s living in, is of a dark fate
for women and especially widows like her. In India, centuries ago, widows were burnt with the
body of their dead husbands who are considered their only protectors and providers because
there’s nothing left to live for. Here, a woman is forced to portray only and solely three roles in
her life; a dutiful daughter, an honourable wife and a sacrificing mother, that’s it. These are the
only expectations and only roles a woman was born and has to live for till her death. This story
made me feel guilty as well as grateful of the life I am living right now, which is not so much
good if we talk about the actual derogative conditions of women in India, but is way better than
what our widow is living right now. I mean, my grandmother herself taunts me in innumerable
amounts to behave like a lady otherwise, “Shadi kon karega tujhse” (Who will marry you!?), I
really don’t know her definition of this word. But I swear, I laugh at this sentence every time she
says it, because I retort back “Shadi karna kisko hai?”(Who wants to marry!?).

I will never ever be able to relate or understand the gravity of problems that our protagonist went
through in her lifetime. But it makes me completely miserable of the fact that uncountable
women suffer because of this ridiculously outraging, meaningless and barbarous notion of
patriarchy.

Even now, if a woman loses her husband she’s expected to control her basic human desires just
because “her husband is dead, there’s nothing left for her now, who will marry a widow?”, a
very common sentence that I hear from time to time whenever I hear about the demise of married
men and specially the husbands of those girls who lose them, just after some time of their
marriages. It really scares me and makes me full of abhorrence, of these judgmental and blind
people, who themselves can’t see that they are suffering because of patriarchy. Something they
just made up to oppress not only women but themselves too, something that’s costing them their
own lives and freedom of expression and emotions, something that’s forcing mothers’ and
fathers’ to murder their own children in the name of honour.
Our widow’s story is despondent yet full of hope, she’s bearing it all and has decided to face the
worst just for the sake of her child that’s secretly growing in her womb. She thinks of her Father
who loved her and would weep to death, if her were to see her condition right now, she thinks of
her annayya (elder brother) and her sister-in-law who are ignorant towards her agony and
mistreat her worse than an animal, she thinks of her sister-in-law who is so vicious towards her
own child, she thinks of her dead husband who was a liar and made big promises, and all the
widows who are bearing torment just like herself. She curses her fate; she curses herself that how
she must have sinned in her past life and now has to go through such grief and pain. And then
hopes that maybe in her next life she may live a good and prosperous life because right now
she’s trying to be a good widow as widows are meant to be in the eyes of the society.

She’s vexed over this hypocrisy of humans, this ignorance and misconduct in the name of God.
As she puts in that how a woman after the death of her husband has to take up ostracism and men
on the other hand are allowed to remarry. How there are these meaningless and crude rules and
regulations for a widowed women, how she is considered as a Kalagni (Time-fire, which
destroys the world at the end). How she has to live her life as a wretched woman who is a bad
omen, forced to give up all materialistic, physical and emotional desires just to make sure that
she is allowed to enter heaven. The manipulation in the name of God, even though such
hypocrites are the real reason, people start condemning the existence of Religion. Our widow is
going through a diabolical stage of her life, but she’s brave and persistent to bear it all for the
sake of her baby. She thinks of her baby, when he will born, will he be mistreated or made to be
a slave just like her, whether they will take him away from her, if he will recognise her as her
mother, if he will understand about all the sufferings her made went through to give him a life,
and if he asks about his father, instead of telling him that his father is dead; she will proudly say,
“I am your Father”

This short story is as same as of a diary entry, full of sentiments; feelings of hope, anger,
frustration, tears, self-pity, etc. The use of religion to scare people isn’t something new; it has
been going on since religions ever came into existence. People bias their deeds and doings in the
name of religion, and try to manipulate gullible people through it. This is disgusting and
saddening, no wonder; numerous people condemn religion as the main reason of all the unrest
and bloodbath in this world, they say patriarchy, casteism, sexism and racism is because of Gods
and religions. I feel that all these above things are because of us, we have failed as society, we
have failed as humans who have humanity and selflessness inbuilt in us but have converted
ourselves into cynics, have terribly failed as the most intelligent beings to understand the
sacredness of religions, the beauty of belief and faith, the beauty of hope and humanity, the
beauty of being born as a human being.

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