Anita Nair's Ladies Coupe - Core Chapter

Chapter Two

 Journey from Innocence to Experience

                  

  Anita Nair’s Ladies Coupe deals with the diverse experiences of women as subalterns and exposes the diversity within and among women. It is about the chance meeting of six women of different age, class and experience - Akhila, Janaki, Margaret, Sheela, Prabha Devi and Marikolanthu in the Ladies Coupe, a second-class compartment of Indian railways. The coupe is symbolic of their existence and the space they occupied in life and in society. They narrate their stories in an attempt to help Akhila, the protagonist, find an answer as to whether a woman in a male-dominated society could lead an autonomous life, independent of men. They approach the problem of subalternity of women from different perspectives, and suggest to Akhila equally different yet successful strategies appropriated by them in life.

                 Ladies Coupe has a journey motif, with a narrative that journeys backwards and forwards into the past and the present to determine the future. This is a journey of self-discovery and to realize one’s worth as an individual in the society. The title itself is metaphorical suggesting the journey of women from birth to death. Ladies coupe is a compartment reserved exclusively for women, which can be compared to their compact world, where they can share their smiles, their tears, their marital life, lovers and children – the most private and special moments of their lives without any worries of exposure, as all of them are strangers to each other and probably would never ever meet again. The charm of the novel lies in its vivacious description and systematic ordering of events. As Clara Nubile says, “It is a novel in which fiction merges with reality and where female voices are authentic. Indeed it is gendered novel which gives hope and courage to all women” ( 74).

                  Anita Nair, here shows how the modern Indian women attempt to free themselves sexually, economically and domestically from various obstacles. Male and female characters in her novels fight against their interpersonal problems without caring for any success; often they end up having some kind of peace. The novelists, like the readers, know that there is no logical analysis of emotion. They often focus upon the lack of emotional fulfilment in man-woman relationship. Anita Nair, considering this fact, wrote Ladies Coupe which is a powerful novel delineating feminine sensibility. This delineation is chiefly expressed through the projection of  the experiences of six women characters- Janaki, Sheela, Margaret Shanti, Prabha Devi, Marikolunthu and Akhila.

               The oldest woman in the ladies coupe is Janaki. She believed that to be a good wife and a good mother are the only two duties of a woman and she made her home, her kingdom. It was too late to amend her life when she realized  that even a strong and independent woman can become a good wife and a good mother. The second  traveller  is a fourteen year old girl, Sheela. She is someone who has accepted her grandmother’s death with an air of a person who had seen it all and done it all. What makes Sheela different from others is her ability to look beyond the things and her knack of perceiving what others can’t.

              The third story is about Margaret Shanti, a Chemistry teacher, married to Ebenezer Paulraj, the Principal of the school she works in. After marriage, she identifies him as an insensitive, self obsessed despot who couldn’t care less for his wife. To avenge him, she uses a very ingenious method.”When you add water to sulphuric acid, it splutters at first. But soon it loses its strength; it loses its bite.The trick is to know when to add it and how much” (LC 134). She compares herself  to supercritical water which is capable of dissolving just about anything.

                The fourth tale is that of Prabha Devi. A week after her fortieth birthday, she realized that somewhere in the process of being a good wife, good daughter-in-law and a good mother, she forgets how it is to be herself and that is when she learns to strike a balance between being what she wants to be and being what she is expected to be. The fifth and the most heart rending tale is about Marikolunthu. Her childish innocence was destroyed by a man. This one unpleasant incident changes her entire life and destroys her. Even as a child she had to work hard to help her mother and raise her brothers. She worked as a maid to two lady doctors. But she was raped and became the mother of an illegitimate child. She had undergone all the experiences of feminine existence. Though she was untutored and bucolic, she stood up for what she believed in, not caring for the society.

                Ladies Coupe, infact, is the story of Akhila, who happens to be the most subdued, rather crushed member of a Brahmin family whose father’s death has brought her a load of responsibilities. She is like a catalyst whose presence is never noticed, never appreciated and yet whose absence may make all the difference. Akhila is a woman lost in the jungle of her duties; sometimes to her mother, at other times to her brothers and still at other times to her sister. She is expected to be an obedient daughter, affectionate and motherly sister and everything but not an individual. As a woman, she has her dreams, her desires but when her dreams come in conflict with the comforts of her family, it is she who has to sacrifice. She lives a life designated by the society or family.

On a few occasions she listens to the voice of her innermost being and then she appears a rebel. In fact, her character appears to be a continuum of nothingness and being.  Even Virginia Woolf was aware of the complexity of a character and therefore, she saw character as a flux and wanted to “record the  atoms as they fall upon the mind”(153). Like Akhila’s,  other characters are also questioning the system and are “groping for their identities and their status both in the family set up and the larger social structure” (155).

               Ladies Coupe deconstructs that which is taken for granted, the sacred, the traditional, and the ideological. Akhila is not given the opportunity by her family to get married and have a family; she is rather expected to provide. As Indra Devi says,“Anita Nair probably hints at the family’s easy acceptance of her as the head of the family on a place traditionally reserved for the patriarch in both the colonial and post-colonial periods”( 220).

                Akhila takes up various roles in the forty five years of her life. When Akhila sees a man in the railway station surrounded by a whole family of uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents, she finds a parallel between him and her. “Akhila looked at the man who carried in his shoulders the burden of other people’s dreams. That she knew all about. That she could understand” (LC 9). As Narsi, her brother became the first graduate and found a teaching job and Narayan, the other brother joined the tank factory as a mechinist, “Akhila felt the iron bands around her chest begin to loosen: Dare I breathe again? Dare I dream again? Now that the boys are men, can I start feeling like a woman again?” (LC 77). Since Narsi was a man he did not ask for anybody’s permission to get married but ‘decided’ to get married for “Narsi decided he wanted to get married” (LC 77). When he told the family that he was going to marry the principal’s daughter, “No one could  fault his choice and there was nothing anyone could say except perhaps- Don’t you think you should wait for your elder sister to get married before you think of a wife and a family? But who was to mouth this rebuke?” (LC 77).  Both Narayan and Narsi had their weddings in the same hall, on the same day. Akhila waited for Amma or her brothers’ to say something about her marriage but they never asked, “What about you? You’ve been the head of this family ever since Appa died. Don’t you want a husband, children, a home of your own?” (LC 77). Though Akhila had done her duties, all that of a head of a family to her brothers and sister, she was not recognized as the real head, just because she was a woman. Amma expected her to get permission from her brothers, the men of the family to go on an office tour as she says, “Perhaps you should ask your brothers for permission first” (LC 150). When Akhila argued that she was their elder sister and why she should ask their permission Amma simply says, “You might be older but you are a woman and they are the men of the family” (LC 150). Akhila’s encounter with her school friend awakened her spirit to think of a life to live her own. When Akhila boldly told Padma about her decision to live alone, she without reluctance says, “Do you think the brothers will consent to this? Do you think they’ll let you live alone?” (LC 204). When Akhila says for her defiance, “For heaven’s sake, I don’t need anyone’s consent” (LC 204). Padma mocked at her telling.“They are the men of the family” (LC 204). But Akhila’s defiance was stronger than theirs that she boarded the train to Kanyakumari.

                 Akhila’s discerning mind helps her to recognize when to abide by rules and when to fling them to the winds. She is in the process of becoming more genuine and truer to her inner self. Akhila’s interior growth is also marked by her ability to take risks. Akhila’s free will has been curtailed to a large extent, by her own family and society, but she is courageous enough to listen to the voice of her own being and at times reacts to the dictators of her family and society. Besides, sometimes she is bold enough to take some drastic steps to please her own being. She has found the strength to break out from the prison-house of her old self as symbolized by the stiffness of the cotton saris she always wore to work. She can at least go back to her old life where perhaps nothing may have changed on the surface but on a mental plane a sure process of empowerment has taken place.

                 Margaret Shanti is one of the fellow travellers in the ladies coupe. Margaret’s story reveals the life of a woman who learns her own strategies to make her dreams true. Margaret’s husband, Ebenezer Paulraj, is an example for male dominance. He maneuvers Margaret into a position of submissive silence, making her out to be an unnoticed and unremarkable girl. A girl, with a brilliant academic career and a warm and vibrant personality, is reduced to an average girl. His subtle cruelty to the children in his school gets repeated with his wife too. Once he was obsessed with the girlish characteristics of Margaret. It was visible even at their first meet. To retain the girlish charm in her, when she happily announced her pregnancy, he insisted on to aborting the baby. Margaret felt confusion, anger, sorrow, pain and self-pity which made her rethink.

               Tired of her submissiveness at her home, she finally takes her life into her own hands. With supreme will power she collects her hidden strength and sends the ball to his court. Having learnt the tactics from his constant playing of games to get his things done, she takes her revenge by following the same tactics which are her husband’s tools to rule her. She has gone through physical, mental and spiritual crisis throughout her life. She keeps on growing till she finds a state where she is happy and peaceful.

                Margaret’s marriage to Ebenezer Paulraj is like a fairy tale for her. Ebenezer Paulraj loves Margaret Shanti from the bottom of his heart but not ready to accept her individual likes and dislikes, whims and fancies, dreams and aims.  He loves her but he did not allow her individuality. Margaret is initially a little girl who says ‘yes’ to whatever her husband says and ready to do anything for him. She is jolted out of this role when she has to go for an abortion. He controls her completely. She is forced to do B.Ed, though she wants to do Ph.D. She is made to work only for her husband and he nags her all the time. She starts to hate him and the day she realizes her hatred towards him, she feels liberated from some unknown clutches:

I mouthed the words: I HATE HIM. I HATE MY HUSBAND. I HATE EBENEZAR PAULRAJ.  HATE HIM. HATE HIM. I waited for a clap of thunder, a hurling meteor, a whirlwind, a dust storm.… for some super phenomenon that is usually meant to accompany such momentous and perhaps sacrilegious revelations. (LC 98)                                                                                                                                                     

When Margaret understands that she is isolated, she finds consolation through eating a lot of food. She puts on weight. Ebe, on the other hand, who is aware of his health and fitness, makes her feel guilty about her weight gain. She leads a routine life until the day James, the golden fish, floats dead. The moment proves to be a turning point in her life. She does not want her life to float like dead fish. She identifies herself with the golden fish. In the words of Anita Nair,”Among the five elements that constitute life, I classify myself as water. Water that moistens. Water that heals. Water that also destroys. For the power to dissolve and destroy is as much a part of being water as wetness is” (LC 96).

                Ebenezer’s love for food and sex becomes a tool for Margaret. She starts pampering Ebenezer with sex and food he likes the most in his life. The result, he becomes fat, loses his vanity and needs her more and more. She, once controlled by him, now holds him completely in her hands. A unique way adapted by Margaret helps her to go back into the society, changes her parent’s outlook and attitude of her husband. The strategy, finding and attacking the weakness of the opponent to win him, is artistically handled by Anita Nair. The heavy depression of Margaret, her silenced voice, her physical and mental sufferings, and the effort she takes to make her strong are the places where Anita Nair proves to be a notable writer of Indian Writing in English.

                Janaki, another fellow passenger of Ladies Coupe is an example of age-old belief of Indian Society that a woman should always depend on some man in her life. The comparison of woman with Sita or Savitri, epic characters of Indian Literature, also insists this motive. According to Indian tradition, a woman is always synonymous with good wife. A good wife should be faithful, obedient and virtuous. Janaki is expected to take up this traditional role of women. She plays various roles such as a daughter, a wife and a mother but not an individual who claims her life to be her own. The secondary position becomes permanent to her. This is mainly due to the patriarchal pattern of her society, which has accepted male supremacy as a natural phenomenon.

                   The problems of adjustment with the husband and his relatives have been the most widely treated problems in the novels written by Indian women novelists. This has been treated, for instance, by Nayantara Sahgal, Anita Desai and Shashi Deshpande. These writers suggest that wives should have a more positive outlook than the one they already have, the negative should be nullified.

                 Janaki gets married to Prabhakar, when she is eighteen years old and leads a happy, comfortable, long married life for forty years. Janaki’s husband is a caring partner and they have a son and daughter-in-law. Janaki leads a happy life until she realizes her submissiveness. She feels some string of revolt when she finds her husband controlling everybody, even their grown up son. She says to her husband, “You just want to control him. You want to control everybody. You want everyone to do your bidding” (LC 30).

                 Prabhakar’s overbearing dominance, exactness, and precision irritates Janaki. The life which has gone smoothly starts to find its ups and downs. She discovers herself and her true happiness that lies in her, but she is not able to take off the web under which she is covered for a long period. Her initial response to Akhila’s query, “why should a woman live by herself? There is always a man who is willing to be with her” (LC 21), explains it.“I am a woman who has always been looked after. First there was my father and my brothers; then my husband. When my husband is gone, there will be my son. Waiting to take off from where his father left off. Women like me end up being fragile” (LC 22).

                 Sheela, the next narrator of Ladies Coupe, is a sensitive girl of fourteen years old, blessed with a deep insight. She looks at the family around her and relationship between her grandmother, mother and father and she understands the dynamics of life. Her grandmother teaches her practical life. She becomes attached to her grandmother until she dies and the attachment brings in a maturity to Sheela. Her conversation with other fellow travellers seems to be a matured one. The knowledge of  three generations of women can be found in Sheela; her mother’s and her grandmother’s and also her own. She knows that “women turn to their mothers when they have no one else to turn to. Women know that a mother alone will find it possible to unearth some shred of compassion and love that in everyone else has become ashes” (LC 71).

                Sheela’s grandmother also teaches her the negative picture of men who dominate women physically as well as psychologically. Sheela is reprimand by her father incessantly for using shit in every sentence, for speaking to boys and for being rude. He has encouraged her to speak “with a razor-edged wit and a finely developed skill of repartee” (LC 70). Sheela’s father always gives preference to her as his child. However, when she starts to talk like a matured woman, he completely changes and starts to control her whenever she begins to talk.

                 When her grandmother dies of cancer and her body is prepared for funeral, Sheela dresses her grandmother in a good costume with her jewels. She does it because she remembers the words of her grandmother, “The only person you need to please is yourself. When you look into a mirror, your reflection should make you feel happy” (LC 67). Thus, Sheela fulfills the wish of her grandmother by adoring her dead body with jewels. A fourteen year old girl’s inner search and maturity are beautifully pictured through Sheela.

                  Anita Nair, with a deep, psychological insight, skillfully utilizes the story of Marikolunthu to comment upon the sexual exploitation of Indian women from rural background. Marikolunthu’s story recalls her encounter with men and concludes that most men take advantage of women’s loneliness, illiteracy, dependence, ignorance and frustration. They never hesitate to blame the woman at the end. The society dominated by patriarchal culture tends to lay down the rule that a woman’s responsibility towards the family is total, whereas any sort of other authority is conveniently denied to her. This society shuns to think that the woman is strong willed to create disastrous consequences if she is completely ignored.

              Marikolanthu is the most pathetic woman among the six. She is the realistic picture of the humble and miserable peasantry women on whom male oppression is forced on heavily and left unquestioned. Even as a girl she is denied to be sent to the town school as her mother says, “Its not just the money but how can I send a young girl by herself…. there is too much at risk” (LC 215). To ensure her mother’s fear, her childhood innocence is destroyed when Murugesan attempts physical brutality on her. When she is found pregnant, her mother and Sujata, regret it as they just feel it is too late to insist Murugesan to marry her. Her mother is least bothered about her feelings but worries that no one will marry her. Even when the matter is taken to the Chettiar’s son Sridhar, he with little reluctance says, “The girl must have led him on and now that she is pregnant she’s making up a story about rape” (LC 245).

              According to Marikolanthu’s mother and Sujata, a woman’s life and protection lies in her husband, as Sujata says, “But if she has a job, that will replace a husband’s protection” (LC 246). But Marikolanthu is able to raise the question within her about the so called “Husband’s Protection”. But Marikolanthu is sure that neither her mother nor Sujata had their husbands look out of them, but for them, “a fulfilled woman was one who was married” (LC 246). For Marikolanthu, nothing is more cruel than a man’s raping of a woman and so she finds little fault in the Missy’s love for each other and experiences a kind of content and happiness to give her love for Sujata, more than her husband did. Marikolanthu never wants to tie up her life with a husband. Till she is thirty- one she lives alone and wrestles with life, making a living of her own. She neither wants to rely upon her brothers nor wants a penny from Sujata or her husband but decides to make her living of her own, working as a servant maid in a house. She defines her as an independent woman. Her strong aversion for the physical brutality attempted on her, evokes a strong aversion  for her son Muthu. But at the end she feels ashamed for having rejected him and even using him.

               Patriarchy shows its ugly face from cradle to grave. Even parents are more concerned about the boys than the girls. And Anita Nair has chosen the character of Prabha Devi to emphasise the issue. When Prabha Devi is born, her father sighs, as it would be a hindrance for his business progress as he says, “Has this baby, apart from ruining my business plans, addled your brains as well? If you ask me, a daughter is a bloody nuisance” (LC 169). Even Prabha Devi’s mother is pleased when a daughter is born as her thoughts are confirmed that a daughter is someone who will take her recipes to the other house and treasure her jewellery and some one who will say that she did this and that in her mother’s house. Even while playing games as a child, a girl is destined to choose to play working or baby-sitting games as it is said, “A kitchen was set up for  her to play house and mother games. Sometimes Prabha Devi’s mother joined in her daughter’s games, pretending to be an adult-child while her daughter tried hard to be a child adult” (LC 170). Basically a woman is never liked to come out with opinions. Prabha Devi’s mother finds great pleasure in the company of her daughter than in her four sons put together. But she conceals it within her for “she had discovered that a woman with an opinion was treated like a bad smell, To be shunned” (LC 170). She swallows this thought as she has done all her life. Though Prabha Devi’s childhood had been this way, in future she grooms herself as a woman who can measure up her life with difference.

              Anita Nair presents Prabha Devi as the one who doesn’t want to define herself within a more mechanical and monotonous life of a homely wife and a mother. She is not satisfied with this life and craves for something more. Moreover she feels guilty for her viles upon her husband’s friend, Pramod and tries to come out of it. Prabha Devi’s weakness does not escape Anita Nair, yet she displays a very real respect for her as she has done with every other women. And Prabha Devi achieves the self-actualization by learning swimming on her own out of great desire.

               The personal stories narrated by these five women characters bring about a drastic change in Akhila‘s attitude. She realises that desire and gratification had been very important in their lives. This reminds her of her own brief encounter with Hari and feels the urge to have a physical and emotional bond that would appease her parched soul. At Kanyakumari a young boy falls for her and she has a night’s relation with him and then she dials Hari’s number. She realises that she has a right even at the age of fourty five to get love. Her decision is her rebellion against society. As Savita Singh has remarked, ”She has had a spiritually and emotionally liberating journey and Akhila forms herself and discovers life”(34-35). Thus the novel redefines the lives of women and a     feminist voice is heard throughout the novel.