The Role Of Women In Forever Free, By Raji Narasimhan

Raji Narasimhan, a writer, translator and journalist, has skilled hand in portraying women’s world. She has written five novels - The Heart of Standing is You Cannot Fly, Forever Free, Drifting to a Dawn, The Sky Changes and Atonement. Her novel Forever Free, which is shortlisted for Sahitya Academy Award, is the story of a young woman Shree, who sets out in search of freedom and fulfillment of her life in the patriarchal society. It became famous due to its realistic depiction.

Attia Hosain is another explorer of political upheaval and female world. She explores the suffering of humans at the time of partition. Her novel The Sunlight on a Broken Column accounts the life of female protagonist Laila in the setting of political upheavals and

She also uses the stream of consciousness technique and interior monologue to explore the inner world of the character. Her novel Cry the Peacock (1963) is a tragic story of Maya, the protagonist and her psychological turmoil due to the astrological prediction of the death of either wife or husband. Maya, a very sensitive woman, tries to search love and affection from her husband that previously received from her father. However, her husband is a prosperous lawyer and very busy in legal matters. He does not give much focus and attention on her feelings and emotions, which she desperately wants from him. Maya is so sensitive that the death of her pet dog totally disturbs her. The isolation and emptiness brings disastrous effects for her. In her state of insanity, hallucinations, she murders her husband. She struggles with isolation, alienation, barrenness, affection and love in married life. Anita Desai very beautifully describes the psychological dilemma of her characters. In other novel Voices in the City (1965), she deals with the self-driven tragedy in the life of a couple, Monisha and Jiban. Monisha commits suicide because of her husband’s injustice, insult and abuse. In another novel Bye– Bye Black Bird, the East-West encounter, the problems of immigrants, physical and psychological dilemma hold prime concern of the novel. In the novel, Where Shall We Go This Summer? Sita, the female protagonist struggles with both the inner and outer world. Because of the difficulties in urban life and burden of the children, she runs away to a small island. The novel explores how the social world affects the psychological world of the character. In the novel The Fire and the Mountain, the author depicts the psychological world of Nanda, a widow and her granddaughter Raka. Nanda leads an isolated life on the hilltop in the Kaushali