While Studying “The Remains of the Feast”

I never thought I would have looked my granny the other way. The Other Way as in, would never think of her plight in a different perspective. For half a century, she has remained a widow, a loving, caring, giving and never asking daughter-in-law, mother and grandmother. But, never a wife or a beloved; too caught up in her rituals of being a woman than being herself. I do, really, do wonder what it would be like to lead a life so Chaste, so Pure and so unprivileged.

“The Remains of the Feast” is an interesting, ironic short-story narrated by Gita Hariharan. The story is told by the great grand daughter, who teams up with her dying great grand mother and helps her break all the shackles of tradition, caste, age and widow-hood. There are funny incidents in the story that makes one chuckle oftenly. She smartly juxtaposes traditional-ity and moderni-ity, old and young, conservative and progressive beliefs. It is a story where the writer makes one introspect of the life one leads and how often do we forget the desires of the body.

It was in this story where the light was thrown on the plight of Hindu women in India. My grandmother fits perfectly in the frame that is drawn by Gita Hariharan. We see that the old woman in the story has interesting sense of humor, a body so resilient and healthy and learns to absorb her own pain. That so made me remind of my own sweet granny. She voluntarily gave up on wearing coloured clothes, stopped eating onion, potatoes and garlic, voluntarily avoided going out to family functions and dinners.

My eyes swelled up with tears in Dr. Ghosh’s lecture where she kept on revealing the quandary of widowhood. I kept on imagining my granny, not smiling because it was not appropriate, not going out because she has no male protection, not wearing colored clothes because she cant woo or attract any male gaze. Barely, I could concentrate for a while and my mind kept on swaying between the stories of her life and the on-going lecture. I could clearly recall what she told me once:

“I was sixteen when I was engaged, seventeen when I was married, eighteen when your father was born, twenty-your aunt and at twenty one I was a WIDOW. That’s it.”

Not a word after that and she would turn her head and start to fold her clothes again and sinks into her memories of the past and leave me with more and more questions. Questions of how she could take that much of oppression, why was she not allowed to be free and make her own choice? She became too much of what society expects of a woman. And she became one.

She made a life of our ignorances. She harnessed her tears under the blanket. She accepted what she dint deserve and courageous enough to wear a smile on her face. Embracing the silences, she carried the yoke of widowhood all through her life, for almost fifty years. I guess that is what is moving on. When I cried, those tears were not out of pity or sympathy of her predicament, it was because I never realized that how I had failed her, failed her in understanding her miseries, difficulties and apathies. It is too difficult to give up on what you desire; she readily gave up hers, her wants, her life and her self.