The Taming of Women
P Sivakami
Translated from Tamil by Pritham K Chakravarthy
Penguin Books
Pp 264, Rs 299
The Taming of Women by P Sivakami is not an easy book to read; not easy, because it thrusts in your face uneasy truths about the complex dynamics in gender and sexual relationships. Translated from Tamil (Anandhayi, 1992) by Pritham K Chakravarthy, Sivakami?s second novel explores the intersecting politics of sex and power in a small village in Tamil Nadu. In the process, she exposes bitter, naked realities about an existing condition in many societies the world over where women are ?tamed? through the sheer use of force and power.
The bulging, pregnant body of Anandhayi frames the opening scene; she scuttles around the house in pain, awaiting the birth of her fifth child. As she is about to go in labour, she realises that her husband Periyannan is sleeping with a prostitute in his room. With no concern about her physical state, Periyannan pushes his pregnant wife to the ground when she confronts the ?other woman?. In pithy and powerful sentences, Sivakami warns us of the hard times ahead. Her narrative does not allow the reader to be lulled into a false sense of comfort, we have no time to warm up to the difficulties ahead in Anandhayi?s life. This is the hard truth that many women face and she tells it in unsubtle tones, without any embellishments.
The drudgery and ennui of Anandhayi?s life, with the intermittent kicks and beatings from Periyannan, take on a new level when the beautiful and fair Lakshmi enters her life and house. She is meant to accept Periyannan?s affair with Lakshmi, which extends even to him sleeping with her under the same roof. In fact, fidelity is not seen as an important quality by men, although the same behaviour in females is cause for comment. But amidst all the jealousy and hatred, a tender understanding develops between these two women, forged in the crucible of abuses by the power-hungry Periyannan. While the novel reinstates that women are survivors in a world that is oppressive on multiple platforms, it also seeks to celebrate the ways in which women negotiate these oppressions in their individual lives. When Periyannan and his son Mani are ?stomping heavily? on Lakshmi?s ?chest and stomach? because she dares to strike back at the man of the house, Anandhayi intervenes to save Lakshmi. But sadly there is no strong bond of sisterhood, they do not rise up against the unfair treatment they receive.
Periyannan continues to dote on his new conquest, but feisty Lakshmi searches for routes to escape from ?this hell?, which she finally finds, but only in killing herself. Running from one man to another, she realises that she cannot hope to stand alone or hope to fight for herself. But unlike Lakshmi, Anandhayi holds on to belief systems, rituals and modes of behaviour far longer than real-life circumstances urge and demand her to. She preserves conventional roles but here again the larger question is, can she afford not to? She has no other means to break free, societal conditions demand her to remain subservient to her husband. Inspite of ?her broken heart?, ?her whole life shattered? and ?no silver lining visible?, she cannot take her life because of her children. She has to continue living her life, wail and bear the man?s abuse in silence. After all, ?we have been unlucky to be born as women. We cannot complain?.
It is a vicious circle; the intruder commits suicide and escapes a life enforced upon her, but Anandhayi lives on, struggling. What is the solution to this? Sivakami leaves us with no answer; maybe it is something women would have to figure out on their own.
When Sivakami wrote her first novel, The Grip of Change, she created an uproar for taking on patriarchy in Dalit society. It touched upon a subject within a community already facing oppression and subjugation, but she dared to question the hyprocisy within her own community. Her narrative critiqued the easily ?accessible? caste body of the dalit woman. She is the ?sexually available? woman who could be exploited by her Hindu landlord and harassed by her own family. When Sivakami wrote this novel, apart from questioning the patriarchal system in her community, she also brought forth the experiences of a Dalit woman or the subaltern woman far removed from mainstream feminism prevalent in the country. This search for alternative is something which black women, in the US and elsewhere, have been grappling with for a long time. So when Alice Walker in her famous book, In Search of Our Mothers? Gardens: Womanist Prose, defined womanism, she called upon people to remember that the interests of ?women of colour? were being ignored in the face of popular ?white feminsim?.
Sivakami in her first novel explored the sexualised battered body of a Dalit woman and in The Taming of Women she discusses that in the conflicting world of men and women, power is an uncontested dominion over which men continue to wield an iron grip.