It would be wrong to say that women had no say in anything. Of course, on the surface it does seem like women were slaves, but to get their rights, Indian women operate in another way. We can see how Manak’s mother had absolute control over Manak. This is the usual mother-son relationship in India. After the father is no more, the mother exercise control over the family through emotional blackmail and playing on the psychology of men. Years of being suppressed clouds their judgment, and they begin to believe that the way they were treated was the way things are supposed to be for all of womankind. Thus hardly any mother-in-law tries to improve conditions or treats their daughter-in-law any better. Rani also gets her way in the same way. The only way women can have any say in the matter, is if the man pities them enough to listen to what they have to say. Every time Ram Lakhan talks of another wife, Rani ‘tries that one’ (starts crying), ‘and turns (his) mind again.’ It is interesting to see the mind games women have to play because of the lack of rights over anything. Even if a woman does realize the unfair way in which they are treated, she cannot do much, because firstly, she is a woman, and because of this she was never educated enough, or given anything that would make her even almost equal to a man, and secondly, the entire Indian community operated that way, and thus they just had to shut up and go with the flow.
Another great aspect of Indian Culture seen is the important of the Indian Community. The villagers operate as a community, not as individuals. The elders of the community solve all personal problems. The village Pradhan settled the dispute between ram Lakhan and Hoshiar Singh, by making Hoshiar Singh apologize in public for his misbehavior. In the village community, everyone knows everyone’s problems. Since everything is made public, the people in the village think twice before doing anything, as they may face dire consequences from their community members. Ram Lakhan was offered an apology in public, and that was enough to replace his honor. The Community is always there to back up any individual community member in times of need. But the Community can also be harmful. The Community has set ideas for what is socially acceptable and normal. If you don’t fit into your community, you feel a loss of identity. This can, and has harmed many individuals, who don’t feel accepted. They are driven to sin, in their need to be accepted.
The lack of a child in Rani and Ram Lakhan’s life concerned not only him, but also the entire community. When the Pradhan was settling the dispute between Ram Lakhan and Hoshiar Singh he sided Ram Lakhan on the basis of the fact that ‘No man should tolerate insults to his wife whether she is barren or not.’ No one even considered Ram Lakhan as inefficient. Ram Lakhan blames his wife for the way he is treated in society. It doesn’t even matter to him how Rani has been treated all along. Rani is supposed to endure the blows to ego, even though it isn’t her fault. During the auspicious and gay festival of Holi, an infertile woman was considered inauspicious. There was a belief that if a barren woman sat in a mango grove, its trees won’t flower. The other village women passed remarks about her saying her ‘mouth is closed as tight as her womb’. Rani was lonely in a crowd. She had everything, except the most essential ingredient of a woman. She couldn’t bear children, and was thus given the worst punishment, Social, Communal Ostracism. Their ideas were borne out of ignorance, and lack of awareness of medical science. Ram Lakhan wasn’t really considered as the one with the ‘lack of seed’, but his fellow Yadavs teased him. Even he was made to feel helpless in front of his community. We see here how society can make a person desperate. Ram Lakhan was taunted and mocked at, because of his ‘wife’s infertility’, and was even insulted by suggestions of his lack of manliness. Ram Lakhan loved his wife, but he was forced to consider taking another one, just to save him the embarrassment. Ram Lakhan, like every other Yadav, had the trait of self respect and pride. Because he was never treated the way a Yadav was supposed to be treated because of the curse that his wife bore, he tried to take even more control at home. He blames his wife for all his misery, and she isn’t even allowed to defend herself, as it would be disrespectful. The general idea was, to listen to your wife justify herself is ‘to be ill-treated’. Women had no rights of their own. They were treated as if they were made for the sole pleasure of man. They took care of everything, and had to bear children, to help carry on the family name, and increase the manpower of the community. They were made beautiful, to the man’s advantage. Rani was helpless; she couldn’t present her case in front of anyone for justice to be done to her, since everyone was ignorant, and were so staunch in their superstitious beliefs. So she turned to the Gods. The villagers were extremely religious, and sought divine intervention for all their problems. Prayer was always the final solution.
By nature, Indians are religious. The Image of God is such that the ordinary illiterate is able to relate to him. Krishna has teased the milkmaids by running away with their clothes. In order for ordinary people to understand, the Gods in India are humanized and assigned different powers. The more we look into their beliefs; the more we notice the human defects. Even Sita Devi, being a Goddess was driven by communal compulsions. The villagers are more superstitious, than religious. The Communities offer material sacrifices for the Gods; they bribe the Gods by things like ‘Coins, rice, marigold, roses’. Ram Lakhan tries to appeal to the God himself, where as Rani tries another way. She goes to a Holy Man who operates as a medium through whom God works.
Both stories portray the theme of barrenness beautifully, and the setting, background and minute details included by the writers give us a deeper insight into Indian culture. Indian religion is a mix of sacred and secular, as is seen when Ram Lakhan goes to Gorakhnath, and even on the way to a temple, Indians try to do business. The traders are crafty with language and persuasive tactics, like the man who send Sand-lizard oil, for 10 rupees only, and guarantees the villagers that the Qutub Minar was raised that high by the use of sand-lizard oil. Hoshiar Singh even believed it, and while he was at it, he got Ram Lakhan pills that could get ‘milk out of a bullock, and puppies out of a barren bitch’. The crude way they talk could be marked, the villagers have nothing to hide, and they talk openly about everything. In a ‘Stench of Kerosene’, when Manak and Guleri ‘bartered’ their hearts to each other in the harvest festival, he tells her that she is ‘like unripe corn- full of milk’. The terms used, all portray nature imagery. Perhaps because India is a country obsessed with its land, and proud of its beautiful land, where mother earth is sacred.
India is said to be “ The land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of a hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition, whose yesterdays bear date with the moldering antiquities of the rest of the nations – the one sole country under the sun that is endowed with an imperishable interest for alien persons, for lettered and ignorant, wise and fool, rich and poor, bond and free, the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for all the shows of all the rest of the globe combined.”
