Ladies Coupe by Anita Nair summary in English

Ladies coupe

- Anita Nair

Author Introduction:

Summary:

In Ladies coupe, Anita Nair deals with the concept of male chauvinism and signifies inequality in relationship. Her novel raises a question about the role of woman in contemporary postcolonial India. Nair’s India suffers from a system of sex role stereotyping and oppression of woman that exists under patriarchal social organization.

The woman characters in the novel Ladie Coupe seems to be the personification of new women who have been trying to throw off the burden of inhibition they have carried for ages. They go through the gruelling experiences of domestic oppression at the hands of the repressive forces of society but finally they revolted against the oppressions and resolved to discover them and establish them in society.

Anita Nair’s Ladies Coupe traces the lives of six women as they travel in the ladies compartment. It is about a train journey taken by the chief protagonist, Akhila to search within herself for strength, independence and answer to many questions that have disturbed her spinsterhood. In the ladies compartment she meets five other women. They are Janaki, Margaret Shanthi, Prabha Devi, Sheela and Marikolunthu. As they are travelling, Akhila asks a problematic question to them. “Can a woman stay single and be happy?”(21). To answer her question, everybody starts narrating their own story. Through their stories, Nair has sympathetically explained the woman’s agonies, endurance, sufferings, anticipations etc. The protagonist Akhila in the novel Ladies Coupe is a forty-five year old spinster, daughter, sister, aunt and the only provider of her family after the death of her father. When Akhila’s father dies, all the responsibilities come to her shoulder. Due to her earning she makes her younger brothers to pursue their education. Due to her financial support her younger brother Narayanan becomes a mechanic and Narsi becomes a teacher, Narsi decided to marry the college principal’s daughter. But nobody in her family has considered about Akhila’s marriage.

When Narsi told the family that he was going to marry the principal’s

daughter, no one could find fault with his choice and there was

nothing any one could say expect perhaps don’t you think you

should wait for your elder sister to get married before you think of a

wife and a family?(77)

As her younger sister Padma grows up her marriage is planned but no one seems to think that Akhila too has her needs. Though Akhila has done her duties, all that of a head, just because she is a women. Amma experts Akhila to get permission from her brothers to go on an office tour as she says, “Perhaps you should ask your brothers permission first”(150). When Akhila argues that she is the elder sister and why she should ask their permission, for that she simply says “you might be older but you are a woman and they are the men of the family”(150). Thus there rises male chauvinism. Again when Akhila has thought to live alone her sister Padma reiterates her to ask permission from her brothers because they are the men of the family. Padma says “Do you think the brothers will consent this? Do you think they’ll let you live alone?”(204). Thus everyone including Padma, Narsi, Narayana are strongly rooted of a woman living alone. But finally wants to empower herself. So she breaks their restrictions by boarding the train to Kanyakumari to discover herself.

Janaki married Prabhakar at the age of eighteen and he was twenty seven. This age gap made prabhakar feel dominating. Prabhakar always pampered Janaki that made her feel she was dominated by her husband. When Janaki’s son and his wife Jaya come home Jaya notices Janaki and Prabhakar. This makes Janaki feel irritated.

After the wedding and honeymoon, Siddharth and Jaya came visiting.

All day, Janaki felt Jaya’s eyes follow them, Prabhakar and her, as

they went through the ballet of household. A synchronized performance

that years of practice had fine-tuned to perfection. He chopped. She

cooked. He washes dishes. She dried and stacked them. She hung out

the clothes to dry. He brought them in. She turned down the bedclothes.

He switches off the lights.(33)

When Jaya says to Janaki that Mummy was lucky to have Papa as her husband. She says papa takes care of every small activity. Janaki has inadequate feeling that Jaya thinks she is a weak women. That time Prabhakar stops chopping the onions and explains how bold she is when they stay in small town near Hyderbad. Mrs.Bhatt who was eight months pregnant, got her labour pain. At that time Janaki had helped her by stopping the truck and taking her to hospital. When Prabhakar explains this to Jaya by mentioning Janaki as mummy to Jaya. Janaki gets angry because he says this story to everyone considering this incident as a Janaki’s life time achievement. Janaki also wants to scream: “Don’t call me Mummy. I’m not your mummy. I am your wife. Remember, you used to call me Janu once. Wife. Darling. Sweetheart. And if you find it hard saying those. Call me woman, but don’t call me Mummy!” (34).

Janaki son Siddharth compares her to Jaya’s mother by telling that jaya’s mother can do anything by herself without any one’s help. That time Prabhakar enters and asks Siddharth to say sorry to Janaki for rising the tone and talking to her. Whenever Siddharth had choice to talk to her mother he says that after father he will take care of her. So she feels

“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 is father left off.

Women like me end up being fragile. Our men treat us like pricesses”.

Margaret Shanthi who was twenty-two years old got gold medal in M.SC Chemistry. Her parents wish is to make her to pursue Ph.D. Margaret Shanthi meets Ebenezar Paulraj in church who is a good teacher. Ebenezar wants Margaret also wants to be a good teacher. They both loved each other then they married with parents permission. On the day before marriage. Margaret’s father enters into Margaret’s room and said “He’s a good man. Ebenezar will make you very happy”(103). Margare’st love for Ebenezer is like solvent for first one year. When Margaret was pregnant after eighteen months of marriage. She was very happy and wants to say this happy news to her parents. Margaret says, “I wanted to stand on the roof top and holler, ‘I’m going to have a baby”(104).

Ebenezar is sad and asks her to abort the baby. He feels that after the settlement in their career they have a baby. So Margaret accepted to abort the baby before informing this good news to her parents: ”I’ve spoken to the doctor at length about this and she said there was nothing to fear. At seven weeks, that thing in your uterus is little more than a zygote”(105).

When Margaret wants to pursue doctorate in Chemistry. Ebenezar wants her to do her B.Ed. So they both can work together. In fact Ebenezar controls Margaret in the hair cut also. Ebenezar says, “Long hair doesn’t suit you. Cut it off. You’ll look nicer with your hair in a blunt bob” (105).

When Margaret enters into operation theatre for abortion. Ebenezar Paulraj says “All the best!” (109). Margaret feels angry with Ebenezar for the first time. He is the worst example of male chauvinism in this novel. Whenever Margaret’s family praises Ebenezar as a good husband and a successful man she cannot tolerate it. Margaret cannot share the unhappiness in her life to her mother. When she thinks about divorce. She is afraid of it because the girl from a respectable family must grit her teeth and work hard to preserve their relationship.So if she leaves Ebenezar Paulraj she must be prepared to lose her family also. Margaret says “What do I do? I asked myself again and again”(113).

Ebenezar stops the maid servant. Margaret does all the household chores. Ebenezar scolds Margaret for not properly dusting his certificates wardrobes where he keeps all the certificates from nursery school to best interjector in debate.

Ebenezar Paulraj likes to run. When he first meet margaret, he has one book titled “The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner”. He would change into sports dress in the evening in school and he would run around the ground. The students in the ground will admire him. Ebenezar says “Running is the best exercise. Nothing can match it, neither swimming nor tennis my other favorite sports”(122). Ebenezar loves his body but his appetite for food is lot. So it makes Magaret hide her favourite snacks and chocolate bar in the wardrobe; on the top of the bookcase. Margaret says: “ But my milkmaid days were not very frequent. Usually a bar of chocolate and a packet of chips to take the sweetness away from my mouth were all I needed to fulfill my cravings”(123)”.

Margaret knows that Ebenezar has infatuation on Daphe who works in the school with them. In the weeks end Ebenezar will invite staff members to come home to discuss about school. That time Daphe writes poetry and recites in front of them in husky voice. Margaret that time wishes that someone could laugh on her.

Ebenezar Paulraj’s punishment to the student is intolerable. A nine year old boy Alfred Arokiaswami who has dimple in his cheeks and mischief in his eyes. Ebenezar wrote to parent in the diary that the hair should be cut. But the boy didn’t cut the hair. So Ebenezar summonsed him to his room after morning assembly.

“Ebenezer Paulraj gathered a handful of Alfred’s hair and clasped a rubber band around it so that the tuft of curls resembled a pineapple”(128). He orders Alfred to keep rubber band till the evening. When Margaret enter into Ebenezer Paulraj room in school to scold him about hair band issue. Ebenezer Paulraj says “Madam, Ebenezer Paulraj said in voice that I had never heard him us before, ‘I Would like to remind you that I’m in charge here and not you. I do not like anyone flouting my authority and the next time you do so, I will have to take

strict action.I will not let who you are influence my decisions. Do you understand? This is my school and I know what’s best for my students”(129). Alfred’s mother takes him to the barber shop and shave his hair. Ebenezer Paulraj’s wish is fulfilled. But when Margaret points out Alfred’s rude nature, climbing the highest branch of tree and sliding down the staircase to Ebenezer. He says, “Boys will be boys”(129).

As Ebenezar is becoming more and more egoistic, domineering and hypocritic, Margaret is unconsciously compelled to teach him a lesson. She chooses flattery as the weapon to bring down Ebenezar’s self-esteem. She flatters and flatters and feeds him with fatty food, till fat finds its home on him and turns him into a fat man, a quiet man, and an easy man who seeks her help for every task. Though Margaret suffers a lot, at last she empowers herself and makes herself to come out from the web and finds her way.

The youngest of the six is Sheela, fourteen years old who talks about her grandmother in whom we can see the manifestations of feminity. And Sheela, is in the process of being moulded by patriarchal hands. As Judes Jalaja and Shunmuga Sundari observe. “Sheela’s retrospection also touches on sexual abuse of girl children by older man”(np). Sheela feels embarrassed and hurt at the unwanted touching of Hasina’s father Nazar as “One Sunday afternoon when sheela went to their house, rushing in from the heat with a line of sweat beading her upper lip, Nazar had reached forward and wiped it with his finger “(66). The touch of his finger tingled on her is unable to open her mouth against the physical abuse attemped on her, but she develops confidence to protect herself from it in future for it she says “thereafter she mopped her face with a hanky each time she entered enters Hasinas’s home”(66). Even Sheela’s friend Hasina and her mother are unable to voice their contempt for his attitude because they are helpless. When once Nazar knots the bows in her sleeves, “She saw the hurt in Hasina and her mother’s eyes”(66). There after Sheela take the right decision that “she would never go to Hasina’s home again”(66). As a self-protection. Within Sheela’s story, Anita Nair has brought in an incident, where a girl names Celine becomes pregnant because of her friend’s father and her family moves to a place where no one will know about her abortion. But it is said, “the friend’s father went to a far away town where he would find plenty of young girls to ruin everyone said”(65). Through this incident Nair has brought out the unjust treatment of women by men.

Suresh Kumar and Leema Rose say “Patriarchy shows its ugly face from cradle to grave”(NP). Even parents are more concerned about the boys than the girls. And Anita Nair has chosen the character of Prabha Devi to emphasise this issue. When Prabha Devi was born her father was sighed. Her father was jewellery store owner. He planned to open fifth jewellery store in Madras. He thought Prabha Devi will be a boy and says “Five stores, five boys, everyone happy”(169). But when Prabha Devi was born as a girl his plan was collapsed. Only Prabha Devi’s mother was happy about the girl. She felt at least she had someone to leave her recipes and treasure her jewellery. Prabha Devi’s father 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”(169).

Prabha Devi’s mother says to her father that they had already four sons and this girl will not do any harm to their business. When the marriage time comes they can find a family which aids their business interest. Only then Prabha Devi’s father accepts her.

When Prabha Devi is fifteen years old her father put her in convent school. Prabha Devi’s father expects the nuns in the school will groom her well that will help him to search for good alliance. After studies are over, Prabha Devi is allowed only on Saturday to go out and spend two hours with her friends.

One day Prabha Devi’s father say she has found a husband for Prabha Devi. Everyone is happy expect Prabha Devi’s mother. She is married to Jagdeesh because he is “the only son and heir of a prosperous diamond merchant”(171). Prabha Devi’s father decides to expand their diamond section in jewellery store after their marriage.

Prabha Devi after marriage behaves as a perfect daughter-in-law and does all the household things. When Jagdeesh takes her aboard, She admires the fashion of the aboard. After returning from aboard, Prabha Devi changes the way of dressing and walking style. She even delays the pregnancy. When Jagdeesh says “My parents are getting impatient. They talk of a grandchild all the time. We have been married for almost a year now”(179).

Prabha Devi leaves all the fashion and behaves like a girl when she was newly married. Then she gets pregnant. Then she turns into a good wife and excellent mother:

Prabha Devi, Prabha Devi, where have you been? I became a woman,

neither heard nor seen, the mirror retorted, rhyming grimly. Prabha Devi,

Prabha Devi, what did you do there? The parody continued. I waited and

waited till ash speckled my hair.(184)

When she becomes forty years old, she has begun to realize that she has missed something in her life. After that she craves to learn swimming. But her husband Jagdeesh does not give his consent towards her pleading request. Because he wants his wife to be submissive. He is a typical conservative make. But out of great desire, Prabha Devi ultimately learns swimming without anybody’s help. Thus she empowers herself and moulds herself to achieve her desire.

Marikolunthu 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. Marikolanthu leads a simple and humble life with her family in Palur near Kancheepuram. Her father is a farmer. Her mother Kanakambaram is a home maker. She has two brothers Easwaran and Sivakumar. Marikolanthu’s father has some land where he works very hard. Her father hates working for Chettiar Kottai. Because Chettiar makes money through silkworms. He has many own looms to weave saree. Marikolanthu’s father says:

“To kill god’s creatures day after day and profit from their death. I’m a Farmer. The only creatures that die because of me are the ones that my Plough cuts into and even those I kill unknowingly”(213).

To Marikolanthu’s father Chettiar is a slave king. Her father dies after her ninth birthday.

Kanakambaram’s culinary skills are very famous in the village. So she is called often to Chettiar Kottai in special occasions. After the death Marikolanthu’s father dead this culinary skills becomes their livelihood. Kanakambaram leaves house early morning and return in night. So Marikolanthu became housewife of the family. She does all the household chores and she is happy to do that work like playing house.

Two year later Kanakambaram feels Marikolunthu’s help is needed in Chettiar Kottai. Marikolunthu says: “I would have to go to the town if I wished to study any further. The village school had classes only till the fifth standard”(214).

Kanakambaram feels she can’t afford to send Marikolunthu by bus. She also feels how she can send the young girl by herself alone to school. Marikolunthu also accepts to go to Chettiar Kottai because of the family poverty in the family and to make their brothers to study.

When Marikolanthu attains the womanhood. She feels her entire life is changed. After that Marikolanthu is stopped by Sujata Akka as her brother-in-law and her husband are looking Marikolanthu in a wrong way: “I know you are a good girl, but it is unwise to leave cotton and a matchstick side by side. One wrong move and everything could go up in flames”(226).

Sujata Akka send Marikolanthu to Vellore to work in a Doctor’s house. When Marikolanthu’s mother leg bone crakes she is advise to take rest. Marikolanthu again comes to Chettiar Kottai as cook. But Murugesan, one of the relatives of Chettiyar is a wicked person. Basically, he has a baleful opinion about girls. He is searching for a good occasion to seduce Marikolunthu. Ultimately, she falls in his trap, Murugesan brutally seduces her. This incident changes her life completely. She has lost everything. Sujata Akka, daughter-in-law of Chettiyar, tells her to conceal this issue. Though her rapist is known, he is not punished. She gives birth to an illegitimate baby called Muthu. After that Muthu is taken care by Marikolunthu’s mother. After her mother’s death, nobody is there to support her, even her younger brothers tell her to leave the house with her child Muthu. But after that, she decides to live on her own. She does not depend on any other person. She joins the mission hospital as a helper. She defines her as an independent woman. Though she does not have anything, she does not relinquish her hope. Thus finally, she empowers herself and proves to the world that she can lead a good life. Marikolanthu says “All I wanted was a measure of happiness. All I wanted to bewas Muthu’s mother”(268).

Anita Nair uses certain characters like Akhila’s mother, to express how women are strong conservative of the patriarchal structure that framed strict social, political, and economic limitations on women. Akhila’s mother is conservative and orthodox mother, and devoted with her own theory that a wife is always inferior to husband. She is a sort of woman who never takes decision on her own but left all decision to her husband for she believes, “He knows best”(14). According to her, A good wife learnt to put her husband’s interests before anyone else’s, even her father’s. A good wife listened to her husband and did as she

said. It is best to accept that the wife is inferior to the husband. That

way, there can be no strife, no disharmony. It is so much easier and simpler to accept one’s situation in life and live accordingly”(14)

When Akhila wants her mother to take music lesson as Karpagam’s mother teaches dance, she disapproves of it telling “I don’t approve of what Karpagam’s mother is doing”.(13) She reminds Akhila what her father has told her when they were first married. “I want my life to take care of my children and me. I don’t want her so caught up with her job that she has no time for the house or for taking care of my needs”(14). After the death of Akhila father, her mother let her eldest daughter Akhila, to shoulder the responsibilities of the entire family. Anita Nair brings in Sarasa mami’s husband dies. Sarasa mami goes to every step demanding to be taken as a servant maid. But every neighbourhood just gives her a handful of rice if she is a beggar and this makes her to sell her daughter Jaya for the sake of their living. Anita Nair chooses this family as a complete constrast of Akhila’s family to interpret how the more dilemmas of women are trapped in social and emotional circumstances, struggling against oppression and destiny.

Thus listening to the lives of various women in Ladies Coupe. Akhila gets down at Kannyakumari as an empowered woman to rediscover her ‘self’. She decides that she has to live for her not for others. Ultimately, she breaks the chain of patriarchy which have haunted her for nearly a decade. She empowers herself and makes a call to Hari, her past lover to make a new life with him.

Thus in the novel Ladies Coupe, Anita Nair has dealt with the themes like patriarchy and women empowerment. Though her characters have struggled due to patriarchy, at last they empower themselves and successfully relieve themselves from a web called patriarchy.

Characters: