Roots and Shadows... a few thoughts

Family how rooted it is especially in the Indian context and yet there are so many wheels within wheels as they say.This is about 'Roots and Shadows' another of those excellent books by Shashi deshpande.The novel starts off with Indu coming back to her ancestral home and family after years and suddenly realising that she by a cunning stroke has been holding the strings to the future of all the entities in the family.The novel really exploits the view of all people within the so called family having deviant interests each may be valid from within their view.It shows the cunningness of the weak, how money is such a bonding factor.
It also brings out how women whatever they acheive but within the familial set up are cut out.

'you are too clever for me' the final rejoinder.It had always been thrown at me like accusation.'for a woman intelligence is always a burden Indu.We like our women not to think.''its always going to happen to you Indu.People are resentful of brains.Take it in your stride...pity them'.

One scene that really is so true to life may be because its the background story of every familyno wonder ekta kapoor exploits it so much was this when Indu the modern girl who does not wear much jewelry goes to open the ancestral safe to which she has the keys now.

" Mini sitting next to me....look Indu arent these pearls lovely!lets see how they look on you.You never wear anything'and she clasped them as i sat still letting her do it.'
Yes Indu never wears anything' Sunanda atya said with a smile for me.As if we were allies' what does she need such things for? her education is her real jewelry.Its only poor fools like us who need all that'.'
Fools!' Kaki's voice was loaded with sarcasm.
Icould no longer be silent.'I never had any jewelry May be thats why i never wore it.Now that i have such a lot of it ,perhaps i'll start wearing it'
There was shocked silence.In the dim light it was difficult to make out the faces but the air in the room was charged with consternation.Was i serious?Does she mean it? then what about my Mini, my Lata, my Geeta, my Shobha.Its not fair.Its not fair.

The book also goes into such diverse topics all from the same story that its amazing.

The whole world is made of interdependent parts so why not you?

Meera ...if there had been pschoanalysis then, wouldn't they have pschoanalysed her, cut out her obsession, rooted it out of her ?

Detachment...it was for the dead not the living.

Its amazing that a writer who writes with so much understanding and pathos about the general India, not the very poor or the filthy rich is not as well known but others who spin magical talesare much well known in indian writing in english.Its unfair ..... but whats great is she been at it for more than 2 decades.I do have to read her newer books these are actually her older books ive read and written in my previous posts.