SHASHI DESHPANDE’S ‘STRANGERS TO OURSELVES’: A STORY OF INEXPLICABLE MARITAL RELATIONSHIPS

The present article attempts to explore the intricate nature of marital relationships in Deshpande's novel, Strangers to Ourselves. Shashi Deshpande, the author of ten novels, two novellas, four books for children and a large number of short stories, has been writing about issues and problems of middle-class Indian women caught in the trap of Indian patriarchy. She has a comprehensive understanding of the grass-root reality and women's place and position, sorrows and sufferings, plight and predicament, pain and agony in a male-centric Indian society. Her women protagonists, by and large, find themselves to be the victims of unjust customs, conventions and traditions which are in favour of men. Unable to bear restrictions and compulsions imposed on them in the name of genderdiscrimination in their parental homes, they use marriage as an escape route, but unfortunately, in most cases, marriage becomes a trap for them. They are humiliated, tortured and exploited in one way or the other. They face physical violence in the form of unwanted marital-sex, almost a rape and mental torture. Her novels move around marital relationships which are marred by the evils such as male pride, ego and domination, patriarchal attitude to women, lack of understanding and communication.