SHASHI DESHPANDE’S THAT LONG SILENCE: PAVING THE WAY FOR INDIAN WOMEN

Shashi Deshpande is a novelist of a high order and great sensibility. A closer study of Shashi Deshpande's novels reveals that her novels are serious reflections on the human condition with a particular focus on the perils and predicaments of women in the society. As a vigilant social observer, she has sensitively portrayed the gender imbalances of her own society. As a conscience keeper of the society, the novelist has been successful in giving voice to the silenced, while empowering the marginalized. Her protagonists finally emerge as strong women, crossing patriarchal boundaries and breaking traditional ideals to gain personal space in their own terms. In the final outcome, they are neither victim nor rebel but directed toward self-transformation and restructuring and as a result of the reworking of both, led to a new and meaningful pattern in interpersonal relationship in the family. All of us are trying to adapt ourselves to the society as it is and in that process we are discovering ourselves, new ways of living and new ways of functioning.