Sarojini Sahoo
Encyclopedia
Sarojini Sahoo (born 1956) is an Orissa Sahitya Academy Award winner India
n feminist writer, a columnist in The New Indian Express
and associate editor of Chennai based English magazine Indian AGE, who has been enlisted among 25 Exceptional Women of India by ‘Kindle’ English magazine of Kolkata.
Born in the small town of Dhenkanal in Orissa
(India), Sahoo earned her MA and PhD degrees in Oriya
Literature and a Bachelor of Law from Utkal University
. She now teaches at a degree college in Belpahar
, Jharsuguda
, Orissa.
She is the second daughter of Ishwar Chandra Sahoo and the late Nalini Devi and is married to Jagadish Mohanty
, a veteran writer of Orissa
. She has a son and a daughter.
of short stories.
Her English anthologies of short stories are:
Her some of short stories have been anthologised in Hindi:
Her other Oriya anthologies of short stories are:
She won the Orissa Sahitya Academy Award and Bhubaneswar Book Fair Award for her collection of short stories titled, Amrutara Pratikshare.
Her novel Gambhiri Ghara
proved to be a bestseller in Oriya literature
. Her novels have gained a reputation for their feminist outlook and sexual frankness and has been translated into English and published from India under the title The Dark Abode
(2008) (ISBN 978-81-906956-2-6) and published from Bangladesh
in Bengali
as Mithya Gerosthali ( 2007 ) (ISBN 984 404 287-9). Prameela K.P has translated this novel into Malayalam and has been published as "Irunda Koodaram" by Chintha Publishers, Thiruvanthapuram. Martina Fuchs for German
and Dinesh Kumar Mali for Hindi. Another novel Pakhibas has been translated in to Bengali and published from Bangladesh under the same title (ISBN 984-70114-0089-1) in 2009. This novel has been translated into Hindi
by Dinesh Kumar Mali and has been published with same title by Yash Prakashan, Delhi (ISBN 81-89537-45-8) in 2010.
As an Indian feminist, many of Dr. Sarojini Sahoo’s writings deal candidly with female sexuality, the emotional lives of women, and the intricate fabric of human relationships, depicting extensively about the interior experiences of women and how their burgeoning sexuality is seen as a threat to traditional patriarchal societies; this book is rare of its kind and has covered the topics that never be discussed so far in any Indian discourse. Her debatable concept on feminism, her denial of Simone De Beauvoir’s ‘the other theory’, make her prominent feminist personality of South Asia and for which KINDLE Magazine of India has placed her among 25 exceptional mindset women of India.
in contemporary Indian literature
. For her, feminism is not a "gender problem" or confrontational attack on male hegemony
and, as such, differs from the feminist views of Virginia Woolf
or Judith Butler
. Sahoo accepts feminism as an integral part of femaleness separate from the masculine world. Writing with a heightened awareness of women’s bodies, she has developed an appropriate style that exploits openness, fragmentation, and nonlinearity. Sahoo, however contents that whilst the woman identity is certainly constitutionally different from that of man, men and women still share a basic human equality. Thus the harmful asymmetric sex /gender "Othering" arises accidentally and ‘passively’from natural , unavoidable intersubjectivity.
Treating female sexuality from puberty
to menopause
, her fiction always projects a feminine sensibility. Feminine feelings such as restrictions during adolescence
or pregnancy
, fear factors such as rape
or being condemned by society, the concept of the "bad girl," and so on, are treated thematically and in-depth throughout her novels and short stories.
Her feminism is constantly linked to the sexual politics of a woman. She denies patriarchal limits of sexual expression for a woman and she identifies women's sexual liberation as the real motive behind the women's movement. In South Asian Outlook , an e-magazine published from Canada, Menka Walia writes : “Sahoo typically evolves her stories around Indian women and sexuality, which is something not commonly written about, but is rather discouraged in a traditionalist society. As a feminist, she advocates women’s rights and usually gives light to the injustices Eastern women face. In her interviews, she usually talks about the fact that women are second-class citizens in India, backing up these facts with examples of how love marriages are forbidden, the rejection of divorces, the unfairness of dowries, and the rejection of female politicians.”.
For her, orgasm
is the body's natural call to feminist politics: if being a woman is this good, women must be worth something. Her novels like Upanibesh, Pratibandi and Gambhiri Ghara
cover a myriad of areas from sexuality to philosophy
; from the politics of the home to politics of the world. According to American journalist Linda Lowen, Sarojini Sahoo has written extensively as an Indian feminist about the interior lives of women and how their burgeoning sexuality is seen as a threat to traditional patriarchal societies. Sarojini’s novels and short stories treat women as sexual beings and probe culturally sensitive topics such as rape, abortion and menopause-from a female perspective.
Still, either in West or in East, there is a reluctant outlook towards sexuality. Society has always tried to hide it from any open forum. But neither society, nor the legislature, or even the judiciary stand by the side of sexuality to support it.
In the West, James Joyce
’s Ulysses
or even Radclyffe Hall
's Loneliness in the Well or Virginia Woolf
’s Orlando
are some examples which have to suffer a lot for describing sexuality in literature. Sexuality in literature grew with feminism.
Simone De Beauvoir, in her book The Second Sex
, first elaborately described the gender role and problem away from biological differences. In Oriya literature
, Sarojini is considered a key figure to discuss sexuality in her fiction with a sincere effort to express her feminist ideas.
Her novel Upanibesh was the first attempt in Oriya literature
to focus on sexuality as a part of social revolt by any woman. Medha, the protagonist of her novel, was a bohemian
. In her pre-marital stage, she was thinking that it was boring to live with a man life-long. Perhaps she wanted a chain free life, where there would be only love, only sex and would not be any monotony. But she had to marry Bhaskar. Can Indian society imagine a lady with bohemianism?
In her novel Pratibandi, Sarojini has also described the thematic development of sexuality in a woman. Priyanka, the protagonist of the novel has to encounter the loneliness in the exile of Saragpali, a remote village of India. This loneliness develops into a sexual urge and soon, Priyanka finds herself sexually attached with a former Member of Parliament
. Though there is an age gap between them, his intelligence impresses her and she discovers a hidden archaeologist in him.
In her novel Gambhiri Ghara
, she describes an unusual relationship between two people: a Hindu
housewife of India
and a Muslim
artist of Pakistan
. It is a net-oriented novel. A woman meets a very sexually experienced man. One day he asks if she had any such experience. The woman, Kuki, scolds him and insults him by calling him a caterpillar. She said without love, lust is like hunger of a caterpillar. Gradually they become involved with love, lust, and spiritually. That man considers her as his daughter, lover, mother, and above all these, as a Goddess. They both madly love each other, through the internet
and on the phone. They use obscene language and they kiss each other online. Kuki does not lead a happy conjugal life though she has a love marriage with Aniket. But the novel is not limited to only a love story.
It has a greater aspect. It deals with the relationship between State and individual. Safique is not a Muslim by temperament, but as a historian, thinks the Pakistan of today has separated itself from its roots and looks towards Arabian legends for his history. He protests that the syllabus of history for the school would start from seventh century A.D., not from the Mahenjodaro and Harappa. Safique was once arrested after the bomb blast of London for allegation of being associated with the terrorist, but is it a fact? Later Kuki came to know that Safiques is trapped by a military junta. The ex-lover of Safique’s wife had revenged on Safique by arresting him with an allegation of terrorism.
Here, the author deals with the question of terrorism
. There is often discussion about terrorism caused by an individual or by a group. Society rarely discusses terrorism caused by a state.
What is a state? Is it a group of people that resides within political and geographical boundaries? Are a state’s identity, mood and wishes separate from its ruler? Is the wish of George W. Bush
not considered as the wish of America? Has it reflected the mood and wish of the people of America? So, every time, the state’s arranged anarchism or terrorism is merely a reflection of a terrorism caused by an individual. The great truth lies beneath Safique, as a terrorist, develops from the mind of a military man.
The author has successfully painted the difference of sensibility towards sexuality between male and female and has her own credibility for the frankness to deal with sensitive matters, be they matters of politics or matters of sexuality. She has gained a reputation and has her own place in the history of Oriya fiction.
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n feminist writer, a columnist in The New Indian Express
The New Indian Express
The New Indian Express is an Indian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper published by the Express Publications. It was founded in 1932 as the Indian Express, under the ownership of Chennai-based P. Varadarajulu Naidu. In 1991, following the death of the then owner Ramnath Goenka, the Goenka...
and associate editor of Chennai based English magazine Indian AGE, who has been enlisted among 25 Exceptional Women of India by ‘Kindle’ English magazine of Kolkata.
Born in the small town of Dhenkanal in Orissa
Orissa
Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...
(India), Sahoo earned her MA and PhD degrees in Oriya
Oriya language
Oriya , officially Odia from November, 2011, is an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. It is mainly spoken in the Indian states of Orissa and West Bengal...
Literature and a Bachelor of Law from Utkal University
Utkal University
Utkal University, Bhubaneswar is the oldest university in Orissa and the 17th oldest university in India. It is a teaching-cum-affiliating university that has produced some of the best brains in Orissa. There are at 26 post-graduate departments at the university campus for studies and research in...
. She now teaches at a degree college in Belpahar
Belpahar
Belpahar is a town and a municipality in Jharsuguda district in the state of Orissa, India. Belpahar is famous for its geographical location, as it is the center for many coal mines areas nearby. Tata Refractories is located in Belpahar while there is Mahanadi Coalfields Limited and Ib Thermal...
, Jharsuguda
Jharsuguda
Jharsuguda is the district headquarters of Jharsuguda district of Orissa, India. It is the administrative headquarters of Jharsuguda district. It is an upcoming industrial hub, basically in the metal and cement sectors. Jharsuguda is well connected to all major cities of India through rail network...
, Orissa.
She is the second daughter of Ishwar Chandra Sahoo and the late Nalini Devi and is married to Jagadish Mohanty
Jagadish Mohanty
Jagadish Mohanty ' is a renowned Oriya writer, considered as a trendsetter in modern Oriya fiction, has received the prestigious Sarala Award 2003, Orissa Sahitya Akademy Award 1990, Jhankar Award, 1985 Dharitri Award, Prajatantra Award....
, a veteran writer of Orissa
Orissa
Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...
. She has a son and a daughter.
Short stories
She has published ten anthologiesAnthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
of short stories.
Her English anthologies of short stories are:
- Sarojini Sahoo StoriesSarojini Sahoo StoriesSarojini Sahoo Stories is an anthology of stories by Indian feminist writer Sarojini Sahoo, written originally in Oriya. The anthology was published in 2006 by the publisher Grassroots Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, India.- Literary theory:...
(2006) ISBN 81-89040-26-X - Waiting for Manna (2008) ISBN 978-81-906956-0-2
Her some of short stories have been anthologised in Hindi:
- Rape Tatha Anya Kahaniyana (2010) ISBN 978-81-7028-921-0
Her other Oriya anthologies of short stories are:
- Sukhara Muhanmuhin (1981)
- Nija GahirareNije (1989)
- Amrutara Pratikshare (1992)
- Chowkath (1994)
- Tarali Jauthiba Durga (1995)
- Deshantari (1999)
- Dukha Apramita (2006)
- Srujani Sarojini (2008)
She won the Orissa Sahitya Academy Award and Bhubaneswar Book Fair Award for her collection of short stories titled, Amrutara Pratikshare.
Novels
She has published eight novels in Oriya .- Upanibesh (1998)
- Pratibandi (1999) ISBN 81-7411-253-7
- Swapna Khojali Mane (2000)
- Mahajatra (2001)
- Gambhiri GharaThe Dark AbodeThe Dark Abode is a collage presentation of south Asian feminist novelist Sarojini Sahoo ‘s novel and American poet / painter Ed Baker’s 23 sketches, which deal with terrorism that people often face from micro to macro sphere.- Plot Summary of novel :The novel begins with questioning...
(2005) - Bishad Ishwari (2006)
- Pakshibasa (2007)
- Asamajik (2008)
Her novel Gambhiri Ghara
The Dark Abode
The Dark Abode is a collage presentation of south Asian feminist novelist Sarojini Sahoo ‘s novel and American poet / painter Ed Baker’s 23 sketches, which deal with terrorism that people often face from micro to macro sphere.- Plot Summary of novel :The novel begins with questioning...
proved to be a bestseller in Oriya literature
Oriya literature
Oriya is an official language of the state of Orissa, India. The region has been known at different stages of history as Kalinga, Udra, Utkala, or Koshala. The language is also spoken by minority populations of the neighboring states of Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. The...
. Her novels have gained a reputation for their feminist outlook and sexual frankness and has been translated into English and published from India under the title The Dark Abode
The Dark Abode
The Dark Abode is a collage presentation of south Asian feminist novelist Sarojini Sahoo ‘s novel and American poet / painter Ed Baker’s 23 sketches, which deal with terrorism that people often face from micro to macro sphere.- Plot Summary of novel :The novel begins with questioning...
(2008) (ISBN 978-81-906956-2-6) and published from Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
in Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
as Mithya Gerosthali ( 2007 ) (ISBN 984 404 287-9). Prameela K.P has translated this novel into Malayalam and has been published as "Irunda Koodaram" by Chintha Publishers, Thiruvanthapuram. Martina Fuchs for German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and Dinesh Kumar Mali for Hindi. Another novel Pakhibas has been translated in to Bengali and published from Bangladesh under the same title (ISBN 984-70114-0089-1) in 2009. This novel has been translated into Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
by Dinesh Kumar Mali and has been published with same title by Yash Prakashan, Delhi (ISBN 81-89537-45-8) in 2010.
Essays
She has published a collection of essays Sensible Sensuality (2010), where redefining femininity with Eastern perspective, the book explores why sexuality plays a major role in our understanding of Eastern feminism. The author thinks feminism should not act in opposition to men as individuals. To her, feminism is against oppressive and outdated social structures which forces both men and women into positions which are false and antagonistic. Thus, everyone has an important role to play in the feminist movement. It seems ironic that feminism has been characterized as anti-male, when in fact, it seeks to liberate men from the macho stereotypic roles men often have to endure such as the need to suppress feelings, act aggressively, and be deprived of contact with children. Sahoo thinks people should emphasize their femininity rather to impose the so-called stereotyped feministic attitude of the second wave.As an Indian feminist, many of Dr. Sarojini Sahoo’s writings deal candidly with female sexuality, the emotional lives of women, and the intricate fabric of human relationships, depicting extensively about the interior experiences of women and how their burgeoning sexuality is seen as a threat to traditional patriarchal societies; this book is rare of its kind and has covered the topics that never be discussed so far in any Indian discourse. Her debatable concept on feminism, her denial of Simone De Beauvoir’s ‘the other theory’, make her prominent feminist personality of South Asia and for which KINDLE Magazine of India has placed her among 25 exceptional mindset women of India.
Awards
- Orissa Sahitya Academy Award, 1993
- Jhankar Award, 1992
- Bhubaneswar Book Fair Award, 1993
- Prajatantra Award, 1981,1993
- Ladli Media Award, 2011
Feminism
Sarojini Sahoo is a key figure and trendsetter of feminismFeminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
in contemporary Indian literature
Indian literature
Indian literature refers to the literature produced on the Indian subcontinent until 1947 and in the Republic of India thereafter. The Republic of India has 22 officially recognized languages....
. For her, feminism is not a "gender problem" or confrontational attack on male hegemony
Hegemony
Hegemony is an indirect form of imperial dominance in which the hegemon rules sub-ordinate states by the implied means of power rather than direct military force. In Ancient Greece , hegemony denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state over other city-states...
and, as such, differs from the feminist views of Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
or Judith Butler
Judith Butler
Judith Butler is an American post-structuralist philosopher, who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. She is a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley.Butler received her Ph.D...
. Sahoo accepts feminism as an integral part of femaleness separate from the masculine world. Writing with a heightened awareness of women’s bodies, she has developed an appropriate style that exploits openness, fragmentation, and nonlinearity. Sahoo, however contents that whilst the woman identity is certainly constitutionally different from that of man, men and women still share a basic human equality. Thus the harmful asymmetric sex /gender "Othering" arises accidentally and ‘passively’from natural , unavoidable intersubjectivity.
Treating female sexuality from puberty
Puberty
Puberty is the process of physical changes by which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of reproduction, as initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads; the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a boy...
to menopause
Menopause
Menopause is a term used to describe the permanent cessation of the primary functions of the human ovaries: the ripening and release of ova and the release of hormones that cause both the creation of the uterine lining and the subsequent shedding of the uterine lining...
, her fiction always projects a feminine sensibility. Feminine feelings such as restrictions during adolescence
Adolescence
Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and mental human development generally occurring between puberty and legal adulthood , but largely characterized as beginning and ending with the teenage stage...
or pregnancy
Pregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
, fear factors such as rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
or being condemned by society, the concept of the "bad girl," and so on, are treated thematically and in-depth throughout her novels and short stories.
Her feminism is constantly linked to the sexual politics of a woman. She denies patriarchal limits of sexual expression for a woman and she identifies women's sexual liberation as the real motive behind the women's movement. In South Asian Outlook , an e-magazine published from Canada, Menka Walia writes : “Sahoo typically evolves her stories around Indian women and sexuality, which is something not commonly written about, but is rather discouraged in a traditionalist society. As a feminist, she advocates women’s rights and usually gives light to the injustices Eastern women face. In her interviews, she usually talks about the fact that women are second-class citizens in India, backing up these facts with examples of how love marriages are forbidden, the rejection of divorces, the unfairness of dowries, and the rejection of female politicians.”.
For her, orgasm
Orgasm
Orgasm is the peak of the plateau phase of the sexual response cycle, characterized by an intense sensation of pleasure...
is the body's natural call to feminist politics: if being a woman is this good, women must be worth something. Her novels like Upanibesh, Pratibandi and Gambhiri Ghara
The Dark Abode
The Dark Abode is a collage presentation of south Asian feminist novelist Sarojini Sahoo ‘s novel and American poet / painter Ed Baker’s 23 sketches, which deal with terrorism that people often face from micro to macro sphere.- Plot Summary of novel :The novel begins with questioning...
cover a myriad of areas from sexuality to philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
; from the politics of the home to politics of the world. According to American journalist Linda Lowen, Sarojini Sahoo has written extensively as an Indian feminist about the interior lives of women and how their burgeoning sexuality is seen as a threat to traditional patriarchal societies. Sarojini’s novels and short stories treat women as sexual beings and probe culturally sensitive topics such as rape, abortion and menopause-from a female perspective.
Sexuality
Sexuality is something that can be related to many other aspects of culture, tightly-linked with an individual life, or into the evolution of a culture. Anyone’s class or ethnic or geographic identity could be closely associated to his/her sexuality, or anyone’s sense of art or literature. Sexuality is not just an entity in itself.Still, either in West or in East, there is a reluctant outlook towards sexuality. Society has always tried to hide it from any open forum. But neither society, nor the legislature, or even the judiciary stand by the side of sexuality to support it.
In the West, James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
’s Ulysses
Ulysses (novel)
Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
or even Radclyffe Hall
Radclyffe Hall
Radclyffe Hall was an English poet and author, best known for the lesbian classic The Well of Loneliness.- Life :...
's Loneliness in the Well or Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
’s Orlando
Orlando: A Biography
Orlando: A Biography is an influential novel by Virginia Woolf, first published on 11 October 1928. A semi-biographical novel based in part on the life of Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West, it is generally considered one of Woolf's most accessible novels...
are some examples which have to suffer a lot for describing sexuality in literature. Sexuality in literature grew with feminism.
Simone De Beauvoir, in her book The Second Sex
The Second Sex
The Second Sex is one of the best-known works of the French existentialist Simone de Beauvoir. It is a work on the treatment of women throughout history and often regarded as a major work of feminist literature and the starting point of second-wave feminism. Beauvoir researched and wrote the book...
, first elaborately described the gender role and problem away from biological differences. In Oriya literature
Oriya literature
Oriya is an official language of the state of Orissa, India. The region has been known at different stages of history as Kalinga, Udra, Utkala, or Koshala. The language is also spoken by minority populations of the neighboring states of Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. The...
, Sarojini is considered a key figure to discuss sexuality in her fiction with a sincere effort to express her feminist ideas.
Her novel Upanibesh was the first attempt in Oriya literature
Oriya literature
Oriya is an official language of the state of Orissa, India. The region has been known at different stages of history as Kalinga, Udra, Utkala, or Koshala. The language is also spoken by minority populations of the neighboring states of Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. The...
to focus on sexuality as a part of social revolt by any woman. Medha, the protagonist of her novel, was a bohemian
Bohemian style
In modern usage, the term "Bohemian" is applied to people who live unconventional, usually artistic, lives. The adherents of the "Bloomsbury Group", which formed around the Stephen sisters, Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf in the early 20th century, are among the best-known examples...
. In her pre-marital stage, she was thinking that it was boring to live with a man life-long. Perhaps she wanted a chain free life, where there would be only love, only sex and would not be any monotony. But she had to marry Bhaskar. Can Indian society imagine a lady with bohemianism?
In her novel Pratibandi, Sarojini has also described the thematic development of sexuality in a woman. Priyanka, the protagonist of the novel has to encounter the loneliness in the exile of Saragpali, a remote village of India. This loneliness develops into a sexual urge and soon, Priyanka finds herself sexually attached with a former Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
. Though there is an age gap between them, his intelligence impresses her and she discovers a hidden archaeologist in him.
In her novel Gambhiri Ghara
The Dark Abode
The Dark Abode is a collage presentation of south Asian feminist novelist Sarojini Sahoo ‘s novel and American poet / painter Ed Baker’s 23 sketches, which deal with terrorism that people often face from micro to macro sphere.- Plot Summary of novel :The novel begins with questioning...
, she describes an unusual relationship between two people: a Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
housewife of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and a Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
artist of Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. It is a net-oriented novel. A woman meets a very sexually experienced man. One day he asks if she had any such experience. The woman, Kuki, scolds him and insults him by calling him a caterpillar. She said without love, lust is like hunger of a caterpillar. Gradually they become involved with love, lust, and spiritually. That man considers her as his daughter, lover, mother, and above all these, as a Goddess. They both madly love each other, through the internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
and on the phone. They use obscene language and they kiss each other online. Kuki does not lead a happy conjugal life though she has a love marriage with Aniket. But the novel is not limited to only a love story.
It has a greater aspect. It deals with the relationship between State and individual. Safique is not a Muslim by temperament, but as a historian, thinks the Pakistan of today has separated itself from its roots and looks towards Arabian legends for his history. He protests that the syllabus of history for the school would start from seventh century A.D., not from the Mahenjodaro and Harappa. Safique was once arrested after the bomb blast of London for allegation of being associated with the terrorist, but is it a fact? Later Kuki came to know that Safiques is trapped by a military junta. The ex-lover of Safique’s wife had revenged on Safique by arresting him with an allegation of terrorism.
Here, the author deals with the question of terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
. There is often discussion about terrorism caused by an individual or by a group. Society rarely discusses terrorism caused by a state.
What is a state? Is it a group of people that resides within political and geographical boundaries? Are a state’s identity, mood and wishes separate from its ruler? Is the wish of George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
not considered as the wish of America? Has it reflected the mood and wish of the people of America? So, every time, the state’s arranged anarchism or terrorism is merely a reflection of a terrorism caused by an individual. The great truth lies beneath Safique, as a terrorist, develops from the mind of a military man.
The author has successfully painted the difference of sensibility towards sexuality between male and female and has her own credibility for the frankness to deal with sensitive matters, be they matters of politics or matters of sexuality. She has gained a reputation and has her own place in the history of Oriya fiction.
Primary sources
- Sahoo, Sarojini. Sarojini Sahoo Short Stories. Grassroots, 2006. ISBN 81-89040-26-X
- Sahoo, Sarojini. Waiting for Manna, Indian AGE Communication, 2008. ISBN 978-81-906956-0-2
- Sahoo, Sarojini. The Dark Abode, Indian AGE Communication, 2008. ISBN 978-81-906956-2-6
- Sahoo, Sarojini. Mithya Gerosthali, Anupam Prakashani, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2007. ISBN 984-404-287-9
- Sukhara Muhanmuhin (1981)
- NijaGahirareNije (1989)
- Amrutara Pratikshare (1992)
- Chowkath (1994)
- Tarali Jauthiba Durga (1995)
- Upanibesh (1998)
- Pratibandi (1999)
- Gambhiri Ghara (2005)
Secondary sources
- Oriya Women’s Writing : Paul St-Pierre and Ganeswar Mishra, Sateertha Publication, ISBN 81-900749-0-3
- The Amari Gapa (Oriya Literary Journal), Special Issue on Sarojini: May–July, 2006
Online
- http://womensissues.about.com/od/feminismequalrights/a/FeminisminIndia_2.htmSarojini Sahoo interviewed at The New York Times portal, About.comAbout.comAbout.com is an online source for original information and advice. It is written in English, and is aimed primarily at North Americans. It is owned by The New York Times Company....
] - Sarojini Sahoo interviewed at French portal Indereunion
- South Asian Outlook
See also
- List of feminist literature
- List of feminists
- Sarojini Sahoo StoriesSarojini Sahoo StoriesSarojini Sahoo Stories is an anthology of stories by Indian feminist writer Sarojini Sahoo, written originally in Oriya. The anthology was published in 2006 by the publisher Grassroots Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, India.- Literary theory:...
- The Dark AbodeThe Dark AbodeThe Dark Abode is a collage presentation of south Asian feminist novelist Sarojini Sahoo ‘s novel and American poet / painter Ed Baker’s 23 sketches, which deal with terrorism that people often face from micro to macro sphere.- Plot Summary of novel :The novel begins with questioning...
External links
- Sarojini Sahoo - Official Web site
- Sarojini Sahoo - Blog
- Sarojini Sahoo - Sawnet Bio
- Oriya Nari
- Orissa Diary