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Title: A Married Woman
Author: Manju Kapur
Narrator: Deepti Gupta
Format: Unabridged
Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
Language: English
Release date: 09-10-14
Publisher: Audible Studios
Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 1 votes
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary
Publisher's Summary:
A woman in an arranged marriage is liberated by a desire that threatens her family and future. An only child raised to become a dutiful wife, Astha is filled with unnamed longings and untapped potential. In the privacy of her middle-class Indian home, she dreams of the lover who will touch her soul. But her future was mapped out long ago: betrothal to a man with impeccable credentials, with motherhood to follow. At first, Asthas arranged union with handsome, worldly Hemant brings her great joy and passion. But even after bearing him a son and daughter, she remains unfulfilled. Her search for meaning takes her into a world of art and activism...and a relationship that could bring her the love and freedom she desires. But at what cost to her marriage and family?
Members Reviews:
Awesome
Must read for Indian women....and men who will learn what women really want. It is very simple to answer the age old over rated question of what we really want.
âAstha was brought up properly, as befits a woman, with large supplements of fear.â
Astha is an obedient middle-class girl growing up in Delhi during the 1970s. Her father wants her educated; her mother wants her to be settled into a safe, arranged marriage. While Asthaâs family is not wealthy, they have hopes for the future. While Astha meets some males herself, and has a little more experience that her mother realises, she eventually agrees to an arranged marriage. Hemant seems kind enough.
âShe was a bride, and her grip of Hemantâs hand grew more certain, and the blush on her face more conscious.â
Astha has two children, and a job at a primary school, and for a while seems perfectly happy. She also paints. If the physical nature of her marriage has changed, this is not initially of great concern. Both Astha and Hemant are busy.
âLife was shaping up nicely, with her mind and heart gainfully employed.â
But then Astha becomes involved in a theatre troupe run by Aijaz, a politically active man. This leads Astha to become more politically and socially aware, and she also begins to see her painting as something more than a genteel hobby.
âSomewhere along the way Hemantâs attitude to Astha changed.â
As a consequence of growing community unrest, Aijaz and his theatre troupe are burned alive in their van one night. Astha joins the crowds in protest. Some months later she meets Aijazâs widow Pipee, and they are drawn together. Fondness becomes love, friendship becomes complicated.
âWhy was it, thought Astha wearily, that love always had to be balanced by its opposite?â
Asthaâs story unfolds slowly throughout this novel, details of her daily life serve to add depth to her development as a woman, to her frustrations and choices. By the end of the novel, Astha is a complex and complicated character, neither free of convention nor entirely entrapped within it. By trying to put the needs of others first, by being unable to celebrate her own achievements, Astha seems unable to completely take control of her own destiny.
âShe wanted to say yes, I have done it, I have sold my first painting, I have achieved something, let us celebrate, but the number of âIâsâ involved ensured that the words refused to leave her mind.â
This novel has stayed with me. Ms Kapur has managed to incorporate the stresses and tensions between the ties of tradition and the possibilities afforded by a more progressive life.
