CHAPTER III

Woman as a Self-hood in The Ghosts of Vasu Scholl Master

The success of any literary work depends on how the author selects theme and crafts

it in his or her work. Githa Hariharan has been successful in this process because she has all

the abilities required for a creative writer. Her imagination, creative force and perfect

understanding of grand realities can be vividly observed in this novel. She has evolved a

typical Indian English teacher, Vasu Master who is brought up in the traditional Indian social

system. She has woven the entire study around the character of Vasu Master. The success of

Githa Hariharan must be recorded both in selection and development of plot.

Githa Hariharan has selected a relevant and appropriate main character Vasu Master.

Vasu’s wife, Mangala is a representative of the traditional social system. The third and most

significant aspect lies in her feminist approach, which is echoed by her throughout the novel.

The thematic continuity and message treatment are the two unique aspects of this novel. This

chapter analyses The Ghosts of Vasu Master (TGVM) where Githa Hariharan depicts Vasu’s

feminine ghosts who are Mangala, Jameela and Eliamma, the real ghosts from Mangala’s

story. H.B. Patil has rightly observed:

Many critics attempt to explore the novel with different perspectives including

feminism, psychology and self-discovery. The present novel is essentially

about stereotypes as found in the literature and culture of India. The focus of

the novel is on the exploration of the stereotype of traditional Indian woman in

The Ghosts of Vasu Master. In it Vasu Master’s mother Lakshmi and his wife

Mangala exhibit the stereotype of traditional woman. These characters

represent the formula of the psyche of millions of Indian women. (Web 01-12-

2011)
 Madhu Jain’s relevant remark is quite a tribute to the inherent merit of the novel. She

regards this novel as:

A marvellously written book with wit as corrosive as dry ice and a sharpness

which can pin down vague niceties like a needle through a butterfly, and the

ability to anthropomorphize animate and inanimate life . . . Hariharan takes in

her large fabulist sweep most of the problems of India: from post-colonial

hang-ups or blues, clerk mentalities and, allegorically India's perennially

troublesome unity-in diversity and lots more of . . . Big issues of life. (Web)

In order to examine feminist elements in this novel a careful analysis has been made

in this chapter in a systematic manner. The novel has many pros and cons told in short

chapters, alternating between events in the present, stories, and recollections, along with a bit

of philosophizing on Vasu Master and his life style.

Githa Hariharan has apparently exploited the zig-saw-puzzle narrative strategy in this

novel. She has depicted the emptiness, boredom and identity crisis of a retired school teacher

who, now being a retiree, ponders the merits and demerits of the education system, through

the reminiscences and memories of the past. Regarding these recollections and reflections,

the remark of Vasu is quite noticeable:

The sinuous strands of memory wove of father, grandmother, Mangala, P.G.,

my stomach and its vicissitudes, Venkatesan's guru, my dreams, the classroom,

the gurukula, the rasayanam – and Mani – coiled round and round each other

till they were inseparable. (TGVM 27)

The feminist elements tackled by the author are not much in high tone but she has

depicted sufferings of wife, Mangala in an interesting manner. The novel reaches its height in

a meaningful manner. Her creative force is very much novel, realistic and equally convincing.

It has been pointed out:

 The Ghosts of Vasu Master (1994) is a beautiful exploration of the human

conditions and of human action. Vasu the newly retired teacher is left with a

single student Mani, who though twelve has a mind of a six or seven-year-old.

Vasu Master succeeds in drawing him out only by narrating various stories

which help Mani to free himself from the burdens he carries with him. With a

deft use of fantasy, fable and humane characters, Hariharan reveals new depths

of the human condition and presents an entertaining and thought-provoking

novel. (Sinha 112)

This chapter some observations have been made in order to throw light on feminist

elements reflected in this novel. It deals with the life of a school master, Vasu who retires

from his job in a local school. But he does not join his family in Madras and continues to

teaching as a tutor. He takes to teaching Mani, a twelve-year old mentally challenged child

and considers it as the biggest challenge of his life. In this process, Vasu starts reliving

incidents from the past. He is beset by the ghostly twins’ dreams and memories.

Dreams take a perverse kind of pleasure in distorting facts and memories and refer to

the exercise of memorization of facts. Memories haunt Vasu Master and bring with them

‘ghosts’ of persons fondly remembered. Vasu Master, through the stories he narrates,

unlearns his own past experiences. The novel is, thus, concerned with revision, growth and

understanding. It shows–

The narrative, placed largely indoors, makes maximum use of memory and

fables. It is the world of knowledge, the bringing together of different kinds of

knowledge – traditional, experiential, herbal, fabulous, remembered past – and

through them make an attempt at negotiating reality. (Bharat 54)

The concept of woman is of pivotal significance in the formation of feminist theory.

But as a concept, it is radically problematic because it is crowded with the over-

determinations of male supremacy, invoking in every formulation the limit, contrasting

others, or mediated self-reflection of a culture built on the control of women. Feminism in

this novel is examined in the chapter.

Githa Hariharan’s novels focus on feminist elements and The Ghosts of Vasu Master

is not an exception to this. However, the feminine ghosts include his mother, grandmother

and the actress, Rita–Mona his boyhood fancy. Vasu Master’s mother dies when he is still a

boy. She does not have a name for almost a year after her birth. Parents do not want to spend

money on the naming ceremony for one more daughter. They also fear that people would

laugh at them for not producing a son. The old sweeper woman comforts her mistress saying

that the girl would be the Laxmi of her husband’s house. In this way, she gets the name

Laxmi. But, to the end of her life, she remains the sixth daughter of female weary she could

never get over her inferiority complex. Githa Hariharan is critical of the constraints of

domestic life dominating patriarchy. Sunitha Sinha Says:

The feminist theories based on ‘gender’, structured the shape of the feminist

debate in the 1980s. These theories identify and deconstruct stereotypes, create

resistance to the ideologies promoted by them and encourage women to seek

alternative ways of life. (109)

Githa Hariharan has tried to reveal this new life of new woman in her literature and

reflected new feminism which was dominating Indian scene from 1990s. Her works grow out

of her feminism and other political beliefs. To study these characters in the novel The Ghosts

of Vasu Master, it is necessary to recognize the confined space of Indian women in the socio-

cultural hierarchy. The understanding of the centralised frame is vitally significant in this

regard. These characters try to identify themselves as valuable, social individual. They are the

part and parcel of patriotic traditional Indian society. To live life under the dominance of

male order is generally a feature of women stereotype. The social understanding of the
problem by the author is very much significant. Githa Hariharan’s characters are built on the

image of Indian woman as one of aura/auras of silence. Thus, all these reflections are the

intermittent struggle that the author has portrayed through her work. Realizing feminist

elements is a major aim of the writer. She has noted that her choices were dictated by

feminist choices which she has perceived in her major works.

Feminist Approach in The Ghosts of Scholl Master:

Githa Hariharan has closely witnessed all ups and downs in Indian society and has

also witnessed the struggle experienced by Indian woman in manifold nature. She has to

understand the social systems around her and has to mark her pathway for bringing total

change in her life. Githa Hariharan has used different symbols and images to depict her

struggle. The Ghosts of Vasu Master is a unique example of this portrayal. The English

teacher Vasu Master is functions in a traditional soul frame and the characters around him

represent his conflicting interests which echo his social experiences.

In The Ghosts of Vasu Master, Githa Hariharan also shows feminism through the

characters of Mangala, Jameela, Eliamma. Here the meaning of Eliamma is the earth mother

that shows that she uses the name in a symbolic manner. It has been considered that the novel

is built on teacher-student relationship. The technique is very well used by the author. Vasu

Master has recently retired from P.G. Boy’s school, Elipettai; he was the teacher of English

Language. The novel can be considered as experimental beginning.

Githa Hariharan has eloquently expressed human conditions by describing post-

colonial bringing up in Indian society. The feminism of Githa Hariharan is full of sensitive

explorations of human relationship planned in a realistic manner. In her first novel, The

Thousand Faces of Night, she has voiced feminism, strongly. The second novel also

centralizes feminism but in a different angle. The Ghosts of Vasu Master is unique in nature.

U.R. Ananthmurthy says that the novelist develops the visitor of life on the principle of
action and reaction. It is a complex novel but not the difficult one. In other words, it looks

complex but if one devotes one’s attention to it, one can understand various aspects of it. We

are unable to find numerical links as there are no numbers given to chapters. The whole

theme is based on feminism. Githa Hariharan has ably depicted these consequences.

Sociological Aspects:

The sociological perspective can help to understand what forces played on the social

matrix of fiction. It is true that the author is born and brought up in social environment and

directly or indirectly the social conditions around him or her affect the setting of their literary

works. Githa Hariharan is a product of Indian social system and the close observations made

by her can be described as a sociological phenomenon.

All the characters in this novel are thus socially representing certain class of society.

They are realistic, objective and closely related to social factors. Different figures, such as

Mangala, Jameela, Eliamma represent their rural background in the coastal India. Mangala

and Jameela are born in the same village and share sufferings commonly. Eliamma belongs to

fisherman community and she is struggling hard for earning her livelihood. It has been

noticed that Eliamma swims to reach the centre of expanse of the ocean and wants to explore

for its wealth by reaching in the depth of its womb.

This passage shows how Githa Hariharan has had a clear understanding of social

surrounding problems around her. Eliamma’s struggle of life has been depicted by Githa

Hariharan in an accurate way. The entire fabric of characters evolved and depicted shows

how her female characters are representing social struggle and sufferings throughout their

life. The progressive feminist elements have been depicted through her characters. Successful

literature can always be described as a dialectics between tradition and modernity. Githa

Hariharan has registered her protest against the traditional system, through characters like

Eliamma who remains a free bird.

The author minutely observes the social behaviour of human beings prevailing

around her minutely. These persons and their social relationships are also depicted by

the author. The socio-cultural interrelationship of characters is woven by the author to

describe various social issues in a structural social system, which has gender bias,

caste differences and economic disparities as well. Literature has been truly described

as mirror of society and it reflects social interactions prevailing at time when the

author is evolved in the process of dialectics between society and culture.

Understanding sociological realism is a popular trend in the literary world. A critic

has perceived –

Most literary historians and critics have taken some account of the relation of

individual authors to the circumstances of the social and cultural era in which

they live and write, as well as of the relation of a literary work to the segment

of society that its fiction represents or to which the work is addressed.

(Abrams 288)

Githa Hariharan has ably examined social problems and reflected upon them with a

rigorous feminist pursuit. In the context of feminist literature, sociological perspective aptly

suits because Githa Hariharan’s novels present a social world of many complex relationships.

In her novels, many men and women live together, journeying across life in their different

age groups, classes and gendered roles. These crowded novels are placed in a cultural scene

where many important changes of attitudes, norms and goals give these people a curious

feeling of grouping in a new world. The young and the old are equally caught in a world of

transition, faced with constant search for new moorings and guidelines. The women are

particularly caught in the process of redefining and rediscovering their own roles, position

and relationship within their given social world. In the extended families, that Githa

Hariharan presents, two or three generations create unforeseen gaps and disruptions within
the family fold. Women’s understanding becomes questionable as the old patterns of

behaviour no longer seem to be acceptable. These struggles become intense quests for self-

definition, because it would not be possible for one to relate to others with any degree of

conviction unless one is guided by clarity about one’s own image and roles are reflected in

literature; they are the author’s class, status, gender and political and other interests that is

called sociology of literature.

In this work, the author’s social conditioning to look at The Ghosts of Vasu Master

reveals a teacher’s approach to life. The relationship between Vasu Master and Mangala, his

wife, is a depiction of social reality. From the perspective of sociology, the Abram says:

Sociological critics treat a work of literature as inescapably conditioned in the

choice and development of its subject matter, the ways of thinking it

incorporates, its evaluations of the modes of the life it renders, and even in its

formal qualities. (Ibid. 288-9)

In this novel, the stories bear feminist pulses. Mangala, Jameela and Eliamma, the real

ghosts from Mangala’s story are referred to as ‘my feminine ghosts’ by Vasu Master. But the

‘feminine’ ghosts also include his mother, grandmother and the actress, Rita-Mona, his

boyhood fancy. Githa Hariharan constructs female characters such as Mangala, Jameela,

Lakshmi, and Vasu’s grandmother in order to depict her views about the status of women in

the male hierarchy.

This shows how Githa Hariharan has portrayed social interaction in the mind of Vasu

Master. Literary authors draw their characters from social groups prevailing in a social

structure, and they portray realities around them. It is observed:

Social structure, most sociologists agree, is the enduring patterns in society

that place people into relative positions based on important characteristics like

age, income, gender, race, or ethnicity.” (Ron 119)

 The characters in The Ghosts of Vasu Master also represent these social interactions.

Githa Hariharan has covered various levels of man-woman relationship between Vasu Master

and Mangala. These works frame have potential roots of feminism and humanism. It is true

that social interaction is a complex, subtle process whereby people initiate and respond to one

another based on commonly understood symbols.

Githa Hariharan has used such symbols as vehicle of ethno-cultural process. Her

understanding of social milieu clearly shows study of human behaviour. Human actors are

sandwiched between the structural influences of the macro social world and the dynamic,

creative process of social interaction in the micro social world. Githa Hariharan’s micro-

social observations are clearly visible in the behavioural patterns of Vasu Master. The retired

teacher, Vasu Master, cures and educates Mani, though not completely. The process of

education of Mani begins as he starts drawing the marks and the pictures of stories that he has

heard from Vasu Master.

This is based on understanding of ethnic cultural process by Githa Hariharan. The

minute sociological observations of a writer reflect social behaviour of an individual. It is

true that, “Recognizing how we are affected by the world and how we affect the world will

certainly enhance our understanding of human behaviour and our ability to act on the world

ourselves.” (TGVM 120) The study of Githa Hariharan’s The Ghosts of Vasu Master reveals

her objective social understanding with a keen view of micro-processes which can be stated

as undercurrents in the social processes. The change in the novel should be associated with

the changes in view of life and concept of time. The changes are related to content, technique

and language. The writers writing such novels can be called revolutionary novelists.

Githa Hariharan’s treatment to the novel, The Ghosts of Vasu Master, has put forth

manifold aspects of social life which can be studied through a sociological angle. Vasu

Master has recently retired from his job in a small-town school. Away from the familiar
circumscribed world of school, Principal and classroom, Vasu Master begins to relive

incidents from the past, and discover, in his own halting but imaginative way, the nature of

teaching, teacher and pupils. All these processes occur on a wider social setting which Githa

Hariharan has described minutely. How she has treated myth and cultural realities in Indian

society can be described below.

Patriarchy and Social Relationship:

Patriarchy is a unique character of traditional Indian society, appearing continuously

from the ancient to modern period. The male domination in a society not only makes

women’s life miserable but also disturbs their peace and harmony. In the novel, The Ghosts

of Vasu Master the main figure, Vasu Master, is a product of patriarchy prevailing in the

traditional Indian society:

She knew what her ailment was, he told my grandmother. She learnt to feel for

it as you should for a wayward sister. She did not have the time or will-power

to confront the cause. But I prepared her, he said. I saw the way she had to go,

and I eased the journey. That is all I can do. (TGVM 16)

It is not fatalism or resignation but an active, strategic response to the conditions which are

beyond his control. The subordinate position of all women characters in the novel bears the

recognized mark of the feminist movement.

Vasu Master’s father is a patriarch. He is firm and uncompromising. He possesses the

book called ‘Panchangam’, a kind of religious book. The book would guide human beings in

all possible matters. It would instruct when particular ceremonies should be solemnized or the

auspicious days so. It would also specify the auspicious dates in the year for fruitful

copulation. Vasu himself describes the significance of this scripture. This emphasizes the

gender biased rationale of society. Vasu further observes that, a panchangam is as basic to
life as oxygen. This means that religion and astronomy aid the subordination of women by

injuncting male-centric doctrines.

Though he is an English teacher, yet Vasu is highly influenced by the age-old

traditions and customs in the society. He is found and brought up in a rigid social system and

has never been touched by the progressive winds. Vasu’s family structure seems to be

patriarchal as the males rule the house. The behaviour of Vasu Master has been depicted

effective by. His relationship with his wife, Mangala and other female characters shows his

secondary attitude to look at women. The male domination in an age-old social structure is

reshaped by the author through the character of Vasu Master and the story is webbed around

him: patriarchy, man-domain in married life, traditions.

The socio-cultural realities also make their way properly. The Ghosts of Vasu Master

is a narration which mirrors the patriarchal system and the rebellion of women in this system.

The feeling of feminist aspirations is also slowly pointed in this novel in an indirect manner.

There are no propagandist approaches of the author to this work. Since time immemorial

woman has been the victim of the rule, domination and oppression and is treated like a beast

of burden and an object of pleasure. Man has always looked down upon her as the weaker

sex, his property, and as servile to him.

Women’s oppression is traced not to individual male malevolence but to the social

and the familial structures based on patriarchy. In a patriarchal society, a female child is

brought up under the strict control of her parents with the views that she is to be given to a

new master, her husband, who will determine and shape her for the rest of her life. She is

groomed to be an object of sale right from her childhood. She hardly gets any encouragement

to develop her independent, individual self. The decision in terms of her career or even

marriage is taken by her father, brother or mother. The patriarchal practices which reduce
women’s status to inferior social beings are further perpetuated by myths and traditions

which unfortunately have been embedded in the fabric of every society.

Indian society is traditional and is governed by norms and conditions prevailing in the

traditional system in a rigid way. It known that the feminists believe that the different high

positions occupied are for their innate qualities and not for the cultural hegemony therefore

patriarchy prevails in Indian social life. This hegemony of patriarchy intensely prevails in the

traditional Indian society’s life. Patriarchy is the character of a social system. It shows:

‘Where men dominate, oppress and exploit women’.

Githa Hariharan has delineated epicted this type of situation in most of her works. The

Ghosts of Vasu Master is not an exception to this. The reflection of feminism was but natural

in literature. The treatment that Vasu’s mother, Lakshmi receives at the hands of her parents

in a marginalized fashion. Githa Hariharan focuses on gender bias of the society through the

depiction of Vasu’s mother. She strengthens the claim of feminist movement that women are

social constructs. Vasu’s mother, Laxmi is the birth daughter. She could never overcome her

inferiority complex.

Githa Hariharan’s work also reflects such elements interestingly. The Western

civilization is pervasively patriarchal; that is, it is male-centred and controlled and is

organized and conducted in such a way as to subordinate women to men in all cultural

domains. Even in the eastern societies this male domination continues as a legacy of rigid

social system. Patriarchy was observed by early critics. It was noted that patriarchal society

had come in the way of women occupying position of prestige.

The Ghosts of Vasu Master truly exemplifies this stance. In traditional societies,

people differentiate between male and female in every aspect of life. It is clear that, ‘when

women champion their cause, men blame it on patriarchy’.

 There are many basic problems in value crisis. The greatest problem for women is

that preservation and expression of their identity. Githa Hariharan has also incorporated this

identity crisis in her novels. In The Ghosts of Vasu Master, she has tried to reveal this process

effectively. In Indian society the patriarchy prevailed right from epic age and is rooted in

cultural system. Sujata and Gokulwani have noted that, “Patriarchy has always hindered

women from exercising their power and release themselves off the control over them. The

culture of most of the countries is patriarchal and a woman is in constant fight for right.”

(Sujata 48) Women’s progress is hindered by patriarchal attitude of men. And women are

strongly to get their due.

Githa Hariharan’s portrayal of feminism is different and includes various aspects in

relation to feeling of patriarchy. She has led her characters against the patriarchal system.

Women hood in the Novel:

The significance and success of an author depends on how effectively the social

theme is explained and how efficiently the characters have been drawn and developed by

him/her. The thorough understanding of novel mostly depends on the clear-cut interpretation

of characters evolved by the author. In the novel The Ghosts of Vasu Master the characters

represent the Indian social system. Vasu Master is a typical English teacher serving in a

socio-cultural system. His mission of life is teaching of English. However, he develops his

feelings and actions in the rigid system.

The man-woman relationship treated and revealed in the novel, is also traditional and

is based on patriarchy. The woman is looked to as a secondary person and she is exploited in

the system. These feelings have been described by Githa Hariharan on a balanced ground.

Her style of narration is gentle, touchy and equally realistic.

Vasu Master never fully gathers the women in his life but perceives the things around

him with a new understanding. Vasu’s cousin Shakuntala comes and stays in his house for
four weeks. She suffers from some mysterious illness. The pain is unbearable for her. Vasu’s

grandmother and aunt whisper that she is overburdened with work in her in-law’s home. This

points out the fact how married women suffer at the house of their in-laws. Vasu nurses his

cousin, Shakuntala for a month knowing she would die after returning to her in-laws.

The Ghosts of Vasu Master is narrated by a newly retired teacher. Having spent most

of his life teaching at the private PG Boys’ school in the Indian town of Elipettai, Vasu

Master moves a bit uneasily into retirement. Vasu Master, through the stories he narrates,

unlearns his own past experiences. The novel is, thus, concerned with revision, growth and

understanding. Jasbir Jain has justly commented upon the choice of the male narrator and

protagonist of the novel:

Githa Hariharan’s The Ghosts of Vasu Master… chooses a male protagonist

because a woman would not have filled the requirement. The freedom and

independence which Vasu can exercise, the dreams of making the speech, in

the function in his honour, the manner in which he refuses to read his son’s

letters – none of these would have been possible in the small-town setting

which allows cultural contexts to emerge clearly. A different setting with a

woman narrator would have been a different book. The choice of the male

voice or consciousness is thus, first of all, motivated by what the writer has set

out to do which, in this novel, is to emphasize the quality of nurturing. Social

and cultural contexts, and defined gender roles have dictated the choice.

(Bharat 47)

Githa Hariharan is one of such epoch-making writers who have successfully taken

feminist stance in fiction. Githa Hariharan’s Vasu Master is her own creation. It shows –

His farewell present from his students was a notebook and among the things he

does is to begin to make notes – jotting down observations, memories, and

 thoughts about teaching. He also continues to teacher a bit, becoming a tutor.

He does not have many students, however, and eventually he is only left with

one – the most complicated and intractable case, Mani. The boy is twelve

when he comes to Vasu Master, but ‘with it seemed the brain of a six or a

seven-year-old’. He does not speak, either and he has been through numerous

schools and doctors, without anyone being able to draw him out or keep him

under control.” (Web 10-04-2011)

Vasu Master’s life and his shy nature are unfolded by the writer in an effective style.

The commitment of Githa Hariharan can be described as per her dedication to feminism.

Most of her novels focus on this aspect. Vasu Master has no great immediate success with

Mani but eventually finds at least one thing that seems to keep him entertained and interested

in stories. Vasu Master himself is not brought up on proper stories discovering in his

childhood that the ones he was told were not at all like the ones other children heard and

‘even worse than their bare, inadequate story content was their favourite theme: the dangers

of storytelling.’ Now, however, he can see their power and finds them useful for himself too.

The narration has been made interesting by the writer by providing new insight as she

has a creative genius. There is a link between the past, present and future. Vasu Master does

not live only in the present: the past also haunts him, and part of what he is trying to do is to

‘make peace with memory’. His wife, Mangala died many years earlier, and she only

gradually becomes a strong presence in the book. Since his childhood and his past are

recounted, all in trying to understand the present. Vasu Master, a protagonist of the novel and

it seem that he is having a deep respect for Mangala, Laxmi, Jameela and Rita Mohna.

Mangala is an example of typical Indian women thought over by the writer. Vasu

Master remembers Mangala, his wife, as a shadowy figure. Although they have lived together

for fifteen years and have had two sons, he knows her more as a cloudy memory than a
person. He thinks of her as a woman who has remained as obscure as his forgotten mother.

He recalls her and meets her ghost by the seashore, dressed in silence, offering him only a

partial view. Always, the aura of silence and mystery hang about her. Mangala and Jameela

are childhood friends in village. She speaks with pleasure and excitement of the childhood

landscape of fields on their way home from school. Vasu has known her as a man, as a

husband. Both Mangala and Vasu Master’s mother, Lakshmi are unable to assert their right to

separateness of being and this leads to their mute suffering.

Mangala is open to the possibility of change and is ready to mould herself to suit the

needs of her family. She represents those women who always sacrifice their wishes and

dreams for their family and prepare themselves for any eventuality. Mangala carries out her

responsibilities as wife and mother with a delicate, feminine modesty. For her, home is the

first and last priority. She serves her husband dinner and irons his clothes. She takes care of

him during his illness. She scrubs the steps of her house clear twice a day. She works hard

and rarely comes to the school like the other wives. But she also looks after the studies of her

children. During the visit to the sea-shore, Mangala enjoys momentary freedom:

It was as if an entire week of breathing damp, salty air, the freedom from

routine and the freedom of muddy clothes, the joy of finding shells intact, and

above all, the cool, mysterious secret of the waves, drew Mangala out of

herself; allowed her to briefly shed her customary reticence (TGVM 123-4)

Mangala does not venture into the water but collects shells and other things for her

children. She knows the art of swimming but desists from it. Vishnu asks her to swim with

them. She replies that she used to swim in the village pond till she was ten. This incident

points out that a woman has to leave all the hobbies after her marriage. She cannot continue

her earlier life. On another occasion, when Vasu Master takes Mangala and children to see a

film about Henry VIII, Mangala blindfolds Vishnu with her handkerchief and covers Venu’s
head with her sari during the love-making scenes on the screen. It would not have been

possible for Vasu Master to protect them from evil influences. As Vasu says, she is her own

censor. She is a loving and caring mother. It is only after her death that Vasu, Vishnu and

Venu realize her importance.

Vasu Master discovers Mangala’s little treasures five years after her death. He finds a

small mirror, two sandalwood boxes of Kumkum, old photographs, their wedding invitation

card, pieces of her dowry silver, bunches of flowers made of satin and pieces of cloth

embroidered with flowers, birds and animals with Mangala’s signature all wrapped in a soft

silk sari. All these things are invaluable for Mangala and obviously they are related to her

family life. Her husband seems to be everything for her. Marriage institution in India curtails

the capacity and scope of a woman and compels her to accept family system as the only

alternative means of living life.

Mangala is the first educated woman in her family but remains confined to

domesticity. However, she diverts her creative urge to embroidery work. But the pieces of

embroidery showing her creativity are not admired by Vasu Master. The invaluable things of

Mangala do not hold any interest for him. However, they evoke in him the image of Jameela

who has taught Mangala sewing and stitching. Simon De Beauvoir says, “The situation of

woman is that she-is a free and autonomous being like all creatures-nevertheless finds herself

living in a world where men compel her to assume the status of the other.” (Beauvoir 138)

The novel mainly focuses on two characters, Vasu Master, and his wife Mangala. H.B. Patil

states:

It is a tragedy on the part of Mangala that though she gave Vasu Master two

sons, Vishnu and Venu, he reminds her more as a cloudy memory than as a

person. The focus of his memory always lays somewhere else and she always

remains in the background. (Web 01-12-2011)

 Mangala and Vasu, Veshnu, Venu live together for fifteen years and have two sons;

yet he does not know her completely. She remains obscure. But, she is a reincarnation of

Vasu’s mother. Vasu recalls her as ‘pale’ and ‘insubstantial’: “I always saw her in my mind

against a vast seashore in the background, the monotonous slosh and thud of waves against

rock and sand drowning out all possibility of words. (TGVM 41)

There is an aura of silence and something mysterious about Mangala. The narrator

points out that he has observed Mangala and Vasu alone in a room, she is serving him his

dinner or she is putting out his clothes as he gets ready for school; or she is sitting by him,

needle in hand. She is a devoted wife and loving and caring mother. She nurses Vasu

whenever he is ill; but he never acknowledges her sacrifice:

She was, what shall I say, unnoticeable; inconspicuous; like my mother,

memorable only as an absence. I knew my wife and my affection for her only

when I lived with her ghost. This ghost had a frail, vapoury body; made more

insubstantial by my lapses of memory about what she actually was. (TGVM

123)

Githa Hariharan implies that a man always desires to make woman part of himself.

The fact that she is other than himself bothers him. Man is just unwilling to accept the

‘otherness’ of woman. Likewise, Mangala has no say whatsoever in the affairs of her family–

In these intimate photographs of Mangala, I was not present except as a hidden

spectator. The other person, the one she laughed with and looked in the eye,

with which she shared threads and cloth to make a beautiful landscape, was a

woman, Jameela..(TGVM 42)

There are pragmatic social elements described by Githa Hariharan through her female

characters. Many a time she introduces some interesting tribes and social sections which are
very important in this novel. Eliamma belongs to the cross-section of fisherman’s community

and Githa Hariharan has shown her as a self-sufficient woman.

Eliamma’s story is narrated by Mangala, who is considered to be a ghost expert.

Mangala has first seen Eliamma at the sea-shore. She lives in a fishing village and is brought

up to be a fisherwoman. She is beautiful and could have married one of her admirers. But she

prefers to live alone in her hut and wander by the sea-shore night after night. She seems to be

an orphan looking for her home. She looks at the sea and desires to be in the centre of the sea.

Once Eliamma sleeps behind an old boat in the sea. When she wakes up, she sees a stranger

who asks her if she wants to travel across the ocean. He suggests that he can make her

invisible so that fishermen would not prevent her. Eliamma agrees and becomes invisible to

go out on her sea-voyage. She is so fascinated by this experience that she does not desire to

go back. Eliamma’s abandonment of her home and her desire to leave alone can be seen as

women’s desperate desire to get rid of this world that is full of sufferings for women. Later

on, Eliamma goes back to the shore in search of the stranger but could not find him

anywhere.

The very name, ‘Eliamma’ compounds the words earth-mother and as the name

suggests she is an epitome of feminine hood. She tries to see something at a great distance;

something as yet unknown, hidden perhaps in the depths of the waters mid-sea which is

unresolvable contradiction of her gender. She makes a bargain with a stranger by trading

bodies with him for a month. She can then be invisible so that finally she can go out to sea on

boats otherwise barred to her by the men. The stranger never returns to trade back the original

bodies, and so she gets stuck to a ghostly state of invisibility in which everything she touches

sickens; freezes; dies; or becomes invisible to everybody but her. In other words, she can be

fixed in a recognizable place with established though restrictive relations to everything

around her, or, be invisible to culture and toxic to those dependent upon her, being faithful to

her gender scripting.

Githa Hariharan believes that women possess immense possibility which remains

mysterious to man. Man, never tries to realize the aspirations of women. It can be said that

Eliamma’s story shows woman’s desires which are either ignored or suppressed by man:

Eliamma did her share of fisherwomen’s work: she made herself useful

mending nets, cleaning fish, drying them. She went to Church with the other

young women. But she did not seem to have either family or friends. The story

was that she had many admirers and could have married any of the young

fishermen, but she continued to live alone in her hut, and to wander by the

seashore all hours of the night like an orphan looking for her home. (TGVM

126)

Thus, Githa Hariharan has portrayed her female characters from different social segments.

Jameela is a childhood friend of Mangala and they stay in a village near the seashore.

Vasu Master has seen this village during his visit to Mangala’s house. Githa Hariharan

describes the separation between Jameela and Vasu Master -

Once Jameela had left; I tied up the pile of cloth in a large sheet and put it

away in Mangala’s trunk. As I locked the trunk two things struck me: I had

folded all the bits of cloth so that only the reverse side of knots, thread stubble

and barely discernible design were visible. At the same time, I realized that I

had not left a single reason for Jameela to visit me again. I had placed miles,

expanding safely by the minute, between her and me. (TGVM 44)

Githa Hariharan shows Jameela as a victim of sexual exploitation at the hands of

males. Her case is a glaring instance of how woman is primarily considered as a sexual

object. Her free nature and laughter are often mistaken as an invitation on, for her sexual
desires. After her husband’s death, Jameela decides to go back to the village as it is

impossible for her to manage on her own. Jameela and Mangala have been childhood friends.

Jameela shares everything with Mangala. She also teaches Mangala the skill of sewing. As

Vasu Master says: “It was their completion of each other that held me, the coexistence of

earthy and ethereal, cocoon and butterfly. A perfect pair, team or couple.” (TGVM 43) He is

held by their mutual completion. Their closeness and stubborn friendship may have emanated

from their desire to seek the bond outside the marital relationship. Vasu is perplexed when he

meets Jameela for the last time and sees Jameela’s eyes filled with pity:

I looked at her one last time, at the face now hidden by a black mask. There

were, on both sides of her invisible nose, round slits covered with white nets.

Something from behind these nets (something caged, contained) held me for

an instant; then it let go. It was perhaps a pair of searching, pitying eyes.

(TGVM 70)

Vasu Master recalls Jameela as he is obsessed with her physicality. She evokes sexual

desire in him. She is used to visit Vasu Master’s house and asks for the unfinished pieces of

embroidery even after Mangala’s death. They continue to meet for some time. But when

Jameela finishes all of Mangala’s works, they do not have any reason to meet. However,

Vasu Master could not forget Jameela and preserves everything she and Mangala have

stitched. Jameela goes out of his life but her memory remained etched in him as ‘an image -

and a ghostly one at that’. Vasu feels that Jameela is ‘caged’ and ‘contained’ which is the

destiny of the women more particularly of the widows as they are not expected to love once

again. They should suppress their desire for love or relationship whereas men can indulge in

love or extra marital affair. Just as in the case of Vasu, who is attracted to many women after

the death of his wife Mangala, it shows that society has two different set of rules for men

and women.
 Githa Hariharan has interestingly described the relationship between these two

characters as:

The two swam and frolicked as if the whole world – the cool water, the

afternoon stillness, the shared squeals of pleasures, all belonged to them

forever, as if they did not plan to grow up into full fledged women, in to

Mangala and Jameela.(TGVM 43)

Vasu Master’s father is an Aurvedic doctor and his mother Lakshmi passes away when he is a

little boy. Vasu Master says about his mother that she would have been timid, worrying, little

thing nagging, pestering like a high-pitched mosquito. She did not learn how to bite though.

Lakshmi, Vasu Master’s mother, has fought a losing battle on all fronts. Her husband,

and sometimes her mother-in-law enrage her. She has melted away literally into the shadows

of loud, tyrannical household.

In his boyhood, Vasu Master is enamoured of the physical beauty of an actress called

Rita or Mona. The photograph of Rita or Mona covers three-fourths of a calendar in his

father’s room. He could recall Rita-Mona dressed as an apsara:

Rita-Mona wore an emerald-green sequinned cloth round her billowy breasts,

and an equally dazzling purple garment round her hips…Her neck, shoulders

and stomach were a different colour from her face and arms…She had lush

eyebrows that were a startling jet-black. They curved like wings. Her thick lips

were a vivid bloodred … My own tribute to her charms was that not once, not

even on my worst days…the calendar to smother me, were the only sights in

the world which moved me to the point of constipation. (TGVM 17)

The calendar displaying Rita-Mona’s beauty remains permanently linked with the memories

of Vasu Master’s boyhood. Vasu Master’s attraction for Rita-Mona highlights the fact that

women are treated as objects of lust. The image of a woman that emerges out of the man’s
sensual apprehension is always the distorted image of the woman. The obsession with

women’s physical beauty results in the negligence of their intelligence. Githa Hariharan

strongly objects to such a representation of woman in photographs and advertisements. It can

be perceived as an insult to the woman’s honour and dignity.

The image of Rita-Mona transfixes Vasu Master beyond limit. It is the mix of desire

and fear, the pleasurable gaze and anxiety of being pierced by her usurpation of the look, the

child being terrorized by patriarchy and titillated by its forms of pleasure. Rita-Mona lingers

in Vasu’s memory more than his mother or his wife both of whom die early but never really

live much in his awareness.

The characters have a strong feminist bearing. Mangala and Jameela find their voices

in the marginalized media of sewing and stories, sites where the ghosts of lost sisters may

live, visible to those who are as receptive as Eliamma has been to her stranger. For Githa

Hariharan it would seem that the subaltern position of a postcolonial woman finds its voice

through the means comparable to her characters’ strategies. Subaltern consciousness is a

great characteristic of Githa Hariharan’s progressive feminism. She is in favor of exploited

working woman who is the sufferer of the system. Githa Hariharan is also Eliamma, the

woman writing who must trade her body with the ghostly male, moving invisibly through

male narratologies, her touch deadly to their gendered forms, conventions, conceptions,

values and structures.

Tradition versus Modern:

Githa Hariharan is successful in depicting ethno-cultural processes which she has

closely observed. Her feminism raises above all these processes. It has been accounted for

that a tribe called the Nagaleelas has always lived here. They were a simple, happy people:

the men brave and lusty, the women hardworking. This brings out feminist elements deeply

rooted in Indian life, to support her social environment. Further, it has been denoted that they
called the forest their mother, which is not surprising because she gave them everything they

needed, she kept them alive. They called her Vana Devi and knew they were safe, even

blessed, because they always felt her presence in the forest.

About the process of dialogue between tradition and modernity, the fable of

timelessness comes to the fore in which Tradition and Modernity are Old and New, united in

a fluency, which speaks the present in a non-modern way. And Vasu is seen balancing

himself in relation to a series of figures with too oppressive a form of rationality, whether

Modern on Traditional. Vasu’s mother and his wife’s character show that they are in the

bindings of cultural system through the marriage. Thus, a close examination of tradition and

protest against it, make an important feature of Githa Hariharan’s novel The Ghosts of Vasu

Master. Literature is a social entity evolved by the writer by making a clear distinction

between age-old traditions and revolt against them. The sociological study of Githa

Hariharan’s novel shows that she has made a painstaking analysis of social reality through

her novel.

The three major features of The Ghosts of Vasu Master can be noted below:

1. The novel focuses on the character of Vasu Master and the entire theme is unfolded

around him. The characters around him describe the struggle between tradition and

modernity.

2. The main point is a description of subaltern consciousness and depiction of the

marginalized women. Githa Hariharan has tried to disclose the exploitation of Indian

women in a realistic way.

3. Githa Hariharan is committed to communist philosophy and complex social issues.

She is communicating with self-sufficient and stable Indian women who are fighting

against various difficulties which hinder the path of their progress.

 Regarding this conflict, Divyaranjan Bahuguna`s comment is quite significant as he

remarks:

The conflict of his real and his imaginary marks a difference with significantly

their mutual participation in a larger one. Vasu is certainly gripped with his own

hole until working with Mani enables him to change his stability to perceive. This

wilderness of images does not give up hope of reaching wisdom. (46)

Mani is a boy who plays the reader`s role. He becomes plain Vasu, as in the dream where he

finds himself in the field with his classes. That dream story is about giving up the master`s

discourse and turning to the rhetoric of fables, stories, and open-minded exams. Early in the

novel, he can see his own mangled body in the mirror of Mani`s eyes which is the mirror of

his own youth, silenced for hours at a time in his authoritarian father`s office. A bit latter he

finds his dead wife`s mirror where he sees himself an ugly stranger, a scarred face and

hounded animal.

Thus, Githa Hariharan has artistically woven various kinds of conflicts into the thematic

texture in pertinent to self of woman hood in The Ghosts of Vasu Master, in a manner that

compels the reader to contemplate.