(Re) Reading the Cultural Lockdowns in Fasting, Feasting with Reference to a Rise in Domestic Violence During Pandemic-induced Lockdowns

Abstract: Anita Desai, the renowned writer and Padma Bhushan Awardee, is known for her insightful exploration of the psychoscope of people, since the publication of her very first novel Cry, thePeacock. Her Booker Prize runner up, Fasting, Feastingis a novel of intricate family relations, where in provincial customs and conventions dictate the future of children. This study is an attempt to explore the psycho-social strains that intervene at some crucial juncture of human existence, inducing insensitive cultural lockdowns, leading to multiple forms of domestic violence, including verbal, physical, psychological, economic, religious and reproductive abuses, ranging from subtle to coercive forms. Accordingly, this article also delineates the profound impact of the pandemic on the entire human environment, with an increase in Domestic Violence issues reported as a big public- health threat and emergency, and mentions the acts of volunteerism exhibited by Mizo youth during the global-pandemic crisis. By juxtaposing these, the article exposes the crucial interplay of social forces on shaping and reshaping human personality, and emphasizes the need to evolve such social practices which recognize the primacy of individual dignity and spirit, for a better future ahead.

 

The complete story of Fasting, Feasting, and the title itself, from structural point of view, is divided into two parts. The first half of the book deals with an orthodox family in a small provincial town in India, while the other half deals with the socio-familial intricacies in suburban US. The first part of the novel highlights the long-standing customs and traditions in conservative Indian societies and mostly the place of women in family and society. Uma, a plain, clumsy spinster, living under the demanding rule of her parents — a passionless, proud father and a mother doing what is ‘expected’ of her — is the main character in the first half. She is treated with neglectful impatience by her parents and with disparagement by her smart, pretty younger sister Aruna who is successfully married off to Bombay. Uma had to abandon her education at the convent school, when her brother Arun, the late-born, cherished son in the family was born. Now in her 40s, Uma is trapped in her parental home, and is destined to serve her overbearing parents, as two attempts at getting her married off have already ended in humiliation and disaster. Fasting – deprivation at all levels of existence – is Uma’s destiny, and in flashbacks scattered all through the novel’s first part, AnitaDesai unfolds how Uma has arrived at this degraded state. 

 

Two thirds of the way through the novel, the narrative abruptly shifts to New England. Arun, the privileged son on whom his parents put all their dreams and energies, is the focus of the second part of the novel. This section narrates Arun’s uncertainties in a strange land of limitless personal freedom and opulence, and through his eyes, we see the Patton family with whom he stays during the summer. The Pattons represent a world of excesses — a grumpy father ‘barbecuing’ huge slabs of meat, a dotty mother abnormally overfilling her kitchen and freezer, a neurotic, anorexic daughter, and a fitness fanatic son. Feasting to an extreme — an unrestrained glut of material comforts — is the fate of opulent America, which puzzles Arun across the world in Massachusetts. 

 

The novel focuses on the insidious process of the socio-cultural construction of stereotypes and its deeper impacts in the socio-cultural matrix of both East and West. Sex-role stereotyping, that imparts a differential gauging of male/female experiences, is fore-grounded in the first half of the text. It is a form of psychological conditioning, “a most ingenious kind of interior colonization,” *1 in which the norms worked out and perpetuated by a particular culture work as the defining repressive force. By reducing human existence into specific terms and fixed categories, it moulds individual personality and temperament on stereotypical lines of sex-category. This process of gender socialization assigns each sex with highly elaborate codes of conduct, creating strictly compartmentalized assumptions about the roles and attitudes one is expected to develop and display, and trains the individuals to conform to this pre-coded model. This mass-conformity consolidates the rigid fixity of identity-categories, and conditions individuals to accept the social-construct of identity as definitive and inevitable. This binary opposition at work in society makes a clear-cut distinction between what ought to be considered as the ‘normal’ (socially acceptable), and creates a social hiatus in human relationships by marginalizing the deviant ‘other’. *2 Those who do not measure up to the social expectation of the ‘ideal’ are thus marginalized, and are compelled to lead an isolated and lonely life. Every culture creates its own ideals and stereotypes, and in conservative Indian social system, women are regarded as passive adjuncts to the male; their existence are relevant only in sofar they contribute to the well-being of men’s lives. It is considered to be a merit to play the role of a meek, modest, docile wife, who unconditionally serves, obeys and supports her husband. From her childhood itself, a woman is trained to believe that the highest value for woman is the fulfilment of her femininity through marriage and reproduction,*3 and that total compliance to the ideals of her husband, is her duty and obligation —such cultural lock-downs gradually moulds women’s existence into a predetermined shape, finally curbing their initiatives and individual potential.

 

In Fasting Feasting, Anita ‘Desai presents such a couple, who finds pleasure in their ‘ready-made unity’, in their “indecipherable face.”(13) Whenever Mamapapa make a decision, it was “made on behalf of both of them,”(14) and because of the immensity of their “Siamese twin existence,”(6) “there would not be any different verdict.”(14) The children had learnt “not to expect divergences and disagreements,”(4) and were conditioned to believe that it was ‘ideal’ marital harmony. The late pregnancy of mama, which was accepted in the family after so much of discussions and confusions, brings out an important feature of traditional Indian families — the supremacy of the male-child, whose birth becomes a matter of pride, privilege and fulfilment to the parents. Papa forces Mama not to terminate her unanticipated, late pregnancy, as he wishes to have a boy child to carry on his legacy. “They had two daughters, quite grown up as anyone could see, but there was no son. Would any man give up the chance of a son?” (16) This incident reveals the bitter reality of male power and female powerlessness within marriage, where man enjoys total control over all sorts of decision-makings, and exerts his authority over woman’s body, her thought processes and even on her sexuality. But, finally, the birth of a male – child relaxes Mama into an expression of “long – suffered pride,” (17) and Papa, in his elation, shouts this glorious news to all, “a bo-oy! Arun, Arun at Last.” (17) Uma and Aruna stand awe-struck in the knowledge that, during Mama’s second pregnancy, the name Arun had already been chosen in anticipation of a son, which had had to be changed in disappointment to Aruna. Uma notices that the birth of Arun has bound Mamapapa more inextricably than ever before, “more than ever now, she was papa’s helpmeet, his consort. He had not only made her his wife; he had made her the mother of his son. What honour, what status…they were now more equal than ever.” (31) The daughters of the family are expected to help in child care and housekeeping. When Uma, fails to get through her examinations, her parents find it as an excuse to discontinue her studies. She is “plucked back into the trivialities of home…to further vacuity,” (21) where she would help Mama to look after Arun, and learn to run the house. But as far as Uma is concerned, she so much enjoyed her school-going, as it offered her a pleasant release from her claustrophobic domestic atmosphere. In her utter distress and despair, she becomes a patient of fits. 

 

The pathetic plight of Uma, who is rejected by many parties in marriage is poignantly drawn in the novel. She is a mediocre woman who does not measure up to the social standards of beauty and intellect. Mama constantly reminds her that she has to look nice and learn the household tasks, which are necessarily the preconditions for a girl to get married. Mama energetically searched for a husband for Uma, as Aruna was “ripening on the branch, asking to be plucked.” (85) Mama worked hard at trying to marry off Uma first, as “that was the only decent, the only respectable line of behaviour” (80) in the society. In their hurry to find a groom for Uma, they arrange her engagement ceremony without making proper enquiries about the boy and his family. The Goyals con Uma’s father into giving them a large sum of money as dowry, and then cunningly breaks off the engagement keeping the money with them. Only later they come to know that, they have been cheated by the Goyal family, and have lost the dowry that has already been handed over to them. Being an “unpromising material” (87) in matrimonial bargaining, she is again drawn into a deceitful alliance with Harish, an already married man with four children, who married Uma only to procure another dowry. When papa came to know that they have been duped again, he somehow managed to cancel the marriage, and get a divorce for Uma. She was never told of the legal proceedings involved; she was not even quite certain if she had actually been married or now getting divorced. Papa was never concerned of her feelings and emotions, but was more worried of the fact that he has again lost money due to his worthless daughter. “Having cost her parents two dowries, without a marriage to show in return,” (96) Uma was considered ill-fated and unlucky by all. 

 

Uma’s fate reminds us of the falsity of the patriarchal world that sets wrong parameters for evaluating woman’s worth in her family and society. Since their childhood, women are conditioned to believe that marriage is the ultimate goal of their existence, and are induced to regard physical attractiveness as a necessary requirement for the fulfilment of their femininity. In conservative societies, unmarried women are considered to be unlucky and as a burden on their families. Uma’s failure to bring off a successful marriage is treated as a personal and social aberration — a shame that clings to Uma forever after, breeding a deep sense of inferiority and uselessness in her mind. 

 

The typical discrimination against female children, is another thematic concern of the novel. In the beginning of the novel itself, Mama makes a frank admission of the subordinate position of female children in families. She says, “in my day, girls in the family were not given sweets, nuts, good things to eat. If something special had been bought in the market… it was given to the boys in the family.”(16) The female child is “being raised for marriage,” (118) and is indoctrinated to withhold, conceal, and suppress her individual self, that slowly establishes her identity in accordance with the needs and demands of the taboo – ridden, tradition – bound social structure. Mamapapa always train Uma not to aspire so high in life, while they pour all their resources into Arun’s physical and intellectual nourishment and insist that he must always be given “proper attention.”(31) They withdraw Uma from her convent school, so that she can help care for baby Arun, whereas they happily arrange “the best, the most, the highest” (118) kind of educational facilities and life-opportunities for Arun. They decide to send Arun abroad for higher studies, for the value of his foreign degree would surely lift up the family’s prestige and honour in the social hierarchy. With his blank face that has lost its expressions over years of scholarly toil, he bitterly faces up to another phase of existence that has been designed for him by Papa. He is made to channelise his aspirations to fulfil the social expectations, and thus to satisfy the collective need of the status-quo. 

 

Uma, on the other hand, having no career and meaningful participation in social activities, feels trapped in the suffocating environs of her home. The idea to “run away, escape” (131) ferments in her mind, “like seeds dropped on the stony, arid land.” (131) Uma feels a vacuum in her life, being deprived of a fulfilling companionship and a friendly human contact. She wishes to write a letter to a friend, “a private message of despair, dissatisfaction, yearning…but who is the friend.” (134) She is even denied the right to her own privacy and individual space; “no doors were ever shut in that household: closed doors meant secrets… it meant authority would come stalking in and make a search to seize upon the nastiness.” (15) With a mixed expression of suspicion, annoyance, curiosity and stiff disapproval, her parents deny her the pleasure of doing something that she really likes to do, reading a poem or two, or looking through her collection of bangles and cards. Mama’s authority invades her private word, constantly making her aware of the role that she is expected to play. Mama shrieks at her, “why are you reading? Put it away and fetch a cup of coffee for Papa.” (136) Having no other outlet to express her fury and agitation, “she screams at them silently,”(137) which is hardly perceived or acknowledged. 

 

The ecstasy of the outside world is banned for her, and she is always banished to the interiors of drab domesticity. During Christmas time, Uma happily accepts the opportunity to help Mrs. Henry from Baptist Mission, and shows considerable sense of responsibility and efficiency in helping her with her card stall. When she invites Uma for a party, Mama opines that, “it is not good to go around. Stay home and do your work – that is best.” (114) Uma tearfully pleads, “I do my work all the time, every day… why can’t I go out sometimes? (114); but only to be heartlessly ignored by Mamapapa. When Dr.Dutt offers a job for Uma in her Medical Institution, Mamapapa outrightly reject it, as they find it “to be different,” (130) to allow their daughter to be “a working woman … an aberration.” (141) Without even consulting Uma’s opinion or views, they declare, “our daughter does not need to go out to work…as long as we are here to provide for her, she will never need to go to work.” (143) They pretended not to have noticed her dissatisfaction and disappointment; Uma’s burgeoning self – awareness and her growing individual consciousness thus prematurely get stifled and aborted. 

 

Having denied the access to proper individual growth, maturity and self-independence, she is made to “live like an invalid,” (144) unconditionally serving her parents, running the house for them, and thus helplessly beginning to “stoop and shrink” (122) into domesticated slavery. The excessive pungency of external pressures does not even allow her to attain a truly transformative vision through which she could have redefined herself and her way of life. The first part of the plot thus becomes a shocking revelation of the fierceness of an enclosed social sphere that breeds a vicious circle of malignant social relationships, enslaving individuals into its undesirable prejudices, and unjustifiable codes of conduct and constraints. Any upsurge against its cleverly articulated ideals is labelled as a deviance, an unpardonable blasphemy, that truculently limits the possibilities of human existence by encoding it into normative prototypes. 

 

The second part of the plot focuses on the socio, cultural, personal lock-downs that the advancing modernism of the West and the diasporic experience of the immigrants generate. Arun is the figure who connects the Indian and the American plot. He is an introvert youth, who keeps “a fence, a barrier” (170) with others, and enjoys total freedom in the “total absence of relations, of demands, needs, requests, ties, responsibilities, commitments.” (172) He spends his summer vacation with the Patton family – Mrs. Henry’s relatives, where he encounters, the bewildering paradoxes of an alien culture. Coming from the hub of a close-knit Indian family, Arun is embarrassed to find the diminishing of the family structure in the suburbs. The Patton family is centrifugal in its structure, each member having his/her individual existence. Mr. Patton is an emotionally passive person, too detached to notice any symptoms of dysfunction erupting in his own family. Assuagement of appetite seems to be his prime concern in life, and his happiness lies in consuming large bulks of cooked meat. Mrs. Patton, in contrast, is desperate to be a vegetarian, and finds happiness in shopping malls, in buying and hoarding things. She obsessively fills her freezer with cooked food, vegetables, fruits, butter, cookies, yoghurt and cereals; Arun painfully realizes that “these were not the foods that figured in his culture … his digestive system did not know how to turn them into nourishment.” (185)

 

Melanie, Mrs. Patton’s daughter is a victim of her unconstrained ways of living that totally distorts her personality and throws her on the brink of neurosis. Instead of taking homely food prepared by her mother, she eats lots of cookies, candy bars, ice-creams, and tries to thin down her body fat by vomiting: “she twitches and grunts… then rubs her face with her hands…then with a groan, she lifts herself onto her knees, thrusts her finger down her throat and vomits, again.” (223)  Her self-torturing self- indulgence reminds Arun of Uma’s self-defeating protest: “Arun does see a resemblance to something he knows: a resemblance to the contorted face of an enraged sister who failing to express her outrage against neglect, against misunderstanding, against inattention to her unique and singular being, and its hungers merely spits and froths in ineffectual protest. How strange to encounter it here, Arun thinks, where so much is given, where there is both license and plenty.” (214) Her brother Rod is a merry-making, happy-go-lucky and health-conscious American youth, who believe that physical fitness is the real key to success. When Arun raises the issue of his sister’s bulimia, he “gives a snort that is both derisive and amused,” (204) but shows no genuine concern. He is concerned only of the physical plane of human existence, and like his father, he is so indifferent to anything else in life that makes Arun wonder, “what is more dangerous in this country, the pursuit of health or of sickness.” (205)

 

The Pattons’ indifference to each other exposes the emotional sterility, erosion of human values, and a consequent devaluation of human relationships in the contemporary socio-familial milieu of the metropolis, where human existence has become awfully materialistic, mechanical and sterile, breeding not life and fulfillment, but disgust, intolerance and indifference. Excess becomes a malady there when human beings fail to quench their emotional needs with their material prosperity. The American spirit to explore the ever- new vistas of experiences and achievements reveals nothing but the competitive nature of life, which leads individuals to feel the pangs of scarcity even in the midst of plenty. The “inheritors of the endlessly postponed, and endlessly golden West” (201) challengingly make an adventurous quest to “free themselves, and find through endeavour, through strain and suffering, that open space, that unfettered vacuum, where the undiscovered America still lies.”(200) The admirers of this golden dream of affluence are lost in their “anxiety over spending so much, having so much.”(208) This crushing state gradually causes them to encounter unexpected miseries amidst material wealth, finally leading them only to frustration, depression and hysteria. The second part of the plot thus explores the frustrations and hollowness of the modern world that has become awfully distempered, fragmentedand locked down in a consumerist tinge, losing its values and spirit in exploitative utilitarianism and competitive commercialism. 

 

It would not be an exaggeration to say that these conventional norms and conditioning-processes which are universally prevalent generating cultural lockdown situationsgot exacerbated by the pandemic-induced lockdown measures, affecting public health, livelihoods, the economy and our ways of living. All nations had to come together to ensure the protection and safety of their citizens, thus the need to shut down everything. The impact of the complete lockdown was devastating both for human beings as well as the economy.There were several sectors that were vulnerable because of pandemic and lockdown. The most affected sectors include hotels, restaurants, sports events, consumer electronics, financial markets, tourism and travel-related industries, transportation, and the overload of health systems. *4 From persons who would be stranded away from their homes with means of transport suspended, to the subsequent mismanagement of the lockdown with the proliferation of misinformation have also been at the heart of the challenges brought on by the pandemic.

 

A year after the announcement of the COVID-19 lockdown world-wide, when we look back at some of its enduring consequences, we realise, as life as we know it has been hugely impacted by the COVID-19 crisis, and so too have our relationships. We have all had to adapt fast. The coronavirus lockdown has been a unique social experience that has had significant effects on our social relationships. Some have been strengthened while others have come under severe strain. Many people have found themselves confined for prolonged periods of time with other people and have come into conflict with each other. Others have experienced lockdown alone, resulting in profound social isolation. Some of our everyday interactions have intensified and others have not been possible at all.Since the lockdown came into force, many societies witnessed an increase in domestic violence cases being reported. The media in many countries have highlighted an increase in calls to domestic violence helplines since the onset of the pandemic. *5 Fuelled by mandatory stay-at-home rules, physical distancing, economic uncertainties, and anxieties caused by the pandemic, domestic violence has increased globally, leading to violently abusive, compulsively controlling behaviour and aggression directed towards cohabiting partners, especially women. Women tend to face greater risks during emergencies, including health disasters such as pandemics, bearing the destructive effects of unemployment, lost income, and economic hardship on marital harmony, parenting quality, and child well-being. Being trapped in a space with violent or manipulative individuals could lead to increased rates and intensity of threats, physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, humiliation, intimidation, and controlling behaviour. The ability to isolate a person from family and friends, monitor their movements, and restrict access to financial resources, employment opportunities, education, or medical care is heightened by a lockdown. These behaviours often have lasting effects on people, and can significantly affect mental health and well-being.

 

It is essential on the part of the authorities to formally integrate domestic violence and mental health repercussions into the public health preparedness and emergency response plans against the pandemic. Citizens must be sensitised towards the increased risks of domestic violence, and bystanders and neighbours should be urged to intervene if they suspect abuse. What we need is an aggressive, determined campaign to promote awareness about domestic violence, and highlight the various modes through which complaints can be filed. National news channels, radio channels, and social media platforms must be strategically used, and civil society/ non-profit organisations are also critical in providing assistance.Reaching out to people facing domestic violence and in distress needs to be classified as an ‘essential service’ by the government and must be prioritised. 

 

A lot has been written and said about the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the economy, mental health etc, mainly laden with negative effects. There are silver linings in this crisis as well.It has provided a forced opportunity to take a pause, refresh and reconnect with our loved ones, with nature and the entire humanity, in an attempt to foster resilience and hope.   * 6 We must use this opportunity to redefine the value of domestic labour, and to rethink and deconstruct gender/class/caste/race/ based physical and psychological lockdowns that trap us in a monolithic framework of existence. We must also learn to appreciate a broader view of life and reflect on the present moment with futuristic perspective, rather than spending time and energy worrying about past or future concerns.The article titled, “Mizo Youth and the Covid Lockdown Life: A Gender Comparison”, attests that youth were found engaging in volunteer work within and outside their communities during lockdown, finding new hobbies and interests in baking and gardening and getting involved in community building activities.*7 Youth require increased choices and facilities, to remain physically active to help enhance their immune system and thus to lower the risk factors. Maintaining physical distance has taken a toll on social life, but different studies*8 prove that though certain level of inactivity persisted during lockdown, youth in Mizoram were active during lockdown and found varied ways to encourage others and help each other in personal, domestic and social problems and got engaged in distribution of groceries and other essential items and services. Fortunately, now there are new highways of social contact with unlimited resources. More than just providing social support about the current crisis, it is a good idea to use these connections to experience self-compassion and receptive mindfulness in which both the giver and the receiver feel the benefits of kindness. It is the same quest to a mature, balanced way of existence, to a deep sense of community as humans, that Anita Desai envisions through Fasting Feasting, suggesting the need to break the rigidities of prejudices, stereotypical biases and cultural lockdowns, to achieve a reconciliation of diverse forces of life, resulting in more liberal ways of social co-existence. Evolving a free-flowing subjective literary mode of writing, Anita Desai unravels the haunting dilemmas of human existential predicaments and provides a deconstructive rethinking and redefining of stereotypical entities and binaries, evolving an exceptionally powerful female aesthetics, relevant to contemporary times too.