That Long Silence

That Long Silence
Author: Shashi Deshpande
Publisher: Penguin Books India
Total Pages: 210
Release: 1989
Genre: India
ISBN: 9780140127232

Jay'S Life Comes Apart At The Seams When Her Husband Is Asked To Leave His Job While Allegations Of Business Malpractice Against Him Are Investigated. Her Familiar Existence Disrupted, Her Husband'S Reputation In Question And Their Future As A Family In Jeopardy, Jaya, A Failed Writer, Is Haunted By Memories Of The Past. Differences With Her Husband, Frustrations In Their Seventeen-Year-Old Marriage, Disappointment In Her Two Teenage Children, The Claustrophia Of Her Childhood&Amp;Mdash;All Begin To Surface. In Her Small Suburban Bombay Flat, Jaya Grapples With These And Other Truths About Herself&Amp;Mdash;Among Them Her Failure At Writing And Her Fear Of Anger. Shashi Deshpande Gives Us An Exceptionally Accomplished Portrayal Of A Woman Trying To Erase A 'Long Silence' Begun In Childhood And Rooted In Herself And In The Constraints Of Her Life.

Collected Stories

Collected Stories
Author: Shashi Deshpande
Publisher: Penguin Books India
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2003
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780143029526

Not Many Readers Of Shashi Deshpande May Be Aware That Her First Experiments In Writing Fiction Started With The Short Story. Over The Years, She Has Published About A Hundred Stories In Literary Journals, Magazines And Newspapers, In Between Writing Her Immensely Popular Novels Which Are Now Read All Over The World, And Taught In Universities Wherever Indian Writing Has An Audience. In This Collection We Find Shashi Deshpande At Her Best, Writing With Subtlety And A Rare Sensitivity About Men And Women Trapped In Relationships And Situations Often Not Of Their Making. The Wife Of A Successful Politician Who Must Look To A Long-Lost Past In Order To Keep Up The Pretence Of Contentment; A Little Girl Who Cannot Comprehend Why The Very Fact Of Her Being Born Is A Curse; A Young Man Whose Fantasy Of Love Drives Him To Murder; A Newly-Wed Couple With Dramatically Differing Views On What It Means To Get To Know Each Other Every One Of The Characters Here Is Delineated With Lucidity And Compassion. Written Over The Past Three Decades, The Stories In This Volume Provide An Insight Into Often Forgotten Aspects Of Human Feelings And Relationships, Weaving A Magical Web Of Emotions That Is Testimony To The Unusual Depth And Range Of Shashi Deshpande S Writing.

In the Country of Deceit

In the Country of Deceit
Author: Shashi Deshpande
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2009-06-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9352140885

Why did I do it? Why did I enter the country of deceit? What took me into it? I hesitate to use the word love, but what other word is there?' Devayani chooses to live alone in the small town of Rajnur after her parents' death, ignoring the gently voiced disapproval of her family and friends. Teaching English, creating a garden and making friends with Rani, a former actress who settles in the town with her husband and three children, Devayani's life is tranquil, imbued with a hard-won independence. Then she meets Ashok Chinappa, Rajnur's new District Superintendent of Police, and they fall in love despite the fact that Ashok is much older, married, and-as both painfully acknowledge from the very beginning-it is a relationship without a future. Deshpande's unflinching gaze tracks the suffering, evasions and lies that overtake those caught in the web of subterfuge. There are no hostages taken in the country of deceit; no victors; only scarred lives. This understated yet compassionate examination of the nature of love, loyalty and deception establishes yet again Deshpande's position as one of India's most formidable writers of fiction

The Binding Vine

The Binding Vine
Author: Shashi Deshpande
Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2002-09-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 155861785X

“There can be no vaulting over time,” thinks Urmila, the narrator of Shashi Deshpande’s profound and soul-stirring novel. “We have to walk every step of the way, however difficult or painful it is; we can avoid nothing.” After the death of her baby, Urmila finds her own path difficult to endure. But through her grief, she is drawn into the lives of two very different women—one her long-dead mother-in-law, a thwarted writer, the other a young woman who lies unconscious in a hospital bed. And it is through these quiet, unexpected connections that Urmi begins her journey toward healing. The miracle of The Binding Vine, and of Shashi Deshpande's deeply compassionate vision, is that out of this web of loss and despair emerge strand of life and hope—a binding vine of love, concern, and connection that spreads across chasms of time, social class, and even death. In moving and exquisitely understated prose, Deshpande renders visible the extraordinary endurance and grace concealed in women's everyday lives.

Small Remedies

Small Remedies
Author: Shashi Deshpande
Publisher: Penguin Books India
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2001
Genre: India
ISBN: 9780140294873

Shashi Deshpande's latest novel explores the lives of two women, one obsessed with music and the other a passionate believer in Communism, who break away from their families to seek fulfilment in public life. Savitribai Indorekar, born into an orthodox Hindu family, elopes with her Muslim lover and accompanist, Ghulaam Saab, to pursue a career in music. Gentle, strong-willed Leela, on the other hand, gives her life to the Party, and to working with the factory workers of Bombay. Fifty years after these events have been set in motion, Madhu, Leela's niece, travels to Bhavanipur, Savitribai's home in her last years, to write a biography of Bai. Caught in her own despair over the loss of her only son. Madhu tries to make sense of the lives of Bai and those around her, and in doing so, seeks to find a way out of her own grief.

Dark Holds No Terrors

Dark Holds No Terrors
Author: Shashi Deshpande
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2000-10-14
Genre:
ISBN: 9351181618

Why are you still alive-why didn't you die?' Years on, Sarita still remembers her mother's bitter words uttered when as a little girl she was unable to save her younger brother from drowning. Now, her mother is dead and Sarita returns to the family home, ostensibly to take care of her father, but in reality to escape the nightmarish brutality her husband inflicts on her every night. In the quiet of her old father's company Sarita reflects on the events of her life: her stultifying small town childhood, her domineering mother, her marriage to the charismatic young poet Mahohar.

Shashi Deshpande's Novels

Shashi Deshpande's Novels
Author: Siddhartha Sharma
Publisher: Atlantic Publishers & Dist
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2005
Genre: Feminism and literature
ISBN: 9788126903856

The Present Book Seeks To Study The Feminist Perspective In Shashi Deshpande S Novels. It Reveals Deshpande S Sincerity And Ability In Voicing The Concerns Of The Urban Educated Middle-Class Woman. Trapped Between Tradition And Modernity, Her Sensitive Heroines Are Fully Conscious Of Being Victims Of Gross Gender Discrimination Prevalent In A Conservative Male-Dominated Society. A Culture-Specific Approach Has Been Adopted To Unravel Shashi Deshpande S Pragmatic Resolution Related To The Modern Indian Woman S Beleaguered Existence. The Book, It Is Hoped, Will Make A Rich Contribution To Women S Studies.

3 Novels

3 Novels
Author: Shashi Deshpande
Publisher: Penguin Books India
Total Pages: 392
Release: 2006
Genre: Indic fiction (English)
ISBN: 9780143335115

This title presents three thrilling adventures featuring the indomitable cousins Dinu, Minu, Polly and Ravi. When Ravi comes from Bombay to stay with his three cousins for the summer holidays, little does he realize this is the beginning of a series of exciting events that will test their intelligence and luck. In the first story a string of audacious robberies occur in their usually quiet town. Who is the thief? Is it the sinister Dhondu who seems to hate the children, or is he covering up for someone else? In The Hidden Treasure, the four cousins end up spending their Diwali holiday in Kaka's farm in a village. Village life is fun, especially with their broken-down ancestral mansion to explore. Gradually, the children realize there is something sinister afoot. Who has been digging away in the mansion in the dead of night? Did their ancestor really bury his life's savings in their sprawling ancestral home before joining the 1857 uprising, or is it just a legend? And, if the treasure's still there, will they get to it before the crooks do? In the last novel, it's Dinu, Minu and Polly's turn to visit Bombay and spend the summer with Ravi. bank robber. Soon after, a spate of robberies break out all over Bombay. Is it the same gang at work? Then their friend is kidnapped and the four children find themselves in the midst of a desperate chase...