Authors : Nilesh S. Dhekre
Page Nos : 34-38
Description :
A Silence of Desire portrays the life around religious faith which is the platform of age old Indian philosophical idea against the dubiousness imparted by Westernization. Dandekar, the male protagonist, is the “modernist,” whereas his wife; Sarojini is the “Traditional.” The confrontation between two sets of ideas; between their two sets of viewing the world is amply picturized by the novelist Kamala Markandaya. A Silence of Desire is the world of diverse attitudes marked and influenced by the Western philosophy over Eastern ideology; between faith and reason, between tradition and modernity, between resistance and submission. The present paper aims at studying the novel A Silence of Desire, which revolves round the confrontation between myth and reality, religion and science, faith and reason and Eastern ideas and values vis-a`-vis Western pragmatism. Markandaya writes with the conviction of one who knows profusely the conflict between faith and reason. The description of the conflicting attitudes of Dandekar and Sarojini is a testimony to an inherent conflict between tradition and modernity. Sarojini is consistently, deeply orthodox in her faith, convinced of its total beneficence. On the contrary, Dandekar exposed to modern ideas is caught between the residual power of his cultural inheritance and a newly acquired one which has yet to achieve full credence.
