Rejection of Silence in Kamala Markandaya's A Silence of Desire

Abstract

The principle characters inA Silence ofDesiresuffers from lack of communication. Communicationis a way to understand each other and it leads to discard things which hinder harmonious life. The causes of silence are their different beliefs attitudes and behaviours. Sarojini worships Tulasi as a Goddess wheras Dandekar takes it merely a plant. Sarojini believes in faith-healingand power of Swami as a cure for her womb-tumour. Dandekar doesn't believe on such things and urges Sarojini to be cured in the hospital. These factors are responsible to invite disharmony, frustration and distortion in the familial relationship. But gradually, the protagonists realize the importance of harmonious relationship and reject the factors responsible for the long prevailing silence or the communication gap between them. Silence is rejected in words as well as through their different cultural practices in the beginning. Soon they reject all sorts of silence with their desire to come to term and respect each other. In case of the protagonists Dandekar and Sarojini, the distorted conjugal life enters the phase of harmony and reconciliation through the rejection in words and in attitudes and behaviours.