Yamini - Chudamani Raghavan

Yamini - Chudamani Raghavan

Yamini a novel of social problem deals with child marriage. Despite the imposition of a ban on this problem, some of the traditional families of Tamil Nadu went ahead in performing such activities against to the will of their children. Chudamani Ragahvan scintillates the very idea of social problem in an unleashing story of Yamini. From childhood, Yamini loved nothing better than solitude. She did not seek friends, and avoided close physical contract with anybody, even her parents. She spent hours looking up at the night sky, drinking in its ineffable beauty. To her the blackness of night was not an absence of light, but the womb out of which all light springs. Yamini felt a deep oneness with Nature.

With unobtrusive ardour Chudamani expolres the mystery of the human mind, and its essential solitariness. Every individual has a core, an inner life. She suggests that to violate this core of privacy is to set off a kind of cataclysm within the mind. And because of the nature of human relationship, that cataclysm will raise relentless echoes in the lives of others.

The novel is set in Madras and spans a period of around twenty years between the 1950’s and the 1970’s. This was a time of transition for traditional Brahmin society. Despite the ban imposed on child marriage by the Sharada Act of the late 1920’s, conservative families continued to “marry off” their pre-pubescent and teenage girls until the 1950’s, convinced that to do otherwise was to disturb social stability. The prevailing belief was that every girl was born to get married and to bring forth children, and that it was her father’s duty to find a husband for her from within the strictly codified circle of caste, sub-caste, and religion.  A mother would look anxiously at her little daughter and say, “Who knows in which house your rice-pot will be set to boil?”

Often, marriages were arranged between the children of brother and a sister. This was a relatively easy way out of the formal and often oppressive conditions in which marriages were arranged and conducted. Usually the arrangement of marriage followed a time-honoured protocol. It began with the exchange of horoscopes and elaborate enquiries about the antecedents of each family. Once these hurdles were cleared and the parents of the bride and groom had agreed on the match, a formal “bride-viewing” followed. Although the groom had the privilege of rejecting the bride at this stage, the girl herself was not expected to express an opinion in the matter. The process culminated in a wedding rich in ritual and replete with customs, which strengthened social and familial bonds.

It was unthinkable for any girl to resist marriage. Those human beings, especially women, found happiness and fulfillment only through marriage was a fundamental belief. It was Nature’s way, the order of the universe as reflected in human society.  For Purundevi, Yamini’s mother, all this was common sense. A woman who rejected marriage and preferred to live a solitary life was denying herself life’s sweetest joys. She must be drawn back from the abyss of self-absorption --- even it had to be done by force.

Yamini is forced into marriage—a common enough event prevalent even today in sections of Indian society. For a girl still in her teens and brought up to obey and to conform, coercion by parents who are convinced that they are doing good by their daughter is difficult to resist.  Even a spirited girl like Yamini is quelled. But there is a cost. Yamini’s inner life has been laid waste. Nothing will grow in it, not even the feelings of a mother towards her own child. Perundevi thinks that motherhood will evoke tender human feelings in her, but the sight of her infant only intensifies Yamini’s feeling of having been violated.

Parallel to her story is the story of her daughter Geetha, who seems different from her in every way, until she too begins to act strangely. Perundevi goes through an agony of suspense—“Will the old story repeat itself” –until Geetha reveals what has been on her mind. Fortunately, Society is not as conservative now as it was dating her mother’s girlhood. Geetha’s grandparents too have suffered grief and have consequently changed their views on marriage.  Geetha is listened to, and her wishes respected.

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