An Eco-feminist Study of Lalithambika Antharjanam's "A Leaf in the Storm' and Jamila Hashmi's "Exile"

Abstract

Abstract: Women are compared to nature. This is not a new phenomenon rather this tendency has been coming since the dawn of civilization because of their reproductive, nurturing, life giving competence .This paper will try to hold forth an eco-feminist study on two Indian Partition short stories. One is Lalithambika Antharjanam’s “A Leaf in the Storm” (1948, “Kodumkaattipetta Orila” in Malayalam), other one is Jamila Hashmi’s” Exile” (1969, “Banbas” in Urdu). An Indian partition story is generally expounded from some common angles such as horror experiences of abducted women during Indian Partition in 1947, trauma, rape, dislocation, bloodshed, etc. due to communal riots of that time. This paper is a new intuition of reading the above mentioned stories, as it is now going to show an eco-feminist study of the same. It will show how eco-feminism as an ideology and spiritual realization heals unmarried girl Jyoti’s ( protagonist of “A Leaf In The Storm”) wounds which she got being impregnated by rival community males during communal riots of Indian Partition and how after getting mental healing Jyoti accepts her newborn baby as her own correlating her baby with natural elements. And it will also show how Bibi, the protagonist of “Exile”, being abducted by Gurpal, gets emotional support by comparing her own existence with that of a “pear” tree. For Bibi, her girl child is the metaphorical main root of her life tree. A transparent metaphorical representation of women to Nature is seen in both the stories. This impersonation evokes a spiritual eco-feminist study.