DISCOVERING INDIAN WOMEN – A CULTURAL JOURNEY

Abstract

This is a small exploratory attempt at discovering perceptions of Indian women through Romanian eyes. This will be done through the medium of Indian literature written in English and through the personal experience of the author. We all have our collections of cultural stereotypes through which we look at the world: our own as well as others’. One of the starting points in this cultural journey is the sheer difference in size between the two spaces and the incredible variety of people who inhabit India. Our classical lenses or, at the other end, our Bollywood goggles, distort our perceptions of the realities of present-day Indian women. The author will compare her constructed images of modern Indian women as they appear mainly in Anuradha Roy’s The Folded Earth, with her own experience of real women that she had actually met either in Romania or in India. In today’s complex world, in what is called more often and with more valid arguments the Asian century, it is relevant and worthwhile to have such an exercise of cultural and gender exploration in order to better understand ourselves.