Womanhood as Imagined in Shivani’s Novels and Short Stories

Abstract

Abstract Gaura Pant, popularly known as ‘Shivani’ or ‘Diddi’, was a prominent Hindi writer who contributed immensely to India’s rich literary landscape. Her works reflect nuanced exploration of gender and women’s identity within pre- and postcolonial India. Despite being brought up in a traditional Hindu household, her literary works still managed to traverse established boundaries, challenging patriarchal hierarchies and advocating for women’s empowerment. She published forty prominent literary works along with hundreds of newspaper columns and articles. Most of them are original works in Hindi. This paper unearths prominent themes and constructs within her various short stories, originally written in Hindi, and her well-known novel Bhairavi: The Runaway. While contextualizing her writings with reference to her own life, the paper concludes that Shivani’s works, in exploring the ordinary lives of women within a patriarchal society, are feminist in nature.