Nayantara Sahgal's Martand

Introduction – Nayantara Sahgal

Nayantara Pandit Sahgal is an Indian journalist and novelist whose fiction presents the personal crisis of India’s elite amid settings of political upheaval. Sahgal was educated in the United States at Wellesley College (B.A., 1947). Well acquainted with Indian aristocracy, her uncle was Jawaharlal Nehru, her cousin Indira Gandhi, and her mother an ambassador to the United States—Sahgal first wrote Prison and Chocolate Cake (1954), an autobiographical memoir about her youth amid the Nehru family. She then turned to fiction, often setting her stories of personal conflict amid Indian political crises. In her fourth novel, The Day in Shadow (1971), for example, the heroine is an educated divorcée struggling in India’s male-dominated society. The contrast between the idealism at the beginning of India’s independence and the moral decline of post-Nehru India that is particularly evident in A Situation in New Delhi (1977) recurs in such Sahgal novels as Rich like Us (1985), which confronts civil disorder, corruption, and oppression while detailing the internal conflicts in a businessman’s family. Three of Sahgal’s later novels—Plans for Departure (1985), Mistaken Identity (1988), and Lesser Breeds (2003)—are set in colonial India. When the Moon Shines by Day (2017) is a dystopian satire. In The Fate of Butterflies (2019), Sahgal focused on several people living under a repressive regime. She also wrote Day of Reckoning: Stories (2015).Sahgal’s works of nonfiction included Relationship, Extracts from a Correspondence (1994) and Point of View: A Personal Response to Life, Literature, and Politics (1997) as well as several works on Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi

Plot - Martand

Nayantara sahgal’s short story “Martand” is essentially about love and loss at a time of intense political crisis. The protagonist, who is never named, is a woman who finds herself caught up in a triangular relationship with her husband Naresh, a civil servant, on the one hand, and a doctor, Martand, on the other. The love story is a poignant one. When the useful doctor Martand comes into the scene and gives the readers a glimpse of eternal love triangle that was soon to be formed or almost formed, it gives to the reader a feeling of apathy towards the woman protagonist. One can understand the purity amidst which the temple was situated. The reference to the warmth that she has felt on touc hing its stones is the spiritual warmth of fulfillment that has been absent from her life only to be substituted by the crude physical love between herself and her husband. The reference to this and then the mention of Martand corresponds to show the spiritual affinity that both possess for each other, as if in accordance with the laws of nature. The relationship is not a clandestine affair but is magnified into a destined culmination, celestial and preordained in nature much like the location of Martand in the purity encased landscape.

The sexual intercourse in the “Martand” shrine helps to conceive, not a baby, but a new character of the story, a living Sun God, full of ruined splendor, descending from an ancient, princely lineage. As Sahgal herself puts it, the protagonist, gets a shock of recognition and betrayal. In a few deft strokes, Sahgal successfully portrays the agency of a divided heart as also the beauty of the feeling of love itself. But the singular feature for which “Martand” stands out is the way in which it retalls the Partition story from the official point of view. The focus of the story is not the millions of refugess who were displaced by Partition, but the Government officers who had to deal with them. And “Martand” very effectively conveys their helplessness when faced with this unprecedented crisis and their untold sacrifices. During the course of the story, the woman claims herself tobe childless and says that once Naresh and she had visited the temple of the Sun God, Martand in Kashmir. Nayantara Sahgal does not allow her protagonist in “Martand” to speak out her heart. She just seems to flicker between her fidelity to her husband and an irrespressible heartache for the other man, the doctor, who is committed to alleviating human pain. There was that untouched innocence about martand, a purity without which she could no longer live. There was so little time to talk about personal problems, and when they were alone, they did not talk. The end of the story drives an almost sado-masochistic stance to qualify the wife who is left stranded in emotional void with no hope for any fulfillment in the duration of her existence. The death of Martand by the tyranny of his own makers an end to all humanism, shattering the hearts of both the wife and Martand. The fateful occurrence of such a doleful incident at a time when truth was to be fold to Naresh opens immense scope of pondering on the entire situation.

Analysis of the short story

Nayantara Sahgal uses the voice of fiction to bring to the fore a story of the socio-personal entanglement. However, the manner in which the lattice of her narration treats a variety of themes including the life of the present day sophisticated woman speaks much more than that. The struggle of the woman protagonist of her tale is synonymous to the position Sehgal is in, in her professional life. burdened by the weight of her status. The portrayer of imperfect truth that she is often blamed as, comes with the baggage of her being a woman. Being a woman, that too from the higher strata of the society has its own limitations. Hence, a double marginalisation of the author who in her own stylised grace attempts to make the unsavoury truths of life appear a little more delectable when served in her platter of well garbed fiction.

In this particular story, Sahgal brings forth the issue of migration at the backdrop of a so called emancipated household. The woman in the story seems to be the apparently emancipated, educated kinds who can voice opinions and take part in discussions related to the state of the nation. A woman who can be thought to be independent and outspoken, living a life of absolute bliss in a nuclear family which does not involve any in-laws seems to be the indication of an absolutely paradisiacal living for the modern woman, who abhors the possibility of suffering any torment from the members of her extended family. As says Spivak: Against the indigenous elite we may set what Guha calls the ‘politics of people’ both from the outside (that was considered an autonomous domain, for it neither originated from elite politics nor its existence depended on the latter) and inside(it’s existence continued to operate vigorously inspite of colonialism).(79 Spivak) Furthermore, as the story proceeds one finds out the detestation the husband has towards the constant migration and cramming of the city they dwell in and plans to take transfer abroad. This in totality forms the background of an extremely progressive household and when the useful doctor Martand comes into the scene and gives the readers a glimpse of eternal love triangle that was soon to be formed or almost formed, it gives to the reader a feeling of apathy towards the woman protagonist.

The feelings of the readers might almost correspond with that of the husband ‘Suresh’ in saying: ”millions why beat about the bush. It’s going to be desperate just wait and see, unless the refugees ease off.” It is the deliberate structuring of the narrative that drives the reader to and fro the ladder of conscience in judging the main characters so much so that the evident spiritual link that the wife shares with Martand might even be termed an effective camouflage for her carnal desires. However, the end of the story drives an almost sado-masochistic stance to qualify the wife who is left stranded in emotional void with no hope for any fulfilment in the duration of her existence. The death of Martand by the tyranny of his own makes an end to all humanism, shattering the hearts of both the wife and Martand. The fateful occurrence of such a doleful incident at a time when truth was to be told to Suresh opens immense scope of pondering on the entire situation. It is at this instant that the sombre reaction of the woman and the delineation of her microcosmic emotions in striking words by the author causes the reader to think twice about their already formed judgement. This unnatural end of the narrative in a tragic manner seems to be the impact of fate brought forward by the cumulative judgement of most readers making them culprits for such banishment of feelings from a singular human soul.

Conclusion

            Under the light of these events, Nayantara Sahgal seems to be writing a symbolist manifesto for the union of the repressed, each of whom can empathize with the other, irrespective of the type of repression each is under through this short story, Martand. Thus, positioning herself as an author of the repressed and refuting any other element to her identity, that might attempt to overshadow her impactful writing calling it inexperienced.