Self-revival through Food in Geetha Hariharan’s “Remains of the Feast”

Abstract

Women become prey to the double-edged sword of patriarchy and the cultural norms imposed on them, owing to their gender. In process, women are rendered voiceless and often the ‘self’ of women remains muted. Further, if a woman is a widow, she is as good as a dead person, and her existence hardly matters in a patriarchal milieu. Making the matters worse for women are various restrictions imposed on widows, especially if they belong to upper castes. The widows are expected to follow various rituals, particularly those related to food. Often widows are required to adhere to stringent food norms and abstain from eating various foods.Facing such challenges in life, while asserting her ‘self’ to create a new identity for herself towards the end of her life is the protagonist Rukmini, who is a widow in the short story “Remains of the Feast” by Geetha Hariharan. Rukmini, a Brahmin widow demands food that she is forbidden to eat all through her life as a widow, when she is on her deathbed. With the help of her great granddaughter Ratna, she subverts the norms of patriarchy by eating the tabooed food. The present paper argues that food becomes a metaphor for craving –craving for eating tabooed food and also craving for wielding power through food and thereby challenging the norms of patriarchy imposed on women. Further, the women characters in the short story assert themselves through food and create a new identity for themselves, while discovering their new self.