An Alternative Mode Of Living : A New Paradigm In Indian English Women Fiction

Abstract

For last many decades, women-writing and critical focus on women-writing have come center-stage. Women litterateurs have often been heavily and harshly  castigated for  their narrow canvas of themes , and Jane Austen’s ‘limited range’ has become a  literary cliché to describe the restricted world and vision of women-writing revolving around personal and family life. In fact, one of the dominant themes in women-writing has been the theme of human relationships, especially personal and familial relationships. These relationships have majorly been placed in hetero-normative and androcentric paradigm. Indian English women novelists have generally revealed pre-occupation with Man-defined existence of their women protagonists. However, a different note  has been  struck by Meenu Mehrotra with her debut novel Lilacs Bloom in My Backyard , creating a distinctive Female Utopia. This paper will take up a study of this Alternative Mode of Living and explore the Alternative Matrix of Relationships as portrayed  in the novel.