Mother's Day 2025: Indian Fiction Delves Into The Mother-Daughter Relationship

바카라�Adrienne Rich

Booker winner Arundhati Roy, who shot to literary stardom with her debut novel The God of Small Things, will publish her memoir this year. Titled Mother Mary Comes to Me, the book unravels Roy바카라�s relationship with Mary Roy, the mother she ran from at 18, not because she 바카라�didn바카라�t love her, but in order to be able to continue to love her바카라�. Mary Roy passed away in September 2022. Overwhelmed by her loss, Roy started writing the book to make sense of her tangled feelings for her mother. Roy바카라�s note about the upcoming memoir says: 바카라�Perhaps a mother like mine deserved a writer like me as a daughter. Equally, perhaps a writer like me deserved a mother like her바카라�바카라� Who deserved whom? And how did they shape each other바카라�s lives and personalities? Roy turns to non-fiction for answers.

Fiction writers remain preoccupied with the mother-daughter bond. Mothers and daughters dance a complicated dance in recent novels by many Indian writers, including Anita Desai바카라�s Rosarita; Avni Doshi바카라�s Girl in White Cotton; Radhika Oberoi바카라�s Of Mothers and Other Perishables, Madhuri Vijay바카라�s The Far Field, Geetanjali Shree바카라�s Tomb of Sand (translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell), Anindita Ghose바카라�s The Illuminated, Naheed Patel바카라�s A Mirror Made of Rain and Krupa Ge바카라�s What We Know About Her. There are absent mothers, abusive mothers. Departed mothers, depressive mothers. Stoic pillars. Ghostly presences; wafting, watching. Daughters come in many hues too: rebels, role models; those who cut the cord and fly away, those who choose to stay. Mother-daughter ties evade easy definition in these books. They spread across a wide emotional spectrum바카라�of tenderness and love, of camaraderie, cruelty, intensity, indifference.

At the start of Avni Doshi바카라�s Girl in White Cotton, Tara says, 바카라�I would be lying if I said my mother바카라�s misery has never given me pleasure.바카라� Tara and her mother Antara, a free-thinker and former resident of a charismatic guru바카라�s ashram, share a deep but discomfiting bond. 바카라�If readers have been troubled by the difficult mother-daughter relationship at the heart of my novel, it is because the idea of the good mother is a 바카라�sacred cow바카라� across most cultures,바카라�바카라� says Doshi. 바카라�There is a set ideal that mothers and daughters바카라�and women in general바카라�should fulfill certain roles prescribed by and in service to patriarchy바카라�I hope that art in its various forms can destabilise those ideas.바카라�

Some write to shatter stifling ideals. Some to explore the ways in which a woman바카라�s bond with her mother shapes her identity. Shashi and Tara바카라�the mother-daughter duo in Anindita Ghose바카라�s The Illuminated바카라�share many fraught moments. Ultimately, they find a way to understand each other. 바카라�When women write books, they write about what is important to them,바카라� says Ghose. 바카라�And a woman바카라�s relationship with her mother바카라�whether good, bad or terrible바카라�but more when it is terrible, is definitely central to her unfolding.바카라� Bonita, the young heroine of Anita Desai바카라�s lyrical, elegiac Rosarita, travels across Mexico, following the trail of her dead mother바카라�s past. Bonita gathers fragments of her mother바카라�s life to piece together her own self. She wanders far from home, hoping to get to know her mother better, hoping to get to know herself better. Academic and writer Malashri Lal sees the search for the mother as more of a metaphorical journey. 바카라�As we move closer and closer to a rational, individualistic existence,바카라� says Lal, 바카라�we seem to be looking for something we lost, something calling out to us from the past.바카라�

The ghost of the mother in Radhika Oberoi바카라�s Of Mothers and Other Perishables inhabits the past and haunts the present. She reminisces about her life in 70s and 80s Delhi as she watches her daughters deal with their personal and professional lives in an increasingly polarised city. The ghost airs her dreams and longings, and keeps a loving vigil on her family. The past and the present meld, the ghost and the living share a bond that defies death. Eighty-year-old Ma in Geetanjali Shree바카라�s Booker-winning novel Tomb of Sand defies the invisibilisation of mothers바카라�all women, actually바카라�travels to Pakistan, lays claim to her true identity, and experiences a 바카라�rebirth바카라� of sorts. Ma and her daughter Beti, who insists that saying 바카라�no바카라� is her birthright, share an unconventional, unforgettable relationship.

When Krupa Ge was growing up, her mother was the 바카라�main storyteller바카라� in her life. One of the stories her mother used to share was about how Krupa바카라�s grandparents met and fell in love. That story in particular stayed with Krupa, sparking her debut novel What We Know About Her, which was longlisted for the JCB Prize. In the book, Yamuna is at loggerheads with her mother, questioning her every move. 바카라�Society바카라�s expectations from women바카라�as mothers and as daughters바카라�are highly unrealistic,바카라� says Krupa. 바카라�We are constantly producing content on mothers바카라�books, films, TV and OTT series바카라�but nothing comes close to the bone.바카라� For Krupa, fleshing out the mother바카라�s character was the toughest task when she started work on her novel. The reason? She wanted to steer clear of stereotypes and avoid the cliched mother figures popular culture keeps feeding us. Italian novelist Elena Ferrante바카라�s books (The Days of Abandonment, The Lost Daughter, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, to name a few), were a source of inspiration for her. 바카라�Ferrante writes about the mother-daughter dynamic with rare insight,바카라� says Krupa.

Doshi is intrigued by French literary legend Marguerite Duras바카라� women characters. 바카라�They seem to be always circling their own madness, but this is mostly because of their subservient role as wives바카라�바카라� she says. 바카라�The wife often has to go against her own ideas, against her very being, to be a good wife to her husband바카라�and this repeated self-negation sends her into some kind of lunacy. Duras doesn바카라�t feel that children are a burden on mothers. It is the unequal role of the wife within the marriage that takes some kind of toll.바카라� Ghose loved reading British writer Deborah Levy바카라�s novel Hot Milk, which traces the trajectory of Rose and her daughter Sofia바카라�s lives, and the damage the two inflict on each other. Ghosh adds, 바카라�I must mention the movies too. Autumn Sonata by Ingmar Bergman, which was remade in Bengali as Unishe April by Rituparno Ghosh: for being almost too raw to digest in company.바카라�

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The mother-daughter relationship is one of the fundamental units around which society organises itself. So, it바카라�s not surprising that many writers pay attention to its dynamics. Social anthropologist and fiction writer Susan Visvanathan says, 바카라�Earlier, Indian writers used to depict the mother as a pivotal figure바카라�the centre of laws, the source of overpowering love. But a shift happened as times changed.바카라� New writers started exploring the contradictions and tensions in the relationship, highlighting aspects like the mother바카라�s need for control, and the daughter바카라�s quest to break free.

바카라�A woman바카라�s bond with her mother is the primary relationship she will have with another woman,바카라� says Ghose. 바카라�And yet it is more often than not a fraught relationship. I was interested in these contradictions바카라�how deep this relationship can go and how easily it can tear.바카라� By exploring these contradictions, are contemporary writers giving readers a more honest portrait of this relationship? Are they less prone to deification of the mother figure?

바카라�On the one hand, we have the sanctification of mothers in Indian myths,바카라� says academic and writer Malashri Lal. 바카라�But the rendering of the mother-daughter relationship has certainly changed with reference to context,바카라� she adds, pointing out that Indian writers like Githa Hariharan, Shashi Deshpande, Manju Kapur, Anita Desai, Anuradha Roy and Namita Gokhale, among others, have created mothers who defy stereotypes in their works.

Fictional mothers may rewrite the rules, and fictional daughters may rebel. Writers can write their hearts out, but what about the god of all things바카라�the 바카라�market바카라�? Do books revolving around the mother-daughter relationship have enough takers? Are literary agents on the lookout for them? How about publishers? Ambar Sahil Chatterjee, literary agent at A Suitable Agency, says the mother-daughter relationship is a 바카라�prevailing theme바카라� because it is an integral part of our cultural consciousness. 바카라�The complicated aspects of the parent-child bond lend themselves to drama in fiction,바카라� says Chatterjee. 바카라�The theme has great potential, but I would evaluate how a writer approaches it. Does the story grip the reader? How well-written is the manuscript?바카라� Kanishka Gupta, Founder, Writer바카라�s Side literary agency, values originality, voice and storytelling chops in a work of fiction. However, he warns, 바카라�Many accomplished writers have dealt with this theme in the Indian subcontinent and beyond. So, comparisons are bound to happen. It바카라�s not easy for books by new writers on this theme to get picked up.바카라�

Vineetha Mokkil is assistant editor, Outlook. She is the author of the book 'A Happy Place and Other Stories'

(This article is a part of Outlook's March 11, 2025 Women's Day special issue 'Women at Work', which explores the experiences of women in roles traditionally occupied by men. It appeared in print as 'Girl, Wom an, Mother바카라�)