Readable novel on a universal theme

Inikbitten
Author: Yamuna Malini Perera
Published by Kinkini Creations, Pannipitiya

Reviewed by Somapala Arandara

Yamuna Malini Perera's latest novel is titled Inikbitten. Its theme deals with a contemporary as well as long-standing issue, the hatred between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law. As Yamuna herself says, it is a simple story.

Nevertheless, the writer has been successful in inculcating deeply in the mind of the reader a point that deserves the attention of scholars. Parallel to the main theme runs the subsidiary theme of step-motherly cruelty rooted in the social structure.

When at the age of one year, Deeptha's mother died, it was her grandmother who brought her up like a mother. Rather than satisfying his desire for sexual urge, Deeptha's father, who faced the difficulty of bringing her up and looking after the domestic chores, brought home a step mother.

Selfishness

After the step-mother begets her own children, there begins to develop a feeling of selfishness and of hatred towards the child of her husband's former wife. She is absorbed in a constant struggle to have all her husband's property transferred to her own children. In such a situation, children of the earlier marriage are forced to undergo various acts of harassment. In the event of not finding any refuge from her father who is goaded by the step-mother, Deeptha has to leave home for good.

Unlike in the past, as if owing to some inadequacy in the modern educational structure, students have to attend ‘tuition classes'. There are good and evil effects of this system that contribute to the moral behaviour of students. In their transitional period from childhood to adolescence, they are titillated by feelings of sex and are prone to go astray. Some of them fall into serious mishaps and several sorts of perversion due to taking sudden decisions. Deeptha also comes to the conclusion of eloping with Hiru. This is one harmful aspect of attending tuition classes which offer unhampered freedom to immature minds.

Split

The split between Hiru and Deeptha begins with their falling prey to the grip of Hiru's father, a big businessman and his mother. Deeptha lies sighing alone in their bedroom while Hiru's mother and Hiru keep on chatting. When a mother gives birth to a son, she tries to bring him up to be her hero. Here, I feel the author hints at the Oedipus complex. In the play ‘King Oedipus’ by the Greek tragetion, Sophocles, unravels the story of how Oedipus keeps his mother Jocasta as his queen without their knowledge in his ill-fated later life. This complex appears more or less in mothers. This immoral conduct is called ‘Oedipus complex'.

Because of this peculiar, untoward intimacy, the mother becomes hateful towards her daughter-in-law when her son and his wife live affectionately. She always tries to jeopardise their happy life. I reckon this is the basics of the ill-will between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law. There is another aspect of this problem. That is, for a long time, it has been rather the tradition of a newly married girl to be prejudiced that her mother-in-law is a cruel hag.

In that situation, even if the mother-in-law is a kind-hearted woman the daughter-in-law start hating her mother-in-law and makes an effort to act irrationally whenever she sees her husband showing affection to his mother. So the wife goes to the extreme of treating her husband a as a thing only she owns.

She thinks she does not want to have anything to do with other family members. This jealous emotion gives rise to the problem at issue. This fact is subtly enacted in the closing part of D.H. Lawrence's short story 'Odour of Chrysanthemums'. Not being second to Lawrence, Yamuna has reinforced it in her novel 'Inikbitten, quite cleverly.

Benefits

Today, despite its practicability, people say that a newly married couple should live alone. But when the wife is about to give birth to a child or when a serious illness afflicts the couple, the cooperation of the elders becomes a sine-qua non. Then the young wife begins to see the benefits of living with the husband's parents. With the start of a couple's separate life, comes up existentialism, which has become a bane in western culture. It means alienation from society. Along with it rises egoism to its highest level. They do not care tuppence for their parents and brothers and sisters. One of the formidable novelists, who held that existentialism was harmful to society, is Albert Camus, the French novelist. His works such as L'etranger, La Chute, and Thelague show the ill effects of it.

The social orders of living together with parents and members of the family as seen in the oriental culture and of living separately alienated from society Both have their pros and cons. It is not easy to prefer one to the other. But these two life styles exist in the world. Yamuna, Malini Perera pays more attention in this novel to get at the root-cause of the ever-present struggle between mothers-in-law and daughters.

Harmony

She has, however, left a narrow margin for understanding type of mother-in-law and daughters-in-law, who know the fruits of co-existence, peace and harmony. The plot in Yamuna's novel is interesting, the theme universal, language simple and refined. The reader tends to read it at a stretch. The author's broad vision of life as a kind-hearted mother, a well-known poet, a popular lyricist and a prolific novelist offers the reader with a spectrum of life dealing with various facets of a woman's life in play with those of men. It produces, therefore, a cross-section of the whole order of social structure.

Finally, it is a question to her, whether or not there is a solution to the issue under review. The chief character Deeptha having undergone a great deal of suffering as a daughter-in-law is shocked to see her son walking with a girl-friend. Then with a confounded mind she crosses a street and is killed by a vehicle.