Palpasa as a Feminist Character

         Palpasa is different from traditional Nepali women. She is a well-educated modern girl who knows well about the western life style.

         Palpasa is a girl with frankness. She tells Drishya that she hopes her frankness doesn’t offend him. In fact, she expresses her notions without any hesitation. Her eloquence shown in the conversation with Drishya justifies this argument. She is so frank that she even admits her past relationships with other men easily when she was in America. After Drishya has expressed his love to Palpasa indirectly through a letter written to her grandmother, she really falls in love with him. Unfortunately, Drishya has to go to the village and remains out of contact for many days. The following anxiety causes her to write and leave a letter for Drishya in the hands of her grandmother. In the letter she admits that she had a few relationships in America, but she has only the memory of them now.

         Not only her frankness but also her habit of drinking wine with male friends at public places puts her ahead of the traditional feminine women with “fraility, modesty, and timidity” (Tyson 2006: 87). She is bold enough to leave her friends and come to join Drishya when she finds him drinking alone on the veranda of a hotel at Goa. Drishya seems to be a bit surprised to see her order a glass of wine. Later again, Palpasa comes to Drishya’s party for the opening of his gallery and openly drinks wine with his friends. Drishya takes a bottle over to Palpasa and offers the drink. She silently allows him to pour more wine into her glass. Perhaps her drinking habit developed after the end of her former relationship. It might have developed a different attitude in her to look at men. It appears in her letter to Drishya in which she requests him not to think that she is “an object for others” (Wagle 2008: 24).

         Palpasa claims that she is an optimist girl. She has a few dreams. She wants “to do something meaningful and make something” of herself (Wagle 2008: 192). Not only with Drishya but also among her friends she has expressed her determination. Her friend Gemini who has come to Nepal from America looking for her after her death says

She told us she wanted to do something meaningful with her life. We didn’t know what she was planning to do but she looked very determined. She left so many friends back in the States. She made both male and female friends, you know. She treated everyone well and wanted to be treated well in return (Wagle 2008: 237).

         It shows that Palpasa can sacrifice anything for equality and freedom. It means that she is against the values of “patriarchal femininity and domesticity” (Tyson 2006: 93) like modesty, humbleness, and self-sacrifice.

         Palpasa thinks that individual freedom is very important. For this, she has the courage even to revolt against her own parents. She doesn’t like her parents’ possessiveness. She doesn’t like her parents asking her why she goes around with certain men. She finds a great gap in the way of her and her parents’ thinking. She says

The gap between the ways we think’s so wide, it doesn’t matter which language we use. We can never communicate (Wagle 2008: 196).

         This is the reason why she left America and came to Kathmandu. She doesn’t want to go back to America. She wants to become a documentary film maker so that she can enjoy her freedom and creativity.

         Palpasa is such a revolting figure that she even differs from her same age friends in the matter of freedom and relationships. Once she is criticized by one of her friends for talking to an unknown man from outside the capital, but she is not satisfied with her friend’s disapproval and scolding. She thinks no one should tell her whom she should or shouldn’t talk to.

         Once she angrily blames on Drishya that he doesn’t see her as his equal. Her demand for equal treatment shows that she doesn’t accept inferiority or subordination.

         Palpasa’s strong feminist ideal is revealed to its highest when she blames Drishya of being a male chauvinist. She says that his idea of what makes a woman happy comes from his “sexist preconceptions” and that he has “never tried to understand the real” her (Wagle 2008: 199).

         This is a serious blow to the priest of beauty, the painter protagonist. When Palpasa complains that he has never talked to her on serious matters but always compliments on the way she dresses to impress her, Drishya can not defend his speech properly. She says he thinks all women love to get compliments on their appearance. Her attack is directed towards not only Drishya but also other men who think women like to be praised of their beauty.

         Though in the beginning of the novel Palpasa seems to be a bit frustrated and submissive, she gradually develops herself as a more determined character. We can take her two letters for example. Her first letter to Drishya, after they meet at Goa reveals her confusion and semi-consciousness as a feminist. She says that she identifies herself with the female figure in Drishya’s painting ‘Rain’. Moreover, she feels like the long yellow leaf of a painting which is falling continuously but never touches the ground. She says

I feel like that leaf. You’ve made me that yellow leaf which continuously falls and falls, never finding a place to rest. I want to stop falling. I want to stand up and fight my inner battles on solid ground (Wagle 2008: 28).

         When Drishya suddenly disappears and reaches out of contact, she feels Drishya is trying to avoid her. So she writes in her second letter that she is also leaving him. She has taken the decision to begin her work because she wants to blossom like a flower. She writes that she is not “a girl who can just remain passive” (Wagle 2008: 194).

         This, of course, is a clear indication that she is determined to show her actions to establish herself with strong role in the traditional patriarchal society.

                                                            References

Abrams, M. H. 2004. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7^th edition. Singapore: Thomson Asia.

Tyson, Lois. 2006. Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. 2^nd ed. Special Nepal

           Reprint 2008. Noida: Routledge.

Wagle, Narayan. 2008. Palpasa Café. Traslator: Bikash Sangraula. Kathmandu: Nepa~laya.

Some parts of this article have been deleted due to the threat of plagiarism. This article was published in the CET Journal (Itahari).