A Matter of Time

A Matter of sequence By Shashi Deshpande. Feminist Press at the CUNY, 1999. Reviewed by Sudha S. Balagopal I first analyse a A Matter of magazine a hardly a(prenominal) years ago, when it was create in India. The book made a deep impression on me, with its clarified tale of rebuilding and hope. After its much recent release in the US, I read it again, enjoying it even more. Very few books can lay claim to that situation for me. In A Matter of Time, a incur, named Gopal, with lead almost-grown girls, decides he has had enough of labor union and its binding ties, and walks appear on his family.In a culture where marriage, to more, is the be- on the whole and end-all of existence, where responsibilities outweigh desires, this conceptualization to be free of all bonds in itself is strange and unlike to read the least (unless of course, it is for spiritual reasons). Sumi, Gopals wife, and his threesome daughters, seek shelter with her p arents. Coincidentally, Sumis paren ts themselves have a relationship that is more than strained. They are save and wife in name only, inhabiting the alike(p) house with virtually no talk between the two of them. The three girls, Aru, Charu and Seema are bewildered and adrift.They all want normalcy. moreover what is normalcy once a father has walked out on his family? Sumi, the mother, is extraordinarily collected, to the focalise of indifference. How they learn to cope with this dislocation is the floor that Deshpande spins for her refs. Ofcourse this is not the only story-it is also the story of all the families that are intimately associate to Sumis. The one problem I had with A Matter of Time was the abrupt asylum of guinea pigs. Deshpande does not describe how some of the battalion are related to the main character as they come into the picture.In the beginning, I had a problem sorting out the various relationships. And in this I do not mean the central family of Sumi, Gopal and their three daughters. It is all the other family members the cousins, their children, Gopals nephew and his wife and their children, the grandparents tenants and a host of others. It is said in India that when you embrace a man you marry his whole family. It is the same with Deshpandes book, where the reader is forced to accept Sumi and her entire clan, including the daedal network of her relatives and well-wishers.That fact apart, Deshpandes characters win as you read on. The inner industrial plant of a family are examined so clearly, making me see my own family in many parts of the book. The book is also a mirror of a companionship in transition. The change in Indian society is skillfully elaborated through the different generations in this book the grandmother Kalyani who is not really educated, Sumi who is educated but doesnt work outside the home, Sumis baby Premi who is a successful doctor, and the young girls Aru, Charu and Seema, who all aspire for careers and independence.The gaga and the new co-exist in a family that is modern, but with certain old values. With a style that is lilting and gentle, Deshpande draws us into an intricate web of family relationships, without passing ruling on any other characters deeds. For the reader, however, in that respect is no escaping the clutches of emotion or feeling.