Divakaruni’s Before We Visit the Goddess : Overcoming fears and instabilities

Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (Eds) (2020). Narratives of fear and safety. Tampere: Tampere University Press, 289–314. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-359-014-4 Divakaruni’s Before We Visit the Goddess Overcoming fears and instabilities Metka Zupančič University of Alabama ORCID ID: 0000-0002-8653-8447 Divakaruni and her literary activism Among the nri (Non-Resident Indian) contemporary writers, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, currently residing in Houston, Texas, where she teaches creative writing at the University of Houston, is one of the most visible and prolific authors, having received numerous awards both in the u.s. and in her native India. I argue that her 2016 novel Before We Visit the Goddess is far more than just a realistic depiction of challenging and often quite fearful situations, experienced in recent years by a large number of displaced, diasporic or migrant human beings of all Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 290 Metka Zupančič ages and origins who doubtless seek safety that is often difficult to find. Rather, after the initial outline of the crucial situation that have defined the lives of its protagonists, the novel evolves into a potent literary exploration of new forms of coexistence, mutual understanding and higher awareness. The writer thus inscribes herself in the 21st century literary trend (mentioned by Anne Duprat, in one of the opening chapters of this volume), of remedial writing that cares about the future of this world. Divakaruni’s declared intent, in a number of interviews mainly in both countries that she claims as her own, India and the United States, is to write about women protagonists who find themselves in challenging circumstances yet are able to create positive solutions to their problems. In other words, her protagonists, often depicted as they face major adversities, dangers and uncertainty, manage to grow inwardly as they emerge from crisis situations, beyond deeply rooted fears and insecurities that inhabit them and motivate their behaviors. Divakaruni clearly perceives herself as an agent of change through her literary productions, ‘I think of my writing as part of my activism. Through what I write I hope to raise some consciousness, start some conversations’ (Divakaruni & Joshi 2017). After 1995, her initial involvement with poetry shifted to a series of novels and collections of short stories that have often been published conjunctly in the u.s. and in India. Available first to English-speaking audiences, they reached a much larger readership through translations in other linguistic environments, among which the publications in various Indian languages (in reference to Divakaruni and the place of the diasporic Indian writers in the anglophone context, see Zare & Iyer, ix–xxvii; Iyer, 11–17). In consideration of the up-to-date social sciences research, a frequent (critical) temptation is to perceive literary productions 291Narratives of fear and safety Divakaruni’s Before We Visit the Goddess predominantly as a reflection or an illustration of social issues, also in the case of Divakaruni (f. ex. Banerjee 2000). Literature certainly bears testimony to deeply-rooted human experiences and brings them to the fore through intricate narratives. But it must exceed compilations of data and statistics: I would plead that the essential quality of a work of art is to trigger compassion, to stimulate empathy, and eventually offer hope. This exactly, in my opinion, has been Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s writing agenda and her primary purpose in literature (Zupančič 2013). If the general social discourse deals with external data and statistics in order to draw conclusions about various critical matters of the world, in our particular case of diasporic communities, a writer has the opportunity to hightlight the inner life of her characters and present the dimensions that usually remain unseen. Yet both approaches, be it creative writing or social sciences research, agree that fears borne out of instabilities and related to the lack of safety are exacerbated in an immigrant environment, in close communities that watch the ‘outside’ world with apprehension and circumspection (see for example Moghaddam, Ditto & Taylor 1990; Hedge 1998). Yet, a novel, to deserve its name, albeit decidedly realistic, must always rise above the mere representation of social data and can never be considered only as a reflection of a (somewhat trendy) social phenomenon. In this sense, I suggest that Divakaruni’s emphasis on women characters in her literary creations stems in her case both from her personal experiences as a woman between two major cultures and from her deepest commitment to lend her own literary voice to those that often remain the most vulnerable in a number of societies. Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 292 Metka Zupančič Deep causes for fears and instabilities In the majority of Divakaruni’s works, as is the case in Before We Visit the Goddess, we find (immigrant) women facing fears, instability and lack of safety. These themes have inhabited her novelistic writing from the very beginning, as in her 1995 début short-stories collection Arranged Marriage. Similar topics emerge in the novels Sister of My Heart (1999), The Vine of Desire (2002), One Amazing Thing (2009), and in Oleander Girl (2012). Most frequently, Divakaruni’s protagonists are exposed to ‘inbetween conditions’ away from the country of their origins, in a new environment where they cannot ever be fully integrated or adapted. Nevertheless, in this particular Divakaruni’s novel as well as in a number of others, issues of displacement represent a major cause for fears about one’s own safety. The writer suggests that precarity may be experienced in a number of settings, even within one’s own ‘home’, because of social disparities, economic direness, psychological pressures or ideological intolerance that all affect her protagonists. Most frequently, though, her characters experience hardships linked to fears and instability internally, as I have suggested above, without expressing them overtly and without sharing them even with their closest kin. Thanks to Divakaruni’s delicate perception and perspicacity, together with her benevolent eye, her audiences are nevertheless acutely aware of the challenges in which her novelistic characters find themselves, as the writer emphasizes such inner turmoil through the frequent inner monologues of her protagonists. Divakaruni’s novels thus inform us about larger social issues mainly through intimate psychological reactions of her protagonists. When the writer suggests possible options and positive outcomes for her protagonists, she acts from her keen observation of human minds and hearts, and most probably not with an intent to console her 293Narratives of fear and safety Divakaruni’s Before We Visit the Goddess readers with a happy ending. In this regard, my close reading of the novel Before We Visit the Goddess is meant to highlight Divakaruni’s general writing positions. To echo my statements expressed above, the strength of her prose is indeed strongly emphasized through the solutions she foresees for the conditions in which many immigrants, especially women, find themselves. What do Divakaruni’s protagonists fear, especially in Before We Visit the Goddess? There is apprehension and uncertainty regarding their immediate environment. Yet, it would certainly be problematic to limit their anxieties to the almost stereotypical relationship between women and the danger of crime, namely, the fear that comes with the exposure to possible male psychological or physical assaults (Gill 2004). General research about immigrant women exposed to violence has been vastly discussed and documented in scholarly literature (Raj & Silverman 2002; Menjívar & Salcido 2002). Divakaruni has observed it in depth in her social engagement and has explored it in her prose writing. She has been a guiding force in associations, first in the San Francisco Bay area, whose aim was to help immigrant women especially in situations of domestic abuse. She transformed the experiences gained through such activities in her novel The Mistress of Spices (1997), taking it to a different, rather metaphorical or even allegorical level. Tilo, the protagonist of the novel, ‘the mistress of spices’, is somewhat magically transported from a secret Indian location to a shop in Oakland, California, in order to serve mainly the Indian diasporic community. She is not allowed to leave her safe yet reclusive abode because of her vows to the community from which she stems. As she braves the interdictions, breaks the imposed taboos and rises above her own possible apprehensions, Tilo nevertheless puts her own life at risk to help relocate to safety some of the immigrant South-Asian Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 294 Metka Zupančič women who dared ask for help, out of the trust she instilled in them. In The Mistress of Spices, the writer thus combines the questions of fear and safety with her protagonists’ struggle to maintain their original identity, torn between the ‘old’ setting and the ‘new’ context (Hedge 1998). Divakaruni links these topics with issues of inculturation, as in Before We Visit the Goddess, where she sets the stage for the conflicts between generations, in part between the ‘old’ values and the u.s.-born children of immigrants. Theoretically, such conflicts have been highlighted for example in a vastly quoted 2001 volume Ethnicities. Children of Immigrants in America, edited by Rubén C. Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes. Similarly to what Divakaruni highlights in her novels, the ‘new’ generations continue to be exposed to discrimination (which causes their stress and possible apprehensions in this regard), while from the perspective of their families, they also risk their ‘complete’ acculturation in the new environment (Zhou 212). But what are the characteristics that allow Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni to rise above these isolated or rather specific issues or concerns and compose a novel with a life of its own, with its own rhythm and succession of events that create novelistic tensions, even suspense, to finally present the readers with some healing compromises? Before We Visit the Goddess, a bestseller in India after its initial success in the u.s., approaches the notions of fear, (un)safety and instability from a rather global perspective, with the three protagonists who are either Indian or of Indian heritage. Divakaruni constructs her novel from various narrative angles, organizing it around the often-failed connections between three generations of women. One of them remains anchored in India, the other one is torn between her home country and the u.s., and the third one is born in the ‘new world’, yet having difficulties 295Narratives of fear and safety Divakaruni’s Before We Visit the Goddess connecting to any roots whatsoever. Sabitri, the oldest, has never left India, while the second, her daughter Bela, eloped to the United States, to an uncertain existence and a shaky marriage. The third one, her only child Tara, although born to the ‘firstgeneration immigrants’ (as they are being called), has never visited India. The fears and the dilemmas the three of them experience inwardly, at a very deep level that progressively becomes more apparent in the novel, may be perceived as the driving force for the narrative, while their experience of some type of safety remains ephemeral. In many ways, the novel may be perceived as a life lesson first for the Indian diasporic community and then for the general readership, not predominantly because of the trials linked to immigration. In a larger sense, the novel is a depiction of today’s world in which the old paradigms have been drastically shattered. In such a world, it takes wisdom, perseverance, and especially trust in one’s own abilities, to start and develop new forms of coexistence. Divakaruni and her contemporaries In continuing with the orientation demonstrated in her previous collections of stories and novels, such as The Unknown Errors of Our Lives (2001), Queen of Dreams (2004) and Oleander Girl (2013), Before We Visit the Goddess features strong yet often distressed women protagonists who have experienced major life challenges all linked to their difficulties in adapting to new situations, without the prospect of feeling secure in any of them. Divakaruni’s novels may thus be set alongside other contemporary Indian women writers who choose to express themselves in English (for comparisons between Divakaruni and other nri writers, see f. ex. Iyer & Zane 2001). In particular, Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 296 Metka Zupančič parallels may be drawn with Kiran Desai’s Booker-Prize novel The Inheritance of Loss (2006), as it also deals with issues of deep fear and insecurity, both in the Indian Himalayas and in the New York illegal immigrant environment, with shattered ideals, crushed hopes and complete despondency of practically all the protagonists in this book. Yet, while there is not much hope at the end of Desai’s masterpiece that earned her the Booker Prize, Divakaruni, as mentioned above, maintains her hopes for humankind, with the possibility that her characters will find solace in their new-found awareness about themselves and about the world. Such may also be the position of Arundhati Roy, in her second novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017), published twenty years after her acclaimed début work, The God of Small Things (1997), also a Booker Prize recipient. Roy’s second novel definitely builds upon the issues of fear and safety, all within India itself, where internal immigration or adaptation to life-threating situations shapes the existence of her characters. Against all odds, at the end of her novel, Roy deploys her wit when offering a possibility for a harmonic coexistence of various types of marginal and even outcast protagonists. The graveyard community where she assembles her protagonists is both utopian and dystopian, with the desire for safety as the connective element that binds them all together. Divakaruni’s characters in Before We Visit the Goddess progress toward a certain level of acceptance of life’s demands and also of their shortcomings. Coming to terms with their failures only happens at the end of the novel, the impact of which may be compared to both Desai’s and Roy’s novelistic approaches. Actually, within the three narratives, by Divakaruni, Desai and Roy, all the protagonists come to see and to experience the darkest, the most shadowy sides of their psyche. They have tried to manipulate others, they have been dishonest, mainly to 297Narratives of fear and safety Divakaruni’s Before We Visit the Goddess themselves, and they have injured, in the first place, none other than themselves. For her part, Divakaruni does not try to embellish or to justify her characters’ actions. Rather, throughout the novel, Before We Visit the Goddess, she lets them evolve toward a clearer perception of themselves. From the characters’ own ‘testimonies’ or ‘confidences’, as they are directed at the readers, we understand that many of their actions originated from their insecurities and their social instability, causing the rifts that cannot be mended easily. Regardless of a general positive attitude displayed by Divakaruni, a direct reconciliation and a final appeasement of fears is actually not possible for any of her three women characters. Sabitri dies in India, without having been able to see her daughter again and without ever meeting her granddaughter. While we as readers are given the information and understand the situation, Bela, the daughter, can never confide enough in Sabitri to explain why her husband would not let her invite her mother to visit them in the United States, or help with the newborn baby. Toward the end of the novel, we nevertheless witness the possibility that Bela and her daughter Tara may construct a relationship that is not based on fears of betrayal and on continuous distrust. Also, the writer allows for an uncanny connection between Sabitri and her granddaughter Tara, which is prepared throughout the novel, but the nature of which only becomes clear toward its last pages. In addition, although Tara incidentally visits a Hindu temple in the United States, in Texas, which is actually a crucial element in the narrative, this event does not offer a promise that she could overcome her sense of social instability and that she could reconnect with her heritage. However, it bears a symbolic value: the goddess in the temple may eventually allow Tara to find the ‘goddess within’, her intrinsic value. As an inherently strong woman, she may finally Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 304 Metka Zupančič a persuasive writer’s voice, her own stark belief that finding their own vocation, their passion – often through education – will help women stand up for themselves, overcome their fears, and finally find stability within themselves. Understanding adversities in Before We Visit the Goddess In many situations, the origins of protagonists’ preoccupations with safety, coupled with inherent fears, are to be traced back to their social status, in other words, with the place they occupy in a particular society. At the onset of the novel, Sabitri remembers her own challenges from the past, so that we may learn very early on about a major crisis situation and her feeling of complete despondency and helplessness (bwvg, 19). This climactic event takes place within a period of time when she lives in a rich Kolkata household, on a whim of the lady of the house who offered to pay for her education. Perceived as an undeserving profiteer, Sabitri experiences constant apprehension of ill-treatment, especially by the servants in the house, and potentially by her benefactress. She namely holds a secret, that of having met by chance the heir of the house, in a hidden place that serves as their refuge. After having allowed herself false hopes of eventually being accepted by Mrs. Mittir, Rajiv’s mother, her whole universe crushes when their young romance is discovered. She is thrown out of the house, penniless, humiliated and vilified, fearing the worst. Inside the men’s college where she has been taking some of her classes, which is the only place where she manages to hide, she is rescued by her ‘Maths professor’ (bwvg, 21). A promise of a solution? Rather, this is when her long existence of false security begins, based on lies and concealment. Bijan, who later becomes 305Narratives of fear and safety Divakaruni’s Before We Visit the Goddess her husband and the father of Bela, finally understands her past connection to Rajiv, her forbidden sweetheart. From this moment on, new fears of losing the man she learned to love will accompany her, through a period of Bijan’s alcoholism and his eventual demise, after their little son has also died. As suggested above, the arrangement of the narrative, which only progressively allows us to create a more complete mental picture of the network astutely created by the author, definitely affects the mental processes of Divakaruni’s readers. When analyzing the novel, the question is how to establish linearity from a text that is deliberately unsettling, a text that creates the sensation of insecurity and uneasiness, in the first place by means of its structure. As separate narratives are set against each other, the characteristics of the three women are progressively shaped out, in juxtaposition with the portraits of the men who inadvertently or deliberately play(ed) a major role in their lives. In Divakaruni’s other novels, we also find situations where the protagonists are unable to communicate directly with one another, but where the readers may better understand their challenges as the writer introduces their innermost thoughts and feelings. In Before We Visit the Goddess, such a technique allows us to observe Tara, even as she only shares small details about her life in the first-person narratives reserved for her. She has been emotionally maimed by the departure of her father and believes that she ‘hadn’t been worth a man’s faithful loving’ (bwvg, 68), after she finds out her live-in boyfriend is cheating on her. Ironically, her father seems to be completely unaware of the amplitude of what she perceives and considers as his ultimate betrayal. While he waits for his daughter to become a student so that he could leave the household, Sanjay believes that he is only ‘punishing’ Bela and ‘preserving’ Tara. He is thus unconscious of the fact that his decision will cause Tara to actually drop out Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 306 Metka Zupančič of college. This crisis is exacerbated when Tara also starts on her kleptomaniac compulsion (bwvg, 51), to fill the deep void in her heart, as she will only understand it much later. Toward reconciliation and (im)possible healing Tara’s Indian heritage certainly marks her as ‘different’ in the u.s., but ironically also allows for two situations where she is being offered a job because of who she is. Both encounters eventually turn out to be mental anchors for Tara, first with an old lady of Indian extraction she befriends against her initial reluctance, when she serves as her ‘caretaker’. Later, in a chapter set in 2002, she is hired to be a driver for an Indian professor, Dr. Venkatachalapathi, who during his business stay in Texas wishes to visit the goddess temple. Yet, the trip to Meenakshi shrine turns out to be the condensation of all the fears and trepidations expressed in this novel. As the two travelers are getting lost in the Texan countryside, Tara, the driver, is having a panic attack, ‘I can feel my heart doing its crazy-prisoner thing, throwing itself against my breastbone like it wants out right now’ (bwvg, 122). Three of her most painful memories assail her, her father’s announcement about her parents’ divorce, during her first semester of studies; her boyfriend’s infidelity; and then the hardest and the most fearful of them, her abortion two years earlier (bwvg, 123). In contrast to Tara’s obvious signs of distress, her passenger, Dr. Venkatachalapathi (bwvg, 123), faces his own fears that they might have an accident and he would die. This brings back the memories of his daughter Meena’s death, which is in fact the 307Narratives of fear and safety Divakaruni’s Before We Visit the Goddess reason why he was asked by his wife to visit the Meenakshi temple during his travels in Texas. At this point in the narrative, Tara’s own voice continues to relate her anxieties and her tremendous fear the night before the abortion (bwvg, 126), when in a missed opportunity for both, she unsuccessfully tried to call her mother. But then, in the present moment of the narrative, the young woman becomes intrigued by the ritual at the temple and accepts an ‘archana’ (bwvg, 127), although she would hardly fit in within all the requirements for a blessing by the priest. However, she experiences a shift that might turn out to be beneficial for her, as ‘Something had happened in the temple’ (bwvg, 128). Tara may have been right in stating that ‘nothing good lasts long enough’ (bwvg, 129), because on the way back, a huge truck hits her car (bwvg, 130–131). Tara’s reaction after the accident, her shivering, feels to her just like after the abortion, life shattering. Dr. V. (as Tara abbreviates his name in her narrative) fears the pain, but actually not death, when he sees the truck heading towards the car (bwvg, 131). Tara’s pent-up emotions explode in a crisis while they are waiting to be rescued and she openly admits for the first time to having had an abortion. The blurtedout confession allows for a certain communion between the two wounded human beings. Dr. Venkatachalapathi reveals details about his family’s tragedy (bwvg, 132–134), their daughter’s suicide because he and his wife could not accept that she loved another woman. Deep-rooted cultural prejudices combine here with fears and insecurities about socially accepted behaviors, although their unexpected closeness might have brought about some healing for both characters. The following chapter, titled ‘Bela’s Kitchen: 2000’ (bwvg, 137), the seventh out of nine, returns to Tara’s mother, Bela. Throughout the book, a series of very strong and conflicting Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 308 Metka Zupančič emotions are attached to her. Her reactions range from feeling unsafe to fearing for her survival in a country to which she has difficulties adapting and which she struggles to understand better. In a certain way, her emotions, rather typical for a foreign-born immigrant, echo the attitudes described in studies dealing in particular with immigrant women (see for example Hegde 1998). Were it not for joining Sanjay in the u.s. where he thought he could hide from his political troubles in West Bengal, Bela would never have left her mother and her home. The deeply engrained fear of shaming herself – if she admitted to her troubles – remains the principle cause of her withdrawal. She believes that her new life is based on a sham, the cause of a constant struggle with herself. The relationship with the man she thought she could trust becomes an issue, and the short-circuits in communication finally lead to their separation. Bela’s accrued difficulties in finding her place in the new country are similar to ‘psychological symptomatology in Indian immigrant women’ such as analyzed by Moghaddam, Ditto and Taylor (1990). The same pattern continues later in her life, although Bela succeeds in finding her own inner strength. She develops her own line of eclectic survival strategies: fusion cooking, similar to her mother’s love for desserts. Inadvertently, as we now understand it from her own perspective, Bela misses the opportunity to communicate with her daughter and support her, when Tara is at her lowest, for example just before the abortion. It is obvious that Divakaruni deliberately chooses to combine these opposing narrative movements: while one of the characters is on the upward movement, the other one sinks under the weight of her troubles. The writer brings the mother and the daughter together, face to face, only in the last chapter, set ahead of time in 2020. Tara has ‘appropriated’ or rather borrowed a portrait from the family album, the only photo she has ever 309Narratives of fear and safety Divakaruni’s Before We Visit the Goddess seen of her grandmother, and plans to give it back to her mother. Symbolically, it is Sabitri – or rather what is left of her – who manages to reconcile the two women, her daughter and her granddaughter, with the letters that Tara finally manages to read, and with her portrait – which seems to act from beyond the grave. If there is to be a conclusion to a novel that leaves the final solutions open, I should state with Divakaruni that, indeed, life will create hardship for us and that we will need all our willpower not to succumb. Nonetheless, we do possess the energy, the know-how – the skills to look at ourselves in the mirror and decide how we want to live our lives. Conclusion In the present essay, my analysis of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s 2016 novel Before We Visit the Goddess focuses primarily on the topics of fear, safety and instability. Perceived as the markings of our inherent human condition, these emotions clearly define our very nature, regardless of our place of birth or the location in which we live. My intent was to observe which categories of human beings predominantly attracted the writer, in order for her to explore the impact of these deep-rooted feelings on human behavior. I was also interested to see which modalities or strategies Divakaruni imagined for her protagonists, in order for them to overcome their insecurities, build their inner strength and eventually face the adversities with conviction, courage and confidence. For a non-resident Indian writer – and a woman – who is strongly attracted to issues of social justice, the choice of immigrant women at the center of her narratives appears rather symptomatic and a natural first choice. The other category that interests her are women who may have remained in India, where Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 310 Metka Zupančič they have been exposed to hardship, especially when crossing the lines between geographical regions or social strata. Before We Visit the Goddess engages in interactions between such women, adding to them the third category, the still ostracized ‘second’ generation, born in a new country with hardly any links to the land of their ancestors, yet often considered as foreigners in their native environment. Although Divakaruni, with the subtleness of an experienced novelist, allows for many different representatives of humankind to be included in her prose, she quite obviously privileges women and their plights. We have seen that in this particular novel, Tara’s father Sanjay often makes his hasty decisions based on his own fears and insecurities, maybe without a deeper introspection into the reasons for his own behavior and for the long-lasting consequences of his acts. Women in the novel seem to undergo a more thorough self-examination, which results in their capacity to accept their vulnerability and even draw strength from it. In many ways, these women, although fully fleshed out in the narratives and presented realistically, are in themselves carriers of archetypal values, which is far from surprising for a writer who has studied her cultural heritage and used it in her rewriting of the two major epics, Mahabharata and Ramayana. Each of the novels, The Palace of Illusions (2008) mentioned above, and The Forest of Enchantment (2019) that only came out recently (Divakaruni announced it on a social media post, July 12, 2018), centers its narrative around a heroin from the Indian lore. In her public appearances and her interviews, the writer often expressed her own apprehensions about immersing herself in the old myths, with the intent of rewriting them from her own perspective and with full emphasis on their female protagonists (Zupančič 2012; Divakaruni & Khare-Ghose 2013; Divakaruni & Joshi 2017). Her Draupadi, the wife of the iconic Pandava brothers in The Palace 311Narratives of fear and safety Divakaruni’s Before We Visit the Goddess of Illusions, is thus allowed to tell her story, which is not the case in the traditional Mahabharata. In The Forest of Enchantment, Sita, from Ramayana, is no longer the prototype of a submissive Indian wife such as transmitted from generation to generation. Although Divakaruni’s more realistic prose writing underscores the writer’s concern with today’s issues, especially the challenges facing women between cultures and between various social strata, the images of the two semi-goddesses, Draupadi and Sita, remain present as their substratum. Both Divakaruni’s Draupadi and Sita are examples of women born out of the higher realms, who still cannot avoid being cast in the most excruciating human situations. Exposed to utterly unsafe conditions, fearing for their lives, they may quiver but ultimately never lose faith. Divakaruni’s Draupadi, considered as one of the most appealing renditions of this mythical realm, a character that combines enormous courage and strength with delicacy, fragility, constant insecurity and profound survival fears, is a continuous reminder of how to find inner peace in the midst of dangers and adversities. In The Forest of Enchantment, Sita is torn away from home when she marries Ram. The promised love eternal is shattered because of envy and pettiness, and finally crumbles because of Ram’s incapacity to recognize the truth and to choose his consort over his own beliefs and his perception of his royal duties. For her part, although she must brace herself against all kinds of fears, Sita emerges unscathed and stronger from the highly dangerous situations. Yet, after her captivity in Sri Lanka, she is forced to undergo a test by the fire, agni pariksha, to prove her innocence. Because of power struggles among the men in Ram’s kingdom, she is exiled into the forest, where she anonymously raises her twin sons in a hermitage, both as a mother and a father. Her husband finally finds her, only to request that she be submitted to yet another agni pariksha. In Kaukiainen, K., Kurikka, K., Mäkelä, H., Nykänen, E., Nyqvist, S., Raipola, J., Riippa, A. & Samola, H. (eds) 312 Metka Zupančič short, this is when she cannot bear humiliations any longer and decides to regain the cosmic plane from which she originated. As a model and an obvious analogy for contemporary women, Divakaruni’s Sita and her journey through repeated hardship raises a number of issues about the fate of the female principle even in today’s world, closely related to the fears about our safety on the planet. If Sita, by the common traditional belief in India, is also an incarnation of prakrti, of Mother Earth, something of which Divakaruni is fully aware, we can only imagine the whole extent of the predicament that pushes Sita to her final rebellion against the impositions of this world. 313Narratives of fear and safety Divakaruni’s Before We Visit the Goddess Bibliography Banerjee, D. (2000). ‘Home and Us’: Re-Defining Identity in the South Asian Diaspora through the Writing of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Meena Alexander. In S. Mandal (Ed.), AsianAmerican Writing: The Diasporic Imagination, vol. 2 (pp. 9–43). New Delhi: Prestige. Before We Visit the Goddess. By Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Reading Group Guide. (n.d.). Simon & Schuster. Retrieved May 15, 2019. http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Before-We-Visitthe-Goddess/Chitra-Banerjee-Divakaruni/9781476792002/ reading_group_guide#rgg Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. (n.d.). Retrieved March 20, 2018. https:// www.chitradivakaruni.com/ Desai, K. (2006). The Inheritance of Loss. Grove Atlantic. Divakaruni, Ch. B. (1995). Arranged Marriage: Stories. New York: Anchor Books. Divakaruni, Ch. B. (1999). Sister of My Heart. New York: Doubleday. Divakaruni, Ch. B. (2001). The Unknown Errors of Our Lives. New York: Doubleday. Divakaruni, Ch. B. (2002). The Vine of Desire. New York: Doubleday. Divakaruni, Ch. B. (2004). Queen of Dreams. New York: Anchor Books. Divakaruni, Ch. B. (2008). The Palace of Illusions. New York: Doubleday. Divakaruni, Ch. B. (2009). One Amazing Thing. New York: Voice/ Hyperion. Divakaruni, Ch. B. (2012). Oleander Girl. New York: Simon & Schuster. Divakaruni, Ch. B. (2016). Before We Visit the Goddess. New York: Simon & Schuster. Divakaruni, Ch. B. (2019). The Forest of Enchantment. Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India: HarperCollins. Divakaruni, Ch. B. (2016, April 28). Before We Visit the Goddess. Talks at Google. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aTp3Smiav0 Divakaruni, Ch. B. & Joshi, P. (2017, February 18). Sita’s voice is worth hearing – An Interview with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. The Hindu. https://www.thehindu.com/books/books-authors/sitasvoice-is-worth-hearing/article17324706.ece Divakaruni, Ch. B. & Khare-Ghose, A. (2013, May 6). Wanted to Portray Women as Powerful Forces in the World. The Times of India. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ Gill, A. (2004). Voicing the Silent Fear: South Asian Women’s Experiences of Domestic Violence. The Howard Journal, 43(5), 465–483. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2311.2004.00343.x