PERFORMING THE NEW INDIAN WOMAN

IN CHICK LIT: SCRIPTS AND RESISTANCE

Charmaine Carvalho
PhD Candidate
Hong Kong Baptist University

What is chick lit?

The books feature everyday women in their 20s
and 30s navigating their generations challenges of
balancing demanding careers with personal
relationships. (Heather Cabot, ABC News)

1996

1997

1998

Chick lit in India

Its like the McAloo Tikki Burger. You like the burger
concept and you like it more if the flavours you grew
up with are packed inside.
- Rupa Gulab, author

Emerged in 2004
Written in English by

urban, upper-middleclass women

Semi-autobiographical

Narrative performativity
There is no gender identity behind the expressions of
gender; that identity is performatively constituted by
the very expressions that are said to be its results.
- Judith Butler, Gender Trouble
The self so often invoked in self-expressive theories
of autobiography is not a noun, a thing-in-itself,
waiting to be materialized through the text.
narrative performativity constitutes interiority.
- Sidonie Smith, Performativity, Autobiographical
Practice, Resistance

New Indian Woman

The advertisements not only provide an attractive
and desired self-image for women in general, but
also provide a normative model of citizenship that
is, significantly, now gendered female.
She must straddle carefully the two poles of
tradition and modernity, a precarious posture that
must elide the risk it is fraught with.
- Rajeswari Sunder Rajan
Real and Imagined Women

The singleton
Unmarried
Usually between 20 and 35 years
Upper middle-class
Urban
Educated
English-speaking

73 million single women unmarried, divorced,

widowed, separated in India, comprising 21% of
the 353 million women aged over 20

Almost Single
Aisha, wake up, sleepyhead. Misha sounds like a bottle of
the best bubbly ready to pop, and my head feels like its going
to explode. Just what happened last night?
What time is it?
Quarter to eleven oclock, and its a gorgeous day! Do you
want to get a coffee at Barista? We can sit outside.
I hang up.
Of course it rings again. Damn, some women just dont get it.
Yes, Mish, I grind out. No coffee for me, it stains the teeth.
Come on! You smoke like a pack a day. Dont give me that.

Almost Single
So, in brief, I tolerate my job, hate my boss, annoy
my X, and bond big time with my friends. All this
while living under the open sky of urban, secondfastest-economy-in-the-world, India.
The obvious victims are the new entrants making
their debut in the social jungle. They get spotted as
soon as they walk into a room, which makes them
extremely self-conscious, of course, and very aware
of their short skirts and transparent straps.

Heterotopia
Ric and Nic, with the sensitivity that is the
preserve of gay men, have brought a hamper with
the ultimate Moet and Chandon, Boursin cheese,
shepherds pie, garlic bread, a tossed salad and
brownies, not to mention linen serviettes and real
silverware. Not exactly religious fare, but then, we
arent great on religion either.
As we sit around sipping the bubbly under the
moonlit sky, I savour the moment. Friends are really
the family you choose.

Tradition/modernity

Marriage market
We have to take being single into our own hands.
There is a whole world of men out there and we
have to reach them! This is the way to do it! We are
too cosmopolitan for the local boys, we have to
expand our horizons and harness the benefits of
technology
We come attached with a best before tag, and if
god forbid! we reach the expiry date while still
single, its downhill all the way from here.

Queering the genre

Mrs Mukherjee finally stops staring and responds to
Ric, And who will string the beans? That is the most
irritating thing about thaem, having to string thaem
And this, as Bogey said in Casablanca, is the
beginning of a beautiful friendship. From then on, the
relationship blossoms and it is bounteously reciprocal.
Mrs M introduces Ric to Rabindra Sangeet and he
opens up for her the world of Irish coffee.

And just like that, a small misunderstanding

welcomes the most controlling element into a
relationship a mother-in-law, even if it is a faux or a
wannabe one at that.

Keep The Change

Small town girl
Moves to big city
Catalyst (career, friends, men)
Finds Mr. Right (ultimate catalyst)
Finds herself

Amma and Appa have done their best. With

the tenacity of a pit bull holding on to a hapless
ankle, Amma flushes out completely unsuitable
boys from the nooks and crannies of the world
and throws them in my direction. She and Appa
have, so far, gone through fifty-two
advertisements in the Hindu, exchanged
horoscopes with 119 friends and relatives and
short of wandering the streets with a
loudspeaker, proclaiming Homely girl from
good family, convent educated, 25 years, CA
rank-holder seeks well-qualified Iyer boy have
done just about everything to get my off their
hands.

I envy you, Vic. I can see you in your short skirt

and long boots, on the arm of your latest Hugh
Grant lookalike, sashaying into the Ritz Carlton,
tossing down a strawberry daiquiri and a snack
before heading off to shake your shapely legs at
the hottest little club in town. While I was busy
trudging through bio textbooks during my
adolescence, you were probably conducting real
experiments on the subject. I am so far from
finding a man that it looks like I am going to be
a frustrated spinster for life.

Marriage market
Gomati Maami (GM): So this is your daughter
Little Voice (LV): No, Im actually her son. I love
cross-dressing for special occasions like this.
Me: Polite smile
Amma: Yes, this is Damayanthi, my only daughter.
Eager smile.
GM: So what do you do?
Amma: She has completed her chartered
accountancy exams with all-India rank
LV: I actually scour all the pornography sites on the
internet and fantasize about making love to tall,
handsome men in public places.
Me: Polite smile.

Vision of myself with a large sticker on my

forehead saying Bride Available, and a cardboard
sheet listing my golden virtues around my neck like
those people you see proclaiming The End of the
World or urging us to Save the Yellow-backed Indian
Ocean Shark. I am standing in a corner and
assorted Maamis with oily sons are jostling each
other to get a good look. Amma is handing out
tokens saying, One by one please. No pushing

Makeover
On perusing this piece of contemporary literature, I am
depressed to see that women across the world are
obsessed with their looks losing them and men finding
them.
I couldnt believe this was the same girl who quoted from
The Beauty Myth and swore off lip gloss for three whole
years.
I feel silly, I said. I spent a bomb on this haircut, new
clothes and shoes, and now I feel l dont look good. I should
oil my hair and change back to my usual self.
No, D. You look good. Keep the change. He smiled kindly.
It suits you and you are still you, inner beauty and all.

Conclusion

References
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of
Identity. New York: Routledge.
Ferriss, Suzanne, and Mallory Young. 2006. Chick Lit: The New Womans
Fiction. New York: Routledge.
Fielding, Helen. 1996. Bridget Joness Diary. London: Picador.
Gill, Rosalind. 2007. Gender and the Media. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Harzewski, Stephanie. 2011. Chick Lit and Postfeminism. University of
Virginia Press.
Kala, Advaita. 2007. Almost Single. New Delhi: HarperCollins.
Smith, Sidonie. 1998. Performativity, Autobiographical Practice,
Resistance. In Women, Autobiography, Theory: A Reader, eds. Sidonie
Smith and Julia Watson, 108-115. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Subramanian, Nirupama. 2010. Keep the Change. Noida: HarperCollins.
Sunder Rajan, Rajeswari. 1993. Real and Imagined Women: Gender,
Culture and Postcolonialism. London: Routledge.