A Sweater For Bhinaaju English Literature Essay

Poshan Pande has penned an incredible story “A Sweater for Bhinaaju”. Story rotates around the human psychology and jealousy of a woman, who sees everything from her perception. Shanti, who is the main protagonist of the story, worries by the changed behaviour of her husband. She feels Sabita, her sister is responsible for the problem. Both the brother in-law and sister-in law love each other. But their love is guided purely by family relationship and they do not carry any ill-motive towards one another. Gopinath loves his wife so much and he never gives a thought about any other girl. But he jokes and talks with his sister-in-law intimately. This makes his wife jealous. Her jealousy grows further when her younger sister starts knitting a woolen sweater for her brother-in-law. The relation between Shanti and Sabita was based on trust. In fact, sweater symbolises by many things in the story. Earlier sweater symbolises by trust of two sisters. Later on, it becomes the symbol of deceit and finally it symbolises as disgrace. She thinks Sabita will snatch her house and her rights as a wife. Once, Shanti gets up in the middle of the night and destroys the almost completed sweater. In the meantime, the Sabita also wakes up and sees the whole scene. The younger sister suddenly asks her elder sister why she tore apart the sweater knitted for her as she had already finished it for brother-in-laws. Then the elder sister realizes her mistake and regrets.

Shanti’s personality becomes depressed and disappointed. “Her mood hardened dramatically and her nails about reached Sabita’s throat but the unusual mood didn’t last long”. She has made herself patient of mood disorder because a mood is an emotional state. “Mood is an internal, subjective state, but it often can be inferred from posture and other behaviors”. In order to write a divisive story, Poshan has used two controversial characters like brother -in- law and sister – in -law. Being the expert of youth psychology he further adds different twisted incidents which compel readers to divert their minds. The whole story has restrained around triangular characters. Since both sisters were friendly and sincere in their childhood, that is the reason Sabita has come to Shanti’s place in order to share some time with her Didi. In the beginning of the story it shows, that Shanti does not have any problem with Sabita.

The relation between Gopinath and Shanti is suspicious because Shanti herself confesses that it “was her inability to keep her husband happy all these days”. Poshan Pande has not given any appropriate reason for their quarrel but it seems something was wrong between them. In the entire story, we do not find any direct conversation between husband and wife that confirms a communication gap among them. He offers Sabita to go to the movies rather than her wife. Sabita on the other hand seems quite flexible for both of them. She comes to Shanti and asks she would go with them or not? Shanti feels disgusted and disrespected when she heard, Sabita has asked about the movie by her own initiative. Her husband did not send her to do that. Lack of communication leads her to think offensively about her husband and sister.

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“Shanti, had a lingering doubt deer inside, a knot she wasn’t in a position to unfasten. Time and again she tried to dispel it, but it kept on pestering and nagging her”. She feels jealous and annoyed when Sabita praises or admires Gopinath in front of her. It is a very common practice, people admires and declares good remark for those who always make them happy. Here Sabita seeks Shanti’s attention and when brother- in -law gave that attention despite of her sister, Sabita gets closer to him. Shanti keeps analyse her situation, different awful thoughts comes in her mind and a fear of loosing close relations. She feels, “That a web like that of spider, seemingly kept on weaving itself in the darkness of her mind”. Web symbolises her doubts. She thinks if she is going to believe on her doubt, she will loose not only her husband but also her dear sister. She finds herself stuck between in a web. Though she does not blame Sabita directly but she thinks her sister’s behavior compel her to think negatively.

According to Oscar Wilde “The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young”. Same situation has happened with Shatni. Apparently Shanti is not attractive. She has hair fall and grey hair problems which show her mental condition. Her face has speckles with dandruff. On the whole her personality is not appealing as compare to Sabita. “Her face resembled a rose – blossom and her figure was full and shapely”. She does like Sabita’s action when she pointed out her grey hair and requested Gopinath to “do buy her a bottle of hair darkener”. Sabita did not want to hurt her sister intentionally. It seems Shanti misunderstood her sister.Roy F. Baumeister, a professor of social psychology at Florida State University, captured the idea in the title of a journal article which he co-authored in 2001, “Bad is Stronger than Good,”. “Bad emotions, bad feedback have more impact than good ones. Bad impressions and bad stereotypes are quicker to form and more resistant to disconfirmation than good ones.”

Sabita always forces Shanti to have fun and play with her but Shanti always refuses her. Whenever Sabita needs companion, Gopinath is the one who never disappointed her. He enjoys and shares good time with her. On the other hand Shanti’s mental illness goes worse and worse with the time. Once they go to the fun fair where Sabita insists Shanti to have a ride but Shanti as always rejected. She says, “Brother -in -law will give you company, wont he? I am feeling slightly faint so I would just sit here for a while”. After letting them go Shanti sits alone between several people. Suddenly she finds herself lonely not only by physically but also with mentally. She laments on her, a cruel reality smashes her life. She brings herself into an imaginative world. “Her imagination ran so wild, in fact it that it made her burn with jealousy and feeling of revenge”. She believes situation has been running out from her hands. Love is replaced by jealousy and revenge.

Sabita decides to knit a sweater for her brother in law. She keeps herself busy in knitting a sweater. Slowly and gradually sweater becomes her passion. “She could not even keep track of days going by”. We usually do mistakes whenever we start a new thing. Since knitting has been a new experience for her that’s why she has to go to Gopinath again and again in order to measure the size and fitting. Finally Shanti has succeeded in finding a mistake of Sabita. “I don’t think this flower-motif good in a man’s sweater, they would look better on a woman”. A new learner always starts with a flower. Flower symbolises as beauty and innocence. Sabita refuses to give sweater to her because she has wasted lots of time and hard work in the making of sweater. Sabita seems right because as no body will share or give his hard work to others. But Shanti thinks suspiciously .Because of continuous depression and thinking, Shanti spends many sleepless nights. She utters “Sabita alone was responsible for robbing her of her sleeps”. Shanti plans to kill her sister but due to her mood which is always in a switching manner she did not do that. In Sabits’s room she examines a sweater, that is about to complete. Now sweater becomes an enemy of her. She imagines when Gopinath would wear the sweater, he would love it. He would feel comfort and warmth of sweater would never let him to take it off. According to her perception, Gopinath will think Sabita has sewed a sweater which is so charming and so comfortable. She would be the perfect replacement of Shanti. Sabita would bring happiness and calmness in his life. “Her feeling towards Sabita caused her jealousy to take another form and it got diverted towards the sweater”.

When a wife feels her home is in danger she can do any thing at any cost for the survival. She starts loosening the threads. She thinks, if the whole wools separated, her married life will also free from the risk. She gets more involved and fascinated. “It was as if a fast machine was unpicking the threads, and the loose wool grew into a huge pile beside her”. Shanti thinks she has protected her home before it’s going to break. But she gets shocked when Sabita said, “It’s the one which I am knitting for you!”. It shows Sabita’s innocence and pure love for her sister because she has completed this sweater only in one day. She took many days in knitting a sweater for her brother -in -law. May be it was her first attempt and she wanted to do practice before making sweater for her sister. Shanti’s did not know when Sabita completed the sweater and gave to Gopinath. She does not have an idea what is going around her. Some time her mind alerts and awakes her and some time sleeps.

In a conclusion, Shanti weaves doubt in her mind and lives in an imaginative world. She sees what she thinks and how things should look like. She is so much involved in her thoughts. Most of the time, her mind is absent. She seeks negative capabilities of people rather than positive. She is the true representative of all women. She lost her sister, because of her suspicious nature. Sweater becomes the source of mistrust for her relations.