Awakening Female Agency in B. P. Koirala’s Teen Ghumti

Abstract

Background: Modern Nepali novelist B. P. Koirala (1914-1982) infuses his 1968 Nepali novella Teen Ghumti [Three Bends] with a progressive vision of women's self. Literally meaning three bends, the text highlights three critical turning points in Indramaya's life as she gradually grows into a mature soul. Koirala places his protagonist in the midst of the hardships of social imagination in Nepal in the 1960s. He shows Indramaya's decision to reject caste boundaries by choosing to marry outside her Newar community.

Method: This paper gives a contextual reading of Koirala's novella Teen Ghumti as a challenge that the new woman takes up for her liberation by taking into account the historical factors contributing to the novelist’s understanding of his age and the relevance to creating the bold woman to fight against the political tyranny in the 1960s in Nepal. This paper draws on the theoretical insights of Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler to interpret the protagonist's refusal to abide by the prevailing rules of her society.

Conclusion: Rewriting social conformity, Koirala's women search for a secular self that defies the authority of larger social structures such as casteism and patriarchy. Koirala sets the protagonist in the backdrop of the political movement of the 1960s, when the Panchayat promoted the oppressive forces.

Novelty: Koirala's politically awakened women exercise agency, enabling them to make their own decisions. Such women have rejected the dictates of the social codes, traditions, and patriarchal order. Facing multiple bends in their life, such women have been crafted in modern Nepali fiction to challenge the prevailing order and propose a new order for the new age.