A Starry Journey in Shobha De’s Starry Nights

Pages:63-66
Neelam Rani (Independent Scholar, Gurugram, Haryana)

Shobha De’s novel Starry Nights is a novel which depicts different faces of women. Nisha Trivedi in her article, “Search for Identity in Starry Nights” describes: “The writers of the post-independence fiction have focused on contemporary problems. They have explored the vital areas of individual consciousness and have projected the fascinating images of cultural change, rather than transformation” (The Fiction of Shobha De, 180). De in this novel suggests that the only way a woman like Aasha Rani can reach the ladder of success is ‘Sex’. Geeta Barua in her article, “Rise and fall of a star: A study of Starry Nights” comments: “The novel is also a faithful portrayal of the film world with all its perfidies, glamour, crimes, lies, and deceits and sexual exploitation. Since Shobha De the novelist has been long associated with the Bombay film world as a journalist she knows it first hand and has been able to portray it well” (The Fiction of Shobha De, 174). Though sex and glamour may be the means to seek success, it is admitted that many women strive hard in order to strengthen themselves as an artist. Unfortunately, the new woman is ready to sacrifice her ‘physical self’ in order to climb the ladder of success in the form of money and fame. But many women fail in their hasty attempts in this direction so that they end up as prostitutes in the red light area. When this novel has attempted to explore the hardcore reality lurking in the corporatehigh society, De has faced protest from the men who are unable to accrpt the truth. In her article, “Aesthetics and Morality: Emergence of the New woman” L. Sonia Ningthoujam depicts the response of the public to Shobha De’s work and observes: