The Fourth Daughter: Subhdra Sen Gupta

The Fourth Daughter is a short story that focusses on the problem areas regarding the plight of girl child, patriarchal mindset and regressive traditions which have chained women in our society tightly and have prevented them to break those chains mostly unconsciously. The irony is girls have learned to accept discrimination and many embrace it and successfully transplant them in their own girl children to continue this inhumanely chain of inequality.
The story was written by Indian English woman author, Subhdra Sen Gupta in 1992. The story focusses on the theme of the story or the propaganda than the characterisation. The idea behind writing this story was to bring a subtle inherent perspective inquisition and change in the minds of the readers. 

It is a story about the rich, priviledged, affluent Seth family. Radha, the daughter-in-law have yet again gave birth to a girl child, this news have brought withered sadness and rain of gloom with it. On top of that newborn have took upon the features of her father, his dark skin tone, where the women in the family have to be exquisitely beautiful, meaning fair. (Indians still are gripped by this mentality, which becomes a cause for discrimination, mockery, depression for many girl children in India, they learn to hate themselves since early childhood). 

Have you ever heard of "A mother refusing to feed her newborn child", maybe, we have been through pretty much enough these days, as nothing is impossible. But, this was untrue for those times. Radha, scorned her little girl, firstly because she was fourth in the line of her bad destiny of only bearing girl children and she was not even pretty to look at, or to cuddle. 

Today, in this day and age we are openly talking about woman's decision-making in family planning, abortions, her body her choice and issues such as post-partum depression. We have clearly come a long way unhinging such traditional shackles of inequality and consciously pondering upon basic human rights.

The narrative of the story is pretty much straightforward considering the times have been represented  and focusing on the educational perspective of the story, the characters are kept more or less stereotypical, crisp, having straightforward division of moralistic and immoralistic behaviour and actions.

Radha's actions are immoral and exaggerated enough, she completely rejects her newborn, refusing her to feed and abandoning her to die. The heartfelt and good characterisation of Parvati is shown, as she accepts Mini and takes care of her, as her own children. During the course of the story, she is worried about her education, and doesn't pressurizes her to marry. Where her biological mother, because of Mini's look taunts her that she will end up just like Parvati, nothing better than a cook in someone's kitchen.

"Affluence should bring generosity, but here it brings cruelty."

The obsession with sons is deeply ingrained in the Indian psyche, particularly in the northern states. Thanks to rising consumerism and escalating dowry demands, nobody wants a daughter. Even in the most prosperous houses the girl child has little value in
comparison to her brother. Traditionally the bias towards sons manifested itself in the
neglect of girls during infancy and at times in infanticide by smothering or poisoning
newborn girls. Today, modem diagnostic techniques enable selective abortions of
female foetuses. Even after the ban on the amniocentesis test in 1994 by many state

governments in the country, the situation has only worsened.

Therefore, Mini, the fourth girl, began her life by nearly dying. If there is a God, then

he sent her into the world with every disadvantage he could think of. The irony is that her parents and grandparents were rich enough to afford a large family, to afford the education and upkeep of four daughters, to afford even their dowry. Instead they choose to abandon this fourth daughter. Three are bad enough.

And Parvati, the maid, without means, without money, decides to bring the child up as

her own.

"There is thus a subtle suggestion that affluence dries up the milk of human kindness."

The ending is surprisingly quicker and quite expected. The abandoned daughter alone comes to their aid. The darling son discards them almost as easily as they had discarded Mini many years ago. They welcome Mini back into the fold perhaps much too late. One doesn't know

how long it will take Mini's scarred psyche to heal completely.

Mini now a full -fledged doctor, would check Radha's blood pressure when she fell

sick, helped the dark man, her biological father, with his financial dealings, run errands

to the bank, etc. In a way, this unwanted, unwelcome fourth daughter-abandoned and

abhorred by her own parents, her own people, proves to be the only support in their

old age. She almost takes on the role of her brother - providing support and succor

to her parents. Tradition and modernity are thus combined in the story to prepare the

reader, as it were, for the parents' change of heart at the end.

The son, the heir of the clan, the darling of the family, discovers the dubious pleasures of gambling, alcohol and women. He marries the best dowry he can find. The only condition of the deal is that he would go and stay in the bride's home as her parents do not want to let go of their only child. The son and heir happily agrees, packs his bags, gets into his sports

car, waves goodbye and vanishes in a cloud of dust.

The description of the reception Mini gets on reaching the house straight from the

hospital along with her newborn son is strikingly identical to the celebrations

accompanying her brother's birth years ago. "There were garlands at the door, rangoli (decoration with sand colors) on the floor" and Mini seemed to see the ghost of her grandmother feeding the beggars. The repetition reinforces the hurt Mini has nursed all these years.

The wheel has come full circle. Mini was abandoned. All the smiles and sweets of the

family and friends were reserved for the brother. The brother has abandoned the

family and it's only Mini proving to be a source of strength to her ageing parents.

But their change of heart? These celebrations at the end are for Mini or her son? The

doubt lingers on....

The simplicity of the narrative is deceptive. Following the conventional pattern it raises many unconventional questions and points to many unconventional possibilities. Thus the narration have proven to be successful in bringing readers to think deep about the society, they still might be unknowingly living in, nourishing it in their day-to-day words and actions.

About Author:

Subhadra Sen Gupta, Indian Woman English Author, and a Bengali Writer.

Subhadra Sen Gupta (June 1952 – 3 May 2021) was an Indian writer. She was the winner of Sahitya Akademi's 2015 Bal Sahitya Puraskar^[3] and wrote over 30 books. Her book, Mystery of the House of Pigeons, was adapted into a television series for Doordarshan as Khoj Khazana Khojher.^[4] Most of her books are in the genres of historical fiction and non-fiction, but she also wrote travelogues, comic strips and detective and ghost stories.

Works

Stories

• Goodbye, Pasha Begum! (in The Book of Spooky Ghost Stories)
• Bishnu - The Dhobi Singer
• A Mauryan Adventured

Novels

• Danger in Darjeeling: Satyajit Ray's Feluda Mysteries (2010)
• A Flag, A Song And a Pinch of Salt
• Marching to Freedom
• The Secret Diary of the World's Worst Cook
• The Secret Diary of the World's Worst Friend
• Caring for Nature: Bapu and the Missing Blue Pencil
• A Children's History of India (2015)
• The Constitution of India for Children (2020)
• Mahal: Power and Pageantry in the Mughal Harem (2020)

References: 

1) Wikipedia

2) English Literature Notes, IGNOU, INDIA.

3) Personal opinion about the story.