Ladies Coupe - Chapter Wise Summary

                              LADIES COUPE - CHAPTER WISE SUMMARY

 

Chapter 1

The first chapter begins as Akhilandeswari, the heroine of the novel dreams of more space and freedom in her life. As the novel begins, she is planning to undertake her much cherished solitary journey- a journey to Kanyakumari. Her sister Padma is very suspicious about her journey and even warns her because she has never undertaken a journey alone even though she was financially independent and was working with the Income Tax Department. Akhila is forty five years old and yet unmarried and without a family. The forces of oppression that she faces around her directly points to the patriarchal codes rooted in our society. She also narrates the relationship between her father and mother which was pleasant all through the life. Her mother married her uncle according to Tamil custom. Her mother firmly believed that there is nothing like equality and balance in a married relationship and therefore submitted to her husband completely and hence there was no strife between them. 

With the help of her friend, Niloufer, Akhila procures a train ticket in a Ladies Coupe to Kanyakumari. The next part of the chapter showcases how she gets into the train after reading the name-list of the other 5 passengers in her coupe. They were Sheela Vasudevan, Prabha Devi, Janaki Prabhakar, Margaret Paulraj and  Marikolanthu. They meet each other and initiate a conversation which ultimately changes the course of Akhila’s life. 

           Janaki is an old lady who has already completed 40 years of her marriage and is someone like Akhila’s mother who believes that it is the duty of a woman to look after the home. Prabha Devi is middle aged and the wife of a Jewellery business man. She has a son and a daughter. Margaret is a Chemistry teacher and works in the same school where her husband works as the Principal. Her daughter too studies in the same school. 

As passengers, they start talking to each other and get stuck with Akhila’s answer that she is unmarried. Everyone starts sharing their suggestions and experiences on marriage and life and Akhila listens to each word uttered by them so that she can finally make an independent decision in her life. The next chapters will be looking into the life of all these women characters and each life story will become a treasured book for Akhila to understand a world of her own.

Chapter 2        A Certain Age  ( The story of Janaki) 

This chapter serves more as a lens to Janaki’s life. She got married at the age of 18 and her husband was 27 then. She thinks about how her life started off with this man and continued for forty years. But there are instances from her life where she strongly felt that her husband is indisputably bossy. He was once very stubborn in the way in which he commanded his choice for buying a pair of shoes to their son Siddharth. Janaki brings this incident to showcase how callous he was to meddle with a grown up boy’s choice of his shoes.

Despite all this, Janaki had a peaceful existence with her husband. She remembers the incidents which led her to travel in this second class compartment. Her son - Siddharth is now married to Jaya and they have a child named Suchi. Siddharth always had squabbles with his mother after his marriage and he often compared his mother with his mother in law - Jaya's mother. He even criticised his father for pampering her too much. This incident created a tension between the parents and the son and they decide to return home before the day they had actually planned to. Since they could not fetch a ticket in the first class, they had to travel in the second class and her husband’s berth was in the other compartment. This is how Janaki landed in the Ladies Coupe. Janaki is a prototype of Akhila’s mother - a representation of a docile woman with no complaints - who existed only for the sake of existence for her family and her children. 

Chapter 3 

Akhila’s memory gets completely shaken when she is asked the question about marriage within the Ladies Coupe. All the five passengers slowly decide to get settled for sleep while Margaret says that she will wait for the sixth passenger who is yet to arrive. Meanwhile, Akhila drifts into the memories of her family - to the memories of her father and mother. Her father, Pattabhi Iyer worked as a clerk in Income tax department and met with an untimely death. She thinks about her family including her two brothers Narayan, Narasimhan and the little sister Padma. They had a peaceful life though her father was always frustrated for having been insulted by his fellow workers. He always had his dislike for his superior officer Koshy who accepted bribes. Akhila’s father was righteous in his nature and never accepted bribes and hence had a very ordinary life unlike the others who basked in luxuries through bribes. 

She remembers the day when her father was hit by a bus and how she was informed while she was at Sarasa Mami’s and Subramani Iyer’s house. There was even a doubt if his death was a suicide. That was an instance when Akhila realised that tears would make you vulnerable while anger would make you stronger. As she got immersed in her thoughts, she suddenly realised that a new passenger has arrived. The new passenger was Sheela Vasudevan, a ninth grade student of 14 years. She looked worried as her grandmother died and she was going to her mother’s home with her father who was seated in the next compartment. 

Chapter 4   Go Grandmother Go ( The story of Sheela)

This chapter opens the doors into the life of Sheela, one of the passengers along with Akhila. Sheela remembers her days with Ammumma who was a well organised and charming lady. Unfortunately, she was consumed by a malignancy in her womb and had to succumb to it finally. Sheela’s mother had some disagreements with her grandmother regarding the will she wrote but when she became ill, she came back to Sheela’s mother. Sheela’s mother was happy about this reunion and found this as an opportunity to get back to her mother’s affection. Ammumma often surprised Sheela with the way she carried herself. She was meticulous in her ways and loved to dress elegantly. Sheela even compares her Ammumma with her Achamma ( Dad’s mother) and adds that nobody even felt Achamma existed even when she came to live with them. But her Ammumma was different and had set her own rules while she lived with them. 

As the grandmother later got hospitalised for her treatment and radiation, relatives started pouring in and the wealthy relatives started disgusting Sheela’s father. He started feeling an inferiority complex comparing himself with the lifestyle of his brothers in law and his anger and frustration was often meted out to Sheela. Sheela remembers how her Grandmother wore her jewellery and slept, the night before she was taken to the hospital. When she was brought back home as a dead body, Sheela dressed her up and adorned her with all jewellery. It looked awkward for many around her but she knew that her grandmother would only be happy for having done this. We find a frustrated teenager here who still is unable to find the reasons behind her father’s annoying nature. She tries hard to make peace with the fact that her Ammumma is no more. Sheela's chapter discusses child abuse too in the shadow of the narrated story. Sheela remembers how her friend Hasina's father had behaved in a weird manner to her by swiping off the sweat drops on her lips with his finger while Hasina's mother and Hasina remained silent without uttering a word against it. 

Chapter 5

This chapter takes us back to Akhila’s life. She thinks about the earlier incidents in her life and how she became the head of the family soon after her father’s death. Having completed her pre degree, she gets a job at the Income Tax Department as a clerk on compassionate ground where her father worked. She becomes a pillar of support for her lonely mother and younger siblings. She becomes taken for granted gradually and nobody really bothers about her. With the passage of time, her brother Narayan started working while the second brother Narasimhan demands to get married to his Principal’s daughter. While everyone discussed the marriage of the two boys, nobody talked about Akhila or her marriage. Akhila also brings in the story of Sarasa Mami and her daughter Jaya who was turned in for prostitution after Subramani Iyer’s death. Akhila’s mother and the whole community of Brahmins excommunicated them. But Akhila had a reason to justify them because their condition was in no way different from them with the only difference that Akhila got a job. She narrates the passage of years which took her youth while she spent her lifetime, supporting her family. Though her mother spoke about the growing Padma - her younger sister, she deliberately forgot about Akhila having a family life. 

Akhila also mentions the story of Katherine Webber, a colleague of Akhila whom she befriended from her office. Akhila was leading a lonely life among the other 24 colleagues at her office as she was the only unmarried woman there. But her friendship with Webber, an anglo Indian, who got transferred from Bangalore, made her lean on a new friendship. Katherine was also unmarried though she had a boyfriend who deserted her. It was Katherine who introduced eggs for the first time into Akhila’s life. Even when Katherine migrated to Australia, Akhila continued eating eggs by openly telling about it to her mother. As she brings these memories, her eyes slowly closes within the berth and she sleeps having a beautiful dream where she finds a man caressing and fondling her. She suddenly hears the coupe-door slamming and gets up. She notices that Margaret is awake and they start a conversation. Margaret, though married, is unlike Janaki and Prabha who believes that a woman can sustain even without the aid of a man. Margaret starts narrating her life story making Akhila understand that there is no need of a man in a woman’s life. A woman, if she thinks so, can remain independent and self sufficient. 

Chapter 6 Oil of Vitriol ( The story of Margaret)

This chapter looks into the life of Margaret Paulraj, the wife of Ebenezer Paulraj, the Principal of a prestigious School. Margaret thinks about her early days of marriage. The title itself is rather ironical as it means Sulphuric acid and she talks about her callous husband throughout the chapter. It was a love marriage which gradually turned into a loveless marriage. Ebenezer Paulraj looked like the dream-guy Margaret had in mind and they started off with their marriage which was pure bliss initially. Things started changing when Ebe, as Margaret called him, asked for an abortion when Margaret conceived for the first time. Though Margaret never felt right about it, she could not think that he would do something which is not good for them. However, this instance changed her attitude towards him and they survived a rather strange disconnectedness soon after this abortion. They started blaming each other and found instances to accuse each other. Margaret’s frustration of not being able to become a mother again and her fury at Ebe for compelling her to abort her first child becomes a bitter pill that she tries to swallow everyday. 

The chapter is very interesting in the way Margaret describes people and other teachers in the school. Being a Chemistry teacher, she defines and discusses people within the parameters of chemical properties. Margaret slowly learns that her husband is not a caring husband but a boss who loves to rule her always. She starts taking revenge on him by overfeeding him until he becomes a fat and a lethargic man who is no more active like he had been. She slowly comes into peace with her predicament and tries to rekindle her relationship with Ebe and finally conceives and gives birth to a daughter. Margaret’s disillusionment and disappointment in her married life and the way in which she asserts herself through the trials and tribulations of life forms the major core of this chapter.

Chapter 7

This chapter again is in a flashback mode where Akhila thinks more about the personal relationships she had. She remembers how she enjoyed a stranger’s hands at her waist within the crowded bus journeys every morning. She used to enjoy it though she knew she was wrong. Her memories then slowly drift towards a name - Hari - a North Indian from Madhya Pradesh settled at Avadi, Tamil Nadu. He was 28 years old when Akhila met him and was working with the Railway Engineering Department as a Draftsman. They were co-travellers and the initial camaraderie gradually shifted to a new relationship. Akhila was older than him but he found no reasons to ignore her on account of her age. It turned into a beautiful relationship though her age was creating apprehensions in the mind of Akhila. However, she had a good time with Hari and their love relationship was really blooming. A week before Hari’s 29th birthday, Akhila went for a holiday to a Beach resort at Mahabalipuram with him. She told her family that she had to go to Mysore as a part of her office tour. They consummated their relationship for the first time and Akhila was happy until she started hearing various comments from the people around, related to the age difference between them. This age difference was not an issue for Hari but this created complexities in the mind of Akhila and she decides to put an end to this relationship. She finally tells this to Hari and walks off deciding never to travel during his journey times. Her memories then shift towards the death of her mother and how she had to shift to Bangalore and stay with Padma-her sister, who was already married and settled with two kids. She also remembers how she finally went to Sarasa Mami’s home after very many years to bid adieu and unfortunately came to know that the family left the place years before. 

Padma, her younger sister was married to a man called Murthy and had two children named Madhavi and Priya. She stayed with Padma until she got a quarters of her own. Even when Akhila shifted to her new quarters believing to have a life of her own, her sister followed with her family deciding to stay with Akhila. Akhila was unhappy about this though she could not vent it out to Padma. In due course, Padma started sharing her ill thoughts about Akhila to most of the neighbourhood women which hurt Akhila a lot. She regrets for not having accepted Hari to start with a new life. She thinks of Hari’s New Year cards that came every year without fail and the last one which came with an address and a telephone number. Despite her lonely life, she decides not to respond. As she swallows her pain and thinks about those incidents, the train halts at the station Palakkad. As Prabha Devi gets up to have her breakfast, Akhila begins a conversation with her and the next chapter will take us towards the life of Prabha Devi. 

Chapter 8 Afloat ( The story of Prabha Devi)

The chapter opens with Prabha Devi’s life history where she was born into an affluent family. Her father had many jewellery shops and she was born as the fifth child where she had four elder brothers. She led a luxurious life and was sent to a convent for her studies after tenth standard. When she reached a marriageable age, her father arranged her marriage with the son of a diamond merchant named as Jagdeesh. The married relationship between Prabha Devi and Jagadeesh went smooth initially.

“For the next many years that was all Prabha Devi did. Wait. For Jagadeesh to come home. For the babies to be born. For their first step, their first word, their first triumph…Waiting for something to happen while her life swished past in a blur of insignificant days.” (172)

Her change began as they took a trip to New York together. Witnessing the life in New York and the confidence she could see in the faces of the women there, a strong change swept over Prabha Devi. Her return from New York city changed her enormously. She was altogether a different human being both physically and mentally. She stopped wearing sarees and started visiting parlours and made a complete make over. She started enjoying her new status as a renewed woman and expected attention from people around her. 

Her visits to the clubs with Jagadeesh increased and she started meeting different people. Among them was Pramod who hardly noticed her. Prabha Devi started analysing him and wanted him to look at her for she believed that any man would be charmed with her recently gained attractiveness. However, things took a completely different shape when Pramod finally started taking advantage of her body. He comes home once when nobody is there and starts taking undue advantage of her body and Prabha Devi slaps him and severs all ties with him. This incident awakens a new sense in her and she decides to get back to her old self as a quiet, silent, docile wife. She tolerates her domineering husband again and decides to become a mother. She gives birth to a daughter named as Nitya and then to a son Vikram. She recoils to her home patterns and settles down as a normal ordinary woman. She started finding excuses not to go out in the name of her children. With the passage of time, she develops a new interest in swimming. With the situations around, without any particular coaching, she finally learns to swim and feels elated. A sense of integrity begins to surround her when she accomplishes the most wanted thing in her life. 

Chapter 9

This chapter again brings us back to Akhila’s life. Akhila memorises an incident where she meets an old friend of hers, named Karppagam, from a supermarket. Karppagam recognises Akhila and they go to a nearby restaurant and trigger a conversation. Karppagam instigates Akhila to lead a life which she prefers and narrates her own life story. Karppagam is seen as a sparkling lady with colourful saree and sindhoor parting her hair. But as her story unfolds, Akhila realises that Karppagam is a widow with a daughter but she has decided to lead a life of her own in her own terms without pushing herself into the patterns set by the society. Her life teaches a new lesson to Akhila and Akhila gathers courage to speak to Padma asking her to leave. 

When Akhila speaks her mind to Padma, Padma is shocked and starts calling Akhila a jealous woman. Padma feels betrayed as if Akhila has decided to ward her off after Padma serving and taking care of the home for all these years. The disagreement finally culminates when Akhila slaps Padma. Her brothers too try talking to Akhila. While Narasimhan dissuades Akhila to lead a life of her own, Narayan understands and tries to see things from a new perspective supporting her claims. As Akhila dreams of these instances, she suddenly notices the final passenger seated within the coupe. They initiate a conversation and the next chapter follows the story of the final passenger whose name is Marikolunthu.

Chapter 10  Sister to the Real thing (the story of Marikolunthu)

Marikolunthu, unlike the other women passengers, was born in a low class family. Her father was a farmer and she began her life with her parents and two brothers Eeswaran and Shivakumar. As her father dies, her mother, Kanakambaram, is compelled to go and work at Chettiar fort, one of the affluent families in the vicinity who owns the silkworm business. Marikolunthu’s mother, Kanakambaram starts working as a maid in the kitchen at Chettiar Fort.

Chettiar had three sons and his wife was locked in the upstair room in West wing because of her insane behaviour. The first son Rajendran looked after the business and his wife was Rani who was a timid lady as she could not give birth to any sons. The second son was Sridhar and his wife Sujata Akka. Sujata was born into a wealthy family and had a special position in the Chettiar family. In order to look after her baby, Prabhu Pappa,  Marikolunthu was called in as a helper. Another maid named as Rukmani tells Marikolanthu that Chettiar had a concubine whose name was Seethalakshmi. 

Marikolunthu’s life was gleeful with the Chettiar fort until Sujata Akka decided to send her to work in Vellore with two Lady Doctors - Missy K and Missy V. She leaves and settles down with a new city-life at Vellore. She becomes friendly with the gardener there whose name is Periasamy. The relationship between the two English Doctors had been a homosexual one which Marikolunthu realises later. Meanwhile, her brothers come to pick her up as her mother gets bedridden with a bone crack. Thus, she decides to stay back home for a few weeks and rekindles her relationship with Sujatha Akka and Chettiar Fort once again. She goes to work in the place of her mother as a house maid. On the day before Pongal, an unfortunate incident happens when Marikolunthu gets raped by Murugesan ( the brother-in-law of Rajendran) inside a lonely mango orchard. Within a month, she realises that she is pregnant and tries different methods to kill the child with the aid of Perya Aunty and her herbal medicines. However, the child survives and she gives birth a month earlier than her due date. The child is taken care of by her mother in the pretext of a relative’s orphan while Marikolunthu has nothing more than dislike for the child. She calls him as “it” and never bothers to look at him. She decides to go back to her doctors at Vellore and finds that things have completely changed. Missy V decides to return to England and Missy K has become more disillusioned because of this. Missy K decides to move to Bangalore and asks if she would like to join. Marikolunthu gets back to her village to find things have changed there too. Chettiar passed away. The eldest son moved to Kancheepuram and the youngest was in Madras. The new Chettiar was Sridhar and Sujata Akka became the queen of the house while Chettiar Amma still survived in a locked room in the west wing. 

Sujata Akka asks if Marikolunthu can assist her in looking after Chettiar Amma and she readily agrees as she never wanted to see the face of her son, named as Muthu. It was during this phase that Marikounthu started bonding with Sujata Akka. Their relationship slowly turned into a homosexual one and both of them started enjoying this newly sprung relationship. Chettiar Amma dies and their relationship continues and Sujata Akka confides that she is scared if her husband too might seek concubines just like his father. With the passage of time, we find Marikolunthu sleeping with Sujata Akka’s husband, Sridhar too. She considers this as a help done to her Akka,  preventing her husband from going to concubines. Things run smooth until Sujatha Akka finds this out and sends Marikolunthu away forever. Her mother dies and the responsibility of Muthu completely falls on her now. Her brothers too show their dislike in staying in their house. She finally decides to take Muthu and goes straight to Kancheepuram where Murugesan’s family is settled. Muthu, the 8 year old boy believes that he is being taken to a new school. But he is taken to the loom of Murugesan and the boy is traded there to work for a sum of an advance amount which Marikolunthu accepts. She decides to utilise this amount to conduct a surgery to take off the growth in her womb. As she stays back at Kancheepuram, the news of Murugesan’s death comes. This becomes a day of joy for her and she watches from a distance how her son stays near the pyre the whole night without knowing that the one who is burned to ashes is his father. Marikolunthu enjoys a special pleasure and feels like having completed a revenge upon Murugesan who ruined her life. For the first time, she feels ashamed for not having taken care of her son. She decides to live her life according to her will and decides to take care of her boy. Thus she decides to go back to Missy K who was planning to settle down in Bangalore. 

Chapter 11 Akhila Speaks

This is the very last chapter of the novel which gives a fundamental meaning to the whole plot. Akhila reaches Kanyakumari and is staying alone in a hotel. Her 45 year old body or her unmarried status is no more a burden for her. She inadvertently meets a young man named Vinod with whom she shares her bed. She feels a wind of freedom for what she has done. The very next day, when she gets up from her bed, she feels a new realisation and she thinks about Hari. She picks up the address and phone number he has left in the card and she gives a call. There is just one more hour left for Akhila to leave to the railway station and she looks at her railway ticket. The phone rings and we understand that Hari is the speaker on the other side. Akhila introduces herself as Akhilandeswari as the novel comes to an end. 

A. Krishna Sunder