Ayesha Abdul Majeed
The Color of Our Sky of Amita Trasi explores the complexity of Indian davadasi system, brutal affairs, HIV/AID, threatening attacks in Mumbai, entangled love, friendship’s bonds and all the fresh perspectives of known experience. A series of controversies evaluating the novel between a bildungsroman where phycological growth of the two protagonists is captured and a commentary on Indian tradition to illustrate the absence of enlightenment even in modern era. It is a work of fiction as Amita Trasi was inspired to write her first novel on a small village girl who worked for her family. The writer Amita Trasi expresses the hardships, disputes, agony and sopisticated rituals which results the focal point of the novel. Further, she provides a sense of hope within the conflicts that though darkness of sky is unpredictable, but ones strength and beliefs enable to open up the eyes towards the brightness of sky. ” Our sky would be bright again I know, I could smell the hope” utters Mukta, a ten years old village girl who belonged to a lower caste family and this brutal caste system will soon or later cursed her destiny of becoming a temple prostitute in her hometown Gunipur. The tragic death of Mukta’s mother and her efforts to protect her child brought Mukta in Mumbai, where she is made to be a house helper for an upper middle class family. At the center, Mukta reaches a place where she finds her true friend Tara, the daughter of the family where Mukta lives. Despite Tara mother’s opposition regarding their friendship, these two girls handled to strengthen their relation over tiny things like exchanging ice cream, book reading and laughter. It was the place where Tara flourished Mukta’s thoughts and supported her to discover a new way of life and let her leave the deadly memories far behind. Their friendship soon become a sisterhood.In 1993,a couple of bomb blasts shattered the lives of Mumbai where Tara lost her mother and these over through sorrows fractured their long lasting bond. In addition, misunderstandings have grown up in their lives within the complicated situations. It became much more wretched when one night Mukta got kidnapped and disappeared. Moreover, her life end up in the red light district of Kamathipura and was forced to be one of the faces of brothels. Once again she entered in darkness where there is no way out. On the other hand, Tara and her father moved to America, because it seemed the finest method to reduce the grief of her mother’s sudden death and the memories of Mukta. But Tara could not make herself to demolish the resemblance of Mukta’s friendship, so after eleven years, Tara returns to Mumbai determined the search of Mukta. She puts her all efforts to endeavour the trashes or any clue that helps to get Mukta back to her life. Tara’s attempt to find Mukta, leads her to several underground world of brothels. Tara was compelled to revisit her past and uncover some disturbing secrets of her family and these unearth truths explained what happened to Mukta in this duration, why she came to live with her family and the actual reason behind her kidnapping. Most importantly, she came to know the fact that Mukta was her stepsister which strengthen her ambition in search of Mukta and to restrain their friendship which has been slaughtered in the hands of disbelief and meseries. Tara held her hope and put her strength to find Mukta’s face in the darkness that finally reached Mukta. The imbitious novel with some sorts of intense emotions inspects the continuous rigid traditions of society that fade away the dominancy of modern world. It reveals the story of those women who are exploited because of their caste that force them to live their days in a dark prison of immorality and mistreatment. Highlighting the class division and inequality among different caste of people and class divides are deep rooted which shows the people’s superiority over lower class beings. Amita Trasi enable us to think about the condition of sex workers in brothels and how the are sold and pushed to follow the prostitute tradition, while getting betrayal by their own loved ones. A part from the bitter truth of dominant society over prostitutes, the novel reveals true picture of friendship through Tara and Mukta that can be far more precious and supportive than blood relations. Sometimes when our sky looses it’s colors and merciless sufferings, sorrows and striffes would get the shape of thunder clouds which grab our souls out our bodies, in this stage only heart relations like friendship will hold your hand and helps to raise a hope by reducing the thunder clouds in order to let us be free and to overcome each burden.
