Małgorzata Sadkowska, Department of Indology, Institute of Oriental Studies, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

Matrophoby or mother-quest? Mother-daughter relationship in “Ai Ladki” by Krishna Sobti

The talk titled “Matrophoby or mother-quest? Mother-daughter relationship in “Ai Ladki” by Krishna Sobti” outlines the contemporary novelist’s intimate and incisive portrayal of a complex relationship between a mother and a daughter. The two female characters of Krishna Sobti’s novel: Ammu (lit. Mother) and Ladki (lit. Girl) seem to epitomize, and at the same time contest the often stereotyped mother-daughter relationship as it has been shaped by the rules of the traditional Indian society. The analysis of the relationship presented in the talk is an attempt to answer questions such as: how matrophoby and mother-quest attitudes can be defined in the Indian context, or whether any of the two prevails in the literary portrait of the  daughter, “Ladki”.