Feminist Fables… Unprincess and Girls to the Rescue..

Feminist Fables… Unprincess and Girls to the Rescue..

I have borrowed the title beginning from Suniti Namjoshi’s fabulous Feminist Fables. (a lovely read but adults may enjoy that more). However, what were those stories or fairy-tales or fables that we grew up reading- those of the princesses as damsels in distress, waiting for the prince, or fairies, or frogs or whomsoever, but never taking “agency” or acting on their own. Often as a child I used to think- but they were princesses… with all that they could have? Why do they never do anything, except being dragged around, kidnapped, rescued, tortured, scared (by wolves and their kind), and above all…in one story checked their “princesshood and its reality” by being made to sleep on layers of mattresses with a pea pod beneath or a hair strand…The real princess has to be sensitive about the small hair strand and unable to sleep, lest the prince be betrayed by a strong-willed woman, irreverent about hair strands and blue eyes.

However, in recent days, we can see winds of change. Children can cherish and so can we all… to read about Unprincesses.

As Manjula Padmanavan writes about prince and princesses in her collection of 3 stories Unprincess of 3 feisty girls- when confronted with a problem

“being princesses there was only one thing they could really do well in a crisis.  And that was to scream and cry and so they did……..meanwhile there were little boys who were princes. But no one had taught them how to deal with giants (read problems) of the type that attack school buses. Being princes they knew that the only right and honorable course of action to take in the situations they had not been trained to face was to play some sort of game. So they all whipped out their trusty Nintendos and Game Boys. And they played with ferocious zeal known only to those whose lives are endangered by situations they have not yet been trained to face”.

Manjula here says things in an extremely light-hearted way, but doesn’t it resonate so well with the patriarchy.. how often men laugh about and stay out of situations at home, saying those are domestic, feminine issues and we should not interfere.

Manjula creates her heroine Kavita as the unprincess who “ had not been born with her instructions for life already arranged neatly inside her brain even before she had learnt to understand speech. She had to stop and think before she acted. And so she frequently did so.”

Kavita was the unprincess, freed from the social conditioning, the burden of obedience. She believed in having a mind of her own and that made her un-disneyfied, the “Unprincess”.

All the 3 stories are unique and challenges stereotypes, part fantasy, part science fiction and with wonderful illustrations, Unprincess is a wonderful read for all. The story Urmila the Ultimate in fact is even more stark. Urmila from the beginning of the story is said to be “ugly”, a burden her parents are oblivious of. They prefer an unsocial life rather than considering Urmila ugly.  In fact the most heart-warming part of the story is , when in a bizarre incident someone openly tells her parents about her ugliness and the distress it causes to others, tipping the world off its feet, this is what her parents hgad to say- “ She is too unique to be contained by mere laws and statutes….if the rest of the world doesn’t appreciate your appearance that’s their problem, not ours! You look perfectly wonderful to us, and that’s what counts!.... I hope you realize that we, your parents, value you for what you are, and don’t care a fig for the bourgeois notions of beauty that appear to exercise the minds of everyone we know.”.

In real world, lets hope such parents are more, who get the courage to embrace their children, their daughters as they are.. since its high time Unprincesses are encouraged to be as they are and to claim their piece of world.

Sowmya Rajendran’s Girls to the Rescue is another interesting read. Sowmya, feels “ princesses are mega bores. They simply wait.. for the prince, even for someone to find their shoes, waiting for the world to turn better..” Sowmya knows that none of us have that kind of patience. So she decides to twist the tales of the princesses. She gives them the might and they claim their rights..

Hence Rapunzel’s father is a barber who thinks she should have long hair, while her mother’s an astronaut. Rapunzel is locked lest she cuts off her tresses, which she does on her own. The prince, poor thing already burdened with the expectations of his king-father of him becoming a warrior, while he loves slow dance and studying beetles, just happens to pass off his sword. And yes Rapunzel, does make him her friend, but “ to enjoy the moment”.

And Sleeping Beauty- well she happens to take birth with the king and queen literally blackmailed by all to have a baby of their own. The Queen has dreams of her own, to finish her book on botany, but how to manage with a baby whose biological clock never sets to  let her sleep. There comes the mad fairy to make the baby sleep, till the mother gets over her post-partum anxiety and manager her career and ambition.

These books are such breath of fresh air. A Must read for all and thanks.. stories are changing…