Shilpi Somaya Gowda Character Analysis

In Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda, we are shown what it is like for Kavita to go through hardship after hardship. However, this strong woman manages to commodore these hardships and grow strength from these hard times. Even though it takes a bit of a mental toll on Kavita as her first two children are taken away from her, she is told the family is moving from their home town for the sake of their son Vijay, and that she must face the fact that her mother is dead and her father is following close after; this strong woman manages to see the light and allows these challenges to strengthen her spirit. First of Kavita was forced to give up her two daughters by her husband Jasu due to the Indian culture not being tolerant to women giving birth to daughters, as opposed to sons. Giving up her two children and living with knowing one of them is still out there had to be mentally draining. Jasu being the reason for her first daughter being murdered as he gave the baby to his cousin to kill in the woods and for Kavita having to give Usha to the orphanage to save her life. When their son Vijay is born “Only Kavita has an aching cavity in her heart for what
Although she has learned from this event that love is powerful, and that she must remain strong for her father and family. She realizes that “She has spent twenty years far away from her family. She lost first her daughters, then her son, and now her parents. The only relationship that has prospered, against those many cruel complications, is her marriage to Jasu” (364). Her father “can’t recognize when his own body needs to go to the toilet, but he notices the first night in fifty years his wife is not sleeping beside him” (313/314). Such a powerful love her mother and father had, that Kavita now finds she has with Jasu through all the hardships they have