Discovering the ‘Self’: Reading Anita Nair’s ladies coupé

Anita Nair (1966) is an internationally acclaimed writer, with a vast oeuvre. A bestselling author of fiction and poetry, her books are translated into 30 languages. She is promising and progressive in her approach to women’s question and her thoughts precisely and positively showcase the challenges Indian middle-class women face. In her writing, she gives free expression to the idea of body and sexuality, self and identity. The paper intends to study her second novel titled Ladies Coupé (2001), which is a tale of women’s search for strength, space, independence, solidity, identity and self. The paper will explore how does the patriarchal colonization of women’s bodies attempt to subjugate her and does she come out of this or feels compelled to forsake her desire and ambition. Is the woman with economic liberty able to fight stereotyping or does she forsake her desire and ambition? The attempt will, therefore, be on tracing the journey of its protagonist from non-identity to an identity/ from ‘being’ an object to acquiring the subject position/from wielding no power to an empowered status. The chief concern is to analyze how women today understand the ‘self’ through the experience of the body.