T 1290.pdf - Pondicherry University DSpace Portal

purse, a god with an elephant trunk to uproot anything in mypath" (&mine, 102) In Florida when Half-Face lifts Jasmine'sbag on to the bed....."Out came my sandalwood Ganapati(m, 113) Resisting Half-Face's assault on her she "triedto keep my eyes on Ganapati and prayed for the strenght tosurvive, long enough to kill myself" (u,116) Prakash hadtouched her Ganapati then "I had protected this sari andPrakash's suit through it all. Then he had touched it. He hadput on the suit, touched my sari, my photographs and Gnapati"(Jasmine, 121) So when his suit 1s burnt she "said my prayersfor the dead, clutching my Ganpatl" (Jasmine, 120).Hinduism imposed certaln restrictions on widowhood: "As awidow I did not participate". (in match making for adolescentcousins or younger siblings). "Re-marriage was out of questionwithin the normal community" (Jasmine, 147). Not even normalfood, "as a widow she should not have eaten onions" (Jasmine,47 1Carrying her faith all the way to America, Jasmine doesnot forget the religion she learnt in her childhood: In factshe goes to the extent of teaching Americans with whom she isclose inspite of her transformation: "In our three and a halfyears together I have given Bud a new trilogy to contemplate:Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva" (-, 8)Hinduism like all other religions states that if one can