Feminist Agency and the Politics of Desire in Anita Nair’s Mistress

Gender equality and women empowerment are the issues which picked up momentum in India in the last three decades. There has been a shift, not only in the policy approaches but also in the ideology of women themselves. This ‘New Woman ’ is self–reliant, emancipated and happy individual, who is sexually uninhibited, intelligent, confident and assertive. She lives with a heightened sense of dignity. This ‘new being ’ has been projected in the context of contemporary world as an individual with freedom of choices in the fictional works of many post-modern Indian writers. Through their fiction, they have successfully projected the urges, dreams and desire of a woman, in particular-- the middle class housewife, who refuses to be bounded and suffocated by her surroundings. Indian writers like Shashi Deshpande, Anita Desai, Namita Gokhale, Anita Nair, through their fiction, have successfully and skillfully brought to the surface, these new women issues like dilution in relationships, pre-marital and extra-marital affairs, sterility of life, man–woman relationship, their inner fears, oppression and suppression faced in and outside home