Inner Voices Cry for Analysis : A Critical Approach to Shashi Deshpande’s Shadow Play

Under the title Acknowledgements to Shadow Play Shashi Deshpande accepts that the major characters of her earlier novel A Matter of Time (1996) continued to attract her memory for many years as if they needed further analysis and development. The ending of a A Matter of Time forced her for a new beginning and the result was that she started writing Shadow Play (2013) introducing the same Aru, Gopal, Seema, Charu, Chitra, Dr. Ramesh, Rao, Rohit, Hrishi etc. in new shades. Likes T.S. Eliot, she believes that every soul begins a new journey with death. Like E.M. Forster, she accepts that 'the novel does not end where it ends, it begins where it ends'. Future of these characters is in the hands of a divine force and that force guides her to develop them in new shades with vigour and zeal.