FEMINIST REIMAGINING OF SELFHOOD AND RESISTANCE IN INDIAN DOMESTICITY: A STUDY OF ANITA NAIR’S ALPHABET SOUP FOR LOVERS AND PREETI SHENOY’S THE RULE BREAKERS

Indian literature, in many aspects, has portrayed women’s lives in patriarchal society, their experiences within the given spaces, and how patriarchal domination shapes their identity, independence and self-development. Anita Nair’s Alphabet Soup for Lovers and Preeti Shenoy’s The Rule Breakers are powerful novels that reflect how women in Indian domesticity deal with tradition, control, and the need to find themselves. They examine how women gradually begin to question the rigid roles that they are expected to play in their home and in marriage life. This paper examines how women subtly resist and reshape their identities in the context of daily domestic life. Cooking, cleaning and silent actions turn into means of self-expression and resistance. Feminist concepts are used in this study to comprehend how women seek to define themselves despite being told to remain silent or submissive. In an environment where men predominate, it focuses on how these women start to take charge of their decisions, defy conventions and find their own meaning. The study also examines how their daily routine and domestic pressures influence their development of strength and independence. This feminist reimagining emphasizes that resistance can occur in quiet incremental ways within the home as well as loudly. This study emphasizes that selfhood involves giving meaning voice to women’s life and experience and demonstrates how domesticity functions as a complex space of both constraints and transformations.