One of the main themes of Temsüla Ao’s short story “The Jungle Major” is gender. The story is centered around Khatila and Punaba, a married couple living in Nagaland during the violent insurgency.
The couple goes against many gendered social norms and, as a result, deals with a lot of judgment from their community. For instance, they do not have children, which is expected of young married people. Punaba is also uneducated and does not earn that much money in his job as a taxi driver. However, he is still married to Khatila, who is beautiful and from an educated family. People are alarmed by the “immense disparity” in both their appearance and backgrounds. This society expects a man to provide well for such a woman so she can be a homemaker and raise children, but this is not the case in this couple’s relationship.
People are also surprised by the way Khatila acts when Punaba joins the rebel army. She is not the anxious, submissive wife that she is expected to be and instead keeps her calm in this difficult time. Recall how the captain reacts to her behavior:
the young Captain who looked somewhat surprised at her manner. Whereas he had expected to see a cowering woman, crazy with fear for her husband and herself, he was confronted by a disheveled but defiant person who displayed no agitation and seemed to be utterly oblivious to any danger.
This quote reflects how people are stunned at Khatila’s confidence and strengths. They expect her to be a submissive housewife whose anxieties control her husband’s dangerous behavior. But Khatila does not conform to these social expectations, and through her, Ao highlights how constraining and unfair such expectations can be.
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