The Awakening of Female Sexuality and Subversion in Ruskin Bond’s Work Abstract: This paper attempts to present a graphic exploration of the limitation of sexual liberty and gender bias as portrayed in Ruskin Bond’s subversive tale, ‘Susanna’s Seven Husbands’. Bond is known for his impressive short tales making huge impact through its lucidity, and his women characters are well fortified in their personality. In the mentioned text, he brings down the conservative, prejudiced psyche of a society that intercepts the free expression of passion innate in women. With this he endeavours to expose the hypocrisy existing at social and political level. He has depicted the central figure as a courageous, extraordinary female who dares to challenge the prescribed norms of her times regarding the flow of her sensuality and emancipation, while also demonstrating her psychology in the patriarchal world that does best to suffocate her passionate desires. Keywords: Sexuality, Psychology, Patriarchy, Oppression, Identity, Feminism. Gender Ruskin Bond, rightly observed as ‘Wordsworth’ of India, has made eminent contribution to Indian writing in English. His works, sophisticated yet simple, convey a large and complex meaning inherent in Indian life and culture. Prominently recognized for his treatment of nature, children and childhood in his notable works, Bond also established himself as an illustrious promoter of feminism. Under the wrap of dark comedy, he gracefully touches on the subject of sexual despotism and repression meted out towards women. In Susanna’s Seven Husbands, he ruthlessly brings out the subjugation that a woman faces in a prejudiced society by subverting the established norms of system and institution regarding the general perception of women’s place in society. As Wilhelm Reich rightly proclaimed, “Sexually awakened women, affirmed and recognized as such, would mean the complete collapse of the authoritarian ideology.” It’s been largely perceived that many ancient and contemporary societies contemplate the sexually awakened female as both ‘auspicious’ and ‘dangerous.’ Naomi Wolf writes, “Men are visually aroused by women's bodies and less sensitive to their arousal by women's personalities because they are trained early into that response, while women are less visually aroused and more emotionally aroused because that is their training. This asymmetry in sexual education maintains men's power in the myth: They look at women's bodies, evaluate, move on; their own bodies are not looked at, evaluated, and taken or passed over.” Bond in creating Susanna an enigmatic and wild seducer, has defied the prevailing norm that call women to be submissive, obedient, and meek, “Her eyes were large and lustrous, and she had a strong, rather determined chin.” (21) Ruskin bond’s novelette, Susanna’s Seven Husband, is about the journey and choice the protagonist, Susanna Anna-Maria Yeates, makes no matter how wrong she gets in the way. A descendant of Dutch and East India, Susanna is the confluence of West and East presenting the charming horrors of a contemporary India. The tone of the story is of formal realism. The theme of expressed