Academia in Bondage: A Study of Srividya Natrajan’s Campus Novel No

Onions Nor Garlic

Swati Rai
Research Scholar, Dept. of English
Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi
E-mail: srai.may@gmail.com

The English word ‘campus’ is drawn from the Latin word campus which means ‘field’. The usage of

‘campus’ to refer to college or university is an American coinage. It entered British English only in

the late1950s. The earliest mention of the word ‘campus’ in The Oxford English Dictionary applying

to a British University was in 1958. Chris Baldick in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary

Terms defines campus novel as:

Campus novel is a novel, usually comic or satirical, in which the action is set within enclosed

world of university (or similar set of learning) and highlights the follies of academic life.

Many novels had presented nostalgic evocations of college days, but the campus novel in the

usual modern sense dated from the 1950s: Mary McCarthy’s The Groves of Academe (1952)

and Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim (1954) began significant tradition in modern fiction

including John Barth’s Giles Goat-Boy (1966), David Lodge’s Changing Places (1975) and

Robert Davis’s The Rebel Angels (1982). (30)

Though the elements of fun and satire are very often found in campus novels, the element of intrigue

is also inevitably found. In this regard, Stephen Connor says: “The University is a closed world, with

its own norms and values, which is thick with the possibilities of intrigue (69). David Lodge, another

famous practitioner of this sub-genre writes in this context: “In English ‘Campus Novel’ is a term

used to designate a work of fiction whose action takes place mainly in a college or university, and

which is mainly concerned with the lives of university professors and junior teachers-‘faculty’ as they

are collectively known in America, ‘dons’ or ‘academic staff’ in England” (30).

The Campus Novel engages in the interplay between fact and fiction. It is assumed that university

novels are realistic because they are based on the actual institutions in a real place, and yet the
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characters are likely to be imaginary in general. The professors and students who form the world of

academia identify with certain characters and find similarities between their own lives and the lives of

the fictional characters. This is the most important factor for the popularity of campus or academic

novels. According to Elaine Showalter: “the best academic novels experiment and play with genre of

fiction itself, comment on contemporary issues, satirize professional stereotype and educational

trends, and convey the pain of intellectuals called upon measure themselves against each other and

against their internalized expectations of brilliance” (4-5).

Although the world of campus novel seems to be a limited one, it would be undue to typify it as a

fictional form wanting in the sense of social responsibility. In fact, the ostensibly closed image of the

campus novel embodies some important message for the society as a whole. It is so because education

has always been a powerful means of social betterment.

The Campus novel is one sub-genre which has enriched Indian English fiction as well. In India the

sub-genre of campus novel came into limelight with the exceptional success of Chetan Bhagat’s Five

Point Someone published in 2004, but the roots of Indian campus novels can be trailed back to R.K.

Narayan’s The Bachelor of Arts published in 1937. Campus novel had a slow beginning in India.The

first Indian campus novel The Long Long Days by P.M. Nityanandan was published in 1960. After

that novels like The Farewell Party by M.V. Rama Sarma, Onion Peel by K.M. Trisanku and

Goodbye to Elsa by Saros Cowasjee were published in long intervals. It was after the publication of

Prema Nandkumar’s Atom and the Serpent, in 1982, that a large number of writers could be seen

making attempts to depict the collegiate experience in India.

The present paper is focused on the satirical portrayal of campus life as depicted in Srividya

Natarajan’s campus novel, No Onions Nor Garlic. The novel presents the picture of the academy,

including its politics. The novel incorporate the aspects of campus like faculty, research guides,

students, teaching and administration It also touches upon the theme of casteism and reservations. The

novel in fact is Natrajan’s satiric foray against those who believe in their entrenched inherited status.

Natarajan has found just the right register to expose the corruption and the hypocrisy our academic
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spaces are filled with. The present paper aims at elaborating how these issues are depicted in the

novel.

The principal character of the story is Professor Ram, head of the English department at Chennai

University and a fervent champion of Brahmanism. He considers himself to be the guardian of the

purity of the Brahmin way of life and regards the Dalit teachers and students to be the swarm who

pollute the sanctity of his consecrated English Department. Professor Ram rules his department like

an absolute monarch and controls who enters the portals of his department. In this context the novelist

writes: “Prof Ram was recognized as the godfather of this benevolent consortium which, under his

generalship, made sure that all the Reserved Category positions at the university went a-begging for a

long, long time, right down to the turn of the century” (NONG 86). Professor Ram has gathered

around him a group of sycophantic Brahmins at the University whose only aim in life is to keep Dalits

out. In this context the following lines are worth mentioning:

Whenever the posts that were reserved for scheduled or backward-caste lecturers came up,

Prof Ram and all his friends at the university scrutinized the applications sent in by the

candidates and they were always shattered and disappointed to find that candidate was worthy

of initiation into the august priesthood that performed the rites of higher education in

Chennai. (NONG 86)

Prof Ram strongly condemns the university’s Reservations Policy which according to him “had

swung too far in the pro-low-caste direction” (NONG 83). In Prof Ram’s eyes, it was snatching ‘the

curd rice and mango pickles from the mouths of twice-born boys, especially Brahmins” (NONG 83).

As president of the Tamil Brahmin Association, he subscribes to the theory of reverse troddenness or

“trodditude”, which states that: “ the so-called scheduled castes stomp with an upward motion and

grind the upper castes into the stratosphere with an unprecedented gravity-defying aggression…”

(NONG 83). Professor Ram has ensured that no Dalit candidate should survive and sustain in his

Department. To achieve the purpose he deliberately humiliates the Dalit students in front of the whole

class. The theme of mistreatment of the backward casts is highlighted in the following lines:
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Well, if you were in any of Professor Ram’s classes, you would have noticed the special

teaching methods he used for students like Rufus and Thamarai Selvi, such as throwing their

papers out of the classroom window, calling them names like dolt and nincompoop, which

were not in the attendance register, failing them in every examination, giving them his sincere

blessing when they dropped out of the course, and treating them at all times as if they stood

no higher than vermin in the evolutionary order. Some critics had quite a beef about this, and

they alleged that Professor Ram treated these students in this manner because they came from

backwater towns like Dindigul or Palayankottai. And had Christian names and non-Brahmin

surnames, and were the same colour as soya-sauce. (NONG 82)

Despite of his being the overseer of Hinduism, Professor Ram could not stop the new batch of Dalit

teachers and students from getting entry into his Department. Therefore to make his displeasure clear

he stages an alternative version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in which he attempts to uncover the

moral strengths of the traditional Hindu order by introducing a section where the Prodigy expatiate

soliloquies to espouse the Hindu Order: “As and when i do perceive perversion Of the Natural Order

of Dharma And a proliferation of egregious Adharma, To offer protection to the righteous And to

eliminate the unrighteous From time to time I descend myself...” (NONG 34).

The author comically adds that the Prodigy who Titania and Oberon squabble over in the play is

eventually revealed to be Lord Krishna himself: “When the Prodigy finished speaking the lines, the

notables in the first ten rows rose to their feet and roared their approval, realizing that the child stood

revealed as Lord Krishna himself...” (NONG 34). It is interesting to note that the soliloquy about

descending in times of Adharma to protect the virtuous is drawn more from The Gita than from

Shakespeare’s play. Also, Hermia and Helena are missing from this performance since they aren’t

very pertinent to Professor Ram’s vision.

Another dimension of caste politics that we come across in the novel is the episode where Prof Ram is

shown actively engaged in getting his son Sankaranarayanan, who is a research scholar at a University

in Canada, a job at the University. He asks him to apply for the Open Category post of lecturer at

Chennai University. But he gets to know that one of his research scholars, a bright Dalit student, Jiva
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is also applying for the same post and that too for the Open Category instead of the Reserved

Category. He tries to persuade Jiva to step aside for his son’s sake. But when she refuses to do so he

threatens to reject her recommendation letter. He says: “Before you refuse, Jiva...consider how you

are placed in relation to your viva voce examination. I think a wise acceptance of the truth is better

than an argument. You are going to need my recommendation letters, you know” (NONG 94).

It is ironical to note how Professor Ram who projects himself to be puritan and who consider Dalits to

be substandard is shown asking favour from one. This episode also reveals the ethical corruption

prevalent in academia where we see teachers misusing their power and position to exploit the

students. Another episode drawn on the same line is that of doctoral candidate Shastri’s exploitation at

the hands of his research supervisor. Shastri is Professor Ram’s frustrated Ph.D candidate who has

written about ten drafts of his thesis and whose dissertation has been denied publication by Professor

Ram for fourteen years. Srividya Natrajan writes:

Since Shastri had been working towards his Ph.D. at Chennai University for over fourteen

years, under Professor Ram’s supervision, he had naturally become the professor’s full-time

chamcha and right-hand man. Some unkind persons...even insinuated that he would not let

Shastri finish his thesis, because if Shastri finished and left the university, Professor Ram

would have to start eating with his left hand... (NONG 18)

Natrajan gives description of how Shastri is exploited by Professor Ram:

If you had hung around the university at the time I am speaking of, you too would have seen

Shastri buying Professor Ram’s groceries and frying Professor Ram’s bajjis, typing Professor

Ram’s notes and wiping Professor Ram’s god-pictures, filling Professor Ram’s prescriptions

and milling Professor Ram’s coffee. (NONG 18)

Professor Ram’s lack of capacity to guide a research scholar finds a parallel in the novel, The Higher

Education of Geetika Mehendiratta where Geetika’s guide Matangini Mistri also does not guide her

satisfactorily and instead of guiding, keeps misguiding her. In these two cases of Jiva and Shastri, one
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can observe that the highly regarded Indian tradition of teacher-disciple relationship is thrown

overboard.

No Onions Nor Garlic also points out the intellectual pretensions and hypocrisy that are prevalent in

the world of academia. The author satirically points out with the examples of Professor Ram as to

how the professors engage in intellectual facades without taking trouble to do any productive work.

For instance, Professor Ram had managed to publish only one book so far and that too by getting it

published at his own expense. The novelist amusingly writes: “Even this book only reached the public

because Mr Varadarajan of V.R.V. Publishers could not resist the rustling music that Professor Ram’s

crisp hundered rupee notes made when he went personally to V.R.V.’s Kottivakkam Office to hawk

his manuscript” (NONG 166). Professor Ram is forever promoting himself and never misses any

chance of publicity. For this he never hesitates to choose crooked ways. For instance, his writing

reviews for his own play for blowing his own trumpet and getting it published under his research

scholar Shastri’s name is not only astounding but also amusing. In this context, the following lines of

the novel are worth mentioning:

‘The symbolic force of the contemporary interpolations, worthy of juxtaposition with the

brilliant verse, both blank and rhymed, that flowed from Shakespeare’s own pen, cannot be

denied. Hinduism can revive not only India, but the whole world,’ typed Professor Ram. He

went back and added’(by Professor Ram, the applause, the delight, the wonder of our stage)’

after ‘contemporary interpolations’.(NONG 40)

Professor Ram’s hypocritical nature and dishonesty get revealed in yet another episode. Professor

Ram puts the names of theorists like Derrida and Spivak as guest speakers on the brochure of the

conference he is organizing, knowing very well that they wont be able to attend the conference. He

does so because the names of these world famous theorists would help him generate funds from

organizations like University Grants Commission, The British Council, and the United States

Information Service. The novelist writes:

Well, Professor Ram had put his funds bucket under the University Grants Commission, The

British Council, and the United States Information Service, and had milked all of them
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serially and energetically, and had even put the bite on some corporate houses, precisely on

the strength of the world-famous theorists who had agreed to attend his conference. (NONG

157)

All these episodes highlight the way Professor Ram has internalized the corrupt and unscrupulous

methods in getting his work done. It is meticulously described as to how corruption is interwoven in

almost all sectors of education system.

The novel also draws our attention towards another interesting aspect of academia- seminars and

conferences. Seminars and conferences provide opportunity for people in the same profession to meet,

discuss matters related to their profession so as to bring out new dimensions and develop new

techniques of learning. But here in the novel shopping and recreation seems to be the main purpose of

seminars. Such teachers could be seen:

...quietly discussing what sales were on, and where good bargains could be had. Instead of

making notes, they wistfully made their Diwali gift lists and Christmas plans. Many of them

felt that if they wished hard enough, the day’s business would just disappear, leaving them

free to lay out their travel allowances and daily allowances on rustling silk saris with temple

borders, or fine gold jewellery wrought by hand, or exquisite handcrafts, or glossy leather

handbags, which is why they had come to Chennai in the first place. (NONG 285)

No Onions Nor Garlic is a wonderfully comic work with serious implications, exposing the

discrepancies inherent in the world of academia. It brings to the fore the intellectual pretensions,

hypocrisies and follies of academics. The misfit between intellectual pretension and human reality is

portrayed beautifully by the novelist. The English Department of Chennai University as described in

the novel becomes an ideal vessel for vanity and petty ambitions camouflaged as intellectual

behaviour. The author pricks the bubbles of academic charade by subjecting the characters to satirical

treatment through irony, sharpness of wit and the potency of comic satire.
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WORKS CITED

Baldick,Chris. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford: Oxford UP,1990. Print.

Connor, Steven. The English Novel in History 1950-1995. London: Routledge,1996. Print.

Lodge, David. Nabokov and the Campus Novel, paru dans Cycnos, Volume 24 n°1, misen ligne le 20
mars 2008.Web.10 March 2014. <http://revel.unice.fr/cycnos/index.html?id=1081>.

Natrajan,Srividya. No Onions, nor Garlic. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2006. Print. (Herein referred
to as NONG in the text).

Roy, Anuradha Marwah. The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta. New Delhi: Orient
Longman Limited, 1993. Print.

Showalter, Elaine. Faculty Towers: The Academic Novel and its Discontents. Oxford: Oxford
UP, 2005. Print.