Indian English Novel PDF

INDIAN ENGLISH NOVEL
INDIAN ENGLISH NOVEL

A Critical Casebook
Ramendranath Datta
Nilanshu Kumar Agarwal
Edited by
Suman Chakraborty
ROMAN Books
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Contents
1 The Indian English Novel: Origin and Development 9
2 Bankimchandra Chatterjee (1838–1894) 18

2.1 Rajmohan’s Wife 18
2.1.1 Rajmohan’s Wife as an Allegory of the Modern Indian
Nation 18
2.1.2 Character Sketches in Rajmohan’s Wife 21
2.1.3 Social Realism in Rajmohan’s Wife 24
2.2 Bibliography 28
3 Mulk Raj Anand (1905–2004) 29

3.1 Coolie 29
3.1.1 Anand as a Political Novelist with Particular Reference
to Coolie 29
3.1.2 Indian Society in Coolie 33
3.1.3 Anand’s Humanism in Coolie 38
3.1.4 The Plot of Coolie 44
3.1.5 The Theme of Exploitation in Coolie 48
3.1.6 Coolie as a Picaresque Novel 53
3.1.7 Coolie: An Epic in Prose 57
3.1.8 Anand’s Boy-hero—Munoo 62
3.1.9 Anand’s Caricature of British Characters in Coolie 67
3.2 Untouchable 72
3.2.1 Class Inequalities 72
3.2.2 The Colonial World as Envisaged by Anand in
Untouchable 75
3.2.3 Anand’s Humanism in Untouchable 78
3.2.4 Social Criticism in Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable 81
3.2.5 Indian Elements in Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable 87
Indian English Novel
3.2.6 Bakha 93
3.3 Bibliography 97
4 RK Narayan (1906–2001) 99
4.1 The Guide 99
4.1.1 RK Narayan’s Comic art in The Guide 99
4.1.2 Narayan’s Language and Linguistic Devices in
The Guide 104
4.1.3 Myth and Reality: A Two-level Representation in
The Guide 112
4.1.4 The Guide as a Picaresque Novel 118
4.1.5 The Postcolonial Aspects of The Guide 125
4.1.6 Social Reality in The Guide 131
4.1.7 RK Narayan’s Narrative Technique in The Guide 136
4.1.8 Raju 141
4.1.9 Rosie 146
4.2 Bibliography 150
5 Raja Rao (1908–2006) 152

5.1 Kanthapura 152
5.1.1 Indianization of The English Language and
Raja Rao’s Kanthapura 152
5.1.2 Gandhian Thought and Raja Rao’s Kanthapura 157
5.1.3 Raja Rao’s Kanthapura as a Sthala-Purana 162
5.1.4 Achakka as Narrator in Raja Rao’s Kanthapura 167
6 Anita Desai (b. 1937) 173

6.1 Voices in the City 173
6.1.1 Calcutta: A City of Voices 173
6.1.2 Voices in the City: A Study in Characterization,
Symbols and Imagery 179
6.1.3 Nirode: A Journey from Alienation to Regeneration 184
6.2 Clear Light of Day 189
6.2.1 Human Relationships 189
6.2.2 Symbolism 193
6
Contents
6.2.3 Clear Light of Day as a Modernist Text 197

7 Salman Rushdie (b. 1947) 203

7.1 Midnight’s Children 203
7.1.1 Midnight’s Children: A Bildungsroman or its Parody? 203
7.1.2 Midnight’s Children: Symbol as Meaning 207
7.1.3 Midnight’s Children as a Postmodern Novel 211
7.1.4 Women Characters in Midnight’s Children 215
8 Amitav Ghosh (b. 1956) 221

8.1 The Shadow Lines 221
8.1.1 The Complexities of Belonging and Unbelonging in
The Shadow Lines 221
8.1.2 The Role of the Narrator in The Shadow Lines 225
8.1.3 Women Characters in The Shadow Lines 229
7
1 The Indian English Novel: Origin and
Development
The emergence of the novel as a dominant literary genre in India had

to wait for the independence movement to pick up the impetus in the
later nineteen thirties. The novelists were mainly dealing with the
burning social and political issues and these were reflected in the choice
of theme and subject in their works. But the first novel in English was
written in the mid-nineteenth century by a district magistrate in Bengal
who, following the model of the historical novels of Sir Walter Scott,
wrote his only work in English. The fact that he wrote more than a
dozen novels after that and all of them in his native Bengali shows that
the Indian writer was always ill at ease with adopting the colonizer’s
tongue to suit the purpose of a literary product strongly situated in the
native culture and milieu. But still, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s
(1838–1894) debut novel, Rajmohan’s Wife (1935; serialized in 1864)
is of utmost significance for the student of Indian writing in English.
Throughout the novel, there is an unhealthy tension between the
subject matter and the intended audience or readership. As has been
noted by Sanjukta Das,
the subject matter is Indian but the target reader is the British reader,
so that many indigenous details of setting, custom and character are
explained in detail as though to a foreigner. That this reader was nonex-
istent makes this novel appear clumsy and pathetic to the modern reader.1
The other importance of this narrative is that it has been received as

the first allegory of nation building of modern India. It corroborates
Fredric Jameson’s reading that every third world literature is allegorical
and
[t]he fact that the early age of the novel in India happened to be the
nineteenth century, coinciding with the influx of the great nineteenth-
century English novels, revolutionary ideas in politics and economics,
Indian nationalism, and the effects in India of English industrialism makes
the Indian novel [in English and the Indian languages] a mirror of changes.2
The second phase of the Indian novel in English begins in the nineteen
thirties with the writings of Mulk Raj Anand, RK Narayan and Raja
Rao. The literary output was deeply influenced by the Gandhian move-
ment and ideology and it finds its truest expression in the novels of
this era.
The most enigmatic of these was Mulk Raj Anand (1905–2004)
who not only had his Indian tradition behind him, but also an exposure
to the Western ways of the world. His work is mediated by what he
himself has called ‘the double burden on my shoulders, the Alps of the
European tradition and the Himalaya of my Indian past.’3 There is a
curious ambivalence in his treatment of the Indian psyche; he is critical
of the deadening effects of the age-old superstitions and also, on the
other hand, proves himself to be a great observer of the downtrodden
and the marginalized of Indian society. He is an ardent socialist trying
to establish an egalitarian society and we can trace the years that he
spent in Europe as a possible source of this faith. His curious blending
of the East and the West can be seen in his debut work Untouchable
(1935). In terms of narrative form it borrows from Joyce’s Ulysses,
describing the events of a single day in the life of Bakha, the toilet
cleaner. The hypocrisy in Indian society is brutally exposed, and so is
the superficiality of the Christian civilizing mission. This simple book,
which captured the puissance of the Punjabi and Hindi idioms in
English, was widely acclaimed and Anand won the reputation of being
India’s Charles Dickens. The introduction was written by his friend EM
Forster, whom he met while working on TS Eliot’s magazine Criterion.
In it Forster writes: ‘Avoiding rhetoric and circumlocution, it has gone
straight to the heart of its subject and purified it.’4 Another group of
the underprivileged is given voice in his novels Coolie (1936) and Two
Leaves and a Bud (1937). Both these novels deal with the denial of the
basic fundamental right to life and respectability in society to the people
living on the margins of society. Again, the narrative is a savage attack
10
The Indian English Novel: Origin and Development
on the hypocrisy and the evils of industrialization, communalism and

capitalism. Prominent among his novels are The Village (1939), Across
the Black Waters (1941), The Sword and the Sickle (1942), all written in
England, and The Private Life of an Indian Prince (1953), perhaps the
most important of his works written in India. The Private Life of an
Indian Prince was more autobiographical in nature, and in 1950 Anand
embarked on a project to write a seven-part autobiography, beginning
with Seven Summers (1951). One part, Morning Face (1970), brought
him the Sahitya Akademi Award. Like much of his later work it contains
elements of his spiritual journey as he struggles to attain a higher sense
of self-awareness.
R[ashipuram] K[rishnaswamy] [Iyer] Narayan[aswami] (1906–
2001) marked a break away from the nationalistic sentiments to situate
his novels in the fictional land of Malgudi, dealing with simple characters
in the simplest of narrative styles. Narayan’s works showcased his ability
to highlight the social context and provide a feel of the characters
through the simple narration of everyday life. Das notes:
His simple prose and a humorous, ironic, yet compassionate vision of

human beings combined with a deft touch for just the right detail to
convey an entire impression makes Narayan a great stylist as well as a
commentator. In documenting an India of the common man and his
daily life, Narayan opened up the future of the English novel by Indians.5
Narayan’s novels include Swami and Friends (1935), his first novel, The
Bachelor of Arts (1937), The Dark Room (1938), The English Teacher
(1946), Mr. Sampath (1949) and The Financial Expert (1952). His most
well-known work is definitely The Guide (1958) and it cemented his
position as one of the frontrunners among the Indian writers in English.
The motif, as Naik notes, is ‘ironic reversal, but not only is the irony
multiple here; it also piles comic complication upon complication
until finally the pyramid collapses, crushing the hero to death.’6 There
is almost a double narrative in the text: Raju’s present is embedded in
the past and there is a curious by-play of the authorial presence and the
autobiographical mode of narration. Narayan’s other novels of repute
include The Man-eater of Malgudi (1962), Waiting for the Mahatma
(1955) and The Vendor of Sweets (1967), though the success of The
11
Guide, which brought him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1960, is

incomparable.
Raja Rao (1908–2008) hasn’t written as prolifically as the two novel-
ists already mentioned, but his claim to fame is the novel Kanthapura
(1938) and its now famous Preface. Rao’s involvement in the nationalist
movement is reflected in his first two books. The novel Kanthapura was
an account of the impact of Gandhi’s teaching on non-violent resistance
against the British. The story is seen from the perspective of a small
Mysore village in South India. Rao borrows the style and structure from
Indian vernacular tales and folk-epic. His other novel, The Serpent and
the Rope (1960), has strong autobiographical components and can be
seen as a quest for self-knowledge. It deals with the dichotomy of the
‘oriental and occidental world views in respect of basic issues such as
sex and marriage, society, religion, learning and death.’7 But the criti-
cism against Rao has been manifold. We do not find in him the socialist
and humanitarian zeal of Anand’s; neither do we find the keen eye for
detail that RK Narayan had. Yet, as Naik mentions,
his position as perhaps the most ‘Indian’ of Indian English novelists, as

probably the finest painter of the east-west confrontation, as symbolist,
stylist and philosophical novelist, and as an original voice in modern
fiction, undoubtedly remains secure.8
The novels written after Independence carried with them the impetus
that was generated during the freedom struggle. But there was a three-
pronged dilemma that the Indian author in English was facing. First,
the whole idea of using the colonizer’s tongue as a medium of artistic
expression was a question that pricked the conscience of the authors.
At a deeper level, the Partition riots had left an indelible impression
on the artistic minds and it is not surprising to find novels dealing with
the Partition trauma. And finally, there was also the anxious and angst-
ridden Indian society and youth that had to be given its proper
expression.
Khushwant Singh (b. 1915), one of the notable figures in Indian
novel writing, emerged during this era. His A Train to Pakistan (1956)
still remains almost the definitive presentation of the Partition riots and
violence and the fast changing dynamics of the Indian political scene.
12
The realism that he employs is sometimes too harsh to handle and

coupled with this is the vigorous style and sharp irony. The presentation
of a small village torn by the Partition violence and bloodshed is near
perfect.
Manohar Malgonkar (1913–2010) was a retired army officer whose
first work was Distant Drum (1960) and he uses the realistic mode of
narration for pure delight and not to carry a social message. His fictional
world is patriarchal and women become marginalized creatures. But his
self-professed role as a storyteller is discarded in his most famous work,
The Princes (1964). Maybe for the first time in Indian fiction, the
predicament of the Indian princely states’ merger in the Indian republic
under the constitution is presented in a realistic manner. His most
ambitious venture was A Bend in the Ganges (1964), which is set against
the backdrop of the Partition. Perhaps the realistic presentation of the
brutal violence overshadows and mars the serious thematic concerns of
the novel. Naik notes:
Malgonkar works on a large canvas; the scene shifts from [mainland]

India to the Andamans and back and the racy narrative is full of exciting
action. The upshot, however, is not an epic novel, but melodrama,
because the novelist’s vision is hopelessly circumscribed by his inability
to look beyond the sheer horror and brutality of it all.9
The theme of exploitation finds a potent expression in So Many Hungers

(1947), a novel by Bhabani Bhattacharya (1906–1988). The title has
multiple strands of meaning; the hunger is for independence, for money
and wealth, and most importantly for food. Authorial presence in the
novel takes the centre stage in the meaning-making process and this
spoils somewhat the charm of the narrative. His best novel is, however,
He Who Rides a Tiger (1952), a novel based on ironic reversal.
The production of fiction leading up to the nineteen eighties was
marked by the writings of two women authors, the first of whom was
Nayantara Sahgal (b. 1927). The focus of her works is the rich and
the elite of Indian society, and some of the common tropes are that of
the Indian Independence and the declaration of the emergency of which
she was a vociferous critic. She calls herself apolitical. Her claim to
fame rests on Rich like Us (1983), a novel set in one of India’s most
13
disruptive periods of history—the Partition, the Independence and the

emergency (June 1975 and March 1977). Her other important works
are A Time to be Happy (1958), This Time of Morning (1968), Storm in
Chandigarh (1969), The Day in Shadow (1971) and A Situation in New
Delhi (1977).
Anita [Mazumdar] Desai (b. 1937) was Sahgal’s contemporary,
and dealt with the exploration of the female psyche in her works. She
makes it clear herself when she comments, ‘Writing is my way of
plunging to the depths and exploring this underlying truth [. . .] my
novels are no reflection of Indian society, politics, or character.’10 Her
novels are simple and lucid but deal with themes where women are
introverted and psychologically fragile. She experiments with the narra-
tive mode, especially in Clear Light of Day (1980) and Fire on the
Mountain (1977). Her Bye Bye Blackbird (1971) deals with the East-West
socio-political encounter and Voices in the City (1965), with Calcutta
as its backdrop, portrays how the protagonist confronts the conventions
of middle-class life. Her other works include Cry, the Peacock (1963),
Where Shall We Go This Summer (1975), In Custody (1984).
It was during the period of his attempt at acting at the experimental
Oval Theatre in the 1970s that [Ahmed] Salman Rushdie’s (b. 1947)
first novel Grimus (1975) came out. In a self-conscious, first-person
narrative method the novel blends traditional and postmodern aspects.
This method was effectively employed in his next novel Midnight’s
Children (1981) which received a thundering reception, and eventually
won prestigious prizes like Booker Prize, James Tait prize, The English
Speaking Union Literary Award and the Booker of Bookers Prize. In
its scope and execution the novel is comparable to Joyce’s Ulysses, Gunter
Grass’s Tin Drum and Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. In the form
of a fictional autobiography the novel reflects upon the life of Saleem
Sinai, born at the midnight hour of India’s Independence. In his third
novel Shame (1983) the reader is not supposed to expect a so-called
‘realistic’ novel on Pakistan. Rushdie foretells his own future, saying
that the novel would have been banned, dumped in the rubbish bin,
burned. His next highly controversial novel Satanic Verses, for which
Khomeini placed a fatwa on Rushide in 1989, has a plot structure of
parallel stories narrated in a complex manner, with twins or doppel-
gangers as protagonists. Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990), written
14
during the period of the fatwa’s imposition, is a children’s book as well

as a social allegory. Imaginery Homelands (1991) reflects on the concerns
and objectives of the Indian writer while in East, West (1994). a collec-
tion of short stories, Rushdie explores the theme of cross-cultural iden-
tity. In The Moor’s Last Sigh (1995) the focus is on Indian history, again
re-interpreted in the ‘magic realism’ mode. In The Ground beneath Her
Feet (1999) we find a distinct change of direction in Rushdie’s writing,
as the focus is on ‘contemporary figures with no throwbacks to a
historical period to provide interesting parallels to the present setting.’
His next novel, Fury (2001), is read by the critics as an autobiographical
novel. His recent novels include Shalimar the Clown (2005), a novel
partly based in an imaginary town in Kashmir, and The Enchantress of
Florence (2008), another work of magic realism which characterizes
Akbar, the great Mughal emperor, Abul Fazal, the writer of Akbarnama
and Mian Tansen, the legendary musician. His latest novel, Luka and
the Fire of Life published in 2011, is a sequel to his earlier Haroun and
the Sea of Stories. His next book, Joseph Anton: A Memoir, is scheduled
to be published in September 2012. It recollects his years in hiding
during the fatwa period.
Among the other modern Indian novelists in English who have received
widespread recognition is Amitav Ghosh (b. 1956). He burst into the
limelight with the publication of The Shadow Lines (1988). The title
denotes the demarcating lines between two countries—India and its
post-partition counterpart, Bangladesh. The novel, as John Thieme notes,
focuses on a very particular personal history—the experience of a single

family—as a microcosm for a broader national and international experi-
ence. The lives of the narrator’s family have been irrevocably changed
as a consequence of Bengal’s Partition between India and Pakistan at
the time of Independence and the subsequent experience of the East
Pakistan Civil War of 1971, which led to the creation of Bangladesh.11
The Shadow Lines brought him the Sahitya Akademi Award and his
other important novels include The Circle of Reason (1986), The Calcutta
Chromosome (1996), The Glass Palace (2000) and The Hungry Tide
(2004). His most recent works are Sea of Poppies (2008) and River of
Smoke (2011), the first two parts of what will be the Ibis trilogy.
15
Arundhati Roy’s (b. 1961) literary output is quite meagre compared

to the prodigious writings of Salman Rushdie. Born in Shillong in
1961 to a Keralan mother and a Bengali father, Roy published her
only work of fiction, The God of Small Things, in 1997. It was an
instant success, winning the Booker Prize. Many consider it to be one
of the most beautiful books ever written. The novel tells the story of
a traditional middle-class Syrian-Christian family that disintegrates
after the tragic death of a child and an illicit inter-caste love affair. As
the work of a feminist writer the novel also highlights female desire,
while at the same time denouncing the injustice done to women in
rural Kerala. She also writes political essays on India’s increasing mili-
tarization, the ecological exploitation of the Third World and the like.
Her rejection of the Sahitya Akademi Award for her collection of
essays, The Algebra of Infinite Justice (2001), has been censured by many
Indians.
Last, but not least, Amit Chaudhuri’s (b. 1962) works need
mentioning. Chaudhuri’s novels include A Strange and Sublime Address
(1991), Afternoon Raag (1993), Freedom Song (1998), A New World
(2000) and The Immortals (2009). Set in Calcutta, A New World tells
the story of a non-resident Indian who returns to his native city to take
the ‘advantage of the custody settlement following his divorce.’12 The
novel brought Chaudhuri the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2002.
With the recent influx of critical literary theory, there has been
renewed interest in Indian novel writing, mostly after the publication
of Rushdie’s work. Moreover, market economy, too, has played a major
role in establishing Indian writing in English on the world stage.
RD
NOTES AND REFERENCES
1. Sanjukta Das, Derozio to Dattani: Essays in Criticism, New Delhi:

Worldview Publications, 2009, p. 81–82.
2. Ibid, p. 82.
3. As quoted in: MK Naik, A History of Indian English Literature, New
Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1988, p. 155.
16
4. EM Forster, ‘Preface’ to: Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable, New Delhi:

Penguin, 2001, p. v.
5. Das, 2009, p. 84.
6. MK Naik, A History of Indian English Literature, New Delhi: Sahitya
Akademi, 1988, p. 163.
7. Ibid, p. 169.
8. Ibid, p. 173.
9. Ibid, p. 219.
10. As quoted in: Rituparna Roy, South Asian Partition Fiction in English:
From Khushwant Singh to Amitav Ghosh, Amsterdam: Amsterdam
University Press, 2010, p. 80.
11. John Thieme, ‘Amitav Ghosh’ in A Companion to Indian Fiction in
English, ed. by Pier Paolo Piciucco. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and
Distributors, 2004, p. 257.
12. <http://literature.britishcouncil.org/amit-chaudhuri> [accessed 14 April
2012].
17
2 Bankimchandra Chatterjee (1838–1894)
2.1 Rajmohan’s Wife
2.1.1 Rajmohan’s Wife as an Allegory of the Modern Indian Nation
Rajmohan’s Wife not only deals with the exploits of a young rural
housewife, and her efforts to save her sister’s family, but also brings to
focus certain key issues which would be the chief concerns for Indian
novelists writing in English in the years to come. The novel may be set
within the conjugal space but implicit in it is Bankim’s endeavour to
create a national consciousness and awareness of the native tradition
coupled with the effects of the changing paradigm in urban India.
Keeping in mind Fredric Jameson’s assertion that all Third World
texts are in some way national allegories, it is tempting to see the
characters in this novel as more than individuals or just moral agents
but as carrying within them the seeds of a culture that was to emerge
in the early half of the twentieth century. Our analysis will attempt to
bring to the fore the dichotomy that would haunt modern India in
that era, that of the country/city binary and the efficacy of Western
education on one hand and the stress on one’s native historical and
cultural roots on the other. If nations are basically communities that
are imagined (as Benedict Anderson would theorize)1 then it was Bankim
who wanted to imagine a nation emerging through his fictional and
non-fictional writings. The novel negotiates cultural choices that modern
India had to make and explores the way in which society can raise itself
from the debris of a deleterious social order, not even a decade after
the 1857 uprising. Such choices and attempts become embodiments of
social conditions and ideological configurations. The novel shows both
the possibility of a better future and a realistic closure of opportunities
at the end.
Bankimchandra Chatterjee (1838–1894)
The first and foremost point that comes to our mind is the title of
the novel. Even though the novel revolves around the courage and
charm of the heroine, her name finds no mention in the title. She is
being denied autonomy in a way, and Bankim seems to deny her
complete autonomy of identity. She remains someone else’s property
and this becomes a exemplary case in point for the struggling nation
itself under colonial rule. Matangini stands for the new and emerging
nation, full of spirit and strength but captive, not only to alien forces
but also to its own dogmatic customs and superstitions.
Her strength of character and resolve has to it the smack of a
Eurocentric work ethic and it is surprising to relate her endeavours to
that of a country girl wilting under patriarchy. She becomes in effect
the face of modern India, strong-willed and spirited, willing to bend
rules and sometimes even break them. In the first chapter we see her
disobeying the paradigms set for her as she goes to fetch water, and
thus she can well be associated with the newly emerging free spirit of
India, adventurous and full of courage and vitality.
She is the object of desire for Mathur, Madhav and finally her own
husband. Allegorically it means that India becomes a site for a battle
for supremacy and poses the question—who should be its ultimate
ruler/master? It is in this light that we see Madhav becoming a repre-
sentative of the progressive and Western-educated upper middle-class
elite, Mathur of the reactionary, and Rajmohan of what Marx would
term ‘lumpenproletariat’.2 Rajmohan’s marital alienation from his wife
is similar to that of the proletariat from their motherland, whereby
both are unable to master/rule over their property. He is not only
brutish, his inability to support the likes of Madhav is symbolic of the
way they were marginalized in the fight for Independence. The respon-
sible elite tries to get the proletariat back into its own fold but Rajmohan
characteristically refuses help from Madhav.
The change of paradigms of nineteenth-century social Bengal is
evident in the manner in which the country/city binary is treated. In
most of his Bengali novels the affecting and feigning English-educated
‘Babu’ is the object of Bankim’s satire, but not so in Rajmohan’s Wife.
The Western-educated Madhav and his urban background are set up
as superior to those of Mathur, who represents village life and the
ignorance and superstitions associated with it. The inner chambers of
19
Madhav are filled with English furniture, and scattered here and there
can be found English books which Madhav reads. The books act as a
social signifier and it is quite apparent that Bankim extols Western
education as being responsible for a more cultured way of life, some-
thing that cannot be bought only with money.
But even though the relationship between Madhav and Matangini
cannot consummate into something substantial or socially acceptable,
there are ample hints that these two characters personally and ideologi-
cally represent the true spirit of India that is to become the future.
Matangini’s sacrifice and transgression would need another era to
succeed, but they leave an impression on society. Just as there is no
happy ending for Matangini, similarly India’s modernization and
freedom seem to be under threat from the colonial power. Makarand
Paranjape rightly observed that
India, whose possession is fiercely contested by forces of tradition,

modernity, and colonialism is, in the end, a broken if not defeated India.
[. . .] [Matangini] embodies the hopes of an entire society struggling
for selfhood and dignity. Her courage, independence, and passion are
not just personal traits, but those of a nation in the making.3
RD
1. See: Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin

and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso, 1991.
2. See: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and CJ Arthur, The German Ideology,
New York: International Publishers, 1972.
3. <http://www.makarand.com/acad/AllegoryofRajmohansWife.htm>
[accessed 30th November 2009]
20
2.1.2 Character Sketches in Rajmohan’s Wife
Rajmohan’s Wife is, on the surface, a tale of conjugality and property

rights and the struggle for dominance and inheritance, and its historical
importance resides in its being the first Indian novel written in English.
Bankim’s difficulty lay in the fact that he was ploughing a lonely field
as he had no models to fall back on. The novel was serialized and was
not published as a book in the author’s lifetime. As we analyze further,
these facts seem to have a bearing on the crudely drawn character
sketches, and the criticism that is often levelled at Bankim is that of
hastily finishing off the novel. The characters are inadequately individu-
ated and operate on a plane that is more symbolic than psychological;
they dramatize the twin dichotomies of country versus city and Western
versus indigenous cultural tradition, both of which would have a bearing
on the emergent, anticolonial national consciousness.
At the centre of such a reading is the heroine of the novel, Matangini,
Rajmohan’s wife. She is described as a ‘perfect flower of beauty’.1 Not
surprisingly, Bankim uses tropes from folklore to describe her and her
companion’s not-so-attractive looks serve to heighten the heroine’s
beauty. But irrespective of this conventional presentation, she is made
to carry the plot forward with her energy and strength which is not at
all typical of contemporary heroines. Her strength of character and
resolve has a European ring and it is surprising to relate her endeavours
to that of a country girl wilting under patriarchy. She becomes in effect
the face of modern India—strong-willed and spirited, willing to bend
rules and sometimes even break them. In the first chapter we see her
disobeying the paradigms set for her as she goes to fetch water, and
thus she can well be associated with the newly emerging free spirit of
India, adventurous and full of courage and vitality. She does not hesitate
to go against her husband, as it is Rajmohan’s cruelty towards her and
his desire to rob his own benefactor which makes her do so. She with-
stands verbal assaults from him and then undertakes the journey in the
middle of the night to warn Madhav. In doing so she has to fight the
demons within her but she ultimately succeeds. Not only is she waging
a battle against her domestic colonization by her surly husband but
also against a rural culture steeped in superstition. By doing so, she
emerges as a representative of a new India, on its way to the moderni-
zation which would ultimately give the country its freedom.
There are strands, however, which belie such expectations. The novel,
no matter how much kinetic energy it gains from the apparent heroics
of Matangini, is called ‘Rajmohan’s wife’ as if the central character’s
identity is constructed keeping in mind her marital relationship with
Rajmohan; in a way she is denied autonomy and shown to be her
husband’s property. No matter how sympathetic towards her the author
might be the abruptness of the ending might hint at the difficulty which
the representation of such a woman of unusual vitality may pose for
him. It becomes difficult for Bankim to draft her into the cultural
milieu as she transgresses her marital domain and articulates an appar-
ently illicit love to her brother-in-law. At the end is the sweeping
comment: ‘history does not say how her life terminated, but it is known
that she died an early death’.2 As Meenakshi Mukherjee succinctly points
out: ‘By making her confess her love for a person not her husband, the
author pushes Matangini into an uncharted and ambiguous territory
from which neither romantic sympathy nor colonial justice can deliver
her to a positive future.’3
It is through the characterizations of Madhav and his cousin Mathur
that the country/city dichotomy is brought to the forefront. Madhav’s
father was attracted to the city by its money-making possibilities but
it resulted in his son getting a taste of Western education, which is the
reason for his refinement and sophistication in the novel. This is in
stark contrast to the crudity in Mathur’s character, which is the
byproduct of his ‘half-baked village education’.4 Mathur becomes the
picture of a corrupt and unscrupulous man, and not surprisingly
imprisons Matangini, ‘determined to gratify at once both revenge and
22
lust’.5 He is in total contrast to Madhav, but what the latter lacks is the
spirit and vitality of Matangini. The men represent two different kinds
of social prestige, the traditional native one and the progressive and
humanistic one derived of Western eduction. Their lives seem to be lived
in self-indulgence and fraud, as in the case of Madhav and Mathur
respectively, whereas in Bankim’s view, men of their class and education
should be the forerunners of the new national consciousness.
Finally, as it is evident from the narrative, Mukherjee notes rightly:
‘Characterization is not Bankim’s forte in this apprentice novel’6 and
the seemingly abrupt end may be the result of a serialized project which
no longer held the author’s interest. The problematics in the present-
ation of such free-spirited characters would only create more problems
for the author enmeshed in the discourse of that era.
RD
1. Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Perishable Empire, New Delhi: Oxford

2. Ibid, p. 31.
3. Ibid, p. 38.
4. Ibid, p. 36.
5. Chatterjee, 2005, p. 119.
6. Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Perishable Empire (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2007), p. 39.
23
2.1.3 Social Realism in Rajmohan’s Wife
Bankimchandra Chatterjee’s Rajmohan’s Wife, which was not published

in the author’s lifetime as a book, has more historical importance than
literary, since it was the first English novel written by an Indian. The
author’s later success in Bengali fiction completely overshadowed his
venture in English novel writing and for well over a century more
people had heard about this novel than read it. This was mainly because
it wasn’t easy to acquire the text and Bankim himself refrained from
following up his first effort with anything substantial and instead concen-
trated on writing Bengali novels. But the importance of the text lies
elsewhere. The novel as a genre in India was still in its embryonic stages
when he wrote this, in 1864, and, as Meenakshi Mukherjee notes, ‘there
was no precedent as yet of mimetic rendering of domestic life in fiction,
or of weaving a plot out of contemporary social and familial situations.’1
As it is evident from the novel, it presents an almost true to life account
of middle-class life in Bengal and life in the villages, with special
emphasis on conjugality. According to Mukherjee: ‘The story of the
beautiful and passionate Matangini married to a villainous man is
astonishingly rich in details in the depiction of interiors and the
quotidian routine of women’s life’.2
But a closer analysis reveals greater forces at work. It is tempting to
look at Bankim’s work as an allegory of the changing and emerging
nation in the latter half of the nineteenth century. It is not at all unusual
to read Bankim as one of the first literary figures to have taken upon
himself the task to create a national consciousness and his larger object
was to evolve an idea of a progressive modern India. Bankim is not
only addressing a social issue dealing with the private space of an Indian
household but is also trying to reconstruct history. It does so by keeping
the framework of the domestic sphere and a woman’s identity in place.
The question that readers raise is whether it is possible to relate this to
India’s subjugation in the colonial period. He concentrated on the social
and familial spaces as no concept of the nation can be fully realized
without that of the home. The home is a closely protected space where
the traditional values would be nurtured and which would find its
reflection in the nation’s consciousness in general. As Meenakshi
Mukherjee writes:
There is also an attempt in Rajmohan’s Wife to foreground the ways in

which the home and the world are inextricably linked, a relationship
which also happened to be of some concern to the classic realist novelists
of nineteenth-century Europe, by locating the drama within the conjugal
and domestic space in relation to the external arena of property, legality,
crime and the colonial administration. Inscribed in the text we also find
an early statement about the helplessness and claustrophobia of women
in incompatible marriages that was to be a recurrent concern in Indian
fiction for many years to come.3
The dominant trope was to never foreground the female characters as

they always retained their marginalized status in the cultural sphere
even in fiction. Their strength, intelligence and entire being are dedicated
to the service of patriarchy. All aberrations in a marital relationship are
brought under control by disciplining them. Bankim presents the
problem of conjugality within the discursive framework of nineteenth-
century Bengal. The surprising thing is to notice the importance Bankim
gives to a female figure, making her the focal point of the narrative.
The novel’s focus on a woman of vitality and strength, who transcends
all that society had imposed upon her and who ultimately forges her
own destiny and saves her brother-in-law, is something of a novelty in
itself. But even though Bankim may seem to break free of all expected
notions, the title of the novel is significant. Instead of naming it after
Matangini, the protagonist, he uses, ‘Rajmohan’s wife’. It may be a less
than subtle hint that no matter how much freedom be granted to
women they are forced to remain a man’s property, denied of any
25
individual existence and identity. And the ending itself is all the more
significant as
the abruptness and the ambivalence of the ending may be the result of
anxiety that such women of energy generated by posing a threat to the
social order and creating a moral dilemma for the author.4
The novel presents different variations of conjugal misery for the woman,
but its essential concern of woman as the dominated and subservient
figure remains the same. The life of Kanak is wasted on a polygamous
husband who is not obliged to provide her with a home, according to
the norms of ‘kulin’ Brahmins. Tara, the wife of the landlord, who
yields her position to a younger and prettier lady is also powerless to
prevent her misery. The social discourse naturalizes this and the women
accept this as a natural outcome of married life.
The Western-educated Madhav and his urban background are set up
as superior to those of Mathur, who represents village life and the
ignorance and superstition associated with it. The inner chambers of
Madhav, which are filled with English furniture, point to the champi-
oning of Western education by the Indian upper middle-class intelli-
gentsia and illustrates the changing parameters of Bengali society. In
this world it is up to the British officers to mete out justice and they
are shown to be the product of a liberal and open-minded Western
culture—socially, culturally and even morally superior to the Indians.
Even though there are multiple strands in this text, the conclusion
is rash and sudden. Bankim, it seems, could not reconcile himself to
the demands of his time and that of his intended audience. He was
stuck between creating and forging a stable national identity on one
hand and the influence of a mostly English readership on the other.
The result is a hastily concluded novel which nonetheless carried the
seeds of Bankim’s genius which blossoms fully with his foray into Bengali
fiction.
RD
26
1. Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Perishable Empire, New Delhi: Oxford

2. Ibid, p. 31.
3. Ibid, p. 31.
4. Ibid, p. 31.
27
2.2 Bibliography
Bose, SK. Bankim Chandra Chatterji, New Delhi: Publications Division,
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 1974.
Chatterjee, B. Bankimchandra Chatterjee: Essays in Perspective, New
Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1994.
Das, ML. Bankim Chandra, Prophet of the Indian Renaissance: His Life
& Art, Calcutta: G. Majumdar, 1938.
Dasagupta, J. A Critical Study of the Life and Novels of Bankimcandra,
[Calcutta]: Calcutta Universiy, 1937.
Kaviraj, S. The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay
and the Formation of Nationalist Discourse in India, Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1995.
Majumadara, U. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay: His Contribution to
Indian Life and Culture: Proceedings of a Seminar, Calcutta: Asiatic
Society, 2000.
Sen, AP. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay: An Intellectual Biography, New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Sen Gupta, SC. Bankimchandra Chatterjee, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi,
1977.
3 Mulk Raj Anand (1905–2004)
3.1 Coolie
3.1.1 Anand as a Political Novelist with Particular Reference to

Coolie
Mulk Raj Anand believed that a twentieth-century novelist should be

a committed writer conditioned by a complex of factors. This would
entail the philosophy of Marxist humanism as well as the multi-faceted
personality of the author in reconciling the social observer’s aesthetic
detachment with the reformative zeal of the romantic messianic hero,
his technique of self projection in the conception of the central char-
acters and his attempt to fuse ‘the Western realist tradition of the novel
with the Indian tradition of the moral fable.’1 In his book, Apology for
Heroism, Anand indicates that his stories are not thorough dramatiza-
tions of Marxist humanist ideas. He also makes clear his own sense of
identification with social responsibility and humanistic idealism, though
he was quite aware that an inflexible commitment to any political
ideology could dehumanize literature. As SC Harrex says, ‘in Anand’s
case the commitment is quite conscious and I see nothing counter-art
in it, providing story is not turned into diatribe, nor propaganda
promoted under a veneer of literary method.’2 Yet Anand perhaps speaks
out his intention best in an essay called ‘The Sources of Protest in My
Novels’: ‘I wished to recreate the folk, whom I knew intimately, from
the lower depths, the lumpens and the suppressed, oppressed, repressed,
those who had seldom appeared in our literatures, [. . .]’3
It must be borne in mind that Anand was never a doctrinaire Marxist,
though Marx influenced him widely as did many other authors. His
earlier novels like Two Leaves and a Bud, Untouchable and Coolie are not
straightforward political novels like those of George Orwell or Aldous
Huxley or even Solzhenitsyn. He was not a fellow traveller with the

communists in the technical sense; he is rather a committed romantic
humanist, a champion and an advocate of rights of all humanity. It may
be observed that Anand’s characterization of the messiah figures in his
novels is based on a repeating pattern, as Suresht Renjen Bald notes:
‘virtues of traditional Hindu heroes appear combined with those of a
Leninist hero.’4 In Coolie Anand very effectively brings out a contrast
between a communist labour leader, Mohan, and Onkarnath, a
Congressite Trade Unionist. Mohan is respected by the rickshaw pullers
because he does not live the comfortable life of the rich. He had an easy
life in his childhood and youth and now he is doing a sort of penance
for his sins. Onkarnath, on the contrary, is ‘a prim, well-groomed man,
dressed in a homespun silk tunic and silk dhoti. [. . .] His lower lip was
twisted into a sardonic contempt of everything but himself. [. . .]’5
Unlike Mohan, he is a poor speaker who fails to instil enthusiasm among
the mill hands for Gandhian faith. Mohan identifies himself, at least he
tries to, with the rickshaw pullers by becoming a rickshaw man himself,
but it is only as a superior that he talks to them: ‘Han, fool. [. . .] You
will let them kill you. You are all ignorant slaves[. . .]’ (311).
The word ‘coolie’ suggests one who transports a load from one place
to another, on his head or on his back, on a car or a bicycle. Thousands
of coolies carry things at railway stations and in marketplaces; there is
no respectability associated with their profession. As we read Anand’s
novels, we are transported back to the thirties of the last century when
unemployment was rampant, when coolies were despised by people of
the middle or upper classes. Munoo, the protagonist of the novel, has
to work as a coolie in Daulatpur when Prabha is reduced to bankruptcy.
The term ‘coolie’ applies to Munoo’s time in Daulatpur as later on in
Simla he is a rickshaw puller. During his stint as a coolie he had got
ill-treatment and poor pay from people belonging to middle and upper
classes. Anand with sympathy and indignation had portrayed the
wretched conditions of the oppressed and underprivileged coolies. This
sympathy for working-class people is evident first in the novel when
Munoo serves as a domestic servant in the house of Babu Nathoo Ram.
He has to do all the work like a slave; yet he is always rebuked, repri-
manded and abused by Bibiji. At the next stage of his ‘adventurous’
journey, we find Munoo in Daulatpur working in a pickle factory.
30
Mulk Raj Anand (1905–2004)
Prabha has all the compassion and affection for him but he is badly
treated by the other partner, Ganpat. Anand does not forget to describe
the factory itself as a dark and unwholesome den where the atmosphere
is unhealthy, depressing and soul-killing. In this he very much recalls
Charles Dickens. (Oliver Twist). The other workers in the factory are
as unhappy. The manner in which the plight of these coolies has been
described in this novel is a sure testimony to Anand’s profound sympathy
for them. The description of how the coolies try to outbeat one another
by asking for the lowest possible wages for the job and how they are
snubbed by the traders is a fine instance of Anand’s keen observation
and sympathy. The life of coolies and the meal workers in Bombay are
no less horrible. Thousands of coolies sleep on the pavements of the
city because they are homeless. The conditions of life for the mill workers
too are no better. Wages are low and no accommodation is provided
by the management. Shelter in roadside huts and in city chawls is
hopelessly inadequate. The chawls stink of wine and dung. The ward
men of the cotton mill are exploited by the head foreman as well as
the Pathan gatekeeper.
A dispute takes place between the workers and the workings of the
trade unions are unsatisfactory—the Congressite Union and the Red
Flag Union reveal Anand’s humanistic sympathies. The workers are torn
between the two unions. Sauda, the communist leader, tells them that
they are being exploited by the capitalist owners of the mill. He urges
them to demand their rights from the management and incites them
strongly to go on strike. The management on their part spreads the
rumour that several Hindu children have been kidnapped. This leads
to a communal riot, large scale and quite violent, though Munoo
narrowly escapes. The reality of the situation, which Anand so graphi-
cally delineates through this riot episode, will not make an intelligent
reader label Anand as a diehard Marxist propagandist. Nowhere in the
novel does Anand preach the doctrine of economic inequality and
victimization, only that he wants his characters to live as human beings
within a certain dignity and some comfort. What he does is a dispas-
sionate presentation of the situation.
There is no gainsaying the truth that Anand is a committed, serious
and moral writer, who thinks man’s salvation to a large extent depends
on the human, compassionate and loving attitude, which is revealed
31
throughout his novel. It would perhaps not be quite a wrong suggestion

that the form of fiction which Anand attempted to write may be
described as ‘the socio-political messianic novel.’6
RD
1. SC Harrex, ‘Quest for Structures: Form, Fable and Technique in the

Fiction of Mulk Raj Anand’, in Kaushal Kishore Sharma, Perspectives on
Mulk Raj Anand, Ghaziabad: Vimal, 1978, p. 154.
2. Ibid, p. 154.
3. Mulk Raj Anand, ‘The Sources of Protest in My Novels’, in K Venkata
Reddy and P Bayapa Reddy, The Indian Novel with a Social Purpose, New
Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 1999, p. 20.
4. Suresht Renjen Bald, Novelists and Political Consciousness: Literary Expression
of Indian Nationalism, 1919–1947, Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1982,
p. 119.
5. Mulk Raj Anand, The Coolie, New Delhi: Arnold Association, 1981, p.
263. Subsequent references from this work are given in the paper itself.
6. Harrex (1978), p. 153.
32
3.1.2 Indian Society in Coolie
The much-used label ‘social realism’ can justifiably be applied to Mulk

Raj Anand’s earlier novels like Two Leaves and a Bud, Untouchable and
Coolie. Yet, if Anand wished to recreate the people he knew so intimately,
from the lower depths, the repressed and the underprivileged cross-
sections of Indian society of the thirties, it is not so-called ‘realism’ that
he valued so much as the essential ‘humanness’ of men. His sensitive
and sympathetic portrayal of the panorama of contemporary India is a
veracious one by virtue of his humanistic responses to the social and
political evils of the time. In his own words:
Therefore, in my novels, which seek to recreate living human relations

in all their intricacies, I have been compelled to be concrete (‘realistic’
as the critics like to put it). I have tried to look at the realities of life,
hoping that each day might be a new day of happiness with a new sun,
a new moon, with new people, who may inherit the good thoughts of
the past, but may look to the future. This may have meant wandering
through the labyrinths, but one can recognize one’s own face and the
faces of others not by grovelling before fixed images but by living experi-
ence of men and women through a religion based on tenderness.1
Coolie is the cross section of the visible India of Anand’s time, the visible
mixture of the horrible and the holy, the inhuman and the humane,
the sordid and the beautiful. KRS Iyengar in his book Indian Writing
in English observes rightly:
If Untouchable is the microcosm, Coolie is more like the macrocosm that

is Indian society: concentration gives place to diffusion and comprehen-
sion, with several foci of concentration. [. . .] The general effect is
panoramic, good and evil being thrown together as in actual life; there
is no time for us to pause, to think, to judge, for we are constantly
shifted, a new situation engulfs us at every turn, and new cruelties and
absurdities whirl round us. Village, Taluka headquarters, District head-
quarters, Presidency capital, the national (summer) capital—this is a
progression indeed, but only spatially, for the human situation hardly
alters wherever we may be, Munoo is the exploited all the time, by one
person or another; and his fate is typical of the fate of millions whose
only distinguishing badge is patient sufferance.2
If Anand’s critique of Indian society in the novel is marked by a recog-

nizably social thought, it is intimately blended with a strong humani-
tarian zeal. The present day novelist can hardly alienate himself from
his milieu; nor can he help assume the role of the seer who sees truth
and the essential harmony behind things of life. Such a presentation
of life is, as RK Dhawan says quite justifiably, ‘propagandist in the sense
that any frank statement of facts is bound to appeal for their
correctness.’3
Coolie, admittedly, is a prose epic in which Munoo, the protagonist,
represents specific stages of the proletarian novel corresponding to five
acts of a tragic play; we have a vivid panorama of life in India of the
contemporary time. Munoo’s life at the beginning of the novel is typical
of the underprivileged class. He is an orphan boy of dispossessed parents,
an innocent little boy in the village of Bilaspur in the Kangra hills. His
father had died a slow death of disappointment since he failed to repay
the interest of his loan to his landlord. Munoo saw and could never
forget his helplessness as well as the tragic death of his mother conse-
quent to the death of his father. Inspite of these sad memories and
ill-treatment from his uncle and aunt, Munoo seems to be quite happy.
Before he leaves for good the idyllic surroundings of mountains in
search of a livelihood, he is a sensitive and intelligent boy full of animal
spirits and vivacity: ‘He would hop on to the trunk like a monkey,
climb the bigger branches on all fours, swing himself to the thinner
offshoots as if he were dancing on a trapeze. [. . .]’4 In the house of
34
Babu Nathoo Ram he becomes a servant. The delight of the village boy
at the sight of the corrupt city vanishes very soon, as Bibiji makes his
life a veritable hell. He has a dreadful routine of domestic servility and
is drudged along from early morning to late evening. Often he thinks
of his sad plight and tries to find out the reason behind his sufferings:
‘“What am I—Munoo?” he asked himself as he lay wrapped in his
blanket, early one morning. “I am Munoo, Babu Nathoo Ram’s servant,”
the answer came to his mind’ (46). Slowly he becomes convinced of
his inferior social position and promises himself that he would be a
good servant. He realizes that money indeed is a necessity and concludes
‘there must only be two kinds of people in the world: the rich and the
poor’ (69). Now, Munoo runs away, ending up in Daulatpur where he
is employed in a pickle factory by the compassionate Prabha Dyal and
his unscrupulous partner, Ganpat. In spite of the personal care he
receives from Prabha and his wife, he often feels sad and what relieved
these fits of depression was ‘the silent comradeship which existed between
him and the other coolies’ (109). In the dingy, sordid and suffocating
atmosphere of the primitive factory, Munoo has to work very hard.
Anand describes this as a wretched place where the labourers
worked from day to day in the dark underworld, full of the intense heat
of blazing furnaces and the dense malodorous smells. [. . .] They worked
long hours, from dawn to past midnight, so mechanically that they never
noticed the movements of their own or each other’s hands (110).
Things turn worse when he becomes jobless as the factory is closed

down because of Ganpat’s forgery and treachery. The penultimate section
of the novel describes Munoo’s life as a labourer in Bombay in the
cotton mill. Far from being the land of desire, Bombay proves a night-
mare. The poverty and suffering he sees in the city streets horrify him.
He realizes the bitter truth: ‘The bigger a city is, the more cruel it is
to the sons of Adam. [. . .] You have to pay even for the breath that
you breathe’ (177). The cotton mills and their soul-killing atmosphere
expose the exploitation of the Indian proletariat by the British imperial-
ists. Munoo is only one of the herds of nondescript labourers victimized
by the English masters. Anand’s political sympathy for the workers
comes out strongly as he depicts the harsh lives of the workers and
35
their families, the squalor of the Bombay slums and the exploitation
of the moneylenders. The workers, including wives and children, have
to labour hard through long hours; their wages are inadequate, even
the barest amenities of life are denied to them:
There was nowhere for the coolies working in the factory to wash, except
at a pump in the grounds. [. . .] There was nowhere to go for a meal.
[. . .] only a man with two baskets of plain roasted gram and cheap
sugar-coated stuff sat outside the factory (215).
Both Munoo and Hari, who got him the job at the cotton mill, become
targets of exploitation by the head foreman of the cotton mill and by
the Pathan gatekeeper. No less are they exploited by a strict shopkeeper
who sells grocery to workmen, charging high rates of interest. The
description of life at the cotton mill is meant to provoke anger and
moral indignation. Anand’s avowed purpose as a writer of the thirties
is to treat literature as a testimony to the rampant oppression of the
underdogs and corruption of the higher classes. The friction between
the British mill owners and the workers leads to a serious consequence;
the strike that takes place turns into a Hindu-Muslim riot in which a
large number of people are murdered. The massacre is aggravated by a
Muslim leader. During the riot, as Munoo tries to escape the scene, he
is knocked down by the car of Mrs Mainwaring, a coquettish Anglo-
Indian lady, who, however, takes him to Simla and employs him as a
personal servant. Munoo by this time has grown into a handsome young
fellow and she makes him her rickshaw puller and lover. In this chapter,
Anand is shown in his bitterest role. Munoo has to carry another human
being, a woman. The excessively toilsome work tells seriously on Munoo’s
health and he dies of consumption. At the bare age of sixteen, Munoo
dies—Anand intends to focus attention on the injustice of society and
the evils of the prevalent economic system.
Anand’s panoramic presentation of Indian society in Coolie is based
on his socialist ideas but his social realism is blended with his humani-
tarian zeal. As he himself writes:
I did stick to the novel form, more or less, as an imaginative interpreta-

tion of Indian life rather than use it as a vehicle to sermonize. And the
36
posing of the problems of human beings in the ‘30s by people like

Malraux, Celine and Hemingway gave the necessary sense of discrimin-
ation to my own treatment of the predicament of our people as against
the European view.5
In his essay, ‘Why I Write?’, Anand unequivocally asserts that
truth alone should matter to a writer [. . .] truth should become imagin-

ative truth, without losing sincerity. The novel should interpret the truth
of life, from felt experience, and not from books.6
RD
1. Mulk Raj Anand, ‘The Sources of Protest in My Novels’, in K Venkata

Reddy and P Bayapa Reddy, The Indian Novel with a Social Purpose,
New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 1999, p. 26.
2. KRS Iyengar, Indian Writing in English, 5th ed., New Delhi: Sterling,
1985, p. 340.
3. Rajinder Kumar Dhawan, The Novels of Mulk Raj Anand, New Delhi:
Prestige, 1992, p. 64.
4. Mulk Raj Anand, Coolie, New Delhi: Arnold Association, 1981, p.
12. Subsequent references from this work are given in the paper itself.
5. As quoted in: Dhawan, 1992, p. 55.
6. Mulk Raj Anand, ‘Why I Write’, in Creative Aspects of Indian English,
ed. by Shantinath K Desai, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1995, p. 26.
37
3.1.3 Anand’s Humanism in Coolie
In his book, Author to Critic, Anand writes:
I was mistaken for a proletarian writer, a social realist. This is nonsense.

[. . .] I never abandoned human beings in order to pursue a theory.
[. . .] I wanted to create in Coolie a boy in all his humaneness, as
against the fantastic Kim.1
In fact, he had to come to terms with a tendency to contradiction

within himself, despite the fact that the primary patterns of his world-
view remain anti-traditional and Marxist–humanist.
In his essay ‘Why I Write?’ MR Anand states his position about art
and literature: ‘I have always considered literature and art as the instru-
ments of humanism.’2 As a writer, he says again, he tried to drink from
the sources of love, especially of the people, and invest them in his own
exuberant passion, by joining in the ‘burning and melting’3 that goes
on in life at its intense. As a novelist, his aim was to delineate the
human conditions in various degrees of reality. One chief feature of his
humanism is his belief that all issues and philosophy without exception
hold that the exploitation of a man by man should be terminated
decisively. The coercive forces, such as capitalism, colonialism, fascism
and communalism must be destroyed. For him, a truly humanist art
is proportional to the needs of the time. In his novels, he gave his best
to uplift the dignity of the underdog and to engender sympathy in the
hearts of man for the oppressed and the downtrodden. Though a Marxist
in his beliefs, he did not actually join the mainstream of communism,
while he accepted the Marxist view that it is not the consciousness of

man which determined their existence but that it was the social exist-
ence of men which determined their consciousness. He found a greater
appeal in the ethics of socialism than in its dialectical aspect. Anand
himself described his attitude as one of comprehensive historical
humanism, combining in itself ambivalent responses to East and West,
tradition and modernity. His humanism represents a mingling of the
Hellenic idea of man as the measure of all things, the Renaissance idea
of all-round human development, a belief in the possibility of a better
world-order achieved through science and international cooperation, a
rejection of caste barriers, an affirmation of the brotherhood of man
and recognition of the so-called untouchables as human beings entitled
to equal rights and opportunities. These various aspects of Anand’s
humanism are suggested and indicated, not projected in any systematic
manner in his novels. Hence his novels are never propaganda novels in
a way Aldous Huxley’s novels are; nor are they doctrinal like George
Orwell’s. The exposure of social evils like the exploitation of child labour,
poverty, malpractices of the legal system, malfunctioning of schools is
almost in the Dickensian tradition.
We may now consider whether Anand in Coolie unconsciously allows
the humanist in him to get the better of the artist. The novel may be
regarded as a kind of proletarian novel, focusing as it does on the predica-
ment of the underprivileged—a labourer or a coolie is mercilessly pitted
against the injustice of Indian society which treats servants as outcasts.
More than that, it pinpoints capitalist domination and the role of money
as a key factor in all spheres of life. This is what Munoo, the central
character of the novel, learns in his short life. Anand has always reiterated
that the less privileged men in a country like India have been deliberately
kept at the level of sub-humanity. In Apology for Heroism, Anand bemoans
the plight of the coolie: ‘it never seemed to have entered the heads of
our masters,’ says Anand, ‘to give the coolies the slightest chance of
bettering themselves. They were supposed to be sub-human.’4 Munoo
represents specific phases of proletariat existence in specific settings. It is
in a typical proletarian manner that Munoo’s life begins. The first chapter
of Coolie opens with Munoo’s name dramatically initiating the theme of
purposelessness: ‘Munoo ohe Munooa oh Mundu! Where have you died?
[. . .] Your uncle is leaving soon. You must go to the town’5 The boy
39
who is going to be uprooted is already lost. His life in a village was hard;
his father died a victim of a mortgage covering the unpaid rent for which
the landlord grabbed his five acres of land; his mother died of hard labour.
Munoo had a vague idea of the cause of his misery, when he set out to
earn his living, at the early age of fourteen. His uncle thinks he must
earn for himself and arranges a job for him at Sham Nagar. The socio-
economic problem of villagers forced into debt becomes a personal tragedy.
Munoo reaches Sham Nagar with his uncle through whom Anand
explores the Indian middle-class family and its philosophy of respect-
ability. The theme of money is related to the middle-class ethos and
Munoo comes across this in the course of his life’s journey, when from
a fifth-class student he is reduced to a domestic servant with a paltry
wage of five rupees a month. In this part of the novel, Anand analyzes
the miserable life of the domestic servant and the snobbery of the Babu
class. The transition from the one to the other is achieved through the
incident of Munoo relieving himself at the kitchen doorstep as he did
not know where the latrine was. Nathoo Ram’s wife hurls abuses at
him quite in the manner of the bourgeois class obsessed with the idea
of respectability. She judges herself by the standards of the others: ‘What
will the sahibs think [. . .] the Babuji has his prestige to keep up with
the sahibs’ (28). Again, Munoo is slapped for his failure at the tea party;
in the eyes of the masters it is quite natural to abuse a servant. The
metaphysical enquiry—‘what am I—Munoo?’ (46)—has earlier been
answered in the simplest terms: ‘I am Munoo, Babu Nathoo Ram’s
servant’ (46). Munoo slowly becomes conscious of class and caste
distinctions as prevalent in rural or urban hierarchy: ‘[c]aste did not
matter. [. . .] There must only be two kinds of people in the world:
the rich and the poor’ (69). Unable to put up with the abuses any more,
Munoo runs away. Munoo then reaches the feudal town of Daulatpur,
another stop on his way to Bombay. The progress of Munoo is in fact
a movement of the flux of history from the primitive to the most
developed forms of economic activities. It is paralleled on still another
level by Munoo’s development from early adolescence and relative
innocence to maturity. In Daulatpur, Munoo is employed in a primitive
pickle factory jointly owned by Prabha Dyal and Ganpat, who represent
two ways of petit-bourgeois thinking. Generous and sentimental Prabha
Dyal thinks of adopting Munoo as his son. In his business too, he is
40
an honest but thick-headed human being. He treats Ganpat as family.

The failure of his business partnership is a foregone conclusion; but his
relationship with Munoo does not fail as it has no economic basis. The
implied irony is subtle and piercing. Anand shows the need of love for
an orphan who reciprocates it; yet he is not unaware of the truth that
economic forces tend to outweigh human wants. It is a pity that Prabha
Dyal cannot hold his own as he is reduced to bankruptcy by Ganpat’s
forgery. He is hurled back to the status of a coolie from where he once
rose to success. Unlike Prabha, Ganpat represents the urban approach
to life; he abuses and beats the labourers: ‘[w]e need a log of wood to
awaken a log of wood’ (94). He beats Tulsi for daring to comb his hair
and resents Prabha’s affection for them.
With the downfall of Prabha Dyal Munoo enters a new phase of
experience. He is now a daily wage earner. The wage earners are treated
as uncouth, dirty people to be rebuked, abused and beaten like donkeys.
However, the coolies want food more than religious blessings. The
fourth chapter of the novel describes Munoo’s experience at Bombay
through which Anand exposes the appalling conditions of the coolies
in the Bombay textile industry. The elephant driver warns him against
the miseries which he suffers from: ‘[t]he bigger a city is, the more
cruel it is to the sons of Adam’ (177). Sir George White’s cotton mill,
in which Munoo is employed, serves to bring out the exploitation of
the Indian proletariat by the British imperialists. The labourers, including
wives and children, have long working hours while the wages they earn
are quite meagre. The workers are denied the bare necessities of life.
Anand’s concern for the oppressed classes takes up the form of strong
criticism. When, under the influence of the communist leader of Red
Flag Union, the workers get ready to go on strike, the management,
by spreading a false rumour, engineers a communal riot in which people
of both the communities are murdered and Munoo narrowly escapes.
It is noteworthy that in this chapter, Anand’s own ideological position
is uncertain. He knows that in such conditions, the position of the
coolies is uncertain and marginal Anand is Marxist enough to realize
the difficulties of the conversion of the coolies to socialistic ideas, or
to put it differently, he is artist enough to keep his intellectual concerns
in ambiguous suspension. In short, we are aware of Anand’s refusal to
put the demands of reality into a personal and subjective framework.
41
William Walsh thinks that humanism is the quality working right

through Coolie, where Anand shows himself to be one of the first Indian
writers to look on the savagely neglected, despised and maltreated poor
with anger and helpless resignation. With an unmitigated indignation
at the condition of the poor he portrays Munoo, the waif-hero, and
his psychological growth from boyhood to adolescence—it reminds the
reader of Dickens’s vivacious delineation of boy-protagonists like Oliver
Twist and David Copperfield. Last but not least, we may refer to
Christopher Caudwell’s exposition of the connection between form and
ideology, which has relevance to Anand’s artistic credo. For Caudwell,
literary expression and ideological theory are complementary aspects of
a single path.6 As SC Harrex observes in ‘Western Ideology and Eastern
Forms of Fiction: The Case of Mulk Raj Anand’:
Anand would seem to require that he be judged as a writer according to

how successfully he fulfils the Marxist requirements of the artist. His roman-
ticism (or desire image) is equivalent to the species of Utopianism whereby
Marxists idealize the deterministic end-product of the socio-economic
dialectic—the image of a just society in which the state will wither away.7
Anand, however, puts it in a different way, asserting that the new myth
of love (brotherhood) and the ethic of a new humanism (‘revolutionary
romanticism’) will fulfil both collective and individual dreams as a result
of a ‘struggle for the deepest socialism and the deepest human person-
ality’.8 A few years later, Anand asserts quite significantly: ‘I would like
to prove that a new contemporary myth (of growth to awareness) of
the whole potential man is possible. [. . .] It is possible to have a
contemporary myth.’ Perhaps in his Apology for Heroism, he is more
forthright in stressing his faith:
Though I believe in realism, I am, as I have said, for a poetic realism.

[. . .] And just as I found myself insisting on [. . .] just as I desired [. . .]
a view of the whole man, in order that a completely new kind of revo-
lutionary human may arise, so I have been inclined to stress the need
for a truly humanist art commensurate with the needs of our time.9
RD
42
1. As quoted in: SC Harrex, ‘Western Ideology and Eastern Forms of Fiction:

The Case of Mulk Raj Anand’, in Asian and Western Writers in Dialogue:
New Cultural Identities, ed. by Guy Amirthanayagam, London u.a.: The
Macmillan Press, 1982, pp. 142–58, as reproduced in <http://www.enotes.
com/contemporary-literary-criticism/anand-mulk-raj/s-c-harrex-essay-
date-1982> [accessed 10th December 2009].
2. Mulk Raj Anand, ‘Why I Write’, in Creative Aspects of Indian English, ed.
by Shantinath K Desai, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1995, p. 29.
3. Ibid, p. 29.
4. Mulk Raj Anand, Apology for Heroism: A Brief Autobiography of Ideas,
Mayfair Paperbacks, New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann, 1975, p. 113.
5. Mulk Raj Anand, Coolie, New Delhi: Arnold Association, 1981, p. 9.
Subsequent references from this work are given in the paper itself.
6. See SC Harrex’s article: Harrex, 1982.
7. As quoted in: Ibid (1982).
8. As quoted in: Ibid (1982).
9. Anand, 1975, p. 128–129.
43
3.1.4 The Plot of Coolie
Form and content are indispensable parts of any work of art worth the
name. In fiction the reader expects the story to be told in such a manner
that while making him aware of the work’s purpose or motive, propa-
gandist or otherwise, it also impresses him with unity of action, that
is, a skilled organization of events and situations in organic relationship
with the characters. The unities of time and place may not be observed,
since they are not so essential in a novel of epical range like Tolstoy’s
War and Peace (1869), Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940),
Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago (1957) or Mulk Raj Anand’s Coolie (1936).
Anand’s first novel, Untouchable (1935), was a great success—here even
unities of time and place are observed and, to an extent, the unity of
action, though in the novel a series of incidents and episodes occur
which are not very closely interwoven.
In Coolie, however, there is no well-knit plot and hence no so-called
unity of action. The reason perhaps lies in that Anand pays more atten-
tion to the theme and content than to the structural aspects.
Craftsmanship is not his forte; he decides upon a theme and then
proceeds to invent a plot only to illustrate that theme. The theme of
Coolie is the underprivileged and their hardships and suffering resulting
from poverty and unemployment, social injustice and inhumanity. But
the plot he develops here to work out this theme does not have an
organic unity; it consists of a long series of events and situations, episodes
of different kinds, involving the boy-protagonist, Munoo, and numerous
other individuals and groups of people who, however, are integral to
those events and situations. But these do not follow one another in a
cause-effect relationship; they are mostly coincidental happenings

without any palpable authorial design or premeditated plan. For
example, Munoo gets the job of domestic servant in Babu Nathoo
Ram’s house on the recommendation of his uncle; but the rest of the
story is a series of chance happenings as episodic as the story of a
picaresque novel; Munoo meets Prabha Dyal just by chance; he happens
to get the timely help of an elephant driver in a circus by chance; it is
again by chance that he saves a boy from being run over and thus
becomes acquainted with Hari who later turns out to be a good friend;
he comes to know Ratan by chance; again, he is knocked down by a
passing car on a road in Bombay and is eventually taken to Simla by
Mrs Mainwaring, an Anglo-Indian lady who happens to own the car.
The only unity about this string of happenings lies in that the protago-
nist stands at the centre of these events, imparting to the novel whatever
unity it does have. This lack of unity is borne out by the fact that any
chapter or section of the novel can be read separately and enjoyed. The
novel is divided into five chapters, corresponding to the five acts of a
tragedy, as it were. The first presents Munoo, an orphan boy of dispos-
sessed parents, an innocent little imp in the village of Bilaspur in the
Kangra hills. The second chapter describes Munoo’s life as a servant in
the house of Babu Nathoo Ram in Sham Nagar. The third recounts his
experiences as a worker in a pickle factory at Daulatpur. The next
chapter deals with Munoo’s life as a labourer in Bombay at the British-
owned Sir George White Cotton Mills. The final chapter describe the
boy-protagonist as a servant and rickshaw coolie in the employ of a
promiscuous Eurasian, Mrs Mainwaring in Simla. When the reader
comes to the end of the novel, most characters and events in the
preceding chapters are nearly blotted out from his memory or grow
fainter to the point of obliteration. All these stages of the story-
framework are not interwoven into a well-organized pattern.
A word or two on whether the last chapter of Coolie has any struc-
tural relevance would not be out of place. It may be that Anand wanted
to show Munoo undergoing some further experiences. Perhaps he
thought that Munoo’s life as a rickshaw coolie would seem, to the
reader, to be an even greater ordeal. But the elaborate portrayal of Mrs
Mainwaring, Munoo’s Anglo-Indian mentor in this final chapter, is a
palpable flaw in the structure. Of course, her story is gripping and her
45
character interesting and even engrossing. But her portrayal in elaborate

terms is not proportional to that of other characters. Anand may have
wanted to ventilate his personal prejudices against the Anglo-Indian
community. But from the aesthetic point of view, it was a blunder to
dwell too much on her past history and her present life. Further, her
portrayal in this part of the novel seems to overshadow that of Munoo;
it is only when the narrator comes to the last phase of Munoo’s illness
and his premature death that Munoo regains the importance he deserves
as the protagonist of the novel.
It may be observed that the plot construction in the novel is in a
sense commendable because it has thematic unity, though not the
so-called unity of action. The wretchedness and misery resulting from
poverty and capitalist exploitation of the unemployed and the under-
privileged is most effectively conveyed in the depiction of the experiences
of Munoo and his associates: Munoo, the domestic servant in Babu
Nathoo Ram’s house, Munoo, the factory worker in Daulatpur, Munoo,
as a coolie in the grain market, in the vegetable market and in the lanes
and by-lanes of Daulatpur, Munoo as a mill worker in Bombay and
finally Munoo as a rickshaw coolie in Simla. In all these phases of life,
Munoo is always the victim of the existing social system. The portrayal
is done in detail and most convincingly. Tulsi, Maharaj, Bonga, Ratan,
Hari, Laksami and Mohan—all belong to the suffering class. On the
other hand, Bibi Uttam Kaur, Ganpat, Jimmie Thomas, the Pathan
gatekeeper, the Sikh shopkeeper and the sahib-logs of Simla are so
realistically depicted as to impress the reader as convincing tyrants and
blood-suckers. In this connection, we may refer to the fact that Anand
had employed a few interlinking devices to relate the various sections
of the novel to each other or rather to establish an apparent connection
between one and the other. These devices of parallelism and contrast
are evident in the five sections of the novel. At every stage, there is
someone who is genuinely interested in Munoo’s welfare and tries to
come to his help. In the opening section Munoo has his supporters in
some of the village boys who strongly dislike Jai Singh, Munoo’s rival. In
the town of Sham Nagar he is confronted by Dr Prem Chand, while
in Daulatpur he receives love and affection from Prabha and Parvati. In
Bombay he is looked after first by Hari and then by Ratan. In Simla
his patron is Mrs Mainwaring. Side by side this device of parallelism,
46
we find in every section some character opposing Munoo or being cruel

to him. Jai Singh, Bibiji, Ganpat, Jimmmie Thomas inflict cruelty and
even Mrs Mainwaring unintentionally tortures him and treats the hapless
boy in the cruellest manner. This contrast is a novelistic representation
of the essential class differences, the conflict between the rich and the
poor. Most think the plot construction of Coolie is not an utter failure.
The plot is not an organic one but like the plots of Dickens’s novels
like Pickwick Papers (1837) and David Copperfield (1850) it impresses
the reader by its range of characters and situations, its panoramic sweep
and mostly by Anand’s exclusive emphasis on the importance of human
values in the world of injustice and exploitation in a complexly struc-
tured social system.
RD
47
3.1.5 The Theme of Exploitation in Coolie
There is no denying that Mulk Raj Anand was initiated in Marxism

but he was not a doctrinaire Marxist. Since Anand had socialistic
sympathies, it is natural that in his early novels like Untouchable, Coolie,
and Two Leaves and a Bud we should find a deep sympathy for the
working class which takes the form of a strong protest against exploit-
ation of labour as the central theme of his works. The Marxist creed
perhaps offered Anand a handle to the exploration of and a solution
to the sufferings of the poor and the unemployed in India. This element
of protest in the novels derives from Anand’s view of life.
For the central character of Coolie Anand took up Munoo, the
name of one of his childhood playmates, who was confined to labour
in a pickle factory and who unhesitatingly accepted his fate with the
kind of fatalism peculiar to the Indian peasantry. The novel is a
pathetic odyssey of Munoo, an orphan boy from the Kangra hills,
who steps out in search of a stable livelihood but whose life ends in
a pathetic manner. The novel, broadly socialistic, is an indignant
comment on the tragic denial to a peasant boy of the fundamental
right to happiness. In the process of telling his story Anand brings
out with elaborate narrative method and artistic insight the theme of
exploitation—how Munoo and his fellow workers are exploited at
various levels by the forces of industrialization, capitalism, commu-
nalism and colonialization.
Munoo, a fourteen year old orphan boy, hails from the mountainous
region of Kangra valley. Despite the ill-treatment meted out to him
unsparingly by his uncle and aunt, Munoo is happy and contented.
The initial stages of his life are the recurrent life-pattern of the under-
privileged classes. He is a victim of feudal exploitation at an early stage
of his life. His father died a slow death of bitterness and disappointment
because he was unable to pay interest for the mortgage owing to scanty
rains and bad harvest. The most horrible sight that shocked Munoo’s
sensitive nature was that of his mother’s death. ‘[T]he sight of her as
she had lain dead on the ground with a horrible yet sad, set expression
on her face’1 had sunk into his subconscious with all its weight of tragic
and utter resignation. Perhaps a novelist of lesser calibre would have
been tempted to describe Munoo’s life in the village as ideally happy
so as to heighten by contrast the pain he is to suffer later in the city;
in doing so he would have prematurely unmasked the terrible destiny
awaiting his hero. Anand, on the contrary, makes life in the village no
paradisial existence but holds out the prospect that the city might be
better. Hence there is hope and in its betrayal, irony. Even at a young
age, Munoo is deprived of the right to live. His uncle was one of the
first exploiters, the reason, perhaps, being poverty. The uncle takes the
boy to the small town of Sham Nagar, where he is employed as a servant
in the house of Babu Nathoo Ram at five rupees a month; ‘more money,
in fact, than your mother or father ever saw’ (34), says the housewife,
Bibi Uttam Kaur, a snobbish termagant. This may well be true since
Munoo’s parents died of starvation. Munoo’s life of drudgery from
morning to night in the household is made all the more miserable by
the invectives and insults he gets from the cruel mistress of the house.
An instance would be relevant in the context. Within hours of his
arrival Munoo, unable to find the latrine, has relieved himself at their
kitchen doorstep. He is labelled by his mistress as a ‘shameless, vulgar,
stupid, hill-boy’ (28). When, however, he complains to his uncle about
the suffering he has to undergo at Babu Nathoo Ram’s house, the uncle
silences him by reminding him that he is their servant. He asks himself
who he is and the answer comes instantly to his mind: ‘I am Munoo,
Babu Nathoo Ram’s servant’ (46). Before he runs away from hellish
Sham Nagar, he recalls his uncle’s words: ‘[m]oney is everything’ (69).
The conclusion he draws then is essentially a precept, as it were, of
Marx: ‘there must only be two kinds of people in the world: the rich
and the poor’ (69). Wherever he goes, he is fated to be exploited.
Fleeing from Sham Nagar he reaches Daulatpur, where he is employed
49
in a pickle factory by the kind-hearted Prabha Dyal and his corrupt

partner Ganpat. Prabha and his wife had a soft corner and the personal
care he receives from them is very soothing to him. Munoo is too weak
to work very hard in the dark, suffocating pickle factory where the
labourers ‘worked from day to day in the dark underworld, full of the
intense heat of blazing furnaces and the dense malodorous smells of
brewing essences, spices and treacle, of dust and ashes and mud’ (110).
Things become worse as Prabha goes bankrupt and the factory is closed
because of the forgery of his partner Ganpat. In the preceding chapter
the relationship of master and servant was explored. And now Anand
goes on to show the relationship between equals. Philip Henderson
rightly states: ‘Coolie takes us into a world in which the comradeship
of man for man exists only among the very poorest people.’2 The world
of the poor remains one of comradeship and ‘common humanity’,3
while that of the rich is one of hysteria and nightmares. In this chapter
Anand shows that the small manufacturers are quite unconcerned about
labour welfare.
Unhealthy working conditions of the factories and the moral and
physical degradation of the workers are interconnected. Industrial and
colonial exploitation, another facet of Anand’s central theme, is presented
on a large and even more harrowing scale in the Bombay phase of his
life. When, leaving Daulatpur, Munoo reaches Bombay, the elephant
driver warns him: ‘The bigger a city is, the more cruel it is to the sons
of Adam . . .’ (177).
He is employed in the cotton mill and faces the full force of industrial
and colonial exploitation. The cotton mill is brought in by Anand to
expose the exploitation of the Indian proletariat by the British imperial-
ists. Munoo here finds himself among the herd of anonymous workers,
cheated and victimized by the English masters. The labourers, including
wives and children, have to work for many hours and the wages they
earn are quite inadequate to keep the body and the soul together. The
bare amenities are denied. These poor and underprivileged workers are
victims of exploitation whether in Daulatpur or in Bombay. The life and
the hardships of the poor never change, only the scale varies; the
larger the city is the more ruthless the exploitation.
Anand also focuses on the severe consequences resulting from
communal exploitation. It is the poor working class that suffers the
50
most. The workers strike in the cotton mill; the unity of the workers
crumbles as bits of casual rumour of communal disturbances float in
the air, resulting in a murderous Hindu-Muslim riot. The fires of
communal hatred are further flamed by the politicians who have their
own axes to the grind. In this communal riot the already exploited
workers are further exploited—they lose their jobs, their earnings and
their lives and their means of livelihood is destroyed. It does credit to
Anand that the theme of exploitation is focused in its various forms.
Last but not least, the poor are not even free from sexual exploitation
by members of the privileged class. This becomes evident in the last
chapter. After being knocked down by a car Munoo is taken to a
hospital. Mrs Mainwaring, the owner of the car, employs Munoo as
her page-cum-rickshaw puller. She is described as ‘a bitch to all the
dogs that prowled round her bungalow’ (288). She uses Munoo sexu-
ally, which is suggested by the other coolies. Munoo’s premature death
from tuberculosis is supposedly caused more by Munoo’s enforced sexual
excesses than by the physical strain of pulling a rickshaw.
In Coolie this central theme of exploitation at various levels and in
varying degrees has been presented chiefly through Munoo’s adventures
and his journeys from pillar to post, the desperate struggle for survival
of the working class, their resistance against the hardships thrust on
them by British industrialism and capitalism. It may be pointed out
that Anand’s humanism leads him to pinpoint this exploitation in the
miserable life of the untouchables, coolies, peasants, poor villagers and
the underdogs of society. He selects a pariah like Bakha, a waif like
Munoo and a labourer like Gangu as central characters of his novels
only to unfold the lurid spectacle of victimization and exploitation. The
landlords, the priests, the government officials and the factory managers
are the agents of such exploitation. In a sense, Anand’s Coolie may be
justifiably regarded as ‘an epic of misery.’4
RD
51
2. Philip Henderson, The Novel Today: Studies in Contemporary Attitudes,
London: John Lane, 1936, p. 256.
3. Ibid, p. 256.
4. As said by MK Bhatnagar. See: MK Bhatnagar, and M Rajeshwar, Indian
Writings in English, New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors,
1996, p. 41.
52
3.1.6 Coolie as a Picaresque Novel
The ‘picaresque’ mode of fictional writing is a distinct literary genre

with its origin in sixteenth century Spain. It narrates the chequered life
of a knave or ‘picaroon’ (a Spanish hero) who is the servant of several
masters. Through his experiences the picaroon satirizes the society in
which he lives. This fictional type is realistic in manner, episodic in
structure and often satiric in aim. The first lively English example of
this fictional form was Thomas Nashe’s The Unfortunate Traveller (1594);
the most popular instance, Gil Blas (1715–1735), was written by the
Frenchman Alain-René Lesage. In many later novels we recognize the
survival of the picaresque type, for example, Mark Twain’s The Adventures
of Tom Sawyer (1876), Fielding’s Jonathan Wild (1759), Smollett’s
Roderick Random (1748) and the like. The development of the novel
owes much to prose works which, like the picaresque story, were written
to deflect romantic or idealized fictional forms. Cervantes’s Don Quixote
(1606 & 1615) is a great quasi-picaresque narrative, satirizing the foolish
adventures of an engaging madman who tries to live by the ideals of
chivalric romance in the everyday world.
Coolie, which is generally regarded as a novel in the picaresque tradi-
tion, has for its protagonist a fourteen-year-old boy who travels from
place to place—from Daulatpur to Bombay and eventually to Simla.
Circumstances of his life make it necessary for him to move from pillar
to post for a bare living. However, Munoo, the protagonist, is no rogue
or ‘picaroon’ in the conventional sense; on the contrary he is the victim
of the world’s rogueries. That Anand has a natural disposition towards
the picaresque is borne out by his trilogy—The Village, Across the Black
Waters and The Sword and the Sickle. The hero of the novels, Lalu, a
peasant boy, moves from his village to various other places in India and
abroad, his journey finally ending in India. Now, in Anand’s well-known
novel Coolie, Munoo too, passes through many untoward and unex-
pected experiences, facing hardships and exploitations during his move-
ments from one place to another, though such experiences are not,
strictly speaking, adventures of the picaresque kind.
At the beginning of the novel Munoo’s fight with the two servants,
Varma and Lehnu, may be called his first adventure. Again, Munoo’s
journey on foot from his village in the mountains to the town of Sham
Nagar in the company of his uncle is also a kind of adventure—romantic
as it appears to the boy; his stay, with the painstaking duties it entails,
as a domestic servant in Babu Nathoo Ram’s house is an experience for
the boy who cannot forget the ill and unfeeling treatment meted out
to him by Bibiji, Nathoo Ram’s wife. When he is beaten by his master
for biting his daughter Sheila’s cheek, he flees from the house and has
to take shelter in the compartment of a train, without the least idea of
what would now happen to him—a real adventure for the sensitive and
imaginative adolescent. During his stay at Daulatpur as an employee
in a pickle factory he finds himself in strange circumstances. For stealing
mangoes from the factory and developing sore eyes as a result of over-
eating he gets a sound beating—another adventurous episode in his
life. Again, the brutal treatment his master, Prabha Dyal, gets at the
police station is an immensely disturbing experience for Munoo who
had got affectionate treatment from Prabha. The next adventurous
episode takes place in the boy’s life when he seeks protection and guid-
ance from a ‘yogi’ who turns out to be a scoundrel.
Munoo wins the favour of the elephant driver of the circus and travels
to Bombay with his help. While in Bombay, Munoo’s experiences are no
less thrilling. First, he saves a little boy from being run over by the heavy
traffic on the road. He becomes acquainted with the parents of the boy
and is eventually initiated into the family as one of the members. Through
Hari’s help he gets a job at the cotton mill where on the very first day
he has a hair-breadth escape from being caught in the machine. Another
fresh experience he has in Bombay is a visit to the red light area in the
company of Ratan, a wrestler, who works in the same mill. But the most
exciting adventure is his involvement in the turmoil that occurs when
54
the management of the mill announces a curtailment of the working

days for reducing the wage bill and keeping up the profits. Conditions
of work in the mill are no better. The foreman, Jimmie Thomas, is a
tyrannical fellow; the working hours are long, the creditors are numerous
and wicked, the occasional destitute seen on the streets of Daulatpur is
replaced by a vast gathering of pavement dwellers. We may note here
how deftly and laconically they are described: ‘in a corner a coolie lay
huddled, pillowing his head on his arm, shrinking into himself as if he
were afraid to occupy too much space.’1 The most agonizing sight is
presented when Hari, along with his family, and Munoo reach a place
unoccupied by anybody. As they stand wandering, a half-naked woman
cries out between smothered sobs: ‘My husband died there last night!’
(190). As CD Narasimhaiah comments: ‘death has ceased to frighten the
poor [. . .] it is life that is a threat, and death is a release as Hari puts
it.’2 In the course of communal clashes Munoo is assaulted by a couple
of Muslims and is thrown down on the ground. Munoo escapes death
by pretending to be dead. Munoo here has a new experience of listening
to the speeches of political leaders, like Lalla Onkar Nath and the commu-
nist-minded Sauda. Munoo, after being knocked down by a passing car,
is taken to Simla by an Anglo-Indian woman, where a new kind of ordeal
awaits him. We must bear in mind that we look at the world through
Munoo’s eyes and at the starving millions for whom the middle class
does not exist: ‘there must only be two kinds of people in the world: the
rich and the poor’ (69). In Simla, Munoo is pampered by Mrs Mainwaring
and subjected to excessive toil. As a consequence of working as a rickshaw
coolie, Munoo catches tuberculosis and eventually dies a wretched death.
The elaborate account of Munoo’s experiences and adventures at different
places clearly reveals the picaresque quality of the novel, but Munoo is
not himself an adventurous young man; he does not put up a fight like
the protagonist of a picaresque novel. Nowhere in the course of his journey
does he rebel against the injustice and economic inequality of the system
of which he is a victim. He passively submits to the adverse circumstances,
perhaps even more passively than Bakha in Anand’s novel, Untouchable.
The term ‘picaresque’, thus, can be applied to the novel Coolie in a very
limited sense.
RD
55
2. As quoted in: Dr Shyam Bihari Tiwari, ‘Death in the Novels of Mulk
Raj Anand’, in Amar Nath Prasad and S. John Peter Joseph, Indian Writing
in English: Critical Ruminations, Vol. 2, New Delhi: Sarup & Sons, 2006,
p. 53
56
3.1.7 Coolie: An Epic in Prose
An epic is a long verse narrative describing in detail incidents and

actions of a heroic kind and inculcating certain lofty moral ideas,
reflecting in the process the entire life of a nation and its people. With
the progress of time the distinction between verse and prose has grown
fainter, almost to non-existence. Fielding’s Tom Jones (1749), for instance,
is significantly described as a ‘comic epic in prose’.1 The modern novel
is the epic of a quickly changing world. When the English novelists
began to look at man and tell the story of English life, the world had
changed so much that the high ‘epic’ style of old was difficult to achieve
or sustain. Scott escaped from the sordid present into the romantic
past. Even Jane Austen, a meticulous judge of men and manners of her
day, failed to offer a solution and tamely surrendered to contemporary
Puritanism. Victorian novelists sought to revive the novel. But they
failed to see beyond their immediate present; they could not rise
above the limitations imposed upon them by the age. Dickens tried
his best to restore to the novel its complete epic character. But Balzac and
Tolstoy succeeded where Scott and Dickens failed. The Frenchman
and the Russian could see through the surface respectability of contem-
porary society to the progressive deterioration of man going on beneath.
The English novelists, on the other hand, refused to shed their illusions
about society—they made an alliance with romanticism. The tragedy
of the situation lay in this compromising attitude which refused to face
the facts of an ever-changing life. The modern novelist is least concerned
with the creation of character—the modern novel has witnessed the
death of the hero and the villain. With the destruction of personality
in the novel, the epic character of the novel has also suffered some
change. Man is no longer the individual will in conflict with other wills
and personalities, for today all must be overshadowed by the immense
social conflicts shaking and transforming modern life, and thus conflict
has disappeared from the novel, being replaced by subjective struggles,
sexual intrigues, and abstract dissensions. The novelist today finds it
imperative to put in a complete picture of man, to understand and to
recreate every phase of the distinctive personality of the contemporary
man. Man is now bursting free of the bonds arbitrarily imposed on
him; his mind is trying to expand and extend itself—a new era of
human beings has begun. The novel has become the epic of this era.
Ralph Fox in his The Novel and the People asserts that the modern
novel is ‘the epic art form of our modern, bourgeois society’2 and ‘it
appears to be affected with bourgeois society’s decay in our own time.’3
Truly, it is the great folk art of the present times, the descendant of
the epic and the chanson de geste of our predecessors and it is quite
likely that the form would thrive in our industrial age. The modern
novel remains a vehicle for the expression of all the profound changes
that move us and colour the thought-process and mental make-up of
the modern generation. It would be a mistake to consider the novel
as merely fictional prose. It is the prose of modern man’s life, attempting
to present man wholly as he is. Thus, the novel gives us a more
comprehensive view of reality than that provided by the drama, the
cinema or even poetry. The novelist sees life whole and sees it complete;
we find that his view of life is three dimensional. Further, he does not
merely see life whole but by realizing the conflicts and contradictions
in the present, he ‘sees what life is becoming.’4 Even the disappearance
of human personality or more specifically the death of the hero was
already discernible in the nineteenth-century novel. It becomes clear
when we consider and analyze the novels of Flaubert, Zola and Arnold
Bennett. The modern novelist wants to bring to life ordinary people
in ordinary circumstances and therefore, of his own accord he chooses
to abandon the creation of personality, of a hero. The novelists who
rely more on purely subjective, psychological analysis than on objective
realism have reduced the creation of character to absurdity. Even James
Joyce has denuded his hero of all character. Ralph Fox significantly
observes in this connection: ‘personality no longer exists except as
58
iridescent cuttings pasted on the microscope slide. Such cuttings are

often exceedingly curious, interesting or beautiful, but they are not
living men and women.’5 He remarks: ‘the grand first declaration of
independence of the individual becomes in our time no more than a
declaration of the death of the individual in the name of the sanctity
of individualism.’6
Coming to analyze Anand’s novel Coolie as an epic in prose, we may
assert that the novel is an epical one in a loose sense. First, the protago-
nist of the novel, Munoo, is by no means a hero in the conventional
sense; he accomplishes no significant action or deed. When the story
begins he is just a village boy, hardly fourteen years old. This boy
undergoes so many experiences in the course of his brief fictional career.
These experiences are nothing more than adventures of an ordinary
kind—such as millions of young Indian boys undergo. Munoo, under
the stress of circumstances, has to shift from one place to another. At
different places he walks in different capacities: in his native village he
tends the cattle, besides attending school. He has also to endure ill-
treatment by his aunt. Then, as he goes to the town of Sham Nagar,
much against his will, his life as a domestic servant in the household
of Babu Nathoo Ram is another adventure forced upon him; Bibiji,
the mistress of the house, is more abusive than the aunt—more callous
and demanding. The only silver lining is the kindness of Dr Prem
Chand and the sportive spirit of the girl, Sheila. In his fight with a
couple of other domestic servants working in the same locality, Munoo
reveals the true spirit of a Kshatriya, although he is badly hurt. When
he is severely beaten by his master for an act of indiscretion committed
by him, he finds it impossible to continue living and working at the
place. His sense of degradation and humiliation makes him run away.
He realizes the truth of his uncle’s words that money is everything in
this world. Munoo’s fortunes now take him to Daulatpur where he is
employed in a pickle and jam factory jointly owned by the kind-
hearted Prabha and the evil-minded Ganpat. The factory itself is an
unwholesome inferno, making Munoo and the fellow workers feel
miserable. He is also beaten by Ganpat once or twice. Circumstances
change for the worst as he is deprived of the patronage of Prabha and
his wife Parbati. He now has to look for work as a coolie at the railway
station in the grain market and the vegetable market. He faces tough
59
competition here because a multitude of coolies are available while the

work is scarce. On top of all these, Munoo has an encounter with a
yogi who turns out to be a scoundrel. His life in Bombay is, however,
a greater adventure. His experiences at the cotton mill are depressing;
the condition of life for the mill workers is sordid, almost inhuman.
As a communal riot breaks out from a rumour, Munoo has a narrow
escape from the Muslims, but is knocked down by a passing car whose
owner, Mrs Mainwaring, an Anglo-Indian, picks him up and takes him
to Kalka and then to Simla. There Munoo contracts tuberculosis as he
has to undergo excessive strain to which he is subjected in the course of
his work as a rickshaw coolie. Munoo dies a premature death in a hospital.
Apart from such a detailed account of Munoo’s adventurous life we
have in the novel a vivid picture of contemporary social conditions,
more particularly the conditions of the life of millions of poor, unem-
ployed and underprivileged classes of Indian society. It is this which
imparts to the novel a panoramic quality. Coolie is the microcosm of
Indian society, a modern novel which undoubtedly has an epical range
and variety of characters and situations, giving a touching picture of a
cross section of India. This, visible, India is seen as the mixture of the
horrible and the holy, the inhuman and the human, the sordid and the
beautiful with good and evil residing in close proximity as in actual
life. Suffering is the lot of Munoo and of millions of other people; as
Lakshami rightly points out to Munoo, they all ‘belong to suffering.’
The moral values that are part of the epic poet’s aim are also present
in Anand’s novel, though the novel does not directly inculcate them in
the manner of a sermon or didactic discourse. Munoo steals mangoes
in his village and from the factory at Daulatpur, but that is only a
boyish peccadillo. On the whole, he is strictly an upright, honest, self-
respecting and conscientious young boy who deceives nobody, though
deceived by many. He even performs a ‘heroic’ act—he saves a child
from being run over by the traffic on a road in Bombay at the risk of
his own life. Besides, he has an infinite zeal for life and a craving for
fellowship. His passion for work and the will to identify himself in the
lives of other people never diminishes in his brief career. He talks and
hears people talk; he plays practical jokes on people. Like many such
characters in Anand’s novels, Munoo is lost in what Anand describes
as the pleasure of human relationships.
60
It is said with some justification that Coolie has an epic structure

unified by the intensely human personality of the boy-hero, who goes
through the world like a ray of light illuminating it and resolving the
blind confusions of human relationships. Despite his experience of the
humiliation and suffering of Prabha, to which he is an eyewitness, he
never loses faith in man. This faith lends to Munoo a heroic quality.
Again, he has a strong sense of dignity; his self-respect never falters,
even though he does not actively come out against people who ill-treat
him or exploit him. Munoo’s odyssey takes on an epical character as
Munoo dies in a wretched manner. Yet, death is in a way unreal for
him, for he has experienced his essential oneness with the universe; in
death the tide of his life only moves back to the depth where the arti-
ficial compartments of the world have vanished and where life is one.
If we accept this perspective of Munoo’s life and character, the term
‘epic’ for Anand’s novel would not be a false label.
RD
1. As Fielding mentions in his ‘Preface’ to Tom Jones.

2. Ralph Fox, The Novel and the People, London: Cobbett Press, 1948, p. 42.
3. Ibid, p. 42.
4. Philip Henderson, The Novel Today: Studies in Contemporary Attitudes,
London: John Lane, 1936, p. 39.
5. Fox (1948), p. 96.
6. Ibid, p. 97.
61
3.1.8 Anand’s Boy-hero—Munoo
With Coolie, Anand’s second novel, we enter a rather complicated

world—a world similar to that of Untouchable which has as its protago-
nist Bakha, a sweeper, who is ‘a real individual, lovable, thwarted,
sometimes grand, sometimes weak, and thoroughly Indian.’1 The world
of Coolie is apparently a ‘free’ world where everyone can earn his living
at whatever trade or craft he likes, but its a world on which is imposed
a rigid discipline. The ‘untouchable’ may be kicked, chided, punished
if he offends the caste laws, but he is an inseparable and necessary cog
in the social wheel. But a coolie in a Bombay Cotton Mill, overworked
and underpaid, cheated by the foreman and the storekeeper, always in
debt and in fear of losing the job, is only redundant—too many coolies
are there to replace him. This is the bitter truth Munoo, the central
character of the novel, realizes towards the end of his journey in life.
Anand’s awareness of ‘the humanness of human beings’ comes out
in strong, palpable terms in the story of his boy-hero, Munoo. The
story concerns itself with the life of a tough, little peasant boy coming
down from one of the villages on Kangra Mountains to seek out his
fortune in the city environs. He is forced to leave his village, but
nostalgia for those hills in the midst of which he grew up never leaves
him:
Ripe yellow mangoes dropped by dozens in the spring and could easily
be hidden in the grass and the hay. [. . .] And then there was the cool
breeze which soothed the fatigue of the body and relieved the natural
heat, the snow breeze from the river Beas that was rising even as he sat
there now, stirring the acacia trees, while the cicadas rasped in the
thickets, the frogs croaked in the shallows and the swamps, the birds
sang, the butterflies flitted over the wild flowers and the insects buzzed
over the pollen for honey.
The blood of little Munoo ran to the tune of all this lavish beauty.
And he would rather have had all the machines come here than tear
himself away from the sandy margins of the still back-waters where he
played.2
In the town of Sham Nagar the next stage of his life begins: he is
employed as a domestic servant in the house of a bank clerk, on the
recommendation of his uncle Daya Ram. Bibiji with her vitriolic femi-
ninity metes out all sort of unpleasant treatment to Munoo. Unable to
stand her ill-treatment any more he runs away from the family after
the incident involving Babu Nathoo Ram’s daughter, Sheila, and the
consequent severe beating by his master. Sensitive and self-respecting
as Munoo is, he cannot put up with the humiliation. On the other
hand, he can appreciate Dr Prem Chand’s kindness and generosity—he
recognizes ‘human’ qualities when he meets them in a person.
Munoo is favoured by destiny on many an occasion; but his chances
are often nullified by the cruelties of the social system. It is a sheer
stroke of luck that he is found in a railway carriage by a kind-hearted
and religious businessman, Prabha Dyal, who takes him under his
protection, giving him a job in his factory at Daulatpur. Prabha’s partner
Ganpat is cruel to him and eventually thwarts Prabha Dyal’s plans for
Munoo’s future. When Prabha is taken to the police station at the
behest of Ram Nath, a sub-inspector, Munoo follows the master. He
and Tulsi feel genuinely aggrieved at having to witness the brutal treat-
ment Prabha receives there. Back home, he tries to console Parbati, the
wife of Prabha, when he finds her in helpless tears. Destiny again favours
him when he meets an elephant driver of a circus, who takes him to
Bombay. As an employee in George White Cotton Mill, he becomes
one of the nameless, nondescript thousands who are being exploited
by capitalist mill owners and their henchmen. Munoo and his friends
are further victimized by the Pathan gatekeeper and the Sikh shopkeeper
who charges high rates of interest on the money which the wretched
workers have to borrow from him. Here Munoo becomes an unwilling
63
victim of communal frenzy overtaking the workers. Munoo has a hair-

breadth escape. The next stage in Munoo’s life is no less fortuitous. He
is knocked down by a car and is picked up by the driver on the order
of Mrs Mainwaring, the Anglo-Indian lady travelling in the car. At
Simla he is happy enough for a time; but the strenuous job of pulling
a rickshaw and perhaps the sexual exploitation of Mr Mainwaring leads
him to his premature death.
Anand, it may be inferred, emphasized in strong terms the striking
trait of Munoo’s character—namely, his unflagging zest for life and a
craving for human fellowship. Munoo, despite the misfortunes and
hardships he has to endure at every stage of his life, never loses his
passion for life. He is, again, gifted with a natural capacity of recovering
fast from the pains and humiliation of a beating, scolding or any other
form of human cruelty, ill-treatment or setback. And he always seeks
to establish human relationships, a friendship or comradeship. Maybe
it is some kind of understanding with Sheila and the chota Babu; maybe
a bond of friendship with Tulsi; maybe it is an indefinable bond between
himself and Prabha and his wife. He wins the patronage of Mrs
Mainwaring and becomes friends with Mohan. It is an admirable quality
in Munoo—the capacity to win the goodwill and confidence of people
from varying walks of life. Last but not least, Munoo has a sense of
human dignity—a sense of self-respect is always there. True, he does
not actively rebel against ill-treatment or injustice, but he has pride,
though a passive one, buried deep within him—it is revealed when he
leaves Nathoo Ram’s house, it comes out strongly in his anger at the
mocking and scornful words of the waiter in a roadside restaurant in
Bombay.
‘Spent and broken,’ after working as a rickshaw coolie in Simla,
Munoo dies of consumption. It does credit to Anand’s brilliance and
sensibility in his extraordinary power of evoking both gay and grave
moods, that the reader, on reading the book, is impressed with the
overpowering tragedy of this boy-hero. True, Munoo is the protagonist
in the novel but there is hardly anything heroic or grand about this.
His is the story of rags to extinction; his is the story of millions of such
boys and young men in India. One or two heroic deeds, however, are
performed by him: a fight with a couple of domestic servants in Sham
Nagar, and saving the life of a boy from being run over on the road
64
in Bombay, at the risk of his own life. While the first action is forced
upon him, the second one is impulsive and this impulsive nature of
the action reveals Munoo’s spirit of self-sacrifice and service to others.
To the critical opinion that Anand’s portrait of Munoo has one serious
drawback, namely a lack of development in his character, the possible
answer perhaps is that Anand did not intend any development at all.
The reasons are—firstly, two years is too short a period for any consistent
development in his hero; secondly, Munoo is not portrayed as a boy
possessing special gifts or talents. No doubt he has a certain degree of
intelligence and hence he reacts to the events that occur in his life. He
is not meant to be an automaton but a human being. Anand himself
comments in connection with Munoo’s reaction to the change in
Ganpat’s behaviour: ‘Munoo, who was always quick to sense people’s
emotions, had emerged with a capacity for more real intuitions since
his illness’ (115). It may be observed that the general picture of the
society painted by Anand in the novel would have lost its uniqueness
without the sympathetic portrayal of the boy-protagonist: the charac-
terization of Munoo is ‘[v]ivid, dramatic, and powerful. Munoo is cast
in the mode of the archetypal, ironic, and perfect victim or scapegoat
under the sentence of death.’3 Munoo is very much like Bakha, the
untouchable, differing only in physical appearance. In him, as in Bakha,
there is an irrepressible curiosity and happiness. As Edward Burra
significantly comments:
[T]he shadows of joy and desire, and the simplicity of his mind in the
face of ever-increasing suffering are magnificently done. He is incapable
of dramatizing experience: so that in his sudden question “why are
some men so good, and others bad”—there is an indescribable power.
Yet he is no tragic hero; nothing nameable is wasted when he dies,
nothing but his own love of life. But such is the force of the author’s
pity that all that is good in life seems to be irreparably lost with him.4
It would be wrong to suppose that MR Anand wanted to bring home

to the reader the pathetic saga of an individual boy who dies a prema-
ture death because of man’s inhumanity to man. Rather, Munoo, the
boy-hero, by virtue of Anand’s perceptiveness and sympathy, becomes
a universal figure. The novel claims to be one of the ‘best known socially
65
realistic novels of the nineteen-thirties.’5 Affirming his position vigor-

ously as a social realist, Anand writes about Coolie: ‘[T]he novel is
integral. It has a life quality about it, almost as if the pages got fire
from the frame of the tragic hero.’6 The depiction of the raw life, Anand
went on in the same way, is dismissed by the Western world as ‘natu-
ralism’ or ‘realism’ or ‘social realism.’ They (the Western critics), Anand,
retorts, will ‘accept Tolstoy and Dickens and Hardy, but should an
Indian try to portray the peasants of India, or slum children, or the
maid servants, you are written off as a “communist propagandist”.’7
RD
1. Mulk Raj Anand, ‘Preface’ to Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable, Penguin

Twentieth-century classics, London: Penguin, 1986, p. vii.
3. Krishna Nandan Sinha, Mulk Raj Anand, New York: Twayne Publishers,
1972, p. 33.
4. Edward Burra, ‘Three Views on Coolie’, Kakatiya Journal of English
Studies, 2, No. 1, Spring 1977, p. 227.
5. Rajinder Kumar Dhawan, The Novels of Mulk Raj Anand, New Delhi:
Prestige, 1992, p. 54–55.
6. As quoted in: Ibid, p. 55.
66
3.1.9 Anand’s Caricature of British Characters in Coolie
It would be justifiable to hold with Maurice Brown that the English

characters in the Bombay chapter of Anand’s novel, Coolie, ‘haven’t the
terrible impersonality which most of the book has.’1 In a letter to Anand,
dated, 24th June, 1936, Margaret Storm Jameson remarked in the same
vein: ‘there is perhaps a touch of caricature in some of your wretched
“sahibs”—notably in Mr Little.’2 The seven English characters in Coolie,
namely, Mr WP England, Dr Marjoribanks, Jimmie Thomas, his wife
Nellie, Mr Little, Sir Reginald White and Guy Mainwaring, are minor
characters. Anand describes them with an inclination to caricature, since
they would appear as such to the masses. And the novelist no doubt
had in mind Jack London’s The Iron Heel (1908) and Robert Tressell’s
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1914) and perhaps some of
Dickens’s characters like Lord Coodle, Lord Verisopht, Sir Doodle and
others such as the Murdstones and Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield
(1850). The extraordinary realism with which Anand portrays the Indian
characters in all their complexity is unmistakable, while Sir Reginald
White, Mr Little and Jimmie Thomas impress the reader as quite flat,
bordering on caricatures. To portray these English characters as otherwise
would have jeopardized Anand’s purpose. He focuses upon the weak-
nesses and absurdities of the English characters in such an exclusive,
almost lop-sided manner that they strike us as caricatures rather than
‘realistic’ objective portrayals.
Mr WP England, the chief cashier of the Sham Nagar branch of the
Imperial Bank of India, is a tall Englishman with an awkward shuffling
gait and with a small expressionless face defined only by the big glasses on
his narrow, myopic eyes—an almost traditional comic figure. His behaviour
makes Babu Nathoo Ram firmly believe that the Englishmen are slippery
and confounding because they are so reticent. Nathoo Ram finds that the
Englishman just looks at him without talking and without letting him talk.
The only way of starting a conversation with him, Nathoo Ram feels, is
to talk about the weather; and this is how he intends to tackle him, thinking
to invite him to tea at his house. Mr England at first does not respond to
his repeated invitations, since he had been advised at his club not to become
familiar with the natives. At Nathoo Ram’s house he is repeatedly warned
to be careful while entering the house because he might strike his head
against the low doorway. At the time of his departure he is warned again.
This proves to be a source of amusement for the members of Nathoo Ram’s
family. The only redeeming quality of his, as Anand suggests, is his honesty.
But even this honesty he has to suppress because of what his fellow
Englishmen said to him at the club. Hence, he has to pretend that he
belongs to the English aristocracy, not to the class of ordinary people of
England. Dr Prem Chand, after the departure of Mr England, tells his
sister-in-law that the reason for the failure of the tea party lies with the
guest who has no taste for Indian hospitality and does not touch any of
the sweets offered to him. We understand his distaste for syrupy sweets
and his fear of catching some infection from such stuff. Yet, Mr England’s
behaviour, on the whole, is somewhat disappointing and even absurd. Some
critics, however, regard the portrayal as more successful than the other
delineations of English people.
Coming to Dr Marjoribanks, we have almost the same impression.
The physical description of the man borders on conventional caricature—
he is a short, fat man, bald-headed and prim, dressed in breeches, gaiters
and a jacket. Like an Englishman in India, he plays tennis, cricket and
polo, drinks whiskey, tries to retain his wife’s affection and to feel happy
most of the time. While on a visit to Prabha’s factory in a brand new
Ford car, he feels as embarrassed, on his way to Babu Nathoo Ram’s
house, as Mr England had felt. He finds the streets narrow, slimy and
damp. On top of all these, a large crowd of dirty urchins stare at him
and beg money. He cannot go back now and so, quite reluctantly enters
the factory, all the time feeling afraid that somebody may stab him in
the back with a dagger. After a hurried inspection, he goes away, informing
Sir Todar Mal, who had complained against Babu Nathoo Ram, that he
68
would try to do what he can about his complaint. As in the case of Mr

England, Anand here also in his portrayal of Dr Marjoribanks, emphasizes
his absurdities. He is more interested in sports than in his duties as the
Health Officer of Daulatpur; however, he also feels self-important because
he owns a brand new car brought from England. His extreme condescen-
sion to his wife alongside his persistent efforts to retain her affection
appears to be quite absurd to many Indian readers who regard conjugal
understanding and mutual affection as a fait accompli.
Mr Little, the manager of Sir George White Cotton Mill, is conceived
as a comic figure. He is impatient by nature and troubled by the humid
heat of Bombay, he always covers his face; seated in his office, he looks
at the electric fan over his head; he shifts his chair and shuffles the papers
on the table. His throat feels parched and he wishes he could get up and
get himself a stiff whisky but he has a strong sense of duty: ‘duty, stern
voice of the daughter of God, and Wordsworth suffered from the effect
of the heat.’3 The comparison does not fail to amuse us. Again, Mr Little
is also tormented by flies and he orders his clerk to pick up the fly-swatter
and strike a fly settling anywhere in the room. Then, quite in the manner
of what happens in a well-known story of the king and his guard, a
monkey, the clerk strikes a fly which just sits down on Mr Little’s fore-
head. Feeling enraged, Mr Little blurts out: ‘[Y]ou damn fool! You bloody
fool!’ (255). He gets up from his chair rubbing his forehead with his
right hand and gesticulating impotently with his leg. He would definitely
have kicked the clerk out of the room but for the ringing of the telephone
and the order given to him by Sir Reginald White. There is, however,
not much comicality in the portrayal of Sir Reginald White, who is a
typical English businessman interested chiefly in money.
Jimmie Thomas is a dishonest, greedy man with an imposing physical
appearance:
a massive man with a scarlet bulldog face and a small waxed moustache,
his huge body dressed in a greasy white shirt, greasy white trousers and
a greasy white polo topee, of which the leather strap hung down at the
back of his thick neck (198).
His behaviour and action deepen a feeling of dislike into aversion and
hatred. He is a crooked fellow, always exploiting the workmen to add
69
to his own income. He charges commission from the monthly wages

of the workers and offers a loan to any leading workman at a high rate
of interest. Not only that, he has a number of huts where he accom-
modates new workmen, charging them a rental; a real bloodsucker, he
seems to be a disgrace to the English race. It cannot be denied that
there is some exaggeration in Anand’s portrayal of Jimmie Thomas’s
exploitation and dishonesty, but his depiction of the foreman’s
unbounded greed and unflagging torture of the workmen is vividly
realistic. Nellie, the wife of Jimmie Thomas, is portrayed as a most
suspicious wife. She has lived with her husband for a long time, yet
she does not trust him, as is borne out by the incident of Jimmie’s
throwing a whiskey bottle at Munoo—an action Nellie interprets as
her husband’s deliberate intention to kill her.
The young Englishman, Guy Mainwaring, who marries an older
woman, is depicted as a fool. The marriage alienates him from his
parents and he tries to forget his misery and loneliness in the embraces
of his Anglo-Indian wife. He becomes a virtuous slave to her every
indulging whim and every capricious desire. When Munoo meets him
during his visit to his wife, he feels greatly attracted to him, because
Munoo thinks him to be a better human being than Dr Merchant who
frequently visits Mrs Mainwaring’s flat.
There is no gainsaying that Anand’s portrayal of the English characters
in Coolie is not as realistic and faithful as that of the Indian characters.
Most readers feel that his extreme concentration on the absurdities and
follies of these leads to the distortion of the English characters. It may
be that Anand’s strong socialistic bias blended with his humanitarian
zeal have coloured his portrayal of the British characters. As Anand
himself writes in his Author to Critic:
[I] wished to write about human beings who were not known or recog-
nized as human at all, or admitted into society—such as the outcasts
[. . .] by going below the surface to the various hells made by man for
man with an occasional glimpse of heaven as the “desire image”. I have
never been objective, as the realists claim to be. And my aim is not
negative, merely to shock but to stimulate consciousness at all levels.4
RD
70
1. As quoted in: Rajinder Kumar Dhawan, The Novels of Mulk Raj Anand,
New Delhi: Prestige, 1992, p. 74.
4. As quoted in: SC Harrex, ‘Western Ideology and Eastern Forms of Fiction:
The Case of Mulk Raj Anand’, in Asian and Western Writers in Dialogue:
New Cultural Identities, ed. by Guy Amirthanayagam, London u.a.: The
Macmillan Press, 1982, pp. 142–58, as reproduced in <http://www.enotes.
com/contemporary-literary-criticism/anand-mulk-raj/s-c-harrex-essay-
date-1982> [accessed 10th December 2009].
71
3.2 Untouchable
3.2.1 Class Inequalities
Most of Anand’s novels depict the plight of the subaltern and the
marginalized figures of society, be it a sweeper, a coolie, a peasant or
even a tea plantation labourer. All these figures are victims of a society
steeped in superstition and orthodox religiosity. The problems of
untouchability, caste discrimination and social oppression are key issues
in his works. He might appear to be a social reformer to some, but his
avowed object is to expose the hypocrisy and arouse the public conscious-
ness to the evils that devour society from within. His projection of the
underdogs of society makes his novels something in the nature of social
documents—scathingly realistic in presentation and characterization.
Untouchable is no exception. The novel begins with a true to life
description of the untouchables’ quarters and the stench of the dirty
neighbourhood is evoked with an accuracy and clarity that is unmatched
in novels written during that era. Such a realistic description situates
the novel in the society that it depicts and it also provides a stinging
contrast to the cleanliness of Bakha which sets him apart from the rest
of his community.
The roots of the caste system lie embedded in the ancient Hindu
religion which degenerated into a social practice where not only are the
lower-caste people denied equality in work and pay but also the right
to dignified existence. Bakha lives in such a society, where his mere
touch can defile an upper caste human being. The surroundings in
which he finds himself become an objective correlative of the kind of
discrimination that he is subjected to. Moreover, the squalor of Bakha’s
neighbourhood becomes an extension of the psyche of the society,
polluted by ages of orthodoxy and hypocrisy, that denies the lower-caste

people their rights to respectable living.
Bakha’s excitement at the opportunity of going to the town is short-
lived as he finds himself out of place in an unjust social order. Humanity
itself seems to be enmeshed in a caste-conscious social system. He is
aware of his place in society when he resides in his colony and in the
army barracks but it is only when he comes to the city that he realizes
the social implication of being an untouchable. By making him enter
the hustle and bustle of the everyday world, Anand makes him aware
of his social exclusion. The confrontation of an adolescent mind with
the social evils could not be more poignantly expressed.
Not only are the untouchables denied a humane treatment and equal
place in society but also the most basic necessities of life and living.
Sohini, Bakha’s sister, has to be at the mercy of someone to allow her
to fetch water from the community well. She is bullied by other women,
chiefly Gulabo, and is allowed to draw water only because the licentious
priest Kali Nath intervenes. His sole motive is to take advantage of the
young girl and when later he tries to assault her and is thwarted, he
cries out, labelling her as an untouchable. Nowhere is the hypocrisy
inherent in society and religion more pronounced than in this episode.
Bakha is insulted and physically assaulted as his body accidentally
touches that of an upper caste Hindu; he is literally treated like an
animal, as the confectioner throws down the food at him. Bakha no
longer exists as a human being but is a dehumanized creature and as
his father points out to him, it is religion that makes its practitioners
behave in this manner towards them. The focus of the novel shifts from
the class struggle to the evils that are perpetuated in the name of reli-
gion. Wherever he goes, Bakha feels the differential treatment. He is
insulted for having entered the premises of the temple and apparently
defiling it. The lady of a household drives him off as he was resting on
the platform outside her house. In such a social scenario, Bakha is seen
as a subhuman creature who can contaminate fellow humans.
But strangely, we do not see the protagonist taking up arms against
such social discrimination. He has been conditioned hegemonically to
accept his present lot and even though he feels seething anger within
him, he abstains from taking any action. His subaltern status is ideo-
logically made to appear natural to him and this is best expressed by
73
Bakha’s father as he is willing to accept their ill-treatment and inferiority

as something that has been preordained, from which there is no escape.
This begs the question, what choices do the Bakhas of society have?
Anand seems to come up with a three way solution—embracing the
apparently all-inclusive Christian Culture as propounded by Hutchinson,
the abolition of untouchability from within society as Gandhi espoused
and finally with technology coming in and establishing the flush system.
Bakha rejects the first as he thinks Hutchinson is himself confused and
it is difficult to accept the word of Christ since he doesn’t know him
and he ultimately gets bored. Gandhi becomes an automatic choice for
the solution. We remember that Anand had himself spent some days
at Gandhi’s ashram. Gandhi’s views were a major phenomenon in the
nineteen thirties and it is only here that the novel may seem to degen-
erate into propaganda or a manifesto of Anand’s own political views.
Bakha is, however, most influenced by the Western mechanism of flush
toilet and while returning home has his mind full of it. This rapid
mechanization is the most pertinent solution, since Gandhi seems to
be riddled with contradictions and it would take a while for his theory
to come into practice in the world that victimizes Bakha and his like.
The readers are not meant to ponder on the efficacy of the solutions
that are being offered. But Anand’s suggestion is towards a casteless
society free from any discrimination on the basis of birth and social
class. He conveys a desire for a radical change through his protagonist
Bakha. Paradoxically enough, Bakha cannot offer himself as an active
participant in the class struggle or a social revolution and the failure of
Bakha ensures the success of Anand as a champion of humanism.
RD
74
3.2.2 The Colonial World as Envisaged by Anand in Untouchable
Even though Mulk Raj Anand belonged to the pre-Partition group of

novelists writing in English, his novels do not necessarily become a
mouthpiece or a vehicle of the Indian freedom struggle in the manner
in which Raja Rao’s Kanthapura does. Anand is more interested in
exposing the frailties and follies of Indian society itself, rather than
focusing on the tyranny of the foreign power and the subjugation of
the natives in the hands of the colonizers. His first novel, Untouchable,
focuses on the hypocrisy inherent in the Hindu religion and shows how
people are discriminated against on the basis of their caste. In attempting
to do so, he brilliantly pictures Indian society under British rule. His
attitude is one of condemnation of the ways in which the upper class
ill-treat the marginalized and at times it may seem to the native reader
that he is sympathetic to the colonial rule. But a closer analysis prob-
lematizes such a reading of the novel.
Anand’s protagonist in the novel is an adolescent toilet cleaner.
Presenting a novel from the perspective of the growing mind and
consciousness is nothing new to the literary world. We have had Dickens,
Twain and Golding all employing young narrators to tell their stories.
The suitability lies in the fact that a young boy/girl’s mind remains one
which is not mediated by the social discourse and it remains a fertile
ground for the shaping of the adult psyche. But it attains special signifi-
cance in this novel, as the world is that which is under foreign rule.
The adolescent psyche becomes a battleground for opposing cultures,
where the forces of tradition and modernity become active, trying to
shape the psychology of the young narrator. This ultimately leads to the
young mind’s quest to find his identity in the outside world. What
makes this conflict much more poignant is the fact that in the colonial
context, the cultures of the oppressed and the oppressor exert great
demands and pressures on the young mind as the future prospects of
an independent nation and of its population are presented through the
yet-to-be matured consciousness of Bakha.
The novel begins with references to Bakha’s fondness for the English
way of life. His constant obsession with their fashion makes him the
object of ridicule in the eyes of many. He in this process becomes
symbolic of the thousands of educated upper-class elite Indians who
were reproached for aping the colonizer’s culture and thereby remaining
unaware of their own native cultural roots. But Bakha’s penchant for
the English taste also has a deeper significance. He is a victim of class
and caste discrimination and it is not at all surprising that he should
seek solace and comfort in an alien culture that does not discriminate
on the basis of birth but rather appreciates the apparently unclean and
dirty work that Bakha’s profession entails.
The Indian social system denies Bakha his status as a human being,
treating him like the filth he cleans. The only time Bakha feels a sense
of dignity and self-worth is when he is in contact with the English
officers and their Indian counterparts in the army. Their modernity
makes a great impression on his mind and he considers them to be
much more culturally liberal than and superior to the orthodox Hindus.
Herein lies the root of his fondness for army clothes and his detestation
of the Indian way of living, so much so that he prefers an army blanket
to a traditional Indian quilt, even though it doesn’t keep him sufficiently
warm.
What brings such apparent colonial bias to the surface is the plight
of the untouchables in a caste-ridden Indian society. They suffer extreme
economic deprivation. Anand does not seem to lament this fact, but
only portrays a very powerful picture of such a society. It gains even
more clarity as we are told of the inhuman treatment that Bakha receives
in the course of the day. He ceases to exist as an individual but rather
is categorized as a type, merely a member of the pariah community.
Bakha is mistreated for his position in society, as he is slapped and
humiliated in public, food is literally thrown at him, and he is chided
and insulted for sleeping inside the compound of an upper-class Hindu.
76
Similarly, we find his sister being discriminated against when she goes
to fetch water and later is molested by the priest of the temple. The
double standard of society reveals its nakedness, as the priest cries out
‘polluted’, referring to his sister, whom he had tried to molest. Accused
of polluting and defiling the temple, Bakha can only silently suffer in
rage. He entered the temple because he wanted to see God, goaded by
a spiritual quest to free himself from the social condition to which he
is condemned. But he realizes that even the gods have been monopo-
lized, and the gods inside the temple are only his tormentor’s gods.
Even when he tries to help the young boy at the hockey field, he is
rebuked by the boy’s mother for touching him. It seems that help too
has to be caste-conscious.
But Anand does not allow this novel to degenerate into one in which
he merely upholds the superiority of European culture. He proposes
three solutions to the untouchability problem. The first is spoken by
Colonel Hutchinson, which is that of religious conversion. Anand
negates this solution as Bakha remains unconvinced as he finds it diffi-
cult to believe the words of Jesus whom he hasn’t seen. Anand is criti-
quing the European civilizing mission, better known as the ‘white man’s
burden’, and he says it is mere propaganda and beneath the guise of
social liberation lies a hidden political agenda. Hutchinson’s wife is
contemptuous of those like Bakha and Anand exposing the duplicity
of the sermons Hutchinson preaches and the life he lives.
It is only the figure of Gandhi that can seem to grant human status
to the untouchables. Bakha can only enter the social folds via an indoc-
trination and hence the significance of Gandhi’s speech at the end. The
final solution, that of mechanization, also appears to be attractive to
the adolescent protagonist. A flush system in the toilets can only flush
out the evils of caste discrimination and Anand seems to predict a
future built firmly on the humanitarian values of Gandhi and that of
rapid industrialization. The colonial world does not haunt the text but
leaves its residues for a kind of multiculturalism that is the true fate of
postcolonial India.
RD
77
3.2.3 Anand’s Humanism in Untouchable
To define Mulk Raj Anand’s humanism one has to be clearly aware of the
various forces at work that have come together to shape his consciousness
and opinions about life. Any attempt to straitjacket his version of humanism
as dialectical thought and social realism must be resisted. What makes his
kind of humanism particularly enigmatic and appealing is that it is rooted
in two diverse cultures of the world, Western and Indian thought. We
must never forget that he saw life from very close quarters during his time
in England and Spain and all these experiences had a lasting impact on
his mind. As an observer of life and reality he paints the picture of man
being trapped in the mires of a society burdened by stratifications and
contradictions. Nowhere is this dilemma more clearly evident than in his
almost Joycean presentation of a single day in the life of a toilet cleaner
in Untouchable. He is concerned with the onrush of society towards the
future, which might cancel out the possibilities of love and compassion.
His characterization of Bakha bears all these concerns. His chief focus
is on human dignity as he writes: ‘I have myself deliberately tried to
create and live up to a new contemporary myth-man, in his dignity of
weakness, struggling to be an individual, a god, and, of course, failing
in the attempt.’1 Moreover, he is also concerned with the inherent
nobility of man and later comments: ‘The failure of humanism is that
it makes one a sensitive outsider.’2 However, his concerns with the
predicament of human life and his humanistic fervour have led many
to regard him as a political propagandist. But he has denied it and
remarked that to focus on humanism one has to transcend the bounda-
ries of the national and the local.
Anand’s humanism does not base itself on a divine sanction, like

that of Gandhi. It focuses on socialism, for it is only socialism that can
establish economic equality that would lead to a stable society. No
matter how inhuman a society is, as we see in his presentation of it in
Untouchable, there is always a hope and an optimism that we find in
his text. What unfolds, as the story progresses, is the victimization and
subjugation of one class of people by the other, based on caste discrimi-
nation. He focuses on the hypocrisy and the double standards of pre-
Independent Indian society and the hard-heartedness and lechery of
the agents of such discrimination.
Life for Anand comes before literature and artistic representation.
Not only do we see him dealing with characters caught in the mires of
an unjust society, he also gives his readers a penetrating insight into
the psyche of the characters which makes them lifelike. But all such
individualistic details are employed for a more vital purpose. The society
he portrays refuses to treat his protagonist as an individual and homog-
enizes the differences that might have existed between one low-caste
Hindu and another. A new national identity is represented as being
realizable only through the mythical presentation of Gandhi in the
narrative. It is only upon the inauguration of such a new nation that
the Bakhas of society can earn respect from their fellow human beings.
The universal acceptance of Gandhi as the leader of the Indian freedom
struggle as well as the spiritual guide of the Indian people is symbolic,
as it signifies how the people unhesitatingly placed their confidence in
him. Bakha, for instance, listened to the spirited recital by a Babu of
an article in The Tribune and he was quite impressed but baffled.
To him Gandhi was a legend, a tradition, an oracle. [. . .] It was said

that he slept in a temple one night with his feet towards the shrine of
the god. When the Brahmins chastised him for deliberately turning his
feet towards God, he told them that God was everywhere and asked
them to turn his feet in the direction where God was not.3
When Bakha listened to the narration by the Mahatma of the events

relating to the beginning of his interest in untouchability, he felt thrilled
to the very marrow of his bones. His thought raced on:
79
That the Mahatma should want to be born as an outcaste! That he

should love scavenging! He loved the man! He felt he could put his life
in his hands and ask him to do what he liked with it. For him he would
do anything (138).
But if some believe that Anand could be typecast according to his

political ideology, then the conclusion of the novel problematizes such
a close-ended reading of his work. He is happy to bring in the novel
the effects of Western technology even at a time when he seemed to
join in the struggle for emancipation from the English masters. The
uniqueness of the novel lies in the apparently uneasy coexistence of
Anand’s humanism and his political beliefs.
RD
1. Mulk Raj Anand, and Saros Cowasjee, Author to Critic: The Letters of Mulk
Raj Anand, Calcutta: A Writers Workshop publication, 1973, p. 31.
2. As quoted in: S Laxmana Murthy, ‘Bakha: An Existential Analysis’, in MK
Bhatnagar and M. Rajeshwar, The Novels of Mulk Raj Anand: A Critical
Study, New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2000, p. 56.
3. Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable, New Delhi: Penguin, 2001, p. 65.
80
3.2.4 Social Criticism in Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable
The novels of Mulk Raj Anand are imbued with a spirit of social refor-
mation, an uncompromising zeal to eradicate the evils of Indian society
of the time. With a heart ever smouldering with wrath at the growing
inequality in the Indian social system, Anand sets out with his avowed
social mission of ameliorating the pathetic lot of the poor and the
have-nots in his works. KRS Iyengar has elaborated this point thus:
when Anand started writing fiction, he decided he would prefer the

familiar to the fancied, that he would avoid the highways of romance
and sophistication but explore the by-lanes of the outcastes and the
peasants, the sepoys and the peasants, and the working people.1
In writing this literature of the downtrodden Anand’s genius may be

likened to the attitude of the great Victorian novelist, Dickens. About
Dickensian realistic treatment of the gloomy social scenario of Victorian
England, E Legouis writes:
[h]is youth had been passed in London and had brought him into
contact with the most humble surroundings, and the most wretched
districts, and he made the description of them his habitual subject. A
new and vivid realism enters into his pictures.2
About the pathetic history of the child in Dickens’s fiction, Moody and
Lovett aptly comment:
[t]he possibilities of childhood for romance or pathos had been suggested

by Shakespeare, by Fielding, and by Blake; but none of these had brought
children into the very centre of action, or had made them highly indi-
vidual. In his second novel Dickens centred his story in a child, Oliver
Twist, and fom that time forth children were expected and necessary
characters in his novels. Little Nell, Forence Dombey, David Copperfiled,
stand out in celestial innocence and goodness, in contrast to the evil
creatures whose persecution they suffer for a season. And further, they
represent in most telling form the complaint of the individual against
society.3
WJ Long, too, notes this reformist’s moral tone in Dickens:
Dickens’s serious purpose was to make the novel the instrument of

morality and justice, and whatever we may think of the exaggeration of
his characters, it is certain that his stories did more to correct the general
selfishness and injustice of society towards the poor than all the works
of other literary men of his age combined.4
Like Dickens’s, Anand’s fiction is also immersed in a humanitarian

approach towards the social pariahs and the outcastes.
His Untouchable, with its realistic portrayal of Indian society,
throws ample light on the predicament of the untouchables in an
exceedingly stratified social set-up. Leela Gandhi talks thus about
the novel,
Untouchable narrates one day in the life of Bakha, an introspective young

sweeper who lives in the outcastes’ colony in a small cantonment town
in northern India. A chain of humiliating experiences leaves Bakha
searching for some yet unknown release from the degradation of his
life.5
Sukhbir Singh has found parallels between Bakha and Ralph Ellison’s
Invisible Man, protagonist of the eponymous novel: ‘[h]ere Bakha’s
plight closely resembles the predicament of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible
Man in Invisible Man (1952).’6 In the Indian caste system,
82
untouchability is the deadliest stigmatic scar, which has wounded the

whole civilization through its inhuman, dogmatic, ritualistic and
parochial conduct towards a whole class of people, just because they
unfortunately belong to another caste. The earliest reference to this
endemic caste system can be found in the text of Purusha Sukta, which
is in the tenth Mandala of the Rigveda. According to the ancient
legend of Purusha Sukta, the primeval god Purusha was sacrificed and
the Brahamanas came out of his head, the Kshatriyas from his breast
or arms, the Vaishyas from his thighs and the Sudras from his feet.
The platform for this degrading inequality was prepared in the early
Vedic age itself. Anand presents the wretched lot of the outcastes thus:
The outcastes were not allowed to mount the platform surrounding the
well, because if they were ever to draw water from it, the Hindus of the
three upper castes would consider the water polluted. Nor were they
allowed access to the nearby brook as their use of it would contaminate
the stream.7
The despicable orthodoxy of the Brahmins is seen in the pollution

episode:
‘The distance, the distance!’ the worshippers from the top of the steps
were shouting. ‘A temple can be polluted according to the Holy Books
by a low-caste man coming within sixty-nine yards of it, and here
he was actually on the steps, at the door. We are ruined. We will
need to have a sacrificial fire in order to purify ourselves and our
shrine’ (70).
The irony of the situation lies in the fact that though the priests eloquently
talk of pollution and defilement by the touch of the outcastes, one of
the members of their clan endeavour to molest Sohini, Bakha’s sister.
Anand’s sarcasm is evident in the fact that the priest is ready to shun
his ideal of purity and he raises an alarm that he has been polluted by
an untouchable, when the poor girl screams for help. Sohini recounts
the incident:
83
‘That man, that man,’ she said, ‘that man made suggestion to me, when
I was cleaning the lavatory of his house there. And when I screamed,
he came out shouting that he had been defiled’ (70).
The social fabric of Indian civilization has been tragically disfigured by

this dirty system of caste hierarchy, as is evident from the following
conversation between Sohini and Bakha:
‘Tell me, Sohini,’ he said, turning fiercely at his sister, ‘how far did he
go?’
She sobbed and didn’t reply.
‘Tell me! Tell me! I will kill him if . . .’ he shouted.
‘He-e-e just teased me,’ she at last yielded. ‘And then when I was
bending down to work, he came and held me by my breasts.’
‘Brahmin dog!’ Bakha exclaimed. ‘I will go and kill him!’ And he
rushed blindly towards the courtyard (71).
The incident clearly indicates the seething discontent of Bakha at the

double standards of the upper caste people. KD Verma, in an interview
with Anand, had traced the novelist’s ‘preoccupation with “squalor”
(Forster’s term)—the dirt, the filth, the wretchedness, naked human
misery. [. . .]’.8 In a way, ‘the oppressed individual fighting against an
iniquitous social order is the common thread in most of Anand’s novels’9
and Untouchable is no exception.
By the end of the novel, three possible solutions are suggested by
Anand—Christianity, Gandhian philosophy and the flush system.
According to William Walsh, ‘Of the three solutions hinted at to the
problem of the untouchable—Christ, Gandhi and main drainage—it
is the last which is most favoured by Anand.’10 EM Forster too
supports the same idea of flush system in his preface to the novel:
No God is needed to rescue the untouchables, no vows of self-sacrifice

and abnegation on the part of more fortunate Indians, but simply and
solely—the flush system. Introduce water-closets and main drainage
throughout India, and all this wicked rubbish about untouchability will
disappear. (10)
84
Untouchable objectively presents a realistic picture of the debased caste

system. Social criticism in the novel is summed up tellingly by the
precise words of MK Naik: ‘Anand’s treatment of his theme here is
remarkably objective and restrained, which saves the book from lush
sentimentality which mars some of his later novels.’11 It would be apt
to round off this discussion with the scholarly opinion of William Walsh
about Anand:
His fiction is, of course, exclusively concerned with India. He is passion-

ately involved with the villages, the ferocious poverty, the cruelties of
caste, the wrongs of women, and with orphans, the untouchables and
urban labourers.12
NKA
1985, pp. 334–335.
2. E Legouis, A Short History of English Literature, trans. by VF Boyson
and J Coulson, 1934; Calcutta: OUP, 1992, p. 324.
3. WV Moody and RM Lovett, A History of English Literature, 8th ed.,
Ludhiana: Kalyani, 1998, p. 353.
4. WJ Long, English Literature, enlarged ed., Delhi: AITBS. Publishers &
Distributors, 2004, p. 493.
5. Leela Gandhi, ‘Novelists of the 1930s and 1940s’, in An Illustrated
History of Indian Literature in English, ed. AK Mehrotra, Delhi: Permanent
Black, 2003, p. 175.
6. Sukhbir Singh, ‘Episteme of Endurance: Anand’s Primal Motivations in
Untouchable’, Asiatic, 1.1, 2007, <http://asiatic.iium.edu.my/issue1/web/
vol1no1/[article]SukbirSingh.EpistemeofEndurance.pdf> [accessed 28
June 2009], p. 15.
7. Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable, 1935; New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann,
1981, p. 26. Subsequent references from this work are given in the paper
itself.
85
8. Mulk Raj Anand, Interview by KD Verma, Frontline, 12 Jan. 1996, p. 95.

9. TK Rajalakshmi, ‘Voice of Protest: Mulk Raj Anand at 90’, Frontline,
12 Jan. 1996, p. 91.
10. William Walsh, Indian Literature in English, London: Longman, 1990,
p. 63.
Akademi, 1982, p. 156.
12. Walsh (1990), p. 63.
86
3.2.5 Indian Elements in Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable
An Indian writer, even when writing in English, cannot escape the

powerful and stimulating influence of an Indian ethos and sensibility.
Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable is no exception, and every single moment
in the novel pulsates with the life-breath of Indian society and culture.
The novel, dealing with ‘a day in the life of a sweeper in an Indian
city’,1 is thoroughly native in approach and the compactness of its form
has been well noted by such an eminent scholar as KRS Iyengar:
[o]f all his novels, Untouchable is the most compact and artistically
satisfying [. . .] Untouchable is, further, the shortest of the novels, and
the most revealing and rewarding of the lot. The ‘unities’ are admirably
preserved, as in a classical play, for Untouchable covers the events of a
single day in the life of the ‘low-caste’ boy, Bakha, in the town of
Bulashah.2
Anand’s humanitarian outlook led him to portray the pathetic life stories
of the downtrodden in Indian society. Professor Dieter Riemenschneider
has traced this element in his fiction:
the subject matter of almost all novels is the life and fate of either an
outcaste (Untouchable, The Road), lower-caste peasants (The Old Woman
and the Cow, The Village) some of whom lost their land to the landlord
or the moneylender [. . .] industrial workers (Coolie), or craftsmen (The
Big Heart) [. . .] by presenting a number of characters who for non-
economic or economic reasons are forced to sell their labour in order
to survive, Anand does not only show his interest in their individual
fate but also illustrates the economic and social changes taking place in
India under colonial rule and the gradual transformation of a feudal
society into a capitalistic one.3
In his fiction, Anand unearths the exploitation of the poor by the haves.
KD Verma brings out these features of his novels in an illuminating
manner:
Untouchable, Mulk Raj Anand’s first novel, is a highly charged intellectual

discourse on [. . .] untouchability and Coolie is a humanistic discourse
on the subject of human labour. It may be argued that the central issue
in either case is the philosophy of work and that untouchable and coolie
are analogical metaphors of human enslavement, subjugation and oppres-
sion. While the setting of both the novels is colonial India, the two
metaphors as developed by Anand have a much more comprehensive
meaning and context. [. . .] It is indeed true that Bakha, the ‘hero-anti-
hero’ of Untouchable, is an Indian sweeper and Munoo of Coolie an
Indian coolie, but they are universal and global figures: the two metaphors
provide a poignant commentary on man’s inhumanity to fellow man in
the history of the human race, especially on the formation of collusive
centres of power and the unprecedented complexity of these hegemonic
structures in controlling human beings.4
In PK Rajan’s opinion too,
[Anand] is the forerunner of the protest novel in India and the third
world, with the underdog in society at the very centre of the narrative,
delineating the suffering of the poor in a colonial situation.5
His novels unravel the traumatic events in the lives of the poor. Coolie
reveals the draconian exploitation of Munoo by the rich. MK Naik
illustrates this point about Munoo’s life:
Coolie is the pathetic odyssey of Munoo, an orphaned village boy from

the Kangra hills, who sets out in search of a livelihood. His several roles,
including those of a domestic servant, a coolie, a factoy worker and a
88
rickshaw puller, take him to various places from Bombay to Simla, until
swift consumption brings his struggles to an untimely end. The novel
is an indignant comment on the tragic denial to a simple peasant of the
fundamental right to happiness. Munoo and his fellow coolies are
exploited by the forces of industrialism, capitalism, and colonialism.6
The note of altruistic humanitarianism for the oppressed, expressed in

Coolie by way of the travails of a poor child, takes the form of a social
reformer’s ironical comments against a wrong social order in Untouchable.
In it, Anand’s pen traces the history of social exploitation, born out of
a heinous caste system. The very opening passage about the outcastes’
colony exhibits Anand’s intense awareness of Indian society:
The outcastes’ colony was a group of mud-walled houses that clustered

together in two rows, under the shadow both of the town and the
cantonment, but outside their boundaries and separate from them. There
lived the scavengers, the leather-workers, the washermen, the barbers,
the water-carriers, the grass-cutters and other outcastes from Hindu
society. A brook ran near the lane, once with crystal-clear water, now
soiled by the dirt and filth of the public latrines situated about it. [. . .]
The absence of a drainage system had, through the rains of various
seasons, made of the quarter a marsh which gave out the most offensive
smell (11).
Anand has realistically presented a photographic description of the

outcastes’ colony, marked by stinking filth of public toilets and complete
want of a drainage system. Anand had known a member of the outcaste
community of untouchables as a child, and this helped him write about
their plight. The memories of his childhood haunted the novelist and
the novel ‘poured out like hot lava from the volcano of [. . .] [his]
crazed imagination.’7 Anand narrates the incident thus: ‘I was aware of
his tragedy. That this otherwise near-perfect human being was a sweeper
who was always being humiliated by most of our elders on account of
his low caste. [. . .]’.8 This senseless Indian caste system has a deadening
effect on the psyche of Bakha. He gets abused by a Brahmin, as he
unconsciously touches a person of the priestly class:
89
‘Keep to the side of the road, oh low-caste vermin!’ he suddenly heard

someone shouting at him. ‘Why don’t you call, you swine, and announce
your approach! Do you know you have touched and defiled me, cock-
eyed son of a bow-legged scorpion! Now I will have to go and take a
bath to purify myself. And it was a new dhoti and shirt I put on this
morning!’ (53)
This inhuman caste system has created strong fissures in Indian society;
the ever-widening gap among the various castes cannot be easily miti-
gated. Michael Haralambos has lucidly described the role of the untouch-
ables in Indian society:
untouchables are defined as unclean, base and impure, a status which

affects all their social relationships. They must perform unclean and
degrading tasks such as the disposal of dead animals. They must be
segregated from the members of the caste system and live on the outskirts
of villages or in their own communities in the middle of paddy fields.
Their presence pollutes to the extent that even if the shadow of an
untouchable falls across the food of a Brahmin it will render it unclean.9
The Indian tenor of the novel is also perceptible in the indelible influ-
ence of Gandhi on it. In fact, numberless Indo-Anglian works are
influenced by the Mahatma’s ennobling ideals. Both KRS Iyengar and
MK Naik have written exhaustive chapters in their books on the influ-
ence of Gandhi on Indian writing in English, testifying to the latter’s
all-pervasive influence. Untouchable also could not escape this Gandhian
whirlwind. According to I Venkateswarlu, ‘[t]he Gandhian love for the
untouchables is the fulcrum on which the whole story of Bakha turns.’10
This fictional masterpiece ends with three alternatives for Bakha. One
of the remedies for this gloomy evil is Gandhian philosophy. Saros
Cowasjee explains: ‘[t]he second choice is to lay faith in Mahatama’s
speech on the evils and shame of untouchability.’11 Moreover, in the
novel Anand has evolved a new type of hybrid language, which is an
Indianized version of English. He uses words of Indian origin and
transliterates some Indian expressions into English. The novel is replete
with Indian abuses like ‘swine’, ‘dog’, and ‘offspring of a pig’ etc. His
heart is filled with sympathy for the downtrodden sections of Indian
90
society; for the depiction of this predicament of the underdogs of Indian

society, he uses Indian words, as these give a greater semblance of the
reality inhabited by an Indian. He is not the only writer to indulge in
this practice. Indian English literature abounds in examples of this
hybrid idiom. A curious mixture of English and regional dialects is
noticed in the language employed by many other writers, too.
Untouchable bears the imprint of Indian sensibility. Anand ‘is capable
of portraying something very genuine and authentic about human
nature and the Indian social scene.’12
NKA
1. EM Forster, ‘Preface’, in Untouchable, by Mulk Raj Anand, 1935; New

Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann, 1981, p. 7. Subsequent references from
Untouchable are given in the paper itself.
1985, pp. 335–336.
3. Dieter Riemenschneider, ‘The Function of Labour in Mulk Raj Anand’s
Novels’, in Essays in Criticism on Indian Literature in English, ed. by MS
Nagarajan, N.Eakambaram, A. Natarajan, New Delhi: S. Chand, 1991,
pp. 70–71.
4. KD Verma, ‘The Metaphors of Untouchable and Coolie in Mulk Raj
Anand’s Novels Untouchable and Coolie and His Sense of Social
Justice’, Asiatic, 2.1 & 2.2 (2008), <http://asiatic.iiu.edu.my/Archive/
articles/TheMetaphorsofUntouchableandCoolie.pdf> [accessed 27 June
2009], p. 33.
5. PK Rajan, ‘Mulk Raj Anand’, Journal of Literature and Aesthetics 4.1 &
4.2, 2004, p. 49.
Akademi, 1982, p. 156.
7. Mulk Raj Anand, ‘The Story of My Experiment with a White Lie’, in
Critical Essays on Indian Writing in English, eds. MK Naik, SK Desai
and GS Amur, Silver Jubilee Students Edition, Madras: Macmillan,
1977, p. 5.
91
8. Ibid, p. 5.
9. Michael Haralambos, Sociology: Themes and Perspectives, 1980; Delhi:
OUP, 1994, p. 25.
10. I Venkateswarlu, ‘Gandhi and the Indo-English Novel: A Study in
Influence’, in Indian Readings in Commonwealth Literature, eds. GS Amur,
VRN Prasad, BV Nemade and NK Nihlani, New Delhi: Sterling, 1985,
p. 55.
11. Saros Cowasjee, ‘Introduction’, in The Mulk Raj Anand Omnibus, New
Delhi: Penguin, 2004, p. xiii.
12. KD Verma, ‘Mulk Raj Anand: A Reappraisal’, Indian Literature, 172,
March–April, 1996, p. 150.
92
3.2.6 Bakha
Not only did the publication of Mulk Raj Anand’s first novel Untouchable
take the Indian literary scene by storm, reverberations were also felt in
the European literary circle. The impetus was perhaps provided by EM
Forster who agreed to write the preface for the novel, which went a
long way in helping it find a publisher after Anand had been refused
no less than nineteen times. The initial criticism that the novel was
dirty and had a downtrodden figure as its protagonist turned out to be
one of the key critical approaches to the novel. This is evident nowhere
more than in Anand’s immortal creation, Bakha.
Characters like these may not be conventional and stereotypical
heroes, but they are no doubt endowed with certain endurable qualities.
In the case of one-dimensional characters it is the society that a character
lives in that manipulates and stunts his full flowering as a human being,
who ends up being just a type rather than an identifiable human figure.
These figures, much like Bakha, are, however, fully aware of the social
hypocrisy and oppression and all they can do is acknowledge the double
standards of society since they have no proper means of waging a battle
against class and caste discrimination. They can do nothing but accept
their lot. Bakha shows a sensibility and diligence that sets him apart,
not only from the rest of the ‘toilet’ cleaners but also from some of the
upper caste Hindus.
Bakha epitomizes the rebellious spirit not only of his own untouch-
able community but also of all subalterns the world over, dominated and
exploited by the dominant utilitarian dispensation. In his silent accept-
ance of the social condition and realization of the immoral way of
treating human beings on the basis of their caste, we have a champion

of human dignity, freedom and equality.
Life for Anand comes before literature and artistic representation.
Not only do we see him dealing with characters caught in the mire of
an unjust society; he also provides an insight into the psyche of the
characters, which adds that extra force in making them lifelike. It is
not surprising that the novel, which structurally resembles Joyce’s Ulysses,
should focus on the inner contours of the character’s psychodynamics.
He lays bare the mind of Bakha, as the conflict between the traditional
taboos and modern, advanced attitudes takes place in the arena of
Bakha’s mind. His use of language also brings into sharp focus the
plight of his central figures. Bakha finds himself cloistered in a malefic
social condition and Anand writes passages of lyrical clarity and beauty
to juxtapose Bakha’s lack of freedom with that of the illimitable options
and choices that the other members of the same society can enjoy, by
virtue of being born in a higher caste. Bakha looks at the sky and is
mesmerized by the soaring eagle. The reader can’t help but notice the
duality at work. Bakha is trapped in this society and the eagle has the
boundless sky at its disposal.
Right from the outset, Anand takes it upon himself to dissociate
Bakha from the others in his community. His cleanliness, disdain for
the dirty atmosphere and his fondness for the English way of life,
including English fashion, set him apart from others. The high caste
Hindu, Charat Singh, is amazed and remarks that Bakha was one of
his kind, a low caste who was ‘clean’.
Because of his low status in the class structure Bakha is unsparingly
mistreated. He suffers from physical assault and humiliation in public:
food is thrown at him as to a street dog; he is scolded for sleeping
inside the compound of an upper-class Hindu.
‘Vay Bakhya, take this. Here is your bread coming down.’ And she flung
it at him.
Bakha laid aside the broom and tried hard to be the good cricketer
he usually was, but the thin, paper-like pancake floated in the air and
fell like a kite on to the brick pavement of the gully. He picked it up
quietly and wrapped it in a duster with the other bread he had received.1
94
It is, again, because of class disparities that his sister is victimized when
she goes to fetch water from the temple. The priest there molests her
and then cries out ‘polluted’, impugning the girl. The double standards
of a society based on injustice and inequality are glaringly exposed.
Bakha cannot protest or do anything to alter his lot, only suffer in
silent rage. Bakha intended to enter the temple to see the image of the
deity; it was a sort of spiritual quest for Bakha which he believed would
liberate him from his misery. But to his chagrin, he realizes that even
gods or God inside the temple have been monopolized by the upper-
class people who are the relentless tormentors of the ‘untouchables’.
On the hockey field he tries to come to a young boy’s help; the mother
of the young boy scolds him because Bakha touched him. He is, in
short, denied the status of a human being in the prevalent social system;
he is treated like filth for he cleans the filth of the upper class. His
agonies and anger in fitful, unbalanced jerks come out as the ‘tonga-
wallah’ episode demonstrates:
Why are we always abused? The santry inspictor and the Sahib that day
abused my father. They always abuse us. Because we are sweepers. Because
we touch dung. They hate dung. [. . .] They don’t mind touching us,
the Muhammadans and the sahibs. It is only the Hindus, and the
outcastes who are not sweepers. For them I am a sweeper, sweeper—
untouchable! Untouchable! Untouchable! (43).
When Bakha comes into contact with the English officers and their
Indian counterparts in the army, he feels he, too, has dignity and worth
as an individual.
But his rage finds no proper mode of expression as he gives in to
the hegemonic discourse which treats him as a subaltern and he accepts
his subservient and marginalized status in society. His anger at his own
social plight and his despair are at loggerheads and this conflict gives
an added dimension to the novel. His rebellious spirit is curbed and
the agony that results stunts the growth of the individual. He accepts
his fate as a passive victim and is in danger of losing out on respect
and admiration in the eyes of the readers. He remains till the end a
figure who conforms to tradition. But he cannot be blamed: this is how
95
he is supposed to behave, as his father makes him understand.

Conventional moral judgement has to be set aside when judging a
character like Bakha, as in him we find a blend of traditional conformity
and a desire to rebel.
The question thus crops up—do the Bakhas of society have any
choice at all? Three alternative solutions to the untouchables’ plight are
offered by Anand. First, accepting the seemingly all-inclusive Christian
cultural pattern as propagated in the novel by Hutchinson. Secondly,
following Gandhian thought and abolishing untouchability from within
the social structure. Lastly, establishing the modern flush system as a
more effective alternative to the age-old, existing system of waste disposal.
Bakha rejects the first alternative provided by Hutchinson because he
feels the Colonel himself was confused and because he
was afraid of the thought of conversion. He hadn’t understood very

much of what the Salvationist said. He didn’t like the idea of being
called a sinner. He had committed no sin that he could remember. How
could he confess his sins? (120–121).
The Gandhian approach to the problem, then, seems to be the most

viable solution. As Bakha muses—‘“Yes,” said Bakha. “I shall go on
doing what Gandhi says. But shall I never be able to leave the latrines?”’
(147). But his fear is soon allayed. ‘But I can. Did not that poet say
there is a machine which can do my work?’ (147) In this connection it
may be noted that Anand himself had spent quite a few days at Gandhi’s
ashram in Gujarat. Gandhi’s views were greatly talked about in the
1930s. This led to the critical opinion that Anand’s novel Coolie, even
as it upholds Gandhian thought, degenerates into propaganda of Anand’s
cherished political ideology, especially, his Marxist–socialist stand.
RD
1. Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable, New Delhi: Penguin, 2001, p. 65.

96
3.3 Bibliography
Abidi, SZH. Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable: A Critical Study, (Bareilly:
Prakash Book Depot, 1976).
—. Mulk Raj Anand’s Coolie: A Critical Study, Bareilly: Prakash Book
Depot, 1976.
Baer, BC. ‘Shit Writing: Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable, the Image of
Gandhi, and the Progressive Writers’ Association’, Modernism/
Modernity. 16, no. 3: 575–595, 2009.
Berman, JS. ‘Comparative Colonialisms: Joyce, Anand, and the
Question of Engagement’, Modernism/Modernity. 13, no. 3: 465–485,
2006.
Bheemaiah, J. Class and Caste in Literature: The Fiction of Harriet B.
Stowe and Mulk Raj Anand, New Delhi: Prestige Books, 2005.
Cowasjee, S. Coolie: An Assessment, Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1976.
— Studies in Indian and Anglo–Indian Fiction, New Delhi: Indus, an
imprint of Harper Collins Publishers, India, 1993.
Farrell, MK, Sympathy and Ambivalence: Identity Politics in Early
Twentieth-Century Anti-Imperial Novels, PhD Thesis, University of
Tulsa, 2005.
Kamboj, K. Exploitation of Downtrodden: Mulk Raj Anand’s Coolie &
Untouchable, Chandigarh: Abhishek Publications, 2009.
Kupinse, WJ. The Remains of Empire: Waste, Nation, and Modernism,
PhD Thesis, Vanderbilt University, 1999.
Nautiyal, S. An Introduction to Three Indo–Anglian Novels, Ambala Cantt,
India: IBA Publications, 2001.
Parmar, H. Across the Gaping Chasm: Portrayal of Social Oppression in

Select Indian Novels, Delhi: Anamika Publishers & Distributors, 2008.
Rajput, D. Mulk Raj Anand: The Untouchable, Delhi: Navyug Books
International, 2010.
Thorat, A. Five Great Indian Novels: A Discourse Analysis: Mulk Raj
Anand’s Untouchable, Raja Rao’s Kanthapura, Kushwant Singh’s Train
to Pakistan, Rama Mehta’s Inside the Haveli, Chaman Nahal’s Azadi,
London: Sangam Books, 2000.
98
4 RK Narayan (1906–2001)
4.1 The Guide
4.1.1 RK Narayan’s Comic art in The Guide
In his essay ‘On Humour’, RK Narayan characterizes the art of the

political cartoonist as being similar to that of the humorist—intimate
and realistic observation of life’s contradictions and absurdities, exposure
of the affectations and pomposities of self-important individuals and,
most importantly, sympathy for the common man, who is defined by
him as the ‘unknown warrior’1 who never rises above his humdrum,
wretched conditions. Narayan’s comic art functions as a major vehicle
of his moral vision or philosophy of life. Graham Greene in this context
reflects on the complex nature of Narayan’s comic vision. In his
‘Introduction’ to The Financial Expert he observes: ‘All Mr Narayan’s
comedies have had the undertone of sadness. Their gentle irony and
absence of condemnation remind us how difficult comedy is in the
West today.’2 Comedy, as Greene notes, ‘needs a strong framework of
social convention with which the author sympathizes but does not
share.’3 In the ‘Introduction’ to The Bachelor of Arts, Greene further
emphasizes the ‘bitter-sweet flavour’4 of Narayan’s humour. Sadness and
humour, he says, ‘go hand in hand like twins, as they do in the comedies
of Chekhov.’5 It would be also interesting to remember Walsh’s phrase
‘serious comedy’6 in the context of Narayan’s comic art; his humour
spins from his extreme sensitiveness to those aspects of human behaviour
which we may term oddity, affectation and pretence. The irony, as
Graham Greene points out, flows from Narayan’s ability to envision
both the inside and outside of the social universe presented in his novels.
He has a sympathetic understanding of the natural and circumstantial
compulsions which force the hands of his characters, and sees them at
work behind their thoughtlessness or incongruity. And this comic art

reminds one of Chekhov, as suggested by Walsh in his A Human Idiom:
Literature and Humanity. The Guide is a fine illustration of how Narayan,
through the double strands of his narrative technique—the omniscient
third person voice and the first person autobiographical mode—, brings
out all these essential qualities of humour. For observation and exposure
is needed the kind of dispassionateness which is the essence of the
omniscient point of view, while the first person narrative voice aims at
evoking the reader’s ungrudging sympathy for the protagonist as he
passes through varying stages of pleasure and pain in the course of his
eventful life. Narayan, by keeping up an equi-distant narrative stance,
succeeds in continually shifting the reader’s perspective, thus achieving
a unique effect of humour in his novel.
Among Narayan’s fake swamis Raju is the most engrossing as well
as the most developed character whose saintly sagacity is held up to
mild ridicule, as the omniscient narrator describes Raju as being ‘hypno-
tized by his own voice’7 or ‘impressed with the grandeur of the whole
thing’ (40). Further, to ridicule Raju’s pretensions Narayan juxtaposes
certain incongruities. In his account of the reflections of the trapped
swami, Raju appears almost as a comic figure in an operatic
performance:
He regretted having given them the idea. [. . .] But if he had known

that it would be applied to him, he might probably have given a different
formula: that all villages should combine to help him eat bonda for
fifteen days without a break. Up to them to see that the supply was kept
up. [. . .] His mother used to say, ‘If there is one good man anywhere,
the rains would descend for his sake and benefit the whole world’ (96)
[Italic original].
The irony lies in that at this stage of Raju’s journey there is serious
doubt about Raju’s so-called goodness.
Raju’s autobiographical narration of his meteoric rise and subsequent
downfall is also marked by an undercurrent of typical Narayanesque
humour and the author succeeds in enlisting the sympathy of the reader.
Raju’s story is a dismal one—he ruins his father’s business, destroys his
mother’s peace of mind, cheats an honest man, seduces a girl and makes
100
RK Narayan (1906–2001)
use of her wealth and fame for his own self-gratification, swindles her
of her jewels by forgery and has to go to jail, and after his release he
poses as a holy man. Even while recounting his past to Velan, Raju
shows a self-abnegating sense of humour for which the reader feels
particularly sympathetic towards him. Who can resist loving a lovable
rogue? His innate sense of the absurd and his capacity for laughing at
himself comes out sharply as he describes how his uncle visited his
home to censure Rosie and throw her out:
and I sat observing her, with extra attention as if I were her teacher. I
observed my uncle peep out of the kitchen, and so I made myself more
deliberately teacher-like. [. . .] My uncle watched my antics from the
kitchen (148).
Truly, this kind of subtle irony will make the reader laugh—both at
him and with him. Again, in his painstaking attempt to convince the
Albert Mission School authorities to arrange a dance recital for Rosie,
Raju seems to be deliberately courting the reader’s appreciation, and in
the process laughing at himself. He was dressed in a
rough-spun silk shirt and an upper cloth and a handspun and hand-
woven dhoti. [. . .] I never knew I could speak so fluently on cultural
matters[. . .] They watched me in open-mouthed wonder (156–157)
[Italic original].
Even as an enforced saint, he is amused at the villagers’ vulnerability,

the simple minded, ‘religious’ village folk who accept the jailbird as a
sadhu who has come only for their benefit. Narayan’s humour is always
gentle like Chekhov’s or Dickens’s and is related to the theme and
character-delineation in the novel. How subtly and effortlessly does
Narayan make a hero of his rogue! Both the third person omniscient
narration and the first person narration build up spontaneous sympathy
for Raju. In point of evocation of sympathy, which is the essence of
traditional British humour (Carlyle truly defines humour as ‘sympathy
with the seamy side of things’; it has also been defined as ‘extreme
sensitiveness to the true proportion of things’), Raju and Marco yield
a study in contrast. We see Raju through the narrator’s eyes as well as
101
his own, while Marco is presented through Raju’s disapproving eyes.

At the very outset Raju finds Marco a ‘grotesque creature’ (7). That
Marco appears incongruous in his gaudy Western dress is part of the
authorial design to alienate the reader from Marco. William Walsh’s
comment on Marco underlines the point: ‘certain events or people, like
knots in wood, are discontinuous with ordinary life, and impervious
to the usual intellectual tools’.8 What makes Narayan’s comic vision
complex is the darker side of his indefatigable sympathy to the fragility
of life. This skeptical tone, as characterized by Anita Desai, is similar
to Graham Greene’s compliment to Narayan as he compares him to
Chekhov. Walsh finds an unmistakable ‘sadness’ in Narayan’s portrayal
of the ‘human capacity for deception and victimization’9 but without
an accompanying ‘bitterness or disgust’.10 It is Narayan’s irony that
defines what Walsh calls Narayan’s ‘serious comedy’. In the passage
where Raju is described as palpably hesitant about his decision to play
the role of a holy man, Narayan’s irony comes out clearly. Raju, who
had played so many self-imposed roles, has now to stage-act strictly
according to the guidelines lain down by an illiterate villager, Velan.
Again, towards the end of the book where Raju steps into the water,
Narayan’s words are at once ambiguous and optimistic, the complex
effect being achieved through the use of irony. In the fresh morning
air, with the sun out, ‘a great shaft of light illuminated the surround-
ings’ (220). The villagers hold him ‘as if he were a baby’(220) so that
he does not flop down in water. Perhaps, the reference to a baby and
the light of the morning sun vindicates the idea of redemption or even
rebirth. In the last stage of his enforced sainthood, Raju feels the rain
approach with ‘a peculiar floating feeling’ (212). We are left in doubt
as to whether it was an illusion that Raju experiences or a real-life
exemplification of his mother’s belief, told to Raju in his boyhood, that
‘[i]f there is one good man anywhere, the rains would descend for his
sake and benefit the whole world’ (96). Narayan’s irony suggests an
ambiguous moral world, which is leavened by his gentle but relentless
humour. The end of the novel is ironical, since Narayan leaves the
reader wondering at the moral implications of man’s free will and the
workings of an impersonal force. It is, as Narayan says, ‘a novel about
someone suffering enforced sainthood.’11 Narayan, it may be said, uses
the comic art only to drive home the reality he perceives as unfolding
102
itself in the lives and surroundings of his men and women. This artistic
strength, manifesting itself so trenchantly in The Guide, is an inextricable
part of his own creative inheritance.
RD
1. RK Narayan, ‘On Humour’, in Next Sunday, Delhi: Hind Pocket Books,

1972, p. 66.
2. Graham Greene, ‘Introduction’, to The Financial Expert, East Lansing:
Michigan State College Press, 1953, p. vii.
3. Ibid, p. vii.
4. Krishna Sen, Critical Essays on RK Narayan’s The Guide: With an
Introduction to Narayan’s Novel, Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2004, p.
177.
6. William Walsh, A Human Idiom: Literature and Humanity, London:
Chatto & Windus, 1964, p. 136.
7. RK Narayan, The Guide, Chennai: Indian Thought Publications, 2009
Reprint, p. 40. Subsequent references from this work are given in the
paper itself.
8. As quoted in: Sen, 2004, p. 102.
11. RK Narayan, My Days New York: Viking Press, 1974, p. 167.
103
4.1.2 Narayan’s Language and Linguistic Devices in The Guide
Indians writing in English have to negotiate the problems of cultural

difference, or ‘foreignness’, that their choice of language involves, all the
more so since the English language, as used by and of Indians, has been
fraught with the tensions of an asymmetrical colonial—ruler-ruled—rela-
tion it has long had to mediate. This is a problem every Indo-Anglian
writer of fiction has to face, since the very employment of a foreign
language distances him from his subject matter as well as his target reader-
ship. Since before independence the British as well as their language, were
hated, it was quite difficult for Narayan to make himself acceptable to his
readers. Needless to say, the newly independent nation would like to sever
all its ties with past servitude and the English language was seen to be the
most pronounced expression of the recently deposed colonial domination.
However, Narayan could overcome these initial problems as he was a
member of the educated middle class and as such bicultural and bilingual:
he could write effortlessly in his native Tamil and English. We should note
what Narayan says to reassure the average Indian reader: ‘You probably
picture me as a trident-bearing Rule Britannia, but actually I am a devotee
of Goddess Saraswati. I have been her most steadfast handmaid.’1 Further,
in an essay titled ‘To a Hindi Enthusiast’, he asserts that English for him
‘is an absolutely Swadeshi language.’2 He remarks that because of its
‘uncanny adaptability’3 English will ‘soon be classified as a non-regional
Indian language.’4 In his fictions, Narayan establishes beyond doubt how
English could be domesticated to delineate contemporary ‘Indian realities.’
In his essay, ‘Toasted English’, Narayan significantly predicts:
[n]ow the time is ripe for it [the English language] to come to the dusty
street, market-place and under the banyan tree. English must adopt the
complexion of our life and assimilate its idiom. [. . .] Bharat English
will [. . .] have a Swadeshi stamp about it unmistakably, like the Madras
handloom check shirt or the Tirupati doll.5
Because of the direct, unadorned simplicity of Narayan’s language, a

large number of readers consider Narayan’s simplicity a flaw in his
technique. In fact, beneath the apparent artlessness, Narayan’s language
succeeds in conveying the particular as well as the universal in an effort-
less manner. With his keenly observant eye for the essential aspect of
things, Narayan can move from the town to the countryside, from the
peasant to the wealthy urban associates of Raju in The Guide. The wide
spectrum of Indian society is conjured up in its most familiar aspects
as Narayan gives meticulous attention to detail. In the depiction of
Raju’s pyol school with its concrete deck by the side of a dirty drain,
and its intimidating teacher, is typified the atmosphere of a small town
in pre-Independent India. The realistic details of the activities of Velan’s
brother, the cowherd, the graphic details regarding the boy’s food and
his way of telling the time, recreate quite accurately the rural milieu.
When Raju longs to taste a bonda, the reader feels the typical ambience
of a specific social stratum in India. By providing details relating to
Raju’s activities as a man of the world, after his meteoric rise to pros-
perity, Narayan recreates the essential post-Independent Indian society
with its evils and pervasive corruption. To refer to a relevant passage
from the novel would not be out of place here:
I knew what was going on behind the scenes. [. . .] I could get a train
reservation at a moment’s notice [. . .] get a vote for a cooperative
election [. . .] and get an unpopular official shifted elsewhere. [. . .]6
Irony and satiric humour are indispensable elements of Narayan’s

linguistic strategy. The irony is unmistakable when Raju, at an extremely
uncomfortable moment, remembers the recipe of the vendors for bonda:
while discoursing on the Bhagavat Gita to his audience, Raju longed
to ‘try this out himself ’ (91) and thereby inadvertently exposed his
hypocrisy to the reader: ‘He composed his features for his professional
105
role [. . .] and sat down in his seat with a book in his hand’ (105).
The reader cannot fail to find the incongruous juxtaposition of saintly
aspect and unsaintly appetite ironic; this is evident in Raju’s reflections
on the strange similarity between enforced sainthood and prison life:
Where could he go? [. . .] Food was coming to him unasked now. If

he went away somewhere else certainly nobody was going to take the
trouble to bring him food. [. . .] The only other place where it could
happen was the prison [. . .] he must play the role that Velan had given
him (33).
In his dispassionate descriptions of Raju’s sanctimonious pretensions,

Narayan’s ironical tone is unmistakable, the ironical sling being enriched
by the deliberate absence of any authorial commentary or moral judge-
ment on the author’s part. This sedate tongue-in-cheek irony at times
takes on the form of overt satire and humour. The description of the
concourse of men, food stalls, gambling booths and film music is a
typical satiric dig at the common Indian tendency to turn any occasion
into an improvised festive scene. No one misses the hilarious aspect of
the conversation between Raju and the television producer, Mr Malone:
‘Do you expect to have the rains by then?’

‘Why not?’
‘Can fasting abolish all wars and bring world peace?’
‘Yes’
[. . .]
‘Will you tell us something about your early life?’
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘Er—for instance, have you always been a Yogi?’
‘Yes; more or less’ (243–244).
Hardly does RK Narayan use unglossed vernacular words or translated

vernacular idioms or any unconventional technique of punctuation to
convey the Indianness of his subject matter. He rather makes his English
almost neutral and transparent, and still manages to convey the flavour
of a south Indian town. This reminds us of Amitav Ghosh who employs
a similar linguistic strategy. We must note here how Narayan uses his
106
language to convey his characters’ particular states of mind and the

nuances of their speech. The apparently neutral voice of the narrator
in the background constantly undercuts the individual characters’ state-
ments and assertions. Raju, like his creator, converses easily in both
Kannada and Tamil. His pronunciation of all English words, as he
confesses, is not up to the mark because a major part of his vocabulary
is derived from haphazard reading of magazines, newspapers and books
left to him by school and college students. His lack of proficiency in
English again comes out in his autobiographical narration of his life as
a guide. Towards the end of the novel, Raju’s bilingual status stands
him in good stead—he is acceptable to the West because he is at home
in the world and he is at the same time rooted to the Indian tradition
of spirituality. In a way, Raju is a language magician, ‘the Shah of Blah’,
in the words of Salman Rushdie. That Raju is a born actor is exempli-
fied by his extraordinary ability to manipulate language to his own
advantage. As a tourists’ guide, his language is designed to persuade
and even seduce his customers. In typically hyperbolic language, he
introduces a tourist to Gaffur, one of the service-men of Malgudi: ‘Here
is a very good gentleman, a friend of mine. [. . .] I have brought him
to you personally’ (56). Again, when a customer has to pay by cheque,
Raju with his smooth talk successfully negotiates the awkward situation.
In his capacity as a tourists’ guide, Raju reconstructs the reality of
Malgudi in a manipulated language—monuments are rendered histori-
cally significant or useless. Once with Rosie, Raju’s language is that of
the classic seducer, similar to Satan’s language of wooing Eve in Milton’s
Paradise Lost. Raju’s language here is a fine mixture of pointed expres-
sion of physical desire and a kind of camouflaged ego-pampering:
I spoke of her as an artist in one breath and continued in the next as

a sweetheart. Something like, ‘What a glorious snake dance! Oh, I keep
thinking of you all night. World’s artist number one! Don’t you see how
I am pining for you every hour!’ (84) or, ‘Your dance was marvellous.
[. . .] Won’t you be my sweetheart?’ (79).
Rosie sees through Raju’s insincerity, yet she cannot escape such verbal
charms. Rosie and Marco are not glib talkers like Raju, yet they have
their own kind of language, the language of the specialist. During
107
Marco’s lectures on Mempi Hills and their historical and cultural rele-
vance, Raju appears tongue-tied since he has not the education, nor
the expertise to explore the technicalities of Marco’s language; ‘I wished
I had been schooled in a jargon-picking institution; that would have
enabled me to move with various persons on equal terms’ (128). Raju’s
lawyer may also be regarded as a language wizard, who can forge reali-
ties out of the air, yet he fails to cope with the linguistic competence
of Marco’s lawyer. Rosie-Nalini has at her finger tips the specific language
of a classical dancer and her dance is punctuated with cultured transla-
tions which are beyond Raju’s comprehension. As for the minor char-
acters in the novel, they have their own linguistic peculiarities. Velan
and Raju’s mother, simple and illiterate as they are, use an almost
identical language. Velan describes his sister thus: ‘She sulks in a room
all day. I do not know what to do. It is possible that she is possessed’
(16). When Raju’s mother describes the cow as ‘getting wrong-headed’
(12) we must not lose sight of the multi-faceted use of language in
character-delineation and portrayal of situations. For instance, in the
closing lines of the novel, Narayan’s language becomes movingly poetic
without being sentimentalized. The sensitive reader is touched by Raju’s
words: ‘Velan, it’s raining in the hills. I can feel it coming up under
my feet, up my legs—’ (247). It is the special language of the seer,
almost incomprehensible because it articulates unknown truths. Raju’s
words are simultaneously intelligible and mystifying, as ambivalent and
opaque as a Delphic oracle.7
Of the essential components of Narayan’s style one must mention
his appropriate use of image and symbol, indirect discourse, understate-
ments as well as the infusion of a dramatic and dynamic quality. The
reader does not miss the subtle use of symbols in the novel. The most
significant one is the mythical scenario, the gestures and movements
of Rosie as she performs her classic dance, resembling Nataraja’s cosmic
dance, the graceful gyrations of a terribly beautiful snake that ‘resided
on the locks of Shiva himself, on the wrist of his spouse, Parvathi, and
in the ever-radiant home of the gods in Kailas’ (212). The song actually
sublimated the serpent and articulated its mystic quality by virtue of
its hypnotic rhythm, as Raju was captivated by the forty-five minute
dance: he describes it in a highly poetic language:
108
Every inch of her body from toe to head rippled and vibrated to the
rhythm of this song which lifted the cobra out of its class of an under-
ground reptile into a creature of grace and divinity and an ornament of
the gods (212).
Again, Marco is presented, contrary to Rosie who is a symbol of life,

as one with a rather morbid disposition Narayan takes care to suggest
Marco’s alienation from reality and his failure to understand Rosie as
a human being. Raju describes Marco’s morbid inclinations so very
succinctly: ‘Dead and decaying things seemed to unloosen his tongue
and fire his imagination, rather than things that lived. [. . .]’ (81–82).
Raju is a literal guide but his function is symbolic as he is transformed,
by a gradual process, from a tourists’ guide to an impresario and finally
to a spiritual guide. The irony that the guide himself is misguided and
naturally misguides others is unmistakable. The motive of rebirth is
underscored in Raju’s story. This is suggested when he falls in love with
Rosie, when he is imprisoned, when the villagers force sainthood upon
him and finally when he carries on with his act of penance. At the close
of the novel, as Velan and others support the sagging body of the swami,
there is an unmistakable hint at spiritual rebirth through self-sacrifice:
‘The morning sun was out by now; a great shaft of light illuminated
the surroundings. It was difficult to hold Raju on his feet, as he had a
tendency to flop down. They held him as if he were a baby’ (247).
Further, by employing a substantial amount of direct dialogue as well
as indirect discourse RK Narayan achieves dramatic immediacy. The
voice of the omniscient narrator coalesces into the identity of his
protagonist; the reader has the impression of having been granted an
access to the character’s thought processes. We may quote a passage
from the text to validate our observation:
Darkness fell. Still there was no sign of Velan or anyone. They did not
come that night. [. . .] Suppose they never came again? What was to
happen? He became panicky. All night he lay worrying. All his old fears
came back (34).
In the entire passage the two interrogative sentences are evidently in

the narrator’s voice. Those two statements voice Raju’s alarmed and
109
anxious ‘thoughts’ which are practically a kind of soliloquy interspersed

with the authorial narration. This technique of intermixing authorial
discourse and first person narrative helps the reader get inside Raju’s
mind. This brings us to the question of the dramatic quality of Narayan’s
prose style in The Guide. Raju’s recountings of his past life are in most
cases given through dialogue which lends an element of authenticity
and dynamism to the narrative while unfolding Raju’s past, with its
associations, before the very eyes of the reader as a living panorama.
We should here also note Narayan’s unique ability to bring in the
appropriate colloquial tone which establishes the identity of the speaker.
For example, when Raju’s mother, lacking in so-called polish and formal
ettiquette, abuses Rosie for destroying Raju’s life, her language betrays
her class and the social milieu in which she had lived:
She [mother] flew straight at the sobbing Rosie, crying, ‘Are you now
satisfied with your handiwork, you she-devil, you demon. [. . .] Everything
was so good and quiet—until you came; you came in like a viper. [. . .]
On the very day I heard him mention the “serpent-girl” my heart sank.
I knew nothing good could come out of it’ (170).
Marco’s castigation of Rosie is couched in a different kind of language—

his measured tone, logic and sarcasm point towards his academic preten-
sions. He thinks Rosie’s dance is no better than street-acrobatics: ‘What
is there intelligent or creative in it? You repeat your tricks all your life.
We watch a monkey perform, not because it is artistic but because it
is a monkey that is doing it’ (148). As for Raju, Narayan endows him
with so many voices. He is snappy and glib with his customers, irritable
with his mother, ingratiating or defensive in his negotiations with Rosie
and on top of all, quite deliberately verbose and pompous with his
disciples and devotees in the village of Mangal. All these aspects of
variety and vigour in the narration and dialogue point to the wide range
of Narayan’s language. In this connection, we must mention Narayan’s
understatements. How visually effective and appealing is Raju’s reflec-
tion on Rosie’s unwitting response to the dance of the king cobra: ‘The
whole thing [the dance of the cobra] repelled me, but it seemed to
fascinate the girl’ (68).
In sum, it should be borne in mind that Narayan’s deployment of
110
various stylistic devices is dictated by the inevitably postcolonial char-

acter of the English language. To approximate the local idiom, a variety
of linguistic techniques are used—direct use of native tongues, literal
translations which at times are the source of clumsy information, not
based on normal English but quite appropriate for the sake of its local
colour. This creates an unmistakable Indian ambience, even as Narayan
exposes the difficulty of truthfully representing the traditional values
India, in the context of a postcolonial modern India.
RD
1. RK Narayan, ‘Fifteen Years’, in A Writer’s Nightmare: (Selected Essays

1958–1988), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988, p. 16.
2. RK Narayan, ‘To A Hindi Enthusiast’, in A Writer’s Nightmare: (Selected
Essays 1958–1988), Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988, p. 26.
3. Ibid, p. 26.
4. Ibid, p. 26.
5. RK Narayan, ‘Toasted English’, in Story-Teller’s World: Stories, Essays,
Sketches, New Delhi [u.a.]: Penguin Books India, 1990, p. 26.
paper itself.
7. Nandini Bhattacharya, RK Narayan’s The Guide, New Delhi: Worldview
Publications, c.2004, p. 39.
111
4.1.3 Myth and Reality: A Two-level Representation in The Guide
RK Narayan’s mixed allegiance to two literary modes is a recurrent feature,

a complex patterning to be found in many of his novels, specially The
Guide. Beneath the standard paradigm of the novel form, we find glimpses
of an archaic, alien pattern which seems to blend well with the paradigm,
simultaneously modifying it. If RK Narayan attempts to write a realistic
novel in the European tradition of realism, there is a simultaneous tendency
in him to place his work within the Indian mythical tradition. These two
modes of writing are not opposed binaries but complementary to each
other, which modulate the thematic structure of The Guide. Poststructuralist
criticism regards such categories as myth and reality as extremely prob-
lematic. Realism, according to Georg Lukács, is associated with a progressive
ideology enabling the writer to stimulate an individual within his imme-
diate social environment and to involve himself with the process of history
associated with myth. Prior to RK Narayan, Indian writers like
Bankimchandra Chatterjee, while writing in the realistic mode, employed
mythical patterns within the fictional space. Meenakshi Mukherjee in her
book Realism and Reality asserted that most Indian writers accepted the
ideological assumptions of realism as opposed to the mythical framework.
Myth today means specifically a non-realistic fabulous story which is related
to a specific culture. Carl Gustav Jung pointed out the historical and
cultural aspects of myth by stressing the mythical structures which are
drawn from the ‘collective unconscious’ of the people or the cumulative
experience of a cultural tradition. While discussing the nature and func-
tion of myth, Roland Barthes pinpoints its essential qualities
In passing from history to nature, myth makes a saving; it abolishes the

complexity of human action, gives it an elemental simplicity [. . .] it
organizes a world without contradictions. [. . .] Myth creates a happy
clarity.1
In The Guide, for example, it is this elemental simplicity, this happy

clarity of vision which Velan and the villagers share; it is shown as more
powerful and even indestructible compared to the complex perspectives
of Raju as well as the readers who have the benefit of insight into verbal
irony.2 The evocation of mythical structures in modern fiction creates
a resonance in the reader, and gives the story a universal dimension.
Ernst Cassirer in his book Symbol, Myth and Culture also asserts that
myths are not an outgrowth of primitive mentality. They have their
place in the most advanced human culture.3 RK Narayan uses both the
realistic and mythical modes in an extremely complex and interrelated
pattern, in which both myth and reality overlap and interwine each
other.
In his youthful years, Narayan was influenced by the classic realist
fiction writers, while at the same time he was quite aware of the attack
of modernist writers on the realistic mode of writing. In consideration
of Narayan’s veracious portrayal of social environment and of the reac-
tions of the individuals to their socio-political environment, The Guide
is an example of a classic realist text. It is admitted that Narayan drew
extensively on his actual experiences in creating his fictional world in
The Guide. The descriptions of the cave temples on the Chamundi Hills
and the many historical documents and ruins are graphic. Raju’s descrip-
tions of the charms of Malgudi bear the stamp of reality. During his
tour of Mysore, Narayan saw and later incorporated in his novel, as
part of Raju’s guided tour, elephants, hooded king cobras and tigers. It
may be noted in this connection that Narayan himself points out that
The Guide was born out of a real-life incident of twelve Brahmins
standing in knee-deep water and chanting holy mantras to bring about
rains in the state of Karnataka which was undergoing a drought at the
time. We may refer to Narayan’s descriptions in The Guide:
Someone else came with the news that the fast-drying lake bed in a
nearby village was showing up an old temple. [. . .] The image of God
113
was still intact in the inner shrine, none the worse for having lain under
water so long. [. . .] 4
The Guide is undoubtedly a realistic novel in that it brings in references

to the sweeping changes in the lives of independent Indians. This is
seen in Raju’s rejection of his’s father’s profession, that of a shopkeeper;
he adopts new ways of earning quick money, in his case acting as a
guide or an impresario. Similarly, Rosie, though belonging to a tradi-
tional ‘devadasi’ family, earns a degree in economics and succeeds to
an extent in aligning herself with the respectable mainstream of the
country. Even Raju’s mother appreciates her: ‘You are not like us unedu-
cated women. You will get on anywhere. [. . .] What are you going to
do? Are you going to join government service and earn?’ (142). The
vision of a new nation, one of Gandhiji’s dreams, emerges from Raju’s
keeping a fast to facilitate the arrival of rains, as a villager declares in
the novel: ‘This Mangala is a blessed country to have a man like the
Swami in our midst. [. . .] He is like Mahatma’ (102). Again, Rosie is
accepted as a dancer all over India, though she hails from a low-caste
family, and Raju significantly observes: ‘All that narrow notion may be
true of old days, but it’s different now. Things have changed. There is
no caste or class today’ (85). We may also note how in The Guide
Narayan refers to the change in gender equations in Indian society, in
depicting the marriage of Rosie and Marco through a newspaper adver-
tisement. As for the locale, it is interesting to note in this connection
that RK Narayan wrote The Guide while he was in the US—far away
from the Indian environment—yet, Malgudi is not a verbatim recrea-
tion of Mysore; as Narayan himself notes in My Days, Malgudi could
be found anywhere, even in Berkeley. It must be remembered that
though Narayan writes in the realistic mode, his realism is not unitary
or axiomatic, since he employs multiple and changing perspectives. The
social reality evoked by Malgudi and Mangal is recognizably Indian,
but not superficial; it is ‘Hindu upper caste Pan-India, resistant to
change, eternal and immutable.’5
Narayan’s childhood days in a Lutheran missionary school did not
undermine his cultural convictions, his internalization of the Hindu
mythological patterns. His upbringing in a Tamil Brahmin family helped
his naturalization. Yet, while writing The Guide, Narayan must have
114
realized that a postcolonial world of mixed cultures cannot be used

directly in a novel. As he himself says:
With the impact of modern literature, we begin to look at the gods,

demons, sages and kings of our mythology and epics not as some remote
concoctions but as styles and symbols [. . .] even when viewed against
the contemporary background.6
Essentially, Narayan uses two distinct traditional mythical struc-

tures—the myth of the sinner, Ratnakar turning into the sage Balmiki
(evoking the atmosphere of the Ramayana), and the myth of Krishna.
Further, the reference to Sita, the river Saraju and Mangala reinforce
the resonance of the epic. Raju’s release from prison and his subsequent
‘enforced sainthood’ resemble the mythical story of the metamorphosis
of Ratnakar, though the real change in Raju comes at a critical moment
when he comes to realize that he has to go on an expiatory fast. He is
genuinely moved by the unpretentious faith of the villagers, who do
not care for his rogueish past. This myth is enriched by traditional
Indian tales about the irresistible power of faith which is illustrated, as
it were, by the unshakable faith of the villagers of Mangal that Raju is
a god-cum-swami who has come to deliver them from poverty, pain
and suffering. They have a saint among them because they really believe
that saints do exist. The second mythic motif relates to the story of the
naughty god Krishna, which similarly enrich the novel’s mythical struc-
ture. It may be said that the earlier apparently immoral actions of Raju
are a kind of trial for the true believers in bhakti. Raju’s past, including
his association with dancing women, provides a backdrop to his final
greatness as a saint, a swami who can perform miracles. These mythic
motifs are never employed in a direct manner by Narayan; they become
somewhat unstable and problematic since the essential comic/ironic
perspective of the novelist is never absent.
Not only does Narayan use these two dominant myth patterns, he
also interlards them with many other Indian myths. Both Raju and
Nalini create their own myths—Raju creating the myth of an eternal
and authentic Indian in his role as a tourists’ guide, showing to visitors
caves, pillars and ruins, the attractive flora and fauna, dense jungles,
rushing waterfalls, hooded cobras. Despite the introduction of railways
115
and automobiles, Malgudi is as unchanged as ever; Meenakshi Mukherjee

observes in her The Perishable Empire: ‘Malgudi is Hindu upper caste
Pan-India, resistant to change, eternal and immutable’.7 The mythical
past and its associations are never absent from the minds of the villagers.
As Narayan himself points out in his book, Gods, Demons and Others,
Raju, seated in the ancient dilapidated temple, uttering fatalistic state-
ments and providing balm to the hurt minds by way of wise exhorta-
tions, is reminiscent of the Vedic and Puranic times. Raju’s masquerade
at once perpetuates and subverts a tradition with a strong mythic
undertow. When, later in the novel, Raju acts as a holy man, he tries
to narrate the story of Devaka to Velan. He confesses: ‘I never learned
fully what he [Devaka] did or why, sleep overcoming me before my
mother was through even the preamble’ (21). Perhaps Devaka, the
mythical king, is meant to be an analogue of Raju himself—at sundown
he offers the image at the ruined shrine his own food, saying, ‘Let the
offering go to Him, first, and we will eat the remnant’ (18). Raju’s
cynical and purposeful manipulation of the scriptures is exposed by
Narayan’s ironic stance. It is also ironic that Raju ends up as an item
of the ‘packaged mythical India’ shown off to Westerners and Westernized
Indians. His fasting too becomes a spectacular display. The Indian
government intends to show to the assembled gathering documentaries
on how cameras visit the temple to record the vision of an exotic eternal
India full of miracle-performing sadhus.
With Rosie turning into a classical (Bharatnatyam) dancer, the myths
work in complex ways. When Raju’s mother quotes many mythological
tales of Savitri, Sita and other celebrated heroines of mythical India,
she actually condemns Raju unwittingly. Again, Rosie imagines herself
as ‘Nataraja’, the cosmic dancer and the rejuvenator of the universe.
The snake in the ‘Nataraj’ myth is an associate of Lord Shiva, who
among many other things is the god of dance. This snake myth is
however variously interpreted: the conservative mother of Raju, nurtured
in Indian traditions, with no exposure to Western rationalism, neverthe-
less ‘internalizes the Judeo-Christian associations of the snake as shaitan,
and woman as the human manifestation of those satanic propensities.’8
In the minds of the Indian readers are recreated the glory and the
fascination associated with the snake. Narayan also problematizes the
myth of Sita and Savitri, since Rosie cannot fit with the known mythical
116
patterns of a faithful wife. Seen from a new perspective, she, however,

may be looked upon as the product of Narayan’s unique restructuring
of the traditional myth, in that, Rosie finally remains faithful to her
husband by simply taking with her Marco’s book out of everything that
she and Raju had accumulated. Clearly enough, it is through the final
self-sacrifice of Raju at the close of the novel that Narayan makes the
mythical structure intersect the social reality in The Guide.
RD
1. As quoted by Chitra Shankaran in: Chitra Shankaran, The Myth Connection:

The Use of Hindu Mythology in Some Novels of Raja Rao and RK Narayan,
Ahmedabad: Allied Publishers, 1993, p. 238.
2. As noted by Chitra Shankaran in: Ibid, p. 239.
3. See: Ernst Cassirer and Donald Phillip Verene, Symbol, Myth, and Culture:
Essays and Lectures of Ernst Cassirer, 1935–1945, New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1979.
paper itself.
5. Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Perishable Empire: Essays on Indian Writing in
English, 2000; New Delhi: OUP, 2002, p. 171.
6. RK Narayan, ‘English in India: The Process of Transmutation’, in Aspects
of Indian Writing in English, ed. by MK Naik, New Delhi: Macmillan,
1979, p. 21.
7. Mukherjee (2000), p. 171.
Publications, c.2004, p. 66–67.
117
4.1.4 The Guide as a Picaresque Novel
The picaresque novel, which had its origin in sixteenth century Spain,
recounts the life of a knave or picaroon who is the servant of several
masters. Through the many experiences he undergoes, the author satirizes
the society in which the picaroon lives. Among the celebrated picaresque
novels are Thomas Nashe’s The Unfortunate Traveller (1594), Lesage’s
Gil Blas (1715 - 1735), Defoe’s Moll Flanders (1722), Fielding’s Jonathan
Wild (1743) and Smollett’s Roderick Random (1748). A more recent
example is Thomas Mann’s Confessions of Felix Krull (1954). The English
version of the picaresque novel is distinguished by certain essential
features—first, the novel ensures the presence of a rogue or a petty
criminal as the central figure; secondly, the journey of the picaroon is
the dominant paradigm of the novel. The rogue-hero (in The Guide it
is Raju, the trickster-saint) begins his journey in the pursuit of material
prosperity or a shelter to escape the long arm of the law. In a sense,
the picaroon undergoes a kind of psychological development. Thirdly,
as the novel comes to a close, the pursuit of the rogue is rewarded with
some kind of reward—usually, the status of a gentleman with some
wealth in his possession. Fourthly, the plot structure in such a novel is
broadly episodic; the apparently unrelated episodes are linked together
by the presence of the hero (for example, Dickens’s Pickwick Papers).
Fifthly, the texture of the novel is often comic-ironic—the picaroon
contributing to this ironic vision as he unknowingly exposes the preten-
sions and hypocrisies of the society in which he is marginally situated.
In the nineteenth century, the form developed into a bildungsroman
novel in which the hero is no longer an actual rogue but a homeless
child or any person in search of their identity. Here, however, the

emphasis is more on the protagonist’s ‘symbolic-integration’ within
society. Dickens’s David Copperfield is a fine example of such a thematic
structure.
An attempt to interpret RK Narayan’s The Guide as a picaresque or
bildungsroman novel as fitting into a tight pattern would be to put the
cart before the horse. The novel is centred on arbitrary and chance
events which modify the progressive structure of the picaresque. The
picaresque framework in Narayan’s novel is built within an Indian
context, it is a rogue-turned-saint tale. The mythical frame of reference
is perhaps that of Ratnakar turned into Balmiki. The transformation
of a con-man into a swami expected to help an anguished community
is a modern version of an ancient story. The plot of The Guide is not,
however, as fragmentary as in the early picaresque novels. It is episodic
in nature, as has already been pointed out, and can be divided into
separate sections—Raju’s life as a railway guide, then his role as Rosie’s
lover and an impresario, ending in conviction on charges of forgery
and finally Raju’s transformation into a typical Indian saint forced to
do penance for the sins of a community. It is interesting to note that
Narayan uses journey as a dominant leitmotif—the introduction of
railways, symbolizing mobility brought to a largely static Indian life, as
well as the literal and psychological journey of Raju as it is charted
throughout the novel. We may further note that in the novel there are
incessant movements—tourists coming to Malgudi and journeying over
the length and breadth of this fictional country along the Mempi Hills,
as well as Raju and Nalini’s travels over the entire country for stage
performances. At the end of the novel there are also descriptions of
people moving in railways and buses or by ship to Malgudi to watch
the typical Indian spectacle of a fasting saint about to perform some
kind of miracle. The arrival of government officials from Delhi for using
the sight of the saint as a means of publicizing its programmes and the
TV coverage by James Malone coming all the way from California for
purposes of propaganda substantiate the concept of movement or
journey as one of the motifs of the novel.
The protagonist of the novel, Raju, is portrayed as a petty fraudster
and con-man. In the beginning, he works as a seller of sweetmeats on
the platform; then, he is accepted by gullible tourists as an authentic
119
guide by dint of his smart talk. His knowledge as a guide is picked up

at random from intermittent reading of old books, journals and news-
papers. What makes him an ideal railway guide is his natural gift of
exploiting the tourist’s psychology. He has instinctive cunning and that
is why he can successfully judge the potential gulls that the tourists
prove to be. For the academic type, Raju was careful to avoid mentioning
facts and figures. As he himself says:
On the other hand, if an innocent man happened to be at hand, I let

myself go freely. [. . .] I gave statistics out of my head. I mentioned a
relic as belonging to the thirteenth century before Christ or the thirteenth
century after Christ, according to the mood of the hour.1
Whenever a lone tourist appreciated the beauty of a particular spot, Raju

immediately tried to make the man feel guilty, saying that the beauty
of the spot ‘should be enjoyed by the whole family’ (57). In all probability,
the man would swear that he would be coming back with his entire
family in the next season. Raju has confidence in himself and a sort of
nonchalance which helps him to size up Marco and Rosie as prize
customers. He is able to judge how he can get quick money in exchange
for least labour or how rich a tourist is as soon as he steps down from
the train. In the manner of a true picaroon he starts milking him,
showing him his elaborate network of car drivers, forest officers, hotels
and photograph shops. From all of them he got a percentage of profits.
Again, with the help of Gaffur he squeezes out from Marco a substantial
amount of money, furnishing chits of paper as authenticated proof. Nor
does he fail to make a right assessment of the relationship between Marco
and Rosie and does not hesitate to take advantage of the situation. He
is apparently motivated by lust; but how skilfully he mixes up his lustful
expressions with appreciation of Rosie’s skill as a dancer: ‘All night I did
not sleep, [. . .] The way you danced, your form and figure haunted me
all night’ (72). He is unabashed in the use of flattering words: ‘who
would decorate a rainbow?’ When Raju feels that he must take a chance,
he does not forget to camouflage his desire in flattering words:
I spoke my mind. I praised her dancing. I spoke out my love, but

sandwiched it conveniently between my appreciations of her art. I spoke
120
of her as an artist in one breath, and continued in the next as a sweet-

heart (84).
When Rosie leaves her husband and comes to stay with Raju, he
discovers a way in which he could attain wealth and success. In a
masterstroke of cunning, he persuades Albert Mission College to give
Rosie an opportunity to perform. Slowly, Raju establishes himself as
Rosie’s impresario, thus earning a sizeable income from the stage shows
organized by him. In a sense, Raju deceives Nalini as he is more
concerned with material benefits gained from Rosie’s performances,
without showing any concern for Nalini’s commitment to her art. He
can always come up with timely explanations and cheering words
whenever Rosie feels exhausted or has misgivings about her own
performance:
I called her flatteringly a shrewd girl, laughed and enjoyed it as a joke,

fondled her, and made her forget the subject. [. . .] It seemed absurd
that we should earn less than the maximum we could manage. My
philosophy was that while it lasted the maximum money had to be
squeezed out (195).
Raju appears to be a perfect picaroon in his shameless exploitation of

Nalini, and turns his head so much so that he thinks himself the creator
of Rosie, the dancer: ‘I was puffed up with the thought of how I had
made her [. . .] I gave it out that that was my seat wherever I might
go, and unless I sat there Nalini would be unable to perform’ (182).
Like the rogues of tradition, Raju overreaches himself as he commits
the act of forgery. In the legal battle that ensues, Raju is convicted and
is sent to prison. His life in prison is a significant phase in the journey
of Narayan’s rogue-hero. During his days of imprisonment, he meditates
on his past actions and comes to realize that fame, money and physical
pleasures are all short-lived. He had to engage himself in some kind of
physical labour in the prison—digging up the soil, planting seeds and
nurturing flowers. All these have a kind of calming effect on him. And
these lead him to the final phase of his journey—his transformation or
spiritual regeneration. When he is released from the prison, he has no
idea as to what he should do. Fortune seems to smile upon him as he
121
is taken for a holy man by the simple villagers of Mangal. These villagers,
Raju realizes, are potential gulls whom he can exploit at his own sweet
will for physical sustenance and material gains. By a strange turn of
events, Raju is forced into an inescapable situation—he has to expiate
for the sins of the villagers and thus save the village from drought. It
cannot be denied that though Raju, like a conventional picaroon, does
not do anything for anyone there is a development in his psyche. He
asks the young boys of the village to come to his temple to educate
themselves under his guidance. It is no doubt an arbitrary gesture on
his part intended to prove himself a holy man to the credulous villagers.
But this act of teaching is invariably a significant stage in his regenera-
tion. Even the act of expiation by keeping fast is an arbitrary and
unwitting action. Raju’s happy-go-lucky existence is seriously disturbed
by short supply of food because of famine and plague. With the onset
of famine and plague the villagers of Mangal start fighting each other,
which makes Raju apprehend that such communal disharmony may
attract the attention of the police and he might be exposed. Raju’s
next move is quite significant—he makes Velan’s idiot brother his
messenger who will pass on the message that if the villagers do not
stop fighting each other, the ‘swami’ will not accept food from them.
By a strange turn of interrelated events, this message is interpreted by
the villagers as Raju’s decision to keep a fast till death, only in order
to help bring long cherished rain on the dry and parched lands. In
the process of Raju resorting to every kind of trick to come out of his
self created ‘trap’, a certain psychological development takes place in
Raju. The fact is that the arbitrary and coincident events that shape
Raju’s life prevent us from reading The Guide as a picaresque or
bildungsroman novel. Yet there is no denying that chance and arbi-
trariness which make Raju take certain decisions makes the novel
psychologically more convincing. The transformation of a self-centred,
self-seeking picaroon into a Mahatma-like figure would not appear to
be convincing without some bizarre chance happenings in the life of
Raju. The change of heart, leading to a kind of spiritual growth in
Raju, becomes aesthetically justified because this development is
presented as a natural consequence of a certain period of catharsis—
Raju had to live in isolation from human company and human pleasures
during his life in prison. His little, nameless acts of kindness and love,
122
such as acting as a counsellor to the villagers in his role of ‘sadhu’, his

teaching the children brace him up for the final act of sacrifice. However
incomplete or unwitting, Raju’s spiritual journey only follows his
spiritual kinship with the community at large as he decides to go on
a fast; he utters words that are quite significant:
If by avoiding food I should help the tress bloom, and the grass grow,
why not do it thoroughly? [. . .] for the first time he was learning the
thrill of full application, outside money and love; for the first time he
was doing a thing in which he was not personally interested. He felt
suddenly so enthusiastic that it gave him a new strength to go through
with the ordeal (237–238).
Apart from the spiritual and psychological development of Raju, there

is an almost parallel pattern of development in Rosie; from a dubious
past, she comes to marry a scholarly husband with wealth and respect
and then breaks away from her husband and involves herself in an illicit
relation with Raju, her lover. From a devadasi or temple dancer, who is
not at all respected in Hindu society, she is initiated into the mainstream
of Indian society, earning respect and approbation. This is undoubtedly
progress—a development similar to that which we find in a picaresque
or bildungsroman novel. Further, Marco, a neglected character in the
novel, is also seen as undergoing some kind of progressional pattern.
First, in marrying Rosie who hails from a relatively backward class, he
proves himself a man of liberal outlook on life. As a scholar he has no
time to appreciate Nalini’s artistic qualities; he is only an academic
engrossed in archaeological books and study of ruins. This leads to the
second stage of his journey—he loses both his money and his wife. Yet
he is determined to achieve his scholarly goals; with the same determina-
tion he sends Raju to prison with the charge of forgery. Such dogged
determination and single mindedness make him earn a substantial degree
of respect from everyone. It may be noted in passing that in the bildung-
sroman form names play an important role in indicating characters. Raju
chooses the name Marco because the gentleman looks like a genuine
tourist: it may not be a coincidence that Marco is also the name of a
famous Western traveller to the East. Again, Rosie is a Tamil residing
in Madras; her name represents superficial aping of Western culture.
123
Raju’s words are interesting: ‘Why did she call herself Rosie? [. . .] Don’t
imagine on hearing her name that she wore a short skirt or cropped her
hair’ (9). The adoption of the name ‘Nalini’ may be, on her part, an
attempt to authenticate herself, a pursuit of her cultural roots. Nalini,
meaning a lotus that blooms out of the mud or dirt, is perhaps Narayan’s
oblique reference to her devadasi past. The erudite reader of the novel
might even go to the extent of seeing her as a Baudelairian ‘fleur du
mal’. Again, Raju, a south Indian name, becomes Railway Raju, a super-
ficially Anglicized name of a tourists’ guide. As Rosie’s impresario he
dons the fashionable Indian name, Raj. Then it is only one step from
his next title ‘vadhyar’ (teacher) in the prison to the title of ‘swami’ or
‘Mahatma’. The journey of a picaroon (not in the traditional sense) from
the role of a simple, unassuming railway vendor to a roguish tourists’
guide and then, through a maze of coincidences and chances, to the
role of an enforced spiritual guide is complete. The Guide comes across
as an Indian picaresque novel as well as a bildungsroman, keeping up
the essential Spanish tradition and yet successfully placing it within the
Indo-Anglian literary tradition.
RD

paper itself.
124
4.1.5 The Postcolonial Aspects of The Guide
In his book, A Storyteller’s World, RK Narayan humorously observes:

‘History shows that India and Britain came close to each other for over
a century, engaged [. . .] in an unholy wedlock, followed by a deadlock,
and ending in a divorce.’1 The term ‘postcolonial’ concerns itself with
change, displacement and radical transformation brought about by the
historical process of colonization. It is some kind of adjustment with
colonial devaluation of native culture. This is for one thing. It is also
all about the formation of new identities, resistance against the cultural
imposition of the rulers which is a threat to precolonial ways of life
and cultural roots of the colonized. It is a deliberate move on the part
of the colonizer, an act of destabilization. That is for another. The ques-
tion whether a modern Indian national can really turn his face away
from westernization with its political and moral implications has been
raised by George Woodcock in his essay ‘Two Great Commonwealth
Novelists: RK Narayan and VS Naipaul’.2 Narayan, he said, suggests
that the only way to attempt it is
by withdrawal into one of the two Indian worlds that remained relatively
untouched by the intrusion of the Raj and the influences that have
survived it. [. . .] In Narayan’s novel such withdrawal rarely provides a
way to self-transformation, but it does often lead to self-discovery.3
For Meenakshi Mukherjee, this phenomenon of sliding back to a simple,

precolonial past is a form of reaction against postcolonial hybridity,
which she terms as ‘the anxiety of Indianness.’4 The privileging of
precolonial ethos over the postcolonial is evident in Narayan’s earlier

novels through the utter absence or ‘peripheral’ and ‘hopelessly unim-
portant’ existence of the British characters: in The Guide this is seen in
the presentation of the British characters as caricatures. In his book,
The Colonial Encounter, A Reading of Six Novels,5 MM Mahood points
out Narayan’s non-attachment to postcolonial complexity and also his
attempt to demonstrate how Hinduism, even in postcolonial India, is a
positively operative philosophy of life. These depictions of tradition are
on the whole dynamic rather than passively nostalgic.
Assuredly, The Guide delineates an India which tries to negotiate with
a confusing set of changes brought about by the colonial encounter. In
much of his fiction, Narayan strongly disapproves of the foolish attempt
on the part of some Indians to deny their colonial past by demolishing
statues of British governors or banning the English language. The ‘unholy
wedlock’ between India and Britain changed ways of living for both the
rulers and the ruled. But this change was quite imperceptible. Narayan
underlines the fact that a return to the traditional, uncontaminated Indian
past is an impossibility. Nandini Bhattacharya rightly observes that novels
of RK Narayan are undoubtedly about ‘hybridized spaces, and mongrelized
individuals, as say, the novels of more pronouncedly “postcolonial” writers,
such as Salman Rushdie.’6 Since The Guide sets out to bring into sharp
focus postcolonial changes and transformations, it becomes a classic
postcolonial text. The opening of the novel brings in the advent of rail-
ways which substantially transformed ways of living and social patterns of
behaviour in India, here encapsulated in Malgudi. It is the introduction
of the railways which precipitates Raju’s switching over from his traditional
profession to that of a tourists’ guide. The uncontaminated atmosphere
of Malgudi changes thoroughly with the arrival of the railways, leading
to the incorporation of new people and new ideas within the traditional
milieu. Raju’s little world suffers a radical change with the building of
railway tracks: ‘I lost to some extent my freedom under the tamarind
tree, because trucks were parked there.’7 His association with the workers
there vitiates to an extent the young Raju’s innocent childlike speech. On
this, Dr Nandini Bhattacharya’s observations are refreshingly stimulating,
as she regards Raju as a victim of circumstances, which force him to
adjust and adapt to modern ways of living that are sweeping across the
country and colours his reactions to Rosie, Marco, Gaffur, Joseph or for
126
that matter, the numerous characters floating through the Malgudi of

The Guide. Raju adjusts himself with the new ways of living. Not only
that, these enormous changes that sweep across the country also confuse
his father, who had to face the stream of unknown people, as a result of
which he comes back to his hut shop—the older way of life meant living
amidst a shared community of friends and relatives. Raju, on the other
hand, adjusts himself faster, rising through the changing needs of the
Indian community, first as a newspaper vendor, then as a tourists’ guide
providing service. The title foisted on Raju, ‘Railway Raju,’ is a form of
the hybridization of Raju’s identity. The railway thus introduces Malgudi
to the rest of India and the world at large. The influx of foreign tourists
is a direct offshoot of the colonial process. The touring of Westernized
Indians facilitated by railways and roads, the popularity of petrol-engine
powered buses and cars—all are an inevitable after effect of the colonial
transformation. It is interesting to observe in this connection that Raju’s
innovativeness in giving the name Marco to the character that bears it
reminds the reader of one of the first historical travellers from the West
to the East. Further, the inevitable process of colonization opens up
remote and unexplored parts of the subcontinent to the Westerners and
Westernized Indians; the same process created new employment possibili-
ties like the jobs of an interpreter, a military man or a tourist’s guide.
Raju’s knowledge of English, although shallow, helps him in his exhibition
of historical sights to his customers. Raju’s associates can also be seen as
products of the colonial encounter. Gaffur, the hotel employees, the forest
officers, village men arranging cobra shows, the owner of the photo
stores—all provide services for an entertainment industry instituted as a
result of colonization. And all these are the byproducts of colonial trans-
formation which is a transformation to faster and easier modes of commu-
nication which changed the nature of tourism that existed before the
imposition of the British Raj. As the novel progresses through a series of
events, Malgudi is transformed into a holy place where Raju, a suppos-
edly holy man, undergoes ritual fasting under an act of penance for the
community. Mangala, the site of Raju’s expiatory gesture, is transformed
into a repository of holiness as well as one which generates ‘virtues of
selfless love.’ Raju, the railway vendor, is forced by circumstances to
undergo intense suffering for his community. His little nameless beneficent
acts such as teaching the children of the village prepare him for the final
127
act of penance. Whether Raju, the guide, can perform the miracle of
bringing in the rains is open to question. But he performs the deeper
miracle of transforming the poor and marginalized community into a
self-confident, self-believing rural unit. Raju’s real miracle, like Gandhiji’s,
is one of human transformation. Again, Rosie’s transformation from a
daughter of a ‘devadasi’ dancer to a classical dancer, a cultural icon, is
also a result of colonization. We must also note that Rosie’s marriage to
Marco is symptomatic of postcolonial change within domestic life as a
result of exposure to Western ways. In an upper class Hindu Tamilian
society, Rosie will hardly be accepted—Raju’s mother cannot accept a
woman without a father or a respectable family background; she is armed
with a postgraduate degree in economics but also burdened with a broken
marriage. Rosie’s transformation into a full-fledged career woman, Nalini,
also indicates how RK Narayan in The Guide focuses on postcolonial
transformations within the private confines of love, romance and conju-
gality. In a controversial article, ‘How to Read a “Culturally Different”
Book?’, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak intends to interpret The Guide for
‘a feminist reader or teacher in the USA’8 from a postcolonial and feminist
perspective. In the final episode of the novel, Raju is tormented and torn
between his sense of self-preservation and an equally strong desire to be
influenced by the faith of the villagers. It is perhaps a clear-cut example
of how a community comes to term with change and dislocation. This
swing between faith and faithlessness reminds the reader of Salman
Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. In the final lines of this novel, where the
believers attempt to walk across the Arabian Sea to reach Mecca, the
reader never gets to know whether the believers drown or cross the sea.
This oscillation between belief and disbelief typifies a postcolonial Indian
who, though exposed to modern ideas of science and rationality, would
cling on to ingrained beliefs nurtured by myth, epics and folktales. It is
inconsequential whether Raju can actually bring down the rains. The real
miracle suggested by the novelist is that of human transformation; it is
metamorphosis of a subject nation into a confident community that
assumes a new identity on the strength of its own thought and
practice:
He stepped into it, shut his eyes, and turned towards the mountain, his
lips muttering the prayer. [. . .] Raju opened his eyes, looked about,
128
and said, ‘Velan, it’s raining in the hills. I can feel it coming up under
my feet, up my legs—’ (247).
The Guide is not a simplistic Hindu fable on ‘varnasrama’ or the caste

system; nor does it vindicate Yogic asceticism as a way of life. In this
context, we may refer to Elleke Boehmer who says that in The Guide,
Narayan’s narrative method constitutes a typical ‘Indian’ narrative
structure which is ‘meandering, episodic’9 as in the epics and the
Puranas. But such a view fails to focus on the nature of Narayan’s
representation in the novel. VS Naipaul, on the other hand, is more
acute in perceiving the potentially dialogic nature of Narayan’s repre-
sentation. The Guide should rather be read as an intelligent attempt
at mediating between tradition and modernity, between a precolonial
simplistic way of life and postcolonial complexities deriving from
colonization.
RD
1. RK Narayan, A Story-Teller’s World: Stories, Essays, Sketches, New Delhi

[u.a.]: Penguin Books India, 1990, pp. 32–33.
2. See: George Woodcock, ‘Two Great Commonwealth Novelists: RK
Narayan and VS Naipaul’, Sewanee Review, 87, 1979, pp. 1–28.
3. As quoted in: Krishna Sen, Critical Essays on RK Narayan’s The Guide:
With an Introduction to Narayan’s Novel, Hyderabad: Orient Longman,
2004, p. 107.
4. See: Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Perishable Empire: Essays on Indian Writing
in English, 2000; New Delhi: OUP, 2002, p. 166.
5. See: MM Mahood, The Colonial Encounter: A Reading of Six Novels,
London: Collings, 1977.
7.. RK Narayan, The Guide, Chennai: Indian Thought Publications, 2009
paper itself.
129
8. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘How to Read a “Culturally Different” Book?’,

in Colonial Discourse, Postcolonial Theory, ed. by Francis Barker, The Essex
Symposia, Literature, Politics, Theory, Manchester [u.a.]: Manchester Univ.
Press, 1996, p. 133.
9. As quoted in: Sen, 2004, p. 110.
130
4.1.6 Social Reality in The Guide
More than the other novels and stories of RK Narayan, The Guide
presents a comprehensive picture of a particular region, namely an
imaginary south Indian small town named Malgudi. The story of the
novel has for its background a small town and a village, yet Narayan
means it to be almost a microcosmic evocation of India. Thus, The
Guide is more than a so-called regional novel. The portrait of an isolated
region becomes the vast canvas on which the larger picture of Indian
society looms large.
It is admitted that Narayan had a bicultural and bilingual make-up;
he was a man of the soil, internalizing the techniques of the classic
realist novels of Hardy, HG Wells, Scott and Dickens.1 The accurate
portrayal of the social environment in which individuals interact is an
essential feature of Narayan’s novel. How far he actually relies upon his
own experiences to present a fictional world in The Guide is a curious
point. The novel no doubt springs out of Narayan’s arduous exploration
of India’s historical and cultural heritage as he says in his My Day:
By bus or by train I explored every nook and corner [. . .] here was to

be found the earliest sculpture or civilization. [. . .] In every place
everyone found token of a legendary hero or a mark left by gods during
a brief sojourn.2
The exotic plants and animals displayed by Raju as a guide during his
tour of Malgudi are part of the outcome of Narayan’s travels as a young
man around Chamundi Hills. Malgudi is a very nondescript place, an
old-fashioned town. There are distinct references to the social reality of

pre-Independence times. The community there is essentially Hindu but
Hindus and Muslims have lived there in peaceful coexistence for genera-
tions. With the introduction of the railways, the traditional ambience
takes on a Western look. Sleepy little Malgudi becomes a bustling tourist
centre. Simultaneously there occurs a drastic change in the lifestyle of
the people. When Raju runs his platform stall, Malgudi is already
interspersed with shops, cinema halls, taxis, hotels and marketplaces.
On the Mempi Hills however, there is no human encroachment vitiating
the natural surroundings. The caves which Marco visits are typical
archaeological and historical sights. Thatched huts, mud-covered lanes,
ill-nourished livestock, fatalistic villagers living from hand to mouth
make up Mangal, a microcosmic instance of typical rural India. Life is
so hard here; there is little or no entertainment; the villagers come to
Raju in the evenings to hear from him stories and fables of ancient
India.
It should be borne in mind that it is not merely graphic depiction
that Narayan aims at. With his shrewd observations and penetrating
details Narayan exposes the essential hollowness of the conventional
religious rituals and celebrations of piety. In essence, the society of
Malgudi as presented through the lives of Raju’s parents and their
neighbours is narrow-minded and closed. The society is dominated by
patriarchal conventions—Rosie, though a talented dancer and an
educated woman, is not accepted by this society only because she is
illegitimate and born of a low caste. Her husband, Marco, also behaves
like a patriarchal tyrant who wants to find a submissive and domestic
dove in Rosie. In a word, it is a highly money-oriented society where
wealth and status are of more importance than moral values. In his
portrayal of the marriage of Marco and Rosie, Narayan comes out more
or less as a satirist who strongly disapproves of so-called good or decent
marriages. It is interesting to observe in this connection that Raju’s
mother, despite her dislike for Rosie, praises Rosie for her education
and regards her as part of the socially privileged new class in a modern
India. Her words are significant:
You are not like us uneducated women. You will get on anywhere. You
can ask for your railway ticket, call a policeman if somebody worries
132
you, and keep your money. What are you going to do? Are you going
to join government service and earn?3
Like Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao who also envisaged the emergence
of a new and enterprising nation in Kanthapura and Untuochable respec-
tively, Narayan, quite consciously dreamt of a new secular India, free
from caste and class barriers. The slow but sure transformation of a
traditional world into a new social reality is distinctly palpable in the
novel. Raju notes very significantly: ‘All that narrow notion may be
true of the old age, but it’s different now. Things have changed. There
is no caste or class today’ (85). From the point of view of moral or
human values, the relatively modern society in Malgudi, where Raju
finds himself operating as he rapidly moves up the social scale, is no
better than the scenario in the rest of the country, dominated as it is
by corrupt officials. Among the new affluent urban middle class drinking
and gambling replace earlier forms of dissipation. For this section of
the people, culture is no better than a commodity. They patronize Rosie
because she is rich and famous. The stigma of her belonging to the
‘devadasi’ cult is of no concern to them. It may be observed that Raju’s
moral lapse in forging Rosie’s signature indicates the moral laxity of
the society he is a part of, not just an individual’s moral corruption
motivated by personal gain.
The villagers of Mangal, however, are presented as being more spir-
itually inclined. They are simple and firm in their faith and hungry for
some sort of spiritual guidance; this, perhaps, results in their thrusting
sainthood upon Raju. Raju had all along tried to convince them that
he was not at all a wise man but rather a criminal released from prison;
yet Velan and his associates would not listen to him. When Raju advised
them to think independently and not allow themselves to be ‘led about
by the nose as if you were cattle’ (52) the assembled villagers murmured
their polite disagreement which is eloquently voiced by Velan: ‘How
can we do that, Sir. [. . .] It is wise persons like your good self who
should think for us’ (52). When Raju insists on keeping the fast to
cause the rains, a villager declares: ‘This Mangala is a blessed country
to have a man like the Swami in our midst. [. . .] He is like Mahatma.
When Mahatma Gandhi went without food, how many things
happened in India!’ (102). Narayan, however, suggests that the villagers’
133
acceptance of a fake Mahatma springs from their essential vulnerability;

it is not the real Indian ‘spirituality’. A gentle irony which mocks the
national tendency to convert any happening into a kind of religious
ritual is unmistakable in Narayan’s presentation of the concluding scene
of the novel. Raju stands fasting in the water of the dwindling river
and huge crowds gather because for them it is a place of pilgrimage
consecrated by the presence of the holy man. Food shops, trinket stalls
grow up like mushrooms overnight; the Tea Propaganda Board and
even the Health Department organize official programmes; loudspeakers
blare popular Hindi songs. There are balloon sellers, peddlers and even
a gambling booth. The government also, intending to fan the popular
sentiment, was sending doctors to monitor the swami. Narayan’s final
satirical dig is aimed at the American Television producer, who feels
this exotic oriental miracle should be presented to a global audience.
The Guide deals with a distinct culture of a particular region of India.
As Raju points out during his tourists’ guide phase:
No use expecting a man to be clear-headed who is fresh from a train

journey. He must wash, change his clothes [. . .] and only then can we
expect anyone in South India to think clearly on all matters of this
world and the next (61).
Despite this insistence on regionality, the novel embraces a vast canvas

so that The Guide can never be simply defined as a regional novel. It
is a microcosmic presentation of a region of macrocosmic India. VS
Naipaul in his An Area of Darkness, while criticizing Narayan’s ‘negative
attitude’, observes:
[T]he India of Narayan’s novels are not the India the visitors see. He
tells an Indian truth. [. . .] There is a contradiction in Narayan, between
his form, which implies concern, and his attitude, which denies it; and
in this calm contradiction lies his magic which some have called
Tchekovian.4
RD
134
1. See: Nandini Bhattacharya, RK Narayan’s The Guide, New Delhi: Worldview

paper itself.
4. VS Naipaul, An Area of Darkness, London: A. Deutsch, 1964, p. 228.
135
4.1.7 RK Narayan’s Narrative Technique in The Guide
Elaborate technical experiments or overt display of artistic skills are

never Narayan’s raging concern. Yet The Guide is one among his few
works that draws attention to itself because of its somewhat unusual
narrative technique which is at its subtlest. The narrative alternates
between the past and the present, swinging backward and forward, as
Rosie does while performing her dance on the stage, as it were, thus
emphasizing in the process how Raju’s present is inextricably rooted in
his mundane past. Narayan’s handling of narrative voice with relation
to the protagonist in this novel is contrapuntal. The two threads of
time, the past and the present, are woven in an intricate pattern of
pathos and irony that blend into both social commentary and criticism
of individual consciousness, often of the spiritual. In this two-fold
narrative Raju is the first person narrator who offers a retrospective
vision of his past life in his reliable voice; Arguably, the voice of the
first person narrator tends to invite the reader to collapse the categories
of narrator and author. This is all the more so owing to the ring of
authenticity with which the narrator delineates the setting, Malgudi.
The sections relating to the past in which Raju assumes the role of a
swami and the consequences entailing from it are narrated by the
omniscient third person narrator; here the narrator is an astute witness,
testifying to the real social scene in Malgudi and, by extension, of
India—galvanizing the perception of the setting in the readers and
simultaneously underscoring the spiritual malaise symbolized by Raju’s
life story. This triangular interplay among the author, the narrator and
the protagonist helps Narayan build up a shifting narrative pattern in
which the three change their roles as the object of our critical observa-
tions. While Raju, the first person narrator, solicits sympathy, the author,
the camera-eye, invites our scrutiny.
In the very opening scene of The Guide, Narayan establishes two
polarities of perception. The opening is a brilliant gambit—we are
introduced to Raju and Velan, the roles for each defined by the percep-
tion of the other. The boundary of their social transactions is drawn
by measured dialogue and narrative reporting. Here cinematic techniques
like flashbacks and jump cuts are effectively employed. When we first
encounter Raju, he is about to meet Velan and is seen at this point
from an omniscient narrator’s perspective. Raju then takes over the
narration, relating his progress to Velan, his chequered journey from a
sweet-meat seller to a jailbird. In between, the omniscient narrator
punctuates Raju’s narrative by showing Raju as a holy man dealing with
the villagers of Mangal. At the end, Raju is no longer a narrator; the
omniscient narrator concludes the story showing Raju who is apparently
about to achieve transcendence. While not as technically sophisticated
as classic modernist works, this flexible narrative mode of the novel is
a commendable achievement and is well suited to tell the story of a
man who rises above himself and his unsatisfactory past. To come back
to the opening scene, Velan stands ‘gazing reverentially’1 on Raju’s face;
Raju feels ‘amused and embarrassed’ (5) by the stare and says to the
stranger: ‘Sit down if you like’ (5). Velan takes his seat ‘two steps below
the granite slab on which Raju was sitting cross-legged as if it were a
throne, beside an ancient shrine’ (5). The reader learns quickly that
Velan, visualizing the presence of a semi-divine sadhu, has placed Raju
on a pedestal and transformed him into an object, an image made out
of the century-old Indian notion of sainthood. The man becomes an
abstraction, idealized and inanimate. On the other hand, Raju seeks to
initiate a talk about his past and that of Velan. However, Raju moves
cautiously in order not to divulge his criminal past, further strengthening
Velan’s conviction. Velan thinks he knows all he needs to know about
Raju, while Raju has only begun to get to know the other. The land-
scape of the surrounding plateau forms an apt setting: ‘the branches of
the trees canopying the river course rustled and trembled with the
agitation of birds and monkeys settling down for the night. Upstream
beyond the hills the sun was setting’ (5). The quiet of the natural setting
137
contrasts with the anxiousness in Raju as he asks Velan’s whereabouts,

‘dreading lest the other should turn round and ask him the same ques-
tion’ (5). The initial polarity remains entrenched throughout the novel,
as the villagers’ efforts to idolize Raju are met by his attempt to disabuse
them without in any way exposing his chequered past. The conflict of
the story intensifies through Raju’s contradictory aim of revealing his
humanity while keeping his personal past out of public view, since his
only means of asserting individuality is his sense of his own past. The
problematic voice-shift in the narrative from third person to first person
emblematizes this dilemma: it highlights the schism between the narra-
tor’s portrait of the protagonist and the character’s assertion of selfhood;
it also focuses the schism between Raju’s present and past selves. Halfway
through the book, at the end of chapter six, Raju’s voice rises above
that of the narrator, who seems powerless to suppress the character any
longer. Here, we find a replay of the novel’s opening, when Raju asked
Velan to go up with him to the river step and they both sat down. The
latter sat on the step below. Raju felt sorry that he had shattered Velan’s
faith but ‘it was the only way in which he could hope to escape the
ordeal’ (112). Moving down to his side, Raju tells him:
‘You have to listen to me, and so don’t go so far away, Velan. I must
speak into your ears. You must pay attention to what I am going to say.
I am not a saint, Velan, I’m just an ordinary human being like anyone
else. Listen to my story. You will know it yourself.’ The river trickling
away in minute driblets made no noise. The dry leaves of the peepul-tree
rustled. Somewhere a jackal howled. And Raju’s voice filled the night
(112).
In chapters 7 to 10, Raju does what Narayan does in the rest of the
novel—he becomes the narrator. The whole section is dramatized
through narrative summaries; it is, however, monologic, because the
recollection flows like an interior monologue that we are privileged to
hear. Silently Narayan steps aside, while Raju dons the mantle of the
first person narrator. Raju’s self-revelation runs like a ritualized incanta-
tion; it is the vivid replay of a drama staged earlier. Raju begins his
narration with the recollection of his life as a railway vendor. He is
ambitious. He becomes a tourists’ guide, a Mr Know-All, whom visitors
138
to Malgudi look to for guidance. Then, step by step, we come to know

of Raju’s contact with Marco and his wife. As Raju comes to know
about the failed marriage of Rosie and her latent ambition to become
a dancer, he does everything to see that she achieves her cherished
dream. Eventually—as that which goes up must come down—Raju
falls into the trap laid by Marco. He is charged with forgery and sent
to prison. Raju’s narration serves as a story within a story; its spell is
broken by ‘the crowing of the cock’ (232). To Raju’s dismay, Velan
remains unimpressed. Now, Narayan takes over as the omniscient
narrator again. The rest of the story reports the carnivalesque spectacle
that leads in the long run to Raju’s ironic but inescapable death. Not
surprisingly, Velan and the villagers are tempted to make a messianic
demi-god out of Raju. Velan’s brother visits the swami with the news
of a fight among rival villagers over scanty hay during the time of
drought, expecting Raju’s blessings to empower him in the fraternal
fight, but he receives from the swami the intriguing message that he
must carry back to his village:
Tell your brother, immediately, wherever he may be, that unless they
are good I’ll never eat.
‘Eat what?’ asked the boy, rather puzzled.
‘Say that I’ll not eat. Don’t ask what. I’ll not eat till they are good
(100).
The boy does not ask any further question for he is afraid. Thanks to
Narayan’s omniscient narrative, the reader gets the benefit of knowing
what goes on in the child’s mind. The boy’s report to the villagers
reflects his as well as their formulaic response: ‘The Swami, the Swami,
doesn’t want food anymore. Don’t take any food to him. [. . .] Because,
because—it doesn’t rain’ (101). Recollecting on a sudden the swami’s
advice, he adds further, ‘No fight, he says’ (101). Evidently, in the
young boy’s mind, the swami is a peacemaker; insofar as Indian tradi-
tion is concerned, the correlation of saintliness with pacifism is natural.
The fact that the greater part of the novel is concerned with Raju’s
‘subjective’ narration about his past gives a greater prominence to the
evolution of Raju’s motives and actions. Narayan’s strategy, perhaps, is
to enlist the sympathy of the reader for Raju. Raju’s narration, as
139
professor Krishna Sen says quite significantly, ‘represents the voice of

the modern individual with his desire for self-assertion’,2 while the third
person authorial voice represents the community and its demand for
community responsibility. In this way, Narayan could forge a delicate
balance between the opposing forces of the reader’s sympathy and
judgement. Narayan achieves aesthetic distance and reliability and thus
saves the story from didacticism that threatens to engulf it, by letting
the character plead his own case. Raju’s relentless pursuit of truth and
his inexorable progress towards death are thus an integral part of the
entire plan of Narayan’s plot. If Raju’s story had been told throughout
in the first person, it could not possibly end with the death of the
narrator. If it had been throughout in the third person, the novel must
have lacked much of the intimacy it now has. By combining the two
modes, Narayan succeeds in getting the best of both. The complex
reactions of the reader to Raju’s duplicity and his final heroic decision
to sacrifice himself are perhaps what RK Narayan intends to achieve;
in fine, it is through a double edged presentation of appearance and
reality in vivid terms that The Guide becomes a fine exemplification of
the tragicomic reality that is life.
RD

Reprint, p. 5. Subsequent references from this work are given in the paper
itself.
2. Krishna Sen, Critical Essays on RK Narayan’s The Guide: With an Introduction
to Narayan’s Novel, Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2004, p. 20.
140
4.1.8 Raju
The picaresque tradition presupposes an exclusive emphasis on the

portrayal of the protagonist passing through a variety of adventures and
accidents. The Guide presents an ordinary tourists’ guide’s life story—an
ordinary individual with a certain cunning with which he plays on the
gullibility of everyone around him. In projecting the character of Raju
as a ‘saint’, RK Narayan shows artistic insight. The entire novel is a
study in the growth of self-knowledge in Raju. He is the hero of his
people but the qualities of heroism are not manifested until the story
concludes. In a sense, Raju is portrayed as an anti-hero; yet the reader
feels that the problems and potentialities of spiritual regeneration in a
materialistic world are explored very effectively. Raju’s career, as Sen
notes, is a ‘parodic re-enactment of the dedicated lives of the sages of
yore.’1
The essence of Raju’s personality is that he is a bundle of contradic-
tions—capricious, fickle and subject to constant change of moods and
passions; self-oriented and selfish, rogue and saint at the same time. He
is a railway vendor, a tourists’ guide, a friend to Marco and Rosie, a
seducer, an impresario, a member of high society, a forgerer, a jailbird,
a fake swami and perhaps, finally, a genuine ascetic. That Raju plays
all these roles with gusto goes to establish him as a very intriguing
personality. Narayan meticulously builds up Raju’s multi-faceted person-
ality so that it becomes a study of the interplay of character and situ-
ation more than an allegorical story of the familiar Indian ‘godman’.2
The story of Raju’s life establishes the paradoxical aspects of human
motivation and action, as Narayan himself said in an interview: ‘My
main concern is with human character—a central character from whose

point of view the world is seen. [. . .]’.3 As a tourists’ guide or as an
impresario or even as the spiritual guide of the villagers, he is an amiable
personality, articulate and intelligent. Yet, he shows, at times, a certain
lack of judgement. He has a quick mind and an unflagging interest in
any subject: ‘I liked to talk to people. I liked to hear people talk. I
liked customers who would not open their mouths merely to put a
plantain in. [. . .]’.4 Raju can successfully manipulate Marco as also the
influential citizens of Malgudi because he has quick, observant eyes,
power of assimilation and a zest for the refined things of life. Even
during his alienated life as a saint, these qualities serve him well: ‘He
was surprised at the amount of wisdom welling from the depths of his
being. [. . .]’ (47). In his profession as a tourists’ guide he always reveals
himself as a man of resources: ‘If someone wanted to see a tiger or
shoot one, I knew where to arrange it. [. . .]’ (64).
Side by side with these positive aspects of his personality we find
one or two pernicious tendencies in his dealings—a materialistic strain
and a tendency to prevaricate. He always wanted to be accepted by
people and that is why he never hesitated to utter a falsehood: ‘I am
sorry I said it. [. . .] It was not because I wanted to utter a falsehood,
but only because I wanted to be pleasant’ (55). It appears that the
natural qualities of leadership in him reveal themselves in his authorita-
tive handling of a situation. This is evident when Raju, with a charac-
teristically cavalier attitude, decides to make Rosie ‘the greatest artist
of the time’ (153). When his forgery is detected by Marco, Rosie is
absolutely shattered, but Raju is unperturbed. Even in jail he comes
out as the ‘master of the show’ (226):
murderers or cut-throats or highwaymen, they all listened to me, and

I could talk them out of their blackest moods. When there was a
respite, I told them stories and philosophies and what not. They came
to refer to me as Vadhyar—that is, Teacher (226–227).
Raju effectively plays out his role as an impresario and as he earns

money he becomes a man of influence, ‘on back-slapping terms’ (189)
with men of high social position—judges, politicians, mill owners,
councillors. But it is as the swami that he comes out as a brilliant
142
performer. At a superficial level, Raju’s transformation may be explained

by appealing to the Bhakthi Cult. The emotions peculiar to Bhakhti
may be defined as a mixture of ‘fear, awe, fascination, love and depend-
ence’.5 All these emotions can be discerned in Velan’s or the Mangal
villagers’ respect for Raju. The people of Mangala slowly begin to repose
trust in Raju, expecting that he will solve their social problems. He had
to set apart some hours of his afternoon for the purpose. To the villagers
he is a semi-divine personality: ‘It was believed that when he stroked
the head of a child, the child improved in various ways’ (54). Raju is
caught up in his own role-playing, in guiding or manipulating the
destinies of others. He had created Nalini, the dancer; but Rosie becomes
independent and moves along her meteoric rise without Raju as the
guide, and Raju cannot control her. He commits the same mistake with
Velan and his associates. Raju only wants food and veneration from the
villagers, while they want a real Mahatma. He is doomed to play the
role of a holy man to the villagers—if he keeps his mouth shut, he is
given the credit for anything beneficial that takes place; if he says
anything logical, the gullible villagers assume divine knowledge. The
respect of the villagers gathers momentum, as a person, hearing of Raju’s
wisdom, comes to the temple to see with his own eyes the charisma of
the ‘saint’ and is so impressed that he soon tells his friends about the
new holy man. Crowds gather. Along with a reputation for infinite
wisdom, Raju gains a reputation for infinite power. The poor villagers
start believing that no bad thing can come so long as Raju is among
them. But Raju realizes how inextricably he has fallen into the trap he
has made for himself: ‘He had created a giant with his puny self, a
throne of authority with that slab of stone. [. . .] His tone hushed with
real humility and fear; his manner earnest’ (109). It thus appears that
Raju becomes a hero of immense magnitude. But the reader perhaps
does not accept such an appellation so easily. While the villagers are
quite impressed by his ‘wise’ sayings, logical predictions and his saintly
demeanour, the reader feels that Raju never intends to be a wise man
and is quite uncomfortable in his new role of ‘enforced sainthood’, as
Narayan himself comments in his My Days. The question thus finally
crops up—does Raju really become a saint at the end or does he remain
a self-seeking rogue as he had been in his earlier days? At the early stage
of his fast, Raju eats some leftover food slyly but on the fourth day of
143
his fast, with a sort of ‘vindictive resolution’ (237), he decides to do it

thoroughly. He feels so intensely enthusiastic that it gives him ‘a new
strength to go through with the ordeal’ (238). Perhaps this was the
turning point in his chequered career. Finally, on the eleventh day, Raju
makes a decision which is the final step to the spiritual regeneration,
perhaps. Some critics interpret Raju’s character as illustrating the four
stages of Varnasrama—student, householder, recluse and an ascetic—
which would turn The Guide into a Hindu parable. Bhagwat S. Goyal
sees The Guide as
a vivid and vitally comic variation on the Kafkaesque theme of meta-

morphosis [. . .] a ‘picaro’ finds himself transformed into a ‘pilgrim’, a
criminal changed into a saint. [. . .] But while Gregor’s metamorphosis
is a judgement on himself by his defeated humanity,6
On the final day of his fast, Raju, extremely weakened owing to his
fast, suffers hallucination as he mumbles: ‘Velan, it’s raining in the hills.
I can feel it coming up under my feet, up my legs—’ (247). It is
uncertain whether rains have come or not or even whether Raju’s sagging
down indicates that he dies. It is quite in the fitness of things that
Narayan leaves his ending open. What is really important is not the
question of the rains or whether Raju lives or dies, but that Raju achieves
‘salvation and real human status’7 through his integration with the
community. We may refer to Krishna Sen’s observations which bring
to the fore RK Narayan’s aesthetic aims:
the novel seems to affirm that the self must be understood both socially
and spiritually. [. . .] He is thus not a ‘flat’, predictable or allegorical
figure as in a moral fable, but a complex and ‘round’ character [. . .]
who continually surprises us with his human unpredictability.8
In fine, Narayan’s portrayal of Raju reveals his maturity of vision which

he has achieved by working out a ‘smooth transition between the comic
and the tragic’.9 Herein perhaps lies the abiding merit of the novel.
RD
144
NOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

2. Ibid, p. 36.
3. Narayan’s BBC interview with William Walsh in 1968. As quoted in:
Ibid, p. 171.
paper itself.
5. As mentioned by TW Organ. As quoted by Chitra Sankaran in: <http://
www.enotes.com/contemporary-literary-criticism/narayan-r-k/chitra-
sankaran-essay-date-1991>. See: Chitra Sankaran, ‘Patterns of story-telling
in R.K. Narayan’s The Guide, Journal of Commonwealth Literature, XXVI,
No. 1, 1991, pp. 127–50.
6. As appearing in: <http://www.enotes.com/r-k-narayan-criticism/narayan-
r-k/bhagwat-s-goyal-essay-date-1977> See: ‘From Picaro to Pilgrim: A
Perspective on RK Narayan’s The Guide by Bhagwat S Goyal in: Indo-
English Literature: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by K.K. Sharma,
Ghaziabad: Vimal Prakashan, 1977, pp. 141–156.
7. Ibid.
8. Sen, 2004, p. 47.
9. As quoted in: <http://www.enotes.com/contemporary-literary-criticism/
narayan-r-k/c-n-srinath-essay-date-summer-1981>. See: CN Srinath, ‘RK
Narayan’s Comic Vision: Possibilities and Limitations’, in World Literature
Today, 55, No. 3, Summer, 1981, pp. 416–19.
145
4.1.9 Rosie
The character of Rosie in The Guide may be viewed as RK Narayan’s

representation of the archetypal image of woman as seductress in Hindu
literature, who tries to win a man away from his path of discipline. Rosie
belongs to a family of ‘devadasis’, dancing girls dedicated to the gods and
often looked upon as temple courtesans, a tradition that claims descent
from the celestial ‘apsaras’ who danced in heaven to entertain the gods.
This background is carefully established in the novel. Raju relates to Velan:
‘I [Rosie] belong to a family traditionally dedicated to the temples as dancers;

my mother, grandmother, and, before her, her mother. Even as a young
girl I danced in our village temple. You know how our caste is viewed?’
‘It’s the noblest caste on earth,’ I said. ‘We are viewed as public women,’
she said plainly. [. . .]1
The reaction of Raju’s mother to the presence of Rosie in the family is

one that is shared by the community. Raju’s brutally forthright uncle
brings out the difference in unequivocal words:
Now stop your music and all those gesticulations and listen to me. [. . .]
Are you of our caste? No. Our class? No. Do we know you? No. [. . .]
In that case, why are you here? After all, you are a dancing-girl. We do
not admit them in our families. Understand? (169).
Rosie’s role of enchantress is all the more reinforced by the symbol

associated with her at the outset—the snake. The snake woman is an
archetypal symbol of seduction in Hindu mythology. Rosie is shown

to have a morbid attraction towards snakes. Raju’s mother dubs Rosie
as the serpent-girl: ‘Everything was so good and quiet—until you came;
you came in like a viper’ (170).
Rosie is a bundle of contradictory motives, which we fail to under-
stand at the very beginning. In spite of everything she is traditional at
heart, conservative and self-assertive, naive and and at times in her
personal relationships she is irresponsible. Krishna Sen rightly observes:
‘[s]he challenges the orthodox Hindu construction of what a woman
should be, and yet there is a part of her nature that is intensely orthodox.’2
Her Westernized name marks out her social hybridity. We have already
pointed out how the image of the cobra as the mystic symbol of Shiva
in Hindu mythology—as the ‘keeper of the life energy’ as identified by
Heinrich Zimmern in his book Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and
Civilization3—applies to Rosie. It is also significant that Narayan has
compared Rosie to temple carvings: ‘I had left her with her hip slightly
out, her arm akimbo. She was like one of those pillar-carvings in the
temples’ (167). It is through dance that Rosie’s spiritual transformation
is achieved. Her name is changed to ‘Nalini’, meaning ‘lotus’, the seat
of the goddess Lakshmi. Thus Rosie is symbolically initiated into
orthodox Hindu society which nevertheless rejects her because she
belongs to a world beyond its moral boundaries. Her profound passion
for dance proves to be the source of her troubles. She is greatly frus-
trated as Marco, her husband, forbids her to dance. She allows herself
to be seduced by Raju because he appreciates her dancing, but Raju in
fact thinks of dancing as a cultural commodity which can be marketed
for money and fame. But Rosie takes it up as a vocation. This is the
beginning of the rift between Raju and Rosie. Raju fails to understand
the apparent contradictions in her character: she is a temple dancer and
exponent of a celebrated dance form and at the same time she has
conventional notions of conjugal relationship and about women’s role
in society. That she would like to have a regular domestic life which is
denied to a ‘devadasi’ is illustrated by she is ‘the last to eat, like a good
housewife’ (77) after having served food to Marco and Raju. She declares
her infidelity to Marco and when Marco turns her out, she comes out
in his defense: ‘After all, after all, he is my husband.’ Raju is puzzled
when she rejects him, more confused by her attitude of subservience
147
to the domineering husband. Rosie’s Hindu values are apparent—to

the last she remains a believer in the principles of Karma; she identifies
herself with her own culture and has respect for both the institution
of marriage and the traditional roles of husband and wife. When Rosie
spirals upward in her journey beyond Raju’s reach, Raju finally under-
stands the source of Rosie’s strength of personality:
she would never stop dancing. She would not be able to stop. She would
go from strength to strength. [. . .] Neither Marco nor I had any place
in her life, which had its own sustaining vitality and which she herself
had underestimated all along (222–223).
All through his creative career, Narayan had concentrated on the role
of women in society and to the problems of feminine identity. Rosie’s
position in the novel may be interpreted as symbolizing the chauvinistic
and hypocritical Hindu patriarchal society exploiting women in the
name of religion. If RK Narayan had intended to criticize caste and
social hypocrisy in The Guide, his method is ‘oblique rather than direct
and aggressive.’4 To conclude, we may refer to the theme of Art-Nature
relationship. In the last dance Rosie performs before Raju, she is trans-
formed into an abstraction, a vision. As Balbir Singh notes, with Rosie’s
final dance before Raju
the final slough on art is cast off. The highest art does not require forces.
[. . .] It has its own sustaining power. So says Raju, ‘Neither Marco nor
I had any place in her life, which had its own sustaining vitality and
which she herself had underestimated all alone’5
Art is a kind of replication of nature’s purpose but in the process art

succeeds in transcending time and thus breaking all constraints on it.
It thus represents the aesthetic urge to attain a state of complete and
transcendent consciousness. These facets of art are emblematized in the
figures of Rosie and Raju—one personifying art, and the other, trans-
formed from a lover of art to a yogi, personifying consciousness.
RD
148

paper itself.
3. See: Heinrich Robert Zimmer and Joseph Campbell. Myths and Symbols
in Indian Art and Civilization. Bollingen series, 6. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1974.
4. Sen, 2004, p. 60.
5. As quoted in: <http://www.enotes.com/contemporary-literary-criticism/
narayan-r-k/balbir-singh-essay-date-1990>. See: Balbir Singh, ‘Theme of
Art and Immortality in RK Narayan’s The Guide’, Literary Criterion,
XXV, No. 2, 1990, pp. 36–46.
149
4.2 Bibliography
Krishnamurthy, S. (n.d.), An exploration of the theme of guilt and redemp-
tion in The Guide by R.K Narayan and A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi
wa Thiong’o (Polytechnic of Namibia, Department of Communication),
2007.
The Guide, by RK Narayan: A study guide, Craighall: Guidelines, 1992.
Bhattacharya, N. RK Narayan’s The Guide—New Critical Perspectives,
S.l.: Worldview Publications, 2004.
Goyal, BS, RK Narayan’s India myth and reality, New Delhi: Sarup and
Sons, 1993.
Hammond, SS. Towards an ethical relationship with the other: parallel
gender and reader/text relations in and through RK Narayan’s The Guide,
1994.
Liu, CY. Haseltine, P. & Providence University, The Shiva Trinity:
The transformation of the Shakta Heritage from Indian classical dance
tradition in RK Narayan’s The Guide, Taichung, Taiwan: The author,
2005.
Mukhopadhyay, PK. The multicoloured glass: Critical essays on English
literature and Indian writing in English, New Delhi: Sarup & Sons,
2006.
Nair, AC. RK Narayan’s The Guide and its cinematic adaptation: A case
study, Jaipur: Paradise Publishers, 2010.
Panigrahi, PK. RK Narayan: The Guide, Delhi: Mangalam Publications,
2010.
Sen, K. Critical essays on RK Narayan’s The Guide: With an introduction
to Narayan’s novel, Kolkata, Orient Longman, 2004.
Singh, RS. RK Narayan: The Guide: some aspects, Delhi: Doaba House,
1971.
Spivak, GC. ‘How to teach a “culturally different” book’ in Colonial
Discourse/Postcolonial Theory,’ Ed. by Francis Barker et al, Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1994.
151
5 Raja Rao (1908–2006)
5.1 Kanthapura
5.1.1 Indianization of The English Language and Raja Rao’s Kanthapura
The eminent scholar Meenakshi Mukherjee has outlined the importance

of Raja Rao’s ‘Foreword’ to Kanthpura in the field of Indian writing in
English thus:
In 1938 a young Indian writer living in France wrote an experimental

novel in English which carried a succinct Foreword of three paragraphs.
The Foreword seems to have been an early diagnosis of the theoretical
issues involved in this bicultural act.1
Indian writing in English is bicultural, as the author has to pass through

the tremors of expressing Indian sensibility in a foreign language, which
can hardly capture the tone of the native psyche. Raja Rao writes in the
Foreword:
One has to convey in a language that is not one’s own the spirit that is
one’s own. One has to convey the various shades and omissions of a certain
thought-movement that looks maltreated in an alien language. I use the
word ‘alien’, yet English is not really an alien language to us. It is the
language of our intellectual make-up [. . .] but not of our emotional make-
up. We are all instinctively bilingual, many of us writing in our own language
and in English. We can not write like the English. We should not. We
cannot write only as Indians. We have grown to look at the large world as
part of us. Our method of expression has to be a dialect which will some
day prove to be as distinctive and colourful as the Irish or the American.2
Raja Rao (1908–2006)
This significant critical pronouncement of Rao has become the very

bedrock of all Indian writing in English. Within the space of just a few
sentences, the great novelist has explained the problem of literary
communication in an alien language, which haunts every Indian writer
in English. He also puts forward the possible remedy of employing a
distinctively Indian dialect. One’s innermost feelings can only be
expressed adequately in one’s native language. Shreesh Chaudhary has
outlined the difference between first and second languages thus:
people ‘acquire’ the first language [. . .] and learn the second language.
[. . .] After all, the circumstances and results of learning these languages are
often quite different for many people. [. . .] While everybody has abundant
exposure to the language to be learnt in the context of first language
acquisition (FLA), it is not always so with the second language. Neither
does everyone get to learn the second language in ‘natural’ circumstances
like one’s first language. People often learn it through instruction.3
This distinction between the first and second languages clearly indicates
that the latter one is unlikely to be the spontaneous medium for literary
communication related to native experiences. VY Kantak has also spoken
of this difficulty for an Indian author portraying native scenes in an
alien’s language:
An unfriendly spirit hovers over all our efforts at creative writing in an

alien tongue. [. . .] The point is: how far has the English we use taken
its mould from the sensation and feelings of our daily lives, from the
intimacies of family and fellowship or the larger social experience, from
the place and time and from the very ‘ethos’ we breathe? Does our
English articulate these adequately, truthfully and in a manner to awaken
delighted recognition in our fellows?4
But English, being a global language, gives the author greater accessi-
bility to the reading public. Any cultural or social group without effective
communication skills in this language will lag behind, especially when
it comes to reaping the benefits of technological advancement. N.
Krishnaswamy and Lalitha Krishnaswamy have stressed the importance
of the English language: ‘The English language has become a part of
153
the IT revolution. English, a language that came from nowhere, is set

to conquer the world.’5 Hence, it is a truism to say that we are all
bilingual and we cannot write simply like Indians. We can not completely
discard the English language.
What we may do is to employ an Indian version of the English
language. Our literary dialect should be ‘as distinctive’ as ‘the Irish or
the American’. It should have its own separate identity. ‘[W]e can’t
simply use the language in the way the British did [. . .] it needs
remaking for our own purposes.’6 This Indianization of English has
been carried out by Indian English novelists by using Indian words,
idioms and phrases and also by virtually translating certain expressions
from Indian languages into English.
Kanthapura is notable for this hybrid or compound language. It was
suggested by MK Naik that ‘like Anand, Rao also boldly translates
Indian words, phrases, expletives and idioms—in this case from his
native Kannada—into English.’7 CD Narasimhiah has also analyzed
this Indian element of his language and style in a detailed manner.
According to Narasimhiah,
[h]ere is a distinctive Indian sensibility, a peasant sensibility, to be precise,

and expressed in the English language. The words are English, but the
organization is Indian. [. . .] If I may elaborate it a little, the emotional
upheaval that overtook Kanthapura could only find expression by
breaking the formal English syntax to suit the sudden changes of mood.
[. . .] In other words, it had to be a highly original style.8
The novel is shot through with an Indian idiom. For instance, mark
some of these expressions in this hybrid language: ‘Can I serve payasam,
aunt?’ (13), ‘[. . .] we discussed the maya-vada [. . .]’ (14), ‘Do not the
dharma sastras call the foreigners mlechas, Untouchables?’ (96). The
language employed by Raja Rao is a hybrid version of English, which
juxtaposes Indian elements with standard English. This mingling of
native elements into English is perceptible when Moorthy persuades
the villagers for religious festivals:
The next morning Moorthy comes to us and says, ‘Aunt, what do you
think of having the Rama festival, the Krishna festival, the Ganesh
154
Raja Rao (1908–2006)
festival? We shall have a month’s bhajan every time and we shall keep
the party going.’ [. . .] ‘You see, aunt, while I was in Karwar we had
Rama’s festival and Ganapati’s festival, and we had evening after evening
of finest music and Harikatha and gaslight procession. Everybody paid
a four-anna bit and we had so much money that we could get the best
Harikatha-men. [. . .]’ (14–15).
The indigenous colour has been provided in Moorthy’s expression by

the use of such words as bhajan, Ganapati, anna and Harikatha. In the
village of Kanthapura, slogans like ‘Mahatama Gandhi ki jai’,
‘Satyanarayan Maharaj ki jai’, ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Inquilab Zindabad’
have become quite common. The novel is known for a number of
Indian linguistic expressions. Moorthy stimulates the spirit of sublime
nationalism in the hearts, minds and souls of his fellow-villagers through
the employment of typical Indian imagery:
A cock does not make a morning, nor a single man a revolution, but
we’ll build a thousand-pillared temple, a temple more firm than any
that hath yet been builded, and each once of you be pillars in it, and
when the temple is built, stone by stone, and man by man, and the bell
hung to the roof and the Eagle-tower shaped and planted, we shall
invoke the Mother to reside with us in dream and in real life (123).
William Walsh, while writing about the presence of Indian elements

in Raja Rao’s English, considers him to be better than Mulk Raj Anand:
‘his method of realizing an Indian sensibility in the English language
is subtler than Mulk Raj Anand’s.’9 KRS Iyengar’s succinct observation
on Raja Rao’s language and style is worth-quoting here:
his style is [. . .] unconventional because of his attempt to adapt in

English the idiom, the rhythm, the tone, the total distinctness of vernac-
ular (in his context, Kannada) speech. This is not ‘babu’ English, this
is not the English of the sophisticated Indians who meet in an exclusive
club in Bombay, Calcutta or New Delhi. This is simply the natural
speech of rural folk transmuted into English.10
NKA
155
1. Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Perishable Empire: Essays on Indian Writing

in English, 2000; New Delhi: OUP, 2002, p. 166.
2. Raja Rao, Kanthapura, New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 1970, p. 5.
3. Shreesh Chauadhary, ‘First Language Acquisition vs. Second Language
Learning’, in Readings in English Language Teaching in India, S
Kudchedkar, ed., Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 2002, pp. 95–96.
4. VY Kantak, ‘The Language of Indian Fiction in English’, in Critical
Essays on Indian Writing in English, eds. MK Naik, SK Desai and GS
Amur, 1968; Madras: Macmillan, 1977, pp. 223–224.
5. N Krishnaswamy and Lalitha Krishnaswamy, The Story of English in
India, New Delhi: Foundation Books, 2006, p. 50.
6. Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands, Essays and Criticism 1981–1991,
London: Granta Books in collaboration with Penguin, 1992, p. 17.
Akademi, 1982, p. 167.
8. CD Narasimhaih, ‘Raja Rao’s Kanthapura: An Analysis’ in Critical Essays
on Indian Writing in English, eds. MK Naik, SK Desai and GS Amur,
1968; Madras: Macmillan, 1977, p. 266–267.
9. William Walsh, Indian Literature in English, London: Longman, 1990,
p. 68.
1985, p. 390–391.
156
5.1.2 Gandhian Thought and Raja Rao’s Kanthapura
Explaining the deep penetration of Gandhian ideology in every single

aspect of Indian life and culture, including its literatures, KRS Iyengar
writes,
Life could not be the same as before, and every segment of our national
life—politics, economics, education, religion, social life, language and
literature—acquired a more or less pronounced Gandhian hue. Thus it
was that Gandhi exercised a potent influence on our languages and
literatures, both directly through his own writings in English and Gujrati
and indirectly through the movements generated by his revolutionary
thought and practice. The several regional languages acquired a new
versatility and power. [. . .] No apology is needed therefore for consid-
ering Gandhi as a writer and as a formative influence on the writers of
his time.1
There exists an almost inexhaustible number of authors (including the

Indo-Anglians), who have taken their inspirational ballast from the
ideology of Gandhian ethics. Tabish Khair cites the argument of
Meenakshi Mukherjee to elaborate the thesis that there is remarkable
difference between the Gandhi-generation novels and post-Gandhi novels:
In The Twice Born Fiction, Meenaksi Mukherjee, for example, makes a

valid distinction between the novels of the Gandhi generation and those
of the post-Gandhi one. According to her, the earlier ‘Gandhi’ novels
were concerned with socio-political problems. [. . .] The later
‘post-Gandhi’ novels are more concerned with the psychological develop-

ment of characters.2
While distinguishing between these two types of novels, the two scholars
have laid emphasis on the fact that the earlier novels were immersed
in profound Gandhian ethics. The paramount significance of this
Gandhian revolution for Indian writing in English in general and Indian
English fiction in particular made the great scholar MK Naik devote a
whole chapter to the subject, ‘The Gandhian Whirlwind: 1920–1947’
in his seminal book A History of Indian English Literature. Naik aptly
points out that, ‘[the] Indian English novel of the period was deeply
influenced by the epoch-making political, social and ideological ferment
caused by the Gandhian movement.’3 In another of his articles, Naik
has traced the influence of Gandhi on Indian English fiction thus,
There are about a dozen Indian novels in English, in which Gandhiji

appears as a character or as a pervasive influence on the social and
political scene. He actually appears in novels like Anand’s Untouchable,
and The Sword and the Sickle, Narayan’s Waiting for the Mahatma, KA
Abbas’s Inquilab, Nagrajan’s The Chronicles of Kedaram, etc., while in a
host of other novels like KS Venkataramani’s Kandan the Patriot and
Raja Rao’s Kanthapura, though he does not himself appear in person,
his spirit pervades the whole narrative.4
I Venkateswarlu too comments:
They (Indian English novelists) came under the impact of some of the
facets of Gandhian thought, either consciously or unconsciously. This
impact sometimes contributes to realistic elements in the novel because,
however great a novelist may be, he cannot afford to ignore the social
forces that shape the literary output of his period.5
Raja Rao’s Kanthapura explicates several theories of Gandhiji. The

protagonist of the novel, Moorthy, brings the revolutionary Gandhian
ethics to the remote south Indian village, Kanthapura, situated high on
the ‘steep mountains that face the cool Arabian seas.’6 This local repre-
sentative of Gandhi visited the pariah quarters of the village, as ‘he is
158
Raja Rao (1908–2006)
one of these Gandhi-men, who say there is neither caste nor clan nor
family’ (15). He subtly explains the Gandhian philosophy of boycotting
foreign clothes to the villagers:
Because millions and millions of yards of foreign cloth come to this

country, and everything foreign makes us poor and pollutes us. To wear
cloth spun and woven with your own god-given hands is sacred, says
the Mahatma. And it gives work to the workless (23).
Similarly, he awakens the villagers with his explication of Gandhiji’s

celebrated Dandi March:
Do you know, brothers and sisters, the Mahatma has left Sabarmati on
a long pilgrimage, the last pilgrimage of his life, he says, with but eighty-
two of his followers, who all wear khadi and do not drink, and never
tell a lie and they go with Mahatma to the Dandi beach to manufacture
salt. Day by day we shall await the news of the Mahatma, and from day
to day we shall pray for the success of his pilgrimage, and we shall pray
and fast and pour strength into ourselves, so that when the real fight
begins we shall follow in the wake of the Master (123).
The efforts of Moorthy have thoroughly coloured the spirit of the village
with Gandhian satyagraha. The village of Kanthapura is vibrant with
the all-encompassing Gandhian revolution of ahimsa, truth and passive
resistance:
And when the morning was still on the other side of the dark we rose
one by one, for we would bathe in the river like the Mahatma, at the
very hour, at the very minute. Moorthy and Rangamma were at the
river already, and just as the morning was colouring the Skeffington
Coffee Estate, we all said [. . .] ‘Ganga, Jumna, Saraswathi,’ and rising
up we dipped again and cried out ‘Mahatma Gandhi ki jai!’ (125).
The presence of Gandhian satyagraha in the novel has caught the atten-
tion of several eminent scholars. Leela Gandhi summarizes Gandhi’s
pervasive influence on the villagers:
159
The first lessons of Gandhism are brought to Kanthapura by the radical

Moorthy who, despite much resistance form the village orthodoxy,
systematically works upon the women to spin their own cloth and to
liberate themselves from the unwholesome caste prejudices, which have,
for centuries, dominated the structure of local existence.7
Analyzing the effects of Gandhian ideology on the Indian psyche, CD

Narasimhiah writes, ‘It was Gandhi’s greatness that he produced
hundreds and thousands of little Gandhis throughout the country.’8
Kanthapura is the life story of one such little Gandhi. MK Naik also
discusses this Gandhian revolution in the little village:
In this little village situated high on the ghats up the Malabar coast, the
most important event has traditionally been the ploughing of the fields
at the first rains. In 1930, the harvest reaped is the Gandhian
whirlwind.9
NKA
1. KRS Iyengar, Indian Writing in English, 5th ed., New Delhi: Sterling, 1985,
p. 248–249.
2. Tabish Khair, Babu Fictions: Alienation in Contemporary Indian English
Novels, New Delhi: OUP, 2001, p. 55.
Akademi, 1982, p. 152.
4. MK Naik, ‘Gandhiji and Indian Writing in English’, in Critical Essays on
Indian Writing in English, eds. MK Naik, SK Desai and GS Amur, 1968;
Madras: Macmillan, 1977 p. 375.
5. I Venkateswarlu, ‘Gandhi and the Indo-English Novel: A Study in
Influence’, Indian Readings in Commonwealth Literature, eds. GS Amur,
VRN Prasad, B.V. Nemade, N.K. Nihlani, New Delhi: Sterling, 1985,
p. 54.
160
Raja Rao (1908–2006)
7. Leela Gandhi, ‘Novelists of the 1930s and 1940s’, An Illustrated History

of Indian Literature in English, ed. AK Mehrotra, New Delhi: Permanent
Black, 2003, p. 180.
8. CD Narasimhaiah, ‘Raja Rao’s Kanthapura: An Analysis’, in Critical Essays
on Indian Writing in English, eds. MK Naik, SK Desai and GS Amur,
1968; Madras: Macmillan, 1977, p. 249.
9. MK Naik, 1982, p. 167.
161
5.1.3 Raja Rao’s Kanthapura as a Sthala-Purana
In his celebrated and oft-quoted Foreword to Kanthapura, Raja Rao

calls his novel a sthala-purana:
There is no village in India, however mean, that has not a rich sthala-
purana, or legendary history, of its own. Some god or godlike hero has
passed by the village—Rama might have rested under this pipal-tree,
Sita might have dried her clothes, after her bath, on this yellow stone,
or the Mahatma himself, on one of his many pilgrimages through the
country, might have slept in this hut, the low one, by the village gate.
In this way the past mingles with the present, and the gods with men,
to make the repertory of your grandmother always bright. One such
story from the contemporary annals of my village I have tried to tell.1
Meenakshi Mukherjee has summarized Raja Rao’s critical pronounce-

ment about the novel:
He used the form of a ‘sthala-purana’, the legendary history of a village

caught up in the Gadhian movement as told by an old woman—thus trying
to integrate myth with history, realism with fabulation, linearity with a cyclic
notion of time long before postmodernism made such enterprises trendy.2
In line with his exposition of the sthala-purana, the novel exhibits certain
myths associated with Kenchamma, the village goddess. The chatty
grandmother describes the great faith the locals have in the goddess:
Raja Rao (1908–2006)
Then there is the smallpox, and we vow that we shall walk the holy fire
on the annual fair, and child after child gets better and better. [. . .]
Then there was cholera. We gave a sari and a gold trinket to the goddess,
and the goddess never touched that are to live. [. . .] O Kenchamma!
Protect us always like this through famine and disease, death and despair.
O most high and bounteous! We shall offer you our first rice and our
first fruit; and we shall offer you saris and bodice-cloth for every birth
and marriage, we shall wake thinking of you, sleep prostrating before
you, Kenchamma [. . .] (8–9).
Interpreting the just-quoted utterance of the grandmother, Shyamala

A Narayna writes, ‘The old woman’s faith in the goddess is unshakable,
and there is a touch of ironical humour. [. . .]’3 The narrative of the
grandmother evokes the legendary history of the village. Like a true
sthala-purana, the novel presents the picture of the place called
Kanthapura and also of several myths related to it. It is to this small
village that the message of Gandhi is brought by the protagonist Moorthy
and Gandhi becomes the new incarnation of God for the villagers. The
novel is immersed in the legendary history surrounding Gandhiji; every-
where, the novelist highlights the impact of the Gandhian revolution
on the remote village of Kanthapura. Fittingly called Gandhi Purana,
Kanthapura shows that Gandhi’s elevating message has penetrated deep
into the hearts of the inhabitants of Kanthapura.
Besides, the Puranas are considered to be the rich repository of ancient
wisdom and culture. Raja Rao’s novel is also a storehouse of several
legends and myths. In Satish Aikant’s opinion,
both the spirit and the narrative technique of Kanthapura are primarily
those of the Indian Puranas, which may be described as a popular ency-
clopaedia of ancient and medieval Hinduism, religious, philosophical,
historical and social.4
The legendary events of both past and present are narrated through
harikathas in the novel:
There were reading-parties and camphor ceremonies every evening, and

our young men even performed a drum and sitar bhajan. And it was
163
on one of these evenings that they had invited Jayaramachar—you know

Jayaramachar, the famous Harikatha-man? They say he had done
Harikatha even before the Mahatma. And a funny Harikatha-man he
is too [. . .] (16).
Through these harikathas, Kanthapurians are aroused from their

despondent slough into vibrant nationalism. In these tales, past myths
mingle with contemporary events, most importantly the nationalist
movement led by Gandhiji:
‘Today’, he says, ‘it will be the story of Siva and Parvati.’ And Parvati
in penance becomes the country and Siva becomes heaven know what!
‘Siva is the three-eyed’, he says, ‘and Swaraj too is three-eyed: Self-
purification, Hindu-Moslem unity, Khaddar.’ And then he talks of
Damayanthi and Sakunthala and Yasodha and everwhere there is some-
thing about our country and something about Swaraj. Never had we
heard harikathas like this (16).
India’s rich past cultural tradition mingles with the nationalist move-
ment of the contemporary era. According to KRS Iyengar, ‘the heroes
and heroines of epics jostle with historic personalities, and time past
and present are both projected into time future.’5 About the Puranic
structure of the novel, Iyengar’s remark is worth-quoting:
the telling of the story gives the whole affair an ithihasic—at least a
puranic—dignity. The narrative is hardly very straightforward: there
are involutions and digressions, there are meaningful backward
glances, there are rhythmic chains of proper names [. . .] there are
hypnotic repetitions and refrains, and there are also sheer poetic
iridescences.6
The just-quoted critical opinion of Iyengar about Kanthapura places

the novel in the great tradition of stream of consciousness novels, where,
too, past mingles with present and the narrative is notable for several
innovative techniques like montage and flashback. John Mepham writes
thus about the ‘stream of consciousness’ novel:
164
Raja Rao (1908–2006)
Stream of consciousness writing aims to provide a textual equivalent

to the stream of a fictional character’s consciousness. It creates the
impression that the reader is eavesdropping on the flow of conscious
experience in the character’s mind, gaining intimate access to their
private thoughts.7
The major propagators of this type of novel in English literature are

James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Dorothy Richardson. While attempting
‘the textual equivalent to the stream of a fictional character’s conscious-
ness’, these novelists are involved in digressions, backward glances,
repetitions and refrains. That is what Raja Rao also does in Kanthapura.
K Ratna Shiela Mani puts Raja Rao in the category of Thomas Mann
and James Joyce by virtue of his employment of this revolutionary
technique:
He belongs to that category of novelists who write mythological novels

set in contemporary prespective in order to throw revealing light on
modern predicament. Writers like Thomas Mann (Doktor Faust) and
James Joyce (Ulysses) have successfully advanced the scope of the novel
by making appropriate use of the Western myths and mythology.8
Kanthapura is a novel which discusses the legendary history of a remote

south Indian village and in the process it works through certain digressions
invoking the past as well as present cultural heritage of India. MK Naik
notes: ‘the Puranas are a blend of narration and description, philosophical
reflection, and religious teaching’.9 It would be a fitting conclusion to
assert that there is much to correspond to this in Kanthapura.
NKA

2. Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Perishable Empire: Essays on Indian Writing in
English, 2000; New Delhi: OUP, 2002, p. 167.
165
3. Shyamala A Narayan, Raja Rao: Man and His Works, New Delhi: Sterling,
1988, p. 29.
4. Satish Aikant, ‘Kanthapura’, in The Literary Encyclopaedia <http://www.
litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=9435> [accessed on 7 Feb.
2009].
5. KRS Iyengar, Indian Writing in English, 5th ed. (New Delhi: Sterling,
1985), p. 390.
6. Ibid, p. 392.
7. John Mepham, ‘Stream of Consciousness’, in The Literary Encyclopaedia.
<http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1062>
[accessed on 7 Feb. 2009].
8. K Ratna Shiela Mani, ‘A Critique of Raja Rao’s Art’, Perspectives on Indian
English Fiction, J.K.Dodiya, ed., New Delhi: Sarup & Sons, 2006, p. 10.
9. Quoted in Ratna Shiela Mani, p. 10.
166
5.1.4 Achakka as Narrator in Raja Rao’s Kanthapura
Raja Rao in his article ‘The Writer and the Word’ presents an exception-
ally illuminating exposition of communication:
There is considerable talk in the world of (at the Unesco there is a special
department devoted to) communication. It is my conviction (basing
myself on Indian background) that you cannot communicate unless you
have no desire to communicate.
Unless the author becomes an upasaka and enjoys himself in himself
(which is Rasa) the eternality of the sound (Sabda) will not manifest
itself, and so you cannot communicate wither and the word is nothing
but a cacophony. [. . .] Even to say a flower [. . .] you must be able to
say it in such a way that the force of the vocable has the power to create
a flower.1
The communicator can communicate his inner ideas and feelings only
when he or she has completely internalized the experience to be
communicated. The narrator should have an insider’s spontaneous and
natural response to what he wishes to communicate. He or she should
feel the pulse of the moment to get the desired feedback from the
audience. An outsider’s cursory and synthetic involvement with the
concerned issue will not have the desired effect and the audience will
not appreciate the narration. The force of the spoken word will have
a natural effect on the listeners only when the speaker is sincere enough
and has emotional and spontaneous affiliation with the subject matter.
The sage Valmiki had a revealing experience when he saw the killing
of the Krauncha bird. About this episode in the life of Valmiki, G

Mohan writes:
When the sage Valmiki saw one of the Krauncha pair shot dead by a
hunter, he was overcome by sorrow. But, this sorrow was transformed
into infinite compassion for suffering humanity.2
Valmiki was able to communicate his profound ideals to his readers in

the Ramayana, as he had internalized and assimilated the emotion felt.
In a way, the narrator/author/communicator should be an upright
upasaka and feel honestly what he/she says.
Achakka, the grandmother-narrator of Kanthapura, is one such
person, who has emotionally internalized the subject she narrates. Upon
this unique experiment of storytelling by the village grandmother, Raja
Rao himself comments in the Foreword to the novel,
It may have been told of an evening, when as the dusk falls and through
the sudden quiet, lights leap up in house after house, and stretching her
bedding on the veranda, a grandmother might have told you, newcomer,
the sad tale of her village.3
It is a typical Indian scene, where stories told by the elderly are part
and parcel of cultural education of the young. These stories mould the
personality of the inexperienced and raw young people in a positive
direction and the auspicious ideals of patriotism, selfless service to
humanity and several other moral values are infused in their characters.
Moreover, the elderly narrators are able to achieve cathartic release of
their own experiences through their narrations.
As the elderly have a strong desire to be heard, their stories move
at a swift pace and explain several of the cultural practices of their
past. They are interested in explaining their times to the reluctant
present. The unwilling present makes them recount their tales with
great urgency and stuff them with several mythological references in
order to glorify their age. Achakka also ‘tells the story in the garrulous,
digressive and breathless style [. . .] mixing freely narration, descrip-
tion, reflection, religious discourse, folklore, etc.’4 Raja Rao himself
168
Raja Rao (1908–2006)
talks about this breathless, chatty, garrulous and interminable pace of

his narrative:
We, in India, think quickly, we talk quickly, and when we move we move
quickly. There must be something in the sun of India that makes us rush
and tumble and run on. And our paths are interminable paths. The
Mahabharatha has 214,778 verses and the Ramayana 48,000. Puranas
there are endless and innumerable. We have neither punctuation nor the
treacherous ‘ats’ and ‘ons’ to bother us—we tell an interminable tale.
Episode follows episode, and when our thoughts stop our breath stops,
and we move on to another thought. This was and still is the ordinary
style of our storytelling. I have tried to follow it myself in this story (5–6).
Mark the brisk pace of Achakka’s narration in her description of

Kenchamma:
Kenchamma is our goddess. Great and bounteous is she. She killed a

demon ages, ages ago, a demon that had come to ask our young sons
as food and our young women as wives. Kenchamma came from
Heavens—it was the sage Tripura who had made penances to bring her
down—and she waged such a battle and she fought so many a night
that the blood soaked and soaked into the earth, and that is why the
Kenchamma Hill is all red (8).
In the just-mentioned description of Kechamma, the narration is exces-

sively brisk; episode follows episode. The breathlessness of the narrator
is evident in the repetition of certain words. The very opening paragraph
of the novel, describing the village Kanthapura, exhibits the same racy
and breathless style of the narrator. The village grandma wants to stuff
so much information about her village in her chatty discourse. The
result is the swift pace of her narration:
Our village—I don’t think you have ever heard about it—Kanthapura
is its name, and it is in the province of Kara. High on the ghats is it,
high up the steep mountains that face the cool Arabian seas, up the
Malabar coast is it, up Mangalore and Puttur and many a centre of
169
cardamom and coffee, rice and sugarcane. Roads, narrow, dusty, rut-
covered roads, wind through the forests of teak and of jack, of sandal
and of sal, and hanging over bellowing gorges and leaping over elephant-
haunted valleys, they turn now to the left and now to the right and
bring you through the Alambe and Champa and Mena and Kola passes
into the great granaries of trade (7).
A sense of urgency seems to have gripped the narration. The brisk pace
of narration is quie evident in the description of the narrow, dusty,
rut-covered roads. One detail follows another without any break, indi-
cating the breathlessness of the narrator, who digresses from one descrip-
tion to another in order to stuff maximum information in the discourse.
Achakka is a typical Indian grandmother, thinking that her listeners
may desert her in the middle of the tale. To ward off the boredom of
the listeners and also to wind up the whole affair quite hastily, she shifts
from one description to another in a hurried manner. Similarly, the
portrait of the dawn by the narrator also brings out her extreme
garrulity:
The day dawned over the ghats, the day rose over the Blue Mountain,
churning through the grey, rapt valleys, swirled up and swam across the
whole air. The day rose into the air and with it rose the dust of the morning,
and the carts began to creak round the bulging rocks and the coppery
peaks, and the sun fell into the river and pierced to the pebbles, while the
carts rolled on and on [. . .] (45).
Like the carts of the narration during the dawn time, words are rolling
on and on from Achakka’s mouth without any break or pause. The
same chatty, racy, breathless and garrulous wizardry of narration is again
noticeable in the depiction of the rain scene in the village of Kanthapura:
The rains have come, the fine, first-footing rains that skip over the bronze
mountains, tiptoe the crags, and leaping into the valleys, go splashing and
wind-swung, a winnowed pour, and the coconuts and the betel-nuts
and the cardamom plants choke with it and hiss back. And there, there
it comes over the Bebbur Hill and the Kanthur Hill and begins to paw
upon the tiles, and the cattle come running home, their ears stretched
170
Raja Rao (1908–2006)
back, and the drover lurches behind some bel tree or peepal tree, and
people leave their querns and rush to the courtyard, and turning towards
the Kenchamma Temple, send forth a prayer [. . .] (114).
Achakka’s emotional and breathless style of narration is perhaps trace-

able to her inner participation in the issues elaborated. To end this
discussion on Achakka’s narrative style with the words of KRS Iyengar:
the story-teller is a ‘grandmother’ (the most gifted of story-tellers because

the art of storytelling is second nature to the Indian grandmother!) who
narrates for the edification of a newcomer the annals of her village long
after the actual events in which she had herself participated; and the
manner of her telling too is characteristically Indian, feminine with a
spontaneity that is coupled with swiftness, vivid with a raciness [. . .].5
NKA
1. Raja Rao, ‘The Writer and the Word’, in Critical Essays on Indian Writing
in English, eds. MK Naik, SK Desai and GS Amur, 1968; Madras:
Macmillan, 1977, p. 2–3.
2. GB Mohan, The Response to Poetry: A Study in Comparative Aesthetics,
New Delhi: People’s Publishing House, 1968, p. 10.
Akademi, 1982, p. 167.
1985, p. 390.
171
5.2 Bibliography
Bala, S, and R Uniyal. Raja Rao’s Kanthapura: A Critical Study, New
Delhi: Asia Book Club, 2007.
Deva, S. Raja Rao’s Kanthapura: (a Study), Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot,
1974.
Johns, TB. The Use of the Ramayana Epic in the Novels of Raja Rao,
Thesis, M.A., San Francisco State University, 1994.
Rogers, DR. A Pool of Anglepoised Light: The Legacy of Colonialism in
Three Indian Novels Written in English: a Thesis Submitted in Partial
Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in English
in the University of Canterbury, Thesis, M.A.,University of Canterbury,
2000.
Sagar, A. Fiction on the Indian Subcontinent, Lafayette, Ind: Dept. of
English, Purdue University, 1993.
Sethi, R. Myths of the Nation: National Identity and Literary Representation,
Oxford [u.a.]: Clarendon Press, 1999.
Thorat, As. Five Great Indian Novels: A Discourse Analysis: Mulk Raj
Anand’s Untouchable, Raja Rao’s Kanthapura, Kushwant Singh’s Train
to Pakistan, Rama Mehta’s Inside the Haveli, Chaman Nahal’s Azadi,
London: Sangam Books, 2000.
6 Anita Desai (b. 1937)
6.1 Voices in the City
6.1.1 Calcutta: A City of Voices
Anita Desai’s Voices in the City, written during the 1960s, is a pulsating
portrayal of the contemporary milieu inhabited by a stagnating old
order that was slowly but surely dying out, while the new order was
yet to emerge, with new energies struggling to burst out in society,
politics, art and culture. It aims not simply at evoking the spirit of the
times in dispassionate details, for Desai shows accurately how the colo-
nial forces acted as a suffocating and strangulating agency on life in
India. In this sense, her novel, Voices in the City, comes close to the
fictional presentation of England, Dublin and Alexandria in the novels
of Charles Dickens, James Joyce and Lawrence Durrell respectively.
Cast in four sections, the novel tells the saga of a feudal family of
Kalimpong, with a dominating mother, an inferior father, drunk most
of the time, and four children—two sons and two daughters—Arun
and Nirode, Monisha and Amla. The second section delineates the city
of Calcutta with meticulous detail, capturing the sprawling expanses,
atmospheres and individuals of differing mindsets. Three of the children
reside in different parts of the city, coming into contact, separately, with
a wide range of persons and places; they are inevitable products of a
Westernized urban culture and hence are sophisticated and intellect-
oriented in their attitudes to things, men and manners. Desai tries to
capture the interior landscapes of individuals with their flow of
consciousness and emotional complexities. The city is seen as a battle-
ground of opposite forces: an European ‘modernist’ sense of alienation
in the protagonists, set over against the local milieu characterized by
pressing problems of hunger and destitution, the conditions of refugees,
rice riots and traditional beliefs and attitudes that defy European influ-
ence; the coexistence of past and present values is evidenced in the
prevalence of religious worship of Hindu deities, which plays a major
part in public life, together with the demolition of pre-Independence
Raj-era buildings in order to build more modern houses. The period
depicted marks the advent of a newer pop culture in the city. It was
also a time of cultural efflorescence. The delineation of the city is highly
authentic and it forms an apt setting for the action—’the swarming
apathy of Howrah,’1 the spectacle of marshy Calcutta flooded during
monsoon, the bulging buses grinding along the city streets, carrying
fatigued and irritable office clerks and, last but not least, the streets
that look like entangled nerves, where:
[. . .] slaughtered sheep hung beside bright tinsel tassels to adorn oiled

black braids and a syphilitic beggar and his entire syphilitic family came
rolling down on barrows, like the survivors of an atomic blast, then
paused to let a procession of beautifully laundered Bengalis in white
carry their marigold-decked Durga—or Lakshmi or Saraswati, or Kali—
on their shoulders down to the Ganges, amidst drums and fevered
chanting (42).
For Nirode, they are goddesses of death and ruin. What strike the
tourist or one passing through are a few architectural wonders like
Howrah Bridge, Victoria Memorial, Cathedral Park, lakes, Alipore Zoo,
New Market, Belur Math, Kalighat Kali Temple such other spots of
attraction. We see second-hand bookstalls, the high walls of Alipore
jail, babies in stately English prams being wheeled out of Cathedral
Park, the multi-tiered balconies of old houses at Bowbazar, light-
excluding, enclosing shadows as stagnant water. Nirode, Monisha and
Amla, siblings and with similar destinies, live in the midst of the sordid-
ness, the brutality and the unredeemed dreariness of an urban landscape.
They fight against the city’s hostility as well as against themselves.
Monisha is oppressed by a sense of enveloping suffocation, (as Maya
in Cry, the Peacock does from a gnawing fear). She sees the wretched
refugees at the Sealdah station and is touched by their ‘expression of
tiredness, such overwhelming tiredness that even bitterness is merely
passive and hopelessness makes the hand extend only feebly, then drop
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Anita Desai (b. 1937)
back without disappointment’ (117). The dirty buildings, filthy gutters,

nagging beggars and bargaining street hawkers with their clumsily
displayed ware on the narrow and dusty roads—all are personified as
it were; the ambience is anything if not repulsive. To the highly indi-
vidualistic Monisha the ‘gigantic black wardrobe’ (109), the ‘black,
four-postered bed’ (109) and the thick iron bars of the window define
the stifling atmosphere of the joint family she is a part of. It is against
this isolated and melancholic life, symbolized by the colour black, that
Monisha revolts because it does not give her a foretaste of the unique
darkness she seeks:
Only the dark spaces between the stars, for they are the only things on
earth that can comfort me [. . .] what separates me from this family is
the fact that not of them ever sleeps out under the stars at night. They
have indoor minds, starless and dark (137).
She is eager to be liberated from this petrifying, soul-killing atmosphere.

Further, the cemetery functions as the symbol of a city where death
resides. Monisha, it may be said, lives with death, as she quietly wanders
in the cemetery. Amla, on the other hand, is not a creature of the dark,
as Monisha and Nirode are, though she also has her share of the ‘dark
ways of thinking and feeling’. Essentially, she belongs to sunshine and
colour. She cannot grapple with the dark as Nirode or Monisha can,
though it is not certain that they have an unfailing command over the
black wisdom of Calcutta. Nirode and Monisha are transformed by the
city into strangers, as it were. Monisha is appalled and tells Nirode that
Calcutta is his city which conspires against all who want to enjoy it.
In her pursuit of a career, Amla’s experiences prove frustrating; she can
only fall back upon her memories of Kalimpong. When Nirode uses
repulsive language to decry love, she is visibly horrified. She is also
disturbed by Monisha’s apathy. In her relationship with Dharma, who
typifies the enigmatic, dual personality of the city, Amla undergoes the
most shattering experience of her life. Dharma’s love-hate relationship
with the city that has produced him shocks Amla as much as the city
itself repels her. Dharma’s actual connection with the city, however, is
very threadbare and his departure from the city reveals that Dharma,
the unique individual, is only a part of the petty-minded bourgeois
175
world, to which he eventually returns. In Desai’s novel characters

evidently fight against the ugly, claustrophobic physical reality of city
life. Yet, the ‘voices’ heard here are so many, so various, that one voice
may drown another. Calcutta, as Anita Desai envisions it, is a city of
voices, a ‘poisoned city’ with its spiritual disintegration, squalor and
sordidness endangering individual identities. Some critics think that
the city of Calcutta is the ‘real’ protagonist of the novel, a conglomerate
force of creation, preservation and destruction which is finally identified
as a symbol for the goddess Kali. The consciousness of the city is
presented by the novelist as akin to that of Kali herself, omnipresent
and omnipotent as well as omnivorous. Mother Kali as the past and
the city itself as the present in a mythic cosmogony come out as an
identical force pushing individuals down the path of nihilism.
It is to be noted that Anita Desai designates symbolic connotations
to colours in her delineation of Calcutta. Analogous to the colour white
in her Cry, the Peacock, black is the dominant colour employed to define
the spirit of Calcutta in Voices in the City. The dark wintry evening,
the dark warehouses, sullen prophetic queues at dark doorways the
nondescript crowd swelling and drifting in a great black wave, black
squalor of the grimed city, black-browed Monisha, the bottomless black
eyes of the street singer, the dark suave Jit with his guileful black glasses,
and Nirode’s vision of the night turning his blood black—all are
symbolic. The city is envisioned either at night or in shadowy twilight
or in the enveloping haze of the smog over and around the sooty
chimney pots and wind and rain. There is a well-marked contrast
between Arun’s ‘bright’ success and Nirode’s predilection for ‘shadows,
silence, stillness’ (10). Nirode never involves himself in any way with
the raw life of the city. His nihilistic stance deters him from participa-
tion in the life of the city. His companions are the ‘Park Street riff-raff’
(170) and the ‘Knobby-kneed apes’ (181). Desai suggestively describes
the three Muslim boatmen in praying postures who constitute ‘a minute
island of stillness in the profanity of the nocturnal life of a river of
commerce’ (11). It seems they belonged ‘to the night, to the design of
stars lost somewhere beyond the haze of city smog, to the beating of
Nirode’s heart. [. . .]’ (11). White, used as a recurrent colour, is some-
what subdued, emphasizing the dominant sense of the dark in the novel.
Opposite to Sonny’s residence is ‘the old cemetery [. . .] with its
176
whitestained peace’ (13), the tombstones looking ‘as white as sacred

bulls’ (27) and Bengali gentlemen in white or off-white shirts—a contrast
against the sooty backdrop. The city appears to be washed in white and
black cubes and these coexist as part of the authorial design.
In Voices in the City Calcutta, with its many voices, is documented
quite thoroughly and faithfully. The city with its trade and commerce,
economics and politics is drawn in minute detail—cranes, busy in
loading and unloading, the brightly lit kebab stalls in a bustle of busi-
ness even in the early hours of the morning, the enormous confectionary
shops stirring milk in huge cauldrons, the bargaining vendors, the eating
houses full of customers, the New Market crowd paying obeisance to
their divine protectors, Ganesha and Lakshmi, in dull white plaster-cast
figures in pink and orange. In the figure of the ‘hard-drinking, golf-
playing bourgeois box-wallah’ (97) is found an objective reflection of
the ethos of the corrupt, commercial life of the city. The tradition
introduced by East India Company persists in the familiar scenes of
diners and dancers at night. The milieu in which the protagonists of
the novel find themselves moving is well defined by Jit who escapes
‘every now and then, to the more bracing climate of the coffee house,
notorious gathering-place of the displaced and dangerous literates of
Bengal’ (32). It is a place for a mixed crowd with the South-Indian Jit,
the Bengali Bose, the Irish David, the displaced landlord Sonny and
the self-styled ‘hermit crab’ (188), Nirode. As Nirode drinks with the
professor and Sonny, he visualizes within himself the ‘arterial network’
(23) of the city and its roofs, ‘one vast tangled net of the Bengali
loquaciousness’ (23). Sonny and his father typify the wealthy landowners
of the past, who in their days of prosperity left their estates, later sinking
into squalor. They indulge in frequent bouts of dissipation. ‘[E]nsconced
in the shabby elegance of another generation’ (74), the degenerate
landlord provides a fleeting glimpse of Calcutta with its nautch girls
and their lecherous patrons. Like his father, Sonny too lives in this
decadent lifestyle which possibly ruined his father. Desai’s remarks: ‘The
city was as much atmosphere as odour, as much a haunting ghost of
the past as a frenzied passage towards early death’ (43).
In Voices in the City the subjective world of the individuals is artisti-
cally related to the spirit of the city. There is no gainsaying that Desai’s
detailed and panoramic delineation of Calcutta and its inhabitants is
177
epical in range, anticipating Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy. It may be

noted in passing that in Anita Desai’s novel the characters react directly
to the city’s influence, while the spirit of Kanthapura or Malguidi is
essentially a product of their creators’ perception. Desai in her novel
brings in a variety of scenes suggesting variety in the life of the city
and its inhabitants. The details of the locale give the sense of particu-
larity, while the novelist relies on her portrayal of the gruesome or the
outlandish to suggestively focus on the sordid and shady things going
on behind the bustling yet unruffled city life. Calcutta is to be seen as
a microcosmic metaphor for the macrocosmic world itself: the city with
its intermixing voices of mythology, history and the present points to
almost an apocalyptic vision of a dying city: ‘The river is silting up:
ships will not come up it much longer. The old mansions and all those
eyeless marble nymphs are crumbling away’ (53).
RD
1. Anita Desai, Voices in the City, New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, p. 9.

178
6.1.2 Voices in the City: A Study in Characterization, Symbols and
Imagery
Anita Desai, in Voices in the City, problematizes themes at once Indian

and universal in scope and relevance—in that they are broadly concerned
with essential human conditions. The often simplistic conflicts of good
and bad, conservative and progressive, society and individual, which
we find in much nineteenth century fiction, are not the reigning issues
in this novel. The characters are sophisticated urban men and women.
Desai’s Maya, Monisha and Amla are quite different from each other.
Indian fiction, it may be noted in passing, has turned inwards, which
has led to a radical change in the treatment of fundamental themes—for
instance, man-woman relationship. Voices in the City, depicting the
squalid picture of a Bengali Hindu family in a state of disintegration,
convincingly explores the essential nature of youthful despair: it is an
existentialist angst that is at its core. In this the novel has more in
common with Albert Camus’ The Outsider rather than with its Indo-
Anglian predecessors. Further, the stream-of-consciousness technique,
distinctly traceable to Proust, Joyce and Woolf, is at work here. To
observe in this connection—DH Lawrence, Henry James and William
Faulkner employed this technique of articulating thoughts, emotions
and sensations at the subconscious and the conscious level. Prof. K
Srinivasa Iyengar observes quite rightly—‘She [Anita Desai] has tried
to forge a style supple and suggestive enough to convey the fever and
fretfulness of the stream-of-consciousness of her principal characters.’1
Anita Desai, unlike RK Narayan, does not take recourse to a predesigned
plot. Her plot is anything but linear in terms of exposition, conflict
and resolution; it is just an idea in one’s subconscious mind, a fragment

of the imagination, a flash of vision. Maya in Cry, the Peacock, as also
the voice of Calcutta in Voices in the City, override other voices, giving
an organic unity to the novel and a kind of sensitivity to the alienation
of the protagonist. The individuals are visibly weary of life itself, victims
of their morbid psychic longings, changes and confusions. All these are
effectively articulated by the stream-of-consciousness technique and an
intermittent use of flashbacks in a lyrical language. It is the conscious-
ness of Nirode that links the succeeding scenes as they take place in
the novel, while in the latter parts the consciousnesses of Monisha and
Amla are made to serve as the connecting link. Many of the descrip-
tions in the novel reveal an imaginative awareness which can only
suggest deeper forces at work behind the façade. The vision is extended
beyond the present into the past; the growth of the city as a character
is limned in distinct outlines. This shows a depth of interest that attempts
an integration of human experience, spanning past and present, inner
and outer. The suffocating despondency accompanied by a trenchant
nihilism (tangibly visible in Nirode) that inhabits Voices in the City also
characterizes Desai’s Fasting, Feasting. In her novels, as in her stories,
there is a great sense of place, though not focused on a particular place:
it is a wide canvas spanning East and West that we come across in her
fictional world.
The four sections of the novel are named after the four characters—
‘Nirode’, ‘Monisha: Her Diary’, ‘Amla’ and ‘Mother’. In the first, the
novelist sets out to evoke Europe through Arun’s migration, Nirode’s
intense longing for migration, Monisha and Nirode’s intense longing
for migration, Monisha and Nirode’s internalization of European
modernist literature comprising Baudelaire, Kafka, Camus and Eliot
and the feeling they have of a ‘modernist’ alienation and angst. Nirode,
it appears, suffers from mother-fixation, having an ambivalent relation-
ship with his mother. The next section throws into contrast modernist
alienation and the local ambience of the city. The third section provides
the resolution of the conflicts and the reconciliation of Nirode and
Amla to their native place and its traditions and ties, while the fourth
forges a synchronization of the voices of the city. Desai’s novel presents
the ‘mother’ motif at three interconnected levels: the real mother, the
foster-mother Calcutta and the Goddess Kali, the archetypal mother.
180
Nirode’s mother controls, with confidence and ability, Nirode’s psychic

complexities during his isanity. Kali, the goddess and the demon rolled
into one, becomes his mother. This pattern is similar to that of Paul
Morell in DH Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers; Nirode suffers from Oedipal
symptoms—which fact becomes palpable as he goes to receive his
mother at the airport after Monisha’s death:
She is still beautiful, he thought with fear, a fear that contracted and
expanded inside him like a membranous shield that covered and
constricted his heart. She is still beautiful, he repeated and her beauty
compelled him to embrace her. He embraced her slender, upright body
in its folds of white silk, touched the hands that had sketched designs
in the air of glorious futures for her sons and daughters and now were
devoid of rings. In his numbness, he prolonged the embrace and then
felt her draw away. [. . .] He fell away and felt himself drained of blood
and passion: he realized she did not want him any more. 2
In structuring the novel into four sections named after the mother and
her sibilings, and in the conspicuous absence of the father figure, the
reader may envisage a symbolic tableau-like arrangement of the idols
of Goddess Durga accompanied by her four children. Like Shiva existing
as a token pater-familias in the divine family, the father of the four
offspring in Voices in the City is significantly absent. He figures only in
the memory of Nirode, and is assigned only a marginal position in the
narrative.
What, however, distinguishes Desai’s art of character-delineation is
her skilled employment of ‘objective correlatives’ which suggest and
bring out the identity and alienation of the characters. She also makes
an associative use of myths, symbols and images. The animal imagery
used is meant to underscore the presence of a primitive animal nature
in human beings. For instance, Arun’s overriding passion for freedom
is indicated by his comparison to a ‘bird poised on the roof ’s age for
flight, each feather alert and trained for it’ (7). Again, Nirode is irritated
by his mother’s voice, which is expressed in an animal image—‘her
voice was like the thick fur of a winter beast’ (28). He ventilates his
fury at her in a telling image—he feels as if she swallowed his father
‘whole, like a cobra swallows a fat petrified rat’ (188). The images of
181
animals, birds and insects, used to pinpoint the distinctive personalities

of Amla, Monisha and Nirode, suggest and focus on the sense of motion,
flight and escape. Nirode is a ‘wandering caterpillar’ (51) while Monisha
is a wild bird and Amla looks like an agitated moth. There are also
images of art used very effectively. In his dream memory Nirode envi-
sions his mother as sitting ‘on the wind-wild veranda, working on her
embroidery’ (28). Amla’s portrait painted by Dharma, in which she is
seen embracing flames, becomes a portent, as it were, of Monisha’s
self-immolation. The Dharma episode with its emphasis on the explora-
tion of surrealist art and dream sequences indubitably suggests that
behind the façade of visible, tangible reality lies a pulsating life hidden
from view. Even the hidden life of the insects is rendered alive in the
dreams and reveries of the characters. This is subtly reconciled with
Nirode’s vision of the mother, of the city and of the Goddess Kali. The
device of using the diary for character-delineation is another distinct
feature of Anita Desai’s narratorial mode in the novel: Monisha, for
instance, puts down in her diary her feelings, experiences and responses
to things that take place around her. Desai also foregrounds the eternal
relationship between sound and silence. Sound is evocative of sugges-
tions and nuances; but often silence is more eloquent and fraught with
meaning, as evidenced in many places in the novel. In Cry, the Peacock,
the silence that follows the storm brings a kind of clarity to the confused
mind of Maya; here, too, the silence that ensues after the ‘tragic’ death
of Monisha helps illuminate the hitherto blurred relationships. What
further characterizes Anita Desai’s fictional world in the novel is the
minute detailing of things, happily couched in her poetic prose and
powerful imagery. Monisha’s view of her own inadequacy and Nirode’s
view of his own mother together forge a structural unity. These perspec-
tives are set against the view from the balcony of the street outside. In
the section entitled ‘Mother’ a woman is seen singing on the street,
whose shrill voice startles the female members of the Bow Bazar house-
hold out of their post-lunch siesta; they rush to the veranda. The
Baudelaire-Camus-Gita strand of the narrative, in which Nirode and
his sisters are involved, takes quite a dramatic turn on account of the
suffocating and seething world outside. The essence of a life force is
discovered in the female figure by the siblings, though each of them
recognizes it in his or her own way. Monisha feels this life force when
182
she is captivated by the woman’s gaze and the mesmerized response of

the spectators to the song of the singer on the street; Nirode sees in
the goddess Kali and his own mother a profound, immutable force that
shapes their destinies as well as the lives of the milling, jostling inhabit-
ants of the city. The obnoxious and spilling industrial milieu engenders
mental aberrations in sensitive men and women. In short, Anita Desai’s
Voices in the City is a commendable attempt at focusing on the disin-
tegration of the family into fragments; the final assimilation of the split
family is achieved not through any ostentatious sentimental reconcili-
ation of the alienated members but through loss and acceptance. Anita
Desai moves smoothly and confidently along the dimly-lit and circuitous
corridors of an internal reality, dealing as she does with the psyches of
her dramatis personae, their compulsive urges and motivations. Needless
to say, Voices in the City is a modern impressionistic novel in which the
alienation of the modern individual, his cynicism, his lack of adjust-
ment with his fellow beings, and even his altruistic tendencies inevitably
leave an overall effect of despair on the sensitive reader.
RD
1985, p. 464.
183
6.1.3 Nirode: A Journey from Alienation to Regeneration
By focusing on the interior landscapes and the psychic journeys of her

characters, Anita Desai contributed significantly to the enlargement and
extension of the thematic range of the Indo-Anglian novel. In their
thematic projection the characters are not kaleidoscopic; they are
profoundly moving in their socio-psychic, existential identities. The
currents and cross-currents of the human psyche are explored with an
unfailing skill, the impressions and experiences buried in the conscious
and subconscious selves of the characters rendered tangible and vibrant.
Desai’s men and women undergo mental conflicts engendered by a gap
between their psychic reality and the external situations they find them-
selves in. The protagonists enact man’s unending struggle for survival,
as they voice the agonized weariness of the caged bird which symbolizes
modern man. Extremely self-conscious and indignantly promiscuous,
they hanker after mutual understanding and approbation. The tumult
of the soul, its unsuspected depths, the poetry and pathos, its beauty
and compassion are the reigning concern of Anita Desai. The characters,
as Iyengar notes, struggle through ‘the quality of mind and soul alone’.1
While some of these struggling souls are lost in the process, some are
reborn with new realizations, new hopes. In the words of Shyam M
Asanani, Desai plunges into ‘the limitless depths of the mind’2 and ‘her
fiction grapples with the intangible realities of life and plunges into the
innermost depths of the human psyche to fathom its mysteries, the
inner turmoil, the chaos inside the mind.’3
Like the characters of Kafka, Desai’s characters are assailed by depres-
sive sounds and smells from which they find no release. Because their
minds are clouded by scepticism, Nirode and Monisha are unable to

love and be loved. Nirode is neither a being absolutely enmeshed in
his existential crisis brought about by his failure, nor does he come out
triumphant after his struggle and is reborn as a new human being.
Nirode, standing at the centre of the novel, is an angry young man:
bright, sensitive and extra-ordinarily intelligent. He is a die-hard nihilist,
a psychic rebel who wants to live in ‘shadows, silence, stillness.’4 In the
opening section of the novel he is seen as envious of his younger brother
Arun who is determined to go abroad for higher studies. Nirode looks
at him askance for he knows he could have been travelling West, if
during his school days he had not fallen from a horse and become
physically weaker. The accident made him an introvert and a scribbler
of ‘odd, twisted scraps of verse’ (9). As Arun, who seems to be the
family’s bright light, departs for higher studies, Nirode perceives ‘the
tedious stability of this one light amidst all the uneven glare that issued
from the tea shops, the grain shops, the stall where the green conconuts,
pan and cigarettes were sold’ (10). Nirode works as a nondescript clerk
in a newspaper office. He soon leaves the job and starts editing a literary
magazine, Voice, and eventually takes to creative writing—he incarnates
a rolling stone that gathers no moss. For him the pursuit of failure is
so important in life because happiness does not lead anywhere—‘I want
to move from failure to failure to failure step by step to rock bottom.
I want to explore that depth’ (40). This is the revelation of an inner
disintegration in the heart of being which Sartre calls descent into ‘Bad
Faith’.
Voices in the City is a profound exploration of youthful despair and
the attendant existential crisis. It is a panoramic presentation of an
individual’s fractured conformation with the self and his final defeat.
The novel meticulously records the ferocious and continuing assaults
on existence in the suffocating metropolis, Calcutta. Broadly speaking,
the novel charts out the spiritual odyssey of Nirode, a die-hard intel-
lectual who gives up the comforts of a cozy home in the mountains
only to confront the ‘city of death’. Nirode is the victim of what Albert
Camus calls a contradiction. For Nirode the ‘sole natural condition’
(26) of existence is loneliness, enshrined in three drinks, a cigarette and
a room, which are his only requirements. As an artist he is far above
the average run of men; yet he wants to descend deep down into the
185
abyss of failure. He wants to descend fast and be lost in forgetfulness.

The tickets are bought, the things are packed, but he never catches the
train, like Mersault in Camus’ The Outsider.
Like Voices in the City, Desai’s other novels, Cry, The Peacock, Bye-Bye
Blackbird, In Custody, also focus on the entrapped, enclosed life of men
and women who are all alienated selves suffering from the agonies of
emotional isolation. This subjective struggle in Desai’s characters reminds
one of Kafka’s protagonists rather than of the alienated hero of Camus.
However, Desai’s protagonists, unlike Kafka’s ‘K’ in The Castle, are not
victims of an alienation mired in a bureaucratic matrix. They loiter in
the secluded world of their solitary selves; they are hapless victims of
strained familial relationships which only maim them emotionally. For
Nathaniel Hawthorne alienation is solipsistic insulation but that is not
the case with Desai’s hero: he passes through progressive disintegration
of personality; his suffering stems from a morbid obsession with despair
and death. This is a manifestation of thanatophilia; still, such a character
struggles frantically to break free from his cocooned self in search of
something more real and tangible than his hollow and shadowy exist-
ence. Like a typical existentialist hero, Nirode confronts emptiness,
constantly experimenting with failure. Exhausted by his own sense of
uncertainties, he is ‘swept back and forth like a long weed undulating
under water, a weed that could live only in aqueous gloom, would never
rise and sprout into clear daylight’ (63). His existentialist search finally
ends in spiritual bankruptcy.
Nirode’s boyhood adoration of his mother was so intense and his
love for her so possessive that her second marriage ruptured him
emotionally, shattering his psyche and damaging his heart. His later
cynicism and nihilism spring from his reaction to his mother’s unex-
pected betrayal of the family’s honour as she became the mistress of
Major Chadha. When he refers to his mother as ‘that old she-cannibal’
(101), he wears his symptom on his sleeve. Echoing Camus, he intro-
duces himself as ‘an outlawed hermit crab’ (188). The three words that
Sartre uses emphatically to describe the human condition—anguish,
abandonment, despair—apply well to Anita Desai’s novels as a whole.
Sartre focused on the existential overdetermination of man’s position
in the world—‘Man is nothing else but what he proposes, he exists
only in so far as he realizes himself, he is, therefore, nothing else but
186
the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is.’5 Nirode, alien-
ated from his mother and embittered, like Hamlet, over his mother’s
faithlessness and selfish disregard of familial values and codes, reconciles
himself in the long run to goddess Kali, a vast, inexorable force to
which he finally submits. He wonders if he would ever bow down to
‘an inscrutably smiling idol’ (63), giving himself up to the tolling of
bells and a silent, shapeless god. Nirode’s epiphany takes place as he
becomes palpably conscious of a harmonizing vision of the world, a
vision not perceptible inside a temple but outside, under the open
sky—it is a vision that does not emanate from the idol in the shrine
but from his own mother who appears before Nirode in a silent and
shapeless white form on the balcony of the house. Nirode’s experience
of this unifying vision is situated outside the suffocating space of ritual-
ized community worship and is instead integrated into an organic vision
of life negotiated by an individual through stages of agonized self-
alienation which comes to an end as he accepts his mother in the closing
part of the novel:
Close about them fell silence and they turned to look back at the big
house behind the shrubs. It was unlit, it seemed uninhabited, one sleeping
mass against the soft, misty sky that was tinted a livid pink by the lights
of the city burning beneath it. Then they [Nirode and Amla] saw a
white figure step out onto the upper veranda, stand silently at the rail
and watch them (254).
Monisha finds Nirode reduced to a ‘shrunken, etiolated, wasted thing’

(138), but later on her death liberates him from his alienated self as he
grows ‘vividly alive by the minute’ (253), free of all conscious and
unconscious attachments of life. His inner, stony solidity melts, as he
feels his skin strip away and his interior melt into the exterior. Nirode
wanted to give voice to the city and struggled in his dreams with unre-
solved conflicts; now he finds a resolution of all conflicts in the figure
of his mother and the figure of the goddess Kali:
She is not merely good, she is not merely evil—she is good and she is
evil. She is our knowledge and our ignorance. She is everything to which
we are attached, she is everything from which we will always be detached.
187
She is reality and illusion, she is the world and she is Maya. Don’t you
see, in her face, in her beauty, Amla, don’t you see the amalgamation
of death and life? (253).
Voices in the City, portrays a disarrayed middle class family of inde-

pendent India, brings to life an epoch in Calcutta, and in the process
works through the binaries of East and West, solitude and community,
male and female, spiritual and temporal, ignorance and knowledge,
light and dark, art and reality and finally, life and death. Desai’s descrip-
tion of the habit and attitude of Nirode’s mother reminds the perceptive
reader, however faintly, of Amy and her disintegrating family in TS
Eliot’s The Family Reunion. The novel is a vivid picture of Bengal, and
by extension India, in the 1960s—a period in which the older elements
are not altogether effaced and the emergent ones are yet to evolve.
RD
1. As quoted in: SP Swain, ‘Tradition and Deviation—A Study of Anita

Desai’s Novels’, in The Novels of Anita Desai: A Critical Study, ed. by
Manmohan K Bhatnagar and M Rajeswar, New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers
and Distributors, 2008, p. 102.
2. Shyam M Asnani, ‘Desai’s Theory and Practice of the Novel’, in: Perspectives
on Anita Desai, ed. by Ramesh K Srivastava, Ghaziabad: Vimal Prakashan,
1984, p. 5.
3. Ibid, p. 6.
5. JP Sartre, ‘Existentialism is a Humanism’,1946, in Existentialism from
Dostoevsky to Sartre, ed. Walter Kauffman, New York: New American
Library, 1975.
188
6.2 Clear Light of Day
6.2.1 Human Relationships
At one level Clear Light of Day seems to be the chronicle of the Das
family, with their family troubles, and the coming of age of the central
character, Bim. Associated with it is the destiny of two other families,
the Alis’ and the Mishras’. But it would be naïve to assume that this
is a novel only dealing with the intricacies of interpersonal relationships.
Anita Desai, like most second generation Indian novelists in English,
was concerned with the newly formed nation state and the problematics
of nation building and national identity. Thus, in this novel, the parti-
tion forms the subtext and the three families represent three major
cultures that constitute modern India. The novel asks whether India
can survive as a nation and it also celebrates, at the end, the complex
cultural matrix of modern India.
On the surface, the novel progresses along the interaction between
Bim and her younger sister Tara, who has come to visit her in Delhi.
At first she tries in vain to persuade Bim to reconcile with their brother
Raja. It is through their conversations and reminiscences that we get a
glimpse of what had gone on earlier—their childhood and Tara’s and
Raja’s subsequent desertion of Bim.
Bim and Tara may bond as siblings but as individuals they are poles
apart. The difference in their attitudes and worldviews makes their
relationship highly problematic, which runs as an undercurrent
throughout the novel. Both sisters are now aware of the changes that
have taken place in them over the years and from the outset, we are
aware of the hidden tension in their conversation. When Tara remarks
that nothing has changed in her old Delhi home, Bim teases her, saying,
‘Would you like to come back and find it changed?’1 Bim has never
forgiven her two siblings for leaving her to face life all alone with her
autistic brother Baba, and her accusation surfaces clearly in her conver-
sation. Marriage for Tara has been a mode of escape, which she had
embraced in order to free herself from the sordid realities of her life in
Delhi. Her return also has in it the unmistakeable flavour of guilt for
having left Bim all alone to deal with all the problems. This is under-
scored when she recounts the bee episode in the Lodi Gardens: Bim
was attacked by a swarm of bees, but instead of helping her Tara had
run away. This helps us understand the character of Tara better. Being
the weaker of the two sisters, she tries to escape from the harsher reali-
ties of life. She has always lived under the shadow of her more brilliant
sister and, whenever distressed, would run to Mira Masi for protection.
But her visit to Delhi seems to have a therapeutic effect on both her
and Bim. It is she who finally persuades Bim to mend her relation with
Raja and upon doing so, Bim attains a level of maturity that years of
college teaching had failed to instil in her.
Part 1 of the novel is set in the present, with Tara coming over to
Bim’s house in Delhi and their subsequent interactions and nostalgic
recollections. Part 2 takes us back to the year 1947, thereby introducing
the political angle to the novel. Part 3 goes even further back, telling
us of the gradual stages in the growth of the Das children and the novel
returns to the present, albeit pointing to the future, in the concluding
portions of Part 4.
It is through such movement back and forth in narrative that we
learn about the relationship between Raja and Bim. We learn that as
children Bim and Raja were closest to each other; they would get up
to all sorts of pranks whereas Tara would always be on the margins,
seeking refuge and comfort in Mira Masi. Bim and Raja really come
close and mature as individuals when Raja falls ill and Bim nurses him
till he is well. They find solace in Victorian literature and Raja is shown
to be reading Tennyson and later Eliot. Art thus comes to constitute a
very private world for them. But beyond the interpersonal dynamics,
it is also a way in which Bim’s role in the composite culture of India
is defined. The siblings do not embrace English literature as the literature
of the colonizers but transcend the dichotomy between the colonizer
and the colonized. Bim acts throughout their childhood as her siblings’
190
surrogate mother, making up for their parents’ inadequacy and detach-

edness. The novel foregrounds the sense of betrayal Bim feels when
Raja goes over to the Alis and later marries Hyder Ali’s daughter.
But at the end, her decision to face her brother is significant as she
realizes that different parts come together to make a composite whole.
The leitmotif of the novel—time as destroyer and preserver—is linked
significantly with the reconciliation that is about to happen.
Clear Light of Day portrays the family saga of the Das’ and the frag-
mentation within that family. But on a different level what happens in
the Das household is metaphorical for the nation’s dynamics. A sense
of insecurity pervades the novel as we witness the nation transform
from a stable, subjected one to a chaotic, independent one. The parti-
tion of India connects symbolically with the partition of the Das family.
And to add to this metaphor, it is Hyder Ali’s flight that brings to the
readers’ attention how fast the world was changing, a change that
completely destabilizes Bim. The crisis of modern India is reflected in
the psychological crisis of Bim. Thus, with the focus on changing human
relationships, Desai foreshadows the political situation in post-Inde-
pendence India, be it the partition riots or the changed political atmos-
phere of the nation. The locked house of Hyder Ali stands for
pre-partition harmony, which is henceforth relegated only to memory.
Earlier, it is through the relationship between Ali and Raja that Desai
points at the harmony that existed between Hindus and Muslims before
partition. Thus, every relationship in the novel serves a purpose, and
the story does not remain merely a family saga. Even at the end, Bim’s
acceptance of change and her self-realization prevent her from remaining
spiritually inert, as she realizes that the complexion of life, straddling
both public and private spheres, has changed irrevocably. Desai very
subtly presents the story of a family in which childhood winners and
losers exchange places in adulthood. But in a larger paradigm, the author
also presents the face of a newly emerging and constantly changing
nation state.
RD
191
1. Anita Desai, Clear Light of Day, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000, p. 4.
192
6.2.2 Symbolism
At the simplest level, a symbol is an object, living or inanimate, that

has a meaning beyond itself. As Coleridge defines it, a symbol is ‘char-
acterized by a translucence of the special in the individual’.1 To define
it in simpler terms, ‘a literary symbol combines an image with a concept.
[. . .] It may be public or private, universal or local.’2 Certain symbols
are private and personal, and therefore pose greater difficulty in their
deciphering. Such symbols are used to highlight the author’s own private
points of view and arguments. Desai in her novel, Clear Light of Day,
makes use of symbols which are at the same time easily recognizable
and ambiguous, which not only make the novel poetic but also help
in understanding the psychic dynamics of the characters better.
The symbol of the house which becomes a metaphor for the nation
and national identity is a commonplace in Indian English fiction. Amitav
Ghosh employs it to great success in The Shadow Lines. In this novel
too, the Das household performs a similar function. What adds another
dimension to this treatment is the introduction of two culturally diverse
families in the scene: the traditional Hindu Mishra family and the
aristocratic Muslim family of Hyder Ali.
Symbolism is used to denote the resistance to change and then finally
its acceptance. The house, the locality and Hyder Ali’s horse riding are
all symbolic of the aristocratic pre-Independent India. The social gather-
ings at the Ali household symbolize the decadent, aristocratic life before
Independence. But with Independence, the class structure of India
becomes sharply polarized with the emergence of a conspicuous prole-
tariat. On a different level, the three families, ranged side by side, also
stress the communal harmony that existed before partition. Through

the nurturing manner in which Ali treats Raja and the manner in which
he is easily drafted into their household, Desai shows the mutual under-
standing and respect that existed between individuals belonging to these
two communities. But it is the flight of the Ali family to Hyderabad
which impresses upon Bim’s mind the changing political situation in
the country. Muslims can no longer be safe with the partition riots
taking place; as Raja poignantly observes: ‘It will be safe after every
Muslim has had his throat slit’3 The communally charged atmosphere
that characterized those times is also brought to the forefront. And it
is rather piquant that Raja breathes a sigh of relief when he hears that
it is a Hindu and not a Muslim who has assassinated Gandhi.
The next most important symbol which dominates the entire text is
that of Baba’s old gramophone which he acquires from the Ali house-
hold, and by association music becomes almost the leitmotif, running
like an undercurrent throughout the text. Not only does the novel begin
with birdsong, it ends with the old guru singing. Between these are,
however, the scratching and the squeaking of the old gramophone,
which symbolizes internal differences plaguing both the family and the
nation. Desai’s preoccupation with the inner recesses of the human
psyche makes her use music as a medium wherewith to project frustra-
tions and desires.
It is the autistic Baba whose role is best articulated through music.
The gramophone is a relic of the past, of an old, aristocratic society,
and its music is a sort of a voice from the past, trying to reassert itself
in a continually changing and fragmented Indian society. It is also the
thing that gives Baba his sense of identity. He keeps on playing the
same songs over and over again, which can be said to stand for his lack
of mental growth. This lack of progression is true for most of the other
characters as well. While Bim is entrapped by the circumstances of her
own life, Tara is shown to be guilt-ridden. The Das household becomes
a prisonhouse. Mira Masi is trapped by her poverty and later becomes
an alcoholic. This entrapment and lack of growth mirrors the situation
of the first generation of independent Indians. The East/West dichotomy
is also brought out through music. Dr Biswas loves Western classical
music and his mother Tagore songs, and in the Das household we hear
Western music while their neighbours listen to Indian classical. There
194
is a healthy biculturalism that is shown to exist which, according to

the author, should be the true cultural fabric of modern India.
Desai’s use of animal imagery is also worth mentioning. It is impor-
tant to note that the use is mainly of ghastly and repugnant images,
none more so than that of the cow which had drowned in the well and
could not be hauled up. The picture is one of horror and nausea as the
reader can almost smell the stench of a cow rotting inside the water.
On a deeper level, however, it symbolizes stagnation, especially the rut
in which women find themselves. Both sisters talk of the incident as a
symbol of their own stagnation. The childhood winner Bim remains
tied down by her family circumstances; she says: ‘The hero and heroine—
where are they? Down at the bottom of the well—gone, disappeared’
(157). The incident still lingers in their minds. It also represents Mira
Masi’s loss of control over herself as she loses all sense of propriety in
her drunken stupor. The cow is also a reminder of the white horse
which Ali used to ride and which becomes symbolic of the royal, aris-
tocratic Mughal past. The grandeur of it on the one hand and the
horror, on the other coalesces two phases of Indian history, pre-Inde-
pendent and the post-Independent.
The image of the bees, which had attacked Bim while they had gone
for a picnic, also becomes telling in the exploration of Tara’s psyche.
She deserts Bim when she is swarmed by them and flees. Tara has always
been an escapist, seeking comfort from Mira Masi when Bim and Raja
were up to some adventure or the other. Marriage for Tara had been a
mode of escape, by which she sought to free herself from the sordid
realities of her life in Delhi. Her return also has in it the unmistakable
flavour of guilt for having left Bim all alone to deal with all the prob-
lems. Being the weaker of the two sisters, she escapes from the harsher
realities of life, as is brought out by the bee episode.
These symbols not only help to achieve a better understanding of
the key issues of the novel, they have a reference beyond it, namely, to
the struggle of a newly formed nation and its citizens to come to terms
with change. This is mapped on to the exploration of the individual
psyche within whose contours lie the myriad emotions of guilt, respon-
sibility, anger and finally forgiveness.
RD
195
1. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,

ed. by WGT Shedd, 7 vols, 1, New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers,
1863, p. 437.
2. JA Cuddon, A Dictionary of Literary terms and Literary Theory, London:
Penguin, 1998, p. 885.
3. Anita Desai, Clear Light of Day, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000, p. 45.
196
6.2.3 Clear Light of Day as a Modernist Text
Anita Desai’s novel Clear Light of Day works in an apparently dual

mode. Not only does it present the family saga of the Das family and
the fragmentation within that family, but also the aftermath of the
partition of India and how the nation coped with its new-found identity
scripted in blood and sacrifice. The novel was nominated for the Booker
Prize and marks a watershed in Indian writing in English, even though
Indo-Anglian fictional writing had undergone a metamorphosis with
the publication of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. The charm of
the novel inheres in the apparent ease with which it goes back and
forth in time, and in the way in which Desai presents the inner work-
ings of her central characters. All in all, we find in it the traces of the
modernist movement which had taken the creative world by storm in
the early half of the twentieth century.
Modernist literature meant breaking away from conventional modes
of representation, newer ways of looking at the place of man in the
universe, and breathtaking experiments in form and style. Not only
was the linear narrative form abolished, but also special emphasis was
laid on what went on in the minds of the characters as the omniscient
narrator no longer played a part in an author’s scheme of things. These
are some of the features that we find in Desai’s novel and a closer
analysis would only bring out the justification of this claim.
The thing that strikes a reader at the outset is the two epigraphs of
the text, culled from Emily Dickinson and TS Eliot. This stresses on
the fact that memory can be both liberating and constricting, both
empowering and disempowering, depending upon the interpretation.
The epigraphs also show the effects of memory on people and how it
changes and renews their perceptions. As memory plays a very important
role in the novel, we see in the four parts a constant moving back and
forth as the story takes shape.
Desai had once said that the novel is an endeavour to write ‘a four
dimensional piece on how a family’s life moves backwards and forwards
in a period of time.’1 Arguably, this fourth dimension is time. The four
parts of the novel may remind readers of Eliot’s Four Quartets to which
there are references in the text. Since the theme of the novel is how
human beings change with time, it is not surprising that it has echoes
of Eliot, in whose work time is the destroyer and preserver simultane-
ously. The four dimensional structure allows the author to present
multiple angles to reality, as the novel is set free from linear narration.
A modernist trait in itself, this device allows the author to present a
single incident from the points of view of different characters and
negates the claim of a master narrative at work.
The central theme of the novel, played out in the realm of familial
relations, is that of continuity and change. Anita Desai presents it
against the backdrop of partition, but unlike Amitav Ghosh or Attia
Hussein, she does not use it to voice her political opinion. She uses
the flashback mode of narration to present the incidents from multiple
points of view. Time assumes a protean identity; it is seen in relation
to youth and old age and in relation to history and the formation of
national identity. With shifting points of view and frequent jump cuts
to a different era altogether, the narrative is realized gradually. The
notion of non-linear time deployed in the novel comes out in Bim’s
reflections on life as she tells Tara:
There are these long still stretches—nothing happens—each day is exactly

like the other—plodding, uneventful—and then suddenly there is a
crash—mighty deeds take place—momentous events—even if one doesn’t
know it at the time—and then life subsides again into the backwaters
till the next push, the next flood?2
The interesting thing about the treatment of time is the way in which
public and private memories fuse together. Not only do we see the
effects of time on the private lives of the characters but also on the
198
Indian populace as a whole and on the development of the nation into

a modern state. The partition riots of 1947 leave their mark on the
interpersonal relationships, as evidenced in the sudden, silent flight of
Hyder Ali’s family. The flight throws into relief the changing face of
post-Independence India where Hindus and Muslims can no longer
live in unhindered communal harmony. The fragmentation of the Das
family is also symbolic, since it mirrors the fragmentation of the nation.
At the end, however, with Bim seeing clearly into the light of things,
and finally deciding to end her animosity towards her brother, it under-
lines the coming of age of a new generation of Indians, who are able
to accept tradition along with modernity. This is synthesis is suggested
in the episode where Bim feels becalmed by the music recital at the
Mishra family; she had earlier looked down upon Mishra as being
enmeshed in tradition and close-mindedness.
Another typical modernist trait that Desai employs is the use of the
stream-of-consciousness mode of narration. The technique refers to the
way in which multitudinous thoughts and expressions in the mind of
a character and the flow of their inner experiences are presented. Desai
adds a fresh dimension to the delineation of characters in Indian English
fiction. She is deeply preoccupied with individuals and their psychic
complexities and her strength is the exploration of the deep, interior
recesses of the human mind.
This is true of the representation of the characters of Bim and her
sister. Their childhood experiences are presented through the filter of
adult perception moored in the past. Thus, we hear Tara apologize for
deserting Bim when attacked by bees, years after the event. Not only
is this a simple confession, but also a hint at her rather escapist nature.
We are not surprised when we realize that her marriage to Bakul is just
another way of escaping the burden and sordidness of family life.
Clear Light of Day remains one of the most important works of
Indian English fiction, and the use of modernist modes of representa-
tion prefigures the postmodern elements that would sweep and dominate
the field upon the publication of Rushdie’s work only a year later.
RD
199
1. As quoted in: SP Swain, ‘The Alienated Self—A Study of Anita Desai’s

Clear Light of Day’, in Manmohan K Bhatnagar, and M Rajeshwar, The
Novels of Anita Desai: A Critical Study, New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers
and Distributors, 2000, p. 52.
2. Anita Desai, Clear Light of Day, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000, p.
42–43.
200
6.3 Bibliography
Afzal-Khan, F. Cultural Imperialism and the Indo-English Novel: Genre
and Ideology in R.K. Narayan, Anita Desai, Kamala Markandaya, and
Salman Rushdie, University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1993.
Anand, A. Anita Desai: Sense of the Fabulous in Her Novels, New Delhi:
Harman Pub. House, 2002.
Bala, S. and DK Pabby, The Fiction of Anita Desai, New Delhi: Khosla
Pub. House, 2002.
Bande, U. The Novels of Anita Desai: A Study in Character and Conflict,
New Delhi: Prestige Books, 1988.
Bhatnagar, MK, and M Rajeshwar. The Novels of Anita Desai: A Critical
Study, New Delhi: Atlantic, 2008.
Budholia, OP. Anita Desai, Vision and Technique in Her Novels, Delhi:
B.R. Pub. Corp, 2001.
Chakranarayan, M. Style Studies in Anita Desai, New Delhi: Atlantic
Publishers and Distributors, 2000.
Choudhury, B. Women and Society in the Novels of Anita Desai, New
Delhi: Creative Books, 1995.
Dhawan, RK. The Fiction of Anita Desai, New Delhi: Bahri Publications,
1989.
Gopal, NR. A Critical Study of the Novels of Anita Desai, New Delhi:
Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 1995.
Ho, EYL. Anita Desai, Tavistock, Devon, U.K.: Northcote, 2006.
Indira Ś. Anita Desai as an Artist: A Study in Image and Symbol, New
Delhi: Creative Books, 1994.
Jena, S. Voice and Vision of Anita Desai, New Delhi: Ashish Pub. House,
1989.
Kanwar, A. Virginia Woolf and Anita Desai: A Comparative Study, New
Delhi: Prestige Books, 1989.
Kohli, D, and MM Just. Anita Desai: Critical Perspectives, New Delhi:
Pencraft International, 2008.
Nityanandam, I. Three Great Indian Women Novelists: Anita Desai, Shashi
Deshpande and Bharati Mukherjee, New Delhi: Creative Books, 2000.
Parker, M and R Starkey. Postcolonial Literatures: Achebe, Ngugi, Desai,
Walcott, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.
Pathania, U. Human Bonds and Bondages: The Fiction of Anita Desai
and Kamala Markandaya, Delhi, India: Kanishka Pub. House, 1992.
Prasad, M. Anita Desai: The Novelist, Allahabad, India: New Horizon,
1981.
Rani, U. Psychological Conflict in the Fiction of Anita Desai, Chandigarh:
Abhishek Publications, 2002.
Sali, ST. Anita Desai’s Female Protagonists, New Delhi: Adhyayan
Publishers, 2006.
Sharma, RS. Anita Desai, New Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann, 1981.
Sharma, R. Feminine Sensibility: Alienation in Charlotte Bronte and Anita
Desai, Meerut [India]: Shalabh Prakashan, 1995.
Singh, A. Existential Dimensions in the Novels of Anita Desai, New Delhi:
Sarup & Sons, 2007.
Srivastava, RK. Perspectives on Anita Desai, Ghaziabad: Vimal, 1984.
Tandon, N. Anita Desai and Her Fictional World, New Delhi: Atlantic,
2008.
202
7 Salman Rushdie (b. 1947)
7.1 Midnight’s Children
7.1.1 Midnight’s Children: A Bildungsroman or its Parody?
Since Midnight’s Children tells the story of the growing up of its protago-
nist and narrator Saleem, it is a common fallacy to regard it as a
Bildungsroman. But a closer analysis will show that Rushdie, by using
the form and structure of the Bildungsroman, actually undermines it,
and critics have not been shy in calling this novel a parody of the
Bildungsroman.
The term, in German, signifies a novel of formation.
The subject of these novels is the development of the protagonist’s mind

and character, in the passage from childhood through varied experi-
ences—and often through a spiritual crisis—into maturity, which usually
involves recognition of one’s identity and role in the world.1
Keeping this definition in mind, it is clear why this novel would not
be regarded as a Bildungsroman—for Saleem, telling us what he wants
us to know and concealing the rest, cannot be said to have understood
the enormity of his role and we have serious reservations about his
spiritual and emotional development at the end. His constant endeavour
is to show or project himself as larger than the events around him and
he seems to have vested interests in the events that he narrates. But
Rushdie fuses the two modes of narration to further problematize
matters. The first sentence of the novel proves this, as the first person
narrator, Saleem, writes: ‘I was born in the city of Bombay [. . .] once
upon a time.’2 The first clause is similar in style to the social realism
of nineteenth century Bildungsroman novels while the second part of
the assertion,uses the traditional opening of the fairy tale to signify, as

it were, the fairy tale that lies ahead.
Saleem’s claim to ostensible fame is that he is born on the exact hour
at which India gained independence and thus he and the newly formed
nation form symbolic counterparts. He remarks, ‘I had been mysteri-
ously handcuffed to history, my destinies indissolubly chained to those
of my country’ (3). He draws attention to the time of his birth as being
of great moment and reports that the first prime minister of the country,
Jawaharlal Nehru, wrote him a letter. The birth of his sister is uneventful
compared to his and this poignantly shifts the focus on Saleem’s domi-
nant personality in a narrative that is his own. He is the centre of
attention and the narrative revolves around him as he makes the events
of his life strangely correspond to those of the country.
His body starts developing cracks and fissures, which coincides with
the partition of the nation and the division of the country into numerous
states. He is always at the centre, either as cause or effect, of the
momentous events in the history of India—the war between India and
Pakistan, the death of Nehru and the violence that resulted following
the partition of the state of Bombay.
But we have to keep in mind that Saleem shows us only what he
wishes us to see and not the complete truth. Just as Aadam Aziz never
had a good, full view of his wife before marriage, viewing her in parts
through a perforated sheet, so too, Saleem chooses to present only bits
and pieces of history. And this raises suspicion about the veracity of
his narrative. His memory obeys its own veridical logic as, in his own
words, ‘it selects, eliminates, alters, exaggerates, minimizes, glorifies
and vilifies also; but in the end it creates its own reality’ (242). Viewed
from this perspective, one of the key issues raised in this novel is the
futility of social realist novels that try to communicate the total reality
and the false impression they give of an individual acting as the prime
mover of events. The centrality of Saleem’s position is undermined,
for his identity itself is fluid and varied, much like his constantly
running nose.
A further undercutting of the centrality of the observing and reporting
self (as we find in the Bildungsroman) is seen in the question of Saleem’s
parentage. He begins his story by talking of his grandfather Dr Aadam
Aziz—who in reality is not his grandfather. Born to Vanita and Wee
204
Salman Rushdie (b. 1947)
Willie Winkie, his real father is, however, an Englishman, William

Methwold. His identity is thus in suspense, and is suspect.
Another way of questioning the realist mode of representation is
made through Rushdie’s use of film metaphors and vocabulary. In order
to help the readers visualize the narrative, he uses terms like ‘close-up’,
‘long shot’ etc. He does so to give a total and complete view of things,
but fails. Just as a camera would select and frame what is to be shown
to the audience, Saleem’s narrative, too, is shown to be devoid of any
consistency in terms of truth or reality. The fact that he tends to assert
his dominance over Padma may be traced to her illiteracy but nonethe-
less he, as Helga Ramsay Kurtz notes, fights a
losing battle for the reader’s credulousness against much more powerful
opponents such as magazines, history-books, radio-programmes, Bombay
talkies, the songs of Jamila Singer broadcast on Voice-Of-Pakistan Radio.3
Thus it is not surprising that being unable to bear the pressure of finding
one’s own version of history amidst this polyphony of voices, Saleem
should be cracked open, torn asunder by the mounting pressure of
making a choice between his own certainties and the numerous other,
different ones proferred by others.
Saleem ends the novel by talking of the ‘chutnification’ of history,
emblematized in the pickle jars there for the preservation of the past. But
this, too, is Rushdie’s way of breaking the constraints and conventions
of the Bildungsroman. The jars tally in number to Saleem’s age but the
final jar is empty signifying an empty future; although Padma talks of
their having a future together, Saleem’s narrative ends with his sense of
being ‘sucked into the annihilating whirlpool of the multitudes’ (533);
the empty jar needs to be seen in this context. Saleem cuts his cloth to
suit his story but to be fair to him, he invites his readers to react as they
choose, for, after all, ‘[r]eality is a question of perspective’ (189).
RD
205
1. MH Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms, New Delhi: Harcourt, 1999,

p. 193.
2. Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children, New York: Penguin Books, 1991,
p. 3. Subsequent references from this work are given in the paper itself.
3. Helga Ramsay Kurtz, ‘Does Saleem Really Miss the Spittoon? Script and
Scriptlessness in Midnight’s Children’ in The Journal of Commonwealth
Literature, 2001, p. 140.
206
7.1.2 Midnight’s Children: Symbol as Meaning
In James Joyce’s Ulysses, Leopold Bloom tries to define a nation as follows:

‘A nation is the same people living in the same place. [. . .] Or also living
in different places.’1 But such a definition is not adequate for the Indian
nation state. India, with its multitude of castes, religions and languages,
would need something more to bind its people to a stable national iden-
tity. Such an identity needs to be constructed also to create a sense of
difference—for a nation needs to differentiate itself from other nations.
Keeping such issues in mind, many contemporary Indian writers in
English have tried to create a single, concrete and identifiable national
consciousness in their works and have tried to bring to the forefront
the problematic that inscribes official historical discourse. To this end,
they make use of symbols and images in their works. All such formula-
tions come to the forefront in Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.
The narrator, Saleem, himself becomes the most dominant symbol
in the novel. His birth coincides with the exact moment at which India
gained independence and he sees himself as the sheet on which India’s
history is being written. The first three decades of his life coincide with
the first thirty odd years of the newly formed nation and this brings
to our mind the letter that the newly born Saleem receives from the
prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru:
You are the newest bearer of the ancient face of India which is also
eternally young. We shall be watching over your life with the closest
attention; it will be, in a sense, the mirror of our own.2
While telling his story to Padma, Saleem claims that his body is cracking.
This, too, has symbolic overtones. His physique, now covered with
cracks, becomes the metaphor for his narrative which is spread over
sixty years. His story itself is fragmented—there are frequent jumps to
the past and the present, broken up by both Padma and Saleem with
their constant interjections. Another interpretation of this physical
cracking may be that it stands for the fragmentation of India, during
partition, into two different countries. Moreover, it also mirrors the
division of India into numerous states: as Saleem himself narrates, a
rally is taken out in Bombay for further division along linguistic lines.
New political and cultural identities are seen to crystalize within the
single nation state of India, which may be read in Saleem’s physical
cracking. Saleem also places himself at the centre of the most significant
episodes in the life of the newly formed nation: the war between India
and Pakistan, the death of Nehru and the violence that resulted in the
partition of the state of Bombay.
Furthermore, Saleem’s incestuous desire for his sister should be kept
in mind. The two children of the British Raj are India and Pakistan.
Thus, Saleem’s desire also has a political overtone to it, as the two
countries are symbolically represented by the offspring caught in an
impossible desire for each other. The symbolism is made explicit when
Saleem says, ‘I had been mysteriously handcuffed to history, my destinies
indissolubly chained to those of my country’ (3).
Saleem’s narrative, being his own, cannot be taken to be completely
true. His account of himself is necessarily selective and partisan. The
history that he presents is basically ‘his-story’ and we can never claim
to have had a comprehensive view of the events narrated. The discon-
tinuous and fragmented history finds its most potent symbol in the
perforated sheet.
Saleem’s grandfather sees his future wife through a hole in the sheet.
Denied a complete view of his patient, Aadam Aziz is only allowed a
partial view of things. Thus, when he falls in love, he does so piecemeal
and their love never achieves a cohesive unity. Similarly, Saleem’s mother
falls in love with her new husband in stages. The sheet makes a final
appearance when Jamila Singer covers herself up to preserve her purity.
She in that way ceases to be a complete human being and is resigned
to only being a voice. The sheet may also be seen as a metaphor for
208
multiple ways of looking at a single historical event. The official political

rhetoric works much like memory, selecting and eliminating facts and
thereby creating its own reality. The perforated sheet reminds us that
one may never get to the bottom of the complete truth of things; as
Rushdie himself asserts, ‘[r]eality is a question of perspective’ (189).
Just as Saleem’s personal history is seen to be connected to that of
the nation, similarly, throughout the novel, the past seeps its way
mysteriously into the present scheme of things. The metaphor for this
is Saleem’s runny nose. The lines that demarcate the personal and the
political realm, the state and the individual, are porous and shadowy.
A neat compartmentalization is not practically possible. The interplay
between such categories is like a running liquid, dynamic and fluid.
When Saleem begins to have dreams about Kashmir, the vision creeps
into the political scheme of things and both India and Pakistan start
their struggle for dominion over the disputed region. What may also
be suggested is that the line dividing history and fiction may happen
to be breached—the former can be doctored by parties with vested
interests and thus history can become no more than a fictionalized
account.
Another significant symbol in the novel is that of the silver spittoon.
The Rani of Cooch Naheen gifts it as a part of Amina’s dowry and it
has considerable historical value attached to it. It is the only tangible
relic of Saleem’s earlier life when his family was killed. Ultimately, the
spittoon, too, is destroyed, when the magician’s ghetto in which Saleem
lives is torn down. In the course of the novel, it becomes a symbol of
an age gone by. The symbolic significance is extended when the spit-
toon comes to be a repository of memory, of old values, as also a source
of amnesia.
Finally, the question of good and evil, and life and death, is addressed
by using the nose and knees as symbols. The seer, Ramram, predicts
that a pair of knees and a nose will be born, which turn out to be
Shiva and Saleem respectively. Shiva is shown to be Saleem’s alter ego,
and has special powers in his knees just as Saleem has in his nose. The
symbols may also denote submission and humility. Aadam Aziz kneels
in prayer and his knees and nose touch the ground, standing for his
acceptance of and submission to his faith. Similarly, when Feroze Gandhi
is struck by a bullet, he lands on his knees and then on his nose,
209
symbolizing his submission before death. Shiva reportedly kills prosti-

tutes with his knees, while Saleem uses his nose to find them out in
the city. These two images come to stand for creation and destruction,
good and evil, and Rushdie seems to insinuate that both these qualities
are but the two sides of the same coin.
Midnight’s Children opens up multiple topics for discussion and it is
very difficult to come to a concrete and definite conclusion. Symbols
and motifs add to the semantic plurality of this text which invites
diverse interpretations.
RD
1. James Joyce, Ulysses, Teddington, Middlesex, England: Echo Library, 2009,

p. 248.
210
7.1.3 Midnight’s Children as a Postmodern Novel
While modernism meant the breaking up of narrative traditions, and

the realization that experience was too complicated to be articulated in
conventional narratives or concretized through recognizable characters,
postmodernism rises to this challenge; not only is the latter a chrono-
logical contradiction, there can never be a clear dividing line between
the two tendencies. What makes postmodernism all the more enigmatic
is its apparently amorphous character. The tendency is marked by an
eclectic approach towards representation that blurs the line between
fact and fiction and presents multiple realities, where one version of
‘truth’ is as good as another.
The difficulty of analyzing a text like Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children
arises on account of its apparently amorphous nature. Saleem’s autobio-
graphical mode of narration has been looked upon as postmodern since
it reads at once as an allegory of the first thirty years of Indian
Independence and the script for a garish big-budget Bollywood film.
The novel dissolves the distinction between history and fiction, and can
be thought of as illustrating a genre Linda Hutcheon calls ‘historio-
graphic metafiction’.1 History and fiction both come to be regarded as
linguistic constructs and their definitions are moulded by the dominant
discourse in circulation in a given age, a discourse that varies with time.
Thus, we find Rushdie concerned with the multiplicity of truth(s),
where no single interpretation can suffice. As Linda Hutcheon points
out, ‘there is no reconciliation, no dialectic here—just unresolved contra-
diction.’2 Put in very simple terms, a postmodern narrative is one that
lays bare the processes or methods of narration. Thus, Rushdie’s work
is a finished product about the process of constructing history in the

form of fiction. We are made aware that Saleem is narrating a story to
Padma; more often than not, her voice breaks in to interrupt his narra-
tion. Saleem speculates on his own motivation, his choice of story and
the unreliability of memory, and all this ‘displays the characteristic
modernist preoccupation with the composition, fictiveness, and self-
reflexiveness of narrative.’3
As Saleem himself tells us, his time of birth coincides with that of
India gaining its freedom and this gives rise to one of the most contro-
versial issues in the novel; whether it can be read as an allegory of the
first three decades of India’s independence. The allegorical mode sets
up Saleem as the child of a newly independent nation and, strangely,
Saleem’s personal adventures and misfortunes mirror those of India’s.
Saleem himself remarks, ‘I had been mysteriously handcuffed to history,
my destinies indissolubly chained to those of my country’.4
Rushdie achieves this effect by using the technique of magic realism—
another dominant feature of many postmodern narratives. Coined for
the first time by Franz Roh, the term was used by critics to describe
works of fiction that blend the real and the fantastic and make use of
non-linear narrative, often complicated further with narratives within
the frame narrative and with the use of myths and surreal descriptions.
Additionally, the constant coming together and fusion of fact and fantasy
in Saleem’s life corresponds to their function in the history of the nation.
Fantastic events are narrated as if they were matter of course, while
actual, serious events are described with a smack of parody and
playfulness.
Private and public incidents are juxtaposed to produce a destabilizing
effect. Saleem’s life is entwined with the fate of India and thus, he also
acquires magical powers to communicate with others who share his
date and time of birth. In the chapter titled ‘All-India Radio’, he is
shown to conduct and address the midnight conference, thereby
assuming the role of the prime minister addressing the nation on a day
of national importance.
He is the centre of attention and the narrative revolves around him
as he makes the events of his life strangely correspond to those of the
country. His body starts developing cracks and fissures which phenom-
enon coincides with the partition of the nation and the subsequent
212
division of the country into numerous states. He is always at the centre,

either as cause or effect, of the momentous events in the history of
India—the war between India and Pakistan, the death of Nehru and
the violence that resulted in the partition of the state of Bombay.
Similarly, India’s first nuclear explosion in May 1974 coincides with
the return of the destructive Shiva, Saleem’s ferocious alter ego, within
the fold of narrative.
The author’s attempts to destabilize his readers take place within the
framework of the cinema screen—a field where subtle fantasies can be
played out at will. The style continuously reminds us of a Bollywood
pot-boiler and there are continuous references to cinema within the
narrative. Rashid, the rickshaw boy, thinks over the film he has just
watched and Rushdie terms it an ‘eastern western’ (50). This is not
merely an instance of Rushdie’s verbal pyrotechnics, but an allusion to
the healthy cohesion of native and Western elements typical in a post-
colonial culture. The narrative makes the cinematic analogy explicit.
Saleem talks of his personal experiences in terms of western films: ‘would
this [. . .] young father have behaved like, or unlike, Montgomery Cliff
in I Confess?’ (117). He talks of inspector Vakeel shooting like John
Wayne. Rushdie also uses common cinematographic terminology. The
massacre at Jallianwala Bagh is presented as it were on a film screen
and Rushdie comments: ‘No close-up is necessary’ (33).
Although such references may create a fantastic and magical frame
of reference, it is not without an undercurrent of muted criticism. To
take an example, the fantastic dream being enjoyed by a transfixed
audience watching two lovers onscreen is shattered as the news of
Gandhi’s assassination is announced inside the cinema. Thus, the novel
itself can be seen to work by at once inflating and deflating readerly
fantasy. Indians, however, would still seem to need a mass fantasy to
dress the wounds of partition. It comes as no surprise that Saleem’s
uncle, who wants to write about ordinary people and their plight, fails.
What this hints at is the fact that there is not much public demand
for realistic representation of life in a society which wants fantasy for
subsistence.
Accordingly, it is possible to view the novel as an allegory of the
nation. But such a totalizing vision is frustrated. We become clearly
aware that Saleem is not giving us a complete view of reality. He selects
213
and eliminates things to suit his story, and in the process history is
shown to be not only made but also made up. The novel cannot be
easily classified and one would do well to remember Rushdie’s own
assertion: ‘Reality is a question of perspective’ (189).
RD
1. Linda Hutcheon, A Politics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction,

London: Routledge, 1988, p. 105.
2. Ibid, p. 106.
3. Kumkum Sangari, Politics of the Possible: Essays on Gender, History,
Narratives in Colonial English, New Delhi: Tulika, 1999, p. 21.
214
7.1.4 Women Characters in Midnight’s Children
Midnight’s Children, which forever changed the face of Indian writing

in English, has become a favourite battleground for critics trying to
decipher multiple interpretations. But in such endeavours, what often
passes unnoticed is the important role women characters play in the
novel. The novel seems to reinvent itself once we find the significance
of characters like Saleem’s mother, his sister (the Brass Monkey, who
later becomes Jamila Singer), the political spearhead termed ‘the widow’
(having an unmistakeable resemblance to the then Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi) and more importantly, Saleem’s illiterate interlocutor Padma.
Saleem’s mother, Amina, resides at the centre of a motif that runs
through the novel—that of unrequited love. Like her father, Aadam
Aziz, who falls in love with his future wife bit by bit(having seen her
only in glimpses through the perforated sheet), Amina, too, launches
herself on a mission to fall in love with her husband. But no matter
how much she tries, there is always something lacking in their union.
As with her parents, Amina’s marriage, too, is devoid of the emotional
bond needed to hold two people together in happy union. Similarly,
Saleem’s love for his sister (who is actually not his sister) is also unre-
quited. His marriage to Parvati ends in tragedy as their ghetto is destroyed
and his eventual union with Padma remains inconclusive as the narrative
ends with them (along with Saleem’s son) being ‘sucked into the anni-
hilating whirlpool of the multitudes’.1
Saleem’s younger sister, known in the early part of the novel as the
Brass Monkey, is born into the world without any fanfare, so that,
when compared to the events associated with Saleem’s birth, it seems
rather muted. Saleem describes her thus: ‘Although she was believed to
speak the languages of birds and cats, the soft words of lovers roused
in her an almost animal rage. [. . .]’ (210). She is impervious to romantic
advances and the first person to bear the brunt of her ire is Sonny
Ibrahim. And this continues when she grows up—the person to suffer
most is Saleem himself.
Saleem comments that as a child ‘if she was going to get any atten-
tion in her life, she would have to make plenty of noise’ (165). This
comes true as she becomes a mischievous child, seeking attention by
playing pranks and destroying things. And later, ironically, she becomes
famous by making noise, i.e. singing. But her playful, carefree nature
is lost when she arrives in Pakistan. This country, run according to the
strict teachings of Islam, robs her off her sprightly self as she gives in
to the strict codes of devotion and discipline. She keeps herself shrouded,
veiling herself, with only her lips visible, while her voice is hailed as
being pure. If we trace the meaning of the word Pakistan, we get ‘The
Land of the Pure’. There is reason to feel that the insistence on preserving
the ‘purity’ of women often entails the loss, and denial, of their freedom
of expression; the Brass Monkey is a victim of such imposition. But
despite conceding to the pressures of the circumstances, she keeps alive
some vestiges of her childhood. She stands up against her dietary
constraints, secretly eating bread baked by Catholic nuns, and lashes
out at the Pakistani army when they abuse Saleem.
Another significant female figure in the narrative is the ‘widow’, a
rather explicit reference to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Rushdie is
alluding to the fact that Indira Gandhi was the widow of Feroze Gandhi,
an Indian journalist and politician. Before she enters the story, allusions
are vaguely directed towards her and to the role she would come to
play in the eventual destruction of the midnight’s children. Born on
the stroke of midnight and at the birth of India as a nation, Saleem’s
life seems to be entwined with that of the destiny of the nation. Finally,
with Indira Gandhi imposing emergency rule and with the destruction
of the magician’s ghetto, Saleem fuses the two strands of the narra-
tive—the political and the personal.
The emergency resulted in massive abuse of power in government
offices and widespread violation of human rights. This is symbolically
represented by the mass sterilization programme, a programme undertaken
216
by Indira Gandhi’s son Sanjay Gandhi following the emergency, to which

Saleem and the other midnight’s children fall victim. This stands for the
stifling of the dreams that the first generation of independent Indians
had envisaged for themselves. Not only is Saleem forcibly castrated, the
aspirations of millions of Indians are trampled upon, who are left only
with a feeling of betrayal at the hands of the politicians. Saleem describes
the ‘widow’ as having a middle parting in her hair—one side black and
the other white. This stands for Indira Gandhi’s political career, especially
during the emergency—the white part stands for the documentation
provided to the public and the black for the untold.
But the most significant of all female characters is perhaps Padma,
Saleem’s devoted listener. She keeps him company and takes good care
of him and there are broad hints in the narrative that the two would
marry in the end. She is impatient, constantly urging Saleem to continue
with his narrative and preventing him from going off at a tangent into
digressions; she is the exact antithesis to his fanciful, exuberant person-
ality which is reflected in his narrative. By making her raise doubts
about the truthfulness of Saleem’s narrative, Rushdie uses her as a
rhetorical device and she comes to stand in for the readers who feel
frustrated and question the veracity of it all. She may be illiterate but
she is a voice of national consciousness and her position is strengthened
on account of her being a member of the lower classes. She is also the
most marginal figure in the whole novel, as owing to her illiteracy she
cannot determine what is written about her. In this she is akin to Picture
Singh and Tai Bibi. The essence of their knowledge consists in a glimpse
of the reality of the real world—not available to those who are educated,
as they are conditioned not to believe what is not spelt out in letters.
As Helga Ramsay Kurtz points out,
[d]isposed of and eclipsed, Padma, in turn, comes to signify, together

with Tai Bibi, Picture Singh and Durga, that vast part of Indian history
which is not preserved, chutnified, pickled in writing, but left to waste
in oblivion because its agents are not literate.2
RD
217

2. Helga Ramsay Kurtz, ‘Does Saleem Really Miss the Spittoon? Script and
Scriptlessness in Midnight’s Children’ in The Journal of Commonwealth
Literature, 2001, pp. 138–139.
218
7.2 Bibliography
Amigoni, D. The English Novel and Prose Narrative, Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 2000.
Batty, NE. ‘The Art of Suspense: Rushdie’s 1001 (Mid-)Nights’ in
Reading Rushdie. Perspectives on the fiction of Salman Rushdie, ed. MD
Fletcher, Amsterdam, Atlanta: Rodopi 1994.
Booker, MK. Critical Essays on Salman Rushdie, New York: GK Hall,
1999.
Dey, PK. Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, New Delhi: Atlantic,
2008.
Dhawan, RK. Booker Prize Winners: Four Indian Novelists: Salman
Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai, Aravind Adiga, New Delhi:
Prestige Books, 2009.
Freigang, L. Formations of Identity in Salman Rushdie’s Fictions, Marburg:
Tectum-Verl, 2009.
Gauthier, TS. Narrative Desire and Historical Reparations: A.S. Byatt,
Ian McEwan, Salmon Rushdie, New York: Routledge, 2006.
Ghosh, TK. Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children: A Reader’s Companion
with Exhaustive Critical Commentary and Edited Essays, New Delhi:
Asia Book Club, 2004.
Gorra, M. After Empire: Scott, Naipaul, Rushdie, Chicago, Ill: Univ. of
Chicago Press, 1997.
Kortenaar, N ten. Self, Nation, Text in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s
Children, Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2004.
Mitra, R Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, New Delhi: Atlantic,
2006.
Mukherjee, M. Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children: A Book of Readings, Delhi:

Pencraft International, 1999.
Parsons, D. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, Melbourne: Dept.
of Discussion Services, Council of Adult Education, 1983.
Reynolds, M, and J Noakes. Salman Rushdie: Midnight’s Children, Shame,
The Satanic Verses, London: Vintage, 2003.
Sagar, A. Fiction in the Indian Subcontinent, Lafayette, Ind: Dept. of
Schurer, N. Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, New York: Continuum,
2004.
Smale, D. Salman Rushdie: Midnight’s Children, The Satanic Verses,
Cambridge: Icon, 2001.
Srivastava, M. Narrative Construction of India: Forster, Nehru and Rushdie,
Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2004.
220
8 Amitav Ghosh (b. 1956)
8.1 The Shadow Lines
8.1.1 The Complexities of Belonging and Unbelonging in The

Shadow Lines
It is the crisis of forming a stable notion of identity and community

which has surfaced as one of the major issues in today’s age of globali-
zation and neo-colonialism. If an individual happens to live in a post-
colonial society, such India’s, then the problematic of identity becomes
all the more convoluted. Amitav Ghosh, in his novel The Shadow Lines,
very succinctly deals with such issues and shows that the lines or borders
that separate one country from another are illusory and shadowy and
that any attempt to construct one’s sense of belonging on the basis of
national borders can turn out to be a futile exercise. Moreover, identity
can hardly be a watertight compartment and more often than not,
individuals seem to get trapped in someone else’s construction of identity
and history.
Throughout the novel, there is repeated stress on the freedom of each
individual to create his/her own sense of identity and belonging. Tridib,
very early in the novel, warns the narrator, ‘If you believe anything
people tell you, you deserve to be told anything at all. [. . .]’.1 Throughout
the novel the most vulnerable characters are those who allow themselves
to be dictated by the various master narratives, be it Ila’s Eurocentric
outlook on life or the idea of nationalism exercising the narrator’s
grandmother, who rejects everyone living beyond the national borders.
Ila genuinely believes that the history happening in Europe is the
only thing worth recording and her endeavour remains to fashion herself
as a trendy Marxist, much after the image of Magda, the blue-eyed
doll. She conjures up stories about her school yearbook trying to hide
her marginalized status among her friends and her life is one that is
lived in constant self-deception. Not only does she try to hide things
from the narrator, but also from herself. She is a globetrotter, being the
daughter of a diplomat, but her sense of belonging is restricted to that
of trying to imagine a future with Nick Price, not necessarily because
she loves him, but because that would give her the opportunity to be
‘free’.
Thanks to the narrator, we see through her lies, as her stories seem
to compensate for her disappointments abroad. It is her dislocation and
her inability to belong to any culture that forces her to take recourse
to fabricating stories about her life in London. Her relationship with
Nick does not have any emotional basis and it is not surprising that
he is found to be involved in an extramarital affair. The novel shows
her carrying the burden of her own expectations and at the end, the
narrator cannot find the pertinent words ‘that would console her for
the discovery that the squalor of the genteel little lives she had so much
despised, was a part too of the free world she had tried to build for
herself ’ (185). Ila’s self-deception is different from that of the narrator’s
grandmother’s whose idea of nation and national identity is constructed
on the basis of a militant nationalism.
Very early in the narrative the grandmother’s house in Dhaka acts
as a metaphor of the construction of a stable national identity. We come
to realize that such a construction is a dual process—there is a homog-
enization of what lies within a nation, and also the projection of an
alienness on what lies beyond, by which the people of a nation distin-
guish themselves and create their identity on the basis of their difference
from other nations. Thus, we see Tha’mma and her sister Maya Devi
inventing strange stories about the other half of their partitioned
Jindabahar Lane House that underline the inversion of normalcy; as
Meenakshi Mukherjee notes, ‘this allegorizes the process whereby the
identity of a nation is consolidated through imagined hostility with the
neighbours’.2
War against an identifiable common enemy seems to strengthen
national boundaries and legitimize a parochial national identity; it is
such a notion of nationalism that Tha’mma tries to impose upon the
narrator but to no avail. She comes to realize that national boundaries
are the work of administrators and are illusory. War, and a known
222
Amitav Ghosh (b. 1956)
history of violence, cannot validate them. She is at a loss when she has
to visit her own birthplace as a tourist and hence inverts the coordinates
of coming and going as she thinks of her home. She is disappointed
when she discovers that she won’t see any trenches with the army of
two countries pointing guns at each other and asks: ‘What was it all
for then—partition and all the killing and everything—if there isn’t
something in between?’ (149) As has been correctly pointed out by
Suvir Kaul, ‘caught between memory and nationality, between belonging
and citizenship, the certainties of the language of differentiation and
distantiation slide away from her.’3 Her idea of freedom and identity
is claustrophobic and not at all inclusive. The death of Tridib only
confirms her hatred for ‘them’. For the narrator’s grandmother, ‘the
theatre of war cleanses, cathects the messy violence of the streets’.4 She
remains, in an obvious way, a victim of history, forever at odds with
her idea of belonging and her national identity.
It is only Tridib, whose imaginative universe knows no bounds, who
tries to live his life by his own standard of value. He gives the narrator
new, free worlds to discover. He talks of himself as bearing within him
the longing that
carried one beyond the limits of one’s mind to other times and other
places, and even, if one was lucky, to a place where there was no border
between oneself and one’s image in the mirror. (29).
It is only in his death that he may be said to have achieved what he

set out to do. It is Maya who later realizes that he had sacrificed his
life for his own sake and not for hers. His death is the final attempt
to escape being confined and constricted in someone else’s reality.
RD
1. Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines, Boston [u.a.]: Houghton Mifflin, 2007,
2. Meenakshi Mukherjee, ‘Maps and Mirrors: Co-ordinates of Meaning in
223
The Shadow Lines’, in Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines, New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 263.
3. Suvir Kaul, ‘Separation Anxiety: Growing up Inter/National in The Shadow
Lines’, in Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Line, New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1995, p. 280.
4. Ibid, p. 283.
224
8.1.2 The Role of the Narrator in The Shadow Lines
Nietzsche, in The Use and Abuse of History, talks of how history writing
is used as emotional argument to influence public opinion and memory
by those who are in power. Thus, the basis of the binary between
history or fact and fiction is challenged as history becomes perspectival.
What Amitav Ghosh is concerned with in The Shadow Lines is the
story element in history—the incidents that have been erased from
the public memory by the official political discourse, thereby privileging
direct and personal experience over political representations. History
seems to divide people on the basis of race, caste and nationality but
personal memories have the ability to bring people together. This is
what the author tries to achieve with the help of the unnamed narrator
in the novel.
The plot structure of the novel disavows the Aristotelian trajectory
of beginning, middle and end, basing itself on memory, anticipation
and association of ideas. The narrative becomes a free-flowing mental
activity on the part of the narrator, not bound by any chronological
sequence. It becomes very fluid, as there is complete freedom of move-
ment between the past, present and future.
The narrator is unnamed and this ensures that he cannot be charac-
terized as a person; he remains a transparent medium, not obstructing
our efforts to understand the characters of Tridib and the narrator’s
grandmother. He is shown to be a young boy for most part of the
novel; this is significant since a child’s narrative is relatively free from
external influences and attains a transparency. Thus, the narrative voice
‘remains not only the “large lucid reflector” but also the agentive site
where random shards of memory are realigned towards some measure

of coherence’.1 It is this memory that instigates the narrator’s quest for
the recovery of lost archives, of his own family secret regarding Tridib’s
death and the details of past harmony and violence that have receded
into the inchoate archive of popular imagination. As we find later in
the novel, it is this memory which becomes ‘the abettor, and the inter-
rogator, of the form and existence of the modern nation state’.2
The greatest influence in the narrator’s life is that of Tridib, his uncle.
The influence is so great that he constantly sees himself as Tridib’s
double and wants to imbibe everything that his uncle has, so much so
that he decides for himself that Tridib must have looked like him.
One of the great lessons that Tridib taught the then young boy was
never to get enmeshed in other people’s stories but to weave his own.
Distance is to be overcome with the help of one’s imagination till time
and space are dissolved. Thus, even though Ila travels much more than
the narrator, it is the latter whose imagination has expanded to various
corners of the world. As the narrator succinctly remarks, ‘Tridib had
given me worlds to travel in and he had given me eyes to see them
with.’3
What Tridib hopes to do is to make the narrator capable enough to
think for himself, not to be trapped in someone else’s reality. Tridib’s
insistence on using one’s imagination with precision has to be seen in
this light. The novel undermines the constructions of master narratives
that dupe the common, unassuming populace with their deceptive
discourse. The object of hegemonic ideology is to predicate identity
formation upon exclusionist, entrenched difference underwriting the
private and the public spheres. What the narrator learns is that all such
efforts are futile—memory and its recollections prove that such borders
are shadowy. As Meenakshi Mukherjee points out:
The novel makes visible the vulnerabilities of those who let themselves
be appropriated unthinkingly by the various meta-narratives, be it the
Eurocentric mastermyth of which Ila thinks she can be a part merely
by joining the activists in rallies or the grandmother who clings to a
notion of nationalism that rejects all those who choose to live beyond
the border.4
226
The novel’s final section brings home what Tridib had advised the
narrator to do in his childhood. His endeavour to recover the incidents
of the 1964 riots is a personal quest and an attempt not to be sucked
into somebody else’s reality. National consciousness is not immune to
amnesia: the city riots had in fifteen years ‘dropped out of memory
into a crater of a volcano of silence’ (230). The construction of national
identity has to be deconstructed, so that the narrator’s private memory
can be preserved.
The partition of India and Pakistan was meant to enforce a political
divide and more importantly, to emphasize the socio-cultural difference
that existed between the people of these two countries—both constructing
their respective identities on the basis of their difference from the other.
But such a logic will not suffice for the subcontinent as something
would always connect Dhaka to West Bengal and India to Pakistan.
Following the disturbance in Kashmir, people die in Dhaka and Calcutta
as riots break out. What is undermined is the claim that any exclusively
singular national identity can be politically and socially viable or even
sustainable. It is through the narrator’s persona that Amitav Ghosh
hints at the innumerable stories of kindness and mercy where Muslims
helped Hindus and vice versa. But such incidents are never recorded
in history, for when pitted on a battleground warring nations exhibit
only mutual animosity and are tethered to political gain.
In order to highlight the illusory nature of borders, the author shows
us the narrator looking at an atlas—he attempts to draw an imaginary
circle on the map and realizes that both it and the lines that the admin-
istrators drew to create borders are equally imaginary. This realization
signals the narrator’s coming to maturity and the novel ends with his
getting a glimpse of the ‘redemptive mystery’ (252), i.e. Tridib’s death.
The narrator’s entire adult life is played out as Tridib’s double, studying
his favourite subject and seeing the world through his eyes. But the
narrator’s role is not restricted, it is used to accommodate lost narratives
in the official recorded history and to problematize the neat, clear-cut
construction of India as a modern nation state with its attendant national
consciousness.
RD
227

Lines’, in Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines, New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1995, p. 269.
3. Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines, New Delhi: Ravi Dayal, 1988, p. 20.
4. Mukherjee (1995), p. 263.
228
8.1.3 Women Characters in The Shadow Lines
The publication of Amitav Ghosh’s novel The Shadow Lines was a water-
shed in the history of Indian writing in English. Not only did it raise
pertinent questions about the construction of nationhood, it also brought
to the forefront key issues like the complexities of belonging and unbe-
longing, identity crisis in a postcolonial society and the role violence plays
in forging national identity. All these aspects come to the forefront when
we analyze the female characters in the novel, namely, the narrator’s
grandmother, his cousin Ila and, importantly, the figure of May.
The narrator’s grandmother, who is a teacher by profession, is a victim
of partition (though she does not admit this herself ) and who has to
start carving a space for herself in an alien land, which gives her a
no-nonsense attitude to life. She is a woman hardened by circumstances
and her former struggles cast their shadow on her attitude to Tridib.
She is adamant that her grandson should not be ‘loafing about with
Tridib.’1 She is rather possessive about the narrator and wants him to
stay away from people who she thinks might harm him. In this context,
it is pertinent to remember that as she lay in her deathbed, she sent a
rather vituperative note to the principal of the narrator’s college, accusing
him of visiting prostitutes. She had earlier warned him to stay away
from Ila, whom she calls a ‘whore’ (90), and she spares no pain to keep
her grandson on what she thinks is the right track.
The character of Thamma, as she is lovingly called, attains a new
and important dimension when we focus on her idea of nationalism
and how it changes over the years. She has lived through the terrorist
movement in Bengal and the terrible days following Independence and
partition. As she recounts to the narrator, she would have loved to have
helped the cause of the terrorist movement against the British, and
what comes out is her need to construct her identity with respect to
an identifiable enemy, in this case the English. Even though we respect
her strength of character, we cannot miss her chauvinistic attitude; she
is ‘a still-surviving representative of a fossilized nationalism’.2
The complexity of her sense of belonging comes to the forefront
when she says that she would ‘come’ home to Bangladesh instead of
‘go’ home. Separated from her native place by the partition, ‘Thamma
loses her grammatical coordinates as she thinks of “home”.’3 Caught
between her place of birth and her adopted country, ‘the certainties of
the language of differentiation and distantiation slide away from her’4
She asks apparently humorous but poignant questions such as whether
she would be able to see soldiers pointing guns at each other when she
would be flying over the border and when she is laughed at, the ques-
tion comes pat: ‘And if there’s no difference both sides will be the same.
[. . .] What was it all for then—partition and all the killing and every-
thing—if there isn’t anything in between?’ (151).
It is such militant nationalism, one in which the divisive boundaries
are ratified in war, that she tries to impose on her grandson. Her sense
of national identity seems to be based on exclusive, radical difference
(this is prefigured in the way she and her sister imagine things about
the ‘upside down’ house in the Dhaka of their childhood) and the need
to make war against a tangible common enemy. Her surprise at not
finding soldiers fighting over the border and the fact that her concep-
tion of the no man’s land is starkly different from what it actually is,
express the pathos of ‘exclusionary nationalism’.5
It is the riots in Dhaka that put her off balance, as ‘till then she had
thought of violence as the abettor of national consciousness but now
she was to realize that it can be an interrogator of the same too.’ 6 After
Tridib is killed, she tries to create a new sense of belonging, as she
remarks: ‘We have to kill them before they kill us; we have to wipe
them out’ (237). She remains till the end a staunch believer in the
organized propriety of warfare and her way of forging an identity for
herself becomes stifling and constrictive.
In the novel, Tridib repeatedly stresses on the importance of being free
from other people’s inventions and stories. Both Thamma and Ila fail to
230
do so, although Ila’s failure is less pardonable as she is not a victim of

history in the same way in which Thamma is. Ila makes it clear in the
story she cooks up regarding her childhood that it is a Eurocentric world-
view she subscribes to. She seems hard put to anglicize herself, be it after
the fashion of the blue-eyed doll Magda or as a trendy Marxist. The
narrator does not realize that she is always at the periphery in the school
yearbook pictures which become symbolic of her marginalized status in
England. Her life is lived as a deception not only to the narrator but also
to herself. Her compulsive travelling is symptomatic of her subjective
dislocation. She is the epitome of cultural rootlesness and it is her her
inability to belong to any culture that forces her to take recourse to fabri-
cating stories about her life in London. Her relationship with Nick does
not have any emotional basis and it is not surprising that he strays into
an extramarital affair. Her position appears all the more poignant as we
remember that throughout her life she has wanted to distance herself form
the cultural milieu which the narrator inhabits; as she puts it in not very
polite terms to him, she wants to be ‘[f ]ree of your bloody culture and
free of all of you’ (89). The novel shows her carrying the burden of her
own expectations and fabrications and the narrator at the end cannot find
the pertinent words ‘that would console her for the discovery that the
squalor of the genteel little lives she had so much despised, was a part too
of the free world she had tried to build for herself’ (188).
In The Shadow Lines May is the picture of ‘the deluded idealism, the
cultural dislocation or incomprehension, that sets the stage for personal
or public tragedy.’7 This is evident when she forces Tridib to stop the car
to put a dying dog out of its misery, and later, she is the first person to
jump out of the car to save the old man (Jethamoshai), an act that ulti-
mately gets Tridib killed. Her role in the novel is limited to her realization
that she owed him his life, but that, too, is flawed, since at the end she
realizes that Tridib had given himself up and that it was a sacrifice. She
plays second fiddle to Tridib when he is alive and then to the narrator
when he goes to London. When they meet in a London coffee shop, and
as she connects some missing links to Tridib’s mysterious death, she averts
the narrator’s gaze so that he cannot see her eyes even in the mirror. As
the narrator slowly takes on Tridib’s identity, ‘May almost disappears.’8
RD
231
1. Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines, New Delhi: Ravi Dayal, 1988, p. 4.
2. AN Kaul, ‘A Reading of The Shadow Lines’, in Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow
Lines, New Delhi: Oxford University Press,1995, p. 303.
Lines’, in Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines, New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1995, p. 280.
4. Ibid, p. 280.
Lines’, in Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines (New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1995), p. 280.
6. Dhrubajyoti Banerjee, ‘Violent Cartography/Cartography of Violence: A
study of The Shadow Lines’ in Journal of the Department of English,
University of Calcutta, 33, 2006–2007, p. 238.
7. Kaul (1995), p. 276.
232
8.2 Bibliography
Bhatt, I, and I Nityanandam. Interpretations of Amitav Ghosh’s the Shadow
Lines, New Delhi: Creative Books, 2000.
Chowdhary, A. Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines: Critical Essays, New
Delhi: Atlantic, 2002.
Kapadia, N. Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines, New Delhi: Asia Book
Club, 2001.
Khan, NA. The Fiction of Nationality in an Era of Transnationalism,
New York: Routledge, 2005.
Manandhar, VK. Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines: Critical Essays, Delhi:
Signature Books International, 2011.
Prasad, M. Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines: A Critical Companion,
New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2008.
Sagar, A. Fiction on the Indian Subcontinent, Lafayette, Ind: Dept. of

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INDIAN ENGLISH NOVEL

INDIAN ENGLISH NOVEL

Copyright © 2018 Suman Chakraborty

Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro

First published in 2013

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

Publisher: Suman Chakraborty

Printed and bound in India by Replika Press

1 The Indian English Novel: Origin and Development 9

2 Bankimchandra Chatterjee (1838–1894) 18

3 Mulk Raj Anand (1905–2004) 29

5 Raja Rao (1908–2006) 152

6 Anita Desai (b. 1937) 173

6.2.3 Clear Light of Day as a Modernist Text 197

7 Salman Rushdie (b. 1947) 203

8 Amitav Ghosh (b. 1956) 221

The emergence of the novel as a dominant literary genre in India had

The other importance of this narrative is that it has been received as

on the hypocrisy and the evils of industrialization, communalism and

His simple prose and a humorous, ironic, yet compassionate vision of

Guide, which brought him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1960, is

his position as perhaps the most ‘Indian’ of Indian English novelists, as

The realism that he employs is sometimes too harsh to handle and

Malgonkar works on a large canvas; the scene shifts from [mainland]

The theme of exploitation finds a potent expression in So Many Hungers

disruptive periods of history—the Partition, the Independence and the

during the period of the fatwa’s imposition, is a children’s book as well

focuses on a very particular personal history—the experience of a single

Arundhati Roy’s (b. 1961) literary output is quite meagre compared

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Sanjukta Das, Derozio to Dattani: Essays in Criticism, New Delhi:

4. EM Forster, ‘Preface’ to: Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable, New Delhi:

2.1 Rajmohan’s Wife

2.1.1 Rajmohan’s Wife as an Allegory of the Modern Indian Nation

India, whose possession is fiercely contested by forces of tradition,

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. See: Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin

Rajmohan’s Wife is, on the surface, a tale of conjugality and property

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Perishable Empire, New Delhi: Oxford

Bankimchandra Chatterjee’s Rajmohan’s Wife, which was not published

There is also an attempt in Rajmohan’s Wife to foreground the ways in

The dominant trope was to never foreground the female characters as

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Perishable Empire, New Delhi: Oxford

3.1.1 Anand as a Political Novelist with Particular Reference to

Mulk Raj Anand believed that a twentieth-century novelist should be

Huxley or even Solzhenitsyn. He was not a fellow traveller with the

throughout his novel. It would perhaps not be quite a wrong suggestion

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. SC Harrex, ‘Quest for Structures: Form, Fable and Technique in the

The much-used label ‘social realism’ can justifiably be applied to Mulk

Therefore, in my novels, which seek to recreate living human relations

If Untouchable is the microcosm, Coolie is more like the macrocosm that

If Anand’s critique of Indian society in the novel is marked by a recog-

Things turn worse when he becomes jobless as the factory is closed

I did stick to the novel form, more or less, as an imaginative interpreta-

posing of the problems of human beings in the ‘30s by people like

In his essay, ‘Why I Write?’, Anand unequivocally asserts that

truth alone should matter to a writer [. . .] truth should become imagin-

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Mulk Raj Anand, ‘The Sources of Protest in My Novels’, in K Venkata

In his book, Author to Critic, Anand writes:

I was mistaken for a proletarian writer, a social realist. This is nonsense.