South Asian Review

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City from the Margins: A Reading of Kari

Sandra Mariam Xavier & Asha Thomas

To cite this article: Sandra Mariam Xavier & Asha Thomas (24 Jan 2024): City from the Margins:
A Reading of Kari, South Asian Review, DOI: 10.1080/02759527.2024.2306441
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South Asian Review
https://doi.org/10.1080/02759527.2024.2306441

City from the Margins: A Reading of Kari

Sandra Mariam Xavier and Asha Thomas
Department of English, St.Joseph’s College (Autonomous), Irinjalakuda, India

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The twenty-first century treats the urban transfiguration of spaces Received 16 July 2023
as an inevitable end. The conflation of urbanism with refinement Accepted 12 January
and development has blotted out the compromises it makes on 2024
environmental care and its adverse effect on the populous. The KEYWORDS
current study focuses on the repercussions of the materialistic Kari; urban studies;
environment of the city on women and nature. This is accom- gender; ethics of care;
plished by drawing upon the observations of Kari, the queer, intro- city
verted eponymous protagonist of Amruta Patil’s graphic narrative.
Through Kari’s eyes, the city is seen as a space that is less welcom-
ing to cultural and social outsiders and predominantly inhabited
by “post-historic man.” Her position as an outsider in this controlled
space of the urban city provides her with a critical lens to observe
and recognize the human chauvinism of the Western-oriented
sense of development and the egotism of her fellow city dwellers.
By taking on the responsibility and committing to the mission of
cleansing, Kari exhibits the ethics of care. Kari is a tirade against
rapid urbanization and a clarion call for resuscitating the city from
its corrupted essence. The paper explores the nuances of urban-
ness, gendered spaces, and the feminist philosophy of ethics of
care. It posits Kari’s ethic of care as a plausible solution to the eco-
logical crisis. The study adopts an interdisciplinary approach, bor-
rowing from urban studies, gender studies, and ecocriticism.

Urban expansion has always been welcomed. It has been so since the genesis of
cities, and perhaps it has to do with how cities are perceived. Mumford (1961 defines
the city as a space where “men by this nearness of conversation, are withdrawn
from barbarous feritie and force, to certain mildness of manners, and to humanity
and justice” (117). They are spaces that have served as “engines of innovation” and
have borne witness to great revolutions in history (Glaeser 2011, 11). As Glaeser
(2011) states, they have nothing but stories of human progress to share.). Cities are
also seen as a reflection of people, which has led urbanists to comment that “people
are the city” (Legates and Stout 2011, 87). It is composed of people’s aspirations,
quotidian experiences, and struggles, and becomes the core of city planning (87).
This positive outlook on the city is also reflected in literature. They have featured
cities as the calm that followed the chaos of feudalism, totalitarianism, wilderness,
the absence of civilization, and the frontier (Lehan 1998). Daniel Defoe echoes a

CONTACT Sandra Mariam Xavier xaviersandra032@gmail.com Department of English, St.Joseph’s College

(Autonomous), Irinjalakuda, India.
© 2024 South Asian Literary Association
2 S. MARIAM XAVIER AND A. THOMAS

similar sentiment by viewing the city as a space welcoming a new way of life.
However, these romantic views of the city do not cover the whole picture. The rapid
and unplanned urban expansion has turned cities into bleak spaces, contributing to
issues of poverty, chaos, social control, and gender bias (Massey, Allen, and Pile
2005). In literature, the most noted critics of the city have been the Romantics and
Charles Dickens, who vociferously opposed the material culture that accompanied
the development of cities. Modernist writers like T.S. Eliot saw the modern city as
a space for the dead. It has been “an evolving construct” that ‘superimposed upon
literary modes and vice versa’ (Lehan 1998,3).
The city, apart from being a subject of literature, is found to have a far reaching
influence on this cultural medium. Richard Lehan (1998) observes the intertwining
of the social phenomenon of the rise of cities with the cultural, giving rise to var-
ious kinds of literary movements and narrative modes (3). He sees the development
of the novel and other narrative modes like comic realism, naturalism, modernism,
postmodernism, and its subgenres such as utopian novels, gothic novels, detective
stories, dystopian narratives, science fiction, and the novel of imperial adventure as
engendered by the rise of the city. A similar effect is also observed by E. Dawson
Varughese (2018) in comics, giving rise to a new trend where the form and content
of comics correspond to socio-cultural moments. Varughese marks the comic pro-
ductions resulting from this new trend as belonging to the post-millenial phase.
The comics, or the widely used alternate terminology for the comics that came
about during this phase, graphic narrative, gave rise to new ways of seeing reality
and developing new forms of subjectivity. The post-millennial graphic narratives are
found “grappling with issues of nation, urban spaces, and identity” and are “seen
to re-evaluate the constitution of ‘Indianness’” (Datta 2020, 2). Amruta Patil’s Kari
is a post-millennial output, expanding the repertoire of this new visuality by rep-
resenting the least explored nuances of this identity of Indianness through its urban
aspects. Kari displays the intricate interplay between urbanization, gender, and the
environment. The pervasive impact of gender ideologies in urban settings, the adverse
effects of rapid urbanization on both the physical landscape and the population it
accommodates, and the imperative of reimagining urban spaces with a renewed
emphasis on their original humanitarian purpose through the cultivation of a culture
of inclusivity are some of its concerns. The paper attempts to analyze these issues
in the light of urban studies, gender theory, and ecocriticism. It examines how both
women and nature are impacted by the apathy brought about by the materialistic
environment of the city and does this by relying on the observations made by Kari,
the queer, introverted eponymous protagonist of Amruta Patil’s graphic narrative. It
further explores how Kari identifies the exploitation and degradation of her sur-
roundings and seeks to detoxify her society from capitalist infiltration. Kari’s actions
can be theorized under the concept of the ethics of care, which the paper presents
as a plausible solution to the ecological crisis.
Urbanization, characterized by the rapid transformation of spaces into cities, has
become a defining feature of the modern world. This rapid development of cities
points toward the inevitable eventuality of the world becoming urban. Requisite to
this rapid urban expansion is the degradation of both social and environmental
conditions. It has adversely affected ecological design. In the Indian context, the
 South Asian Review 3

urbanization process has slowed down during the last two decades. However, the
data released by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs
(2019) predicts that by 2050, more than 50% of the country’s population will be
urban (37). According to the 2011 Census, as many as 53 cities in India had a
million-plus population. ‘It is estimated to reach a staggering 60 crore by 2030. In
a global study conducted in 2011 on urban expansion, India, along with China and
Africa, was observed to have undergone the highest rates of urban land expansion
(Seto et al. 2011, np). This scale of growth concomitantly “affects travel demand,
energy consumption, and automobile use” (np). The probable repercussions would
be air pollution and an increase in demand for water and electricity, leading to
their scarcity (Seto et al. 2011, np). The proliferation of urban centers “hastens the
loss of highly productive farmland, affects energy demand, alters the climate, mod-
ifies hydrologic and biogeochemical cycles, fragments habitats, and reduces biodi-
versity” (Seto et al. 2011, np). Cities are often presented as antithetical to nature,
with its presence mostly visible outside the city limits. This anti-environmental
criticism of the city forms the premise for country/city and rural/urban duality.
However, urban critics like Boone and Ali Modarres (2006, quoted in Perkins 2007,
303) uphold cities as environmental entities that could be used to reach the goal
of sustainable development (quoted in Perkins 2007, 303).
While urbanization brings with it opportunities and promises of advancement,
the distribution of these benefits is uneven and influenced by power dynamics.
Harvey (2001) argues that capitalists are the true beneficiaries of urbanization. His
study suggests that spaces are both produced and consumed by capitalism, and
urbanization is accelerated for its sustenance. He elaborates that investment in spaces
(namely buildings, roads, and infrastructure) can remedy the economic crisis arising
from the overaccumulation of capital and labor—a “spatial fix” (24). This overac-
cumulation necessitates reinvestment in spaces, which involves the deindustrialization
of one place and the industrialization of another, ensuring capital return with profit
(Harvey 2001, 24). However, it’s operations are masked under the altruistic titles of
developmental and expansion policies. A feminist reading of urban spaces and
so-called development policies highlights the operation of patriarchy in customizing
the urban experience to its advantage. It functions through everyday spaces to
reinforce gender differentiation (McDowell 1997). Cities are seen to spatially embody
the dominant ideologies of power, which limit the accessibility of the marginal-
ized—the poor, women, and sexual and racial minorities—to certain urban spaces.
The sexist ideologies that are inherent within the space of cities are seen to operate
through urban institutions, including business organizations, state and local bodies,
religious institutions, and the like (Beebeejaun 2016). The city workspaces are to
be perceived as an extension of their physical location, involved in the reenactment
of the gender and sexist ideologies that operate within the city. Furthermore, the
geographical interpretation of queer theory has also revealed the active production
of straight spaces within the city. Bell and Valentine (2014) state that “it is the
presence of queer bodies in particular spaces that leads to the realization that the
spaces around them… ‘the city streets, the malls and the motels, have been produced
as (ambiently) heterosexual, heterosexist and heteronormative” (16). Cities, therefore,
are understood to favor only those who are participants in the dominant culture.
4 S. MARIAM XAVIER AND A. THOMAS

This contemporary understanding of cities defies the place characteristics of the city
as a space of freedom, mobility, and social interaction. The modern city is not a
space that is created by the people but for the people with clear agendas in place.
Kari, as Amruta Patil herself remarks, isn’t the typical female protagonist who
can be reduced to a “quick synopsis,” nor is she compatible with the “hyper feminine
prototype that one keeps coming across” (Gravett 2012). She fits neither of the
stereotyped categories of women that appear in the text—the “rumpled siren” or
the earth mother (Datta 2020, 4). The unconventionality of her character is also
reinforced through her introduction as a suicidal character who lucked out through
her rebirth. Apart from this, she is featured as an introverted lesbian, “a fly in the
wall,” who favors observation of people and surroundings over close interactions
(Gravett 2012). Her preference to float is also reflected in her identity, which is
fluid. This elusive nature of her identity makes it difficult to label Kari. What comes
close to describing her is a flâneuse, the female equivalent of the flâneur. The figure
of the flâneur was initially created by Baudelaire as a metaphor for the method of
“seeing” and depicting modern life. Jenks (1995) elaborates:

The flâneur moves through space and among the people with a viscosity that both
enables and privileges vision… it walks at will… with an inquisitive wonder and an
infinite capacity to absorb the activities of the collective—often formulated as ‘the
crowd’… It is also an attempt to ‘see’ modernity…The flâneur is a multilayered palimp-
sest that enables us to ‘move’ from real products of modernity, like commodification
and leisured patriarchy, through the practical organisation of space and its negotiation
by inhabitants of a city, to a critical appreciation of the state of modernity and its
erosion into the post-, and onwards to a reflexive understanding of the function, and
purpose, of realist as opposed to hermeneutic epistemologies in the appreciation of
those previous formations.
(146–149)

In Jenks’s understanding of the flâneur, he is a creator of alternate sight who

enables a re-reading of the modernity that is manifested through the city’s spatial
design, its altered purpose, and its operations. He is also someone “who cannot be
pinned down” by a set of identifiable traits (147). Zeng (2020) adds that the flâneur
is someone who “records their observations in the form of text or images” (1). The
eponymous heroine in Kari is “an active loner,” who wanders the streets with nothing
escaping her scorching gaze. She is observed to derive pleasure from her walks
through the city at night with Lazarus and possess, due to her acute senses, the
capability to capture the overseen—“I can see every suspended particle and hair
curling in this chlorine clogged habitat. If there were little fish within a mile, I
would have smelled them out”—and has a keen eye for the mundane, which is
artistically rendered—“Everyday, the city seems to be getting heavier; and her var-
icose veins fight to breakout of her skin” (Patil 2008, 14;85). Also, as a migrant to
Mumbai who attempts to assimilate, Kari achieves a unique vantage point where
she can simultaneously look at and look within the city. This can be witnessed
through Kari’s shifting perspective that wanders from her general observation about
the city dwellers who are content with their anonymity to the city’s meticulously
marked map. The unconventional map accounts for not just the existing infrastruc-
tural facilities but also makes provision for communicating the inarticulable
 South Asian Review 5

subsequent expansions using the symbolism of a growing tree. The rapid expansions
cause people to disassociate their surroundings resulting in their alienation. These
unique perspectives, lent by her shifting vantage points from an outsider looking
within the city to an insider looking out at the city, offer her the critical insight to
see beyond the materiality of urban aesthetics and resist the hegemony of systems
of power that operate through urbanism. In Bayat’s terms, Kari’s observations evis-
cerate or engender the “inside-outing” of the city (Bayat 2012,113). The resultant
image of the city is incompatible with the mainstream discourse that sells a telescopic
image of the city as a place of opportunities, innovation, freedom, and mobility
(Etezadzadeh 2016, 3; Engel, Berbegal-Mirabent, and Piqué 2018; Concilio et al.
2019; Yeoh 2006, 150).
Unanchored and “floating” through the city, Kari’s critical gaze sees beneath the
projected guise of the city as a place of opportunities and freedom. Her gaze unfurls
the gender dynamics that operate within the city and notes the city’s disintegration
due to gentrification and environmental degradation. Kari “stages a resistance to
the hegemonization of public spaces” that conform to dominant ideologies of class
and gender (Nambiar 2013, 63). Kari’s sight registers that while women enjoy more
visibility in the modern urban setting, “women have “conditional access to public
space” (Phadke, Khan, and Ranade 2011, 11). There are limitations to her flâneuring,
as accessibility is affected by the ever-expanding city and the disappearance of places
and roads. Kari observes, “I looked for Alexa’s and Manuel’s house the next morning,
it was not there. I have seen it since, one or twice, but I can never be entirely sure
when I will find it next” (Patil 2008, 46). Kari here insinuates how it is easy to get
lost in this city that is caught in a sea of changes. Every day, as Kari states, she
wanders into “strange backyards and junk heaps and miraculously find my way out
and back to work or home again” (Patil 2008, 14). Moreover, through her subversive
looking, Kari reviews the spectacle through which “people acquire a (falsified)
knowledge of certain general aspects of social life” (Jenks 1995, 155). Spectacle, as
Jenks elaborates, “indicates rules of what to see and how to see it, it is the ‘seenness’,
the (re) presentational aspect of phenomena that are promoted, not the politics or
aesthetics of their being ‘see-worthy’” (155). In her attempt to detoxify the public
spaces and objects of hegemonic control, she challenges these visual conventions
that normalize the biases within the city. This is achieved by layering the perception
of the external landscape of the city with her interiority. The city thus imaged in
the narrative exists on a gray scale, offering an insight into its grim impression on
Kari. Such a portrayal thwarts the ideologically maintained separation between public
and private. The embodied representations also take the form of visual metaphors.
For instance, Kari provides insights into how the stagnant and rigid physical envi-
ronment of the city can be taxing on the self, using the poignant metaphor of a
snow globe. Kari voices her fears of being stuck in the monotony and stillness of
the snow globe: “My heart lurches at the thought of the snow-globe girl waiting
endlessly, with only the hope of a new snow blizzard to settle on her mantle when
the next person tips her snow-globe world over” (Patil 2008, 48). After which, she
draws a likeness between the city and the snow globe: her every walk “is a war
waged against the frozen sidewalk” (49). This counter-view of the city problematizes
the frozen foundations of the city that is propounded, operated, and controlled by
6 S. MARIAM XAVIER AND A. THOMAS

different systems of power and attempts to unsettle people from their complacency
in living under such situations.
Kari also testifies through her alternate viewing of everyday spaces, including her
apartment and workplace, about the operation of gender and class biases within the
city. One of the visible impacts of urban renewal is the displacement of the poor
from the city’s center to the periphery. The culture of enclave urbanism, advocated
by the economic project focusing on the mega-transformation of large cities like
Mumbai into ‘world class cities’, draws distinctive lines differentiating “city dwellers
into great ‘consumers’, living in gated neighbourhoods” and the unprivileged ‘others’,
whose rights to the city are denied or infringed upon” (Sharma 2010,71). The poor
are part of the grim reality of urban life. Kari makes apparent these invisible yet
ideologically and physically maintained lines that segregate the city population into
rich and poor. While walking through the city, Kari observes the homeless who live
outside the barricade of skyscrapers. “They sleep on roadside,” find shelter “under
carts and benches, on platforms” (Patil 2008, 078). This transformation of public
spaces for private needs has been noted as an identifiable feature of the neoliberal
city (Davies 2019, 184). These visuals are followed by the mention of tetras and
guppies at the cheap restaurant that they often visit. They function as motifs in the
text, symbolizing the helplessness of the powerless, who are subjected to living in
a controlled environment. Kari also draws attention to this sidelining and the priv-
ileges of the rich through the juxtaposition of Kari’s apartment, “Crystal Palace,”
with Ruth’s “lotus pad.” R.N. Sharma’s (2010) observation that “The unskilled or
skilled migrant workers were poorly paid and settled either in dingy dwellings
provided by the employers or in slum structures through informal means” is visu-
alized in Kari (73). Migrants and precariat’s like Kari can only afford crowded
apartments with minimal facilities. The 2 BHK apartment that is shared by five
members can be contrasted with Ruth’s tidy lotus pad, which is situated “way across”
from Crystal Palace (Patil 2008, 04). Apart from the issue of being crowded, Crystal
Palace does not provide or afford some of the basic facilities for catering to the
safety of its occupants. While Ruth’s building had a safety net to protect its stake-
holders and to break the descent, Kari’s building, which lacked a safety net, stood
by to witness her fall. Kari highlights that safety, one of the primary needs of
humankind, can only be afforded and provided to the rich. The city’s differential
treatment of the rich and the poor is manifested through apartments.
Furthermore, Crystal Palace also functions as an extension of the city, another
performative space that is controlled and adheres to established norms. Apartments
are spaces of flow that allow social interaction. Marcus (1999) remarks that urban
apartments are sites of intersection between the public and the private. “Apartment
buildings linked the city and residents in real and imaginable ways… for their
inhabitants and observers, apartment buildings were miniature cities whose multi-
plication of individual dwellings both magnified domesticity and perturbed its
customary boundaries” (Krishnamoorthy 2020). The city’s openness is translated
into the 2 BHK apartment occupied by Kari and her inmates. The congested space
of the apartment, as well as its lack of privacy, parallel those of the city. She com-
ments, “too broke to take our private lives any place else, we bring them into this
shared 2BHK. But the reality of bodies squeezed into an 8′ and 10′ room will make
 South Asian Review 7

a psychopath of a good human being” (Patil 2008,7). Both Delna and Kari share a
room, with their spaces demarcated by a bookshelf. While the “unavoidable open-
ness” of the city holds merit, it is mechanized to control people through a system
of surveillance, which forces them to self-censor (Pile 2005, viii). The city’s mixed
response to alternate sexualities, ranging from permissiveness to censuring, is also
enacted within Crystal Palace. Billo, Delna, Orgo, and Zap perpetuate heteronor-
mativity, although ethical lines are blurred with Billo and Delna alternating their
partners. Their endorsement of heteronormativity is seen through their incessant
questioning of Kari’s sexuality and stressing the importance of being heterosexual.
Their “jewels of advice” on her sexuality include “Eventually a woman needs a man
and a man needs a woman,” “Laz is such a great man. You have so much in com-
mon. Both of you are into books and don’t party,” and “Move on” (Patil 2008, 81).
Moreover, as observed by Kari, the more her roommates grew to like her, the more
vehemently they disliked Ruth (Patil 2008, 23). And therefore, “Ruth inhabited the
Crystal Palace only when the princesses were out dancing” (Patil 2008, 25). Even
the spatial design of the apartment seems to be advocating heteronormativity and
censuring alternate sexualities. In the 8′ by 10′ room, nothing could go unnoticed;
prying isn’t difficult, and everyone’s life is in the open. Although there are no
restrictions or limited access to certain spaces of the apartment, the notion of lib-
eration associated with this openness proves to be a fallacy. While Billo and Delna
seem to be least affected by the lack of privacy and bring out in the open all that
is usually contained within private spaces, Kari is seen limiting herself. In operation
within the space of the apartment is the panopticon schema, where Kari is curtailed
in open spaces through constant monitoring. Apart from highlighting the different
ways the apartment, pseudo-city, reinforces heteronormativity, Kari also exposes the
constructed quality to the homogeneous, rigid, and stable notions associated with
identity, upon which heteronormativity is founded. Both Billo and Delna, the guard-
ians of heteronormativity, when without their boyfriends, “shamelessly flirt” with
Kari (Patil 2008, 58). “They all want to be Wendy to my Peter Pan” (Patil 2008,
23). Commenting on this, Kari states, “Make no mistake- there is no such thing as
straight women” (Patil 2008, 58). With this statement, Kari emphasizes the fluid
composition of identities.
While Kari feels curtailed in her apartment, she is free to be herself at Angel’s
house. This has more to do with Angel herself, since the space of home, as Marcus
(2007) claims, can be an expression of the personality of the occupant (7). Houses
are “appropriated as the terrain of heterosexual family life and therefore can be
regarded normative” (Johnston and Valentine 2004, 88). It can also be a possible
site for challenging the normative, and Angel does this through her inclusive ide-
ologies (Johnston and Valentine 2004, 88). Unlike Billo and Delna, Angel’s margin-
alization is also due to her illness. Her illness has caused her to deviate from the
norm of ableism and suffer through its repercussions, including losing her job and
being without an income to survive. Although she is not ostracized, her illness has
caused people to treat her differently. Angel’s accommodative behavior could perhaps
be influenced by this experience of hers. She comes across as a detached listener
who is direct, “attentive but unemotional,” and valiant (Patil 2008, 8). She isn’t
judgmental, nor is she deterred by what society establishes as deviance. While others
8 S. MARIAM XAVIER AND A. THOMAS

abnormalize her sexuality and persuade her to conform, Angel accepts Kari as she
is and even dismisses her concerns about feeling out of water. It is this acceptance
of Kari that makes her feel at home in Angel’s house. They share a rare bond that
grows into a symbiotic relationship, with Kari being Angel’s “boatman” and Angel
assuming the roles of a confidant and a mentor in the bleak city. Although the
suicidal protagonist was initially drawn to Angel’s dying status, she progresses to
be a true boatman who, like Charon, allays Angel’s painful journey to death.
Meanwhile, Angel, although blunt in her responses, imparts some advice that helps
Kari recognize her subjectivity or unclip her “wings.” Despite floating being her
favorite form of movement, Kari is seen stuck in her relationship with Ruth even
after their breakup. Angel’s prodding to seize the moment and to let go of her past
were some of the sporadic instances of goodwill she receives in the city. Angel, in
many ways, can also be considered Kari’s alter-ego. While Kari represents life, Angel
stands for the inevitable death or the possessor of the ultimate knowledge. Angel
in some ways manifests Kari’s idea of floating; like her name, she is seen to float
on the land of the living and edge toward that of the dead. She is alive but with-
ering away.
Apart from her apartment, Kari also attempts a counter reading of her ad agency
that brings to light the dominant gender ideologies that define the culture of the
workspace and their creative output. As McDowell (2004) argues, “City workplaces
and practices are saturated with heterosexist imagery and behavior” (67). The leering
looks and less than respectful approach of the bearded man’s unnamed associate,
whom Kari meets while discussing the TV commercial shoot, seem to be a daily
occurrence. It is insinuated by the lack of names for the bearded man and his
associate. She also emphasizes through her gaze the normalization of women’s
objectification in her workplace. The photo of the “shiny lady” on Lazarus’ soft
board, which is open for the public to see, is one instance. The photograph is
highlighted by juxtaposing its colorful composition against the dull gray background
of daily life. The posture of the shiny lady is suggestive, offering a promise of nudity.
Entertainment at the expense of turning women into objects is normalized to the
extent that it becomes a defining feature of the workplace. This claim is made after
the recurrence of similar instances of objectification of women during the audition
for the ‘Fairytale Hair’ advertisement, which brings in “princesses, handmaids, and
stepsisters” (Patil 2008, 64). Women who appear for the screening conform to the
stereotype of rumpled sirens. Their portfolios provide an ensemble of scantily clad
women competing against one another on their sex appeal. They are designed for
an implied audience composed mainly of men who derive pleasure from the objec-
tification of women. As noted by Kari, “If hair product audition equals so much of
cleavage, lingerie audition equals what?” (Patil 2008, 65). While some perceive this
as progressive as it leads to a more open society that is comfortable with sexuality,
its “cumulative effect,” argues Kilbourne (2000, quoted in Perez 2013), “is profoundly
anti-erotic”. It creates a particular image of women—“young, thin, carefully groomed,
sprayed, and scented”—as ideal (Perez 2013). The hyperfeminine prototype featured
in films sells unreal expectations of beauty to women. They construct and produce
‘celluloid goddesses’ by using hair, hands, and leg stand-ins. Delna herself has been
a hand and foot stand-in for an advertisement featuring one such celluloid goddess
 South Asian Review 9

(Patil 2008, 23). These constructed images of women form the basis of stereotypes
and unnatural standards that women are expected to maintain. According to Gravett
(2012), “These categories capture a distinct aspect of masculinist politics: appropri-
ation through containment that risks reducing people to ‘quick synopsis” (np). The
caption for the image that depicts photographs of scantily clad women talks of
half-to-fully blind guppies, which forms an apt metaphor for both men and women
in the advertisement and entertainment industries. They have been forced into a
constrained space for entertaining others and work in a restrictive environment
customized to propagate patriarchal ideologies. Participants in the system knowingly
or unknowingly submit to the dominant heterosexist attitudes, even at the cost of
losing their identity.
The “Fairytale ad” similarly appears to endorse gender norms. Set in the context
of a fairytale, it features a princess and a white fox. However, there is a reversal of
roles, with the princess wandering the hills in search of the fox. The magical hair
gives her the confidence to hunt the hunter. Even though there is a subversion of
power in the ad, it also seems to promote certain gender-specific ideologies, such
as women’s hair being the source of power and confidence. As Surya Raju (2021)
argues, “Hair plays a crucial role in the novel (Kari) in defining the gender roles…
Long hair is always associated with the patriarchal definition of female entities”
(92). Kari’s proposal for the ad only gets approved once it conforms to these dom-
inant ideologies. Although Kari appears to work within the prescribed confines of
artistic output, she camouflages her content using metaphorical language. She rewrites
popular gender ideologies by exploiting traditional signifiers. As stated by Anthony
Synnott (1987), hair is a malleable aspect of the human body that can be altered
to suit cultural and personal preferences (381). What gives confidence to the princess
is not her hair but its pliability. It makes her immune to the fox’s manipulative and
cunning ways. This aligns with Kari’s ideologies on fluidity and proposes that the
consciousness of a fluid sense of identity has the potency to resist and challenge
the discursive practices that manipulate people into accepting the hegemony of
patriarchy. Using the same framework as a fairytale that normalizes heterosexual
desires and contributes toward the concretization of abstract foundations of heter-
onormativity, Kari destabilizes the normative and upends normative ideas of identities.
Workplaces in Kari are not just dominated by masculinist politics but are also
seen to be controlled by capitalist desire for profit accumulation at the expense of
labor satisfaction. While the city lives up to its promise of job opportunities, char-
acters like Kari and Delna are roped into jobs that alienate them from their output.
At the ad agency, Kari is made to “bring in sex, bring in glamor…” to her content,
forcing her to move from being “sincere to outrageous” (Patil 2008,11). Similarly,
Delna is dehumanizing herself by being the “hands and legs stand-in” of the female
actors to experience a slice of her dream of being an actor (Patil 2008,23). Amruta
Patil here demonstrates the Marxian theory of forced labor, in which the labor is
external to the worker; Kari and Delna are settling for less to survive. While Kari
belongs to the working class, people like Delna constitute the precariat, who, according
to Harvey, is “insecure, often part-time, and disorganized labor,” engaged in the
making and sustenance of urban life (Harvey 2012,xiv). The lack of agency and
consciousness that is found amongst the precariats also applies to Kari and Lazarus,
10 S. MARIAM XAVIER AND A. THOMAS

who themselves are stand-ins for some high-profile workers that the ad agency is
looking forward to appointing. Another character who lives through this precarity
within the job setup is Angel. Although cancer weighs down on Angel on more than
one occasion, she is observed to break the stereotype of the indisposed and incapable
diseased body. Even though it serves as a character testimony of Angel as a
strong-willed woman, there are instances in the narrative that lead the reader to read
this situation as a case of forced labor. When Kari visits Angel’s house for the first
time, Angel, in an attempt to dissuade Kari’s friendship, passes a sarcastic remark
that all that she owns will go to pay the hospital bills (Patil 2008,38). This off-hand
remark gives the reader an insight into Angel’s dire financial situation, which is
perhaps why she continues to work after diagnosis. In a quantitative study conducted
by Fnu et al. (2022), loss of income was found to be a serious challenge for cancer
patients, especially those who are undergoing active treatment (n.p.). The study attests
to workplaces providing insufficient paid medical leave and also engaging in dis-
crimination and stigmatization. Although the text doesn’t make it clear whether Angel
was laid off, it mentions Angel’s replacement, an abled Susan Lush, from the head
office in NYC. The narrative also covers the divided response amongst people at the
ad agency toward Angel’s predicament. While most seem to be in awe of her or
what she represents, “Angel’s status as the dying woman supersedes everything else
in people’s eyes. When she speaks we listen with rapt attention…We are constantly
awed by the shelf life of her skin" but there are also people who are insensitive to
it, which is reflected in the bearded man’s thought, “Hope she doesn’t pop it before
the campaign hits print” (Patil 2008, 37). The precarity of their jobs can be contrasted
with that of the bearded man, the “custodian of pay cheque and professional growth,”
who, unlike others, enjoys job security. He holds the power to make the final decision
on whether to “line the dustbin” with their creative output or to accept it, which is
communicated with a mere “grunt” (Patil 2008, 11; 46). He also enjoys the liberty
to break the routine by conducting work lunches outside the premises of their office
and doesn’t care for interruptions that could consume his colleagues’ time. This power
to lord over others and the agency to judge and influence the output of his subor-
dinates, even when they portray biases, gives him a sense of stability that his cowork-
ers such as Kari and Lazarus lack. They must endure being demeaned by him, which
may be in the form of an off-hand remark like being called “his yateem” or an
appreciation that veils a derogatory implication like “I have great regard for you two
jokers” (Patil 2008, 46). The word ‘yateem’ in Urdu means orphan. And by referring
to Kari so, to wade off his friend’s attempt at forcing himself on Kari, he creates a
hierarchy of the powerful authoritarian male and the helpless orphan who needs to
be protected. This hierarchy is also replicated in the work setup, where Kari, a sub-
ordinate, must suppress her sincere creative expression to suit the ideologies of the
superior bearded man. There are also insinuations, like his social circle, which indi-
cates his rich background. He is someone who is able to maintain his status through
his job and doesn’t experience the uncertainty that Kari and Lazarus go through.
The workplace, as depicted in Kari, becomes a locus of power politics, patriarchal
ideologies, and labor exploitation. Urbanization, as posited in Kari, is seen to entice
people with the promise of employment and success but instead leaves them disil-
lusioned, alienated, and powerless.
 South Asian Review 11

Kari is also seen to refute the popular notion of cities as welcoming (Kadysheva
and Global Migration Policy Associates 2022, 174). Kari is a representative of the
diasporic community, who has uprooted herself from her home to an unfamiliar
space in search of social and economic mobility. It doesn’t make explicit mention
of her native but it could be inferred from her parents’ response to the city’s culture
and from Kari’s incompatibility with the city that she was born in a place where
the city averts its face. Her position as an outsider to the city is also reinforced by
the fact that she was saved by the sewers, a space overlooked by the city, and the
internal monologue expressing her desire to linger within its loving coils and to let
it drown. This preference for the neglected space over the “fray” of the city further
establishes her position (Patil 2008, 8). Her difficulty in finding a sense of belonging,
both social and spatial, is the premise of Ira Sarma’s study on negotiations of home
and belongingness in Kari. Her paper stresses how, despite her attempts, Kari can
never achieve a sense of home, but through shared history, aspects of familiarity
and repetition, communication, and commensality, Kari negotiates to find a sense
of spatial and social belonging in Mumbai (Sarma 2017, np). She fails to belong in
the clique, which includes Billo and Delna, her roommates, and their boyfriends,
and succeeds in only making superficial connections with them. Likewise, Crystal
Palace, Kari’s apartment, never becomes a home for her, although it develops into
something familiar within the vast ocean of the unfamiliar city. Kari states, “Crystal
Palace is my chorus. The only part of the song familiar enough for me to sing
along with, the only part that repeats itself, whether I care for the words or not”
(Patil 2008, 16). There is an obvious disjunct between the name and the place,
paralleling the difference between imagined and lived spaces. Although the name
gives the impression of a “pit stop in a fairy tale,” the apartment fails to live up to
its name (Patil 2008, 16). It is a mundane 2 BHK apartment, which is explained to
the reader using a gray-black scale floor plan. The absence of a sentimental con-
nection is communicated when Kari introduces Crystal Palace for the first time
through its floor plan, a skeletal structure without the flesh and blood of memories
or a sense of attachment. Also, one cannot overlook the possible reference to “The
Crystal Palace,” which was built during the Great Exhibition. Like The Crystal Palace,
the apartment showcases various cultures through the people who occupy it but
fails to be a real home to them. Kari also communicates the loneliness of migrants
in the city through the appropriation of Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World. The
image shows Kari mimicking Christina’s posture and gazing up at the city from the
landfills that she manages to crawl up from the sewers. The lifelessness surrounding
Christina in the painting, suggested through its emptiness, is adapted in Kari to
communicate the aridity of the chaotic city of Mumbai. “The emotional uncertainty
and loneliness” expressed in the painting are also embodied in the appropriation
(Harris 2009, 466). Jee and Mishra (2022) also see Christina’s physical disability in
the painting superimposed by Kari’s emotional disability in the appropriation (85).
Although they interpret it as engendered by being separated from Ruth, it could
also be read as a result of being unable to connect with the city.
In addition, Amruta Patil also uses external references and visual metaphors to
articulate Kari’s sense of divide within the self, arising from her attempt at accul-
turation and her longing to belong. The narrative of Kari begins with an image of
12 S. MARIAM XAVIER AND A. THOMAS

a pendant with a symbol of the Gordian knot, followed by an “appropriation” of

Frida Kahlo’s The Two Fridas (Sarma 2018, 10). In the second image with the
appropriation, the two selves of Frida are replaced with Kari and Ruth, who the
reader finds out later is Kari’s girlfriend. This withholding of information about the
identity of Ruth and the appropriation of Frida Kahlo’s painting lead the reader to
decipher that Ruth is Kari’s other self. This interpretation could also be validated
through the caption, which says, “There are two of us, not one” (Patil 2008, 3).
Ruth could be a representation of those aspects of Kari’s rural self that cannot be
retained while attempting to adapt to city culture. Shwartz, Montgomery, and Briones
(2006) write, “social identity particularly cultural identity is likely to change as a
result of acculturation as immigrant people come into contact with individuals,
institutions, and customs of the new receiving society” (10). The visual image is
symbolic of the loss of those aspects of the culture of origin that cannot be retained
during acculturation. However, it is impossible to completely erase one’s roots, as
is emphasized by Kari when she says, “Despite a slipshod surgical procedure, we
are joined still” (Patil 2008, 3). A suicide and subsequent rebirth, or refashioning
of social and cultural identity, is part of acculturation, and hence is an extremely
difficult problem, symbolized through the ‘Gordian knot’, that Kari has to face as
an immigrant. There are also suggestions that the suicide was an ideological one
in the text. The caption of the “indirect quote” from Kahlo’s The Suicide of Dorothy
Hale reads, “The body rights itself mid air, aligns itself heaviest part first. It is with
the head, then, that I must meet death” (Sarma 2018, 11; Patil 2008, 5).
Along with her position as an outsider in the city, her sexuality and gender
contribute to her subalternity. Unlike Billo and Delna, who are part-takers of het-
eronormative culture, and Angel, who previously enjoyed her middle-class status,
Kari is doubly shadowed in the city. It is her own experiences with pain that make
her empathetic toward others. She exhibits the “ethics of care” through her responses
to other people’s suffering. Initially propounded by Carol Gilligan (1982), the phrase
“ethics of care” signifies women’s moral development, which, different from men’s,
shows a propensity to empathize with others. She claims that women are predisposed
to connect with and establish relationships with other entities. Gilligan identifies
care as primarily expressed by feminine subjects, with children and men as the
recipients. According to this theorization by Gilligan and later by Nel Noddings
(1984), the moral phenomenon operates only within a heteronormative framework.
Such a conceptualization is both essentializing and exclusionary, as it not only
establishes an organic connection between psychological development, sex, gender
identity, and sexuality, but also normativizes it. It generates “hierarchical differen-
tiations between heterosexual human subjects and ‘abnormal’ human and non-human
bodies for whom ethics and care remain foreclosed” (Gottardi 2018). Kari complicates
this association between the ethics of care and heteronormativity by examining care
as the driving principle that dictates the actions of Kari, the othered, queer, and
subaltern subject. This moralistic approach takes the form of empathy, sensitivity,
and responsiveness in Kari. Empathy, as Michael Slote (2007) argues, “is a crucial
source and sustainer of altruistic concern or caring about (the wellbeing of) others”
and can be identified in her response toward her fellow beings, including her room-
mates, Lazarus and Angel (15). With Billo and Lazarus, she exercises cognitive
 South Asian Review 13

empathy, where she imagines herself in their situation to comprehend it. About
Billo, she writes, “when I imagine this (Billo’s traumatic childhood), I always want
to give Billo a tight squeeze” (Patil 2008, 22). Since her trauma-inducing childhood
experiences are foreign to her, Kari mentally reconstructs the scenarios to understand
Billo’s predicament. She is also seen as invested in Delna’s future and happiness.
After learning about Delna’s decision to dump Orgo and marry her 27-year-old
boss, Kari begins her inquisition about the new guy. Here she expresses her concern
over Delna’s well-being without any judgment. As Gilligan (1982) remarks, “The
reluctance to judge may itself be indicative of the care and concern for others…”
(17). Similarly, when Lazarus confesses his fears about having contracted an STD,
Kari is observed relinquishing herself and customizing her reactions to cater to
Lazarus’s need for comfort. She says, “I wait for him to finish talking. When the
person in front of you is scared, you must speak carefully and calmly. Always the
truth. Reassure, but never lie” (Patil 2008, 88). Her active emotional commitment
to Lazarus’ needs characterizes her as an empathic listener (Walker 1997, 130).
Furthermore, the recipients of her empathic care aren’t limited to the immediate
social circle but are seen to relate to the pain of others who are away and unknown.
One of the challenges to the human expression of care is spatial and temporal
distance (Slote 2007, 25). While it is easier to express care over what is witnessed
firsthand, it is difficult to feel the same about people and instances that are beyond
one’s vicinity. Kari tackles this by expressing solidarity with other’s pain, which is
portrayed in the original paintings that are appropriated in the text. In the appro-
priation, as Ira Sarma (2018) writes, “Kari is shown to experience situations that
have already happened earlier and elsewhere” and expresses her empathy (12). She
connects with Frida Kahlo’s pain over her divided sense of self, Christina’s pain over
her disability and loneliness, and Dorothy Hale’s victimization by the ‘oppressive
social values’ and relates to it (Sarma 2018, 10). It is possible because she recognizes
a common root that connects them all and that is pain and suffering, and even
their disadvantaged positions. In a city where people are oblivious to others, Kari
stands out as an anomaly through her altruistic concern for the well-being of not
just those who fall within the perimeter of their immediate vicinity but even those
far beyond.
Kari’s vision is also observed to challenge “the mass exercise of ocularcentricity,
is what we might call consumer vision,” by bringing to the forefront the repercus-
sions of obsessive consumption and commodification (Adams and Gruen 2014, 29).
This conditioned consumer vision, instigated and accomplished by capitalism, has
transformed people, things, and surroundings into commodities. The concomitant
result of this culture of commodification and compulsive buying is environmental
degradation (Orecchia and Zoppoli 2007, 2). While cities seem to be fertile grounds
for development, what is often left out of this quasi-utopian image of the city are
the ecological compromises made for it. Through this negligence, we are, in Karen
Hurley’s words, limiting “the future to a Western high-tech, white, heterosexual,
patriarchal, militaristic, dark blandness where a small number of rich and powerful
men are in control” (Sanati, Hatamian and Tengku Mahadi 2011, 87). They subject
the city to constant construction without considering its ecological repercussions.
This nature of the urban city is remarked upon by Kari when she says, “An
14 S. MARIAM XAVIER AND A. THOMAS

unfamiliar road, tender offshoot to the tar, has appeared today…I have walked from
the railway station to the ad agency almost every single day for an entire year and
have never seen this road before. It must have grown anew last night” (Patil 2008,
42). The changes made to the city have been so constant that it is as if we are
living in a “snow globe,” where life as such doesn’t change but just the surroundings
when another set of developments takes over (Patil 2008, 48). This issue is also
aggravated by the self-centeredness that capitalism has managed to generate within
people (Murtaza 2011, 577). It cultivated amongst people insensitivity and apathy
toward the predicament of others and their surroundings. Kari censures the human
chauvinism of the Western-oriented sense of development that most cities try to
mimic. Kari’s unconventional gaze captures the dearth of humane sense, or what
mankind has finally given up—their “feelings, emotion, creative audacity, and con-
sciousness” (Mumford 1961, 4). Kari says, “In this city, no one talks. Everyone
guards their sanity against the grief of strangers” (Patil 2008, 42). Mumford (1961)
identifies them as “Post-historic men,” who have reduced the city into an “under-
ground control center,” forfeiting all other attributes of life (4). These deleterious
effects of the callousness that has taken over people toward others and the sur-
roundings can be counteracted through the ethics of care, which premises on “respect
and care for all earthly beings, an ethic that listens to and is responsive to the
diversity of all environmental voices” (Cross 2018, np). Kari emblematizes it by
taking responsibility for the cleansing of the city and exhibiting the moral salience
of committing to its care (Held 2006, 10).
Kari expresses compassion toward the city. Dalai Lama (2011) delineates the
distinctiveness of compassion as “not just sharing experience with others but also
wishing to see them relieved of their suffering” (55). While empathy is more ori-
ented toward feelings for others, compassion necessitates action to alleviate their
suffering. As the narrative progresses, Kari’s empathy develops into compassion, and
she actively responds to the smog city. Her activism is not driven by a sense of
pity stemming from a position of superiority. Being a subaltern and at the receiving
end of exploitation, Kari can relate to the predicament of the city. Also, drawing
from Rosemary Radford Ruether (n.d., quoted in Adams and Gruen 2014, 28) it
could be stated that the inferiorization of Kari, a queer, a migrant, and a precariat
within a city that privileges heterosexuality and the rich could “be modeled after
the inferiorization of the non-human nature to man”. Both ecology and Kari’s self
are impacted by the biased and rigorous urban development in the city. It is this
realization that transforms Kari into a “boatman” (Patil 2008, 31). Like Charon, the
boatman from Greek mythology, Kari is occupied with the act of freeing, wherein
she attempts to resuscitate the city from its deteriorated, “aging unwanted body,”
whose veins are clogged with “bundles of carcasses and plastic bags,” and restore it
to its former glory (Patil 2008, 93). Unlike other city dwellers, Kari doesn’t allow
the skyscrapers to cloud her judgment and sees the city for what it is. The narrative
provides a bleeding image of the building obscured by clouds and a vast expanse
of land outside the city’s sight, with every inch covered in waste. On the corner
stands a shadowed figure who could be Kari or anyone, including the reader, wit-
nessing the carnage of the city. Through this particular focalization technique, which
merges Kari’s sight with that of the reader, Patil implores the reader to identify with
 South Asian Review 15

Kari and her attempts at reviving the famished body of the city. Her resolve to
cleanse the sewage is also perhaps because she is inextricably linked with the sewer.
The cleansing is part of Kari’s obligation to her surrogate mother, who gave her
rebirth. Surangama Datta (2020) notices parallels between Kari and the sewer, with
both prioritizing exploration over destination and fluidity over form (13). These ties
that she has with the sewage make her decision rooted in empathy. But her volun-
tary act as the boatman, unlike Charon, who is being assigned the duty and pur-
ported to take payment for transporting the souls, can be identified as an act of
compassion.
Kari fits the ecofeminist conception of grassroot women, who are dedicated to
sustaining life, or in this case, cleansing the smog city. Kari’s motives are part of
“environmental politics grounded in the ethics of caring and responsive caretaking,
mindful of human and nonhuman concerns” (Whyte and Cuomo 2015, 2). Unlike
the rest, who either are perpetrators of violence or choose to overlook the contam-
ination of nature, Kari is more aware and sensitive to her surroundings. Her level
of investment is observed when she remarks, “I, Kari, twice born,…can smell the
sewer everywhere. My thoughts keep returning to the city’s lower intestine. To the
gutters and hastily dug out canals that empty her bladder and swell her arteries
with clean blood” (Patil 2008, 41). Kari doesn’t attempt domination but practices
subservience to nature. Through her care, she also challenges the dualistic thinking
that creates a hierarchy between humans, or culture, and nature. It is this construct
of binaries, as Carol J. Adams and Lori Gruen (2014) notes, that undergirds “oppres-
sion and distorts our relationships with the earth and other animals” (18). One of
the themes of ecofeminist literature, according to Salleh (1997), is “women’s
care-related perspectives on human-nature relations (…), a form of ecological civic
virtue or universal public caring” (163). Ecofeminists have devised a model for
basing relationships on care for sustainable living and the empowerment of women.
By initiating action to counter ecological injustice, Kari works toward effectuating
a positive change in ecological restoration and general well-being. She doesn’t join
the crowd with her introverted or “like a fly in the wall” nature, but it is the oddity
of her character that makes her more attuned to her surroundings (Gravett 2012).
By embodying the ethics of care, Kari reconceives what it means to be a human
and establishes the possibility of recreating a city where the palette is “pure and
bright” (Patil 2008, 116). It can also be stated that by exercising her right to the
city, which is solely under the control of the capitalist patriarchy, and by attempting
to restructure her surroundings, she is shaping herself. As Harvey (2008) states, “it
is a right to change ourselves by changing the city” (np).
Amruta Patil, through Kari, encourages the readers to engage in a contrapuntal
reading of their lived realities and their intricacies to understand the various ways
in which systems of power control them. The productive sight of Kari, the urban
flâneuse, creates alternate visualities that promote revision of the current discourses
on the city as a liberating space of opportunities. The city in Kari loses its preten-
tious quality to highlight its constrained everyday spaces and contaminated sur-
roundings, which revoke the promise of a better life in cities. Patil emphasizes
through critical presentation how far the city is from its romantic imagination. Kari
probes the reader to introspect and fine-tune their perception of urbanity and its
16 S. MARIAM XAVIER AND A. THOMAS

associated effects. The narrative sensitizes the reader, who, along with the rest of
the public, is caught in the smog of the dominant ideologies, to the fact that the
openness of the city and the employment opportunities it offers don’t make the
space liberating. Instead, they are controlled to uphold and precipitate the ideologies
of the capitalist patriarchy. By willfully participating in the culture of consumerism
and commodification, people contribute to ecological degradation. Amruta Patil
takes it upon herself to raise awareness of the need for ecological consciousness in
an urban setting. In this hour of alarming climate change, it is pertinent for people
to participate in contributing toward environmental sustainability.The initial step
toward accomplishing this task would be developing the ethics of care. Although
some critics have criticized the feminist politics of the ethics of care, it is necessary
to take this step of care against the looming apathy or human chauvinism that has
come to define the world.

Disclosure statement
The author reports that her research article is an outcome of the doctoral work funded by ICSSR

Funding
Sandra Mariam Xavier, is a recipient of Indian Council of Social Science Research Doctoral
Fellowship. Her article is largely an outcome of her doctoral work sponsored by ICSSR.
However, the responsibility for facts stated, opinions expressed and the conclusion drawn is
entirely that of the author.

Notes on contributors
Sandra Mariam Xavier is a research scholar at the University of Calicut with St.Joseph’s
College (Autonomous), Irinjalakuda, as the research center. Her research work is centered
on graphic narratives. Her research areas also include Culture Studies and Gender Studies.
Dr. Asha Thomas is an Associate Professor at St.Joseph’s College (Autonomous). Her area of
interest includes American poetry and Children’s Literature. She has also undertaken a minor
project by UGC on The Cultural Psychological, and Linguistic Impact of Exclusive Children’s
Channels on the Pre-Adolescent Child.

ORCID
Sandra Mariam Xavier http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5304-8935

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