KARMA

THEME
The story Karma illustrates the famous proverb "Pride
Cross Before a Fall". It is the story of an arrogant person
who feels bad about his culture, lifestyle etc. He is reluctant
to his wife because she is an ordinary woman who is unable
to impart foreign culture into her life.
Plot
Mohan Lal was a middle aged man who worked in
the British Raj. He was ashamed to be an Indian and hence
he tried to speak in English or in Anglicized Hindustani and
to dress as if a high ranked British official. He used to fill
the cross word puzzles of newspapers, which he did for
showing his immense knowledge in English. His wife
Lachmi was a traditional Indian woman and due to these
differences they were not having a sweet married life.
The important event occurs in a journey of Mohan Lal and
Lachmi in a train. Mohan Lal made her sit in the general
compartment and arranged his seat in first class
compartment which was meant for British. There he saw
two British soldiers who tried to abuse him. When the
arrogant Mohan Lal tried to oppose, he was thrown out of
the train. He could only look through the rails on the
moving train.
Characters
Sir Mohan Lal - An arrogant middle aged man
Lachmi - An ordinary Indian woman. Shes the wife of
Mohan Lal
A bearer
A porter

Two British soldiers.

Tone and style of narration
Karma presents a relevant topic in the typical humorous
way of Khushwant Singh. Style of narration used by the
author is third person which add to the beauty of the story.
In the story Karma i.e. fate the discomfiture (defeat) of the
Anglicised Sir Mohan Lal is skilfully brought out .He is
culturally enslaved by the British way of life; travels in first
class; looks forward to talk with the English in the Oxford
accent. Whereas his uneducated wife Lakshmi, who lives
world apart, travels by interclass. Sir Mohan Lal occupies
his first class reserve berth but too uncivilized British
soldiers call him nigger and throw him out of the
compartment .The irony of the situation is skillfully
presented and also the uncivilized way in which the British
treated the Indians in pre-independent India. The title
Karma is symbolical. It means you will get the fruits of
yours deeds. The author ridicules the slavish imitation of
English manners, which has led to snobbery in a class of
people in our country.
If he has his own vice, he has its correlative virtue. Every
mind should be allowed to make its own statement in
action, and its balance will appear. It may be true that
moral-seekers are apt to find Khushwant Singh's "Karma" a
little too predictable, even simplistic.(1) For them, Sir
Mohan Lal's is just another story of pride that goes before a
fall. In its widely understood sense, "karma" is "the sum
total of the ethical consequences of a person's good and bad
actions . . . that is held in Hinduism and Buddhism to
determine his specific destiny in his next existence"

("Karma"). On this count, Lal's sin of pride is punished

when two British soldiers throw him out of a first-class
compartment. His wife's karma, it would seem, enables her
to have a safe and comfortable journey in a ladies'
compartment. The nemesis itself is part of [Lal's] "Karma,"
the unexpected turn of his fate and, is also the inevitable
outcome of his actions and thoughts. The title "Karma" has
thus a double meaning: the inevitable nemesis and also the
ironical turn of the wheel of fate.
Words such as "inevitable" and "fate" not only oversimplify
but misconstrue the Law of Karma in Indian thought.
Karma brings its own reward, which may not, after all, be
particularly destructive or unhappy for the sufferer. For
Mohan Lal is no mere victim of his karma; he is also its
agent. His karma, like ours, implies both freedom and
necessity.
If Lal's karma counts for anything, it ought to bring him
this realization, the first necessary step toward selfrealization. His "education," in this sense, begins as two
British soldiers confront him in the first-class compartment
with rudeness and abuse. Bill and Jim now become his
tutors in necessity, in his own land. They speak both
English and Hindustani, the languages of Lal's past
freedom and present necessity. And, for once, Jim speaks
more than he knows when he switches codes for the benefit
of this "native" before him: "Janta -- Reserved. Army -Fauz . . . ". Literally, Janta would be, "Do you know/realize
[what you are doing]?' Who else but a "Tommy" would
dare ask Sir Mohan from Oxford whether he "knows"? But
what do they know? The British soldiers, we are told,
"knew better than to trust their inebriated ears. Out go

Lal's "possessions" and the pride that holds them all: his
suitcase, thermos flask, briefcase, bedding, The Times, and,
finally, himself Lal finds this "preposterous" , the original
meaning of which he must have known even in his
calamity. He is not likely to have realized, however, that his
karma decides the order in divesting him of his possessions,
the order, that is, of what should go before and what after.
Bill and Jim, mere players in this karmic farce, pause again:
"It did sound like English, but it was too much of the
King's for them". The truth of it, or rather the pity of the
truth of it all, as nearly always in Khushwant Singh, breaks
past the discipline of irony.
Poor learner that he is, Lal protests in English. Was it,
again, his "well-bred manners" that prevented him from
giving it back to them in Hindustani? One can't tell. Sir
Mohan's Oxford accent notwithstanding, karma has its way.
As Lal lands miserably on the platform, his "feet . . . glued
to the earth", and at a loss for words, his real education
might well have begun and ended at once.