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Human relationship both personal and with others are as real as one make
them dealing with love and the through process. Throughout life people have learned many
things about relationships and human interaction. The relationships we as people have with
others tend to be the relationships one has within them. The choices we make affect not only
ourselves but the people where involved with. The emotional struggles that are encounter within
are often acted out with another. Using information from Life of pi by Yann Martel and The
short happy life of Francis me comber by Ernest Hemingway. He will explain the human
relationships.
Taking into consideration why this is true in several ways and why do relationships exit
externally and internally? They exist because people want them to exist and people tell
themselves that they exist. Ones relationships and partnership with another person is whatever
they want it to be, the love one has for another is what we make of it. Whether someone loves
different outlook on the relationship and feel differently, one must understand that our
representation of what makes a good relationship may not be the same as the other persons. So
the relationship one has with another person includes what one thinks of them and what one
believes they think of you.
Believing that the true value of human relationship is that they are there to serve as
pointers are reminders of unconditional love is golden. According to a subjective relationship,
when we forgive and love all parts of our self, one will forgive and love all other human beings
and accept the human relationship as it is. The more we focus on making our internal love and
the ability to accept all for who they are in our consciousness and we will see it reflected in our
reality and relationship.
Anita Desai is concentrated in terrifying isolation finding it hard to reconcile with the
world around Self. Her protagonists, therefore, are constantly confronted with the stupendous
task of defining their relation to themselves and to their immediate human context. Acceptable
behavioral pattern is alien to them. The root is not far to find. Her central characters by and large,
have strange childhood from which they develop a negative self-image and aversion. The
immediate result is their fragmented psyche to view moving but their movement is always on the
periphery. If they are placed within the female space. They are shown as threatening presence.
Thus, the principal male characters in her play negative roles in their relations with the females.
Anita Desai is the main advocates of the psychological novel dealing with the complex
nature of woman. She has explained in detail the inner disturbance of her characters in a very
superior manner. Her novels deal with the contradictions and predicament faced by the individual
in the struggle for life. She belongs to the group of Indo-English writers who have studied in
detail the actual problems faced by the individual political and cultural importance.
Anita Desai has chosen to deal with the particular event which threatens the normal
tempo of life. She has explained the effect of emotion and sentiments about the behavior of man
and woman and how they react to different situations. She has explained the behavior of people
under strain. Anita Desai has become a recorder of dilemma faced by the Indian urban setup. She
and Kamala Markandaya have taken human relationship as their main fictional object. Since
human relationship describes the mental and emotional springs, therefore an artist can weave a
story out of it. The inner most psyches of the protagonists is revealed through their interaction
with those who are emotionally related to them on the basis on kinship. For this reason one finds
in Desais novel relationship based on emotional idealism.
Other women novelists have also felt with the same thematic concern of human
relationship, but in a different perspective. Almost all of them are historians of the tension in the
wake of Indias emergence as a developing nation. Desai insists on loneliness which is
characteristic of our times. The main thematic motif of loneliness leads one to describe the
contributory factory to it. Anita Desai emphasizes is so much that many times it appears to be the
main theme. There is break down of channels of communication between husband and wife.
Mainly by the incompatibility of temperament between the two. This phenomenon dissimilarity
in attitudes, resulting in unsatisfactory relationships run through almost all her novels.
D. H. Lawrence point out the greater relationship for humanity will always be the
relation between man and woman. The relationship between man and man, woman and woman,
parent and child will always be subsidiary (Lawrence 130)
Anita Desai has an independent approach to womens problems in Indian social life and
life in general. She does not believe the marriage is as forces as all human relationship are. Some
of her heroines have the idea of a blissful, happy conjugal life, but the idea seems to remain only
a rainbow dream. In most of the male-dominated families the concept of marriage as a union of
two different minds has not been realized womens individual identity has not been openly
realized in Indian social life. She is taken for granted and this casual attitude is the cause of her
suffering and miserable life.
The difference between make-believe supernatural horror and modern horror world of
conjugal lives is just this that the former can be wished away. But the letter demands the heaviest
price from the married woman to preserve the semblance of social prestige. Most of the studies
on marital happiness indicate that homo-genetic, i.e. persons having similar tastes, interests,
values tend to form stable relationship. This way marriage is said to be merger of two selves or
marriage of two minds. In most of her earlier novels, Anita Desai has written on the theme of
man-woman relationship. As marriage is a union of two different minds and there is bound to be
adjustments or maladjustment. According to Anita Desai, most marriages prove be union of
incompatibility. Men are apt to be more rational and women-emotional and sentimental. Their
attitudes and interests are different and their outlook and reaction towards the same things is
different. The woman is expected to adjust with the changing family ways and surroundings. In a
marriage, adjustment for the woman only means deleting her individuality, herself, her
conscience. It affects her entire psyche and behavior which destroys her sensibility and her very
self. She feels tied down. The result is that there is gradual erosion of marital relationship; and
for a woman marriage comes to symbolize nullification of everything she has come to cherish.
Uma Banerjee rightly says, Mrs.Desai believes that one Nora will not make much of a
difference and women will continue to play the supreme price for meal-tickets (Banerjee 155).
All the marriages in Anita Desais novels are business transactions. In each of her
novel, there are traumatic experiences of married lives. Anita Desai indirectly suggests women to
either remain unmarried, unfettered and unaccented by the society or marry and be damned to
everlasting private hell. In her novels is a definite sequence; and in this pattern, can be traced the
growth and her attitude towards the theme. Anita Desai gives a new dimension and vision to the
theme of human relationship.
Anita Desai portrayed the man-woman relationship in In Custody. This novel shows the
three woman characters as trapped and caged in their worlds as Deven and Nur are. Sarla,
Imtiaz Begum and Safiya Begum have no hope of release and escape from the confines of the
households they are married into. They continue to suffer and sulk through out of the novel in the
conventional Indian society they are a part of. Anita Desai explores deeply the complicated
world of human relationship, a world of temperamental incompatibility, where emotion, financial
worries and tensions that hinter marital bliss. She is equally concerned with the simplicity and
purity of human relations as with the cunningness and delicacy of human behavior.
Custody literally means protective care or guardianship and imprisonment. Assessed
by such implications, the novel lives up to both the meanings of the word. First, Deven Sharma,
in his idolization of Nur Shajehanabadi, established a kinship with the greatest living Urdu poet
when he goes to interview him. Though his interaction with Nur, Deven realizes that he has
become the custodian of Nurs poetry although interview is a fiasco. Second Anita Desai initiates
a debate of Urdu versus Hindi in post-independence India, with the language being imprisoned in
the few schools and colleges where it is taught. It is a dying language like Nur, both of them
being past their prime.
He had imagined he has taking Nurs poetry into safe custody, and not Realized that if
he was to be custodian of Nurs genius, then Nur would become his custodian and
place
else a
was short listed for the prestigious Booker Prize the same year. It is a touching account of the
happenings in the life of small-town lecturer in Hindi and his dream project of interviewing his
idol, and how it ends up in disaster Desais sensitive portrayal and understanding of essential
human nature makes the narrative conspicuous and captivating. The ups and downs of human
life, the upheavals in relationship have been deftly crafted in this novel. A novel of shattered
emotions and scattered dreams.
Nur shajehanabadi is a greatest Urdu poet. Nur is now living on past glory in a by lane of
the crowed chandni chowk, surrounded by flatters and ill-treated by his two wives Safiya Begum
and Imtiaz Begum. A fat old man, he is hardly able to move around without help and support of
his servant boy Ali. There are drinking sessions on the terrace of his house every evening at
which his fawning crawlers sing praises of his poetry in return for the food and drinks provided
by the impoverished poet who laments the passing away the language of the royal court of
Mughals into the hands of the rustic Hindi-Wallahs and his own fall from grace. Nurs house
with its semi-darkness evokes Nur as an anti-theatrical figure. He is a poet sprung from the
adulation of the underworld, and in turn his audience of the underworld. Therefore, significantly
he is seen through the semi-darkness; and the shadow gloom. While Deven goes up the stairs
of the poets house, he thinks of ascending to the higher region of the self.
In Desais novel, In Custody, we find the marital disagreement between husband and
wife. In this novel Deven, a lecturer teaching Hindi in Lala Ram Lal College in Mirpore in a
small town, aspires to become a poet in an Urdu poetry. He thinks, his wife Sarla is an obstacle.
Because his marriage was against his choice. Sarla used to live in the same locality. His mother
and aunts has observed Sarla for years and found her suitable in every way;
Plain-penny pinching and congenially pessimistic. (IC 69)
Deven was a more a poet than a professor when he married Sarla. She was also a
person of high aspirations. She had wanted to be rich and to be surrounded by various
advertisements and aspired for,
The marriage dream of marriage herself stepping out of a car, with plastic shopping bag,
full of groceries and filling them into the gleaming refrigerator. (IC 68)
On this part, Deven considers her as an obstacle in the realization of his ambitions.
His progress in life has been halted because of his incongruous marriage. He has had to take up
his humdrum job of a temporary Hindi lecturer to support his wife and son and he is weighed
down by his responsibilities and the burden of living with a prosaic wife. Deven is aware of
Sarlas frustrations as he is of his own limitations. While Sarla sulks, Deven shouts at her for her
inadequacies. Both of them are unhappy but this does not bring them closer; they continue
drifting apart,
He understands because like her, he had been defeated too; like her, he was a victim,
although each understood the secret truth about the other. It did not bring about
any
comradeship, because they sensed that two victims ought to avoid each other, not
yoke
together their joint disappointments. A victim does not look to help from another
victim;
he looks for a redeemer. At least Deven had his poetry; she had nothing
Sarla is a very picture of a forsaken, neglected wife. Often she becomes bitter and
resentful as she has no idea of her husbands academic pursuits and interests. She epitomizes the
ideal of, what Anita Desai calls, countless generations of Hindu womanhood behind her which
prevents her from open rebellion. Deven knows that she would abuse and scream only when she
is safely out of his way. Preferably in the kitchen, her own domain.
Sarlas dreams were not fulfilled with her marriage with Deven because they had
to leave Devens town to a smaller town. The thwarting of her aspiration:
Had cut two dark furrows from the corners of her nostrils to the corner of her
mouth, as deep and permanent as surgical sears. (IC 68)
When Deven does not go Delhi for a long time after Nurs first wife, Safiya Begum,
demands payment for interviewing the poet in seclusion, she sits and watching him scratching
her nose in an offensive way as she watches him. Finally Sarla gives her lips a sarcastic twist
and says, so, no more Delhi for you? What happened, you were thrown out? He throws her a
murderous look and replies,
I go to Delhi on work. When I do not have work, I do not go, But..when
I have work, I will go, Hunh work! She says under her breath and then
removes
expression in shouting out of the windows at the child or over the wall to the neighbors since it
was not possible to shout to her husband, at least not without danger of retaliation.
In Anita Desais In Custody both Deven and Sarla, are disappointed with each other.
Both of them understood each other disappointment. Deven and Sarla avoided each other. They
dont bear together their joint disappointment. He expresses his disappointment by taking
extreme measures and thus avoids his wifes accusations. He becomes annoyed on simple
ground. At home he is very aggressive but outside he is quiet and humble. Sarla is a typical
Hindu woman. She never complains about injustice done to her by her husband.
Deven knew that she would scream and abuse only when she
is safely out of way, preferably in the kitchen, her own domain.(IC 146)
When she returns home after a long stay with her parents, she immediately sets
about sweeping and cleaning the house and asks Deven for not calling the sweeper to spruce
things up in her absence. But there is no hint of complaint in her voice even while he spends a
night in Delhi without informing her or his long absences away from home when he is pursuing
Nur for the elusive interview or when his colleagues insinuate that Deven has a mistress in Delhi
which frequently takes him there. But she is pleased to back in her domain, to assume all
responsibilities, her indispensable presence in it; his position of power over her, that is as
important to her as to him;
If she cased to believe in it, what would be there for her to do, where
would she go? Such desolation could not be admitted. (IC 194)
Deven too behaves as a typical superior Indian male. He cannot share his defeat and share
his disappointments and woes, as they are degrading for him. In the views of psychologists a
behavior of Indian male is;
Social conditioning definitely has a big role to play in their desire to dominate, Right
from the very beginning, the patriarchal society, he is brought up in, implants an
inherent
Sarla, too, has ways of expressing her anger and disappointments. She suspects Deven of
going to another woman in Delhi. She, being illiterate, cannot think beyond it and Deven, too,
doesnt try to explain the truth to her. Sarla would put the fold of her sari over her head as if she
was mourning or at a religious ceremony. This makes Deven further weak, looking for escape for
him. Deven is presented as a defeatist here;
He felt aged and moudly. He was sure his teeth had loosened in the night that his hair
would come out in handfuls if he tugged it. That was what she might well do; he
feared
to teach him not to venture out of the familiar, safe dustbin of their old into the
perilous
dust heap like a crust thrown away, and molder. (IC 66-67)
Both of them try to hurt each other with actions or words.
Sarla accuses Deven with her expressions of sullenness. Deven gets irritated by her shabbiness,
her hunched, twisted posture, her untidy hair. At times, he thinks of putting his arm around her
and tells her that he shared all her disappointments and woes. Similarly Deven has come to terms
with own inadequacies and limitations. When he goes to Delhi for the first time to meet Nur, he
wears the same pale green nylon shirt which Sarlas parents sent him and which he had tossed on
the floor in an obligatory fit of temper as being too cheap and gaudy Sarla had folded and put
away in a shoe-box for malice is often mute.
Now when she returns from her parents house and Manu goes out to show his new
clothes and shoes to his friends. Deven comes to terms with his inability to buy these things for
his child. He entirely accepts this slap to his pride and dignity as the bread winner and feels that
he deserves his in-laws insults. They were perfectly right to insult him. When had he last
bought his son anything? And now of course he never would, he was ruined.
Desais In Custody, the condition of Nur, the renowned Urdu poet is also somewhat
similar to Deven. Nur is an old poet who has decayed with the changing times, not only in the
field of art but also in his personal life. He has two wives. The older wife is an old creature with
a commanding face,
So straight in its lines, so military in its firmness (IC 89)
Safiya Begum is openly money-minded. Like Imtiaz Begum, she realizes that art is a way
of earning money. She demands payment from Deven if he wants to interview Nur away from
the prying eyes and the spying network of Imtiaz Begum in a room that she offers to arrange for
the purpose. She realizes that Nurs memoirs and verses are important for his college and the
professor people and is aware of her husbands greatness. But at the same time, she does not
want him to forget the matter of payment for her services.
Nurs first wife, in In Custody is old and illiterate, like Sarla. She is reconciled
to her fate as a neglected wife. She attributes it to the fact that she has given birth only to
daughters whereas Imtiaz Begum the second wife, is Nurs favorite because she has given him a
son. She is forsaken wife who has accepted her lot. She has an impressive presence with her
white hair combed about the face. Her face was so commanding, so straight in its lines, so
military in its firmness.
Safiya Begum is a fighter. She resents Imtiaz Begum Presence in her husbands life.
Deven in witness to the cat fight between Nurs two wives over his body sprawled on the floor
after a drinking session. She is furious when Imtiaz Begum insults and humiliates Nur.
Run away from here, bitch, leave the old man alone. What more do you want from him?
You have taken his name and his reputation and today even his admires, be
satisfied,
leave him and go down, go dance before the public since that is your
manner of living.
(IC 129)
She tells Deven that ImtiazBegum wants to get rid of him as she has got rid of all the
followers and disciples of Nur because she hates them all. But she knows that Deven is serious
and he wants to write a book on Nur. Imtiaz Begum does not want that she has taken much
away, says Safia Begum bitterly, and she wants his fame as well. And Deven must not allow
her to do that.
Imtiaz Begum, a former dancing girl in In Custody. She is Nurs second wife. She has
own over the poet by her dancing skills, beauty and intellect. She lives in an inner courtyard of
the house. Nur married a dancing girl later for a son. She hates all the disciples and a hanger on
the old poet has and tries to get rid of them. When after a drinking orgy, Nur stumbles into the
room; she stands over his prostrate body and screams at him attributing all his troubles, ailments
and poverty to his drinking. Imtiaz Begum was from house for dancers and was quite famous for
her singing. She takes advantage of the poet and his position;
She wanted my house, my audience, and my friends. She raided my house, stole my
jewels- those are what she wears now as she sits before an audience, showing
them
off as her own. They are not her own, they are mine! And she sent my secretary
away
draped in a silver shawl from which ringlets of gleaming black hair escaped and the blood-red
mouth. Nur tells her that he has collapsed from the pain from ulcers in his stomach. Then he
feels cheated and very old and weak;
Whereas Imtiaz Begum is the Centre of attraction of the function..a powered and
pointed creature in a black and silver, coquetting beneath a shining veil which she
held in
a place over her forehead while she turned her face from side to side, flashing
smiles at
her audience and making the ring on her nose glint with delight. She sat
cross-legged and
comfortable on the rug, her red printed toes waggling with pleasure
at the scene of which she was the undeniable Centre. (IC 79)
Imtiaz begum orders Deven to clear the poets verses, at him as he tries to protest that
they all come there because they hero worship Nur. But she replies, He was a poet, a scholar but
is he now? Look at him? His followers have reduced him to the present state where he lies like
a beast sprawled on the floor, with his face downwards, arms and legs spread eagled across the
thick mattress unrolled on the terrazzo floor. Her child has to witness this scene every evening.
When Nur tries to placate her by saying No, Janum, no, and starts weeping, she is
hysterical. She calls him foolish and inconsiderate for spending all his time with his cronies
and ignoring his wife and child. As she starts abusing Nur in her high pitched voice, Deven
escapes. She dominates Nur and he is afraid of her anger,
Nur began to cringe, his lips to pout, his glass
to tilt and spill. (IC 88)
The next time he goes to see the poet, Deven finds himself in the midst of Imtiaz
Begums birthday celebrations in the courtyard of Nurs house. He tries to hide behind a row of
large, well-fed, passive men with splendid caps and turbans but is gradually pushed forward as
the crowd swells. Nur sits on a cane chair in the front row, with Deven by his side when Imtiaz
Begum takes her place in the Centre of the divan, a powered and painted creature in black and
silver.
The audience, in which Imtiaz Begum has planted some of her own relatives to lead the
applause, clamor to hear her sing her star poems. A pale and insipid imitation of Nurs verses.
She obliges them only after her accompanists have been well-fed and served plenty of drinks.
Then, like a courtesan that she has been, she begins reciting her poems with her raucous
singing that is an affliction to Devens ears. Her stage recitation of melodramatic and third rate
verse is unbearable to him when the true poet, the great poet sits huddled and silent, ignored,
uncelebrated. Imtiaz Begums voice is nasal and grating, often on the verge of cracking.
But thankfully, she is tired and one of the women in her troupe takes over. It is such a
relief to Deven. To him, she is no better than a Prostitute or a dancing girl. and he wonders at
her background, her age, which is impossible to deflect under that floury layer of powder and
the glistening rouge. She could be fifty, painted to look like a summer rose.Had she been an
actress once? a dancer? Where in a brothel? She knew all the appropriate tricks.
Deven follows the drunken and exhausted Nur to lower floor and the poet stumbles on
the threshold. Together with the servant boy; Deven shores the old man, creaking and complying
on to his bed. Imtiaz Begum then wanted all the attention which the poets acolytes were not
prepared to give her. So she started hating everyone who be friended and idolized Nur. A top
dancer of her time, Imtiaz Begum wanted the poets attention. As Nur moans in pain and
humiliation, she throws the large number of rupee notes showered on her by her appreciate
audience and orders the servant boy to count them. When Nur protests, she taunts him.
As she is heaping insult upon insult on the poor poet, Nurs first wife appears on the
scene and the two of them start a fight with the poet lying helpless on the bed. Safiya Begum to
leave the old man alone. When Deven goes to see the poet, next poet tells him that Imtiaz Begum
is ill from the strain of her birthday celebrations. Deven suspects that it is the consequence of the
cat fight the poets wives had the other day in which Imtiaz Begum has seemingly been worsted.
But she is so ill that no doctor can cure her and she refuses to be removed to hospital for
treatment. Moreover, she doesnt want Nur to recite his poetry. She would hear it and be
disturbed; she does not want him to recite any more because he would end up making a fool of
himself. It is then that Deven hits upon the idea of taking Nur somewhere else away from Imtiaz
Begums network of spies. So that he can interview the poet in peace.
When Deven is taken to see Imtiaz Begum by Nur, he finds her lying in bed with her
attendants around her. She tells him, Before you persuade that confused old man to appear in
public, take one look at one who has done so-and suffered, Nur requests her not agitate herself
but Imtiaz Begum is adamant. She weakly lifts up her hennaed reptilian hand and starts
shouting at Deven and tells him categorically, He will not recite. Nur meekly agrees with her
and she sinks back into her pillows. Black cotton comes undone from her head, leaving his scalp
very bald. She looks much thinner and smaller suddenly and her hands tear at the sheets in
anguish. Deven walks out of the room, unable to make out whether she is really ill or throwing
her usual tantrums to get the poet to agree to what she wants.
We next hear from Imtiaz Begum when she writes to Devens towards the end of the
novel for undermining her and her poetry simply because she is a woman. He is impressed by the
elegance and floridity of her Urdu. She accuses Deven of having been influenced by the
gossip of Nurs followers about her being. In order to prove himself worthy of Nur. She encloses
a bundle of her poems for Deven to peruse and judge for himself.
Neck deep in trouble that Deven already is because of his fool hardy venture, he simply
tears off the poems, incurring the worth of his wife when he throws the torn bits of paper on the
floor. But this reveals the inherent worth and grit of a loose woman in asserting herself in a
male-dominated society, which Safiya begum and Devens wife Sarla are unable to do. Nur is in
a pathetic state unable to take care of the situation. He is caught between an uneducated country
wife, with her crude speech and manners; and the melodramatic, shrewd dancer girl, with
flowery Urdu. Nur, at the end, only wishes for the primordial sleep.
Deven Sharma, is a protagonist of the novel, has a loveless marriage with his forever
sulking wife and a humdrum existence. He is bored and disinterested in his job of teaching
students a subject that does not guarantee employment; they have opted for it only in order to get
a degree, they tell him. He is also aware of the fact that he is not a good teacher and does not
enjoy the respect of his students. Nor does not get along with his colleagues. What keeps him
going to his love for Urdu poetry; he has inherited from his poor school-teacher father.
Otherwise, he has little gift for speech, for conversation. So little practice in it, and known only
to speak hesitatingly, awkwardly to the point, he is an introvert by nature, who largely keeps to
himself. He often complains, No one ever listens to me. My hard work leads nowhere, to
nothing, nothing. He tries his hard at Urdu verse and often sends it to his school friend Murad,
who runs a self-proclaimed literary journal Awaaz seeking to preserve the tradition of Urdu
language and poetry. And this is what proves to be his undoing when Murad visits him and
bullies him into interviewing the greatest living Urdu poet, Nur, for the special number of his
journal.
Deven jumps at the honor, not knowing what it has in store for him. He thinks that this
is a chance for him to achieve fame and to fulfill his dreams. So he proceeds to Delhi to
interview the poet. He has idolized all his life only to discover that the great man has feet of clay.
Nur is old and ailing, beset by his own problems. He is trapped in his own dissolute world of two
shrewish wives and several hangers on clearly past his prime. Nur is a mere shadow of his
former self. The Poets very name, Nur is ironic. He is a light grown very deem indeed.
Deven is witness to the poets drunken orgies on the terrace of his house where he is
surrounded by his sycophants who eat and drink at his expense while applauding his verse.
Deven is disillusioned. But he bravely soldiers on in the mission of a life time. He is bullied,
manipulated and exploited at every stage by Murad, by Nur and his wives. But somehow he does
not have the courage to abandon the project as he realizes that he was forged a bond with Nur.
Both of them are trapped in vicious circumstances and Deven feels that he has become the
custodian of Nurs poetry, his spirit, his psyche. This feeling keeps him going, stumbling from
one obstacle to another and ultimately this gives him courage to face like.
In Desais In Custody, Deven traces the revered poets house. He is awed to be ushered
into the presence of a man so clearly a hero with an immense voice by Nurs second wife
Imtiaz Begum and ushered into a dark room. The fat old poet, now clearly past his prime lies
resting like a great bolster lay on a flat low wooden divan. He is dressed in white, with his white
beard, splayed across his chest and his long white fingers clasped across it. He does not move
and appears to be a marble form. He is irritated on being disturbed in the midst of his afternoon
nap. When Deven reads Murads flattering letter to him seeking an interview for his journal. Nur
says dismissively,
Deven denies this accusation and submits that it would be a great honor. If the poet
allows him to have an interview for the special issue on Urdu poetry for Murads journal, Urdu
poetry? sighs Nur How can there be, Urdu poetry where there is no Urdu language left? It is
dead, finished. He is perplexed in reconciling Nurs associates with his admiration for his
poetry, but eventually, he manages to accommodate his conflicting views of Nurs people with
the grandeur of his poetry.
Deven tries to comfort the old poet that this is not the case. The language is still
flourishing even in such a small college outside Delhi where he teaches. When asked whether he
traces Urdu, Deven has to sheepishly admit that he teaches Hindi. This leads to another diatribe
against the imposition of Hindi by, congress-wallahs. If the loves Urdu and wants to interview
him for a journal, why is Deven teaching Hindi? When told that he does it for a living, Nur
remarks, oh, earning a living? Earning a living comes first, does it? Why not trade in voice and
oil if it is a living you want to earn? (IC 139)
In In Custody Deven has to convince Nur of his love for Urdu poetry by reciting his
verse with the correct pronunciation and inflection. The poet listens engrossed, now and then
joining in with his cracked voice as if he had forgetting the lines and was happy to be reminded.
But this miraculous intimacy suddenly comes to an end when the poet is taken upstairs for his
message and bath for inspecting his brood of pigeons and his waiting acolytes.
Deven is scandalized by what he sees. A gang of street people, the riff-raff, gather on
Nurs terrace. Food and drinks are served liberally and everyone has fun. There is no reverence
for Nurs age or reputation. A drunken Nur is led downstairs by his servant boy and Deven helps
the poet on to his bed in pain because of his piles. Deven sees Nur gluttonous, Nur drunk, Nur
vomiting on the floor and being chided by Imtiaz Begum, his second wife. She orders Deven to
clean up the mess by throwing a sheaf of papers containing Nurs poems on him Deven escapes.
The same scene is repeated when a drunken Nur leaves Imtiaz Begums raucous birthday
celebrations and collapses on the floor of her room amid his blood and vomit. Imtiaz Begum is
hysterical. She shouts at him and taunts him while asking the servant boy to count the rupee
notes showered on her by her admires, because the money is going to pay for his food and
drinks. When Imtiaz Begum falls ill, Nur tries to placate her. He promises not to recite his poetry
and further, thus putting pain to Devens ambitious plan of interviewing the great poet. He
arranges for a tape recorder to record Nurs memoirs and poetry away from the noisy
surroundings, the prying eyes and spying network of Imtiaz Begum. He has to pay Nurs first
wife for this, she arranges for room in a nearby brothel where the poet can be interviewed when
she sneaks him out of the house through the back door.
When this is done, Nur is followed by his hangers-on and an uninterrupted orgy of food
and drink continues there for three weeks with little work done. Whatever is recorded? Is a mess;
it is a disaster-one day, Nur sick and tired of what he has to go through, leaves, never to return.
Deven is at his wits end with a number of bills to pay including the rent of the room. Then
Deven is bombard by letters from the great poet demanding treatment for his cataract operation,
for free education of his son, and for passage to a pilgrimage to mecca in recognition of the
work he has done. At the end of his tether, Deven is at a complete loss. His ambition of
interviewing the great poet remains unrealized and he has poetry little to show for his recording.
In Custody, Anita Desai makes a considerable progress in the use of Zoological
imagery. In this novel the animal imagery is predominantly drawn from circus animals. It is
significant in two ways: it explores the predicament of the characters as imprisoned creatures
aspiring desperately for their freedom and secondly. Men are as much starred and harassed as the
animals. Never before in her novels do we find such thematic importance attached to this image
nexus. Besides depicting ingratitude, unkindness and disruption of traditional human values and
relationship, this imagery encompasses the universal and human predicament. Devens miserable
life with unsympathetic and sarcastic wife makes him think that
He must look like a caged animal in a zoo to any creature
that might be looking down at earth from another planet. (IC 231)
Deven runs up huge debts meeting the demands of Nur and his wives in pursuit of the
elusive interview with the great poet. He is manipulated, cheated and exploited by everyone.
Several times he is on the verge of giving up his ambitious project because of lack of funds and
encouragement. But there is something inside him that keeps motivating him even when there is
no way of hope. Ultimately he decides to face the challenges that lie ahead headlong because of
the unspoken bond he shares with the great poet. The emotional heart lies in this relationship. At
first, the young teachers dream of coming face to face with the literary giant appears to have
come true. Then, to his dismay, Deven discovers that his idol has feet of cloyed. Nur, beset by
pigeons and by other, human. Though revolted at the sights he witnesses, Deven gradually moves
closer to Nur and empathizes with him.
Anita Desais In Custody is in a different category in the sense that she attempts to
study the helpless nature of the male protagonist due to poverty, helplessness and lack of
initiative. This novel also marks a departure from the earlier novels of Anita Desais In
Custody has a male protagonist who comes from a lower middle class family and whose
consciousness is essentially directed towards a wider world beyond himself and his family. In
doing so, Desai evokes the dominant attributes of contemporary Indian society thought the
characters of Deven who acquires symbolic connotations besides his role as the central figure.
The diverse trends that affect the contemporary middleclass Indian are unified into the
sensibility of the protagonist Deven. He is a lecturer in Hindi in Lala Ram lal college, Mirpore.
His friend Murad, an editor of Urdu magazine, inspires Deven to interview Nur, the famous poet
of Urdu literature at this house in old Delhi. Deven wants to avoid Murad and he moves to the
classroom. But he loses his welfare in teaching the students as he is a failure as a teacher.
Academically Deven is at his lowest ebb for he could not command the attention of his students.
His position in the classroom is so bad that he cannot look straight in the eyes of his students.
Instead, he had been for years practicing the trick of focusing:
Later the two friends go out for Lunch in a bazaar restaurant. During lunch they discuss
their financial problem. There Murad expresses his need to publish some new work so he wants a
complete feature on Nur. Deven reaches Delhi and meets his friend. He takes a preliminary letter
from him, so that he can hold a formal meeting with the Urdu poet. He wonders whether it is
proper on his part to approach the greatest poet of Urdu with a letter of formal presentation from
so unworthy a person like Murad. Finally after many more hurdles he gives judgment to meet the
poet hesitatingly being attended by a boy of Murads office.
Murad cautions him that serving Urdu cannot be a hobby. It requires a lifetime of
dedication like his. He brushes aside Devens request for publishing some of his poem in the
journal. Nur have been sending his name to the Nobel Prize committee for several years now for
the prestigious Nobel Prize in literature and are hopeful of a positive response. Yet Murad will
publish his latest work, and not his earlier poems in the special issue of his journal. And he also
wants a full feature on Nur. Nur in his old age, the dying Nur before he is gone, like a comet
into the dark and Murad wants Deven to do that feature.
Deven is overwhelmed seizing on the opportunity. Murad reminds him that Deven has
already written a monograph on the poet. But he wont publish it because he doesnt want to
become a bankrupt. He wants Deven to contribute a special feature on Nur for his journal by
seeing the great poet by tracking him down in his house in Delhi. But Deven is apprehensive that
poet does not welcome any visitors but Murad dares him to do that and the meek Deven. Then he
meets the poet at his residence. He is shocked to find that the poet, whom he so greatly admired
and worshipped as God, enjoyed the company of the lotus, and his second wife, Imtiaz begum
earlier connected with a brothel.
Nur censures Deven first of all for disturbing him and for being a lecturer in Hindi,
intending to interview an Urdu poet. According to the poet, Urdu died long ago in 1947, and only
its ghosts survive in India. Deven finds the surrounding at poet house quite suffocating and the
nature of his wife savage and vulgar. He leaves the place with great disappointment.
After his first unsatisfactory and unsuccessful meeting with Nur, on his way back to
mirpore in the bus, Deven leaves Delhi by an early next morning. His mind wavers between his
aspiration for poetry and its deceiving nature. He gives judgment, henceforth; he would avoid
that dream that so easily coiled into nightmare. Still haunted by what he encountered last evening
at Nurs house.
When he reaches home, he receives a letter from the poet in which he has agreed to allow
Deven to work as his secretary and communicates him that Murad is ready to publish his work.
Deven is taken aback by Nurs decision as he has actually never wished this. Deven dismissed
the idea to become Nurs secretary. He describes that he cant give up his job of lectureship at
Mirpore and all other facilities, he is enjoying their Deven rushes to Delhi and confronts Murad
who makes fun of his diffidence. When Deven tells him that he cannot make available to Nur as
his secretary as he has a job, a family to support and he cannot let them starve in pursuit of his
own hobby, Murad replies: who is saying they will starve?.... Here you are getting extra work,
and you are howling about starvation. Deven tries to wriggle out of the assignment by saying
that he is ill-equipped for it and he doesnt have time.
Awed by Murads belligerence, Deven, as usual, takes refuge in ambiguity, saying that all
he promised was an interview with Nur. he travelled for that to Delhi and made himself to be
dragged into the kind of company the poet keeps only for the sake of the promised interview.
Deven protests that in getting the interview for his friend journal. He is not looking for a guru.
He has given up his ambition of becoming a poet. He is only a poor lecturer and a temporary
lecturer at that trying to earn his living. He cant serve Nur and Murad has no business getting
him into that spot. Murad then tells him how great Nur is, that people like him take the dust of
his feet and that Deven cant run away from the responsibility, he has undertaken. But Deven is
not certain. He is not prepared to go to Nur for fear that the old man may think that he has agreed
to be his secretary, make him sit down and start dictating to him.
Deven is not convinced. Things do not appear to be as simple and straight forward as
Murad makes them appear; he is being tricked into something that he doesnt want to do by the
smooth-tongued Murad. Anyone else in his place would have interviewed Nur by now. So he
shouldnt waste any more time get the job as soon as he can. Murad succeeds, once again, in
making Deven what he wants. This is what he has done since their school days.
When he makes his way to Nurs house that evening, the stage is set to celebrate the
birthday of Nurs wife. Crowds have already gathered and Deven tries to camouflage his
presence by sitting in conspicuously in a corner of the room. But as more and more people enter,
he is gradually pushed to the front row, his face stiffened with embarrassment and displeasure.
In due time, the powered and painted creature in a black and silver appears on the scene,
coquetting beneath a shining veil which she holds in place over her forehead while she turns
her face from side to side, flashing smiles at her audience and making the ring on her nose glint
with delight. She sits cross-legged and confortable on the rug, her red painted toes waggling
with pleasure at the scene of which she is the undeniable Centre. Nur is seated at the back of the
veranda on a sagging cane chair, looking like a bag, or bolster, that someone has flung down on
it. He looks old and haggard.
Deven and some other young men lift him up and wax him to come in front of the
audience while an urchin pulls his chair to the front row and Nur sinks to it. Deven stays there to
save the poet from any fresh humiliation at the hands of his wife. It is then Deven makes his
presence felt by telling Nur that he has received his message through Murad. Nur tries to
recollect Devens face and asks him whether Murad is also coming. He wants everyone to listen
to Imtiaz Begum Poems. But Imtiaz Begum waits till her accompanists have had their fill of
drinks and are ready to perform. Meanwhile Nur keeps shifting uneasily in his chair waiting for
the soiree to begin. Deven wonders how the woman has become so important that her birthday
should be celebrated in such a brand manner while a great poet like Nur languishes in the
background, ignored and uncelebrated.
Deven finds that she is not worth listening to and he has not come to listen to her. Imtiaz
Begum performs like a trained monkey; she seems to have picked up the tricks from the best
teacher in the world. Her recitation is a rehash of Nurs poetry, yet the audience applauds her.
Imtiaz Begums voice is nasal and grating, often on the verge of cracking. She presents the image
of a bird in a cage; she longs for flights as her lover waits for her; the bars that hold her and cruel
and unjust; her wings have been hurt by beating against them and only God could come and
release her by lifting the latch on the cage door.
Imtiaz Begum pauses and summons some young women from the audience to her side
she is obviously tired. Then she picks up the plainest woman from her entourage to sing. She is
an elderly stick-insect woman who is clothed in brown with her veil tightly drawn across her
forehead and tucked behind her ears to make her look as if she has no hair at all. The thin, stiff
woman obviously feeds Imtiaz Begums vanity that has been chosen as an apt foil by her.
Suddenly Nur heaves himself out of his chair and starts tottering on the two pillars of his
legs as if he were about to fall. Deven scrambles to his feet to support him from behind. Nur is
tired; he wants to lie down and asks Deven to show him his bed. He looks around for help but
since no help is forth coming, both of them stagger down the veranda with their arms around
each other till some young men come to their rescue. Together, they shove the old man,
creaking and complaining, all the way upstairs to the room on the terrace. They lower Nur on
his bed with great difficulty and the servant boy runs to fill his glass of liquor as the poet
collapses on the bed as a dead weight. Deven tries to avoid the sight of the poet drinking by
keeping his head lowered, as he done on his first days.
In between his drinks Nur holds forth on the futility of celebrating birthdays and laughs
sadly. He fries to defend his wifes outrageous behavior by telling Deven that Imtiaz Begum was
not always like this. When she first came to his house, she would quietly sit in a corner. She used
to write verse secretly but would not show it to him. She only wanted to listen to him and learn
from him. But his followers ignored her and she was used to attention as a former dancing girl.
So he adopted this gimmick of reciting her verse in public.
As Nur is saying this, the concert below seems to have reached its claims, loud with the
accompaniment of drums and harmonium. This is what Imtiaz begum always wanted and she
found the right setting in Nurs house. Gradually she overtook and overpowered the great poet
his audience, his friends. He tries to interrupt the poet by saying that Murad has sent him there to
take down something that Nur might dicate to him.
While Deven is still on his knees, ready to take down any nuggets that the poet might
want him to transcribe, Imtiaz Begum bursts into the room, her face ravaged, lipstick and kohl
smeared from the corners of her eyes to the corners of her mouth, her hair escaping in small
bunches from under the veil on her shoulders, and her long fingers clutching at her fluttering,
metallic garments as if to rip them. She is exhausted and furious. Nur cringes at the sight.
Deven is paralyzed as Imtiaz Begum lashes out at her old husband and taunts him.
Imtiaz Begum is speaking in such a high-pitched voice that Deven fears it may shatter
soon. He lifts his hand to his ears before the walls crack and the roof falls upon them. But just
then another woman enters the room to his and the poets rescue. She is Nurs first wife, an old
creature wrapped in a brown cloak, her white hair combed about the sides of her face. The face
is commanding, so straight in its lines, so military in its firmness. In a level voice, she orders
Imtiaz Begum to get out while Ali sniggers in a corner of the room.
Run away from here, bitch-and leave the old man alone. What more do you want from
him? You have taken his name and his reputation and today even his admires. Be
satisfied. Leave him and go down, go dance before the public since that is
your manner of
Imtiaz Begum is intimidated. She leaps at the older woman while the poor old poet is
lying in a heap before them. In case they start fighting, Deven would have to save the poet from
their onslaught. Being unable to do so, he scrambles to his feet, turns and runs away. Murad
again influences and argues to go to Nur with some bravery and interview him for the next issue
of his journal. Deven is tricked at Nurs house where he finds the arrangements of a soiree being
made to celebrate the birthday of his second wife, Imtiaz Begum. Deven in the birthday party,
finds no reason for Imtiaz Begums stagy rehearsal of melodramatic and third rate verses when
the great Urdu poet sits quietly ignored and unnoticed.
Nur and Deven leave the program halfway and secretly retire to a room, where the poem
describes to Deven how Imtiaz Begum has tricked him of his belongings and all other things that
he possessed, even his audience. But Deven speaks about the interview which is urgently
required. Nur agrees to help but the two wives enter the scene and fight with each other.
Deven has to flee away once more. Due to the shortage of time, Murad advises Deven to
take the help of a tape-recorder. He is surprised how quickly the register sanctions the tape
recorder that he so urgently needs. He is asked to see Rai by Siddiqui in this connection and his
dream is now near frustration. Now he will be able to record Nurs memoirs and poetry. When he
meets Rai later in the day, he is asked to invite tenders for this audio-visual aid for the
language department. He knows that the magical name of Nur has brought this about.
It was not Nurs name that was bringing about this transformation (in his life), it was his
genius, his art. And Deven now had the wherewithal to capture and preserve that art that
verse, for posterity. He had been allotted a role in life. (IC 77)
Deven is ecstatic; he murmurs a verse of Nur to himself as he prepares to go Delhi and
seek Murads help in procuring that tape recorder. Murad takes him to an electronic shop. He
appears to be familiar with the owner, Mr. Jain, calculating him that the money sanctioned is just
enough to buy the cheapest model and he cannot get anything worse than that. He cannot get
fancy goods without paying fancy prices, Deven is told by the shop keeper. Murad does not
want to go to any other shop; he insists that he has talked over Devens requirements with Mr.
Jain and that he would get the best bargain there. Mr. Sidddiqui, a loveable and kind Urdu
lecturer in Devens college, helps him to get a tape-recorder by arranging funds from college.
Murad helps him to buy a second-hand tape-recorder.
Since Deven knows nothing about electronics, a technician, Chiku is also there to assist
him in the work of recording. After arranging tape, Deven reaches Nurs house to fix the date and
time for interview. When he arrives there he finds that Nurs second wife, Imtiaz Begum
suddenly falls ill since the night of her birthday celebrations. The poet is not in a position to be
interviewed. Deven informs the idea of recording everything on the tape. Nur is annoyed at the
idea of having his poems recorded because he contemplates the act below his grandeur. Imtiaz
Begum also rejects the plan of Deven.
Later on he is enticed by Safia Begum, Nurs first wife to her room. She agrees to send
Nur through the back door of her room for interview. Deven gives the consent and tells her that
he will inform her of the date and time of the interview. But she demands some money. This new
demand of money shocks him and he thinks of giving up the project.
Devens repeated failure in his bold attempt leads him to a mood of tension and despair.
At this time, his wife Sarlas irony regarding his interview at Delhi pinches him more. Once
again Nur invites him to copy the poets new cycle of thirty-six couplets. But he is conscious that
he cannot interview him unless he pays money to Safiya Begum. It is again Abid Siddiqiui, who
rescues Deven from his financial crisis. Deven goes to Delhi in the hope of having a fresh
interview with Nur. Deven goes to Safia Begum and pays her the money for earnest enquiry by
her. She directs him to the place where she already hired a room for conducting interview.
While Deven and Chiku wait for Nur, Deven is discouraged to find the same rabble that
surrounded him every night on the terrace. It adds to Devens suffering when Nur starts talking
of food and dinner instead of reciting his poetry. Deven feels fully gratified when the long hours
of drinking takes place, here and there with certain period of stillness during which Nur rehearses
his verse to an intent audience. But he is provoked to reveal the idiotic Chiku making burgling
with the machine and not making any of it down. Since Chiku does not know what part of Nurs
speech is to be recorded, he tapes all the notes to the point, talks and gossips in which the poet
frequently gratifies. In this strong emotion for Nurs poetry, Deven loses the sense of time. On
the last day of these comical session, Nur bursts into a verse that Deven had never before, that
no one in the room had heard before, that entered into their midst like some visitor from another
element, silencing them all with wonder.
Finding Deven copy down the poem, Nur gets hold of the notebook from him and writes
it himself for him. Deven realizes his exciting emotion and artistic relationship with Nur in these
instants of sudden awareness, and is filled with the glory of sense fulfillment. But at the
aforesaid, the tired Nur realizes that his writing days are over and says;
What I have writing for me six feet of earth in the place for burials by the mosque. And
all one can resume, at my age, is the original sleep. I am going to curl upon my
bed
like a child in its mothers womb and I shall sleep, shall wait for sleep to come.
(IC 115)
And the interview, the meeting, has come to an end. A new spell of miseries begins for
Deven when he listens to the recording done by Chiku. After some original difficulty the tape
begins to play producing confused talks. Deven grows conscious of the failure of the project.
However he sees a ray of hope in Murads proposal that he should take the tapes with him to
Mirpore and give the recording a shape by editing it. Mr. Jain offers him the help of another
nephew, Pintu, who looks even more stupid than Chiku. The abandoned look of the college
reminds him of his long denied and almost forgotten duties. He gets the help from Dhanu, one of
his students, who helped him in editing the tapes. But even then it was not worthwhile to snow
the tape before the college evidences. He again seeks the help of Mr. Siddiqui to escape
punishment but he also censures him for having wasted the college funds. Deven feels separated
and hunted down. In order to overcome his anguish and sense of separation he keeps awake in
the night and evaluates the answer books of the students. Deven is again thrown off his balance
when he finds yet another letter from Nur with a bill for five hundred rupees as room rent.
Feeling vigorous and helpless, Deven goes to Murads office in the hope of making him
pay this bill. But he clearly refuses to prolong any help to him. Murads hardness in his hour of
need intensifies Devens anguish and sense of separation.
Instead of going back to Mirpore, Deven keeps walking without aim and reaches a park
in Delhi at the stately building and the eastern walls of the great Friday Mosque, Deven finds
an answer to his question about the importance of poetic art in the image of the done which he
perceives against the background of the sky and in opposition to the earth. Unexpectedly Deven
recalls Nur and tries to evaluate his genius apart from his pertaining to old age demands and
dishonorable aspects of his life. This evolution of his genius revives his faith in Nurs poetry and
perceives his essential relationship with Nur and is filled with a sense of thankfulness for his
poetry. He also becomes aware of the eternal nature of his relationship with Nur.
He learns that even his death cannot end this relationship because of exciting emotion and
spiritual bond with Nur. The fact is that in the act of inheriting his poetry. Deven becomes the
keeper of Nurs very psyche and spirit. Towards the end of the novel Deven becomes aware of
the true nature of his predicament. He resolves to be in a secluded place for game of the play
legacy of Nur, and gains courage to fight against great misfortune, coming to him.
Doom stares him in the face and there is no release or escape as Deven relives his recent
past. For all that has befallen him, he still has a soft corner of Nur despite the poets senile
demands. He recalls the joy of his being ushered into Nurs presence, the joy of hearing his
voice and listening to him quote poetry, then quoting his lines back to him, binding them together
in a web, an alliance. The experience has been invaluable. This is enough for him to survive.
That friendship still existed, even if there had been a muddle, a misunderstanding. He
had imagined he has taking Nurs poetry into safe custody, and not realized that if
he
was to be the custodian of Nurs genius, then Nur would become his custodian
and place
burden-or else
He thought of Nurs poetry being read, the sound of it softly murmuring in his ears. He
had accepted the gift of Nurs poetry and that meant he was custodian of Nurs very soul and
spirit. It was a great distinction. He could not deny or abandon that under any pressure.
Although there is no end to Devens troubles-as well as Nurs till the poet is laid in his grave.
Deven decides to bravely face all the calamities awaiting him. He would meet the challenges
headlong because of his cherished association with the poet.
According to Salman Rushdie, the beauty of In Custody is that what seems to be a story
of inevitable tragedies. Deven attempt to get this interview being the counterpoint to the more
somber tragedy of Nurs slide towards oblivion turns out to be a tale of triumph over these
tragedies. At the very end Deven, beset by crisis, hounded by Nurs demands for money,
understands that he has become the custodian both of Nurs friendship and of his poetry. Once
Deven has understood this, the calamities of his seem suddenly unimportant. He would run to
meet them, and he does.