Nirad C.Chaudhuri has provoked an emotional reaction, whether it is to the books or the person.

Controversy has surrounded him, and there is no unanimity about the valuation of his work.
Swapan Dasgupta’s Nirad C. Chaudhuri: the First Hundred Years: A Celebration (see Reading
List below) presents fascinating pictures of Chaudhuri’s personality, as seen by eminent writers
and critics like Nabaneeta Dev Sen, Meenakshi Mukherjee, Khushwant Singh md Keki N.
Daruwalla. They comment on his English and Bengali writings, in addition to describing the
man. Among all the critics, it is C.D.Narasimhaiah who has the poorest opinion of Chaudhuri’s
autobiography.

He finds absolutely nothing praiseworthy in it. He has compared Nehru’s autography with
Chaudhuri’s, and believes that they demonstrate “two kinds of Indian writing: one pulsating with
human warmth. the other abstract, ponderous and dully academic; one meant for Indians, another
for an English-speaking world abroad (Narasimhaiah. 1995, y.64). According to him,
“Chaudhuri’s writing betrays an immaturity that one would not normally associate with a person
of his age” (p.65). Illustrating with quotations from Unknown Indian. He condemns the
“attitudinizing” and “looseness of thinking” of the book. and says that Chaudhuri “misses no
chance to magnify things that have any relation to him whether it is the house he lived in, his
mode of living, the fairs he visited, the festivals he celebrated, the books and paintings he owned
and admired and the tastes he cultivated.

Compare and contrast the autobiographies of

Nehru and Chau
by Team Guffo · January 24, 2018
2 minutes

Snobbery is writ large 011 every page” (p.67). Narasimhaiah challenges Chaudhuri’s admirers
“to produce from the autobiography any well-remembered chapter, section, or even a few pages
of continuous writing which can be called distinguished prose” p.68). He points out that none of
the people described are memorable, “They are not individualized, or they have nothing of
interest to other human beings” (69). However, C.D.Narasimhaiah praises Chaudhuri’s later
work: “Mr Chaudhuri has made ample amends for his poor and irresponsible writing by
contributing an excellent work of scholarship in his recent book on Max Muller. Scholar
Extraordinary” (p .7O)

Scholar Extraordinary seems to be the one book which has won the approval of almost all the
critics. Nissim Ezekiel gave it a very favourable review, saying:

His book is certainly a full and detailed portrait of the subject along with its social and
cultural background. I cannot imagine any criticism, however valid, of specific insights or
even of the treatment in general undermining the worth of this biography as a whole.
Chaudhuri’s admiration for Muller. which he declares without reservations, leads him to
defend Muller against all detractors. But he defends persuasively, and always with a fair
statement of their position. This means that at times one may disagree with Chaudhuri and
still not feel that he is unduly partisan. (Selected Prose. p 154)

The most common charge against Chaudhuri is that he is partisan; he has already made up his
mind which side he is on, and does not present alternative view points. But this is not true in the
case of his biography of Max Miiller. Perhaps because he found the topic so appealing, or maybe
the congenial environment of Oxford Nirad C. Chaudhuri university where he wrote it, make this
the most scholarly and least polemical of his works . However, Scholar Extraordinary contains a
few wild generalizations, and a “number of statements about Victorian love and sex which are
very unsatisfactory, besides contradicting one another” (Ezekiel, pp. 156-57). Ezekiel quote three
of these statements, and comments.

I suspect that it is not Chaudhuri the scholar who wrote these reckless sentences but the
other Chaudhuri, the man of tall prejudices, whose selfpitying moralism taints so much of
his intellectual output. I must add that this other Chaudhuri is not conspicuous in the
biography of Miiller. (p. 157

Sudesh Mishra has written in detail about this interesting aspect of Chaudhuri’s writing, that
there are two Chaudhuris, “Historical Witness and Pseudo-Historian”. “The former Chaudhuri
operates largely as a chronicler recording incidents and events to which he has borne personal
witness” (p.8). The second Chaudhuri “evaluates history biologically, psycho-culturally, racially,
philosophically and idiosyncratically by postulating his personal dilemmas as representative of
the Indian people’s collective predicament, and in particular of the Hindus” Up.7-8). His neutral
approach is evident in his descriptions of Kishorganj (Unknown Indian pp.27-28), or the account
of his mother’s village (pp.93-95), while the pseudo-historian’s approach is evident in his
comments about the debilitating effects of the Indian terrain and climate (p.57, p.514). This
thesis is developed fully in The Conhnent of Circe, which shows his weakness as a historian. He
tries to bend facts to suit his theory, and has no qualms about leaving out any facts that do not fit
his theory — the Indus Valley civilization and the Dravidian culture of South India are
completely ignored.

Paul Verghese expresses the views of a majority of critics when he writes, “The main weakness
of The Continent of Circe stems from the fact that the pseudo-sociologist in Chaudhuri
conceived a theory about the Hindus and the aboriginals of India and the historian in him started
looking for facts and when he did not find them, he depended on pseudo-history” (Verghese,
1973, p. 1 15). Verghese finds something likeable in Chaudhuri’s quality of holding convictions
whole-heartedly, and feels that in later works like To Live or Not to Live Chaudhuri “is sharing
with us his mature wisdom and knowledge of life.” He concludes that self-contradiction is
Chaudhuri’s chief characteristic: “for Chaudhuri is an Indian who is anti-Indian, an Anglicized
Hindu who is critical of other Anglicized Hindus, an Indian writer in English who sees no virtue
in Indian novels in English, a historian who believes in objectivity, but leans heavily on
subjective dogmas, a radical nonconformist who supports the caste system, and cow worship, . .
.” (1 16).
summary-

Chaudhuri was intellectually active till the very end, and very proud of this fact. As
he writes in the preface to Three Horsemen of the New Apocalypse, his last book:

The very first thing I have to tell those who will be reading this book is that it
is being written by a man in his ninety-ninth year. I have never read or heard
of any author, however great or productive in his heyday, doing that.

He goes on to declare:

I have never allowed my likes or dislikes, my predilections and

prepossessions to influence my presentation of subjects. I have, so to speak,
tried to keep the lens of my mind free from chromatic aberrations.

He thinks of himself as a “medium or amanuensis for the self-revelation of the subjects I deal
with. . . . Yet whatever my own view of my vocation, readers in India have always attributed
dogmatism, eccentricity and even arrogance to me.” It is true that Indian critics have always
accused him of being dogmatic, and a confirmed lover of the Empire. But his actual experience
of Britain disappointed him. Krishna Bose, daughter of Chaudhuri’s brother, knew him quite
well. (She refers to him as “Mejo Kaka” with love and respect.) She presents a fair evaluation of
her uncle’s reaction to Britain:

Mejokaka had admired an imagimy Great Britain from afar and was bitterly disappointed
on actually experiencing life in Britain since the 1870’s. He then began to suffer from the
illusion that the Britain of his dream must have existed at some time in the past. He lives
mentally in Jane Austen’s age. Hence his eccentricities, such as dressing up in period
costume, which embarrasses his relatives and is considered bizarre by the contemporary
British. He would doubtless have been happier to celebrate his hundredth birthday in the
year of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria’s reign than on the occasion of the fiftieth
anniversary of Indian independence. (The First Hundred Years, p. 12)

Nirad C. Chaudhuri is one of the few Indian English writers who have used the language for non-
fictional purposes alone — earlier writers like Vivekanand, Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru have
been orators, who made speeches because they were social reformers and statesmen; later writers
like Vikram Seth and Amitav Ghosh have written fiction and poetry. Almost all of his ten books
have received critical attention and sometimes substantial praise. His biography of Mas Miiller
won the Sahitya Akademi Award, and has become the standard work. The Continent of Circe
won the Duff Cooper literary award. His life of Robert Clive is quite provocative. We may not
agree with his basic philosophy of preferring a dead empire to the lively chaos of modern India,
but his books cannot be ignored by any serious student of Indian culture and literature.
Write a critical note on the plot construction
in Untouchable
by Team Guffo · January 24, 2018
2 minutes

Untouchable has no story interest; it is just an impassioned plea for a social cause. And it is this
singleness of purpose i.e. exposing the evil of untouchability and analysing its various aspects-
social, moral, psychological, religion-based, etc.-that provides structural unity to the plot. The
plot of Untouchable can, unmistakably be hailed as one of the most compact and coherent plots
in Indian English fiction. This view finds confirmation in the fact that getting convinced of the
advice of Mahatma Gandhi, Anand reduced the size of his manuscript to almost half of the
original, keeping out extraneous details. In his well-known essay On the Genesis of Untouchable,
Anand observes:

In retrospect, I feel that, under the tutelage of the Mahatma, who did not pretend to be an artist, I
was able to exorcise all those self-conscious literary elements which I had woven into the
narrative in anticipation of what the critics might approve. He thought that the paragraphs of
high-sounding words, in which I had tried to unite the miscellaneous elements, in what was
essentially a walk through the small town of my hero, must go. Also. the old man suggested the
removal of my deliberate attempts at melodramatic contrasts of the comic and tragic motifs,
through which the spontaneous feelings, moods and lurking chaos in the soul of Bakha,’had been
somewhat suppressed.

And the Mahatma asked for the deflation of those clever tricks, which had made the expression
of concrete detail into a deliberate effort at style.

Out of two hundred and fifty pages, hundred and fifty were left.

Observing the three Aristotelian unities, though unconsciously, the novel records a day’s events
in Bakha’s life which serve as a mirror to 4he pathetic condition of the untouchables who form
the lower stratum of society in the caste-ridden orthodox Hindu society, especially in the pre-
Partition times.

The novel begins with an autumn morning in Bakha’s life. He is in bed, half-awake. “covered by
a worn-out greasy blanket, on a faded blue carpet which was Spread on the floor, in a corner of
the cave-like, dingy, dark, one-roomed mud-house.” (U, p. 10) It is so early that the sun has not
risen.

Bakha is the son of Lakha, the ‘Jernadarhf all the sweepers in the town and the cantonment. His
chief duty is to keep the three rows of pubilc latrines clean These latrines are used by men from
both the town and the cantonment Bakha has for sometime worked in the barracks of a British
regiment. He had looked at the Tommies, with wonder and amazement when he first went to live
at the British regimental barracks with his uncle. He had had glimpses, during his sojourn there
of the life the Tommies lived: sleeping on low canvas beds covered tightly with blankets; eating
eggs, drinking tea and wine in tin mugs; going to parade and then walking down to the bazaar
with cigarettes in their mouths and small silver mounted canes in their hands. And he had soon
become obsessed with an overwhelming desire 4 to live their life. He knew they were white
sahibs. So he tried to copy them as much as he could in the exigencies of his peculiarly Indian
circumstances. His father had been angry at his extravagance, and the boys of the outc3s~:s’
colony teased him on account of his eccentric dresses and called him ‘Pilpali sahib’. And he
knew, of course, that except for his English clothes, there was nothing English in his life.

As he is still lying in his bed, Bakha hears his father’s stem and authoritative call, “Get up, ohe
you Bakhya, ohe son of a pig!” (U, p. 13) He is angered at the abuse as he is already feeling
depressed that morning. His father’s abuses create a growing dislike in his heart for the short-
tempered, sickly old ~m. But he has fond memories of his mother and thinks of the days when
she was alive. She showed him all the affection that warmed his heart. She used to give him a
brass tankard full of a boiling hot mixture of water, tea-leaves and milk from the steaming
earthen saucepan. It was so delightful, the taste of that hot, sugary liquid, that Bakha’s mouth
watered for it or the night before the morning on which he had to drink it.

Though his job is dirty, Bakha remains comparatively clean. Ile looks intelligent, even sensitive,
with a sort of dignity that does not belong to the ordinary scavenger, who as a rule is uncouth and
unclean. The Havildar is thoroughly impressed by Bakha’s quickness and efficiency in doing his
job: “You are becoming a ‘genterman’, ohe Bakhya!” (U, p. 17) With a grin which symholises
two thousand years of racial and caste superiority, he asks Bakha to see him that after no or^ and
take the gift of a hockey stick from him.

The plot of Untouchable, though linear in form and simple in content, is perhaps one of the best
experimental plots in the elementary stage of Indian novel in English. The use of the narrative
techniques of stream-of-consciousness, flashback, reverie, interior monologue etc. and confining
the action to less than twenty-four hours in the life of its hero Bakha makes it one of the most
well-structured plots. The single-purpose theme of untouchability, being defined and analysed
from different viewpoints and in all its complexity, provides it the much-desired coherence as is
clear from Anand’s observation in his essay on On the Genesis of Untouchable.

hd wanted to create the plot, characters and milieu of his novels on the sound base of ‘social,
political, cultural, realities.’ Being the son of a clerk in the army, he had the knowledge of lived
experiences of life in the British Indian cantonments and he creates a strong segment in Bakha’s
life in his attempts to copy the Tommies by acquiring the sola topi, trousers, blanket and the
hockey stick. The novelist had also gone through the ‘misery, pain and humiliation in the lives of
the outcastes as the loyalty of their family to the Ismaili Aga Khan faith made them a sort of
‘untouchables’ in the eyes of most of the orthodox Hindu brotherhood. Therefore, the pity for
Bakha is aroused not so much from ‘sympathy’ but from ‘understanding’ of the degradation of
outcastes, from sharing their pains, humiliations and inner aspirations. By maintaining ‘distance’
and ‘objectivity’, he was able to make his pass-ion turn into compassion.
How important is the family in Dattani’s
plays? Answer with special re
Team Guffo
2-3 minutes

Dattani’s is not a world of simple dichotomies. There is a great deal of conflict in relationships
and no one is willing to be an easy victim. In this world of patriarchy, women emerge as pretty
strong characters. The home is a battlefield with uneasy (and perhaps disastrous) alliances being
forged by various parties and everyone fights as many of the others as possible for individual
turf. In Dattani’s world the socialisation process initiated in the family unit has as its aim the
stunted growth of a bonsai tree. The family is there to stifle all natural instincts and inclinations,
to suppress and oppress, and to curb freedom and growth. All we can produce are ugly dwarves.

The play is obviously also about the complications of family life, the facade of middle class
morality and commitment to family values. What is the morality that the Patel family has
practised? If the decision to give the leg to Chandan was taken by Bharati and her father, Patel
had kept quiet because of Bharati’s father’s social status, as also because he had no clear-cut
view to the contrary. His family has cut them off because of their inter-caste, inter-regional
marriage. Hence, they are dependent on Bharati’s father for both monetary and moral support.
This in turn has led to a power structure within the family where Bharati and her father take the
important decisions. Thus we see the couple bickering after the death of Bharati’s father and
after Bhawti has felt the full force of her guilt in taking the decision about Tara. Having
sacrificed Tara’s leg, Bharati has had to struggle to construct her maternal love and concern for
her daughter, to assert her moral superiority over her husband, to carve out her space in the-
family. Her final act of donating her kidney to Tara is an act of expiation, even if ultimately
futile. What we see is that love itself is an instrument, not an end or a state of being. Bharati uses
her love for Tara as a weapon against Patel, as well as an expression of her desire to compensate
Tara. This should remind you of Jiten and his mother, Baa, in Bravely Fought the Queen, and
their frequently expressed love for Daksha, Jiten’s daughter, who had received grievous injury
when in the womb because Baa had instigated Jiten to violence against his pregnant wife. Can
parental love be taken for granted? Can any love be taken for granted as a natural given? Can
family relationships be assumed to be protective and loving and caring? Isn’t any and every
relationship actually a site for conflict? And isn’t this a conflict for control and power? Most of
these conflicts are hidden from the world and a facade of decorum and contentment is
maintained. What all this puts in jeopardy quietly but completely is chances for individual
growth and fulfilment.

The revelation of the skeleton in the cupboard is the typical action of a Dattani play. Here the
skeleton points towards the gender issue. The action leads inexorably towards the revelation, and
we see characters struggling to meet the imminent moment of crisis. Dattani doesn’t seem so
much concerned with characters per se as with the process of revelation, the unearthing of
secrets, the unmasking of the supportive family. Individuals cannot exist in a vacuum, cannot
escape the consequences of societal dictates and familial choices. Dattani is not interested in the
angst of characters, in their tragedies. This play is not Chandan’s tragedy, nor is it really Tara’s.
There is tragic action in his plays, but that tragic action belongs to every day life. His is not the
drama of heroes. Dattani’s world and Dattani’s characters constitute the normal middle class
urban India.

What I haven’t mentioned so far, and you must be wondering why, is that the play deals with
disability and its consequences. At the surface level, the play seems to be about this in the
beginning. The impact of the children’s disability on the family and their own lives seems to be
at the heart of the play. The problems others have accepting them for what they are – fun-loving,
wisecracking growing children – and hence their struggle for acceptance and the levels of
frustration that this brings on seems to be part of the central action of the play.

The strain on the parents anddfie {effect this has on their marriage seems to complete the picture.
That the family has gone through tough times seems obvious and they seem to be reeling under
the continuing strain. However, the play has other paths to traverse. But this does remain a major
concern in the play, and Roopa’s interaction with them is a thread that runs right through the play
and is emblematic of how society receives them. Towards the end of the play, the last time we
see Roopa, she is shown taunting them, calling them freaks and holding up a poster saying “We
don’t want freaks.” We have a special ability to make various people unwanted, be it in terms of
their religion or case or community or different abilities.

In this novel we have looked closely at the text of Tara, and discussed the various
themes that inform the play. Tara is about disability and all that it causes in a certain social environment,
it is about patriarchy, gender hierarchy and gender identity, about power play within the family, about
middle-class morality, about the social role of medicine, about normality, about the pressures of the
past, about sexuality, about youth and the imperfect world.

Critically analyse the poem Enterprise. What

are the religious implicat
by Team Guffo · January 25, 2018
2 minutes

The enterprise poem of thirty lines in six stanzas of five lines each is from The Unfnished Man.
The dominant pattern is an iambic tetrameter, with the rhyme scheme of abaab. It shows at once
Nissim’s commitment to certain poetic values–regularity, orderliness of form, clarity of thought,
and precision of diction. Reminiscent of Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi,” this poem is about the
inevitable disillusionment which greets the conchsion of any grand enterprise. Some lines like
“what the thunder meant,” as well as several phrases, allude to Eliot’s Wasteland.

The interpretation of the poem hinges on the meaning of “enterprise.” What enterprise is being
referred to in the poem? It seems to me that the word has a vast symbolic potential. It could refer
to something as broad as the independence of India or it could even be a critique of romantic
idealism. There is a gradual progression of moods in the poem, from hope, almost to despair at
the end, but what gives the poem both coherence and strength is the detached realism of the
speaker’s voice. As the observer, witness, and narrator, he retains a grim commitment to the truth
of the moment, never letting himself slide into rage or self-pity.

The poem is also a rewriting of the ancient Biblical story of the Exodus. In this poem, too, the
journey is to a promised land across deserts, but after all the travails and hardships, isn’t all that
fulfilling at the end. Indeed, a question mark is placed on the very value of such ventures. The
poet concludes: “Home is where we have to earn our grace.” This longer line has a lot of
narrative weight in it, coming as it does at the very conclusion of the poem. The attitude that the
poet encourages, then, may be called “stay at home “-remain where you are and all things will
come to you. No need to embark upon ambitious enterprises. So the poem also criticises all those
who, like the great imperialists and colonialists, sought their fortunes upon distant shores. Or
else, this is an interrogation of all grand narratives with their false promises.

Like other modem poems, there is a certain lack of clarity regarding the “plot” of the poem. Who
are these people? Where are they going? What is their goal? Such questions are not answered
precisely but enough information is provided to give us a sense of what they are about. It would
be a good idea to make a careful inventory of all the information that is offered in the poem.
How is this information continued? What sort of gaps exist? How do these gaps enhance the
richness of the text? As a modem poem, “Enterprise” offers rich dividends to the sort of close
reading that New Critics recommend.

Myth in Midnight’s Children, Complete

summary of midnight's children
Team Guffo
2 minutes

by · Published January 25, 2018 · Updated January 25, 2018

Myth in Midnight’s Children – Rushdie is brutal in his attack through his exaggerated portrayal
and caricature of Methwold. He not only exposes the myth of the so-called superiority of the
British, but also the colonia games that the British had played specially since Macaulay’s time to
create Indians who were English in spirit and mental dependants on the British. It is too big a
price to buy a house to live in but as Rushdie shows it was the price that the country paid for
getting its freedom. The Estate symbolizes India, earlier possessed by the British, now being
handed over to Indian owners (rulers), intact with the colonizers political and economic systems.

By now Rushdie’s readers are familiar with his carefree manner, which spares no one. At the
time of the novel’s publication, however, his particular brand of

Myth in Midnight’s Children, Complete

summary of midnight's children
Team Guffo
2-3 minutes

by · Published January 25, 2018 · Updated January 25, 2018

irreverence irked many, particularly those who hold tradition in great awe. Rushdie’s allusion to
Hindu myths became a serious point of debate. Could a Muslim draw on Hindu tradition? If he
did, wasn’t it his moral duty to educate himself and use them accurately? What is the difference
in the use of myth and tradition by the earlier generation of writers and Rushdie and his children?
For example, as Viney Kirpal has pointed out, Raja Rao’s Kanthapura’s uses the language of
myth and folktale to write a modem day sthalapurana or place legend the way there is a place
legend about Ayodhya, the birthplace of ram..

Writers of Raja Rao’s generation share the mythic consciousness that Professor C D
Narasimhaiah saw as characteristic of India -habit of perceiving the presentness in the light of
the past. As mythological archetypes have a “meaningful presence” in Indian social life, the
novel might rightfully be structured around a well know myth. Writers such as Rao could
structure Kanthapura around the Ramayana myth with Sita (India) being rescued from Ravana
(The British) by Rama (Moorthy). They could do so because the Ram Sita Ravana myth was a
living presence in Indian society. It helped Rushdie to explain the natural freedom movement in
the light of the ancient past which has great meaning for the people in India.

However, writers of Rushdie’s generation have adopted a parodic stance towards their mythic
material, perhaps for the reasons I have discussed above. It is not possible for Rushdie, like
Saleema Sinai, to participate in the “myth-laden universe” without hesitation. Rushdie’s
irreverent use of myth has earned him the reputation of a trickster. Something of an imposter. Do
you agree? Actually, he is not.

But !et us here examine his use of the Ganeshs myth and see for ourselves. As we found out
earlier, the howler about Ganesha was Saleem’s not Rushdie’s and was intended to deflate
Saleem’s belief in his erudition. Saleem uses other Indian allusions with the same rebellious
careless nonchalance. His play on Padma’s name, for instance irritates her. For he chooses to
interpret her name nod though its mythological associations but through its everyday,
scatological meaning. The central myth holding the novel together is the myth of Shiva. Rushdie
evokes Shiva in his destructive avatar, born to banish evil from the world.

In, Rushdie’s novel, Shiva gradually evolves into an evil force whose sole motive is to destroy
the hero Saleem for robbing him of his real parents. Only through some far fetched association
can one link Shiva’s actions as revenge for the evils of emergency. Rushdie reinterprets the
Shiva myth like all others as it suits him: eternally playing on the meaning of words; referring to
the original association of the myth; and turning it upside down

by · Published January 25, 2018 · Updated January 25, 2018

This has a nagging connection to postmodern irony and play. Salman Rushdie has become the
darling of the post moderns for his playful treatment of all he touches. And the bete noire of the
postcolonials for the same reason. Rushdie has protested against the uniqueness of “Indianness”
in terms of tradition in “Commonwealth Literature Does Not Exist”. He felt that to describe a
work as authentic or inauthentic in relation to its faithfulness to Indian tradition was to succumb
do an essentialist definition.

But more important, Rushdie’s treatment of myth in Midnight’s Children questions the realism
premise of fiction. Is fiction bound by the rules of accuracy as life? What is the relationship
between fiction and fact? As Linda Hutcheon has pointed out parody need not necessarily rule
out affection. The postmodern writer cannot participate in the world of tradition in an unqualified
manner. He needs the distancing of parody. Yet the objective might not be to mock at tradition.
Like Kirpal puts it, he can destabilize tradition to reinstall it. It is not fair at Rushdie should be
singled out for his ironic attitude, Therefore, the writers that follow have also adopted the same
route. Look at Shashi Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel where he subjects the Mahabharata
myth to the same ironic treatment.

Narrative techniques in The only American

from Our Village.- Dr.Khanna
by Team Guffo · January 26, 2018
1-2 minutes

The only American from Our Village is included in Contemporary Indian. In this story Arun
Joshi brings about the predicament of a diaspora and his subsequent mental agony. Dr.Khanna,
the most outstanding immigrant physicist at the University of Wisconsin (the finest of all
physicists, immigrant or native in his own opinion) decides to visit India with wife Joanne and
two sons, fifteen years after he had left it (for higher studies and other prospects presumably).
The four-week trip was a success by all accounts. His fame had preceded him. He was received
by an official of the Council of Scientific Research, addressed a conference on Inter-planetary
Radiation, inaugurated three well-attended seminars, ‘met the President and the Prime-Minister
and was offered many jobs, each of which he politely declined.

His wife and children were worshipped by his relatives whom they had never met before. In the
typical tourist style they had brought for them Gilette razors, pop- , records and lots of one-dollar
neck-ties. Gifts brought by way of a ritual, a formality. Inexpensive gifts. What else do you bring
for people you have not met before and are not going to meet again, in all likelihood. And in the
true Indian style the razors were greatly prized, by the women who saved them for their teenaged
sons. Anything with a foreign label is a prized possession for the majority of us.

In the typical tourist style Mrs. Khanna and the children went off on a sight-seeing tour towards
the end of their trip and Dr. Khanna delivered his final talk at a college in his former hometown.
A perfect finale to a perfect trip, one would think. But this is where the anti-climax comes in the
form of Mr. Radlley Mohan, an ashtamp farosh (seller of court paper in front of District Courts)
who knew Dr. Khanna’s father. He insists on talking to Dr.Khanna despite the embarassed
Principal’s unsuccessful intervention because he has come here only to meet him. In the course
of his long monologue he tells Dr.Khanna how much his father longed to go to America to spend
time with his son and what a tragic end he brought upon himself once forced into sad realisation
that his eminent son could spare no time or emotion even for his ailing father.

Radhey Mohan, the narrator, forces a complacent and smug Dr.Khanna to hear of his father’s
woes and travails. And thereby fills him with remorse and repentance. Can he be seen as his
father’s alter ego? Some trick of the old man, a slant of the lips, a glint in the eye, the accent —
all these reminded him of his father and made him uncomfortable. Had he been alive today,
Kundan Lal too might have worn a greasy jacket with eyes heavy with cataract, with no one to
look after him ‘And during the course of their conversation Dr.Khanna had the unreasonable
feeling that the old man was going to slap him (as his own father might have).

The only native word used in the story is ashtarnp farosh and it is used 16 times to reinforce the
native sensitivity and sensibility of both Radhey Mohan and Kundan Lal. Contrasted with this is
Dr.Khanna whose training in the new civilization had been perfect. Is Radhey Mohan the
troubled spirit of Dr.Khanna’s father who couldn’t rest in peace even after death till he had met
and talked to his son on his own soil?

Does the father win in the end by making Dr.Khanna realize the futility and hollowness of his
whole life? The Foreigner vividly depicts the cultures of Boston and New Delhi. In The strange
case of Billy Biswas the scene shifts from New Delhi to the Satpura hills in Madhya Pradesh, the
two geographic locations representing two different cultures -the sophisticated and the primitive.
Here Kundan Lal and Dr.Khanna embody two different approaches to life and relationships.

Unlike the two stories of R.K.Narayan which end on a happy note with a final resolution of the
tension built earlier, this story is open-ended. Dr.Khanna keeps staring at his feet and complains
of burning sensation there. Like his father he too seems to have lost his mental balance. At least
temporarily. Will he regain his sanity? Will he return to his research and earn more laurels?
The importance of Hindi Swaraj -Gandhi
Mythology Guffo.in
by Team Guffo · January 26, 2018
2 minutes

Gandhi believed in simple living, and all his life tried to live the life of the ordinary people. But
an impressive image of Gandhi is projected in Kanthapyra, when he is spoken .of in the same
breath as some of the gods of the Hindu Pantheon. Jayaramachar, the Harikatha man comes to
Kanthpura and tells a new kind of tale in which he mingles Hindu mythology with contemporary
politics. He compares Gandhi to Lord Siva when he says, Siva is the three – eyed, and Swaraj
too is three – eyed : Self – purification, Hiildu – Muslim unity, Khaddar.’ Mohan being one of
the names of Krishna, Gandhi’s full name, Mohandas Karamchand , gives Jayaramachar the idea
of paralleling his achievement to that of Krishna.

Just as the .god as a young boy slays the serpent Kali, we are told that Gandhi goes from village
to village slaying the serpent of foreign rule. Again, just as Krishna teaches Arjuna the wisdom
of how to be a true man of action. Gandhi teaches Moorthy how to be a true satyagrahi. Since
Gandhi interpreted self-rule a’s an ideal form of govemment in the manner of Ralna – rajya.

The Gandhi myth is finally expressed in these terms in Kanthapura :

They say Mahatma will go to the Red-man’s country

and he will get us Swaraj. He will bring us Swaraj,
the Mahatma. And we shall all be happy. And Rama
will come back from exile, and Sita will be with
him, for Ravna will be slain and Sita freed, and
he will come back with Sita on his right in a
chariot of air, and brother Bharatha will go to
meet them with the worshipped sandal of the
Master on his head. And as they enter Ayodhya
there will be a rain of flowers. (257)

In Kanthapura, Raja Rao achieves a fusion of theme, form and narration. He superimposes the
Indian tradition of romance over the Western form of the novel. Kanthapura is structured as a
sthalapurana, a legendary history of a particular place. The three strands of action – politics,
society and religion – are woven together to form the fabric of this novel. As elements of his
narrative technique, Raja Rao employs reflection, dream, flash-back, and episodes. He retains the
native Indian style of telling a story in spite of opting for the foreign medium of English. His
digressions help to fill the gaps in the story. The continuous monologue of the narrator is
particularly suited for psychological analysis of characters. Achakka, who tells the story, in her
peculiar flowing style, is a garrulous grandmother of the village, interested in all the happenings,
gossip and inter-relations of characters.
Jayaramachar’s Harikatha about the birth of Gandhi is a special device, through which religion is
mingled with politics. We are told that the Mahatma is going to slay the serpent of foreign rule
just as Krishna killed the serpent Kaliya. Jayaramachar’s Harikatha is an allegory of India’s
freedom struggle. Apart from this, Raja Rao also uses myth and symbolism in Kanthapura.

A significant myth is that of Goddess Kenchamma of the Hill, which is given at the very
beginning of the novel. Gandhi is transformed into a mythical figure in the Harikatha. But the
central myth in Kanthapura is that of equating Gandhi’s slogan of striving after Swaraj with that
of the coming of Ramarajya, the victory of good over evil. And, then, most of the characters in
the novel are projected as symbols, which adds to the significance of their roles in the story.

Alis and Misras (Das neighbours: Ali

by Team Guffo · January 26, 2018
1-2 minutes

Das neighbours: Alis and Misras

Alis (Ali Sahib)-

Hyder Ali, the neighbour and Iandlord of the Das’, is one of the most important minor characters
in the novel. The first mention of him is made in Part I when Bim and Tara recall their
childhood. ‘Tara reminds Bim of the times when Raja arid she played on the banks of the
‘Jumna.” Bim reminisces saying,

and the white horse riding by, Hyder Ali Sahib up on it, high above us and his peon running in
front of him, shouting and his dog behind him, barking?’ She laughed quite excitedly, seeing it
again this half – remembered picture. We stood up to watch them go past and he wouldn’t even
look at US. The won shouted to us to get out of the way. I think Hyder Ali Sahib used to think of
himself as some kind of prince, a Nawab. And Raja loved that

In Part III of the novel mother reference is made ‘o All on his borse on the bank of the “Jumna.”
When Raja and Bim would slowly trudge back home, they would hear the shouts of a man in
khaki uniform:

‘Hato! Hato!’ shouted a man in a khaki uniform and a scarlet turban. and pounded past them OE
urgent heels, making way for a white horse that loomed up out of the dune and floated by with a
dimmed roar of hoof beats on the sand, followed by a slim golden dog with a happen plum of a
tad waving in the purple air. The papas grass bend and parted for this procession and then rustled
silkily upright into place again.
These vignettes of Ali on his horse are significant. Through AIi, Desai shows us the more
aristocratic, decadent form of life in old Delhi in pre-partition times. We are told by Desai that
Ali was “either out on business or in his office room adjoining the library, going through his
letters ;and files with a pair of clerks, for he was the owner of much property in Old Delhi and
this seemed to entail an endless amount of paper . work (P. 48).

Ali has a tremendous impact on Raja. Bim tells us that “Hyder Ali Sahib was always Raja’s
ideal, “(P. 25). Raja’s first actual meeting with Hyder Ali mentioned in Part II of Clear Light of
Day. When Ali hears of Raja’s interest in, Urdu poetry, he invites him to his “substantial library
housed in a curious tower-like protmberance built at one comer of his bungalow” (P. 4i). It Is
through Raja’s visits to the Alis that his interest in Islamic studies is nurtured. His visits also
make him part of their social circle. Most importantly, lie meets Benazir, Ali’s daughter and his
future wife, during one of his library visits to the Ali home.

That Raja is interested in Benazir Is clear from r: flashback conversation between Bim and Raja
in Part II of the novel. Raja, who is bedridden from T.B. tells Bim, “I wish I could go and see
her” (P. 59). in fact, it is after his marriage to Benazir and he inherits Ali’s property, that the final
drift between Eim and him takes place. (For details see Unit 3 note on Raja.) Of course, Ali had
already started having an impact on Raja. This is expressed most dramatically in his abandoning
his family responsibilities and leaving for Hyderahad to be with Ali. (For detail, see Unit 3 note
on Raja).

Details about Raja. ad his family are given to us in Part IV of the navel. He has four eatrg5tcrs
and a son and it is to Raja and Benazir’s daughter. Moyna’s wedding, that Tara and her family
have come to India. In this sense, Ali’s grandchild is the structural reason for the meeting of Rim
and Tara–the two central characters of Clear light of Day. The story in the novel unfolds itself
through their conversations md reminiscences. The HMV gramaphone that Raba constantly plays
also belongs to Benazir.

THE MISRAS

The Misras, like the Alis, are the neighbours of the Dast. But friendship between the two families
was “formal and never close” (P. 136). They are introduced through music in the novel:
“Walking up the Misra’s driveway. They could hear.. . the sounds of the music and dance lessons
that the Misra sisters gave in the evenings after their little nursery school had closed for the day”
(P. 30). The importance of music in the novel is discussed in detail in Unit 4:2 of this workbook.

The Misras contribute to the novel in important ways. The Misra sisters, Jaya ancl Sarla, act as
foils to the Das sisters, Rim and Tm. They are described as. “two greyhaired, spectacled, middle
aged women” (P 30). The Misra sisters are a few years older than the Das girls. They all went to
the same school and would occasionally do their homework together. Yet, “they had always
regarded–or at least Bim had–the Misra girls as too boring to be cultivated” (P 62 j. Tara. unlike
Rim, gets drawn ta the hustle and the bustle of the Misra home. Like her brother. Raja who loved
visiting Hyder Ali’s home, Tara gets happiness from the Misra home. Theirs was a large family
with people in and out of the house:
What attracted Tara was the contrast their home provided to hers. Even externally there were
such obvious differences–at the Misras’ no attempt was made, as at Tara’s house, to ‘keep up
appearances.’ They were so sure of their solid, middle-class bourgeos position that ~t never
occurred to them to prove it or substantiate it by curtains at the windows. Carpets on the floors,
solid pieces of funiture placed at regular intervals, plates that matched each other on the table,
white uniforms for the house servants and other such appurtenances considered indispensable by
Tara’s parents. (P 137)

It is through the Misra sisters and their various visits to the Roshanara Club, that Tara meets
Bakul, her future husband. When she introduces him to Bim for the first time she says, “This is
Bakul.. . . ‘The Misras–the Misras–‘ she stammered, ‘took us to the Roshonara Club. There was
a dance’ (P. 63). Unlike the Das sisters, the Misra sisters are very conservative. They get
engaged and married very early, even before they could go to college for a degree. When Bim
hears from Tara about their future plans, she says “I don’t know why the’re in such a hurry to get
married,. . . why don’t they go to college instead?”(P. 140) Soon afier marriage, Jaya and Sarla
are abandoned by their husbands and they return to live with their old father and brothers who
have also been abandoned by their wives. To earn a living, Jaya and Sarla run a nursery school
by day and teach dance and music to children in the evenings. Through them, Desai portrays yet
another notion of Indian womanhood: women, abandoned and exploited by their own families.
The older Misra tells Bim that in a way she reminds him of his own daughters who selflessly
work for others.