A Suitable Boy Ch I Edited
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Transcript of A Suitable Boy Ch I Edited
Issues of Identity in Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy
Introduction to the Post-Independence Indian Fiction and Vikram Seth
The attainment of independence on 15th August 1947 heralded a new era
of hope, growth and development. During the first twenty-five years of its
independence, the newly emerged Republic was confronted with unexpected and
contradictory experiences. The thrill of joy at the end of a long and horrible
struggle was lost into the tears and pains which emerged suddenly on the face of
the nation owing to the sudden but tragic outburst of communal violence in the
wake of the partition. But later, the problem of the rehabilitation of the large
number of refugees and the merger of the princely states ending the freedom
and luxuries of Maharaja Princes, created big upheavals in the society. The
slogan of abolition of untouchability and equal rights of all classes uttered and
practiced by Gandhiji brought a stormy change in the social status and life
standards of the downtrodden and underprivileged class of society. The age old
caste system come under challenge with the abolition of ‘zamindari’ system,
traditional relation between landowners and landless peasants were over hauled
and re-interpreted the shift in attitude towards woman in the wake of feminist
movement. The conflict between modern scientific growth and traditional rural
values; religious malpractices and superstitions versus scientific progressive
viewpoint shook the modern man.
As a result of these developments, the Indian English novelists of the
Post-Independence period have manifested different trends as compared to their
predecessors. Though the novel retains the momentum it had gained during
Gandhian Age and continues to reflect the pre-independence trends also. Yet
further probes more deeply and comprehensively into the social, political,
economic, religious, cultural and educational milieu of Nehru period. For the time-
being, some Indian English novelists turned away from political issue and
focused their attention on personal problems of the individual or on social themes
of a universal kind.
The novel in India is subjected to certain stock responses. After the advent
of the independence, the more serious novelist has shown how the joy of
freedom has been more than neutralized by the tragedy of the ‘partition’: how
after the establishment of the popular democratic government, the evils and
besetting ill have continued to reign and remain uncured.
The Post-Independence Indian English novelist had to appeal to the
heterogeneous community, people of diverse ethnic-religious and cultural
backgrounds. For this purpose he chose themes and situations that had more or
less the same validity all over the country. These themes emerged to form
recurrent patterns and major trends which were more easily discernible in Post-
Independence Indian society than in that of Pre-Independence India. That is why
the range of novel widened and the various features of Indian society, economic,
political, religious and cultural were exhaustively covered by it. Hence, the Indian
English fiction already well established and growing both in variety and in status
—not only retained the momentum of the Gandhian Age, but also flourished to its
fullness with wider ramifications. The problems like the disintegration of joint
family, and reinterpretation of women’s position in society have been depicted in
the novels of those times..
In the economic sphere, the unjust distribution of wealth, the poverty of
rural classes, the changed relations of landowners and landless peasants, the
impact of industrialization on the life of common man and the hired labourers,
and the changed economic structure of the country after the decay of feudal rule
were some important economic problems. On the political plane, the influence of
Gandhi’s enigmatic personality on the national movement has been nostalgically
treated by the novelist.The more sublime and loftier issue like religion,
asceticism, myths and scriptures, ancient Indian culture and modern education
system got their ample coverage in the novel.
In brief, it can be emphatically stated that the novelists of the Post-
Independence period have succeeded in projecting the growing trends of change
in attitude, outlook and aspirations of a nation committed to ameliorate the lot of
crores of people living below poverty line, subjected to economic constraints and
orthodox social obligations. The curious multi-dimensional historic vicissitude,
Western impact, Marxist obsession, Gandhian enlightenment and the echoes of
industrial advancement form the fabric of most of the great contemporary novels.
These novels have powerfully voiced the dismay and disillusionment, economic
inequalities, class discrimination, social and communal prejudices, political chaos
and religious superstitions and orthodoxical viewpoints that came to govern the
destinies of men and women in every spectrum of existence in the nation reborn
out of the throes of slavery and serfdom. What Walter Allan said about the
contemporary English fiction is also true of Indian English fiction:
Contemporary novels are the mirrors of the age, but a very special
kind of mirror, a mirror that reflects not merely the external features
of the age but also its inner-face, its nervous system, coursing of its
blood and the unconscious prompting and conflicts which sway it.
(Walter Allan, Reading a Novel, 18)
In short, as a new branch of Indian literature, the Post-Independence
Indian fiction is still exploratory in form. The awareness of its possibilities has
enhanced the quest. There has been an increasing output of really literary novels
in the years after independence and more novels have been published in the
sixties than ever before. In this period known as ‘Nehru Age,’ Indian English
novels has planted its roots firmly in the ground. The best of Post-colonial
novelists—perhaps the best novelist of our time—was Patrick White. He is
commonly seen as hostile to modern Australia, but his scorn is really nationalism
frustrated: he is angry with his country for being prosperous, contented and
suburban, when it should be grand and tragic. Salman Rushdie is not so different
in Midnight’s Children, he is cross because India ought to have the attributes of
world power but does not, and in Shame he is furious with Pakistan for not being
India. The novels set in V. S. Naipaul’s native Trinidad are straightforwardly
colonial, yet he too, in a more muted way, has perhaps a streak of Indian
nationalism, to judge from India: A Wounded Civilization which castigates a
country that judged by reasonable standards, has done pretty well in appallingly
difficult conditions. Seth, by contrast, has no axe to grind about India, no thesis to
argue; he simply lays the life of his characters expansively before us through his
novel A Suitable Boy. Even if the creative experiments in this form have not been
widely undertaken, the large bulk of novels demands proper investigation and
interpretation of its various aspects of the contemporary ethos.
The brief but prolific creative odyssey of ‘The Golden Seth’ of
contemporary Indian fiction in English includes collections of poems, tales,
travelogues and translation. Vikram Seth was born in 1952 in Calcutta. His
father worked for the Bata Shoe Company, his mother was a high court judge.
He has a sister Aradhana, a film maker, and a brother Shantum, who studied as
an economist and now conducts Buddhist meditational tours. He attended The
Doon School, often called the “Eton of India” in Dehradun. He completed his “A”
levels at Tonbridge School in Kent, and read Philosophy, Politics and Economics
(PPE) at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He undertook doctoral studies at
Stanford University.
Vikram Seth’s work is characterized by the innovative recuperation of
“unfashionable” and ‘traditional’ forms such as the realist ‘romanfleuve’ and the
novel in verse. Such recuperation goes against the current of cross-pollination
between genres and stylistic experimentalism which characterizes other writers
like Salman Rushdie or Amitav Ghosh, to whom he is often compared.
His major works are From Haven Lake (1983), which is a travelogue
dealing with his travels in Tibet and China; A Humble Administrator’s Garden
(1984), which contains his poems divided in three parts; The Goldern Gate
(1986), which proved to be ‘another’ literary miracle by an Indian writer in English
in 1980 after Rushdie’s Midnight Children. It is the first novel in verse by an
Indian. After a brief lull Vikram Seth produced three other works—All Who Sleep
Tonight, Beastly Tales from Here and There, and Three Chinese Poets,
translation in 1990, 1991 and 1992 respectively.
Seth’s A Suitable Boy (1992), “a saga of modern India” departs from its
preceding counterparts as this ‘purse straining’ and ‘wrist spraining’ novel with an
almost entirely all-India cas, in contrast that of The Golden Gate, weaves tales of
Post-Independence India in its more than 8 lakh words kneaded in 478 sections
of 19 parts in its 1347 pages weighing about fifteen hundred grams. Its principal
thematic preoccupation is quest for a suitable boy on the part of Rupa Mehra, the
materfamilias of Mehra family, for her younger daughter.