International Research Journal , July 2010

ISSN- 0975-3486 RNI: RAJBIL 2009/30097

VOL I *ISSUE 10

Research PaperEnglish

INDIAN ENGLISH NOVEL WRITING: SHIFTING THEMES & THOUGHTS

(With special Referance to Salman Rushdie and Amitav Ghosh)
July, 2010

* Farbat Singh

2121098765432109876543210987654321210987654321098765432109876543212109876543210987654321098765432121098765432109876543210987654321 2121098765432109876543210987654321210987654321098765432109876543212109876543210987654321098765432121098765432109876543210987654321 2121098765432109876543210987654321210987654321098765432109876543212109876543210987654321098765432121098765432109876543210987654321 2121098765432109876543210987654321210987654321098765432109876543212109876543210987654321098765432121098765432109876543210987654321 2121098765432109876543210987654321210987654321098765432109876543212109876543210987654321098765432121098765432109876543210987654321 2121098765432109876543210987654321210987654321098765432109876543212109876543210987654321098765432121098765432109876543210987654321 2121098765432109876543210987654321210987654321098765432109876543212109876543210987654321098765432121098765432109876543210987654321

* Asst.* Assicate Prof. Comm.Dept. Sant Gadge Maharaj Mahavidyalaya, Walgaom. Prof. English Rashtriya Sanskrity Snasthan, Deemed University Triveni Nagar

A B S T R A C T

Most of the Indian English novels of recent times written by migrant writers have chosen materials for their art from contemporary Indian socio-cultural situations. They also undertake the exploration of the * Asst. Porf. in English Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, Jaipur in contemporaty Indian relationship between the East and the West. It has become a recurring theme English fiction because of the nature of the linguistic medium the novelist uses. Fictional reworking of mythology and history has given new significance and possibilities to the Indian English novel writings. Salman Rushdie and Shashi Tharoor and Amitav Ghosh often return to Indian history and mythology. Midnights Children, Shame and The Moors Last Sigh deal with the complex working of the muslim psyche caught up in the historical and cultural labyrinth of the subcontinent. The Circle of Reason, The Calcutta Chromosome and The Shadow Lines express the blind follow of the English by the Indians, the encounter between the west rationality and Indian myth, and hollowness of national identity and national boundaries. limitations of a liberal bourgeos consciousness define Introduction : India enjoys an enriched heritage of different his work and the social conditions of alienation tend to genres of literature -drama, poetry and fiction. R. deprive him of a comprehensive vision and commitment Parthasarthy does not seem to be correct when he says to change, yet his achievement in fictionalizing the reIndian verse in English did not seriously begin to exist ality of Indian life with intensity and genuineness, with until after the withdrawal of the British from India.1 But pholosophical insight and artistic ingenuity has to be reality lies somewhere near the statement that Indian acknowledged with without reservation. Masterpieces literature like many other literatures of the world, too has like Untouchable, Kanthapura, The Guide, All About H. undergone many changes. This shows that Indian En- Hatterr, Midnights Children and a large number of good glish literature is in the making through the emergence novels which stand the test of time are sufficient proof of new traditions, by means of a process of negation and for the maturity this genre seems to have attained. Like the novel form in our regional literatures, assimilation. Earlier English literature was qualitatively Indian English novel too had its origin towards the end different from the present ones and centred on issues of a relatively peripheral nature. Indian English literature of the nineteenth century. An organic product of the has steadily been enriched by shifting patterns and new concrete socio-political-cultural environment of the epoch, as K.S. Ramamurti, convincingly shows in his Rise traditions. One can easily notice a remarkable change in of The Indian Novel in English (1987), this twice born2 contemporary discoureses on Indian English novel. fiction has been developing, with many ups and downs, over the years, through continual seareches and experiToday the author or novelist or dramatist has learnt to address himself to the fundamental issues intrinsic to ments, towards a nature art form geniune and credible. creative and critical activity in the Indian English situ- It is quite clear that the central artistic concern with the ation. Now issues like postcoloniality, multiculturality, Indian English novelist has always been to develop an indegenization, nativism, the social and political agenda Indian form of the novel and not merely to write a novel of criticism and the like are being treated with great on Indian reality in English. importance in preference to a variety of relatively incon- Findings : Bankim Chandra Chatterjees Rajmohans Wife sequential issues. By and large, the Indian English novelist has attempted to face the reality around him (1864), Mulk Raj Anands Untouchable (1935) and Raja with greater courage and responsibility. It is true that the Raos Kanthapura (1938) deal with the real social and

40

fjlpZ

,ukfyfll

,.M

boSY ;, q ku

International Research Journal , July 2010

ISSN- 0975-3486 RNI: RAJBIL 2009/30097

VOL I *ISSUE 10

political problems of the then India. Both of these novels speak of social reforms. Novels published in the period from 1935 to 1960 delineat the experience of the colonial age and dilemmas of post-independent reality. The writers of the thirties and forties - Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan, K. Nagarjan and K.S. Venkataramani, and K.A. Abbas,AhmedAli, Humayun Kabir, Kamala Markandiya, Khuwant Singh, Nayantara Sahgal of the fifties have more or less spoken about the realities of colonial and post-colonial India. Novelists of Rushdies generation - Vikaram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, Shashi Tharoor, Upamanyu Chatterjee etc. - are the makers of new patterns and traditions. Among most of these novelists are those who are setlled in the West. As a matter of fact, they are struggling to give pattern to their new destiny. In their novels these novelists depict the post-colonial world plagued by neo-colonial catastrophe like economic disorder, social malaise, govermental corruption and state repression. Some of the sensitive writers responded to these by migrating to less repressive and more comfortable lands. The post-colonial migrant literature foregrounds and celebrates a historical weightlessness as Salman Rushdie puts it. The experience of cultural transplantation lends new perspectives and creative possibilities for these writers and they have fashioned astounding artistic patterns. Located in the mertropolitan West they tend to recreate the contemporary social milieu and cultural crisis in their native land and attempt to redefine it in the emerging post-colonial context. They mix the past, the present and the future and the imperial and the colonial cultures in their fiction, dislocating time and subverting the imperial purpose in the process. Received history is tampered with, rewritten and realigned from the point of view of the victims of its deconstructive progress. They explore and expose the residual effects of foreign domination in the political, social and economic spheres. Dispossession, cultural fragmentation, colonial and neo-colonial power structures, post-colonial corruption, cultural degeneration and the crisis of identity are some of the major preoccupations in The writings of Salman Rushdie and Amitav Ghosh.Salman Rushdie, with the publication of Midnights Children (1981) jolted the very foundation of the Indian English novel. Its energy, stylistic innovations and the use of fantasy as an expressive device really shocked the tradition bound Indian novelists. Unable to deracinate himself from his embedded roots in India, Rushdie grapples assiduously with the Indian reality which he reconstructs imaginatively in Midnights Children. In Midnights Children, the children born at the stroke of midnight at the very moment when India won freedom, develop the capacity to com-

municate with each other telepathically. Rushdies Shame (1983) presents the subcontinental historical and cultural realities. The country referred to in the novel could be any country that has been ruined by corruption and dictatorship. The novel offers a fantasized interpretation of degenerate post-colonial society that denies freedom and justice to women. Shashi Tharoors The Great Indian Novel (1989) is a retelling of the political history of the 20th century India through a fictional recasting of events, episodes and characters from the Mahabharat. The novelist defamiliarzes contemporary political events by resorting to epic devices. K. Ayyappa Paniker says how Tharoor has achived it: The superimposition of the political events of the 20th century on the basic structure of Mahabharat is made plausible by variations in stylistic levels and tones3 Amitav Ghosh belongs to the literary tradition that was fostered and nourished by Rushdie, Shashi Tharoor and others. Like many of his contemporaries he has been immensely influenced by the political and cultural milieu of post-independent India. The Circle of Reason (1986) is a skilfully constructed novel encompassing a world that stretches from a remote village in Bengal to the shores of the Mediterranean. The novel marks a break from the traditional themes of the Indian English novel. The immediacy of experience of the reality is conveyed to the readers by a medley of devices; ironic mode of narration and recreating a magical world. R.K. Dhawan comments on its technique; The all embracing structural principles of magic and irony eloquently weave the total pattern of the novel.4 The Shadow Lines (1988), set in Calcutta of the 1960s moves with an easy felicity through Calcutta and Dhaka and London. The time span of the novel extends from 1939 to 1979 with the 1964 being a very important year for the characters. Memory links the past to the present and many of the characters live more in the past than in the present. The novel seems to mock even the concept of exclusive national identity. Even ideals nurtured by the freedom struggle suddenly seem meaningless. In an Antique Land (1992), a non-fictional novel delineates some ordinary unheroic characters with their encounters with religious rites and social customs. It mingles history, geography, voyages, trade, adventure, magic, memory and multiple viewpoints. Ghosh brings in his memory of his childhood experience of riots in Dhaka. The post-colonial undertones of the novel cannot be underestimated. As history was written by the colonizers, it hardly took note of the achievements of the subject, colonized people. In The Calcutta Chromosome (1996) the two worlds of science and counter-science, European rationality and Indian myths are brought together against the backdop of Calcuttas streets, mar-

41

RESEARCH ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION

International Research Journal , July 2010

ISSN- 0975-3486 RNI: RAJBIL 2009/30097

VOL I *ISSUE 10

kets and monuments. Displacement has been a central process in his fictional writings, departures and arrivals have a permanent symbolic relevance in his narrative structure. Countdown (1999) expresses Ghoshs views on the nuclear lobby in both India and Pakistan. He sums up his argument for the nuclear weapons very succinctly. He states that the motivation for Indias nuclear programme was enhancement of status and not imagined threat to our northern frontiers. The Glass place (2000), an epic novel, tells the history of the 20th century across three generations spread over three interlinked parts of the British Empire: Burma, Malaya and India. Summing up Most of the Indian English novels of recent times written by migrant writers have chosen materials for their art from contemporary Indian socio-cultural situations. They also undertake the exploration of the relationship between the East and the West. It has become a recurring theme in contemporaty Indian English fiction because of the nature of the linguistic medium the novelist uses. This operates as an acknowledgemetnt of the disruptions in the self and society as seen in Rushdies The Moors Last Sigh. Closely identified with the EastWest encounter is the conflict between spirituality and materialism which is a recurring strand in many of these novels.Nostalgia for a glorious ideal, coupled with a disenchantment with the betraying directions India has taken after Independence, is another major concern of the Indian English novel. Fictional reworking of mythology and history has given new significance and possi-

bilities to the Indian English novel writings. Salman Rushdie and Shashi Tharoor and Amitav Ghosh often return to Indian history and mythology. Midnights Children, Shame and The Moors Last Sigh deal with the complex working of the muslim psyche caught up in the historical and cultural labyrinth of the subcontinent. Though like novels of any other period, the expatriate fiction too presents the psychodrama of human relations, their predominant quality is defined by their postmodernist propensities. Transcending barriers of genre, narrative, time, history and location, Rushdies The Moors Last Sigh is typically post-modernist in its themes and technique. Rushdie celebrates the plurality, the excess of culture, the rootlessness which means that if one does not belong to one place, then one belongs to many.5 The celebration of difference, of marginaltiy, of ethnicity, of sexualities which were once considered deviant, mocked at the modernist sorrow for a fractured self and revelled in disruptions and fragmentations. Through the fictional technique of magic realism the marginalized consciousness may fracture constructed reality in fabulous forms to express its own heightened sense of reality. Self-reflexivity and confessionality characterise fictional works of Rushdie and Ghosh. The development of a creative artist-writers consciousness and how the creative life is entangled with emotional existence form the focus of many a work of fiction of these post-independence novelists.

R E F E R E N C E
1. R. Parthasarathy Introduction, Ten Twenitieth Century poets. Madras: Oxford University Press, 1976. 2. K.S. Ramamurti Rise of the Indian Novel in English. Delhi: OUP, 1987. 3. Ayyappa Paniker Reminiscential and Subversive. Littcrit 16.1.2 (1990): 14 4. R.K. Dhawan (ed.) The Novels of Amitav Ghosh. New Delhi: Prestige, 1999. 5. Salman Rushdie Imaginery Homelands: Essays in Criticism. 1981-1991, London, Granta, 1991 Bibliography Ghosh, Amitav The Circle of Resean. New Delhi: Prestige, 1986 . The Shadow Lines. New Delhi: Prestige, 1988. . In an Antique Land. New Delhi: Prestige, 1992. .The Calcutta Chromosome. New Delhi: Ravi Dyal, 1996 .The Glass Palace. New Delhi: Prestige, 2000. .The Hungry Tide. New Delhi: Prestige, 2004. Punekar, Mokashi Indo-Fiction: Problems of Periodisation. Littcrit 3.2 (1977):1. Rushdie, Salman Midnights Childdren, New York; Avon Books, 1980. Tharoor, Shashi Yoking Myth To History. Littcrit 16.1.2

42

fjlpZ

,ukfyfll

,.M

boSY ;, q ku