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2.1 Indian English Novels

The literary map of India is about to be redrawn. The

familiar outline - E.M. Forster's outline essentially - will always

be there, because India will always offer the dualities essential

. for the Forsterian vision : the open sewer and the whispering

glade, Mother Theresa and the Taj Mahal. Serious English­

language novelists from India (often called Indo-Anglians), or

those from abroad who use Indianrnaterial, have steered a steady

course between these two vast, mutually obliterating realities;

hence the vivid patches of local color provided by the timeless

South India of R.K. Narayan's novels and the cool pastels

added by the later fiction of Anita Desai. The Indian novels of

Paul Scott and Ruth Jhabvala also fall comfortably between

those two poles. For a long time it has seemed that novels

from India write their own blurbs: poised, witty, delicate, spar­

kling.

Ironically, the century before Independence contains

many vennacular language writers who would merit a place in

any anthology: BankirnChandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore,

Dr. Muhanunad Iqbal, Mirza Ghalib, Bibhutibhushan Banerjee(the

autl10r of Pather Panchalli, on \vhich Satyajit Ray based his

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celebrated .. ·· ·.·. Trilogy of fihns), and Premchand, the prolific

(and therefore rather variable) Hindi author of, among many

others, the famous novel of rural life Godaan, or the Gift of

a Cow. Those who wish to seek out their leading present-day

successors should try, for example, O.V Vijayan (Malayalam),

Suryakant Tripathi Nirala (Hindi), Nirmal Verma (Hindi), U.R.

Ananthamurthy (Kannada), Suresh Joshi (Gujarati), Amrita Pritam

(Punjabi), Qurratulain Haider (Urdu), or Ismat Chughtai (Urdu),

and make their own assessments.

The first Indian novel m English was a dud.

Rajmohan's Wife (1864) is a poor melodramatic thing. The

writer, Bankim, reverted to Bengali and immediately achieved

great renown. For 70 years or so there was to English-language

fiction of any quality. It was the generation of Independence,

:midnight's parents", one might call them, who were the true

architects of this new tradition (Jawaharlal Nehru himself was a

fine writer.) Of these, Mulk Raj Anand was influenced by both

Joyce and Marx but most of all, perhaps, by the teachings of

Mahatma Gandhi. Raja Rao, a scholarly Sanskritist, wrote de­

tennined!y of the need to make an Indian English for himself,

but even his much-praised portarait of village life, Kanthapura,

seems dated, its approach at once grandiloquent and archaic.

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The autobiographer Nirad C. Chaudhuri has been, throughout

his long life, an erudite, contrary and mischievous presence. His

view, if I may paraphrase and summarise it, is that India has

no culture of its own, and that whateverwe now call Indian

culture was brought in from outside by the successive wavesof

conquero•rs. This view, polemically and brilliantly expressed,

has not endeared him to many of his fellow-Indians. That he

has always swum so strongly against the current has not, however,

prevented The Autobiography of an Unknown Indianfrom being

recognised as the masterpiece it is.

English Novels written by Indian writers are very

umque. Mulitidimensional richness, beauty and complexity can

be seen in the Indian English Novels. Moreover, the geme of

the novel has long been considered a medium for conveying

thoughts, feelings and experiences. "A novel is a living thing, all

one and continuous, like any other organism." says Henry

James. Of all the gemes of creative literature the novel is the

most popular these days in our country. It is gratifying to note

that Indian English Novel has also been flourishing with vigour

and vitality both in quality and quantity since Independence. By

now the novelist make up a fonnidable body of fiction. In

addition to the common themes like cross-cultural relations, the

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national movement for freedom, the partition of India and the

holocuast that followed Independence, the Indian English

Novelist has also been preoccupied with the dilineation or poverty,

hunger, pestilence, widespread social evils and resultant

tensions, examination of the survival of the past, exploration of

the hybrid culture of the middle · class educated Indian youth,

the countless dislocations and conflicts in a tradition-ridden

society tmder the impact of an incident, half-hearted industriali­

sation etc. A cursory glance at the Indian English Novels written

upto 1960s reveals that it is mainly concerned with large public

issues and national/social problems of the individuals. In

contrast, the novel of seventies and eighties have turned

introspective and indivual's quest for a personal meaning in life

which has become a theme of urgent interest for these writers.

The fourth the twentieth century decade of was indeed a blooming

period for the Indian English Novel. It was the appearance of

the novels by the big three. Anand's Untouchable (I 935),

Narayan's Swami and friends (1935) and Raja Rao's

Kanthapura (1938). In them can be discerned a marked

improvement on their predecessors in form, teclmique, art of

character-delineation and handling of themes, new teclmiques,

new style and new approach to the form of noveL

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It was in the 1930s that the Indians began what has

now turned out to be their very substantail contribution to the

novels in English, and one peculiarly suited to their talents. 1

Ever since the debut of the big three during the

1930s, novel as a gem·e has continued to dominate the literary

scene. By imaginatively treating the contemparary themes, the

novelists have sought to explore and interpret India significantly

in its various aspects - social, economic, cultural, political and

the like. The Indian English Novelists of the 1950s and 1960s,

like Shelley, well realised that so song as the imagination of

people is not stirred, the seeds of reform will keep lying on the

road to be trampled by the unwary traveller.

While the old established novelists, have a historical

relevance, it is the writing of the new young novelists of the

1970s, 1980s and 1990s that has advanced the tradition of the

Indian English Novel by shifting the focus from the social­

political-economic themes to the exploration of the individual's

interior world, the outer weather, the physical atmosphere or the

visible surface action. Tllis forte is the exploration of the

limitless depths of mind, the hidden contours of the human

psyche. 1l1is aspect of their works undoubtedly adds a new

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and significant dimension to the discipline. Under the impact of

the new pressures of the scientific and technological advancement,

the world around us shows signs of the disintegration of the

individual. It is, therefore, imperative that the Indian English

writer today should seek new techniques to articulate these

newly experienced realities.

Arun Joshi, a deep-reaching and avant - garde

novelist refuses to simplifY his people and his crowds are to

complicate his prose which is sharp, brassy, polished, lapidry,

nervous and vivid in terms. His skill lies in his ability to

describe experience in the peculiar Indian so that the texture of

the experiences come through. He can articulate the philosophical

moral complexties of human life without losing that life itself

He can defme darkness but never enter it, he can examine

cultural anihilism but never share it. Joshi's torch seems to light

up the darkness in every direction with its fitful illuminations.

One gets an extraordinary sense of the infmite remifications of

human life, its unpredictableness, its inconclusiveness. The

Foreigner, The Strange Case of Billy Biswas, The Apprentice

and his latest book The Last Labyrinth have got some unique

narrative technique, style and delineation of characters. In each

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of his novels, he conducts his characters through the game of

move and counter-move, always along the line of their

respective predicament and always within the framework of the

chosen consciousness.

Anita Desai is another very popular name in the

Indian English literary scene. She is a powerful writer of eight

novels and a collection of short storiess. She rose to eminence

with the publication of her first novel, Cry, The Pecock (1969)

Voices in the City (1965) is also one of her significant

creations. In each of Desai's novels, the main thrust is on the

life of the individual, on myriad inner impressions, passing

fancies and fleeting thoughts, together with her razer like sharp

awareness of the futility of existence. The central theme of her

most of the novels is the existential predicament of an individual

which is projected through incompatible couples - acutely

sensitive wives and dismal callous understanding husbands. Desai's

fiction seems to assimilate both the traditions of American and

British Novel. As a result, her fiction takes its form and tone

from polarities, opposites and irreconcilables. For her "it is

depth which is interesting, delving deeper and deeper in a

character, a situation, or a scene rather than going round about

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it."

R.K. Narayan's A Tiger for Malgudi (1983) offers

not only a usual feast of literary dialectics such as 1rony,

humour, parody, satire and comic view of the world, it

transports us rather unobtrusively into the higher realms of

metaphysical inquiry and quest of the self, the comic VIew

ultimately assuming the magnitude of the cosmic view.

The novel, read in conjuction with Man Eater of

Malgudi (1961) and The Painter of Signs (1976), demonstrates

Narayan's abiding interest in folk wisdom, his unflinching faith

in ancient Indian values and his pride for rich spiritual heritage

of his country, thus ensuring that his metaphysical probings and

their possible solutions are fmnly rooted in his own cultural

ethoes.3

The 1980s have witnessed the birth of new kind of

Indian English Novel. Narayan's A Tiger for Malgudi

Shahane's Prajapati (1984) and Amitav Ghosh's The Circle

of Reason (1986) mark a distinct progression -moving from the

portrayal of the contermporary socio-political themes to the

imaginative treatment of individual fantasies in the mythic/arche­

typal, fabulistic and satiric mode.

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The eighties and nineties have been the most

productive and eventful decades of Indian English literature in

terms of abtmdance, variety and richness.

The prestigious Booker Award to Salaman Rushdie

for The Midnight's Children (1981) and succussive prizes to

Robinton Mistry, Nayantara Sahagal, · Anita Desai, Amitav ·

Gosh, and an astronomical royalty advanced to Vikram Seth

for A suitable Boy Arundhati Roy for The God of Small

Things, and Jhumba Lahri for 'Interpreter of Maladies' must

make us realize that the Indian mind is on a rampage. The most

glaring feature of the decades is a mushroom growth of the

writers who became celebrities with their Maiden Publication.

To begin with Rushdie's Midnight Children Shame and then

the most controversial Satanic verses which invoked the death

fatwa from Iran, Vikram Seth's, The Golden Gate, followed

by All You Who Sleep Tonight (poetry), and A Suitable Boy.

Upmanyu Chatterjee's The English August; Amitav Ghosh's

The Circle of Reason, The Shadow Lines, In An Antique Land

and Calcutta Cromosomes; Allan Sealey's Trottemama, Namita

Gokhale's Passions of Para and Himalayan Love Story; Gita

Mehta's Raj, Karma Cola and The River Sutra; Boman

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Desai's Memory of Elephant; Rohinton Minstry's Tales From

Ferozshah Baag, such a Long Journey and A Fine Balance;

Deepankar Ray's Hell-Bent; Balraj Khanna's A Nation of

Fools; Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel; Shashi

Deshpande's The Dark Holds No Terror, Roots and Shadows,

If 1 Die Today, Come up. and Be Dead, That Long Silence,

The Binding Vine and A Matter of Time; Firdaus Kanga's

Trying To Grow; Jayant Narlikar's Return of Vaman; Pratap

Sharma's The Days of Turban; M.G. Vassanjis's The Gunny

Sack, No New Land ? Uhuru Street and other Stories and The

Book of Secrets etc. and Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of

Maladies.

The most singificant prospect of these novels is the

bewildering variety of thematic concerns ranging from

mythology, history, family relationships, bureaucracy, politics and

feminism to horror, suspense, sex, nostalgia, diasporic

experience, generation gap, fossilised emotions, racial tension,

use of fantasy, fabular imagination, dystopia, travesty,

intertextuality, self-reflexivity, subversion and other postmodem

techniques. It is this spectacular variety that enthralls the global

audience. Most prominent contribution of these writers is the

exploration of unconventional themes, sparing neither the my-

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ghological prophets nor the historical high profiles.

Another notable feature of the literature of the two

decades has been the outburst of protest against the political

tyranny of the Seventies, the proclamation of Emergency that

drastically curbed freedom and stifled democracy. Since the

phemomena was all over the subcontinent, the fictional back-·

drop was India-Pak-Bangladesh with allusious to all the leaders

living or dead. Rushdie launched his scathing diatribe against

India, Zia, Bhutto. Tharoor against Gandhi/Bhishma, Nehru I

Dhritrashtra, India I Duryodhana, and Menon I Shakuni.

Among these, Arundhati Roy chose the different

theme and backed the very prestigious Booker Award for The

God of Small Things. Roy's achievement is never to forget

about the small things in life. She deserved to win, says Jason

Cowley.

To conclude, i{ has to be admitted that despite a

score of weaknesses, these novelists have been experimenting

with new fonns and new teclmiques. Their works on the whole

have life and substance, and present a convincing picture of

human existence. A serious effect to articulate Indian sensibility

and get to grips with the new pressures, new aspects and new

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challenges of life is increasingly in evidence.

2.2 Salman Rushdie - Life and Works

Salman Rushdie, an Indian Expatriate, shot into fame

m 1981 with the Booker prize award to his second Book

Midnight's Children. And now, no doubt, he has being hailed

as a major novelist with his many other besttsellers. He has

instantly charmed all the categories of readers.

He was born on 19th June, in the year of India's

independence. His life begun in Bombay. He attended cathedral

School in the same city, a city that fascinated him the most.

Rushdie left India in 1961, at the age of fourteen. He received

education at Rugby and later on at Cambridge. At present he

lives in New York city with his wife and little son. Rushdie

came to fiction writing via fringe theatre and advertising He

gained rich experience in advertising, specially it taught him to

condense. His novels are characterised by an abundant variety,

in both teclmique and subject matter. One of the significant

themes of his novels is the re-expression of past, portrayal of

the events from recent Indian history. He has made specific use

of history and at the same period our freedom movement and

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the consequent emergence of the two states, namely India and

Pakistan in Midnight's Children. He has transformed facts of

history into a great work of art. Apart from Midnight's Children,

which is having a great amount of historical and political

essence, he has written many other, books with different themes.

The literary excellence of his novels are simply outstanding ..

He is an author, novelist, essayist and sometime a

critic and yet he has fantastically proved himself in every field.

His novels have brought up Indo-English fiction into the

international scene. It is no insignificant matter that The Booker

Prize, Englands most prestigious award for fiction, was awarded

to Salman Rushdie for the year 1981. As many as seventy

four books were considered for the prize and seven of these

were short-listed. after several readings by the judges,

Midnight's children was adjudged as the award-winning book.

And the most important factor is that this book was again

adjudged Booker of Bookers in 1993 i.e. the best book to

win Booker award in the last twenty-five years. Rushdie

has provided an authoritative answer to the sceptics who

predicted the death of Indo-English fiction. He has turned to the

past as much to trace the deepening mood of nationalism as

to cherish the memories of bygone days.

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Though he is a new comer on the scene of Indo­

English literature, but he has already aquired a some what

mythical reputation. Some people say that he is Kashmiri, some

others say he is a Parsee, some others still think him to be an

Afgan. People even dispute his place of birth. Some say he

was born in Pakistan, . the others say in India. Even the

pronounciation of his surname is debated. Is it Rushdie (as in

'Rush') or Rushdie (as in 'Bush'). Further-more, was he born

rich or poor ? It is true that he is married to an English

woman and lives in England ? All this has added glamour to

his reputation. But it has highlighted a point about Rushdie's

fiction which he himself has advanced, that is : the 'fallible

memory' or 'fallible narrator'.

The subject-matter of Rushdie's novels if fairly var­

ied; it is neither stereotyped nor predicatable "There's nothing

like a consistent theme", comments Dilip Fernandez, "that has

emerged in his work so for... There are signs however, of

certain key ideas shaping of a perspective developing in his

writing".

Rushdic applies so many themes and techniques in

his novels. One such theme is his concept of history and its

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interplay with the individual. He calls himself, significantly enough,

'a fairly political animal.".

He told his reviewer Gordon wise that his last two

novels are on historical themes. "It seems to me", he remarked,

"that everything in MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN has had to do

with politics and with the relationship of individuals and

history." Rushdie, as we know, went to Cambridge in 1965 to

read history. His studies and experiences have helped him evolve

a distinct concept of historical processes and their roles.

In writing MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN, the novelist's

"aim was to relate private lives to public events and to explore

the limits of indiviality in a country as big, as populous and

culturally variegated as India.'' 8 Rushdie is "certainly involved"

with aspects of the most crucial critical/theoretical debates of

his day. He is deeply concerned with the politics of the Indian

subcontinent, and his commitment and sense of urgency are

really remarkable. He presents realities of public history

influencing and getting influemed by individuals' actions and

aspirations, with exceptional honesty.

Keith Wilson is of the opmwn that -

"The image of the writer as both master and

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victim of public and private material, which

he has been formed by in the past as is

himself attempting to form in the present,

dominates Midnight's Children."

Rushdie's Masterpiece, Midnight's Children is a novel

about Indian independence, the partition and their aftermath. He

is of the view that the freedom movement in India was "not

merely a political struggle, but an all pervasive experience that

became a part of the life of almost all the sensitive and enlight­

ened Indians."

Midnight's Children encapsulates the expenences of

three generations of Sinai family, living in Srinagar, Amritsar and

Agra and then in Bombay and fmally, migrating to Karanchi.

Saleem Sinai, the narrator engaged in the actual writing of the

story, works in the pickle factory by day and records in

expenences by night, hoping that -

"One day, perhaps, the world may taste the

pickles of history. They may be too strong

for some palates, their smell may be over­

powering, tears may rise to the eyes; I hope

nevertheles it will be possible to say of

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them that they possess the authentic taste of

truth."

Rushdie has highlighted the connection between public affairs

and private lives in this particular novel. He says that these two

cannot be seperated. The Sunday Standare, 14 June 1981, p.6

reVIews :-

"They interpenetrate and that is how the

writer needs to examine them, the one in the

contest of the other."

Alongside of Saleem's personal history, we have the

collective experience of a people and the history of a nation.

There is in the novel virtually all of the twentieth century Indian

history;

the Jallianwalla Bagh tragedy, Quit India

movement, Cabinet Mission, Freedom Movement,

Muslim league and its role, riots and blood­

shed subsequent to the independence, five

year plans, reorganization of Indian states

and language riots, chinese agression, the

theft of the sacred rilic from the Hazratbal

Mosque, Pakistan war, liberation of Bangladesh,

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the Emergency and various other historically

important events. There are also typically

Indian divisions and dissents, chaos and

disillusion, communal tensions, religious

fanaticism besides traditional values and

Modernising efferts.

All these are 'preserved' in the novel to evoke the truth of India

and Saleem and make the novel, in Maria couto's words "an

extraordinary saga of epic dimensions and resonance."

WORKS

Since Salman Rushdie is an author, novelist, essayist

and some time critic, he has contributed a lot to literature. He

has written many books and essays which have got utterly

different . themes and expessions from each other.

Rushdie's first novel is Grimus (1975), a sctence

fiction. But there ate no spaceships in it, the most predominant

element of the book is fancy. He makes use of the fantasy

element in Midnight's Children too, and with a definite

purpose. "I have always thought of fantasy", says Rushdie, "as

only being useful as a way of emiching realism, not as an end

in itself."

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Midnight's Children (1980), Rushdie's second novel

Is a panoramic book spanning a period of seventy years in

India's Modem History. The author, born and brought up in the

Multi-cultural city of Bombay, recreates the vitality eclectic culture

of urban India, with reference to the early decades of the

century to mid-seventies. It took him four years to write this

novel and to gather the specific facts, he visited India and lived

here for six months. It is a political novel that transcends

politics. He aims to relate private lives to publi~ events. The

connection between public affairs and private life cannot be

overlooked; they interpenetrate and that is how, the writer needs

to exmine them, the one in the context of the other. But since

he was writing about India, a country he has quit long ago,

Rushdie felt hesitant before embarking on the ambitious work.

As a preparation, he came back to India on a long visit, he had

not been here for ten years. He toured the cotmtry for six

months and talked to all kinds of people to recapitulate the

colours, smells and catch-phrases. Some critics say that

Midnight's Children is long, but it can be said that in is not

over written. Its turbulent 3,50,000 words are heavily charged

with innucedos, associations, symbolism, correspondences and

metaphorical extravagance. The material is tightly packed with a

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linguistic and imaginative framework that is always undercontrol.

'Shame' is Rushdie's third novel written in 1983. It

is a story about Pakistan. It dramatizes 'Military Politics of the

Divided Muslim India' whose history Rushdie considers a

'disaster'. It opens in the imaginary town of 'Q' ~ Quetta in

Pakistan. And in this ·town lived three lovely loving sister's

known by the names of Chunni, Munnee and Bunny. Omar

Khayyam, an image of suspense and fantasy, is born as the

fantastic son of three sisters who share automatic and

simultaneous symptoms of pregnancy and interestingly with no

father in picture. 1n the process of unfolding this fairytale Rushdie

makes a savage attack on the political life of Pakistan. This

novel reconstructs the sordid political history of Pakistan

bringing to light the deep socio cultural imbalances that have

shaped tllis history. He has excellencily picturised the scenes of

murders, camps and rigged elections in the context of the grim

atmosphere of fear, intrigue! humiliation and desperate defiance

that govern the lives and minds of the people of Pakistan. It

is well known that Rushdie writes without any bmmdation, he

finnly believes that freedom of expression is the most precious

asset of a writer.

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In 1985, Salman Rushdie made a documentry fihn

named as the 'The Painter and the Pest'. It was his first work

for electronic media, as it is known. Then came 'The Jaguar

Smile' A Nicaraguan Journey' first published in 1987. Rushdie's

astonishing partait of this tiny volcanic country, profile of peo­

ple politics, land and poetry of Nicaraguan finely demonstrates

novelist Rushdi's prowess as a discerning political journalist.

'The Riddle of Midnight's was his second documentary

fihn which came into existence in the same year. Rushdie's

documentry fihns were also quite unique and were regarded as

outstanding works.

His most controversial novel, 'The Satanic verses'

published in 1989 made him much famous and infamous. It was

because of this novel, On 14th February 1989, Fatwa a

religious sentence, in this case a death sentence was pronounced

by Ayatollah Khomeini, the then Administrater of Iran. Muslim

community strongly opposed 'The satanic verses', as they found

some characters and scenes very controversial in the novel.

Opponents debated much on it. It was questioned what is this

piece of writing ? Is it just fiction, is it just facist pamphlet, is \

it just historical distortion, or it is something else ? Muslim

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leaders raised their voice against Rushdie. It was said that by

the term 'Satanic Verses' Rushdie wants to say something more

than the alleged incidents the history of Islamic revelation. They

further say that Rushdie has even doubted the authenticity of

Quran, though in a Modified way. They have also alleged that

author has satirized the mles of holy Quran. And consequently

soon after its publication in Sept. 1988, 'The Satanic Verses'

caused a mutual revulsion of rival groups of readers.

In 1990, his another bestseller 'Haroun and the Sea'

was published. As it is already mentioned that Rushdie is

soumetime a critic, amd his first work on criticism was

published in 1991, which was named as 'Imaginary Homelands

: Essays and criticism (1981-1991). In continuation 'The Wizard

of Oz' came in the year 1992 and then 'East-West' in 1994.

A tragic lament, 'The Moor's Last Sigh' was again

Rushdie's one of the best novels. In the year 1995 it was

published. 'The Moor's Last Sigh' is a rununciaton of institu­

tional religion and a heroisation in spite of postrnodemist jokes

of the independent secular artist. It is therefore, indirectly a

justification of Salman Rushdie's own artistic career, as his

harsh, satiric vision of the world's sectarian evil earned him

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powerful enemies ranging from Mrs. Gandhi to the Imams of

Islam. Finally, 'The Moors Last Sigh' is a tragic plea from

beyond despair for the tolerance of multiculturism in a world

that is rent by ethnic and sectarian hatred and war.

After this novel Rushdie wrote 'The Vintage Book of

Indian Writing' (47-97) (anthology, edited jointly with Elizabeth,

West), which was published in 1997.

After two years, in the year 1999 'The ground be­

neath her feet' was published. It was also one of the finest

novel. Fury is his latest known major novel published in 2001.

Though in the year 2002 'Step Across this Line' was published

but still, Fury is considered as his latest major creation.

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