Shiv K. Kumar and Anita Desai:

New Dimension to Indian English Fiction

 

Dr. ATMA RAM

 

            The purpose of this essay is to examine Kumar’s novel and Anita Desai’s short stories and to suggest how the authors carry on their quest for reality and enrich Indian English fiction.

 

            The Bone’s Prayer is a poignant story of a man who is twice jilted in love. Suresh Gupta, a lecturer in Philosophy at Panjab University, Chandigarh, falls in love with Shiela, a sexually uninhibited Indian woman. When he learns of her affair with Bhoj, he is confused and crestfallen. However, his contact with Mona, a Goanese call-girl, awakens him to a state of momentary self-realization. The girl makes him feel as if he were a child at heart and that life is not to be wasted. She leaves for him a message: “Never look back...Life is not to be thrown away.” Thereafter Suresh takes up a teaching assignment at Elmira in the States and in course of time comes very close to a divorcee named Caroline Gunther. Carol too deceives him, she ultimately leaves him for an American guitarist. This shakes Suresh’s faith in the goodness of woman-nature, and drives him to commit suicide.

 

            The Bone’s Prayer thus seems to be a conveptional love story with a commonplace pattern: a man disappointed in love commits suicide. But down deep this work embodies the ethos of two cultures. Shiela and Carol in their relationship with the protago­nist represent distinct cultures. Their conduct offers a veritable perspective on the societies they live in. The Bone’s Prayer com­prises of two parts – he first deals with Suresh’s experiences in India (mostly at Chandigarh), and the second relates to his adventures at Elmira.

 

            Dr. Kumar imparts a palpable design to his novel. The story is narrated by Suresh’s friend and colleague, Sunil Sharma. It is naturally taken up at two levels: at one by him in the first person, at another through Suresh’s own diary. The diary method is most appropriate since it provides a plausible unity to the entire work. One is naturally anxious to know about Suresh’s experiences abroad, and the diary satisfies this curiosity. The reader shares sunil’s reactions and feels “as if the dead man had answered several of my queries, supplied many missing links in the scenario” (p. 175). The novel thus begins with the ending. In the opening chapter, Suresh’s dead body is brought to India. Thereafter, the entire account of Suresh’s life is repeated. The background of Chandigarh temple and ’Varsity departments (though fictitious in nature) lends a rare charm and academic flavour to the episodes.

 

            Prof. Kumar’s characters have at times given the impression that they have feelings which they can’t express. However, reactions of the narrator serve as a medium to convey these adequately. Take, for example, the following scene between Suresh and Mr Dutt:

 

            “But let me first introduce to you my friend,

            Suresh Gupta,” I said. “This is Mr. Dutt.”

            “Thank you for everything,” he mumbled, and

            then excusing himself he hurried away.

            I couldn’t quite understand whether he meant

            to thank me only, or both of us. He had

            obviously tried to pack something into

            “everything.” (Pp. 88-89)

 

            When Suresh is deceived in Sheila, his state of mind is described through meaningful gestures:

 

            He dropped his head, clutched nervously at the

            arms of the chair and drew a long, deep breath.

            Once he looked at me straight, then moved his

            eyes sideways and downwards, and finally stared

            blankly out of the window. (P. 57)

 

            Quite often Sunil Sharma’s reactions and reflections also constitute viable comments on the situations. For instance, the following conversation between Sunil and Sheila (after her marriage) is revealing:

 

            “....In fact, he should have been here somewhere. I looked around for a moment. Well then, you should have brought him along too. Friends and well-wishers like you shouldn’t stand on formalities.” This was surely a masterly stroke. Myself–her friend and well-wisher!  Ah, the dissembler! (P. 147)

 

            All this enables Prof. Kumar to secure a smooth change-over from what the characters are speaking to the characters themselves.

 

            In The Bone’s Prayer the novelist seeks to convey particular truth through the general impact of the story. Glimpses of this reality the essence of bone’s prayer, are provided in the scenes marked by pictorial quality, and descriptive vigour. Anita Desai (the author of six novels, two books for children and over a dozen short stories) carries on this quest for meaning in life with greater zeal and intensity.

 

            Games at Twilight and Other Stories contains seven stories, some of these have earlier appeared in various magazines. The title story, “Games at Twilight” depicts a child who takes the games children play too seriously. “Private Tuition by Mr. Bose” deals with the pitiable condition of a tutor in the midst of prosperity around. In “Studies in the Park” the writer describes a student who has the vision of reality at long last. “Surface Texture” is about a civil servant who has an obsession to penetrate beneath the surface of things so as to know reality in concrete terms. “A Devoted Son” presents the pen-portrait of an educated son who is not understood rightly by his parents, ageing father. In “The Farewell Party”, Anita Desai describes a farewell which was “compounded equally of drink, relief and regret.” “Scholar and Gipsy” is about a young American couple who retire to a hilly country to avoid the crowds and heat of big cities. In the end the husband, David, returns to the city, while his wife chooses to stay on and live with the men and women who share her beliefs.

 

            Anita Desai, a social realist, makes towns or places in India as the locales of her stories. She touches on numerous social evils, yet her chief interest is in the exploration of inner sensibility. For instance, in “The Surface Texture,” (which reminds one of Prem Chand’s “The Resignation”) she presents a fine study of a man who is sick of the dull, mundane existence; “Games at Twilight” (which in some ways is reminiscent of Tagore’s “The Castaway”) is based on sound child psychology: Here Ravi’s hurt feelings have been conveyed in masterly strokes.

 

            But he had been forgotten, left out and he would not join them now. The ignominy of being forgotten – how could he face it? He felt his heart go heavy and ache inside him unbearably. He lay down full length on the damp grass, crushing his face into it, no longer crying, silenced by a terrible sense of his insignificance. (P. 10)

 

            In stories like “The Farewell Party” and “Sale” even bare descriptions provide significant insights.

 

            In her stories, as in her novels, the basic preoccupation is with the inner life of characters. The protagonist recognises maya (illusion), but at the same time he is keen to comprehend reality behind all phenomena. Suno’s vision of reality in “Studies in the Park” is unmistakably similar to that of Sita in Where Shall We Go This Summer? Suno discovers two lovers in a park:

 

            Hidden behind an oleander was a bench. A woman lay on it, stretched out. She was a Muslim, wrapped in a black Burkha. I hesitated when I saw this straight, still figure in black on the bench. Just then she lifted a pale, thin hand and lifted her veil. I saw her face. It lay bared in the black folds of her Burkha, like a flower, waxed-white and composed, like a Persian lily or tobacco flower at night. She was young. Very young, very pale, beautiful with a beauty I had never come across even in a dream. It caught me and held me tight, tight till I couldn’t breathe and couldn’t move. She was so white, so still. I saw she was ill ... Too pale, too white ... I could see she was dying. Her head – so still and white it might have been carved if it weren’t for this softness, this softness of a flower at night – lay in the lap of a very old man. Very much older than her. With spectacles and long grey beard like a goat’s or a scholar’s. He was looking down at her and caressing her face – so tenderly, so tenderly, I had never seen a hand move so gently and tenderly. (P. 30)

 

            The protagonist of Where Shall We Go This Summer? has the same vision in the same context. Sita says to her husband:

 

            “Near a tall hedge, on a bench, I saw, a woman stretched out. A Muslim woman – she was wrapped up in her black Burkha. Then she raised her veil and I saw her face. I saw her face lying in those black folds like a flower – a dead white flower. Like a, Persian lily, or tobacco flower at night. She was young. A very young woman, very, very pale and beautiful ... Pale you see, so white. Her head – this white, ill, beautiful head – lay in the lap of an old man. Much older than her. He had spectacles and a long grey beard. He looked down at her and caressed her face, so tenderly, so tenderly. I have never seen such tender, such gentle movements.

 

            This was the happiest moment in Sita’s life. Suno too becomes calm of mind after this experience. He now understands both he game (Lila) and the illusion (Maya); the vision has set him free.

 

            Anita Desai manages her stories with considerable skill, as she tries to say much through her fictional characters and avoids her own comments. Her story is action-dominated, and begins with much briskness and ease. The writer knits together various stairs of the story in one unit. Consider, for example, the lines following from “Private Tuition by Mr. Bose”:

 

            He wanted so much to touch her hair, the strand that lay on her shoulder in black loop, and did not know how to – ­she was so busy. “Your hair is coming loose”, he said. “Go, go”, she warned. “I hear the next one coming”. So did he, he heard the soft patting of sandals on the worn steps outside ... (P. 15. Italics added)

 

            In this Anita Desai seems to follow in some measure Angus Wilson and Jane Austen. She does not let her story become flat or dull. It is invariably compact and concise, weaving together patterns and rhythm. For instance, the ending of “A Devoted Son” is poetic and effective: “He closed his eyes and pointed his chin at the ceiling, like some dire prophet, groaning, ‘God is calling me ... now let me go.’” (P. 81) For Anita Desai the sense of ending is not the major consideration – it is the overall balance which matters most. She once told the present writer: “No, not ‘ending’ by itself-only ‘ending’ as seen in proportion to ‘beginning’ and ‘middle’ – in each a part of a whole, balanced and complete.”

 

            Her language is simple and straight, poetic and compulsive. She seems to have solved for herself the problem of language through her creative impulse. Her racy style and supple language create the desired effect. She is perhaps at her best in “Studies in the Park.” Here is an example in point:

 

            All of them stared at me, at the exam I was to take. At the degree I was to get. Or not get. Horrifying thought. Oh study, study, study, they all breathed at me...(P.22)

 

            Both Shiv K. Kumar and Anita Desai incorporate autobio­graphical elements in their works. Dr. Kumar once observed to the present writer in an interview:

 

            I believe in the authenticity of physical experience. I recognise the body almost as an organ of perception.

 

            His hero, Suresh, too tries to grasp reality through physical experiences. The intense beat of summer had an indelible effect on Anita Desai’s sensibility. As she once remarked: “The oppression, the devastation of that incredible heat that kept one almost immobile through the day, lying flat under the hypnotic­ally tickling fan with a book, speechless and almost lifeless with heat.” This explains why some of her characters, for example in Where Shall We Go This Summer? “Studies in the Park” and “Scholar and Gypsy” have an “allergy” heat. However, whatever the writers feel passes through the crucible of imagi­nation. Dr. Kumar and Mrs. Desai strive to delve deep to unravel the mystery of life adding thereby a sense of high seriousness to Indian English fiction.

 

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