C HAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
This then is the peculiar paradox of the novel:
those of us who love novels often read them
because of the eloquence with which they
communicate a sense of place. Yet the truth is
that it is the very loss of a lived sense of place
that makes their fictional representation
possible. 1
Keeping in mind the proposed research concern, the quote by
Amitav Ghosh, the writer himself seems quite aptly placed at the
very outset. The attempt of this work would be to peruse Amitav
Ghoshs fictional works and trace the major thematic concerns dealt
with in his fictional works and the patterns inherent therein.

The above quoted words uttered by Amitav Ghosh about the

fictional mode echo the true essence of contemporary Indian
English novel and our diasporic novelists. The Indian novelist
today refuses to be categorised merely as an Indo-Anglian novelist
because he has successfully carved a niche for himself in the
international world of fiction writers. Meenakshi Mukherjee in her
ingenious research on the antecedents of Indian fiction points out
that todays novelist from India aspires to be part of a global
league, and not contribute to some outmoded category called the
Indo-Anglian novel. 2

Amitav Ghosh can be seen as the flag bearer of the

fearlessness and freedom that the contemporary Indian writer in
English embodies. Although Salman Rushdie is the pioneer who put
the post colonial scene on the literary map, yet Amitav Ghosh has
 2

become one of the central figures to emerge after the success of

Rushdies Midnights Children. Yet when compared to Rushdie,
published criticism on Ghosh is not very substantial. Most of the
critical essays are limited to his more popular fictional works like
The Shadow Lines, In an Antique Land and The Calcutta
Chromosome. Ghosh is one writer who combines history with a
very contemporary vision of a world free of discrete cartograph ical
divisions. The advancement in electronic technology, instant
communication and networking, a proliferation of global television
channels has to a great extent dissolved all kinds of boundaries and
brought the world a lot closer. Amitav Ghoshs prime thematic
concern likewise is using the travel motif to create a neutral space
where barriers dissolve and borders are blurred. It is precisely this
cosmopolitanism which makes todays Indian novelist stand at par
with and not separate from global writers of English. Moreover the
constant concern with the subaltern whos lost in the annals of
history, endears him to the readers. The immense amoun t of
research that he puts into his works is woven beautifully in a blend
of generic expectations making them perfect encasements for the
prominent thematic concerns of contemporary Indian literary world.

Amitav Ghosh by following the precedent set by Salman

Rushdie has made significant contribution in creating a separate
class of writers who delude all borders and classifications that limit
the scope of their writing and their readership. Amitav Ghosh
follows Salman Rushdie not just chronologically but h is very first
novel The Circle of Reason (1986) bears testimony to the
inspiration he gained from Rushdies Midnights Children (1981).
 3

Amitav Ghosh is at the forefront of the contemporary creed of

diasporic writers who celebrate the loss of a definite ro otedness
or sense of place as our proposed work would attempt to unravel.
It would be a dwarfing of their talent to classify this cosmopolitan
breed of writers merely as Indian writers in English or Indo -
Anglian novelists. In fact todays global novelis t refuses to bind
himself in terms of genres or any fixed definitions that impinge
upon this freedom. Brinda Bose comments in her introduction to
Amitav Ghosh: Critical Perspectives:

Amitav Ghosh today cheerfully if humbly

bears numerous mantles of responsibility in the
world of book (case): anthropologist,
sociologist, novelist, essayist, travel-writer,
teacher, and slips in and out of these veiled
categories with admirable aplomb. 3
The contemporary Indian novelists like Arundhati Roy
besides Amitav Ghosh refuse to limit themselves to their Ivory
Tower existence; rather they are conscientious human beings
forever vigilant to the happenings around them and express their
concern in very vocal terms. To illustrate besides his other non-
fictional writings like Dancing in Cambodia, At Large in Burma
(1998), The Imam and the Indian: Prose Pieces (2002), Amitav
Ghosh has also written Countdown (1999) a long essay in
response to Indias nuclear testing in May 1998. He himself speaks
about his anguish and inner urge that led to the essay:

I had always imagined that a nuclear blast was

a kind of apocalypse, beyond which no existence
could be contemplated. Like many Indians, the
image that I had subconsciously associated with
this eventuality was that of Pralay the
 4

mythological chaos of the end of the world

listening to Kanti that day as we drove around
New Delhi; I realized that I like most people, had
been seduced into thinking of nuclear weapons in
symbolic and mythic ways. The explosion that
Kanti was describing would not constitute an
apocalyptic ending: it would be a beginning.
What would follow would make the prospect of
an end, an object of universal envy. 4
Coming back to our research concern, Amitav Ghosh prefers
fictional mode over others yet a historical and anthropological
researcher as he is, he is constantly looking for ways in which he
can mingle as much of history into his fiction, as he can. His works
contain elements of varied genres like science, history,
anthropological research into his works. In an interview Amitav
Ghosh defends his choice of fiction over history:

I think fiction has always played that part. If

you look at Tolstoys War and Peace I think
the difference between the history historians
write and the history fiction writers write is that
fiction writers write about human history. Its
about finding the human predicament, its about
what happens to individuals, characters. I mean
thats what fiction is exploring both
dimensions whereas history, the kind of history
exploring causes, causality, is of no interest to
me. 5
In Ghoshs novels this human historian keeps on travelling
from one culture or country to another in an effort to cr eating a
neutral space which is devoid of all boundaries and where borders
are blurred and subsequently dissolve. It is precisely this
cosmopolitanism which makes todays Indian novelists stand at par
with and not separate from global writers in English. Meenakshi
 5

Mukherjee points out that Indian writer today, aspires to be part of

a global league, and not contribute to some outmoded category
called the Indo-Anglian novel. 6 She places the credit of this
exuberant creative outpour on Salman Rushdies Midnights
Children and remarks on Rushdie that ...his inventiveness, his
irreverence, his audacity, and above all his success became
liberating for a large group of Indian writers living either at home
or abroad. At first many of them became Rushdie clones, but over
the years unusual writers with distinctive voices have emerged,
many who do not have more than only a vague family likeness to
him. 7

Contemporary fiction writers are at times accused of being

too politically detached. Amitav Ghosh defends himself and his
tribe and says;

We who write fiction, even when we deal with

matters of public significance have no choice,
no matter how lush and or extravagant our
fictions, but to represent events as they are
refracted through our characters. Our point of
entry into even the largest of events is
inevitably local, situated in and focussed on
details and particulars. To write of any event in
this way is necessarily to neglect its political
contexts what then are the contexts that we,
as writers of fiction, can properly supply? It
seems to me that they must lie in the event
itself, the scene, if you like it must be in some
part the readers responsibility to situate the
events within broader contexts to populate the
scene with the products of his experience and
learning. A reader who reads the scene literally
or mean spiritedly must surely bear some part of
the blame for that reading. 8
 6

Having briefly dwelled upon Amitav Ghoshs place in the

contemporary literary scenario, it would be worthwhile to take a
cursory view of the overall flux in Indian literary scene and its
place in the world. In comparison to the past, the thinking and
critical fraternity is more liberal and open minded in accepting and
evaluating literature written in English in subaltern colonial
countries. Earlier these writers were looked upon with doubts and
condescension and were denied the benefit of a sincere critical
analysis. Even their use of English as a medium of expression was
either ridiculed or dismissed as being unworthy of international
review. This widespread, interest in Indian English literature and a
proliferation in this genre is a consequence of the charm of
international awards brought by a few of our writers and a
lessening of financial worries with an increase in internal support.

It would be unfair here to discuss the rich fruits of labour and

to ignore the years of struggle and strife that led to its birth and
evolution. A very comprehensive analysis would be difficult under
the limitations of the proposed research work but the endeavour
would be to make a brief sketch of the Indian fictional scene from
its origin onwards. Besides the individual effort and creativity , one
cannot ignore the role of the sociological factors in the origin of
any great body of literature. The Western Influence, a term which
has more of derogatory connotations, contributed to thes e
sociological factors and created the milieu conducive to the
creation, and birth of Indo-Anglian literature i.e. the great body
of writing, written by Indians in English. When we peruse the pages
of our history wed realize that this western influence was not the
 7

work of a single entity or a single culture, rather it was a mixed

influence of all the different invaders who came at different times
and in different manners, be they Portuguese, Dutch, British or
French. Hence when we now see the rich corpus of Indo-Anglian
literature, we must admit that the impact of the British rule and the
consequent introduction of Indians to English language and
literature played a very vital role in its creation.

This contact with English language and education promote d

not just writings in English but also played the role of a catalyst to
enhance the production of good creative literature by writers in
their mother tongue like Bengali, Telugu, Gujarati, Tamil or
Marathi. These writers didnt hesitate to write in any la nguage they
were proficient in and even translated their works for the benefit of
the readers. Much before the renaissance in Indian English
literature came and the Indo-Anglian novel took birth, stray bright
sparks of talent did brighten the Indian sky with their works. But
they were isolated instances like Toru Dutt of the Dutt family, and
Manmohan Ghosh of the Ghosh family.

As with every new literature in its infancy, the renaissance in

Indian literature also began with writers like Raja Rammohan Roy,
who were predominantly social reformers and sought to cleanse the
soil of India of evils like superstitions, ignorance, sad plight of
women in general and widows in particular and the general
backwardness of the country. But this triggered creative individua ls
with potential into action and the movement gained further impetus
in the period between the two world wars as this was the time when
our country was under the inspiring spell of Mahatma Gandhi.
 8

Although Gandhian influence resulted in a general preferen ce for

the mother tongue but we see a proliferation of literature in both
regional languages as well as English. Besides whatever the
language medium chosen the stress has been more on simplicity and
clarity and immediate effectiveness than on ornateness and
profundity or laborious artistry and this has been as marked in
English writings as in the regional languages. 9 The Gandhian
influence is all the more visible in the character portrayal and the
stress on village life rather than urban life. We have no vels like
K.S. Venkataramanis Murugan the Tiller, Kandan the Patriot,
Kamala Markandayas Some Inner Fury, R.K. Narayans Waiting
for the Mahatma, Mulk Raj Anands Untouchable, The Sword and
the Sickle and Raja Raos Kanthapura.

Before we discuss in detail how the Indian novel in English

has gradually evolved from a depiction of sociological concerns in
a form that was more of an adoption and imitation, to the present
much more mature rendition of ideas in a form more complex, using
style and techniques both at par with the best novelists of countries
where English is the native language; it is pertinent to dwell upon
the origins of Indian novel in English. The novel form in India
evolved during the latter half of the nineteenth century again as a
result of western influence. Indian scholars began translating
English works, beginning with the Bible, into regional languages.
The translation of western novels followed this. This led to the
scholars creation of original works in imitation of the western
classics that they had translated. This was further facilitated
because novel as a form is easier to translate and compose as it
 9

gives more freedom to writers than other literary forms.

This creative outpour by Indian creative writers in the form of

fiction began in Bengal but quickly spread to other parts of the
country as well. Alaler Gharer Dulal is said to be the first novel in
Bengali published in 1858. But the real beginnings are
acknowledged from the works of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee
(1838-94). His first novel Raj Mohans Wife (1864) was written in
English. His next novel Durgeshnandini was written in Bengali but
later on translated into English in 1890. His other fictional works
like Kopalkundala, Vishavriksha, Krishnakantar Uyil, Anandmath,
Devi Chaudhurani appeared in Bengali from 1866-1886, but were
later translated into English. Other writers also produced good
novels during this period like Raj Lakshmi Debis The Hindu Wife
(1876), Toru Dutts Bianca, Kali Krishna Lahiris Roshinara
(1881), H. Dutts Bijoy Chand (1888) and Khetrapal Chakravartis
Sarata and Hingana (1895). These works in English have more of a
historical than a literary value for us today. Bankim Chandra
Chatterjee deals with themes like the sad plight of widows in Hindu
joint families, a theme which recurs frequently in novels by other
writers also. Todds Annals of Rajasthan and Scotts historical
romances were the inspiration behind Bankims historical novels.
Besides the widow, Bankim introduced sannyasis into his novels
that appear repeatedly into Indian English fiction sometimes as evil
influences and sometimes as comic characters. Apart from this, the
novels of this period also sought to imbibe in the readers a spirit of
patriotism, as the seeds of the freedom movement were sown during
this period only. So, novel as a means of creating political
 10

awareness among masses was also initiated.

Commenting upon the various stages through which novel in

India has passed Ananda Sankar Ray, himself a novelist says;

When Bankim wrote, the chief question was

how to restore the national self-respect. In
Rabindranaths time, it was how to bridge the
East and the West. In this dynamic age, it is
how to identify ourselves with the common
people. 10
After Bankim Chandra Chatterjee we come to Rabindranath
Tagore, another great novelist. Although his name reminds us first
of the Nobel Prize winning verse epic Gitanjali, with his Choker
Bali (1902) he triggers a change in the earlier concerns of the
novel. The recurring subject of a widows life is se en here again
but with the passage of time the widows rights to life and freedom
are emphasized more and more.

Sarat Chandra Chatterjee (1876-1938) after a brief stint with

imitative writings, produced works in which his sympathy with the
subaltern classes, the have-nots comes to the fore. Srikanta,
Grihadaha, Pather Dabi, Bipradas and Ses Prasna most of which
were subsequently translated into English were his major works.
Besides these, there were some minor novelists like Tarasankar
Bandopadhyaya, Bibhuti Bhushan Bandopadhyaya (Pather
Panchali), Manik Bandapodhyaya, Naini Bhaumik, Gajendra Kumar
Mitra, Manoj Basu, who presented through their fiction, the
superficial life as well as a profound study of Bengal life.

Before independence Indian novelists took inspiration from

the English novels but afterwards we find influence of other
 11

countries and cultures as well. This major change in the Indian

political scenario led some writers to write nostalgically and glorify
the past whereas some sensitive minds portrayed through their
writings the tumult brought about by this change in the form of
partition. The realisation that by overthrowing British rule, they
couldnt purge their country of the corruption, poverty,
superstitions and communalism, became the subject of many
creative works of fiction. Because of the lack of economical and
social support to the creative writers the novelist s had to face
numerous problems, still novel as a literary genre kept on evolving
and prospering.

Novels dealing with plots and characters set by the side of

rivers formed another type. We have Indian novels written in
English set by the riverside like K.S. Venkataramanis Murugan the
Tiller (1927) where he tells the story of village Alavanti situated on
the banks of river Cauvery, Humayun Kabirs Men and Rivers
(1945) dealing with the river Padma R.K. Narayans novels deal
with Malgudi, the fictional town situated on the banks of river
Sarayu. In Raja Raos Kanthapura the river Hemavathy is a
dominant presence. In The Serpent and the Rope the river Ganges
attains the position of a deity. The river sometimes brings death and
destruction while sometimes it takes the role of a mother who gives
life and bounty. And where agrarian way of life is represented, the
river has to be worshipped and pleased if favour and security are
sought for.

Tea and coffee plantation settings in novels also make an

altogether new creed. These plantations were cultural ly very rich
 12

since natives, tribals and Europeans worked together and the

consequent conflicts of ideas and tempers gave ample scope to the
novelists for the creation of a variety of plots. Mulk Raj Anands
Two Leaves and a Bud is a very impressive depiction of life in an
Assamese tea-estate. The action of Raja Raos Kanthapura partly
takes place in a coffee-estate in South India. In Manohar
Malgaonkers Combat of Shadows, the action takes place in an
Assamese tea-estate although both are different in the way the
theme is dealt with.

Meenakshi Mukherjee speaks about the various ways fiction

developed in India:

Since Bengal was the first region to come in

close contact with the British, the earliest
Indian novels came to be written in Bengali.
The first few attempts consist of sketches of
contemporary Bengali society, but the new
genre really became established with the
historical novel form. Novel emerged at
different times in different regions in India, but
almost every where the first crop showed a
preoccupation with historical romance. In fact,
the full development of the Indian novel as a
whole, allowing for certain oversimplification
of details may be divided into three large
stages; 1. Historical Romance, 2. Social or
Political Realism, and 3. Psychological novels
showing an introspective concern with the
individual. 11
The creative representation of history into works of fiction
has always lured novelists in the past as well as the present. Very
early in 1903, T. Ramakrishna wrote a historical novel in English,
Padmini dealing with the great sixteenth century battle of
 13

Talikote. The Slave Girl of Agra (1909) by Romesh Chander Dutt

and Nur Jahan (1909) by Sir Jogendra Singh are also in the
category of historical romances. Vimala Rainas Ambrapali (1962)
deals with the story of the Vaishali dancer by the same name , who
enters Buddhas fold in the times of Ajat Shatru. A.S.P. Ayyars
Baladitya (1930) and Chanakya and Chandragupta (1952) also deal
with ancient Indian history.

The Indian revolutionary movement of the twentieth century

also became the subject of many a creative novels.

The novels set in the 1930s and 1940s

invariably touch upon the national movement
for political independence. This is inevitable
because the long years of struggle and sacrifice
have shaped and coloured every experience of
modern India. A great national experience must
surely help in maturing the novel form because
an experience shared by the people at large
becomes the matrix of a society and the novel
flourishes best in a society that is integrated. 12
Rabindranath Tagores The Home and the World and Four
Chapters deal with such movements. Mulk Raj Anands The Sword
and the Sickle and K.A. Abbass Inquilab also indite the political
situation of the twenties. Gandhian civil disobedience movement in
the early thirties forms the background concern of K.S.
Venkataramanis Kandan the Patriot (1938) and Raja Raos
Kanthapura (1938). There was a proliferation of novels during the
Second World War period in India as this was the time when the
Hindu-Muslim rift was widening and India-Britain conflict was also
increasing and there was the Bengal famine and the Quit India
Movement. The resultant increase in frustration and misery is
 14

covered in novels like N.S. Phadkes Leaves in the August Wind,

Bhabani Bhattacharyas So Many Hungers! (1947), R.K. Narayans
Waiting for the Mahatma (1955) and Kamala Markandayas Some
Inner Fury (1957).

The horror and bestiality evidenced after the partition of India

and Pakistan gave birth to a new class of partition novels.
Khushwant Singhs Train to Pakistan (1956) is a very humane and
compassionate record of post partition horrors. Balachandra
Rajans The Dark Dancer (1959), Manohar Malgaonkars Distant
Drums and A Bend in the Ganges present the same event in
different ways. The civil unrest after such a mammoth shift of
population overshadowed all social and political happenings and
occupied the novelists for a considerable time.

The novels that deal with themes of social criticism also form
a separate but noticeable group. Romesh Chander Dutts The Lake
of Palms (1902) takes Bengals social life as its subject and is
revolutionary in the sense that it depicts the remarriage of a widow,
till then considered a taboo even in imaginary creative works. T.
Ramakrishnas The Dive of Death (1912) deals with the
superstitions prevalent in the society. Sir Jogendra Singhs Nasrin
(1915) and Kamini (1931), Balakrishnas The Love of Kusuma deals
with social life in Punjab. Firoz Khan Noons Scented Dust again
deals with life in Punjab. Hari Singh Gours His Only Love is a
study of the consequences of the liberation of Indian women.
Ahmad Alis Twilight in Delhi (1940) portrays Muslim life in
modern Delhi. In a culturally eclectic country like India, there is no
dearth of social issues and subjects to write about.
 15

Faith and renunciation occupy a special place of reverence in

our society. The ascetic in the form of Guru is always looked upto
in our society. The sannyasi motif as has already been mentioned
has figured very frequently in Indian English fiction. In Bhabani
Bhattacharyas He Who Rides a Tiger, the swami is a fake who
misguides people to avenge himself on the society. In The Guide by
R.K. Narayan, Raju becomes a swami by chance. In Kamala
Markandayas A Silence of Desire and Possession, we have a
sannyasi whos a social counsellor but people sometimes begin
doubting his integrity. Some novelists have even tried writing about
the old rishis like Bhagwan Parshuram by K.M. Munshi.

The Indian English novelists of yesterday rarely experimented

with techniques of plot, characterization and narration. But the
trends are changing and Indian English novelists have started
experimenting with style. Meenakshi Mukherjee says:

As the novel developed in the West, the

problem of what to say has sometimes been
outstripped by the problem of how to say it.
Especially in the early years of the twentieth
century, the technique of the modern novel was
the primary concern of writer as well as of
critic. This concern with technique has been
slow to evolve in Indo-Anglian fiction, but as
early as 1938 we find Raja Rao asserting that
the epic method is the most suitable for Indian
temperament and our paths are paths
interminableEpisode follows episode, and
when our thoughts stop, our breath stops, and
we move on to another thought. This was and
still is the ordinary style of our story-telling
This very attention to technique is a sign of
maturity of Indo-Anglian fiction. 13
 16

The stream of consciousness technique, a narrative style that

keeps jumbling the time between past, present and future has been
used impressively by Indian novelists. Instances are numerous like
G.V. Desanis All About H. Hatterr (1948), some passages in
Khushwant Singhs I Shall Not Hear the Nightingale, Anita Desais
Cry, the Peacock (1963) and Voices in the City (1965). With the
passage of time prominent novelists like Mulk Raj Anand, R.K.
Narayan, Raja Rao, Manohar Malgaonkar, Kamala Markandaya
have shown great adaptation with the times both in terms of subject
matter and in terms of style. Bhabani Bhattacharya talks about
godmen in A Dream in Hawaii (1978) but in a changed manner.
Princes, shows Manohar Malgaonkar turning to historical
biography.

Novels with themes like the predicament of coloured

immigrants in European countries came in vogue, like Kamala
Markandayas The Nowhere Man, Anita Desais Bye Bye Blackbird
and V.S. Naipauls The Mimic Man. Here we see a shift of the
novelists concern from the external predicament of the characters to
a revelation of their innermost psyche and the impact the external
forces exercise on it. Anita Desais Where Shall We Go this
Summer? (1975) uses the stream of consciousness method on the
times of Virginia woolf and Margaret Atwood and further repeats it
in Fire on the Mountain (1977) and Clear Light of Day (1980) with
effective ease.

Although Anita Desai successfully reveals the stark reality of

life by stripping it of all hypocrisy yet shes more drawn towards
the manner of presentation, as she herself confesses:
 17

...it is a style that interests me most and by

this I mean conscious labour of uniting
language and symbol, word and rhythm one
must find a way to unite the inner and outer
rhythms. 14
Novelists like Nayantara Sahgal present through their novels
the political situation of India about thirty years back from present,
This Time of Morning and Storm in Chandigarh and The Day in
Shadow (1971) are some of her works. A Situation in New Delhi
(1977) shows all the violence and turmoil in terms of student
activity and a background of greater politics. Arun Joshi through
his The Foreigner and The Strange Case of Billy Biswas (1978) and
again The Apprentice, explores the psychology of people which
make him run towards escape in different ways.

The political and social situation witnessed a marked

transformation in the 1990s. The period saw electronic revol ution
taking technology to unimaginable heights, globalization,
liberalization, cultural homogenization, crime, corruption and an
increasing concern for ecology. But before this and after
independence, the countrys peace has been overshadowed from
time to time, by hostile events. The aggression India witnessed in
the latter half of the 1980s led to a deluge of literary output. At the
same time the country opened its doors to liberalization and
globalization. Such intensifying crises and structural changes in the
society provoke an urge to analyse and understand it. The result is a
literature more and more inspired by the social environment. Such
periods characterized by progress hurdled by hostile regressive
events urge a desire for introspection, consequently stimulating
creativity in the form of fiction.
 18

The 1990s and after happens to be a golden period in

productivity of Indian English fiction. The writers are asking
cultural questions, emphasizing the central point that it is necessary
to find some means of surviving tolerantly in such a dangerous
world. India is home to many introspective and eloquent writers.
With no conventional boundaries and restrictions at play, many of
these new novelists are grouping to figure out their own technique,
giving full reins to their creative imagination. The major factor
common among these works of fiction is that they distance
themselves from the contemporary by annihilating the usually
accepted concept of time and even from the physical barriers of
geography and other dividing and limiting factors.

Contemporary Indian English writing can be divided into two

distinct strands: one comprising the home grown writers and the
other dominated by NRIs like Vikram Chandra, Kiran Desai,
Ardhasir Vakil, Kaizad Gustad, Rohinton Mistry, Amitav Ghosh,
Anita Rau Badami, Bharati Mukherjee, Meera Sayal, Shauna Singh
Baldwin, Anjanna Appachanna, Chitra Diwakaruni, Jhumpa Lahiri,
Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, V.S. Naipaul among others. The last
two decades have seen an unprecedented spurt in the publication of
writers from India. The sharp rise in the last quarter of 20 th century
in migration to Britain, USA, Canada and more recently , to
Australia and New Zealand has resulted in a body of literature in
English by these writers. These diasporic writers give expression to
their colonial and post-colonial experience from the vantage point
of both home and abroad. The discrimination and alienation they
face in the foreign land coupled with the experience of
 19

marginalization they face in their home country found voice in their

fictional outburst.

The works of these migrant authors signals the contemporary

condition, describing the predicament of various ethnic and racial
communities inhabiting spaces that are shared with others. The
haunting anguish of personal loss lies at the core of diasporic
fiction by writers of Indian descent together with a feeling of
homelessness that an awareness of India engenders. When we
consider any diasporic fiction, terms like alienation, nostalgia,
exile, despair, dislocation, abandonment and loss of identity come
to the mind.

But the literary production, just before the boon of 1980s

started by Salman Rushdie, was very slow. Meenakshi Mukherjee
speaks about this in her preface to The Twice Born Fiction:

I was an avid though somewhat lonely watcher

of the Indian English literary scene all through
the seventies, because of my vested interest in
the field. And by the end of the decade I was
almost convinced that what I had documented in
my dissertation was a short lived episode in the
multi-lingual literary history of India, an
episode that was now coming to its natural end.
The grandmasters of the Indian novel in English
R.K. Narayan, Raja Rao and Mulk Raj Anand
who had started writing in the 1930s
continued with unflagging regularity but they
had ceased to surprise. Many of those who
emerged after them had also fallen by the
wayside after sporadic activity. No new name
had caught the readers attention after Anita
Desai and Arun Joshi...Suddenly all this
changed. Salman Rushdies Midnights Children
(1981) may be looked upon as a convenient
 20

watershed separating the ethos in which the

writers discussed in The Twice Born Fiction had
written their novels from the confidence and
effervescence of a new generation which no
longer agonises about the choice of language
nor seems overtly self conscious about
Indianness. 15
Amitav Ghosh, undoubtedly, is the flagbearer of this new face
of Indian English novel but the credit of a swift and marked
graduation of Indian English novel from a merely sociological
concern to a study of the innermost psyche of the characters in very
innovative and experimental styles, like the use of the technique of
magic realism goes to a great extent, to Salman Rushdie. Indira
Bhatt and Indira Nityanandam point, precisely to this contribution
of Rushdie in their joint critical work:

Another important aspect to which Rushdie

draws our attention is the interaction of
historical and individual forces. In the 1930s,
the Indian English novelist was more concerned
with national and political and social problems
but the novelists of the 1960s shifted the focus
to the individuals quest for personal meaning
and his existential problems and social
relationships. In the 1980s there is a further
discernible change. With Rushdie's Midnights
Children, novelists were inspired to take up the
relationship between national issues and the
individual. 16
Salman Rushdie paved the way and Amitav Ghosh played a
very significant role in carrying forward the legacy of creat ing rich
and influential fiction. Rushdies Imaginary Homelands is a perfect
illustration of the alienation suffered by expatriate Indians. In this
novel, Rushdie talks of the sense of loss experienced by exiles and
 21

immigrants and their inner urge to reclaim what theyve lost. He

observes:

It may be that writers in my position, exiles

and immigrants or expatriates, are haunted by
some sense of loss, some urge to reclaim, to
look back, even at the risk of being mutated into
pillars of salt one writer who is out of the
country even out of language may experience
this loss in an intensified form. It is made more
concrete for him by the physical fact of
discontinuity of his being present in a different
place from his past, of his being elsewhere. 17
Salman Rushdie was the pioneer diasporic writer who
articulated the predicament of writers with experiences of
displacement and immigration. Grimus (1975) was his first work of
fiction, which was rich with mythic and erudite literary allusions.
But, the Booker Prize winning novel, Midnight`s Children (1981),
remains his most popular work. With this pioneering work using the
technique of Magic Realism, Rushdie came to be acclaimed as the
master writer of post-colonial fiction. In Shame (1983) Rushdie
writes about Pakistan to which his family had migrated from India.
Rushdie is celebrated as the writer who put the post-colonial scene
on the literary map. Migration is an offshoot of post -coloniality and
this theme of migration and the predicament of the post -colonial
migrant constitutes the subject of his next novel The Satanic Verses
(1988). The novel is set in the west and gives voice to his own
experience of uprooting and displacement, which ironically
increased with the Fatwa he had to face because of this work. The
book was deemed blasphemous by the Muslim Religious fanatics
and a Fatwa was issued against him, and he was forced to lead a
 22

fugitives life for almost a decade.

The Moors Last Sigh (1995), his next novel is set in Bombay
and represents his fictional return to India. His subsequent novel
The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999) again, is set in Bombay, in
India. Besides Rushdies characteristic concerns with the great
issues of our time, his fiction discusses the themes of
intermingling, displacement and innovation.

Fury (2001) is set in New York. It is an attempt to weave

myth and science fiction into the contemporary world.

V.S. Naipaul, is celebrated for voicing his experience of

migration and struggle to deal with the pangs of an uprooted artist.
He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2001. His early novels The
Mystic Masseur (1957), Miguel Street (1960), A House for Mr.
Biswas (1961), are all set in Trinidad. After these, he moves over to
other locales such as Africa, Latin America, India, which he visits
in both fictional and non-fictional modes.

The Enigma of Arrival (1987) deals with an uprooted

communitys longing for acceptance and a sense of belonging, and
their realization of the futility of nostalgia. His recent novel Half a
Life (2001) alongwith his other works expresses his concern that
the diasporic writers should strive to create a self in their own
words and assert their voice in the country, where they live.

The migrations and large-scale movements of people are an

outcome of globalization. The impact is directly visible in literature
with a representation of multicultural communities. All the fictional
and non-fictional works by Amitav Ghosh bear testimony to it, as
 23

would be discussed in detail in subsequent chapters of the proposed

research work.

Vikram Seths works are also steeped in the same search for
home and identity. His An Equal Music (1999) describes expatriate
Indians perpetual search for roots and endless discourses about the
impossibility of homecoming. Unlike A Suitable Boy and the more
recent Two Lives; Seths triumph in An Equal Music lies in creating
a central character that has no direct relationship to Seths cultural
context.

Rohinton Mistry, contemporary writer of much significance

can be said to have undergone double Diaspora, first being a Parsi,
from Persia to India and from India to Canada. He is an Indian by
birth presently living in Canada. Mistry in his novels goes back to
India to the Parsi community. Such a Long Journey (1991) is set
against the backdrop of the Indo-Pak war and the birth of
Bangladesh as a nation. Dealing with a Parsi family, the novel
shows the Parsi community as a model of multiculturalism, and
how it has blended into Indian culture without losing their own
cultural and religious identity.

A Fine Balance (1995) is written under the backdrop of Indira

Gandhis Emergency. It is the story of a widow Dina Shroff who is
forced to return to her tyrannical brother, after spending sixteen
years of her life earning and living alone. Freedom and home both
elude her. The loss of home leaves a hole that never fills in the
world of Nariman Vakil, the seventy nine years old protagonist of
Family Matters (2002). It is really a recurrent theme in almost all
of Mistry`s novels.
 24

The great body of writing by women diaspora, who moved to

the west from India either as professionals or as accompanying
spouses, have contributed substantially to expatriate literature in
English. They provide a fresh vision of colonial and post colonial
experiences tinted with feminine sensibility, of patriarchal
constraints of their colonial homelands and further the alienation in
western society.

Bharati Mukherjees Desirable Daughters (2002) thematizes

the issue of diaspora through the story of Tara Chatterjees
trajectory from India to San Francisco and back to Mishtiganj. It is
the creative pursuit of writing that shows Tara the way to her
emancipation by remembering her communitys history in a socially
meaningful manner.

Jasmine (1989), Bharati Mukherjees famous novel embodies

the common experience of the Indian diaspora and raises the
questions of identity construction and ethnic differences. The
protagonist Jasmine is addressed with a different name depending
upon where she makes her home and with whom. Her name, first
like her home, is constantly reinvented and relocated.

Jhumpa Lahiris debut novel The Namesake (2003) is based

on the theme of migration and alienation. The novel spans thirty
years of a Bengali family the Gangulys in America, and their
constant longing for home and belongingness. More painful is the
journey of their son Gogol, who carries the burden of a name he
doesnt like, and his attempts to conform and belong to the society
he was born into i.e. the West.
 25

Anita Rau Badamis novels Tamarind Men (1996), Heros

Walk (2000), and Can You Hear Nightingale Call? (2003)
contribute to the contemporary diasporic proliferation of literature.

Chitra Diwakarunis The Mistress of Spices (1997) deals with

Tilo, a healer and seller of spices in Oakland. Her other novel
Sister of My Heart (1999) is a simple story of two girls growing up
under one roof sharing confidences, willing to make sacrifices for
each other, confronting the world together.

Shauna Singh Baldwins What the Body Remembers (1999)

belongs to the genre of partition novels. Meena Alexanders
Manhattan Music (1990) has a character Draupadi who has never
been to India and feels guilty for her lack of history.

These diasporic Indian novels reflect the migrant condition

and illuminate the ongoing transformation in cultural and personal
identities. Recently womens issues have acquired centre stage in
literary works. Since, 1990s theres an increased preoccupation
with womens assertion of their own right on their body. Body is a
manifestation of womans assertion for her self and identity.

In Arundhati Roys The God of Small Things (1997), through

the character of Ammu, the novelist underscores womans right to
her body. Ammu asserts her right over her body by marrying out of
the Syrian Christian community and refusing to rel ent to the lust of
the white sahib at her husbands behest and later takes Velutha, the
untouchable as her lover. Rahel the chief narrator in the story
becomes the writers self, giving voice to her consciousness. A
representative of the third generation, Rahel is a rebel right from
 26

her childhood. In the convent she smoked, burnt her teachers bun
of hair and dashed against young girls to see if breasts hurt. Both
Ammu and Rahel refuse to conform to the accepted social
behaviour. Through the character of baby Kochamma, the novelist
shows women as the worst perpetrators of suffering on women.

Manju Kapurs Difficult Daughters (1998) is a realistic

representation of mother-daughter relationship. Virmati is the
difficult daughter for her mother Kasturi but when Virmatis
daughter Ida grows up, she also feels stifled by her mother. The
novel presents Virmatis quest for her selfhood in the process
discarding all social taboos. She too like Ammu in The God of
Small Things is a master of her body. She has pre-marital sex with
Prof. Harish and later in violent defiance of her family, marries him
and becomes his second wife. However, she refuses to be a victim
and transforms her marginal experience into a creative force and
potent energy.

The central protagonist in Manju Kapurs A Married Woman

(2003) is Astha, a married woman who struggles to keep her
identity intact while seeking equal opportunities within and without
the familial threshold. Frustrated because of an incompatible
marriage, Astha reclaims her body and manifests her dissatisfaction
by seeking love in a lesbian relationship with Pileeka.

Gita Hariharans Thousand Faces of Night (1992) won the

Commonwealth Writers Prize. The novel again looks at the
institution of marriage with the perspective of the suppr essed
female. The American educated heroine Devi, seeks love in
marriage failing to find which she feels frustrated. She leaves her
 27

husband and later her lover, to live on her own terms in her own
home by the sea.

Hariharans When Dreams Travel (1999) also gives voice to

women who were silent or absent in the stories of Arabian Nights.
She uses the Arabian Nights as the theme and context and includes
Shahrzads sister, their mother, and the mother of Shahrzad herself.

Shashi Deshpandes Small Remedies (2000) has Madhu as the

central protagonist, a woman who describes herself as a housewife,
who loves her son Aditya and is complacent in the happiness of her
home. Madhu, the narrator, shows resilience in the face of lifes
tragedies. Madhu travels to Bhavanipur to write the biography of
Savitri Bai, doyen of the Gwalior gharana and arrives in the wake
of her adolescent son Adityas death. In a sense, shes trying to get
away and escape, to piece together her shattered life.

A Matter of Time (1996) again takes up the theme of womans

search for her own identity. Sumi, who has been deserted by her
husband, refuses to be pitied, rather takes up life as a challenge and
successfully gives voice to her daughters, who establish their
identity through education, inner strength and sheer determination.
Both Shashi Deshpande and Manju Kapur deal with significant
issues like motherhood, marriage, the various roles of women as
wife, sister and friend and present a picture through mature
feminine sensibilities.

In Fasting Feasting (1999) Anita Desai creates a microcosm

of the patriarchal world where the women, be they wives or sisters
have to submit to the unexpressed needs of their fellow males.
 28

Kavery Nambisans The Scent of Peppers (1997) deals with

the brutality of patriarchal society to Nanji, married at twelve,
widowed at thirteen, married again at seventeen, mother of thirteen
becomes an old woman at forty six. Though Nanji is a
representative of countless such women in India, yet she stands out
with her compassion and tensile individualism.

Anjanna Appachanas Listening Now (1998) is a retelling of

the Shakuntala legend. Padma is the single mother, abandoned by
her husband. The story has six narrators and deals with the themes
of female bonding, female sexuality and mother-child relationship.

Shobha De talks about the battle of sexes in Surviving Men

(1997).

These significant writings by women, about women, focus on

the psychological complexities of female subjectivity. These novels
interrogate and explore womens space and place in a patriarchal
milieu. They seek to promote their point of view to reorganize the
world realities, a step towards sanity in human relationships.

Besides making the earth a better place for the fairer sex, an
influential body of literature seeks to rebuild our bond with nature,
our origin which we seem to have forgotten.

Gita Mehta in her novel A River Sutra (1993) links the river
Narmada to the main story and six sub stories. Arundhati Roys The
God of Small Things (1997) is replete with a description of world
of nature, tiny insects and tiny creatures. Roys concern for and
voicing of Natures existence is corroborated by her active
participation in Narmada Bachao Andolan and recently her support
 29

to people who are opposing Sardar Sarovar Project. She has

judiciously mixed her celebrity status with her involvement in
popular public causes.

David Davidars The House of Blue Mangoes (2003) also has

nature as an integral part and a sensuous protagonist. Charity Dorai
shares a special bond with nature which is a significant message to
the whole world.

Besides females and trees, there are numerous marginalized

minorities who require a representation. Minority discourse is
characterized not only by an eagerness to adopt and assimilate but
also by a culture of protest and resistance. Contemporary Indian
English fiction reflects the psychological vulnerabilities of
minorities, be they individuals or communities.

Writers like Dina Mehta, Rohinton Mistry, Boman Desa i,

Firdaus Kanga, Karanjia, and Allan Sealy have given a new face to
the literary discourse. Recent years have witnessed a remarkable
growth in Parsi writing. Boman Desais The Memory of Elephants
(1988) deals with the tiny but influential Parsi community in India.
Dina Mehtas Milo in Love (2003) is a story of Sharmila, a spinster
who has secretly loved Rayhaan, a family friend and a Parsi Punjabi
hunk. Sharmila goes to California to study but returns when she
doesnt fit there. Parsis is a marginalised community, on the verge
of extinction. Inbreeding has led to a diseased people in the
community, so, many young Parsi girls and boys are opting for
mixed marriages. Firdaus Kangas Trying to Grow touches upon the
subject of mixed marriages. As has already been discussed
Rohinton Mistrys Such a Long Journey, A Fine Balance and
 30

Family Matters, portrays the Parsi community in India. Parsis have

guarded their cultural and religious identity by isolating themselves
from other communities. Mistrys novels tell us about the life of
Parsi community, its social norms, religious practices, food habits,
and their distinctive language and idiom. The community comes out
as an ideal of multiculturalism and shows how well they have
assimilated into Indian society without giving up their cultural and
religious identity.

I Allan Sealys Trotternama (1988) weaves history and

fantasy in a remarkable manner. It covers seven generations of
Anglo-Indians. In David Davidars The House of Blue Mangoes
(2002), the second book entitled Doraipuram, describes Anglo -
Indian community, when Kannan falls in love with Helen while in
Madras Christian College. The Anglo-Indian community makes its
appearance felt in many a fictional works like Nayantara Sahgals
Lesser Breeds (2003), and in Kavery Nambisans The Scent of
Peppers (1997). The Syrian Christian community is seen in
Arundhati Roys The God of Small Things. Esther Davids The
Walled City (1990) is a moving account of the Jewish community in
Ahmedabad. It is about the process of including the marginalised
group into the mainstream, in the guise of a family saga involving
three generations of Jews.

Travelogues or literary works primarily occupied with the

travel motif are another genre, which has recently been getting a lot
of academic attention.

Vikram Seths From Heavens Lake (1984) is a postcolonial

travelogue, which won Thomas Cook travel book award. Complete
 31

with a map of his journey, poems to express his emotions and even
photographs, the book is a perfect travelogue. The multiple
languages, religions, geographical landscapes, climates and cultures
have been discussed in detail for a fulfilling reading.

The travel motif forms an inseparable part of almost all the

works by Amitav Ghosh though his works defy classification and
can not be limited in their scope by being called merel y
travelogues. Salman Rushdies The Jaguar Smile, is an account of
travels in Nicaragua.

Recent Indian writers in English are deeply engaged with

questions of history and Amitav Ghosh is the forerunner amongst
them: a perfect illustration would be The Glass Palace (2000)
which can be called a chronicle of the factors and history behind
World War II. But even a quick glance at all his works would
reveal Ghoshs preoccupation with history. But besides Ghoshs
novels, which would be dwelt upon in detail in the forthcoming
chapters, history forms the backdrop of most of the Indian writers
in English. Manju Kapurs Difficult Daughters presents a historical
record of the events of the 1940s. Nayantara Sahgals Lesser
Breeds (2003) and David Davidars The House of Blue Mangoes
(2002) have freedom movement as their backdrop. There is an array
of novels with partition and the violence it accompanied, as the
articulate background, like, Shauna Singh Baldwins What the Body
Remembers, Salman Rushdies Midnights Children (1980),
Gurcharan Dass A Fine Family (1990), Mukul Kesavans Looking
Through Glass (1995), Amitav Ghoshs The Shadow Lines (1988)
and Rohinton Mistrys Such a Long Journey (1991).
 32

The scar of partition is still fresh in Indias mind, with Babri

Masjid violence and other communal riots adding to the sores.
Shashi Deshpandes Small Remedies concerns the lives of two
women Madhu and Savitribai who have lost their son and daughter
respectively in riots after the demolition of Babri Masjid. The
Ayodhya incident also appears in Manju Kapurs A Married
Woman. Kiran Nagerkars Cuckold (1997) deals with the legendary
Mira Bais husband Maharaja Kumar. The background is a
significant period of Indian history when Babur won the throne of
Delhi.

Gita Mehtas Raj appears as a documentary on the Roy as she

makes use of authentic historical material in the form of speeches
and proceedings of the Indian National Congress.

Shashi Tharoors The Great Indian Novel (1989) chronicles

the political history of the twentieth century India. Riot (2001) by
Tharoor is concerned with the communal issues bedevilling our
national politics and society in the 1990s. Communal issues and
fundamentalist mindset is the issue of Gita Hariharans In Times of
Siege (2003). Dealing with a professor besieged for writing a
politically incorrect history lesson, the work speaks volumes for the
politically influenced history writing.

The use of myth to control his world of fact and fiction is

another characteristic of Indian English novelist. The Jatakas, the
Puranas, the numerous intersecting stories of Mahabharata and
Ramayana provide ample anchorage for stories retold in present
times. Salman Rushdies The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999)
makes use of hundreds of mythological references. Allusions to
 33

Gods and legendary beings stick out everywhere. When a boy offers
an apple to three girls on a Bombay Beach The Judgement of Paris
is evoked. The story of Vina Apsara and Ormus Cama, the book is
like something out of a mythological dictionary. Rushdies ot her
novel Fury (2001) uses classical mythology, in this case the myth
of the three furies, the snake haired Goddesses who avenged crime
in an exploration of Prof. Mallick Solanka`s mid-life crisis. The
novel attempts to weave myth and science fiction.

Shashi Deshpandes A Matter of Time (1996), is structured in

three parts: The House, The Family and The River. The first
two sections begin with an epigram from Bradaranayaka Upanishad,
third from Katha Upanishad. Mother daughter bonding reminds us
of the myth of Prithvi and Sita. There are numerous other
mythological parallels that can be drawn as the text is thickly inlaid
with myths.

Sunny Singhs debut novel Nanis Book of Suicide (2000)

combines myth and contemporary reality to explore the cultural
identity of an Indian woman. Sammie, the coke addicted wanderer
who moves from Varanasi to Mexico travelling from place to place,
is linked to mythical women like Kunti, Draupadi, Sita, Suneeti,
Meera and Padmini.

These mythical women are not only the integral aspect of her
consciousness but are living creatures that haunt her through her
travels across the globe.

Anjana Appachannas Listening New (1998) is an interesting

telling of the legend of Shakuntala, the primal single mother
 34

abandoned by her partner. A story that has six narrators, the novel
creates a complex world for each one with their own desires and
despairs.

The use of myths in fiction has an aesthetic advantage both

thematically and structurally. These myths, which are an integral
part of our shared cultural heritage, contain the basic ideas that
govern the entire culture of a nation.

The late twentieth century, saw the advent of post -modernism

in all fields of cultural life from architecture, films, literary
subjects to political and social situations. The role of postmodernist
cultural theories like post structuralism, post Freudian
psychoanalysis, new historicism, reception aesthetics, post -
colonialism etc, in the interpretation of the new fiction is quite
conspicuous. Whereas a modernist would try to see meaning in the
world through myth, symbol or formal complexity, the
postmodernist artist welcomes the absurd and the meaningless
confusion of contemporary existence with a certain numbed
indifference.

In Salman Rushdies novel Midnights Children (1981), the

conventional hierarchy is reversed - the marginal is suppressed and
the peripheral are given central place. Conventional history is
hampered with the use of magic realism, the absurd, conceits and
black humour.

Gita Hariharans When Dreams Travel (1992) is a novel about

a womans search for her story. The terror, oppression and injustice
of the patriarchal system, is brought out, using the old story of
 35

Arabian nights as theme. Hariharan uses subversive devices of

meta-fiction, intertext and magic realism in order to foreground her
feminist discourse in the post-modern context. The writer calls into
question the validity of conventional writing practice at the same
time using this practice to develop a pattern of coherence which
breaks radically from the closed, linear narrative.

Makarand Paranjpes novel The Narrator: A Novel (1995) self

consciously sub-titled as A Novel, adopts an indigenous model of
story telling against the accepted modes of linearity.

Rajkamal Jhas The Blue Bedspread (1999) a novel spread

over one night centres around the incestuous love of the unnamed
narrator for his sister. It follows the same unconventional form of
narrative.

His recent novel If You are Afraid of Heights (2003) is about

two unlikely people, who find their lives briefly joined by a tram
accident in Kolkata. Another parallel narrative shows a journalists
investigation of the discovery of the body of a child, raped, killed
and abandoned in a canal. Flying back and forth between the two
narratives is the figure of a crow. The dark, eerie, mutilated images,
which abound, are nightmarish to the reader.

Shashi Deshpandes Small Remedies appears to be a

biography of Bai. Madhu is a writer and she is at the same time
reflecting upon and writing about her own life. Similarly Amitav
Ghoshs The Calcutta Chromosome blends historicity and meta-
fiction. The post-modern novel`s characteristic feature is the
metafictionality and the major aspect of meta fictionality is inter
 36

textuality. There is in all the texts, the pr esence or suggestion of a

plethora of other texts and the novel deliberately draws attention to
those texts.

Vikram Chandras Red Earth and Pouring Rain (1996) is

connected by a series of interlinked and interacting stories
stretching across continents and centuries. There is a use of magic
realism as the human monkey types the tale of his previous life as
the poet Sanjay. Chandras text makes use of intertextual strategies.
The text abounds in literary allusions to Melville, to Kipling,
Shakespeare, R.L. Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Rushdie and
Poe. It is a post-modern novel, which breaks both chronology and
stream of consciousness by turning both upside down, shuffling the
sequence and space.

The creation and reception of art, whether literary or

otherwise is altered in the contemporary world with global
communication technology, multinational capitalism and changing
social values. Indian English novels have shown a tendency for
reception of the innovative collaboration at a global level. The
genre is open to growing demand for diversity, a necessary increase
in the assertion of minorities and a valorisation of hybridity both in
society and literature. Steeped in the culture and history of the
Indian subcontinent, Indian English novel needs to be studied in the
context of our history and our culture, both classical and
contemporary. The contemporary Indian English novel places our
socio-cultural concerns in the foreground and even the literature
written in Indian regional languages helps in providing t he context
for the text.
 37

Unlike other regional Indian language literatures which have

fixed and composite readership and are restricted to a fixed
geographical territory and religious sections, Indian English writing
has a universal appeal, defying regional geographical boundaries,
integrating various states within the country, it becomes a medium
of co-operation and exchange. It is this tendency to bring together
and at the same time break all dividing lines and categorisations,
which gives to Indian English novel its universal appeal.

The range of Indian English fiction is truly eclectic and wide.

If works abound in East-West encounter, there are new versions and
interpretations of ancient mythologies. If there are works on newer
interpretations of history, there are also novels in which womens
issues remain a tangential concern. New areas are constantly being
explored and brought to light. Rohit Manchandas first novel In the
Light of the Black Sun (1996) presents a picture of childhood in a
remote mining district of Bihar. Kavery Nambisans The Scent of
Peppers presents an authentic picture of life in Coorg, exploring
new geographical and social arenas. Even a satire in the form of an
animal fable has been attempted: Ranjit Lals The Crow Chronicle
does not have any human characters. The Night of the Krait, a fast
paced thriller has been written by Shashi Warrior. Tara Deshpande
has written Indias first e-book The Motive which is co-authored by
Tara Deshpande and You.

Fiction remains the dominant form of literary art, more than

any other genre. Fiction writing represents Indias most valuable
contribution to the world of books. Contemporary novelists
daringly experiment with the language as well as the technique of
 38

fiction. The use of science fiction, fantasy, magic realism, and

blending of various literary genres has enriched the form of the
Indian English novels.

This trend has been evolving ever since and has reached its
pinnacle in the contemporary world of fiction writers a fearless
new creed whos not afraid of experimentation in any form.

Amitav Ghosh, is at the forefront of this newly acquired

fearlessness and freedom of Indian writers. A critical study of the
prime thematic concerns of Amitav Ghoshs novels is thus an
opportunity not just to peruse a substantial body of work that
meditates upon a core set of issues concerning post colonialism in
the contemporary fictional writing with special focus on the
marginalised subaltern; but also to view history with a novel
perspective. Attempt in the proposed research work, would be to
make a thematic study of the fictional works by Amitav Ghosh and
try to unravel the patterns inherent therein.

Thus, this introductory chapter is an endeavour at placing

Amitav Ghosh in Modern Indian Literary Context. The various
routes, through which the Indian English Fiction has travelled to
reach the present scenario, have been traced in this chapter.
Attempt has been to trace the progress of Indian English Fiction
right from its birth to its gradual evolution into the present mature
and internationally acclaimed form, with Amitav Ghosh at the
forefront. The tendency of Ghosh to blend the various genres to
produce unparalleled works of literature is a literary innovation of
which Ghosh is the supreme master. With emphasis on the author
under study, due credit has been given to the predecessors, the
 39

harbingers of Indian Novel in English who set the stage and

prepared the soil for the contemporary novelists. The emerging
trends in terms of thematic concerns of novelist of today have been
studied in the light of changing patterns across decades. It is
against this literary background, keeping in mind the various
themes that have occupied Indian English Writers that Amitav
Ghoshs novels would be studied in the later chapters. The
subsequent six chapters would be devoted to a deep critical analysis
of six novels by Amitav Ghosh in order to highlight the different
dimensions of the topic that is, Thematic patterns in the Novels of
Amitav Ghosh.

The second chapter entitled The Migrant Subaltern: The

traveller in The Circle of Reason, would dwell in detail on the
migrating subaltern and his predicament keeping the feminist
perspective in mind. Ghoshs persistent and recurring concern with
the porosity of national, cultural and mental barriers would be
introduced in this chapter. The chapter would attempt to make a
study of the deployment of the journey motif and the significant
junctions like circularity and reason on the way. The influence of
Rushdies Midnights Children, in his use of Magic Realism is
combined with Ghoshs experimentation with the fictional mode.
Ghosh the story teller and delineator of characters , combines
various genres to produce a unique literary representation, which
would recur in his subsequent works to bring out varied thematic
interests.

The third chapter entitled The Blurring Borders: Post-

Colonial Travel in The Shadow Lines` would deal with the new
 40

dimensions given to the theme of negation of discrete cultures and

borders and the idea of nationalism. The chapter would attempt to
study how Ghosh employs memory, time and place to establish the
futility of cartographical divisions, in a non-linear narrative.
Ghoshs division of the book into two parts Going Away and
Coming Home, to bring home the implications of Home in a
post-colonial scenario, where the native is the traveller, would be
discussed. Above all, the effect of the violence which came in the
wake of the partition, on the inner consciousness of the
protagonists as presented in the novel would be dwelt upon.

The fourth chapter is entitled Giving Voice to History:

Subaltern Revived in In An Antique Land. The endeavour in this
chapter would be to reveal how Ghosh`s concern for and insight
into the world of the subaltern predominates the rest of his ideas.
The chapter would discuss how Ghosh gives voice to the obscure
subaltern who is lost in the oblivion of historical annals. An
attempt would be made to reveal how the novel defies
categorisation in terms of genre with a melding of di fferent generic
traits.

The fifth chapter entitled: The Subaltern Scientific

Researcher in Ghosh`s Medical History: The Calcutta Chromosome
would highlight how the novel continues to explore Ghosh`s
peculiar themes in a genre that is predominantly scien ce fiction, but
imbibes traces of history, detective chase and even spirituality. The
chapter would discuss how the author examines the late nineteenth
century history of malaria research, restoring to the subaltern
researcher, his deserved place in history. The endeavour would be
 41

to further reveal how the subjugated subaltern, especially the twice -

colonised female is given an authoritarian voice in the novel. The
chapter would emphasize how the borders between the discoverers
and the discovered are gradually blurred and subsequently erased in
this unconventional work of science fiction which seeks to project
into the past.

The sixth chapter entitled: Post-Colonial Migrations: The

Displaced Generations in The Glass Palace, would be devoted to
unravel the theme of alienation and colonial displacement of the
characters who cross boundaries and make several transitions
during their lifetime in the novel The Glass Palace. It would
unravel how Ghosh weaves the stories of a proliferation of
characters, of various nationalities into a post-colonial narrative of
epic magnitude. The chapter would discuss in detail the identity
crisis faced by the Indians especially Indian officers in the British
army in the years before independence. The emphasis again would
be on unravelling the obliteration of borders that is a result of
crossovers and transitions presented in the novel.

The seventh chapter entitled: Borders dissolved: An

Ecological Perspective of The Hungry Tide, would take an eco-
critical view of Ghoshs The Hungry Tide, where it is
predominantly nature that takes the onus of destroying and re-
defining boundaries. It would attempt to discuss how Ghosh deals
with the more intimate world of personal divisions between men
and women, besides geographical divisions. The chapter would
discuss how Ghosh continues his experimentation with genres by
combining ecological perspective with scientific research work and
 42

a pervading desire for a society free of all divisions.

The eighth chapter would be conclusive in nature and would

be devoted to the manner in which the various themes are
interrelated. It would sum up the findings of the preceding chapters
and offer an overall view of the findings. The chapter would take a
cursory glance at Ghoshs non-fiction which is the true precursor of
the themes dealt with by him, in his fiction. Besides his essays, the
chapter also includes a brief mention of Ghoshs proposed Ibis
trilogy which includes The Sea of Poppies published in 2008 and
River of Smoke his latest venture published in June 2011. The
recurring and pervading theme of dissolution of boundaries and
divisions is dealt with, in detail. The chapter also dwells upon
Ghoshs craft of fiction, the structural and formal features of his
works under study. In the end, the findings of the preceding
chapters are summed up and an overall view of the findings is
offered.
 43

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Amitav Ghosh, The March of the Novel through History: The

testimony of my grandfathers Bookcase, The Imam and the
Indian: Prose Pieces (New Delhi: Ravi Dayal and Permanent
Black) 2002. 303.

2. Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Anxiety of Indianness The

Perishable Empire: Essays on Indian Writing in English (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000) 175.

3. Brinda Bose (ed.), Introduction Amitav Ghosh Critical

Perspectives (New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2003) 13.

4. Amitav Ghosh, Countdown (New Delhi: Ravi Dayal,

1994)104.

5. Amitav Ghosh, An Interview to First City Shadow Script

(New Delhi. Sep 2000) 30.

6. Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Anxiety of Indianness 175.

7. Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Anxiety of Indianness 178.

8. Amitav Ghosh, The Fundamentalist Challenge The Imam

and the Indian: Prose Pieces (New Delhi: Ravi Dayal and
Permanent Black, 2002) 282-3.

9. K.R. Srinivas Iyenger, Gandhi Literature Ch XIV Indian

Writing in English (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1985)
278.
 44

10. K.R. Srinivas Iyenger, The Novel themes, Backgrounds,

Types Ch XVI Indian Writing in English (New Delhi:
Sterling Publishers, 1985) 317.

11. Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Literary Landscape Ch.2 The

Twice Born Fiction (New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2005)
30.

12. Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Literary Landscape Ch.2 35 -36.

13. Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Literary Landscape Ch 2 39 -40.

14. R.K. Srinivas Iyenger, Post Script Indian Writing in

English (New Delhi: Sterling Publisher, 1985) 745.

15. Meenakshi Mukherjee, Preface The Twice Born Fiction

(New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2005)10.

16. Indira Bhatt and Indira Nityanandam (ed.), Introduction The

Fiction of Amitav Ghosh (New Delhi: Creative Books, 2001)9.

17. Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism

1981-1991 (London: Granta, 1991) 10-12.