River of Fire

Important Long Questions and Character Analysis

Past Paper Questions UoS:

1. Write a comprehensive note on representation of female psyche in the "River Of Fire".

2. Write a detailed note on the post partition phase as described in "River Of Fire".
How contrasting to the earlier phases?
3. Write a detailed note on the major themes in "River Of Fire".
4. Discuss "River Of Fire" as a meta history of India.

Q.1. Hyder depicts history in the novel river of Fire. How?

Ans: Qurratulain Hyder is one of the few living Urdu writers whose work can be placed along
with the very best in world literature. Her novel Aag ka Darya, first published in 1959, is without
question the most important novel of 20th century Urdu literature. Not too long ago, the author
herself, who writes equally well in English, has “transcreated” this novel as the River of Fire.

Spanning two and a half millennia of Indian history, the book is a meditation on history and
human nature, tracing four souls through time. The novel focuses on the lives and loves of four
characters, who born and reborn during various epochs of Indian history, bearing the same
names: Gautam, Champa, Kamal, and Cyril. In different eras different relations like romance and
war, possession and dispossession form among them.

The novel offers four main plots, which are meant to be dissolved in our minds as we meander
through the great historical narratives of our traditions : Buddhism, Hinduism, the coming of
Islam, the age of the great Mughals, the arrival of the British, the 1857 War of Independence,
the two World Wars, the horror of partition, and so much that followed in post-
independence India and Pakistan. Gautam (appearing first as a student of mysticism at the
Forest University of Shravasti in the 4th century B.C.) and Champa, the beautiful daughter of the
Chief Minister (throughout embodying the enigmatic experience of Indian women) begin and
end the novel. Nearly two millennia later Gautam emerges as Syed Abdul Mansur Kamaluddin, a
foreigner from Persia who falls in love with a native beauty Champavati, who is fated to elude
him. Further down the river of time the characters appear as Cyril Ashley, a scholarly company
man from old Bengal who falls in love with Champa Jan, a cultured and alluring courtesan from
Lucknow. Gautam is there, too, as Gautam Nilamber Dutt, this time, a reader of Shakespeare,
preparing for an opportunistic career rise with the rise of the British Raj.

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When the story makes its final shift from the 19th to the 20th century, we see, for the last time, a
whole new configuration of characters, united by leftist politics, intellectual kinship, art, music,
poetry, and theatre. Again, Gautum, Hari Shankar, Nirmala and Champa come together as
friends at college. Also on the scene are Kamal, Amir, Tehmina, and several other young
Muslims and Hindus. The final segment, which takes up more than half of the book, is played
out in three phases, the protagonists’ education in India in the final years of the Raj, their
sojourns In England, ending with their Careers in India and Pakistan. The profound sweep of the
book is simply amazing.

Written years before magical realism and other formal experiments reshaped the novel genre,
this bold experiment in narration enables us to participate in 2,500 years of imagined history.
Interweaving parables, legends, dreams, diaries and letters, Hyder’s prose is lyrical and witty
and evokes a strong nostalgia for times gone by. The novel makes us feel the poignant passage
of time and leaves us with a deep sense of sadness. In every way, it is a masterpiece.

Q.2. Hyder has evaluated a new woman in the story. Explain with the reference
of River of Fire.
Ans: Evaluation of New Woman Champa the central female character reincarnates throughout
the novel. First she appears as the daughter of Chief Minister, then Champavati the sister of
learned Brahmin of Ayodhya, Champa Jan in the third story, a rich courtesan in Awadh and
finally, Champa Ahmed a social climber. Her journey spanning centuries can be read as a quest
to seek freedom and escape the confinements of ‘home’, a quest for identity and a journey of
evolution in to the ‘new woman’. In the first story, Champak the crown prince’s fiancé has been
waiting for him for eight years and all this while discusses intellectual matters with visiting
Chinese scholars. Though she has been sketched as knowledgeable about matters of philosophy,
yet wandering like a vagrant that Hari Shankar and Gautam Nilambar indulge in is not for her.
The worldly matters and scholarly pursuit remains the domain for the men. Deserted by her
fiancé, separated by war from Gautam Nilambar, she is forced to join the harem of the old
mantri. When Gautam spots her in the audience, sitting cross-legged with a child beside her, she
had turned into “a prosperous housewife and mother. No longer an ideal or a vision, just a
smug matron with a double chin and a middle age spread (Hyder 2003: 47). The following lines
by Hyder describethe anguish of women forced by patriarchy in to domesticity.

“In order to forget her Gautam Nilamber had returned to the world and probably remained a
hermit at heart. She could neither renounce nor enjoy the world of desire… For she had
undergone her own transformation: She had done what a mere woman was required to do-
she had accepted her fate” (2003: 48).

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Sami Rafiq, in ‘Representation of the Female Psyche: The Champa of Aag Ka Darya’ writes that
it is through Champavati, that Champa’s character begins to take a definite shape. For Rafiq,
Champavati represents the alternate world view that “stands for harmony, love and peace”
which often gets disregarded by men in the domain of worldly affairs as inadequate and
inconsequential. Champavati asks Kamaluddin to quit war but Kamaluddin mocks her approach,
considers her learning inadequate, and praises the valour and learning of the Moghul Court and
moves on, deserting her. The way Kamaluddin describes Champavati in the following lines is
significant as the image painted is that of a simple and docile lady who is homely, hence
attractive.

“Champavati is utterly enchanting, so different from Bano. No regal airs, no jewellery, no

make-up, no silks and brocades. She wraps herself in an unstitched piece of cotton cloth and
goes about barefoot. When I want a glass of water she brings it in a clay cup and place sit on
the ground, then rushes back to her cow-dung plastered hut. (Hyder 2003: 76)”

It is in Champa Jan, the courtesan we get a glimpse of a learned woman, who is aware of her
charm and sexuality as evident in the remark made by Bhadro Gautam who calls her

“a connoisseur of men who knew how to pick and choose” and “could set men afire with a
mere glance! “according to Hari Shankar (Hyder 2003:138).

In this birth she was free from the subservience of the previous birth yet finally succumbs to
the vagaries of time and history. The macro-events of History, as the aftermath of revolt of 1857
percolate in the life of Champa Jan the renowned courtesan, who once enjoyed respectability
and admirati onof men, turning her into a toothless destitute, dressed in patched gharara and a
quilted stole, full of holes, begging to meet her requirement of the daily dose of opium
character of Champa Ahmed. Having discovered the power of her sexuality she did not abstain
from having an affair with Amir Reza the fiancé of Tehmina. She gets involved in a series of
relationships with various men including Gautam Nilambar and Cyril Ashley in England but does
not marrying any of them. She works in England for a while, and returns to India to set up a
legal practice with her father in her home town, Benares.

She is the picture of an emancipated woman, or what Sarah Grand calls the ‘new woman’, one
who is independent in spirit, receives university education, bends the conventional gender roles
by taking charge of her social and personal life and is met with hostility from men as well as
women, who consider her immoral for exhibiting her sexuality in an unbridled manner. She is
able to take decisions and creates a space for her empowerment. By eluding again and again the
compulsion to settle into domesticity with the men she loves. Champa Ahmed’s rejection of the
marriage proposal from Amir.

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Reza and then Cyril Ashley represent her quest for emancipation from the patriarchal politics of
restriction.

Q.3. Character sketch of Champa. How does Hyder paints her in the story?
Ans: Champa is a middle class girl. She goes to Lucknow to get education and then to England.
In this age, all characters Amir Raza, Tahmina, Talat, Nirmala, Guatam, Hari Shankar, Kamal and
particularly Champa Ahmad (who is called as Baji by others) are confronted with the issue of
communication. They are unable to express their feelings before others. Champa who loves
Amir is unable to say that she loves him. The same problem happens in England which was
considered as the fountainhead of modem era. Finally, the lack of this communication ends on
Champa and she will lead an unknown and lonely life. Champa thinks:

The company of group is useless; in fact, loneliness is the reality. In a different form, the
consequence of Champa Ahmad is also of Sita in “Sita Haran” and Deepali in “Aakhir-e-Shab ke
Hanisafar’. All these characters are disillusioned with life. This disillusionment of Champa and
Kamal provide heading to the novel as “Aag ka Darya” which is not easy to be passed through.
However, Champa learns the lesson to face the reality after coming out of her disillusionment.
She thinks:

It is in my own hand to make this country as a hotbed of pain and sorrow or as a treasure of
happiness. I am not bothered about others. Opening one hand, she looked at it meticulously:
the hand of the dancer, the hand of the artist or the writer. No, this is only the hand of a
general, mediocre but intelligent girl who wants to work now.

The decision of Champa indicates to her existential Behaviour in which she learns how to
remain self-dependent by her experience without relying on others.

Champa of modem era reincarnated as Champa Ahmad, is living lavishly and has all kinds of
luxurious amenities but she cannot express her feelings to her ideal Amir Raza. As a result, she
is destined to eternal solitude. The character of Champa Ahmad has been presented in a
manner that it becomes an embodiment of mental and emotional conflict of the new
generation particularly of the educated middle class with other characters of her age.

Q.4. Write a detailed note on the major themes in "River Of Fire".

A literary theme is the main idea or underlying meaning a writer explores in a novel, short story,
or other literary work. The theme of a story can be conveyed using characters, setting, dialogue,
plot, or a combination of all of these elements.

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River of fire deals with several themes which include:

1. Time or Passage of Time

2. History
3. Love
4. Separation and Partition
5. Alienation and Despair
6. War
7. Colonization
8. political and social movements

1. Time or Passage of Time:

Time is the major theme of the story. Time passes like a river and never stops for someone.
Time is like a river. You cannot touch the same water twice, because the flow that has passed
will never pass again. Champa becomes Champavati and the Maurya empire becomes Mughal
empire. This shows the passage of time. Champa’s beauty fades up and Gautam becomes Jogi.
Colonizers come and change the history. At the en end partition occurs. The whole novel depicts
the passage of time.

2. History:

Already discussed in long question.

3. Love

Love is central theme of the novel. Different periods have their own characters love stories. For
example in first part Champak and Gautam love each other. In second period Kamal and
Champavati love each other. Therefore love is an important theme.

4. Separation and Partition:

Separation is another important theme in the novel. In third part of novel Cyril leaves Sujata
after marriage is finest example of this theme.

Partition of India into India and Pakistan is serves as central event to the novel while leads
disparity among the people of Pakistan and India.

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5. Alienation and Despair:

Several characters in the novel feel alienation and despair. Gautam, Champak, Sujata, Kamal etc.
have sense of despair and loneliness.

6. War:

War between Lodhi dynasty and Muhammad Shah Naiq is finest example of War theme in
novel.

7. Colonization

Third part of novel deals with the theme of colonization when East India Company took control
of the India.

8. Political and social movements:

Despite many others theme, political and social movements is also a theme of the novel.

Novel describe the independence movement of 1857. It also gives glimpse of political
movement of Muslims and Hindu to liberate themselves from Britis h rule.

Majors Characters
Gautam
In this novel, characters appear in different guises but bear the same name and link in each era.
Gautam Nilambar is the first character who appears as a student of mysticism at the Forest
University of Shravasti in the 4th century BC and reappears in many reincarnations across the
centuries, as does his friend Han Shankar and others. Kamal, the Muslim character appears
midway through the novel as an outsider’, part of the Mughals who invaded India, and loses
himself in the Indian landscape. Champa, who embodies the Indian woman in every era, begins
and ends the novel. She has been chronicled as different forms of women with historical
perspective from ancient period to modern times. Cyril, the Englishman, appears last. The four
characters in the novel share different relationships in different eras. These reincarnations are
handled well and make for an interesting sense of continuity. In the first episode, Gautam
comes across two bathing beauties in the river and feels love for one of them. Soon he meets
Hari Shankar, a prince who yearns to be a monk, but he appears masqueraded as a Yavana.
When Gautam mentions the bathing beauty, Yavana’s face turns red. For, the beautiful one is

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actually the young pretender's sister. Princess Nirmala. Gautam also elicits the truth about the
princess’s friend, Champak. The first romance that blossoms as Gautam meets Champak
remains unfulfilled, and in some ways, the sense of un-fulfillment characterizes Gautam and
Champak.

Many years after Chandragupta’s invasion, Gautam becomes a wandering performer who curses
all those who make swords and arrows. Once, during a performance, Gautam and Champa
meet. The beauty who was the model and inspiration for his “Sudarshan Yakshini” had become
a matronly old Priest of Sharavasti, final year student of the forest University, meditating,
attending lectures living in ascetic conditions as part of his training to attain the high order of
Brahmanism. From the very beginning we know that his journey is going to be arduous. His
sensitive and artistic mind did not want to follow the footsteps of his father to become a priest
instead his mind responded to dance, paint and sculpture. He picks up a beerbahuti and
wonders that “Beer bahuti must have a perception about the cosmos”. He is attracted by the
beauty of Champak. This side of the lake beckons with beauty & romance, the other side is his
vocation, preparing him to administer the world. The anguish of this tussle makes him a loner.
His physical and mental exertion makes him weary. He tells himself:

“not to be scared of the loneliness of my soul, for there is much to occupy one, when alone.
The study of one’s heart is the key to the study of mysteries of the world and in the house of
the heart is what is to be sought…..”

And then again, “though seated, he travels far. Though at rest, he moves all things, Who is joy
and is beyond joy. In the midst of the fleeting, He abides forever.”

These lines are strongly reminiscent of Iqbal who Says in his poem, Khizre Rah,

“Oh, seeker of the eternity, if the eye of your heart is opened, the destiny of the creation will
be unveiled to You.”

Metaphysic in Gautum’s character

Gautam is the journeying man, the only son of the High Priest of Shravasti, final year student of
the Forest University of Sharavasti, walking, attending lectures, meditating and living in ascetic
conditions as a part of his training to attain the high order of Brahminism. From the first lines
there are hints that his journey is arduous with many obstacles in his way. Soon the reader is
told about the dichotomy between his desires and the calling that he is pursuing.

He never wanted to become ‘a priest like his father’ instead his mind responded to dance and
paint and sculpture. His sensitive, artistic mind is captured beautifully when he observes that
the “beerbhutis must have a perception about the cosmos." On his way to Sharavasti he comes

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across a group of girls. He longs to take a good look and cannot help being attracted to the ‘Fish-
eyed One’ who was throwing magnolia blossoms into the river but he is a ‘Brahamchari’ and he
has to cross the lake. This side of the lake beckons with beauty and romance, the other side is
his calling. The pursuit of intellect to prepare him to govern the world. The river image stays..

The sensual contact occurs beside the river while the pull of the calling is also experienced
beside the river. Gautam is a loner and has developed the habit of talking silently to himself. He
is seen as a weary person both from his physical and mental excursions. His loneliness saddens
and frightens him. His hermit-like lifestyle brings forth thoughts of a grave nature. He tells
himself not to be “scared of the loneliness of my soul, for there is much to occupy one, when
alone. The study of ones heart is the key to the study of the mysteries of the world and in the
house of the heart is what is to be sought after…”

“Though seated, he travels far. Though at rest, he moves all things, Who is joy and is beyond
joy. In the midst of the fleeting, He abides forever.”

This is a strong reminder to Iqbal’s poem, ‘Khizre-Rah’, ‘He is saying to me:

‘Oh seeker of the secrets of eternity, if the eye of your heart is opened, the destiny of creation
will be unveiled.”

Hyder was deeply impressed by Iqbal. By inserting many Persian phrases and lines, she
unconsciously pays homage to Iqbal.

Gautam meets Hari Shankar in the forest and their conversation is heavy in philosophic content
befitting their scholarly status. They ponder on the nature of man and share their ideas about
man’s solitary sojourn on this earth.

Gautam analyzes the various fears, the fear of life, the fear of death, the fear of staying alive,
the fear of other beings, the inability to trust. He wonders about his own insecurity. He is afraid
of his loneliness. He loves to discuss these questions with students of other faiths to resolve his
restlessness. Since ages men of intellect have been trying to find answers to haunting questions
about life. Hari Shankar talks about his great travels. The vastness of the universe compels him
to think about his existence. He wonders if man is the causality of time, elements, nature or
simply an accident? Freedom and eternity are restraining. He tries to explain it in the light of
what is stated in the Upanshid that the universe is created in freedom, remains in freedom and
ends in freedom but is it true?

Hari Shankar believes that body and soul are both mortal; the soul also has an end, continuity
lies only in events and feelings. “Body and soul both are mortal. Man is like a candle, blows
out. Only the continuum of events and sensations remains. He voices the belief that life is
merely a cyclical movement. We end where we begin but life’s panorama is full of variety. He

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was impressed by Buddhist philosophy but his doubting mind did not let him embrace it. He
renounced the world to understand it better. He was the prince of Kaushal Des, his dilemmas
made him leave the world of power, ambition and bloodshed and he set out on a long journey
to find his salvation. Ancient history made him believe that “men are destructive and seekers of
knowledge.”

Hari Shankar comes back to release the fish-eyed one from his pledge just as Buddha had
released him from all bondage and he passes the ring to Gautam to return it to Champak. After
assigning Gautam with the task of returning the ring, Hari Shankar sleeps peacefully but Gautam
is assailed by nightmares. The lady of his heart has now been freed from her previous promise.
Gautam’s preoccupation with Champak is seen in his dreams where he sees her dressed as a
bride and later as a scary old woman confirming Gautam’s innermost fears. He fears that she
might divert him from his goal of learning and discipline necessary for his high calling. Gautam
and Hari Shankar embark on their separate journeys and Hari Shankar disappears as suddenly as
he had arrived. Hyder shows affinity with Kantian belief about the limitation of human mind.

Champak
In fact, Champak of the ancient era represents the continuous pains and pangs of the Indian
and dilemma between society and individual are eternal. With these perplexities and dilemmas,
she reaches at the conclusion that the mankind is helpless before the unseen forces of time and
history. The history created by mankind himself to control other human beings through his
force, appears in the form of different historical events and decides the fate of human being
hardly within a moment. The fate of those who want to save themselves from inhuman and
aggressive attitudes of the society or those who are unable to save, they at least consider them
as wrong doings.

The callousness of history comes to light as mental and emotional breakdown in individual life
women. To her, conflict Champak is the daughter of the Royal Pries t of Ayodhya. Wealth,
honour and fame are under her feet and she is intelligent and sensitive. She can prolong
discussion with Gautam on the philosophy of life and renunciation. She is also one of the best
dancers of the time and loves Gautam. However, she is quite helpless before time and history.

She becomes homeless in the wake of a historical event and is compelled to marry a 50 year old
Brahmin against her will. And now: “She had undergone her own transformation: she had done
what a mere woman was required to do she had accepted her “late” and perhaps, this was her
duty……. It was Champak’s religion that she must worship him and attend on him because he
was her husband. She used to attend on him as thousands of housewives used to do. She was

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one of them and there was nothing special with her. She was holding her baby in her lap. No
longer had an ideal or vision, just a smug matron with a double chin and a middle age spread”.

The writer wants to say that these women have a charm of their own. They are faithful, shy,
and docile. They worship their husbands as demigods and touch their feet in obeisance every
morning. They put the man on a pedestal and sing songs in his praise. That’s how it ought to be.
This Cult of the Lady developed in Hispania and introduced the concept of romance and chivalry
into the rest of Europe gallant knights fighting in honour of their ladies and young poets singing
lutes on moonlit nights while the lady sat on trellised balcony. Here the roles are reversed man
is the beloved, the woman pines for him and is forever waiting for him.

In the middle age, which was the confluence of Indo- Islamic culture and known as medieval
India, the same Champak appears as a Brahmin woman, Champawati. She loves Abu al -
Mansour Kamaluddin who came from Baghdad and regards him as her god. But Kamal was
preoccupied with his victory and forgets Campawati who devotes her whole life to loneliness
and oblivion waiting for him. Such kind of love and devotion were quite strange for Kamal.
When he says to Chmpawati: you Listen, Champavati, make your choice to marry me. But I
regard you as my husband without any rhyme and reason. He became perplexed with the
answer and asked how?

I haven’t yet married you…… It doesn’t matter, she keeps laughing, I consider you as my lord,
you can’t understand it. She laughed her silvery laugh. I will regard only one person as my
husband and that is you. We are made for each other.”

And after a long time when Kamal had almost forgotten Champavati due to his engagement in
war and laurels, she had been wandering in populated and depopulated areas to trace him out.
An ascetic sorcerer informed Kamal:

“When you were spending gala times in the court of Gor, she was wandering in forest in your
search but no royal goose could convey her message to you.”

In the third phase of the Indian history as described in the novel, this Champavati bearing the
name Champa Bat searches her identity in brothels of Lucknow. As Nawab Cyril’s story takes
shape, Champa Bai appears, but this time, as a courtesan in Awadh, where Nawab Cyril starts
his secret rendezvous with the celebrated lady, evading his native consort, Sujata Debi, who
turns into a possessive and loveless mistress, but Champa, as in the previous episodes, is an
alluring character, full of the promise of love, free,-spirited, willy, and decadent. The third
incarnation of Champa comes to personally the story of Awadh and old Lucknow and the urban
fantasies about high culture that would become the source of much nostalgia in the rest of the
novel. She appears as a symbol of social and cultural downfall. In fact, the woman having all
capabilities is a mere helpless creature in this society. Neither she can live a life according to her

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own will nor can she establish her own identity. She can sustain her individuality in the feudal
system only when she becomes a prostitute.

The writer gives a very poignant description of this character when Champa Bai becomes old
and stretches out her gnarled hands for only one peace.

“An old woman hobbled up and stretched out her gnarled hands. Wrapped in a thin, lattered
dulai she started droning mechanically “Give us a peace for the sweet sake of Ali. May you
never know any other sorrow except the sorrow for Hussain…?”

Nawab Kamman once had told Gautam Nilambar Datt about a destitute, toothless woman who
had become a beggar and had been waiting unreasonably at railway station for an old man to
come back from Culcatta. Remembering the story, he shivered as it struck him that this
mendicant could be Champa. Nilambar Datt took out a fistful of Victoria coins from his

Purse. She opened her eyes wide at the sudden sight of sparkling silver coin. Then she regarded
the old Brown Saheb sitting in the carriage.

Nilambar Datt identifies the old woman as Champa but she did not recognise the eminent,
elderly gentleman who looked much younger than his age because he was wealthy and had no
personal worries. Life had treated him kindly. She shook her head and muttered that I asked him
only for one piece but he gave her a silver coin. She clinched her fist tight and whined:

“My lord May you celebrate your great grandchildren’s weddings. I have been ruined by the
Mutiny.”

Champa stared at the rupee in the gloom of the evening. Then she sneaked into a by-lane and
stopped before an opium den where addicts sat in dim comers with their heads between their
knees. Gautam Nilambar looked back once and saw her standing under the street la mp. She was
still gazing at the coin. Her hair shone like a lot of sliver and her face was covered with deep
furrows. The skin of her arms sagged. She wore a patched clothe and her quilted stole was full
of holes. Gautam leaned against the cushions and closed his eyes.

The story makes Its final shift from the 19 th to the 20th century and a whole new configuration
of characters, Gautam, Hari Shankar Nirmala, and Champa come together as friends at college.
Also on the scene are Kamal, Amir Tehmina, and several other young Muslims and Hindus. The
only one among this group who actually comes from a “congested mohalla in Benares” is
Champa. In order to fit in Champa must reinvent herself constantly, just as she did in her
previous versions, and it is her free spirit and her bold beauty that makes her the centre of
attraction wherever she goes, be it Lucknow, Calcutta, Paris, or London where they all meet as
students and expatriates.

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Abu Mansoor:
The characters in River of Fire are blessed with intuition and understanding. Each suffers a
private agony and knows the devastative effect of loneliness but also full well that this journey
has to be taken alone. This journey can lead to salvation or to annihilation and therein lies the
test of every individual. The light within oneself is the only guiding force. Gautum says,

“I have been a libertine, a thinker and an idiot, a beggar and a grandee. I have seen it all.”

Abu Mansoor kamaluddin is a linguist and a historian. Alter years of learning and playing with
words, he realizes his insufficiency. He is wonderstruck about how profound common, illiterate
folks can be. A cowherd shows him the ruin where Sultana Razia was murdered, saying “here
ended the Jivan lila, the mystic drama of her life.”

Given to scientific examination of facts, he is amazed at the common man’s calm belief in
‘Karma’, fate. At another point, he is speechless when a sadhu gives him the news of his Sultan’s
death even before it happened. Hyder shows how the world of the sufi-saints have “their own,
unseen, parallel spiritual administration of the world……”

The spiritual motivation of Gautam and Kamal seem to have all the force of a mystic. Hyder
converts the past into a living present to build a collective consciousness. Suffering in Hyder’s
philosophy, is proof of one’s existence and that sorrow is the only true spring of understanding.
For Hyder, compromising ones integrity leads to loss of self. Like Sartre, she believes that
responsibility comes with freedom and freedom is the essence of life. A liberated self does not
create anarchy or nihilism instead it brings order and meaning. Such a self must take
responsibility for abuse, corruption and violence. The least that one can do is to protest and not
be a silent accomplice. Talat in River of Fire feels that every individual has authority over his
past but a future without shared cooperation is unthinkable and therefore impracticable.

Hyder’s world view expounds that if freedom is valued for oneself, it must be valued for others.
She speaks the language of humanism. The great aim of the eastern sage and the goal of all
religions, the objective of liberal arts is ultimately the attainment of a liberated, autonomous
self and this is the end achieved by Hyder specifically in the book.

Kamal Abu Mansoor had come to India as a foreigner and missed his homeland but he was also
enchanted by the marvels of India. Like Gautam, he could not stand bloodshed and violence and
wished to run away from such scenes. He plagued by the question whether to leave or stay.
“Should celebrate my cowardice and call it my love for peace.”

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A Bairagi (Bairagi are the highest caste in the Hindu system) gives him the news of Champa and
how she waited for him in the wilderness. The bairagi, who was a warrior, had thrown away his
sword in the river at the behest of Champa. As Kamal sits on the ship his thoughts take him to,
Gautam Sidharta, who was blessed with knowledge two thousand years ago on a night of full
moon. Kamal seeks to liberate himself and “There is no God outside the universe, there is no
universe outside God Absolute is beyond everything. It is silence.” (ROF 93)

In his quest for peace Kamal reaches a shrine where the mystical verses of Amir Khusroe are
being sung. He lives and serves as a servant in that shrine. The rationalist and skeptic Kamal is
advised to go to Kashi and meet Mian Kabir, a well-known mystic. He hopes to find peace from
this meeting. As he travels, he learns to interpret silence and understand Its language. He finds
oul that Champavati of Ayodhiya has become a nun, “women without men become nuns, sir,
men without women turn into Sadhus,”

Kamal found the mysticism of Kabir not different from the beliefs of Jalaludin Roomi, the
Turkish mystic who had lived two hundred years ago. Abu Mansoor Kamaludin, the Cavalier in
his youth, finds his peace in Bengal. He marries a low caste girl who becomes a Muslim, grows
paddy on a small fertile piece of land and begets two sons. Power politics no longer interest
him, he has seen the pitfalls of History and how the mighty are brought down in subjugation
and humility. He is reminded of the hermit who had talked to him about “the business of
change in dynasties, currencies and place names. Kamal had seen it all. And the Moving Finger
wrote on .” He wants to be left in peace but Hyder tells us that one’s will does not prevail. Kamal
is dragged and beaten by Pathan soldiers who denounce him as a traitor because his son had
joined the opposite camp in the wake of another invasion. Kamal could not believe his fate that
he had put all his energies into making this land his home and he was being suspected and
called an outsider. His dying moments are full of this anguish; finally, death releases him from
the tiresome burden of life.

Cyril
During the colonial period, the story revolves around Cyril Ashley who is connected to Sujata
Debi, Champa Jan and Maria Teresa. The late-colonial and postcolonial episode tells the story of
Champa Ahmad, Gautam Nilambar, another Cyril Ashley, Kamaluddin, Nirmala and so on.
These four stories are not linked together except for some marginal connections between the
colonial and postcolonial episodes. The only apparent, and merely implied connection between
them is the repetition of the names of characters. Names such as Gautam Nilambar, Champa,
Sujata, and Hari Shankar recur throughout the two millennia time frame of the novel. One could

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argue that this repetition of names implies an almost mythical connection between the
episodes, and mythical elements are not the "evidence" used for history writing.

The government officer and Orientalist scholar Cyril Ashley is only a "petty hero" in the colonial
segment of the story. Cyril Ashley, an agent of colonialism, is supposed to be an agent of history
as well. Europeans came to India to rescue her from her own historical backwardness. Only
Europeans could do that because they saw themselves as historically more advanced than India.
In that sense, Cyril Ashley is an agent of history and time. But in the novel, Cyril Ashley is no
more powerful than any of the other central characters. In fact, this colonial master of time
meets with a sad lonely death. Against the stream of time, he is as insignificant as other human
beings in spite of his colonial claims to be the master of history:

Death came to Cyril Ashley in a lonely circuit house in a remote corner of Bihar. He had returned
on horseback after inspecting his indigo plantations. His orderly had taken off his riding boots,
he had bathed and changed for dinner and was awaiting his usual sundowner in the drawing
room when, all of a sudden, he felt he was going to die.

He stammered and could not call out, Koi Hai-he had had a massive stroke, and died quietly in
his armchair. Sir Cyril Ashley was buried in a small European cemetery in the nearby district
headquarter.

Here Hyder depicts this agent of history dying as an insignificant, average man. His lonely death
becomes even more ironic when it is compared with the attitudes and ideologies he had
inherited when he first came to India. After completing his education at Cambridge, Cyril Ashley,
an aspiring poet, is looking for a job:

Therefore, after going down from Cambridge, Cyril Ashley joined the Middle Temple in the City
of London. Here, in neighbouring Fleet Street, journalists and wits assembled in coffee houses
to discuss international affairs, foreign wars, the Turks, the Russians and India. The world was
opening up. There was a lot *of+ traffic-people were going to the New World and to the East.
Both offered enormous opportunities to get rich quick-especially the East which was backward
and politically in a shambles.

Cyril Ashley’s friends persuade him to come to India where the situation “has become
enormously beneficial” to them. In other words, British colonialism is gaining strength in India
and therefore Cyril and his fellow Englishmen are the agents of history. It is true that Cyril
becomes extremely rich in India but, as Hyder depicts him, he is hardly the agent of a universal
history which is committed to propelling India out of its backwardness. More importantly, Hyder
seems to suggest that Cyril himself is a victim of the colonial ideology of history.

In order to show that Cyril is insignificant when seen against the entire history of the Indian
subcontinent, Hyder stretches the temporal dimension of her novel out to two millennia, giving

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the impression that her story seeks to set Time against Eternity. In this way Cyril becomes
master only of colonial Time, not of Eternity. In that sense, he is no different from Gautam
Nilambar, Kamaluddin, and others who do not claim to be agents of history. Can there be any
stronger way to critique the colonial ideology of history than to show that those who are
supposed to be the agents of history are also its victims? If history is concerned with Time, this
novel is concerned with Eternity. Hyder puts both Cyril and the history over which he claims
mastery into her novel’s eternity-like temporality.

The nature of relationships between men and women undergoes a dramatic shift when the
British colonialists arrive in India. It is Cyril Ashley, the colonial “hero” of the novel, who seduces
a woman as soon as he steps into India and then leaves her behind. Cyril comes to India with a
full set of ideological baggage about Indian women. Deceiving women with beautiful words
happens in this novel only after the coming of European colonialism. It is Cyril Ashley who does
this for the first time. Readers are provided with an opportunity to compare the lives of women
in the pre-colonial and colonial eras. During the pre- colonial period, both men and women are
depicted as merely victims, observers, and participants in history.

During the colonial time, in contrast, a person like Cyril Ashley, being a colonial officer, has some
agency over history. He is a director of the colonial drama of history. Therefore, his deceiving
the Indian girl Maria Teresa cannot be blamed on history. Hyder makes clear that the ideological
apparatus is at work when the English gentleman deludes the girl by telling us that Cyril has
been advised not to marry a “black girl.” Cyril’s approach to native people is already tainted with
colonial and Orientalist concepts of Indians. Later, this same Cyril Ashley keeps Sujata Debi, the
pretty, young daughter of a local scholar, as his mistress and he makes a separate zenana for her
in his mansion. This Sujata Debi is the younger sister of a woman whom Cyril had rescued from
being burned alive, i.e., from the rite of sati. Cyril has appointed her brother, Prafulla, a minor
officer under himself. Therefore, Prafulla could not resist when Cyril suggested that he send his
sister to Cyril’s house to be the Englishman’s mistress:

In accordance with the social norms of the time you could take a native woman as a concubine
or common law wife. She was given the respectable Indian title of bibi, lady. Therefore, Cyril
approached his young employee with, “I say, would your sister like to reside in my bungalow
as my bibi?” Prafulla Kumar was much too obliged to Cyril Saheb to decline the offer.

This quote illustrates that the colonial ideology has created “social norms” and those norms
have been backed by the colonial administrative structure. In other words, bot h those norms
and Cyril’s social power are colonial constructions. His power to rescue one sister from sati and
to make the other his mistress comes from the colonial ideology and power structure. By
showing what happens to the second sister, Hyder reveals what was lying behind Cyril’s liberal
humanist mask when he rescued the first sister: dominance over natives and their women.

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