Role of Indian English fiction to World Literature

Interpretations on Indian Fiction-2

Contribution of Anita Desai to Indian English Fiction 

India’s substantial contribution to world literature is largely due to the profusely creative literary works generated by Indian novelists in English. Their works contemplated and deliberated on multifarious range of issues like nationalism, freedom struggle, social realism, individual consciousness and the like. This literary movement being fortified by the overwhelming output by novelists and distinguished itself as a remarkable force in world fiction. This has been achieved by novelists who sought to prove their inner creative urges in English language, which is indeed an alien tongue for them. It is to the credit of these novelists that they have overcome the hurdles of writing in a foreign language and have been evolved a distinctive style for themselves by mastering the intricacies of the language and assimilating in it the hues and flavors of the Indian – sub continent. Raja Rao famously argued in 1938, in the preface to his novel Kanthapura, for using English, but English adapted to Indian conditions.

Anita Desai is a leading member of a generation of writers who have carved out a niche for Indian fiction in English—today a burgeoning literary arena with writers of Indian descent or origin chiming in from around the world. Through sensitive psychological probing and sharp social critique, her novels chart the emotional lives of people struggling to find meaning and stability within the framework of a society in transition.

In In Custody, Anita Desai has presented her weak and feeble hero as a post-colonial person. He is a failure in every side but has a great goal of life. His sole aim is to re-establish the once royal language ‘Urdu’ to its place that it used to enjoy. But his struggle for Urdu seems quite imaginary when we find that Devan himself is a teacher of Hindi language in real life. Hindi is the language which is thought to be the prime responsible for the pathetic condition of Urdu. Though his first language is Urdu but he could not study that for long. As a result he becomes a part time lecturer of Hindi in a college and proved himself to be failure in that profession also. Desai has introduced her two prime characters Devan and Murad in the very beginning of the novel. Devan and Murad are two contrasting personalities and belong to different family backgrounds. They meet and try to explore lots of probabilities in the future. Murad is also like Devan, an Urdu lover. He runs an Urdu literary journal Awaj. But his belonging to a business family and his using Devan for Awaj without paying any payment brings his love for Urdu under question. We meet Murad as Hindi hater.

Murad, the tactful businessman knows very well that Devan harbours a great love for Urdu language. He has used Devan for many times for his magazine Awaj. Once again Murad wants to use Devan for his purpose. Murad outrages his hatred for Hindi language. He blames Devan for neglecting his mother tongue ‘Urdu’ and nourishing its rival language ‘Hindi’ with his professional abilities. He inspires Devan by saying that Urdu language will not survive if they do not come out to support it whole heartedly. He names Hindi as monster and calls it a language of peasants. He encourages Devan to start his action for the upliftment of Urdu. For Murad, it is the high time to start action rather than just loving and keeping it as a hobby.

He questions Devan, ‘Can you serve a language by taking it up only as your hobby? Doesn’t it deserve more? Doesn’t it deserve a lifetime’s dedication like mine? ‘Being hit by such arrows of questions, Devan agrees to work for Murad. Now, Devan who is a hope for the upliftment of Urdu language is actually a great failure in personal life. He cannot fulfill his duty as a good husband and father in the family and as a successful teacher in profession. Devan’s wife Sarala shows him his inability to buy anything for his son.

The response of Devan’s wife shows his position in the family. He has failed to maintain his place in home. Devan’s inability to keep his position as a good teacher, proves him to be a failure in every field. The reason behind being failure as a teacher is his love for Urdu. Though he has become a Hindi teacher, he could never love Hindi. It always remains as a second language for him. He suffers a lot by seeing the dying condition of his first language Urdu. He cannot realise that his love for Urdu language is an illusion but his job as a Hindi teacher is the reality. The illusion may take him to a dreamy poetic world but his job gives him the bread that his family eats and the home where they sleep.

In Custody dramatizes the critical moments of Deven, the protagonist. His helplessness, his suffering and nobility are described in terms of self-realization. The women characters are few; they lack depth of introspection. The harsh realities of life produce in Sarla, Deven’s wife, a sense of frustration and resentment. She, like Deven, is also a victim, but her appearance is restricted. Deven is thrown into pits of disaster due to his infatuation for Urdu poetry. The dream of contributing articles on Nur to his friend Murad’s literary magazine turns out to be a nightmare. Nur, the idol and sustaining force of Deven, is discovered to be a dissolute old man absorbed in wine and wife. The art and the artist confront to bring humiliation to Deven, who is assaulted by the figures ‘scrambling out of the dark and defacing’ verse.

 There is no ‘closeness of spirit,’ no comradeship between the two. The fact is that in the act of inheriting his poetry, Deven becomes the keeper of Nur’s very psyche and spirit. Towards the end of the novel the hour of daybreak agree the dawn of existentialist awareness in Deven. He becomes aware of the true nature of his predicament. He resolves to secluded place for game of the legacy of Nur and gains courage to fight against the great misfortune, coming to him.

              Deven has only a poor, vulnerable mother, and he obviously grows into a pathetic, indecisive human being. He is not contented with his life and as a result, he becomes a victim of melancholy and lowliness. He recalls the bitter distress of his mother and the remorseful smile of his father for his failure in measuring up to her expectations. These familial and social factors clearly produced in him a compliant tendency to remain isolated. His estrangement from his wife Sarla and his only child Manu forces him to retreat into the fantasy world that Urdu poetry offers.

Deven’s sense of dullness, isolation and hostility is brought out through his approach towards his students and the surroundings of Mirpore. He is given the job of interviewing a prominent Urdu litterateur Nur Shahjehanabadi, but is unable to succeed there as well. He feels completely helpless. Deven’s venture in the field of poetry may be examined as a quest for meaningful existence. The real tragedy of alienation lies in his failure and frustration in reaching his noble ambition. Deven feels lonely. He feels that he is not being helped by Mr. Siddiqui, Murad, Nur and his wife. He is being victimized by these people to have their ends meet. Nobody seems to offer him any relief or support at this critical moment of his life.

In fact, no one was going to come forward with assistance. He would have to mend matters himself or be thrown out of college for false display of emotions, misappropriation of funds, fraud, cheating and lack of ability. Deven received this alienation from his own roots and culture. The estrangement is not complete but Deven feels alienated from his own job, his own family, and his own environment. His vision of life and art drawn from Westernized system of education is in disagreement with the day to day life. Anita Desai describe very beautifully the inner conflict of Deven who eventually finds the truth that life is not a bed of roses but consists of harsh reality of thorns as well.

Deven’s alienation is an outcome of opposing tendencies like Western education and cultural roots. He feels alienated because he is hassled by growing consumerism where money is everything. As a result he becomes utterly miserable and desperate. The sense of isolation and self-exile often clutches Deven’s psyche. He feels alienated not only from his immediate environment but also within himself. Life becomes a burden for him. Deven’s sense of isolation has two noteworthy undertones. He wants to break the custody by interviewing the great Urdu poet, Nur. He wants to break away from his marginality.

At the same time, he feels ill equipped and incapable of adjusting himself to the emerging intricacies of life and society. He is dissatisfied and longs for what is not. He feels ensnared in its toughness and obstinacy. He now seeks to assess his existence and its problems.

Through the estranged figure of Deven, Anita Desai presents before us in the novel ‘In Custody’ the pragmatic picture of the changing socio-economic Indian scene and its impact on educated Indians who feel lonely, disinterested, and alienated owing to materialism, consumerism and industrialism. Like other protagonists of Anita Desai, Deven Sharma, is brought up to be hesitant, docile and quiet against exploitation. However he is highly sensitive and is desperate to find an outlet to his twinges. Ultimately, he finds solace after discovering his identity and work in this alliance. In contrast to Desai’s earlier novels, this novel has a positive ending.

            The fiction of Anita Desai is relevant to all times because she writes about the predicament of modern man/woman. She digs into man’s inner psyche and goes beyond the skin and the flesh. Literature for her is not a means of escaping reality but an exploration and an inquiry. She prefers the private to the public world and avoids the traditional grooves of external reality and physical world. In fact, her real concern is the thorough investigation of human psyche, inner climate, and she unravels the mystery of the inner life of her characters. She writes neither for placing entertainment nor for dissemination and propagation of social ideas. Her main engagement is to study human existence and human predicament, her exploration being a quest for self.

This particular reality leads to the most common theme in her novels that is the complexity of human relationships, particularly the man-woman relationship. She has a deep understanding of human psychology. She does not merely depict her characters externally but she goes deep into the inner recesses of her characters. The sense of alienation and self-exile often grips the psyche of modern man. This existentialistic paradox is the key-note of many of her novels. The characters feel alienated not only from their immediate environment but also within themselves. The very existence becomes a burden to such characters.

In most of her novels, the protagonists are women. At times, we feel that her knowledge of female psyche makes her the novelist of female psychology'. But in fact, she possesses the deep understanding of male psyche too. In the novel, the protagonist Devan lives in Mirpore, a typical Indian two with its variegated pattern of life. Devan feels trapped in its solidity and stubbornness. He thinks that city like Delhi would have given him more fame and clear- cut identity. Like a Faustian hero, he is discontented and a year for what is not.

Delhi is not far from Mirpore and when he visits Delhi, he finds it full of all litter and paraphernalia and effluent of industry, concrete, zinc, smoke, pollutants, decay and destruction from which emerged reportedly progress and prosperity. Here we are reminded of Dicken’s Hard Times in which he describes growing industrialism in England. Anita Desai through the description of highly urbanized city like Delhi suggests an ecological disorder.

Though Mirpore is a town, it is also slowly being engulfed into the race of industrialization. In smaller towns, the blind race for industrial progress leads to greater amount of pollution, dirt and debris, sterility and decadence always curb man's creative faculty. Devan’s growth as an individual is stunted and lop sided like.

Like many rural Indians he has been educated in a colonial system but the Western system is never fully internalized. Devan is exposed to western intellectual development but his destiny is like that of Trishanku, a dangling man. These views are half-baked and as a result he finds his existence mean, disordered and hopeless.

Devan’s views of art are drawn from Western criticism. He believes in Keats’s negative capability or T.S. Eliot's objective correlative. He believes that art and life should be separate. Art belongs to a higher sphere. That is why when he receives the offer to interview Nur, the Urdu poet, he thinks he has been allotted a role in life. In his first encounter with Nur, his pre-conceived notions of art and life receive a serious jolt.

He finds Nur’s home messy, disorganized and not congenial to creativity. He is bewildered to find himself in such a place. He is oppressed to see the values of business and commerce in the sublime world of art. He had always believed that the artist is a divine creature who remains untouched by the sordidness of life.

He overcomes the resistance from the poet's wife, arranges for the necessary funds and finds a technician to record the interview. When he sits down to listen and edit the interview, he finds that his efforts at creativity have all gone into the air. He finds that he is a trapped animal and it was an illusion that he had freewill.

He realizes that Nur too is not free like himself. He thinks that art too is messy like life itself. He now seeks to review his existence and its problems. He reviews the problems of job, family and art. He develops a new perspective. In the last chapter of the novel, he experiences affinity with Nur and thinks that he too is a human being like him. He is transformed into a realist now. He is ready to face reality squarely.

Deven discovers his identity and its justification. He also realises that art is a mode of projecting a vision which perfects life. It is not separate from life but it grows out of life. In Custody discusses the problem of alienation of an educated young college teacher from his own roots and culture. The alienation is not complete but Devan feels estranged from his own job, his own family, and his own immediate environment. His vision of life and art drawn from Westernized system of education comes in conflict with the day-today life.

His meeting with Nur, the poet shatters his vision of divinity and purity of art but it also helps him in bringing back to reality of life. His marginalized self finds a place. Anita Desai depicts the inner conflict of Devan who ultimately finds the truth that life is not an ivory tower but a reality. We are reminded of the Bhagwad Gita where Lord Krishna tells Arjuna to do his duty. Man has no choice except doing his duty. One cannot escape responsibility and obligations.

Devan’s alienation is born out of opposite, conflicting tendencies like Western education and cultural roots, urbanization and rural way of life, industrial society and placid Indian agrarian society. Devan feels estranged because he is pressurized by growing consumerism where money is all in all. He is not happy with his job and feels that he has studied science; he would have gone to the U.S.A. and made a lot of money. Here Anita Desai touches upon the problem of brain drain. A postcard from the U.S.A. creates a sensation in the college. Jayadev who is a Hindi teacher feels that they have studied a wrong subject. If they had taken something scientific, something American, they would have had a bright future.

Devan always feels that his study of subject like Hindi has been a wrong choice. Even students do not take him seriously and he feels unwanted. This is an indication of how art and literature feel neglected when science and technology progress. In the time of glorification of science, no one can be free from commercial outlook.

In such a materialistic industrial society the degeneration of traditional arts are inevitable. Anita Desai presents the realistic picture at the changing socioeconomic Indian scene and its impact on educated Indians who feel marginalized on account of growing materialism, consumerism and industrialism.

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