Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Directo
CL 340
3 September 2009
The typical servant is found to have given much hope, and a tendency
to believe in a messianic hero, his son, Biju. In chapter 15 of this story,
amidst the celebrations that exclusively belongs to the Indian culture, he was
holding another celebration, a celebration of his son’s so-called
achievements in his stay in New York, flaunting his ambition to go to that
greener world. He offends his heritage, and he offends the son, who was
almost crawling between restaurants, experiencing the most demeaning
taunts from the foreign race.
The story has been set in present India, a product of the transition
from the traditional India that we know of to the present past-colonial
“modernity.” In this novel, we will see how traditional Indian practices mix
with that of the new post-colonial practices. What changed? What amount of
progress has been made? It is clearly demonstrated here that as much as
the country is lifting itself up from the hierarchical order of things, borders
are built anew, nothing really changed. Brahmins still remain the highest
caste although members of other classes get to move to higher ranks
through education, as that of Jemubhai’s. I see a sort of rearrangement of
classes, changing of methods of oppression. If the Hindu religion has become
an implicit promoter of old hierarchies and subjections in the old society, as
that of Ramayana – Rama’s exile, Sita’s ordeal, etc.