Page 103 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

Unit 11: Rupa Bajwa: Sari Shop—Theme

• However, her carefree existence is disturbed by reality. The financial troubles are unending Notes
and domestic disputes escalate to such a point that her gentle, nonplussed father can not
bear the onslaught of his son and daughter-in-law’s taunts, and quietly dies. Rani has lost
the connection she had with her brother and his wife, who now treat her as nothing more
than a burden to be pawned off. It does not take her long to realize that the city she has loved
from the first day will only now only suffocate her. She packs her meager belongings, bids
her nephew a tearful goodbye and leaves Amritsar to work as a maid for Sadhna, a woman
who has been disillusioned by a savage literary market place.
• Rupa Bajwa’s first novel, The Sari Shop, was an immense success and released in 2004. This
eight year gap between her first book and the second, Tell Me A Story, is highly reminiscent
of Sadhna’s story. I wonder whether she experienced the same emotions Sadhna talks about.
• Rupa Bajwa’s The Sari Shop, set in a world far removed from the one FIE usually addresses,
explores the power of language through a narrative device. Ramchand, the sari shop attendant,
glimpses the world inhabited by those who speak English in India and hopes to make sense
of this world through a knowledge of English. The book he picks up – Complete Letter Writer–
leaves him absurdly adrift among Phyllis and Peggy writing to each other about a motor
tour to Caernavarvon and Betws-y-Coed.
• The Sari Shop, even if only partially successful, is an attempt to look at a gated community
from below, from the point of view of the world of the household – maids, drivers and
washerwomen– and its extension into the commerce of daily life in the form of office boys
and the owners and attendants at vegetable stalls and kirana stores. It actually works better
than a novel far more acclaimed outside India for its portrayal of ‘the seamy side of the
Indian reality’ – The White Tiger. The two books explore some of the same territory, but so
much is shrugged off in Adiga’s book, including the ease with which the central character
acquires his knowledge of English in a Bihar village, that his driver remains a cipher, a
mouthpiece for the author himself, in tone and in thought. An experiment with form cannot
be born out of the need to conceal an ignorance of the material at hand.
11.4 Key-Words

1. Embodiment : A tangible or visible form of an idea, quality, or feeling, the representation or
expression of something in such a form.
2. Iniquities : Lack of justice or righteousness; wickedness; injustice
11.5 Review Questions

1. What is the theme of the Novel Sari Shop? Discuss.
2. What do you mean by the gem of novel about the stuff life's made of Rupa Bajwa.
Answers: Self-Assessment
1. (i) Asha (ii) Self-abnegation (iii) Mahajan
11.6 Further Readings

1. Bajwa, Roopa. 2004. The Sari Shop. New Delhi: Penguin.
2. Johnson, Harry M. An Introduction to Sociology.
3. Khushwant Singh. 2004. This Above All. The Tribune.
4. Lodge & Wood. 2003. Modern Criticism & Theory. Pearson Education.
5. Rege, Sharmila. 2003. Sociology of Gender. New Delhi: Sage Publications.

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