Page 110 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

Indian Writings in Literature Gowher Ahmad Naik, Lovely Professional University

Notes
Unit 13: Rupa Bajwa: Sari Shop—Psychological Study

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
13.1 Sari Shop—A Psychological Study
13.2 Summary
13.3 Key-Words
13.4 Review Questions
13.5 Further Readings

Objectives

After reading this Unit students will be able to:
• Focus on the Sari Shop as a psychological study.
• Discuss how Ramchand is considered as protagonist.

Introduction

Rupa Bajwa is an Indian writer, born in Amritsar, Punjab, in 1976. She published in 2004 her first
novel, The Sari Shop, which explores her hometown and the class dynamics of India. The novel
has yielded the writer flattering reviews, with reviewers calling her India's new literary find. The
novel won the Commonwealth award in 2005 and India's prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award for
English 2006.
"Bajwa dramatically illustrates the class gap in contemporary India in her debut novel, focusing
on the fortunes of Ramchand, a lowly, disaffected clerk in a popular sari shop. The novel opens
with Ramchand happily going about his duties serving the shop's mostly upper-class clients.
Opportunity for advancement comes from an unlikely source when he attracts the attention of the
beautiful, literate Rina Kapoor, whose family hires the shop to provide saris for her upcoming
wedding.
Inspired by his foray into a wider world ('there were cars and flowerpots and frosted glass trays
with peacocks on them'), Ramchand embarks on a half-baked self-improvement effort that includes
a reading program and some unintentionally comic attempts to learn English. Shortly afterwards,
though, Ramchand sees the other side of Indian life when the wife of one of his co-workers, a
woman named Kamla, descends into public drunkenness. Ramchand is a tenderly drawn character,
reminiscent of Naipaul's innocent strivers, and the rest of the cast is vividly sketched. There are
several typical first-novel flaws: the narrative is slow in the first half, and Bajwa's transitions
between her character-driven sub plots are occasionally uneven and erratic. But Bajwa's loving
attention to detail - Ramchand washing his feet with lemon juice before he visits the Kapoors, the
malicious chatter of the sari-shopping ladies - paints a compelling, acerbic picture of urban India.

13.1 Sari Shop—A Psychological Study

The Sari Shop is a compact psychological study of a sari-walla in Amritsar. It focusses on the
contrasts between his life and 1) what his father had hoped for him; 2) the customers of the sari
shop; 3) his co-workers; 4) the suffering wife of this co-worker. These drive him to a breaking

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