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Indian Writings in Literature

Notes his conduct was not appreciable. Though the narrator is able to save the situation, he wonders
how Tha‘mma had come so near the truth.
Ila shares her house in London along with a few others. They comprised a bearded Irish computer
scientist, a girl from Leiceser who had dropped out in her second year at the North London
Polytechnic to work with the Forth International, and a gloomy young Ghanaian who was very
active in the Anti-Nazi League. They would spend their evenings sitting around the deal table in
the kitchen drinking mugs of tea and some time, when they could afford it, beer. Their conversations
were hackneyed and common place and involved the discussion about the petty issues. Despite
their bickering, Nick Price and Ila continued to visit each other and this culminates in their
marriage, a marriage that is to prove unsuccessful for Nick’s flirtatious attitude. Nevertheless they
continued to live together under the same roof. Nick Price was unsuccessful with his job in Kuwait
and comes to live off his wealthy wife. He thinks of starting some business with Ila’s parental
help. Thus the novel also sees the high and low of British society.
The narrator is in love with Tridib’s niece Ila. But his love is never reciprocated though both of
them spent quite sometime together in India as well as in London. Ila once takes him in dark room
in Rai Bazar and both of them hide under the table and play houses. Ila calls it a cellar, which is
similar to the one in Mrs. Price’s house where she plays houses with Nick Price, her lover. The
narrator remembers this experience for a long time and the same is relived with her on his visit to
Mrs. Price’s house years later in London where he went for his Ph.D. thesis. The narrator surprises
everyone there with his remarkable ability to memorize and keep the stories in his mind, Tridib
had told him. He finds May’s house and the Cherry tree inside it an makes Roby remark, ‘You are
a mystic from the East. You have done it again.’
May price, the daughter to Tresawsen, is kind and simple. She is a student studying at the Royal
College of Music and Plays the oboe and joins an orchestra. She had a strong face and a square jaw
and her thick straight hair came down to her shoulders. She had a wonderful smile, which lit up
her blue eyes and gave her quality of her own and set her apart. When narrator visits her after 17
years of the Dhaka episode, he finds that she was exactly looking the same as he had seen her in
Calcutta except that her shoulders had broadened for her height and had thickened; she seemed
top heavy now and had not added an inch to her waist.
She earns her living by playing her organ in an orchestra though with a bored mechanical precision.
Her income is not much but still she works for philanthropic causes and has joined a couple of
small relief agencies, which provided housing for the survivals of an earthquake in Central
America. She found great deal if satisfaction in her work and religiously collects money for her
cause moving from road to road.
May becomes a victim of cultural dislocation when she comes to India and it sets the stage for
personal and public tragedy. Her uncompromising humanitarian approach to humans and animals
alike requires that she force Tridib’s while they are on the drive to stop and attend to a wounded
dog on a highway. Tridib who is driving with May and narrator in the car ignores the plight of the
dog and moves ahead but May takes a glimpse and forces him to stop and turn around. She
herself slits the throat of the animal to relieve him of the pain. Tridib hesitant in the beginning
lends her the helping hand on seeing the energy and commitment of May Price for a Stray dog.
The same humanitarian stint comes to the fore when they are surrounded by a rioting mob in
Dhaka, overriding all the concerns of the rest of the party she jumps out of the car to save the old
man of 90 who is following them on the Rickshaw.
Tha’mma had become widowed at a young age. In order to bring up her son she takes up a job of
school teacher and continues there for 27 years. She is quite proud of the fact that she had not
taken the help of anybody even from her own rich sister Maya Devi. She retires after 27 years and
during this time she had maintained an effective control on her household. After this she becomes
a bit lax and wishes to see her native house in Dhaka. By a coincidence Sahib gets a promotion and

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