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Indian Writings in Literature

Notes undermines the conspiracy of silence that surrounds it. In Sharma's world, on the other hand,
culpability is so pervasive that it is no longer even recognized - the conspiracy, if it can be called
that, is one of indifference.
It is possible indeed to read AOF entirely as an allegory - in the obscenely obese character of Ram
Karan we find an embodiment of the vitiated, dog eat dog way of life that characterizes the public
sphere in post-colonial India; in his bloodless black ankles upon his death we see the lethal rot in
that system. Numerous episodes throughout the novel document the comfortless, conscienceless
cosmos that is Sharma's India. When a rich classmate in Asha's school throws away a used imported
tissue, the other girls make a grab for it. When a monkey enters a women's restroom, two of the
women inside manage to escape by locking the third one in to be mauled by the monkey. While
these episodes early in the novel play for laughs (the humorist David Sedaris mentioned the
monkey-in-the-bathroom tale in numerous interviews in praise of AOF's comic triumphs), the
message is clear - Sharma's is a Darwinian world where self-preservation comes at the expense of
others, even sometimes at the expense of self-respect. Similarly, in the sublime second chapter
(which was earlier anthologized as 'If you sing like that for me' in Best American Short Stories
1996) Anita tries to love her husband by arranged marriage and finds that to him she is no more
and no less than a life-style accessory, equivalent to a car or bungalow. Not surprisingly, social
relations in this world are mediated entirely through the paradigm of use.
In the cultural landscape of Bajwa's novel the things that money can buy command a similar
ascendancy in social relations - it is significant that its central arena is a shop. In the friendship of
the Mrs. Sandhu, the government servant's wife and Mrs. Gupta, the businessman's, Bajwa hints
at the oily nexus of corruption. The Sari Shop may be far removed from the hurly burly of public
life but there is no doubt that its innocence is contaminated; and in time and unlike AOF, Ramchand
comes to be the witness of that taint. Ramchand's perspective can most accurately be described as
the 'critical insider', a term first used by distinguished Kannada writer U.R. Ananthamurthy. In
allowing Ramchand the outsider's viewpoint and leaving some spaces uninfected by the malaise
of apathy, Bajwa also opens up space for survival.
It is interesting then that the only opening possible in Sharma's world is escape. The final chapter
is told in the narrative voice of Kusum, Ram Karan's youngest daughter who emigrated to the
USA and married an American and who now returns to adopt the teenage Asha. The generosity
of her relationship with her husband and daughter serves as a contrast to the murky, mean-
spirited bonds her sister Anita has lived with. In a revealing dialogue at the end, as the plane lifts
off from London's Heathrow airport, Kusum corrects Asha when the latter points to the geography
they have just left behind - on the land below, says Kusum, are not paths but highways. The
implicit metaphor is powerful - the highway connotes freedom and destination, features of a life
in the West compared to the aimless dust paths of Delhi and/or India. Read in the light of its
author's relation to the setting, AOF then is clearly the emigrant's passage to India. Like Forster's
celebrated novel, Sharma's is an outsider's view. Like the other insider-outsider Sir Vidiadhar
Suraj Prasad Naipaul, his vision has the merciless perspective of distance. AOF in effect offers a
radical re-interpretation of Professor Godbole's mysterious comment quoted at the beginning of
this essay. Culpability is indeed pervasive but in a more literal sense. The vision of AOF's characters
is rendered opaque and limited by a self-serving culture that continues implicitly to excuse
everything. Till the point of no return.
In comparison, The Sari Shop can be read as the insider's passage from ignorance to bitter
knowledge. There is no forgiveness here either but there is the terrible grace of insight. Bajwa's
characters may be no more able to change the direction of the world or even of their lives than
Sharma's. But continuity is made possible precisely by the brief periods when they see through the
systemic violence.

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