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CHAPTER-V

TECHNIQUES AND STYLE

A critical assessment of any work of art requires a study

of its matter and manner, of its ‘what and how’. And it

would be incomplete without exploring the major

technical devices used by the author in his works.

-Agarwal, Sinha

For the Indian English novelists, a novel is a means of

expression borne of their total understanding of man, nature and God.

Their expression becomes effective and appropriate through language,

form and technique. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines a novel

as, “a fictitious prose narrative of considerable length in which

characters and actions representative of real life are portrayed in a

plot of more or less complexity” (2) and Walter Allen says, “Novel is a

working model of life” (1). To make the novel a working model of life

and portrayal of real life the novelist employs narrative techniques. In

the words of Agrawal, “By technique we mean the pattern, coherence

and sense of perspective imposed by the novelist’s selection and

explanation” (228).

The concern with the technique has been slow to evolve in the

Indian English fiction. In the thirties when the Indian English fiction

attained its maturity, the novelists started employing new experiments


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in the techniques of novels by assimilating the innovations of modern

European novelists and adapting them to suit the treatment of Indian

traditions and ethos. In the post-independent period the novelists

were attracted to new techniques in plotting, narration and

characterization. Anita Nair has been recognized for her skill in

handling the modern fictional techniques such as flash backs, interior

monologue and stream of consciousness. Indian writing in English

has a very few writers dealing with the stream of consciousness

technique. As Swain says:

Very rarely does an Indian writer in English succeed in

showing human life in all its wide variety and fluctuating

mood manifesting themselves in myriad forms trough the

ebb and flow of the protagonist’s consciousness (251).

The stream of consciousness technique as employed by writers like

Anita Desai, Arun Joshi, Shouri Daniels, Mulk Raj Anand, R.K.

Narayan, Attia Hosain has been an experiment and Anita Nair has

made her way in the same experiment. She has used this technique

to portray the inner nuances of the consciousness of her characters.

Like Anita Desai she has given a typically Indian stream of

consciousness revealed through the inner turmoils of an Indian

character in a typically Indian situation.

Stream of consciousness is a narrative device used in literature

to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through


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the mind. As the Wikipedia sates, “In a psychological sense, the

stream of consciousness is the subject matter, while interior

monologue is the technique for presenting it. Interior monologue

always presents a character’s thoughts ‘directly’ ” (np). In Anita Nair’s

maiden novel The Better Man, Bhasi is the first-person-narrator.

There is a stream of consciousness throughout the novel, with the

undercurrent of reminiscence, instincitive awareness and intuition as

indicated in phrases, words and thoughts. Raj kumar says, “By

employing the psychological method of retrospection and anticipation,

the modern novelist distils in its essence, the entire life of her

characters by catching them at particular moments”(np). Bhasi’s

thoughts flow between the past and the present. As Ester Fialova

avers, “The novel does not have a linear progress. There is a playful

crisscrossing into different segments of time. The story does not

follow the direct manner in time sequence and narration of

happenings” (np). As the novel opens Bhasi gives a description of the

village Kaikurussi where he has made his living at present and of the

important characters in the village. He says how he is looked upon by

the people of Kaikurussi:

They have a name for me in this village. They call me

Painter Bhasi. They look at the tools of my trade and

think they have fathomed my mind. My advice is never

solicited. My opinions are mostly ignored. All I am


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considered fit for is just dipping a brush into a can of

paint and slapping it on, this way and that (7).

In the same chapter Bhasi’s thoughts are taken back to his past. He

narrates how before eight years he was in the train and how it had

met with an accident and how it had brought him to Kaikurussi.

Flashback is a writer’s technique in which the author interrupts

the plot of the story to recreate an incident of an earlier time. This

device is often used to provide additional information to the reader.

Anita Nair in her maiden novel The Better Man has used this

technique effectively. Bhasi the first-person-narrator opens his past

to Mukundan, the protagonist and Mukundan too does the same to

Bhasi. Bhasi is presented as a healer of human minds in the novel.

But one would think what a painter like Bhasi could have to do with

the healing of human minds. In order to provide the readers more

information about him, he is made to open his past to Mukundan. As

one reads about his past, the perplexity about Bhasi is cleared and

one is prepared to believe that Bhasi could fathom the mind of

Mukundan and relieve him of his terrific past.

Bhasi finds it difficult to delve into his past. But he unfolds it to

Mukundan though he has sworn never to reveal his past to anyone.

Bhasi does it in order to make Mukundan believe that he could heal

him from his repressed thoughts:


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This is not easy, the delving into the past that I had

wrapped in many layers of blankness and hidden in an

unused drawer on my unconscious. But I will try. For I

would like you to understand why I painter Bhasi, one-

screw-loose Bhasi was ordained to heal you (95).

So Bhasi unfolds his past of some fifteen years back, when he had

been a lecturer in a college, where he had fallen in love with his

student called Omana and how the affair had met with a failure. By

revealing this to Mukundan he makes him understand that every

human being would have a past repressed in his unconscious mind.

Bhasi had tried to read Mukundan’s mind and heal him of his

repression. But Mukundan never let him do that. Only after Bhasi

reveals his past he is willing to do that:

I tried to read the workings of your mind. Your fears,

your likes, your dislikes. But you were a snail refusing to

be coaxed out of your shell of solitude. You ignored all

the overtures I made, resisted every attempt of mine to

make you reveal the hoard of deep-rooted anxieties that

lie buried in you (109).

To suit the stream of consciousness technique Anita Nair has used the

language of the interior, that is the language of the heart and mind.

Speaking about interior monologue, R.S. Sharma says, “These

passages are of much intensity, exquisite to inform and evocative,


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render a peculiar quality” (14). Such interior monologues are

presented beautifully by the author to make the reader understand

fully and become more interested in the character. In the novel, such

monologues vividly manifest the working of Bhasi’s consciousness.

As Bhasi oscillates between his present and past we find that

the novelist has used interior monologues to bring out the thoughts in

his in-depth mind. These monologues disclose the fear in his mind.

Though he seems to redeem others from fearful memories, he himself

could not help it. To quote the relevant passage from the text:

When I reach home, I like to pick up my little son and

toss him in the air. I like to do so without wondering if

someday he will be as brusque and callous with me as

one of my customers was towards his father in my

presence. I like to lie in the easy chair and watch my wife

clean the rice. And it bothers me that I begin to worry if

she’s planning a tryst with my handsome neighbour.

Damaged lives fill my world as much as flaking paint does

(11).

In the words of Swain:

A novelist’s narrative technique is very important to bring

in the quality of readability which is a desirable quality of

a novel. A novelist may adopt the first person narrative or

the third person narrative. It is often observed that it is


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easier for the novelist to use the third person narrative

method as it allows the novelist the scope to go deep into

the minds of the character. It enables the author to

explain their acts and also present views on men and

matters in an objective way (3).

Anita Nair’s Ladies Coupe has multi narrators. The main

narrator is a third person. As the novel has used a third person

narrator, it enables her to explain her perception on men and matters

in an objective way. The main narrator is a middle aged spinster,

Akhilandeswari. She is the narrator protagonist and in her lies the

central consciousness of the novel. As the narrator narrates the story

there is an oscillation between the present and the past. The

narration moves forward and backward in time and space. All the

characters in the novel have come across the same experience that

has taken place in the three periods of time: the past, the present and

the future. And this enables us to dive a greater depth into the

consciousness of the protagonist. This technique has been used in

the novel in order to realize her objective of presenting a vivid picture

of the protagonist’s mind and its interaction with the other characters

and the milieu. Hence the stream of consciousness is the work of

mind and flash back is a person’s narration in which the past is

unfolded in a straight forward manner.

The novel opens as Akhila is waiting in the railway station to

board the Kanyakumari express. There when she reads the board,
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“Ladies, Senior Citizens and Handicapped Persons” (6), there is a

turbulence in her conscious state. She is angry at these wordings in

the board. This is revealed through the interior monologue, “but why

spoil it all by clubbing women with senior citizens and handicapped

persons?” (6). This conscious of her that arouses in favour of women

reveals that she is standing in the threshold of living a life of her own.

Anita Nair has also used flash back technique in the novel

Ladies Coupe. It is the story of five women who are connected with

Akhila the protagonist in the train. The novel opens with a third

person narrator. Among the stories of five women, the stories of two

women namely Margaret Shanthi and Marikolanthu are told by first

person narrators. As Margaret and Marikolanthu tell their life stories

to Akhila they flash back and tell it straight forward to Akhila. As

Margaret unfolds her past of her love with Ebenezer Paulraj, their

marriage, the abortion of her first child, the tyranny of her husband

and how she had overcome her tyrannical husband, Akhila gets the

confidence that her decision of leaving her family and lead a life alone

is not a predicament. Margaret Shanthi starts telling her story as:

I, Margaret Shanthi, did it with the sole desire for revenge.

To erode his self-esteem and shake the very foundations

of his being. To rid this world of a creature who if allowed

to remain the way he was, slim, lithe and arrogant, would

continue to harvest sorrow with a single-minded joy (96).


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Marikolanthu was a silent observer of the stories of the four

women. In anger she began telling her story to Akhila. She was angry

because according to her all the four women have made a fuss of little

things. For her she was the most tragic woman and the ever strongest

woman who had overcome that tragedy:

I thought, these women are making such a fuss about

little things. What would they ever do if real tragedy

confronted them? What do they know of life and the toll it

takes? What do they know of how cruel the world can be

the women? (209).

The story of her past strengthens Akhila’s confidence and as she gets

down the train, she has become a powerful woman.

In her novels Anita Nair has used metaphor as a literary device.

Metaphors are used by writers for the purpose of conveying complex

concepts in an easy way. Fowler defines metaphor as follows:

Language is deeply metaphorical because people find it

difficult to grasp new concepts unless they are expressed

by a concrete model. Not surprising then, metaphor-the

co-operative fusion of meanings appears to be the most

important device of ‘creative’ literature. Creative literature

is characterized by live metaphors that offer a rich

compound meaning (11).


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Anita Nair in her novel Lessons in Forgetting, has used myth as

metaphor to interpret man and his emotions in various situations of

life. Levi-Strauss says, “Myth is a device for mediating contradictions

or oppositions as experienced by men. It recounts certain events”.

Using myths Anita Nair recounts various experiences in life. Her quest

for classical myths could be revealed in the novel. As Muthulakshmi

Paramasivan States:

Myths with their inevitable archetypal connotations are

helpful in interpreting the peculiar permutations and

combinations in which human mind reacts and responds

to various situations in life. The human mind with its

intractable depths is plumbed by a writer to locate

answers for certain questions that obviously have no

answers, yet which have puzzled and tantalized all

creative writers from time immemorial (27).

Anita Nair handles myth in her novels to interpret man and his

emotions in various situations of life. She has a quest to use the

classical myths in her novels. In Lessons in Forgetting she has used

the Greek mythology of Zeus and Hera to interpret the marital life of

Giri and Meera. Zeus and Hera’s marriage was tumultuous and Giri

and Meera’s marriage too is similar.

Meera compares herself to Hera who has always been silent

against her husband Zeus’ words. Meera thinks that she is like Hera
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who can puff the sails and winnow the fields against him but it is of

no use with women like her, as women are the same everywhere and

time immemorial:

The wind is Hera’s own. But it is only when Zeus smiles

that Hera can puff the sails and winnow the fields. Or

what use in the wind to Hera? Wives are the same

everywhere. When Giri smiles, so does she. A wife in

love. She is the Meera Hera (5).

Giri made the laws at home. He chose everything for Meera least

bothered about her desires. And Meera was silent and quiet, pusing

aside all her desires as she was frightened of his fanged words:

Zeus, whose bidding even the heavenly bodies obeyed,

would tolerate no interference. He made the laws. She,

Meera Hera, listened. Or he would hurl that vicious

thunderbolt of sullenness. Silence and quiet, Meera. she

was always that Hera (4).

Meera has not known the true colour of Giri till he demanded her for

her Lilac House. She has nursed him with her love and only love as

she believed that he too had the same love for her. She, like Hera had

wooed the cuckoo warming it in her bosom, without knowing its true

shape until Zeus took to his shape and ravished her:

Where is her Zeus by the way? Meera thinks again of

Hera. How strange that the trajectories of their lives have


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followed almost the same path. Like Hera, she too has

gathered a bedraggled cuckoo into her bosom. It has

eaten and drunk its fill, nestled in her warmth and love,

and now it wants her home (5).

Zeus humiliated and hurt Hera by his constant infidelities. When Giri

disappears, Meera consoles herself saying that Giri is not Zeus to be

disloyal to his love. But immediately she asks herself if Hera too

would have thought the same whenever Zeus disappeared. Anita Nair

beautifully employs this metaphor here to make an in-depth study of

Meera’s conscious that had become suspicious of Giri’s fidelity to her:

My Giri is not Zeus. He does not frolic with nymphets or

even goddesses. He is prone to fits of rage; he is

ambitious. But he is eminently trustworthy. Meera hears

again the censorious voice in her head: That’s what

exactly Hera must have thought each time Zeus

disappeared from her horizon (10).

Meera did not suspect Giri when his colleagues Neruda and

Pushkin sat on Giri’s bedside and when Giri stepped out for twilight

walks out of her sight with his mobile hidden in his breast pocket as if

it contained a rare pearl. “She pretended not to see” (39), the changes

in his wardrobe or hear his mobile as it beeped a spell first thing in

the morning and last thing at night. She believes that nobody else

could offer such love and elegance as Hera thought that no other
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goddess, nymph or mortal creature could do as she had offered unto

Zeus:

Had Hera sat thus? Meera asks herself suddenly. Hera

who had a wedding night that lasted three hundred years.

Here had known how to core the golden apple, scooping a

hollow in each half. Into it she had poured all of herself:

her fragrance and breath, spite and mucus, milk and

wellness, sweat and soul. She had cut a quarter off the

half and run it along her limbs, gathering into its juice all

the sweetness of her youth and hop, and fed it to Zeus

with her lips. His tongue snaked out of his mouth and

fed from hers. They feasted off each other and Hera

thought, what other woman will offer him this? What

goddess, nymph or mortal creature can match the extent

of all I have given unto him? . . . . . Besides Giri is not

Zeus. He isn’t a compulsive philanderer, merely a middle-

aged man who has had his head turned. Meera tells

herself, don’t panic, who else can offer him this

cornucopia of elegance? Which other woman can lay his

table as I do, or make a home for him as I do? (40).

Meera is an abandoned wife. But then she becomes the

protectress of the family. Even then she longs for protection and that

protection from Giri. As Robert Graves says, “Here, usually taken to

be a Greek word for ‘lady’ could also mean Herwa (Protectress)” np.
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Though she is the protectress, the winds being originally the property

of Hera, in the battle between giants and the Olympians, when she

was strangled by Porphyrion, unconsciously searches for Zeus. She

forgets that she is a protectress and longs for her husband Zeus to

protect her. Meera too is the same. She wishes that Giri too comes to

her rescue as Zeus did for Hera:

For Zeus had always been there to rush forth to her

rescue. And so in the battle between the giants and the

Olympians, when Porphyrion place his enormous hands

round her neck and began strangling her, Hera’s last

thought wasn’t: I am dying. Instead it was the harried

but secure wife’s anger that made her wriggle: ‘Where is

Zeus when I need him?’ . . . Meera the masquerader. The

abandoned wife pretending to be protectress. Giri has

always been there. All these years Meera had Giri to lean

on. Only now, Giri is gone (100).

In the absence of Giri, when Meera lets Soman into her, she is

ashamed of her passion. She could not believe if it is she who had

done that. She has a conflict whether to indulge in such pleasure or

not. She even tells herself that it is the false Meera like the false Hera.

But suddenly she asks herself why couldn’t the real Hera too have

such gratifications. But she decides whether Hera or Meera, no

woman could be unmoved of such passion. Anita Nair has employed


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this metaphor in order to bring out the inner conflicts of Meera in her

relationship with Soman.

This isn’t her, Meera, she tells herself. This is the false

Meera. Like there once was the false Hera. When Ixion

the ingrate planned to seduce Hera, to pay Zeus back for

his perfidies, Zeus created a Hera from a cloud. It was

this Hera whom Ixion pleasured and sought pleasure

from, while the real Hera lay untouched elsewhere. I am

the false Hera. None of this is really happening to me.

And then on its heel, another thought: what of the real

Hera? What woman, whether she was Hera or Meera,

could remain unmoved when mouth trailed a line of wet

kisses down her spine? (221).

Later when Meera sought for the love of Jak she was

overwhelmed at it, because all these years she had been a perfect wife

like Hera who responded whenever Zeus sought her body. Giri was

the same as Zeus who had never asked her if she had her desires.

Then she decided to live a life that would weigh for her desires too:

‘Oh Jak’! She whispers . . .

Meera leans into him . . . All these years she chose to

bury herself as Hera, the perfect wife. When Zeus sought

her body, she responded. She was his for the taking,

never asking herself if she could know desire. Silly Hera,


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who thought it was men who delighted in the sexual act

and all a woman had to do was acquiesce (322).

In an interview by Veena Venugopal Anita Nair says:

I was a very cautious writer in the beginning, I didn’t

know if I had the stamina to innovate with form like I

finally did in Lessons in Forgetting. In Lessons in

Forgetting I like structuring the book around a metaphor.

In Lessons in Forgetting, it was cyclones, it helped visually

to translate the form into the metaphor structurally. I

didn’t know if I had the gumption to write about

something unpredictable like a cyclone. When I began

writing the book, I kept telling my editor and my agent

that I am going to bring in a cyclone but I don’t know

how. But it fell into place (4).

There by in Lessons in Forgetting Anita Nair has used the

metaphor of cyclone to bring out the unpredictable turn of events in

life like that of an unpredictable cyclone. The novel is divided into five

parts, each narrating the five stages of a cyclone which a man

experiences in his life. In the novel, one of the protagonists Jak is a

cyclone expert. By making him say about the facts of a cyclone, the

novelist has made use of the cyclone metaphor effectively. When Jak

says about stage one, it is that the intensity of a cyclone cannot be

predicted. But the only thing that is certain about it is that it triggers
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the entire atmosphere. Cyclone is an unexpected disaster. The

Financial Express says, “Meera and Jak both are caught up by

unexpected disaster” (np). Meera never expected that Giri will forsake

her and go somewhere. As he leaves her, her life becomes a despair.

Overnight, Meera, disoriented, emotionally fragile Meera, becomes

responsible not just for her children Nayantara and Nikhil, but also

her mother Saro, her grandmother Lily and the running of Lilac

House, their rambling old family home in Bangalore.

Jak, the cyclone expert had never expected that his daughter

Smriti will meet with such a tragedy. In a bedroom in his house lies

his nineteen-year-old daughter Smriti, a tragic embodiment of memory

of the past violence. He didn’t know what had happened on her

holiday in a small beach side town in Tamil Nadu to make her so. By

a series of coincidences, Meera and Jak find their lives turning and

twisting together, with the unpredictability and sheer inevitability of a

cyclone:

For with no real warning, with neither portent nor omen,

it is quite possible for a quiet wave to begin within what is

considered a closed system. A stream is activated. When

the wave turns counterclockwise, it does so by turning on

its head, all that is known and understood, causing a

deeply intense and unstable atmosphere. When despair

strikes, it is the same. There is a mad scramble to make

sense of what is happening. The mind whirls, turning


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every event over, seeking an explanation, a reason. The

only certainty about a cyclone or despair is the

uncertainty it triggers. And as with despair, the

cyclogenesis of a tropical storm is seldom announced.

What is certain is the resultant turbulence (np).

In stage two, Jak tells how humans deny the very presence of a

cyclone as an exhalation of a lofty white fleecy cirrus is formed, that

hides the eye of the cyclone. The human mind is capable of self-

deception, that hides the forth-coming disaster. In this part, we read

how Meera deceives herself because of her profound love for Giri. And

Jak too deceives himself thinking that his daughter Smriti would be

safe in India, least aware of the danger lurking her.

In stage three Jak says how human beings are deceived by the

bands of convective cloud spiraling from which emerge heavy rain and

squalls. But that isn’t where the real danger lies. For the spiral

bands are master deceivers. They make us believe this is the extent of

the storm. He says, “How utterly gullible we are when it comes to

celestial forces and acts of God! The tipping point is yet to come”

(166). Jak experiences the same with his daughter. He thinks that he

could find the truth behind the tragedy of his daughter, but as he

learns the truth he is shaken by the unimaginable incidents he

collects about his daughter. In the life of Meera too this happens.

She manages to make up herself and her family after Giri leaves, but

is disoriented by the death of her mother Saro.


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In stage four, Jak says, it is the penultimate stage of a cyclone.

He explains it with a painting. Jak has owned a painting. It is a

fantastic swirl of colour trapped with geometric forms. As Carl Jung

has said, it is a representation of the unconscious self. But Jak could

not achieve wholeness emotionally when he meditated on it. Instead it

showed him the penultimate stage of a cyclone. He is afraid that the

storm would blow on him furiously. As he is afraid his daughter

Smriti, who has been his life has been furiously attacked:

But the truth is, my Buddhist painting frightens me.

When I look at it, what I see is the penultimate stage of a

cyclone. It’s most terrifying aspect. From the heart of the

storm spins an outward directed force of fury. Vicious as

a herd of monsters, it raises a ring of violent storms (241).

Here comes the story of Smriti, in which she is unaware of the danger

that awaits her. She is brutally attacked by three thugs:

The three brawny men. As they walked towards Smriti.

One of them gestured with his hands. Another lit a

cigarette. . . The casual stripping of her clothes. The

scream of terror that turned into a catena of howls as

they, one by one, quickly and methodically entered her

(317).

At the end, Jak defines the state of calm. He calls it either the

quiet before the storm or after the storm. At this one finds both Meera
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and Jak, as the days pass, they experience a stillness in their life and

they step ahead to take second chances, where there seemed to be

only endings. That is why in the last stage Jak says, “it is either the

quiet before the storm or after the storm” (321).

Therefore Lessons in Forgetting is crafted by Anita Nair to echo the

turbulence of life by comparing it to the stages of a cyclone.

Anita Nair in the interview with Veena Venugopal says, “My

other book, Mistress was written around a dance performance” (1).

She compares life to a performance of Kathakali where the artists play

innumerous emotions as men come across these emotions in life.

Thus the novel Mistress is a deeply moving exploration into the search

for meaning in art and life. As Meena Devi states:

Anita Nair has an undeniable flair for storytelling and an

admirable grasp of her subject. The novel brings alive the

magic of the land through its insight into the world of

Kathakali and those who live by it. Writing a novel with

Kathakali as the backdrop needed heaps of meticulous

research and so Nair enrolled herself for a short course at

a Kerala dance school. She learnt quite a bit about the

dance form and was very comfortable using its metaphors

extensively in her book (343).


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In Mistress two stories are unfolded and this shows the

innovative narrative technique of the novelist. The entire novel

revolves around four main characters. As given in blogspot:

Within a perfect framework of the nine emotions that a

heart can feel, the novel is divided into three books, each

consisting of three emotions. Illuminating explanations

from life, nature and dance go with the nine emotions-

love, contempt, sorrow, fury, valour, fear, disgust, wonder

and attachment (np).

The novel plays around with the motif of art as a demanding

mistress. One of the protagonists Koman is a renowned Kathakali

dancer who has retired and the novel weaves together, his past and

the present involving his niece Radha and her husband Shyam. Anita

Nair draws on the techniques of Kathakali and uses it to tell this story

in many voices while attempting to decode the language of Kathakali-

the language without sounds. As quoted by Meena Devi, in an

interview with Aruna Chandaraju, Nair herself admits, “What are the

compromises that an artist makes in order to survive? That question

was, in a sense, the catalyst for Mistress, and a recurring theme in it”

(np).

Koman is from time to time in search of his identity. At last he

finds that his life lies in Kathakali. More than just a backdrop for the

novel, Kathakali forms the structure of the book and it has been
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borrowed from the intricacies of the complicated dance form. In an

interview with Sharabonti Bagchi Anita Nair says:

I am an orderly person, and something about the

formalized structure of Kathakali appealed to me. It was

quite a challenge to structure my novel in a similar way.

It takes a lot of craft and it’s very satisfying to be able to

fulfill this challenge (np).

The novel is divided into nine chapters based on the navarasa in

Kathakali, namely Sringaaram (love), Haasyam (contempt), Karunam

(sorrow), Raudram (fury), Veeram (valour), Bhayaanakam (fear),

Beebhalsam (disgust), Adbhutam (wonder) and Shantam (peace).

Each chapter begins with an introduction to the ‘rasa’ concerned.

The first chapter is “Sringaaram”. It brings out Radha’s longing

for the genuine love of her husband Shyam, but Shyam is weak in

expressing his love for his wife, as he is a business-minded husband

whose only aim is to raise his status in the society:

Love. Let us begin with Sringaaram. Sometimes I think

Shyam is Bheema. A great, big, good-hearted creature

whose goodness Radha makes use of whose gaucherie she

flees from. And sometimes I think that perhaps he is

Keechakan. All he wants to do is possess her. He hides

his conniving behind a mask of besotted love and when he


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has her on her, he’ll kick her. Then I think Radha is wise

to keep him on a leash of unreciprocated longing (30).

The other story runs around Sethu, Koman’s father who experiences

love from everyone like Dr. Samuel and Sister Faith, Hope and Charity

after he had left home.

The second chapter is “Haasyam” which means glee. Radha

slowly understands that she is inclined towards Chris and just she is

leading a life of matrimonial ritual with Shyam. She is gleeful towards

her emotional attachment towards Chris. Radha could not find

anything emotional to do with Shyam as he weighed anything and

everything by virtue of money. He even tried to pacify Radha through

expensive gifts, which only annoy her:

I lie next to Shyam, unable to sleep. We have our bedtime

rituals, Shyam and I. We have been married for eight

years, after all and there is no escaping the ritual of

routine. I can’t say that I am unhappy with Shyam. If

there are no highs, there are no lows, either. Some would

call this content, even. I think that for Shyam, I am a

possession. A much cherished possession. That is my

role in his life. He doesn’t want an equal, what he wants

is a mistress. . . It’s only been one day since Chris

arrived. I close my eyes and see again that image of him


200

in the station, light trapped in his hair, a shadow of smile

on his face (55).

The third chapter is “Karunam” which means sorrow,

“Karunam. All of us have known sorry some time or the other” (104).

This chapter narrates the story of Radha’s premarital affair with a

man much older than her. This leads her to despair as the man hides

the fact that he is a father of three sons. She feels betrayed. In

dismay and sorrow she had to agree to her marriage with Shyam as

arranged by her father. Though Shyam is happy about this marriage

initially he is at sorrow as he feels he is not able to make her happy

even after eight years of marriage:

Radha says:

I wanted to hide myself in a place where there was none of

this deceit or compromise. I felt betrayed. I felt used. I

felt foolish. More than anything else, I knew that if I

stayed I would find a way to excuse his lies and continue

to be his playmate. That was the measure of how much I

had yielded to him (113).

There is another story in this chapter which tells the sorrow of

Saadiya’s family, as she is very stubborn in marrying Seth, a Hindu.

Her father because of her decision, takes a sorrowful decision of

disowning Saadiya from the family and the community.


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The fourth chapter is Raudram which means anger, “The

common fallacy is to think raundram as a synonym for anger.

Nothing wrong with that for, raudram wears the countenance of

anger” (151). This chapter portrays how Shyam becomes furious,

knowing the growing intimacy between Radha and Chris. Outrageous

he rapes Radha as she is not willing to have sex with him then to

ensure that she is his wife, and his possession:

She sat on the bed. I touched her shoulder. The blouse

she wore had a deep neckline. I ran a finger down her

back. She shrugged me off. “No Shyam, I am not in the

mood!, She said. ‘I’ll get you into the mood’, I said . . .

Don’t I have a right to say no?’ she demanded furiously,

trying to get up. . Then I fucked her (163).

This brutality of Shyam, made Radha seek solace and comfort in

Chris, “That evening I saw Chris and I felt a ray of calm suffuse me.

Shyam might think he owned me but he didn’t. I was never his. And

I never will” (165). While Shyam poured out his anger by raping her,

Radha showed her anger by strengthening her intimacy with Chris.

The fifth chapter is “Veeram”, veeram means valour. It tells us

how the intimacy between Chris and Radha grows day by day to the

extent that both of them feel that nothing can come between them.

They are courageous, not to give it up, though they are aware that

Shyam has come to know about it. Moreover when Radha catches
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Shyam for calculating her periods, she musters up courage to tell to

his face that it was he who has to check his fertility and not her as

she has become pregnant once before marriage:

The red crosses are my periods, aren’t they? Why are

they here? On your calendar? If anyone should keep

tabs, it should be me. Why are you like this Shyam?. . .

I was pregnant once. So it isn’t that I can’t conceive.

Perhaps you need to find out if you can father a child, she

said before walking away (203).

Radha draws courage to be more and more close with Chris, as she

contended to say, “Nothing matters. What feels so right can’t be

wrong. This is what I have to draw courage from, to go on” (221).

This chapter, also tells the story of Sethu who returns to his native

village after the death of Saadiya. He marries Devayani and bears

children. Then he gains courage to bring his son Koman with him to

the village and have him in his own house with his wife and children.

The next chapter is “Bhayaanakam”. This means fear. It shows

Shyam’s fear of losing Radha. Shyam says, “I sit here, Radha, looking

at you. Again and again. And thus we sit together fear and I. All

night we have not stirred. Inspite of all his attempts, he is not able to

draw Radha towards him. The more he tries, the more she moves

towards Chris. In this chapter it is also shown how Radha starts


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experiencing the fear of the predicament of her relationship with

Chirs:

Fear clasps itself around my ear lobes. Fear makes one

do things one would never do otherwise. Fear lets you

compromise. Fear will even let you seduce your husband

so that he thinks he imagined your transgression, your

betrayal and that you still are his (253).

This chapter also brings out Koman’s fear of being alone. As he grows

old he fears that he has nothing to do with his art, as he says:

I feel fear then. This is a fear I have never known before.

It isn’t as though I have not been acquainted with fear. I

have been swamped by fear, different kinds of fear. The

fear of not belonging. The fear that accompanies a

decision. The fear that every artist feels-will I be able to

fulfil the expectations of my art (260).

Next comes the chapter “Beebhalsam” which means disgust. In this

vesham the artist brings out the feeling of disgust. In this chapter

Shyam feels disgusted at the sexual affair with Chris. Even Radha

feels disgusted of what she was doing to Shyam, “I feel disgust for

what I am doing. Can anything be worth this repugnance? How

much longer can I do this? This cheating, lying and pretence” (290).

Shyam comes to know that Radha’s uncle Koman had a role in Chris

and Radha’s affair as he had hidden it from him. As Meena Devi says,
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“He wants to hurt him and so he announces that he is going to host a

Kathakali performance at his resort to draw the westener’s attention.

This makes Shyam disgusting in everyone’s eyes” (349).

Koman too feels disgusted when the State Government

announces an award for him. This is because he wasn’t recognized

when he gave his fullness to the art, but then when he seldom

performs he is recognized:

I find it utterly pointless. There was a time when an

award or even a felicitation, would have helped prop my

self-esteem. Those days I was working relentlessly at my

art, giving it all I had. . . . Now when I seldom perform,

when age and time have made me more secure as an

artist, I don’t need public recognition or those stupid

expressions of appreciation (295).

The next chapter is “Adbhutam”. “For Adbhutam is wonder.

And wonder is immediate. It cannot be premeditated or calculated”

(336). Hence the chapter shows how unexpected events can change

the entire course of life. This chapter tells how Radha is perplexed at

her discovery of becoming pregnant. At first she is happy about

becoming a mother, but soon it fades away as she is put to the

embarrassing situation of who the father of the child would be. She is

torn between the two men Chris and Shyam:


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What am I to do now? It must have happened the night

when Shyam raped me. Shyam will never let me go if he

knows I am carrying his child. No Shyam will never let

me go if he knows this. What would Chris say if he knew?

How can we even think of life together with me carrying

another man’s child? Are you entirely sure it is Shyam’s,

a voice asks me. Don’t forget you made love again, two

nights after the rape. It was the last day of your safe

period. Accidents are known to happen (340).

Koman is also wonder-struck when Chris asks him if he remembers

Angela. He is at the height of wonder when Chris says that Angela is

his mother. Koman wonders to think if he should have a son like

Chris. But as in the statement of Meena Devi, “He is sure that he is

not Chris’ father. He lived with Angela but soon they got separated”

(350).

The final chapter is “Shaantam”. “That is Shaantam.

Detachment. Freedom. An absence of desire. A coming to terms with

life. When all is done, that is what we all aspire to Shaantam” (397).

This chapter narrates how Radha comes to take terms with her life.

Radha could not escape both the thoughts of Shyam and Chris

because when she thinks of Chris she sees the shadow of Shyam and

when she thinks of Shaym, she sees her chance of escaping with

Chris. But she is so certain that she cannot live with one or the other.

As Meena Devi says, “She finally decides firmly that she should lead a
206

life of her own with her child, leaving both Shyam and Chris. She

knows that both the men will be hurt by her decisions. But both

Shyam and Chris accept her decision silently without making any

qualms.

Anita Nair is not merely interested in writing about Kathakali,

but unravels the identity and inner emotions of the characters

through the art. Through the nine primary emotions of Kathakali,

Anita Nair portrays some characters in her novel Mistress, in whom

we can find out that there is an external bond between art and life.

Agrawal and Sinha present their views about the Indian writers’

usage of myths as:

In fact the consciousness of myth has very slowly evolved

in Indian English fiction. As most of the Indian English

novelist of the pre-independence period, happened to be

men or women who were more exposed to Western culture

than to Indian, if not in real life but at least in literary

tradition and they were less interested in finding any

meaningful pattern Indian myths for use of myth in the

Indian English novel (200).

But it is interesting that a writer like Anita Nair, of the post-

independence period has used Indian myth in her novel.

As the novel is devised with the metaphor of Kathakali art, a

dance form which is entirely based on the epics, one of the


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protagonists Koman looks upon mankind with a wisdom drawn from

the heroes, princes and villains of the Ramayana and Mahabarata. As

stated in blogspot, “he recognizes every nuance of emotion as once he

has experienced, as part of a vesham, or a role in Kathakali. When

Koman tells Chris about his love with Angela he compares himself to

Nala and Damayanti to Angela”(np). Koman follows Angela to London

as he had loved her so dearly. Even he leaves of his dance institute

and goes off to London for the sake of his love. They were there to

make a new life in London. And as Koman says, “We were still

Damayanti and Nala, trying to make a new life. Though it had been

three months since they’ve come to London, Koman is not able to

make an income. He feels guilty of this and above all Angela’s

indifference to him. So he decides to leave Angela in her country and

go back to his native village:

That night I couldn’t sleep. I thought of Nala in the forest.

Nala who lies awake while Damayanti sleeps. She doesn’t

deserve to suffer for my sins, he tells himself as he creeps

away. In her father’s kingdom, she will be cherished

again. She will have food to eat and clothes to wear,

gardens to walk in and the softest of beds to sleep in. She

will know happiness again. Nala was carassed with

unhappiness and guilt. Even Damayanti, the love of his

life, was a burden, a reminder of his worthlessness (394).


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Shyam, who sees Chris and Radha wrapped in each other in a

tableau of intimacy at a beautiful night when the moon has gone

behind a cloud, Shyam is reminded of a scene in Uttara

Swayamvaram. It is a love scene like many others that speckle

Kathakali librettos:

But tonight I understand what the scene is truly about.

Duryodhana, the cruel Kaurava prince, and his wife

Bhanumati are in a beautiful garden. It is night. The

combination of the beauty of the moment and the

loveliness of his wife arouses in Duryodhana a great

desire to make love to her. He turns to her with the

nakedness of his desire showing. Bhanumati doesn’t coy

or hide the intensity of her longing (128).

Shyam is stirred at the intensity of their intimacy and completeness of

desire by Radha and Chris.

In Mistress Radha too refers to an Indian myth from Ramayana.

She says this to Chris as she understands that she is love with Chris

and Chris too has got the same for her. There runs a thought in her

mind that she is Ahalya and Chris is Indra, the king of Gods and

Gautama is Shyam:

Well anyway, there is this episode of Rama stepping on a

stone and the stone coming to life and becoming Ahalya.

The story is that Ahalya, the wife of Sage Gautama, was


209

discovered by her husband in bed with Indra, the king of

God and so he cursed her to become a stone (57).

Thus in her novel Mistress Anita Nair has skilfully woven in design the

Indian myth to make vivid of situations and relationships of men. The

words of Muhammad Ghannoum become true with this, “English has

been appropriated without losing its universal appeal to convey the

Indian sensibility and feelings” (40). There by the novel has attained a

desired effect.

Characters and objects in the novel are simply something on a

wider range, or suggest psychological or spiritual concepts in a wider

range and they are called symbols. An extended symbol is called

metaphor. Symbolism is one of the devices used by post-

independence Indian English novelists. Anita Nair is one such

novelist who has successfully employed this in her novels. Her novels

are rich in an array of meaningful symbols.

In the novel Ladies Coupe, the character Margaret Shanthi,

classifies herself as water. Like water she accepts her life with her

male-egoist husband, she forgets his aggressive behavior towards her

at the same time she says that the same water has the power to

dissolve and destroy. As she says this, it is a foreshadowing symbol

that she will destroy the male-egoism of her husband:

I classify myself as water. Water that moistens. Water

that heals. Water that forgets. Water that accepts.


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Water that flows tirelessly. Water that also destroys. For

the power to dissolve and destroy is as much a part of

being waters as wetness is (96).

Ebe, Margaret’s husband reared a pair of goldfish in his house.

He has named them James and Joyce for the male and female

respectively. One day when Margaret finds James floating dead she

says:

A dead fish. James floated on top with his belly split

open. I stared at the dead James and the living Joyce

who seemed sleeker and friskier, frolicking happier than I

had ever seen her (132).

Here the dead fish is a symbol of Ebe’s male-egoism and the

happy Joyce, a symbol of Margaret’s happiness at the death of his

male-egoism.

In the same novel, the character of Prabha Devi suffers from a

sense of guilt of enticing Pramod, her husband’s friend. Her entices

had invited Pramod to take advantage over her body. Though this had

taken place long back she is not able to come out of its guilt. But

when Prabha Devi watched the children swimming in the pool she

wonders at them, “Prabha Devi watched the children. She saw how

they kicked the surface of water raising glittering rainbows. How they

stretched their arms. How their legs propelled them forward” (189).
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The phrases “Raising glittering rainbows” and “their legs propelled

them forward” symbolize that soon Prabha Devi will overcome her

guilt, propelling herself forward in the life pool.

In the novel Lessons in Forgetting, Anita Nair has used the

symbol of pomegranate. According to Greek mythology, pomegranate

is a symbol of death and promise of resurrection. Pomegranate is the

favourite fruit of Meera, the protagonist too. It symbolizes the death of

Meera’s agonies, despair and tragedies and the resurrection of a new

life:

Meera thinks of her favourite fruit the pomegranate. Of

how she savours it best when she eats it seed by seed

rather than as a handful thrown into her mouth. She will

take a cue from that. Of how resurrection is to be

fashioned one day at a time (360).

Agarwal and Sinha have the following to say about the

significance of characterization:

Aristotle laid utmost emphasis on the plot in a story, later

on, this emphasis to character. Now what is more

important is plot and character are set in equilibrium. A

great novel enables us to identify ourselves with hero or

heroine and enjoy characters we neither like nor envy.

The most enjoyable fictional characters seem to be very

life-like (237).
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It is undeniable that Anita Nair has maintained an equillibrium

between the plot and character. Her novels have an artistic unity as

Narasimhaiah says, “Characterization, setting, story, symbol and

style- all of them are functionally related to each other so as to create

an artistic unity”(198). Her characters in all the four novels are life-

like that they are most enjoyable. All the four novels enable to identify

ourselves not only with the protagonists but also other characters.

In Ladies Coupe Akhila and Prabha Devi could represent of the

present. Janaki of the past and Sheela Vasudevan of future. Not only

these three women but even the minor characters are universal types

in their aspirations. The character Karpagam is given a little space in

the novel. Yet this character seems to be the primary inspiration of

Akhila. Every woman character of the novel starting with the

protagonist Akhila and ending with the Chettiar’s insane wife are

neatly woven and structured by Anita Nair to show the plight of

women. The five women whom Akhila meets in the train, give a valid

message of hope not only to Akhila but to the entire world.

In her novel The Better Man there is a little fictious village

named Kaikurussi. Neeru Tandom rightly says, “The first fictional

village Malgudi was made literally famous by R.K. Narayanan in his

works and in Kaikurussi Anita Nair has created on, that could become

just as well known” (np). The village of Kaikurussi could be taken as a

character itself, where the important human characters live in

Kaikurussi is well crafted by Anita Nair that she has created another
213

homestead that could become just as well known. The manner in

which Anita Nair has presented the character of Bhasi, though not the

protagonist of the novel, makes us question if he is the protagonist.

This is because of her sharp characterization of the characters.

In her novel Mistress all are lively colourful characters. As the

Asian age reviews, “It is an ambitious first novel teeming with

colourful characters. All the characters in this novel are quiverful

characters who refuse to leave our memory even after finishing the

novel. It is a better mix of the characters as she has portrayed them

in relation to impersonal objects, their relation to public affairs and

art” (np).

Dialogues occupy an important place in the texture of the novel.

They throw light on character. It is of importance that style,

dialogues, etc. should vary almost from page to page, in order to

differentiate characters according to their, age, sex, religion, class,

education, occupation, social life and so on. The style in dialogues

varies with every novelist. Most of the contemporary Indian English

novelists use dialogues as a device of characterization. For instance

in Ladies Coupe, the dialogue of Karpagam is so sharp, natural and

straightforward that it inspires Akhila and gives her a ray of hope.

The words cascaded out of her mouth with ease:

I live alone. I have for many years now. My daughter who

is just twenty-three does as well. We are strong Akhi. We


214

are if we want to be. Live alone. Build a life for yourself

where your needs come first. Tell your family to go to hell

or wherever (207).

In Mistress as Shyam is angry about Chris and Radha’s affair,

he pours his anger over Radha through words and then attacks her

physically. There is realism in his dialogues as he is hurt of his

disloyal and disrespectful wife and in Radha as she speaks against

him:

‘You are drunk’ she said. And I am not a bloody object.’

‘You are my wife.’ My voice rose. ‘Do you have to shout?

The servants will hear us.’ ‘You are my wife. I want you

to show me some respect. ‘What do you want me to do?

Lick your feet? (163).

In Anita Nair there is an uncanny skill of framing natural

dialogues. She changes their tone and style to match her characters

and situations. This could match the dialogue spoken by Giri to

Meera, when he is vexed that she is not able to understand the needs

of the present:

You know what your problem is Meera? You want to

make life fit those lists you are making all the time. You

don’t see it, do you? That your lists are all about the past

or the future. Pending chores. Things to do. What about


215

the present, Meera? What about now? That’s what I am

worried about. That’s where I want to live’ (109).

This dialogue sounds almost as if he hated her because Giri had never

spoken to her like that. His tone was that as if she had trapped him

in an unbearable situation” (109).

Anita Nair has thus showed off her mastery of an alien language

by enriching her novels with new forms of narration, technique, and

with different forms of expressions such as myth, metaphor and

symbols.

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