Indian English Novel Analysis

When Anita finished reading from “Mistress”, the question that plays on everybody’s mind was how long did it take her to pen the book, The question was articulated by Mahesh Dattani to which Anita said it took her four and a half years, She even enrolled herself with a Kathakali tutor and feels that the research was even more satisfying than the writing. Anita declined that she is a feminist writer; through she feels the questions she poses to herself may reflect on her characters. Citing an example of this, she said she often pondered on what artistic satisfaction meant to her as a writer, and she tried to explore this through Koman, the Kathakali performer in “Mistress”.

This Indian English novel is deeply intertwined with the socio-political and philosophical milieu in which it was born and in which it developed. While the novel of the thirties and forties focused more on social problems, the distress of the oppressed classes and the national movement for political independence, the post-sixties novel is more concerned with the individual and his quest for identity. Changes in family organization, industrialization and urbanization have led to conflict between tradition and modernity. The old beliefs and customs are now being challenged, more so in the context of women and relations. Consciousness of her own individuality coupled with the awareness of issues like social justice has led to an awakening in the Indian women. She is no longer satisfied with the established roles of a wife, daughter, sister and mother. Education and financial independence have also helped to some extent in this regard.

Women writers writing in English have attempted to project women as the central figure, and have succeeded to a very large extent in...

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... sunlight at a train station Chris has come from California to Kerala to interview the Kathakali dancer Koman. This alliterative event ignites the rest of the novel; by picking at the crabs of old sores, it forces everyone to examine their respective pasts in order to understand their present. Chris himself, destined primarily to serve as a catalyst, remains little more than a pretty face: an object of desire for Radha, an object of suspicion and loathing for Shyam, and an object of reminiscence for Koman. The novel takes as its artist point the conditions of the instant chemistry between Radha and Chris and hops between Radha and Chris and hops between points of view in an inward spiral until it has examined the internal logic and history of that chemistry. What looks like the start of a new tale turns out to be only the stillborn culmination of many sad histories.