Hullabaloo and The Villagers of Shahkot

Hullabaloo narrates the lives of the villagers of Shahkot. These people are depicted with wonderfully bright imagery to create an energetic novel. This energy is so excessive that it creates characters from a fabled world, bordering on caricature. Desai uses these characters to mock the oppressive Indian culture and the strong traces of British colonial era still resident in modern India.

The text creates an effervescent world for the reader to explore. Desai’s overbearing imagery produces extravagant characters, which are used for satirical purposes. The characters are painted with colorful visual imagery, “to stare with amazement at this skinny, long-legged apparition amidst the leaves” and “her cheeks were like vanilla pudding…a pink and white birthday cake”. Bright imagery leaves the reader with a clear picture in mind and allows them to suspended reality in order to accept the satire.

The town itself is described as being oppressive, a reflection on the satirical themes, “the heat had enveloped the whole of Shahkot in a murky yellow haze”. “When there was almost no space left to draw on any more, when the walls, floor and ceiling were full, packed tight to the point of bursting, Sampath was born.” . These two descriptions, through tactile imagery, impart a feeling of claustrophobia and stress in the reader.

Desai’s eccentric characters and the ridiculous situations they find themselves in mock gender roles and Indian society, Hindu mysticism and British colonial influences. These aspects have been integral to India for centuries.

The Chawla’s are portrayed as the typically patriarchal Indian family in which Mr. Chawla, often found, “His shirt needed to be ironed. His shoes had been discovered dusty, dirty and unpolis...

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...e being considered ignorant while Sampath’s teachings, which are false, are readily accepted. Sampath’s false spiritualism caricatures the Hindu gurus of India, mocking the people’s blind acceptance of their words.

Although the context for an Eastern and Western reader is different, Desai allows readers of both audiences to awaken to the issues surrounding modern India. Desai suggests that gender roles, lingering colonial influences and mysticism are restraining the socio-economic development of India. The village of Shahkot is presented as a microcosm of the nation. The vivid exaggerations highlight to the reader the absurdities and inconsistencies of certain attitudes, behaviors and social constructions, which are holding back India’s future. It is in the colour, eccentricity and fabled nature of Shahkot that her work generates its greatest power to reveal.