Deconstruction - Karma ( Khushwant Singh )
Summary:
"Mohan Lal was a middle-aged man who worked in the British Raj. He was ashamed to be an Indian and hence he tried to speak in English or in Anglicized Hindustani and to dress as if a high-ranked British official. He used to fill the crossword puzzles of newspapers, which he did to show his immense knowledge in English. His wife Lachmi was a traditional Indian woman and due to this difference they were not having a sweet married life.
The important event occurred on a journey of Mohan Lal and Lachmi in a train. Mohan Lal made her sit in the general compartment and arranged his seat in first class compartment, which was meant for British. There he saw two British soldiers who tried to abuse him. When the arrogant Mohan Lal tried to oppose, he was thrown out of the train. He could only look through the rails on the moving train."
Analysis:
The story is under deconstruction theory because the ending is different from what the character and the reader expected it to happen. Mohan Lal is a confident and a well-bred Indian man who mastered Oxford accent in his English and he has a lot of stuffs to attract people about his English-cultured everything. He and the reader's thought that everything will come to his way but it ended the way that he was humiliated by his most admired British culture. Who would have thought that he would be be thrown out from the train?
Karma is a story about Sir Mohan Lal (Native Indian) who looks down on his fellow countrymen including his wife and embraces the English ways and culture. He had a reservation on everything Everything English like English cigarrete, Whiskey, The Times News Paper and clothing. When the train was about to leave two English soldier goes to the cabin the he is occupying and threw him out of the train with his lag-gauge.
ReplyDeleteIt may be true that moral-seekers are apt to find Khushwant Singh’s “Karma” a little too predictable, even simplistic. For them, Sir Mohan Lal’s is just another story of pride that goes before a fall. In its widely understood sense, “karma” is “the sum total of the ethical consequences of a person’s good and bad actions . . . that is held in Hinduism and Buddhism to determine his specific destiny in his next existence” (“Karma”). On this count, Lal’s sin of pride is punished when two British soldiers throw him out of a first-class compartment. His wife’s karma, it would seem, enables her to have a safe and comfortable journey in a ladies’ compartment. Even Vasant Shahane’s more sophisticated reading of this story assumes that karma is the “nemesis” that overtakes a wrongdoer. It’s not that bad embracing different culture even though it is not your own native one, but what is really unacceptable is that embracing other culture and forgetting what is really is yours.
The nemesis itself is part of [Lal's] “Karma,” the unexpected turn of his fate and, is also the inevitable outcome of his actions and thoughts.
it is sort but good
ReplyDeleteThanks for helping me finish my H.W Outline for short stories
ReplyDelete