Dr. Krishna Kant Singh
Professor of English
P. G. Dept. of English
Veer Kunwar Singh University, Ara
Chitra Banerjee’s contribution in the Indian writing English is marvellous and outstanding because of many things altogether. We notice Austen’s characteristics in the novels of Chitra Banerjee in terms of family tales and tangles. Critics often notice her art of characterization and plot construction which are equal to Austen’s flavour. She often deals with women characters in the manner of Jane Austen. Chitra Banerjee is also the champion of feminism and her plea for the emancipation of women. She wants to do many things in the welfare of women and her novels are full of points related to human emotions and passions. In her novel Oleander Girl, Chitra Banerjee would like to deal with the emotions, passions and ambitions of the girl who is the victim of time and space. In The Telegraph, a critic remarks in these words:
Divakaruni deals subtly with questions of class, in a manner that is refreshingly unlike the simplistic, superficial treatment the subject receives in Hindi cinema. The author deftly explores the inherent complications of social class and takes the reader into a difficult layered world of wealth, education and social climbing. Divakaruni’s strengths lie in her attention to detail, and the interest with which she creates even secondary characters.
Oleander Girl is a unique novel in which the novelist presents many stories related to Korobi Roy who is the victim of time and space. It is the manifestation of Korobi Roy’s emotions and passions. The novel deals with Korobi Roy’s repercussions and how to cope with human tangles. Critics often appreciate Chitra Banerjee’s unique talent. A critic writes in The Asian Age:
Divakaruni is a master at telling stories within stories and has a knack of transporting the reader to different lands with the sights, smells and enchanting imagery of her prose.
Korobi Roy belongs to a high profile family, but she knows that she is an orphan because her mother died when she was born. And according to his grandfather, her father also died before her mother. Korobi Roy tells about her situation in these words in the very beginning of the novel:
I know so little about my mother, only that she died eighteen years ago, giving birth to me – a few months after my father, an ambitious law student, had passed away in a car accident. Perhaps she died of a broken heart. I never know for sure because no one would speak to me of them. My grandparents had to put aside their own broken hearts to care for me, and I am grateful: they did it well. Still, all my years growing up, I longed for a visitation from my mother.
Korobi Roy discovers a letter of his dead mother which has been written to her father. In the letter, the mother has described her deepest love for her husband who is also now no more. In the letter, her mother writes:
You are in my thoughts every minute. I cannot believe that only three months have passed since the last time I hold you in my arms to say good – bye I thought I could handle this separation, but I cannot. Each day I ache for your touch. Each night I think of the way I felt complete in your arms. I talk to the baby inside me. I am sure it will be a girl – about you all the time. I want to make sure our child knows how your love surrounds her even though you are so impossibly far away, in a whole different world–
After going through the letter of her mother addressed to her father, Korobi becomes full of feelings and her imagination begins to hover here and there with intense feeling for her mother. A rare sense of emotional breakdown one can notice in the character of Korobi who is totally devoid of the shadow, love and affection of her parents although her grandmother and grandfather are highly devoted towards her. But the memory of her mother always produces a rare kind of void in her life. So after reading the letter of her mother, she becomes totally dejected and distressed:
It was beautiful and heart-breaking, this note from my mother to my dead father. It brought them close to me, made them real in a way none of my imaginings had. I could not share it with either of my grandparents, but I memorized every word on the page. I hid the note carefully in the bottom of my trunk – my first, cherished secret – and took it back to boarding school with me. Nights when I could not sleep, I would hold it in my hand and wish that somebody I might find a love like theirs.
Korobi has been lost in the memory of her mother. Her dreams are often centred round her mother only. It seems that her mother would like to tell something to her. Her mood is full of confusion and contrast. She herself reveals her mother’s presence in these words:
My mother’s frame shivers with efforts as though she longs to speak. She begins to dissolve. I can glimpse the ocean through her tattered body, waves breaking apart on rocks. An urgent sorrow radiates from her disappearing form. Then she is gone, and I am finally awake, blinking in the first rays of the sun entering the room through the bars.
Her mother’s letter and her dreams make her full of concerns and she feels an acute sense of void in her heart. She would like to control her emotions and feelings. But she needs someone to explain the invisible presence of her mother. Her longings for her mother is totally uncontrolled and beyond imagination. The novelist writes about her feelings in these words:
I need someone to interpret this dream. It means something, I’m sure of that, coming at this crucial moment in my life. I cannot go to grandfather. When my mother died, he destroyed all her photographs because he could not bear to look at them. When I was six, he told me never to bring her up. It was too painful.
The nourishment of Korobi has been done by her grandparents in grand way. The grandparents of Korobi are extremely conscious about her growth and nourishment. But on the other hand, especially the grandmother of Korobi is concerned about her engagement and how she would adjust in her new life. There is always discussion between her grandparents about the life and growth of Korobi. Since Korobi’s grandmother is a typical representative of traditional Bengali family, she is satisfied with her granddaughter’s selection of Rajat who also shows respect for tradition, history and convention. She told Korobi about Rajat’s this characteristic:
“You are lucky to get him for a husband. He cares about history and tradition, about spending time with an old lady.”
Korobi is the second girl friend of Rajat. He was also associated with Sonia, a smart girl earlier. Both Korobi and Sonia become upset and feels uncomfortable when they see each – other. Here, Chitra Banerjee seems to be highly realistic in her approach towards writing the jealously of two girlfriends for a single boy. She says about Korobi’s feelings for Sonia in these words:
The venom in her voice had startled me. It was my first experience of being hated because of good fortune. I walked away with what dignity I could muster so Mimi – who had been the closet I’d to a friend – would not see how hurt I was. Not by her words – but also by Rajat’s silence.
The sudden demise of Bimal Prasad Roy brings an inevitable misfortune in the lives of Sarojini and Korobi both. Especially, Sarojini finds herself in the condition that is full of dilemma and unexpectations. She has been lost in her own memory for her husband which seems to be totally unbearable for her. The novelist has painfully and compassionately narrated the feelings of an old lady whose husband has also left her to warden in the vast domain of human emotions and feelings:
If Sarojini stands in front of the mirror long enough and unfocuses her eyes the right way, the woman’s image fades. Instead, Bimal appears in front of her. Sometimes he is knobby and querulous, as in recent months, waiting for her to feed him his after – dinner oranges. Sometimes he gives her a lopsided, newly married smile that takes her breath away. Today he is dressed in a cream kurta with an elaborate paisley design whom she sees that, Sarojini begins to shake. That was the kurta he had worn the night that their daughter died.
In this novel, Chitra Banerjee throws lights on memories, emotions and passions of Sarojini and Korobi both. After the death of Bimal, Sarojini finds herself in utter distress and tries to unburden her heart by telling her granddaughter the truth which she has been keeping in her heart since her daughter’s death. She tells Korobi
“No Korobi… that is what I am saying … it was a lie, your dear grandfather lied you – and forced me to do the same. Your father is alive. His name is Rob. Yes Rob. He lives in America.”
The grandmother of Korobi is too much conscious about her. She would like to tell each and every thing about her daughter Anu and her earlier life. Her memory is enough to calm her body. But she could do nothing. She was lost in her own memories. The novelist narrates about her situation in these words:
The bed is filled with memories of Bimal, of Anu. But it is the memory of Korobi that comes to Sarojini now. Born prematurely, she had been kept in the hospital incubator for weeks. How tiny she was, how frighteningly fragile when Sarojini finally brought her home, her skin like thin proclaim with the blue veins showing through it. Terrified that she would die, Sarojini had sent Bimal off to the guest bedroom and kept the baby in this bed, shored up by pillows.
Bimal now tells Korobi each and everything about Anu, the mother of Korobi. How she went to America and grew up into a well – made lady, all these things have been narrated by Bimal to Korobi. She tells her about her life in America:
“Anu settled into the university quickly, doing well in her classes. In Kolkata she had been reclusive, preferring to read or listen to music in her room. In America she grew adventurous. She would tell us in her letters about folk – dance lessons and plays she had seen in San Francisco. She visited the giant redwoods and saw migrating whales. People in California, she said, were kind and friendly and very interesting.”
In America, Anu was fallen in love with Rob, an American boy. She reveals her love to her parents and they become totally amazed and surprised. Since Bimal was a man of strong emotions and passion, and he followed the tradition and convention of the family, he did not allow Anu to come to India with Rob. But he became concerned when Anu told him that she is pregnant. The condition of Sarojini became extremely dual and she was not able to decide what she should do at this juncture. Bimal imposed many terms and conditions on her arrival in India. Sarojini says at this point in these words:
“Anu must have missed us more than we guessed. She agreed to your grandfather’s terms. Two weeks later, she flung herself into my arms at the airport, her face thinner, darker with worry lines between her brows that she had not had when she left. Her belly pushed against me – I guessed her to be at least five months along. As I kissed him, I felt your kick.”
Sarojini, the grandmother of Korobi is full of affections and love for her daughter, Anu. She is not able to forget her anytime. After the birth of Korobi and the death of her daughter Anu, she became conscious about the nourishment of Korobi. She did everything to make her safe and secure. She provides every comfort to her and her emotions and feelings were fulfilled every time. After healing the story of her mother, Korobi decides to go to America and search her father Rob. She would like to discover some truths about him. She tells Rajat about her plan:
“I need to find him, talk to him. I need to know who he is. And he can finally tell me about my mother – the things that no one else knows. My mother in love… Then I’ll know who I really am, too. But how will I find him? I don’t even have his name. And America is such a big country.”
The character of Korobi is straight-forward in nature. She does not want to hide anything from her in – laws. She would not like to deceive them that she is the daughter of Rob, an American fellow. She tells Rajat:
“Each time I look into their faces, I’ll think, they love me only because I deceived them. I’ll know I’m living a lie. No Rajat! I have seen how harmful secrets can be. I refused to start my married life with a sword hanging over my head. I’ll meet with your mother tomorrow and tell her myself.”
On the other hand, her grandmother was not in favour of her adventures in America. She was more concerned towards her engagement. She tells her:
“You told her what? You want to break off the engagement and go to America? Are you crazy? Don’t you understand how lucky you are that Mrs Bose is willing to go through with the marriage even after knowing about your father? You should have accepted her offer of an early wedding.”
Chitra Banerjee has created a wonderful character in the shape of Korobi Roy who has her own whims and she is less interested in other’s pleasure. Now she is ready to depart. The novelist writes about her feelings:
I walk into the women’s booth, where a security officer puts me down. Ahead, in the waiting lounge, a gallery of uninterested faces. No one knows me. I know no one. This is my life now.”
Sonia was another girl friend of Rajat. After the arrival of Korobi in Rajat’s life, she maintains the required distance. But now she writes a letter to Rajat in which she explains her own position in these words:
But sex was not the only thing that made our relationship special. We could take to each other, express our anger and frustration with the world, or even with our families. W could show each other our dark sides and know that we’d be understood and not shunned. You told me things that you said you’d never shared with anyone. Can you do that with that bland pretty – face you have now? How soon before you get tired of acting the virtuous husband for her? I can help you, too, far better than she can. I know about your family’s financial problems, the failing gallery in New York. Yes, I have made it my business to know. My father would give me the money you need in a moment, if I tell him it’s for the man I love.
In the United States, Korobi faces a number of difficulties. Since she is on the mission, she cares less about these troubles which come in her way. Mitra who assists Korobi in her mission in America, tries to become closer to her and shows some kind of inclination towards her. But on the other hand, Korobi is firm in her attitude. Korobi guesses that Mitra’s delays in providing cell phone to her is intentional so she could not talk to Rajat:
Was he trying to keep me from talking freely to Rajat? This much I knew: I needed to become less dependent on him.
She meets Desai and tries to make enquiry about her father as soon as possible. She becomes so busy in her mission in America that she hardly finds time to talk to Rajat. On the other hand, Rajat is too much concerned with Korobi and he loves to talk to her much. In America, Korobi meets Rob Evanston because of his first name Rob, but he is not her father because Rob Evanston fails to tell anything about her mother Anu. Rajat was busy in his own pursuits and devoted much time in making his business well and good. Many problems arise in his business because of financial problems and these things are not easy to be resolved at all. On the other hand, in America, Korobi’s desperation was increasing day by day because she was not succeeding in her mission. She began to think about the prospects of human relationship; her relationship with Rajat:
Or was it that even the best of relationship withered if people were separated too soon? Did early love, which grew out of body’s needs, require the body’s presence to nurture it? Without those wordless glances that made the heart race, without the touch of lips that sent electricity through the body, without the touch of lips that sent electricity through the body, without a shoulder to lay the dispirited head on and arms to share us up against the world’s cruelties, even the most affectionate words were not enough. But the cruel words – paradoxically, those gained power as they flew across the miles to stab at a listener’s heart.
While Korobi was in America, in India her grandmother discovers many new things about Anu and her husband. Sardarji was an assistant of Bimal, came to meet Sarojini and told many things about Anu’s husband which are amazing and wondered the old lady in devastative manner. He told that Bimal Babu was quite upset about the situations prevailed after the birth of Korobi. He told Sarojini:
“Babu was very careful, a true lawyer. But when he got out of the hotel and into the car, he was really upset. He was cursing Babu’s father, using gutter language, words I did not even think I knew. That shocked me. As you know, babu despised people who could not control their mouths.”
Sardarji also told her that the father of Korobi had come to Calcutta in order to see his wife and newly born child. But Bimal had stopped him somewhere else to do so. He tells her these words:
‘‘Soon after you went to the village, Korobi’s baby’s father came to Kolkata. He started asking a lot of uncomfortable questions, about how Anu – missybaba died, and what happened to baby. But Bimal Babu was ready for him. He gave him a fake certificate, stating Baby had also died in childbirth. He had it forged and stamped with court stamps, so that it would look official enough to fool Baby’s father.’’
It was shocking for Sarojini to believe in all these things. But she has to believe because of the co – relation of the situations. It was more shocking for her that Bimal had given an urn of ashes to the husband of Korobi. She began to think:
Whose ashes could they have been? Sarojini wonders distractedly. Not, Anu’s – those had already been offered into Gangasagar by then.
The narrative of the novel hovers around India and America and because of this double narrative, there are many twists in the novel for several reasons altogether. In America, Korobi was busy in her mission to find out her father, in India Rajat became too crazy about his relationship with Sonia and Korobi both. He was not able to decide the way to go. So many rumours he heard about Korobi in America, especially about her new hair design. But he has firm belief in her. He ponders:
A voice inside him warns, delete the message without opening it. Remember Korobi, the way she is straight forward through and through. She would not cheat you. But another voice says, people lie, photos do not.
The novel is full of balanced remarks on the prospects of human relationships. Korobi understands the fate of such type of relationships in the traditional and conventional Indian society with conflicts and struggle. It is not easy for people to do something beyond the traditional norms. Only few people can imagine to go beyond these norms for several reasons altogether. She thinks about her father and grandfather both. Both were true and could have done nothing at that time. She understands their dilemma. She thinks:
I am angry for my father, but unexpectedly, I feel a jolt of sympathy for Grandfather, too. While my father had been longing for something to connect him to his sweetheart, Grandfather had been desperate to protect the last bit of his daughter that was left to him.
Korobi realizes the fact that how the same people begin to behave in different way when they come to know about the identity of her father. All the sudden, their behaviour changes and they try to produce hindrances for several reasons altogether. She told Maman these words:
‘‘I only discovered my father’s identity a few days ago. And the fact that my mother never married him – I learned that from him even later. Please try to imagine how devastating it was for me. My entire notion of who I am was shaken up. I felt betrayed. Unworthy, I did not know how to tell something so big to Rajat over the phone.’’
Being true to her mother, she would like clear each and everything before Rajat also. She does not want to hide anything for good reasons. She is enough bold to react at the appropriate time. She tells Rajat in the mood of remorse:
‘‘Remember what I said when I first told you that my father was American? I said that I refuse to go through life with a secret hanging between us, separating us. Do you think I’d lie to you now about something so huge that the weight of it would crush our love? Because if you do, then it is all been for nothing – my giving up my father and rushing back to be with you.’’
Korobi proves herself too strong and hard in the relationship with Rajat. She does not want to bend herself for many reasons altogether. She is not interested to tolerate anything more. She boldly says these pinching words to Rajat in the mood of anger:
‘‘If you do not trust me, Rajat, if you need proof, then it is over between us.’’
Rajat also realizes the real character of Korobi and he begins to behave in clear – cut way. He appreciates the boldness as well as straight forwardness of Korobi and accept his problem and own fault also. He tells her:
‘‘I want to know that I do trust you. No matter what I blurred out the other day – or said in jealousy over the phone when you were in America – I trust you. I’m sorry that I gave you the impression that you could not trust me to accept the news of your parentage. That it would more than my love for you.’’
Korobi also would like to reply in positive way. She makes thing clear to Rajat. She does not want to create any kind of confusion over anything. She once again tells Rajat in straight manner:
‘‘It is a big thing to accept. Even I feel shocked, from time to time, when I think of who I really am. It’s so different from who I thought I was. Illegitimacy, a mixed-race heritage that might surface in our children. Most Indian families would have a hard time accepting these problems. How could I demand that of you?
Now, Rajat realizes the importance of human relationships. He would like to continue his relationship with Korobi at any rate. He sees a perfect companionship with her. He tells her:
‘‘Because of love. Isn’t that what we do for the people we care for? Accept their problems because there are so many other wonderful things we love about them? And in your case, there are not even your problems. They are just the circumstances you were handed.”
Finally, Rajat and Korobi were married and all the family members were present in the marriage ceremony. The priest made all the arrangement and poured blessing with their marriage. Korobi would like to spend her life in new style. Korobi says about her delight and pleasure in these words:
Tonight, when we’re finally alone in our flower – filled bedroom, I’ll take out of the book I’ve hidden under our wedding pillow. I’ll read to Rajat the poem my mother has sent to us:
He who binds no himself a Joy
Doth the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.
Oleander Girl is certainly a tale of compassion with powerful emotions and passions. The novel is the story of a girl who is too sensitive in the formation of human relationships and tries to understand the importance of the shadow of the parents. Her long journey in America in search of her father Rob Lacey is quite symbolic in many ways. She shows how much she possessive in her attitude and feelings towards her mother and grandmother. The novel is certainly a unique piece of writing of fictional mode in which memory has combined with emotions and passions with certain notions. The novel presents the role of memory and other circumstances in the formation of human relationships in more compassionate manner. Really, the novel is a wonderful piece of fictional writing in which memory and present have been merged together with artistic beauty.
Works Cited:-
- Chitra Banerjee, Oleander Girl, (Penguin Books, 2013), p. 2.
- Huffington Post
- K. R. S. Iyengar, Indian Writing in English, Sterling Publishing Pvt. Ltd., 2013
- M. K. Naik, History of Indian English Literature, Sahitya Academy, 2011
- The Asian Age
- The People
- The Telegraph
International Journal of Research (IJR) 