Shobha Diwakar

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala- Indian Ethos in Heat & Dust: Food for Thought

 

Jhabvala’s Booker Prize winning novel Heat & Dust published in 1975 is, as the title suggests, a novel drenched with the harrowing heat of India/ a post colonial / post independent India crawling out of its shadowy past under the burden of building a new independent India with shrieking poverty, dust, heat, princely states, environmental pollution, roadside food joints fluttering with droning flies and degraded human life.
Though the novel apparently deals with the sorrowful life of an English woman Olivia in colonial India, who succumbs to the charms of an Indian Prince and loses her honor among the British officials( in India) and later dies a recluse, uncared and unloved; the story is in fact , a revelation of the appalling living conditions of the Indian people, their illiteracy and their  ‘ I don’t care’ attitude.              

The novel is indeed an eye –opener. Etching out of an unpleasant past, the narrator records the miserable / contemporary social problems of India in her day to day journal, which also documents historical facts like ‘sati,’ colonial encounters, lack of human values, Hindu, Muslim riots, small pox epidemics,  famines and other humanitarian concerns. The novel offers an intensive study on the lack of nutrition, and its ill effect on the health of the people. The roadside food joints present a picture of misery as the narrator watches these joints cluttered with those who eat and throw the leftovers on the pavement on which humans and animals survive. There is also a section of the novel which gives a peep into local myths and beliefs wrapped with superstition and worship of idols. The story also presents a penetrating picture of the ill staffed govt. hospital under the care of a dispassionate doctor and equally dispassionate untrained, uneducated   nurses and other staff working dejectedly under inhuman working conditions. The plight of the roadside poor is no better than stray animals that dig for food in the gutter. The Narrator writes,  “People are buying from the hawkers and standing there eating, while others are looking in the gutters to find what has been thrown away” (H&D4). Moreover, the novel reveals the double standards of the Indian society especially in relation to arranged marriages and the fear of the ever interfering mother- in –law who guards the ‘ rights’ of the daughter-in-law and does not permit her to spend time with her husband. The husband too remains non committal, is daunted by his mother and though he ignores his wife, ties her like a cow to the house, enjoys the freedom to indulge in an extra marital affair with the narrator. In fact, what Jhabvala writes is about an India divided into different sects by way of caste, creed, religious beliefs, class and gender.

Thus, Jhabvala has recorded the misery and the distressing living conditions of the poor and the middle class Indians and the joint family system, the degradation of human life and the ignorance of its people where health and nutrition is concerned. Jhabvala’s western sensibility is shocked as she watches the social milieu and peers closely into the family life of Indian women bound to the grindstone with no freedom of their own. Women who are ignored by their husbands and dominated and exploited by women themselves-the so called mothers – in –law .The theme revolves round intricate human relationships (within and outside the family), of which Ritu, InderLal’s wife, is a fine example. Inder Lal, a govt. employee unveils the duality of human nature in public and personal life. Jhabvala chisels the follies and foibles of human nature and writes about the self- deception in which men live. She also discloses how Indian men and women are trapped in arranged marriages –for better or worse and that a girl’s complexion acts as the decisive factor and the dowry she will bring, for the marriage to be fixed and solemnized.
This paper is an attempt to enlarge upon the horizon of an India under colonial rule. The India of 1797, 1897; pre independent India, an independent India, divided in 1947, post independent India straining under the burden of five year plans , to build a New India, to shake off the shackles of untouchables, to merge the princely states and solve the trouble  by bestowing a privy purse: embarking upon the rich  ideals of the Vedic times in order to raise its lost glory and forge ahead .Jhabvala’s narrator  arrives in India, after an interval of fifty years,(1970), to unravel Olivia’s past but finds herself drawn to the various problems she observes on the socio cultural level so that the journal she writes becomes an authentic historical document of post colonial / post independent India. The paper is an endeavor to delve into the problem of roadside food joints that cause health hazards and which instill in the narrator a sense of cultural shock. Even as the narrator (her name is not disclosed),  is horrified when she observes the poor ragged people sleeping on the footpath covered barely with anything, diving into the gutter like animals to fill their belly with thrown away food, she is appalled.  She does not make any comments; she only records the unappealing sight, indirectly drawing the reader’s attention to the misery of the poor and its sickly effect on the body, soul and mind.

When Jhabvala’s Narrator embarks on the shores of Bombay she witnesses an entirely different panorama. The cultural shock leaves her flabbergasted At night she finds the city ‘awake and restless’ while the ‘curtainless’ dormitary windows ‘reflect the washed- up bodies’, sleeping inside .It is her neighbour on the next bed in the SM (Society of Missionaries), hostel who immediately warns her to be very careful with  her food. She says “…in the beginning boiled water only and whatever you do no food from these  street  stalls ….” Then adds “I hate their food, I wouldn’t touch it for anything” (H&D 3).

The foregoing comments hit the nail on the head. Bombay, well known for its venture joints of fast food under street lamps and dusty roads are reflections of health hazards that cause diseases of the stomach. It also mirrors lack of hygiene and social awareness.  The swarm of flies and insects that settle on the roadside food where the dusty wind deposits microbes and viruses on the food is indeed alarming. The so called educated as well as the uneducated gulp this nightmarish food to satiate their appetite and drown their health  with diarrhea and dysentery , sometimes typhoid too. The salty waves  of ‘chowpatty’ denourish the body with dust, thereby creating numerous health hazards. All this is seen and absorbed mentally by  Jhabvala’s  Narrator and though she records this sight , there is no malice in her. She hopes that her multiple sojourns in India will present to her more of these social pictures so that she gets first hand experiences of Indian life and culture. This cultural diversity is  also witnessed by the Narrator on her bus ride to Satipur and Khatm   where she hopes to find out some truths about Olivia’s life way back in 1923 during the rule of the British Empire. Since the Narrator travels in post independent India, 50 years later, the glimpse of ‘modern’ India seems to be a lost hope.The rickety bus journey and the dusty roads cover her with dust which strikes against the shattered windows of the bus; the glasses being broken. The journey, long and tiring, rattles her but she accepts that this is how people in India travel.

The Narrator is a contemplative humanitarian. She tirelessly attempts to break the barriers and find out ways of improvization, echoing western humanitarian sentiments in an India struggling to establish itself as a secular country and making progress but, at the grass root level improvements in food supply seem to have remained stalked .The Narrator’s tolerant spirit helps to cross barriers which support her to be friends with an Indian family. She even adapts her self to wearing the Indian salwar kameez and is surprised that the tailor is reluctant to take her measurement. She is constantly concerned that people buy food from roadside joints while the crippled poor children hunt for food all the time and look for it in the gutter. (H & D 4). This lack of food for the poor despite the implementation of five year plans and industrialization is a sore problem The Narrator notices this deficiency way back in the 70’s But we may here ask “Has the condition of  the  poor  improved now?” Is there something wrong with our planning?” Do the poor get their rightful share from the fair price shops? Has the country got rid of beggary like their western   counterpart ? Do they have shelters where they can lie peacefully without the fear of being run over by some drunken driver? This economic scarcity, despite abundance is cause for concern.

Nevertheless, though India is still struggling with this problem of feeding its people and the blame rests on its ever increasing population, way back in the early 19th century the condition of industrialized England was no better. Smollet’s  character Matthew Brumble says, “The bread I eat in London is a deleterious paste mixed up with chalk, alum and bone ashes, insipid to taste, and destructive to the constitution’ (qtd in Brockington 14).The co- relation between adulterated and unhealthy food  in India is marginal. From bygone days to the present, adulterated food is openly sold specially during festive seasons with no dread of law and punishment. Neither is the public aware of its fatal consequences nor are the concerned persons made responsible for the death they cause. A minor penalty and some phone calls play a part in this game of food hazard. Low quality food is served by roadside vendors, yet the fact is that even after the lapse of more than four decades the mid-day meal served in schools is reported by the media to be adulterated and of rotten quality. Children who eat this food are taken ill many a times and admitted in hospitals or left to be taken care of by their parents. Unless people are educated and taught to eat healthy food, malnutrition and adulteration will take its toll.
The Narrator writes how those foreigners who come to India also eat this food and fall sick. These foreigners often come as tourists because they are curious to see the mystic India they read about in books. The charm of the East brings them here and either they succumb to it and remain here forever or die in the hope that this is their journey’s end. Mostly foreigners travel to this country in the hope to find peace. Since they cannot alienate themselves they eat and dress like them or become so called ‘buddhist monks’ like Chid. Some of them are so frustrated that they even steal from each other(H&D9&5).
Men like Chid beg alms in a bowl and eat whatever they are given but as soon as they give up their ascetic role they can no longer stand the smell of Indian food or the “…smell of people who live and eat differently from oneself….”.This is exactly how Chid reacts and comments on Indian food . Now, after having resigned from asceticism all  that  he demands is boiled food and ‘English soup’. The Narrator too like Chid has a distaste  for Indian food and the Indian’s eating habits. (H&D 139).This cultural difference in food habits still exists in every society. Chid is a man who had probably accepted a religious life to sustain himself from starvation but no sooner does he drop the cloak the mirage is broken and he disassociates himself from this illusory trap.

In a nutshell this incident reveals how food factors are related to religion –especially in India. Levi Strauss describes food as a type of language that helps human beings express ‘their basic perceptions of reality’. He also observes that rules about ‘eating cooked and raw foods in some cultures are dictated by sacred stories (myths) and prohibitions (taboos). These rules reflect underlying notions about differences between nature and culture.’( Religion & Food Answers.Com). Chid and the Narrator, both foreigners, therefore do not appreciate Indian food. Jhabvala also observes how in the hospital she had given food to a patient who readily ate what she offered however, when she helped this very patient with a bed pan and then emptied it in the dirty bathroom the man refused to eat the food she brought for him. This exasperates the Narrator and she wonders why this discrimination took place. She does not realize that Hindu religion  is  bound  by rules and laws that prohibit food being touched by dalits because it becomes  contaminated. The very fact that the narrator had touched the bed pan and also emptied it was enough to ward him (the patient) off.

Food culture in India is also surrounded with ‘religious rituals’, which also centre round myth. This is very difficult for the narrator to understand and so the conflict in her mind remains unresolved. The Narrator’s horrified reaction at the sight of the filthy bathroom in the hospital also perplexes her western sensibility. This lack of sanitation left uncontrolled spreads numerous infectious diseases and makes a patient more susceptible to chronic stomach problems. The Narrator is also awestruck by another incident .When she is going with Inder Lal she sees an old woman lying on a heap of garbage, groaning. Obviously, the Narrator stops and asks Inder Lal to help her to the hospital. The pitiable sight does not provoke any human feelings in him. She asks the laundry man and the coal man to help but when he too refuses she walks away with her laundry as if it was also no concern of hers. Though at first the Narrator is exasperated at the inhuman unconcern of the people and their I don’t care attitude  she is surprised at her own behavior and reminiscences in her journal:

It struck me that perhaps she was dead and it was no one’s business to take her away. Not mine either, and I went home  carrying my laundry./ Later I wondered what had happened to me—that I had not even bothered to go close to see whether she was alive or dead. (109)

But when her conscience pricks her and she goes to the hospital to arrange for an ambulance that would bring the woman for treatment, she is met with a dispassionate doctor and an equally dispassionate staff, much to her consternation. When she questions the doctor about this and his refusal to send the ambulance he enumerates a long list of problems about lack of funds, lack of a proper staff and lack of an ambulance. His comment on the Narrator’s request to send the ambulance is that it is rickety and by the time it reaches the place, the woman would be dead. Jhabvala here brings to light the collective conscience of the people and how the environment and culture add to human responses.

Jhabvala’s Narrator also records how when there was a famine and people were dying , the Maharaja of Dhung remained unperturbed about it and continued with the construction of his palace with labors and an architect from abroad. In fact the Maharaja even hired a tailor from Vienna to stitch the curtains!(92-93). What Jhabvala brings to notice is the fact that though the British were not welcome in India the effect of western civilization had created a great impact on the minds of the affluent. Similarly, the Narrator writes about the plight of the Hijras “…I thought their faces were sad, …all the time their expression remained the worried workaday one of men who are wondering how much they were going to be paid for the job”((10).Whether the problem is related to Hindu –Muslim riots , small pox epidemic, ‘suttee’, pollution , adulterated food or ill equipped hospitals and a host of other glaring atrocities , the fact is that even after more than six decades of freedom these issues remain trite. Kamala Markandya, Mulk Raj Anand, Louis Fischer, Cornelia Sorabji and a host of other writers have also recorded in their works the sorrowful plight of people in India struggling for upliftment.

Jhabvala , the realist has enriched Indian fiction by earnestly writing about its incongruities in a very mild and simple language . She makes no comments on its cultural ethos or its grave scarcities. She unravels barbaric evils like burning the widow on the pyre of her husband and then glorifying the act and raising a monument to the name. Douglas had observed it. Olivia heard about it in 1923, fifty years later the Narrator visits a ‘suttee’ shrine with Inder Lal’s mother where the latter offers milk and honey to honor the dead woman . Post modern India has not cured itself of this social evil if the media reports are correct.  The major social problem that  Jhabvala highlights are still prevalent in India. Can India boast that the country has rid itself  of  beggary, poverty  and  other social evils ? While Jhabvala writes about basic necessities of life denied to the average Indian she is also awestruck with the problem of untouchability.

It is evident that the writer feels that there is great necessity for the Indian society to transform its image and sustain its freshness with a new vision. It is time that unethical practices are banned lawfully and traditional religious conventions are restructured on humanitarian grounds. The subtle irony and satire used by the novelist impart deeper levels of meaning than are generally understood as she unravels the socio cultural and socio- political as well as the socio- environmental problems of India .The writer is aware that India’s physical environment with all its heat and dust does tell upon the nature of man as its oppressive heat affects his sensibilities. Interpersonal relationships are also controlled by many cultural factors. The country is basically governed by race, gender and class. Jhabvala juxtaposes the past and the present to paint a candid picture of Indian society and the sham in which it is surrounded.  Although much more lies bare under this layer, the novelist does not fail to accept that India is indeed a great country with its ancient cherished ideals which has strung the country together. She appreciates their yogic power, their ancient philosophy and their family ties, however, though India is charismatic and edifying, her spirituality and her sense of universal  brotherhood   ever inspiring, the fact remains there is yet a desperate need for improvements on many levels. Jhabvala   the humanitarian social reviewer and reformer has observed the potentialities that exist in India, the effort lies in reassessing its powerful resources to build a greater India  on  modern  trends to accept the challenges , to drive away poverty and the problem of beggary to create a healthy environment , to control food adulteration and educate its citizens on the habit of eating good nourishing food to build a healthy country. India is great for those who dare to adopt her as her very own like Jhabvala’s narrator who writes “Chid and I have now merged into the landscape: we are part of the town, part of people’s lives here and have been completely accepted. [….] I have got used to them now- as they have to me- but I must admit that in the beginning  I couldn’t help shrinking a bit [….]” (78 -79)

 

 

Works   Cited

 

Brockington, Fraser.  “Food” World  Health. Middlesex: Penguin, 1958

Jhabvala, Ruth P.    Heat and Dust. London: Futura Pub., Reprinted 1991

http: // www.answers. com/topic/religion-and –food  9/5/2007