Healthy v. Potentially Destructive Self-Interest in The God of Small Things and Samskara

Both Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and U.R. Anantha Murthy’s Samskara are centered on the debate over traditional societal structure versus individual agency. However, the two novels differ in theme: The God of Small Things unambiguously supports individual agency over traditional structure, whereas Samskara presents a more complex view in which both sides are shown to have flaws and merits. Both authors use types of self-interest on each side as a lens through which to present their cases: in The God of Small Things, we find destructive self-interest only on the side of tradition, whereas in Samskara, we find it on both sides of the divide.

In The God of Small Things, the conflict between tradition and individual agency surfaces in the form of the “Love Laws”—laws inherent in the societal structure that forbid love between certain people, such as between people from different castes, and such as between siblings. (“[It could be argued t]hat it [all—the sequence of events that would lead to a great deal of destruction] really began in the days when the Love Laws were made. The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much” (33).) The novel tells the story of twins, Esthappen and Rahel. Their family owns a canning factory, which has employed an outcaste man, Velutha. The children enjoy playing with Velutha. Their mother, Ammu, who has been abandoned by her husband and is increasingly shut out from the management of the factory by her un-business-smart Oxford-educated brother, falls in love with Velutha and meets and sleeps with him secretly. When Velutha’s father realizes what is going on, he tells Ammu’s mother, Mammachi. She and her sister, Baby Kochamma, lock Ammu in her room, where, in her desperation, she curses Rahel and Estha through the door.

Waiting

Gray grit under red plush

My nose dabbles in gray lint

Eyes fight ancient loose flesh

Begone, obstinate gray tint!

I sift fragrant pale dust

Pastel chemical sharp guilt

Can’t shed jaded aged sight

Beware—lavender scenes melt.

Why come, scarlet strange gust?

Return, vanishing life’s glint!

Don’t dare tremble, heart’s thrust,

Despite spiraling scarred faults...

Stiff grip grabs a stuck crust

My nails wiggle a stale mint

One chance finds my choice lost

Intent tangles my round brush.

The Chackocat

Worlds are altered rather than destroyed. –Democritus

The window is slightly open.

I try and try to slam it shut,

  so nothing can come in and hurt me.

But on the outside ledge

  there is a small mountain lion

  with its paw already through the crack.

Claws tangle in my braid

tangle in my chenille sweater.

There’s no help for it.

So I let him burst through the crack

leap into my arms

or across my shoulders.

I stroke him. He is a Chackocat.

He goes limp in my arms,

touches my face with a soft, clawless paw

his footpad like human skin against my forehead.

I have the distinct sensation that he is saying,

“I told you so,”

  that he, in cahoots with the women in the kitchen,

  has been trying to teach me some lesson

  about trust.

We're never left alone within the colorless walls --
  there's the eternally vegetative matriarch
  or her unwelcome elder sibling. 

Besides, my best friend's father keeps his illegitimate family

  sequestered off the back hallway.

(Why oh why do my dreams

  always include a reason for restraint?)

Even so, the situation is too inviting to ignore.

For a second, he becomes a dictionary.

I know how to titillate a dictionary.

Page 194, second column, toward the middle,

  or if you prefer, try 439.

But it is the Chackocat, not the dictionary

  who knows how to reach me.

(Cats don't have much competition

when it comes to artistry of the tongue.)

* * *

In the morning,

  I tamp down a sloping snowbank

  with my beige boot.

In the powdery solid snow

  I feel the furry firm

  flank of the Chackocat.

Untitled (Dream Poem)

Maybe you have everything arranged just right

but then what can you do 

when you look over at
a boy much bigger than an atom

and he hangs his head
and asks about a missed circus?

Wisdom

I held the hand

of silk

and sand

And her laughter bubbled

thick

and unfamiliar

Like a lobster

emerging

from the muck.

Untitled (Wintry Poem)

With concerted effort

the desert sky

can 

cough up

a few snowflakes

that are quickly

swallowed

by the thirsty earth.

But here,

a casual sky

spits

-- bleeds --

snow.

Even the air

sweats 

snowflakes that multiply like bacteria,

colonizing the ground

in no time.

It’s very gratifying.

Solitude

Dry leaves stampede

And ragged windy fingertips

Scatter sunlight’s frozen ashes

And we point with raw hands

And lift bowed heads

To whisper to each other,

“Snow…”

And then it is winter.