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.

Feeling neglected, the children run away in a boat that Velutha had helped them fix, and which Ammu had been using to meet Velutha, bringing their half-British cousin Sophie Mol with them. Sophie Mol drowns when the boat capsizes, and Rahel and Estha end up, by chance, on the same island on which Velutha takes refuge after being shouted at by Mammachi and refused assistance by the communist, Comrade Pillai. When it is discovered that the children are missing, Baby Kochamma goes to the police and claims that Velutha both molested Ammu and kidnapped the children. The police find the children and Velutha and beat Velutha almost to death. The police then realize that they have inconveniently almost killed a man on no reliable evidence. However, it is in the interests of those in power to get rid of Velutha, so no one makes sure that justice is served for him. The police do not want him to be proved innocent, as their violence toward him would then be not only embarrassing but could lead to official chastisement and perhaps loss of their positions. Comrade Pillai, a fellow communist, finds him to be political competition. Baby Kochamma does not want to be shown to be a liar, and besides, she wants to take revenge on Ammu, who, unlike herself, has found romance—and found it by breaking the “Love Laws”! Baby Kochamma has played by the rules and not been rewarded! So Baby Kochamma figures out a way to brand the destruction of Velutha with surface legitimacy: she manipulates Rahel and Estha to testify that Velutha was responsible for their kidnapping and Sophie’s death. She does this by telling them that they and Ammu will go to jail because of their responsibility for Sophie Mol’s death unless they say that Velutha kidnapped them. Estha makes the condemnation. Soon after, he is sent off to live with his father while Rahel stays at home. Ammu dies young, Rahel spends some time in America, marrying unhappily for a while. Finally, she returns to her hometown. Estha is living at home and has not spoken for years. Both twins are racked with guilt for their part in the terrible sequence of events of their childhood. The story ends with healing, though: at the end we read of the beautiful trysts between Ammu and Velutha and a parallel, healing (and also sexual) tryst between Rahel and Estha after the years of separation. The book ends with the hopeful word “Tomorrow.”

In Samskara, the conflict between tradition and individual agency emerges in the form of a philosophical contest between an orthodox Brahmin and (the memory and after-effects of) a (dead) renegade Brahmin who broke almost every rule of orthodoxy and yet managed to avoid excommunication. The novel is an allegory in which a community is faced with a conflict: Naranappa, the renegade Brahmin, has died and needs to be cremated. As a Brahmin, he must be cremated by a fellow Brahmin, and yet none of the Brahmins want to cremate him because he was so unorthodox that they fear that cremating him will cause them to lower in orthodoxy themselves. The situation is complicated when Naranappa’s concubine, Chandri, offers to give for the purpose of funeral expenses all the gold jewelry that Naranappa had given her. Now everyone wants to cremate him in order to receive the gold. On top of everything, none of the adults in the agrahara are supposed to eat until the body has been cremated. The spiritual leader of the agrahara, Praneshacharya, pores over the sacred texts and goes for a day to meditate in the temple of the god Maruti, hoping for an answer. But Maruti gives no answer. As Praneshacharya leaves the temple, he meets Chandri. She is grateful for his kindness to her renegade Naranappa and to her now that Naranappa is dead, so she tries to repay him by seducing him. In the morning, Praneshacharya, dazed by his experience with Chandri and intending to confess to the community and relinquish his authority, instead simply tells the agrahara that he has found no answer from Maruti and instructs them to do what seems right to them. The rest of the agrahara goes to various spiritual authorities to ask what should be done.

The conflict over Naranappa’s burial then becomes somewhat ridiculous—Chandri secretly gets a Muslim to cremate Naranappa’s body, which has already infested the agrahara with plague, and in the meantime, the rest of the agrahara goes to great lengths to solve the problem, the only result of which is that the highest guru naturally says that the gold should be donated to his monastery. This issue takes a back seat to the emerging spiritual crisis of Praneshacharya. He walks aimlessly away from his community and his responsibilities, overwhelmed by a sense of shirking his duty but at the same time questioning everything he has lived by for so long. If sensory experience has so much power, maybe it does indeed provide viable competition for ascetism, as the troublemaker Naranappa has seemed to advocate all this time? Maybe it, not orthodoxy, is the way to enlightenment. More confusing yet, maybe it does not contradict orthodoxy. The book ends without answering the question, leaving Praneshacharya waiting, “anxious, expectant” (138).

Before we consider the types of self-interest on each side of the debate between tradition and individual agency in each novel, let us examine the difference between healthy and destructive or potentially destructive self-interest. Self-interest per se is not an unequivocally bad thing—in fact, it is arguably the main consideration by which we make most of our decisions, noble and less than noble. Self-interest is a broad concept. What helps us in the present may hurt us in the long run. What hurts us in the present but helps those around us may help us in the long run. If we think of ourselves in a more general sense, self-interest may lead us to make choices that benefit humanity on the whole, even if they hurt or even kill us. Self-interest, then, can be a powerful motivator for the forces of good—but, of course, it is not always such a force. Self-interest that takes into account only the self in the immediate present and that ignores or expressly damages the interests of others can be extremely destructive to the society surrounding the agent, as well as to the agent him/herself. Now let us consider the types of self-interest motivating some of the characters from each novel on each side of the divide between tradition and individual agency.

In The God of Small Things, essentially, the force of tradition, the “Love Laws,” provide a context in which Ammu and Velutha’s love is rendered illegitimate. Because of this illegitimacy, their love, combined with a series of people who place self-interest before justice, triggers a series of events that devastates many lives—Estha’s, Rahel’s, Ammu’s, Sophie’s, Velutha’s…and the list goes on. This novel condemns the oppressive power of arbitrary cultural divisions by demonstrating how they can be become a tool for people who are motivated by destructive self-interest to destroy the lives of others. Baby Kochamma is the primary example. In an attempt to prevent the story of Ammu’s and Velutha’s consenting relationship from spreading, she tries to frame Velutha not only as a rapist but also as a kidnapper. It is the existence of the “Love Laws” that has made Ammu’s and Velutha’s behavior illegitimate, and that puts Baby Kochamma in the position of needing to protect the family. It is Baby Kochamma’s self-interest that leads her to try to protect the family even though that protection directly destroys the life of another human being. It is also her self-interest that leads her to distort the truth over and over again to stir up conflict and destroy several more lives, all in order to take revenge for her own lonely life, at the same time always positioning herself as the injured party. When Velutha’s father comes to reveal Ammu’s and Velutha’s affair to Mammachi:

Over the din Kochu Maria shouted Vellya Paapen’s story to Baby Kochamma. Baby Kochamma recognized at once the immense potential of the situation, but immediately anointed her thoughts with unctuous oils. She bloomed. She saw it as God’s Way of punishing Ammu for her sins and simultaneously avenging her (Baby Kochamma’s) humiliation at the hands of Velutha and the men in the march….She set sail at once. A ship of goodness ploughing through a sea of sin.

Baby Kochamma put her heavy arm around Mammachi.

“It must be true,” she said in a quiet voice. “She’s quite capable of it. And so is he…He must go….Tonight. Before it goes any further. Before we are completely ruined.” (243)

And later, after Baby Kochamma’s distorted and largely fabricated testimony about Velutha to the police, and after Velutha is dead:

When Baby Kochamma heard about Ammu’s visit to the police station [to try to contradict Baby Kochamma’s testimony and save Velutha], she was terrified. Everything that she, Baby Kochamma, had done, had been premised on one assumption. She had gambled on the fact that Ammu, whatever else she did, however angry she was, would never publicly admit to her relationship with Velutha. Because, according to Baby Kochamma, that would amount to destroying herself and her children. Forever. But Baby Kochamma hadn’t taken into account the Unsafe Edge in Ammu….

Ammu’s reaction stunned her. The ground fell away from under her feet. She knew she had an ally in Inspector Thomas Mathew. But how long would that last? What if he was transferred and the case re-opened?...

Baby Kochamma knew she had to get Ammu out of Ayamenem as soon as possible.

She managed that by doing what she was best at. Irrigating her fields, nourishing her crops with other people’s passions.

She gnawed like a rat into the godown of Chacko’s grief [over his daughter Sophie’s death]. Within its walls she planted an easy, accessible target for his insane anger. It wasn’t hard for her to portray Ammu as the person actually responsible for Sophie Mol’s death. Ammu and her two-egg twins. (304-305)

Baby Kochamma’s self-interest is clearly destructive—she protects her own interests and image in ways that directly damage others and using means that transgress universal norms of morality—norms that prohibit deceit, manipulation, and malice. In addition to Baby Kochamma’s destructive self-interest, Comrade Pillai, who finds Velutha politically inconvenient, and the police, who do not want to be revealed to have made a serious miscalculation in trusting Baby Kochamma’s testimony, demonstrate destructive self-interest in allowing these self-serving reasons to dissuade themselves from seeking justice on Velutha’s behalf. Their destructive self-interest, more than Baby Kochamma’s, is destructive in its lack of beneficial action rather than its detrimental and malicious action. In that all of these characters stand on the side of destroying Velutha, they stand on the side of upholding the “Love Laws,” even though for most of them, the transgression of the Love Laws happened to be merely the trigger of the sequence of events rather than a value that they specifically seek to uphold. (Even Rahel and Esthappen, in condemning Velutha in order (as they believe) to save themselves and Ammu, act for their own self-interest, against the interest of justice. However, their self-interest cannot be characterized as destructive to the same extent as, for example, that of Baby Kochamma for several reasons, including because they are young, because they believe their own lives and the life of their mother are essentially at stake, because they are not entirely aware of the implications of their actions, and because they suffer from their own action, in some sense “expiating” for their “sin.” But this is a question for another essay.)

On the other side in The God of Small Things are those who are making decisions based on self-interest in favor of individual agency and against the “Love Laws”: Ammu and Velutha. By seeking each other, they are seeking happiness and personal fulfillment in a way that directly challenges the standard oppressive social boundaries. Although this love helps trigger a great deal of destruction, their self-interest arguably cannot be characterized as destructive. This is because the couple are merely transgressing against an irrational, arbitrary set of social regulations that is clearly oppressive (in defining certain humans as lower than other humans and less deserving of respect and basic rights) rather than against universal human codes of morality, such as honesty and justice, the way Baby Kochamma, the communist, the chief of police, and even Rahel and Esthappen do. The actions of Ammu and Velutha do not have to be destructive to others—the only reason they are is because of these arbitrary regulations. Their actions threaten the social order, which can threaten the order in others’ lives, but this social order is arbitrary and oppressive, not universal. Besides, the social order itself prohibits Ammu and Velutha from finding the joy and fulfillment in their lives that they find in each other, which already legitimizes transgression against it to some degree.

Now, in Samskara, we see both kinds of self-interest on both sides. First, on the side of traditional social structure, in terms of destructive self-interest, our prime example is the Brahmins in the agrahara, excluding Praneshacharya. Many of these men, rather like the destructively self-interested people in Roy’s novel, are using the traditional social order to personal gain without necessarily being personally committed to following the traditional order themselves; i.e., they make a show of being committed to orthodoxy in order to take advantage of the power that orthodoxy may afford them (see Garudacharya trying to use religious logic to convince Praneshacharya to let Garuda be the one to take charge of the cremation and acquire the gold (29-30)), but when orthodoxy is inconvenient for them, they do not have a problem transgressing the rules they claim so loudly to be devoted to (see Dasacharya breaking the fast of waiting for Naranappa’s cremation by secretly eating in a house in the “unclean” agrahara of Parijatapura (55-56)). As in The God of Small Things, arbitrary social rules become tools for the acquisition of wealth and power in the hands of people motivated by self-interest, tools to be picked up or thrown down at will, depending on the situation. Another person who exemplifies this type of behavior is the guru, who takes advantage of his spiritual authority to lay a claim for the monastery to all the riches from Naranappa, threatening that if the Brahmins do not follow this instruction, he will revoke permission for the cremation rite, forcing the Brahmins to move off their agrahara (86-87).

On the other hand there is Praneshacharya. In the midst of this agrahara (and, indeed, caste) full of Brahmins happy to twist orthodoxy so that it implies that each of them ought to acquire power at the expense of others, Praneshacharya lacks hypocrisy (at least in the manner and to the extent of the others). He seems to be the only one in the agrahara who genuinely tries to follow the scriptures—he could easily come out of the temple of the god Maruti with an answer about the cremation that relegates all the riches to his own pocket. Yet, instead, he suffers, fasting, in the temple all day, and emerges without any kind of answer at all, and without making any up. Indeed, Praneshacharya provides an example of non-destructive self-interest on the side of orthodoxy. He, unlike the others, does not distort orthodoxy in order to gain power for himself at the expense of others (even though, as Naranappa implies (“[E]very action results not in what is expected but in its exact opposite” (24)), his orthodoxy sometimes may have unintended detrimental effects, or at least effects that are contrary to orthodoxy, such as the arousal of lust in Garuda’s son). Yet his commitment to orthodoxy is still based (although not necessarily exclusively) on self-interest: orthodoxy is a road for his own soul to take to escape from the cycle of rebirth and from the pain of this world.

On the side of freedom from arbitrarily constructed societal rules, the person who demonstrates destructive self-interest is Naranappa. Naranappa desires pleasure regardless of the effects of on other people: “ ‘I belong to the “Hedonist School” which says—borrow, if you must, but drink your ghee’” (21); and “ ‘Can I give you brahmins a piece of advice, Acharya-re? Push those sickly wives of yours into the river. Be like the sages of your holy legends—get hold of a fish-scented fisherwoman who can cook you fish-soup, and go to sleep in her arms’” (26). He breaks all the taboos, does not share the flowers and fruit from his trees with the community, indulges in all physical pleasure to excess, and encourages the younger members of the community to do likewise. His self-interest is destructive in that he seeks pleasure without concerning himself with how his choices damage other individuals and the community feeling. His self-interest is not as destructive, in some sense, as that of the Brahmins, partly because he breaks societal norms, both arbitrary and universal, openly rather than claiming to live by them while manipulating them for personal gain. It is also less destructive because he is merely careless of his effects on others rather than intentionally attempting to take resources for himself and away from others.

On the other hand, some of Naranappa’s self-interest, arguably, is non-destructive self-interest. He is seeking fulfillment through a pathway from which arbitrary societal rules prohibit him, a situation in some sense parallel to Ammu and Velutha’s search for fulfillment in a way that transgresses against the “Love Laws.” Sarcastically or not, he even likens his search for pleasure to Praneshacharya’s search for God (“…[G]et hold of a fish-scented fisherwoman….And if you don’t experience god when you wake up, my name isn’t Naranappa” (26)), an analogy that Praneshacharya takes to heart as he later walks through the wilderness struggling with the possibility that pleasure might be as legitimate a road to enlightenment as asceticism. Naranappa may take pleasure to extreme limits, but enjoying one’s senses is not in itself a universally bad value (although many cultures have labeled it as such, in response to the destructive results when pleasure—and power—seeking goes too far). Indeed, Naranappa, similarly to Ammu and Velutha, threatens general social stability by transgressing against arbitrary societal rules (“The Acharya was afraid of the bad example. With this kind of rebellious example, how will fair play and righteousness prevail? Won’t the lower castes get out of hand? In this decadent age, common men follow the right paths out of fear—if that were destroyed, where could we find the strength to uphold the world?” (22)). But the arbitrary rules, not the action itself, are what make the action destabilizing.

After Praneshacharya is awakened to the power of pleasure, he also adds a voice for non-destructive self-interest on the side of freedom from arbitrary societal rules. He does neglect his community after he has been thrown into confusion by his experience with Chandri. But he does not show a willingness to really hurt anyone—not just to neglect, but actually willfully to hurt. The only thing he willfully transgresses against is the arbitrary system, when he goes into the temple dinner for which he is not ritually clean (128). Praneshacharya’s motivation in considering the possibility of revaluing sensory experience from being demonic to being a worthwhile goal and teacher is still self-interest—a desire to find God, be touched by God, and enjoy life. But he does not (at least knowingly—and certainly not intentionally) take resources away from anyone in doing so.

So, in The God of Small Things, destructive self-interest appears only on the side of arbitrary rules, while in Samskara, it appears on the sides both of rules and of individual agency. In order to present opinions about the debate between tradition and individual agency, both Arundhati Roy and U.R. Anantha Murthy employ two contrasts. The first is the contrast between universal moral standards (such as justice, cooperation, and honesty) and arbitrary social standards (such as “Love Laws,” caste distinctions, and artificial asceticism). The second is the contrast between destructive self-interest (self-interest which, carelessly or intentionally, takes resources away from others to an extent that is not justified by the benefit to the agent; also self-interest which transgresses against universal moral standards) and healthy self-interest (self-interest which aims to enhance the fulfillment of the agent without intentionally and/or knowingly taking resources away from others; also self-interest which, if it transgresses against any standards, transgresses only against arbitrary social standards). The result of Roy’s use of these contrasts is that the theme emerges in The God of Small Things that arbitrary social standards can be powerful tools for evil. The result of Murthy’s use of these contrasts is that the reader is left with an impression of the complexity of both arbitrary social standards and of individual agency and is engaged in pondering for him/herself which one ought to prevail.