UNIT 4 CHARACTERS AND CHARACTERIZATIO! Structure 4.0 Objectives 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Some General Considerations 43 Mode of Characterization 4.4 Subalterns in the Novel 44.1 Jarnail 44.2 Murad Ali 4.4.3. Richard — The Imperial Representative 444 44.5 Dev Datt and Comrades 4.5 Some Important Episodes 4.6 Let Us Sum Up 4.7 Questions 4.0 OBJECTIVES ‘This unit focuses on Bhisham Sahni’s mode of characterization: ‘telling’ and ‘showing’. It discusses not just the major characters but several characters briefly and also gives an analysis of some important episodes that affect the poor and the exploited. 4.1 INTRODUCTION ‘There is no sacrosanct way of making an assessment of a character. However, the subtleties of characterization in terms of presentation, that is the mode of telling and showing is discussed in this chapter. You as mature students are expected to make your own observations/assessments. You might not agree with the observations made in this unit. However we request you to undertake the activities given which will help you to logically support your view point. 4.2__SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS ‘A few observations about characters and characterization would be in order here: One that Bhisham Sahni’s characters and characterization have to be understood in the light of his purpose. The purpose, ostensibly, is to present a comprehensive view of a district town in a Muslim majority region on the eve of partition and give a glimpse of the communal holocaust that partition was and the forces responsible for it. Assuming that that is his overall aim, he necessarily has to introduce us to a large variety of characters, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh. Among these are: Nathu, Bakshiji, Jarnail, Shah Nawaz, Lala Lakshmi Narain, Dev Datt, Murad Ali, Harnam Singh, his son Iqbal and daughter Jasbir, and Rajo and her son Ramzan. There are numerous other 3Tamas characters also. Besides, there is an American Christian missionary and of course Richard the Deputy Commissioner and his wife Liza. Our aquaintance with them is necessarily more ot less brief, though some of these characters wwe know more intimately than the others. For instance, we know Nathu more closely than we know any other character. Richard and his wife Liza also we know rather well. But whatever the degree of our familiarity with them and their individuality, most of these characters tend 10 be representative figures also. Nathu for all his individuality represents the poor and the underprivileged, who are exploited by powerful people for their own ends. His sudden disappearance suggests how these same powerful people can have persons like him eliminated once their utility was over. Richard represents the ruling class. Haram Singh is one of those innumerable villagers who, as the text says, ‘were knocking about in search of shelter” (225). Let us also not forget that we remain with these characters for a maximum of five days. This means that the characters do not develop, cannot develop. And yet they must be alive in their presentation if they have to have any ~ meaning for us. The brief encounters thus place a great degree of constraint on the writer. He must have the ability to capture them in their most significant moments, in mid-gesture as it were without much or any commentary. When this happens, the characters get etched in our memory. This is very clear in the writer’s presentation of Bakshiji, Jamail and Shah Nawaz and even Ramzan, among others. However, these more or less brief objective glimpses of characters generally prevent the readers from getting to know them more fully and also to identity themselves with the sympathetic characters among them. This brevity tends to create a big gap between the character and the reader and makes him more of a distant spectator rather than a participant. Besides Nathu, the nearest one comes to sympathize with is perhaps Hamam Singh, but even with him we remain for not much longer than two chapters. The writer wants the readers to view each scene and each character and each speech dispassionately and critically. He is against frenzy of any kind. But this detachment robs the narrative of much of its warmth. Also, I feel that the writer in depicting characters has tried to demolis certain stereotypes that we have in our minds. After the outbreak of ‘communal frenzy the dividing lines between Hindus and Sikhs, and Muslims became sharp and clear. Mutual distrust was, rampant. Like several people, Lala Lakshmi Narain held this stereotype — that Muslims were not to be trusted. But Bhisham Sahni gives examples that suggest the opposite. The best example that comes to mind is that of Harnam Singh’s encounter with a ‘Muslim woman Rajo, her husband and their fanatic son. First, the person who ‘comes to war them to leave their home at once is a Muslim, Karim Khan. Rajo is the wife of Ehsan Ali and mother of Ramzan both of whom have gone on a looting spree but when she is presented with a situation that is entirely new, she hesitates for a moment, and then crosses the religious barrier. Her essential humanity comes out and she agrees to shelter Hamam Singh and his wife. The same drama is repeated when Rajo’s husband Ehsan Ali comes and asks them to leave and yet when they are ready to go out, he asks them to stay. But the biggest example of human compassion triumphing over religious bigotry comes when though he raises his pickaxe to strike, Ramzan just cannot bring himself to Kill the fugitive Haram Singh in his own home. WhenHaram Singh and Banto go away, Rajo escorts them part of the way and gives them back their gun and jewellery. Another person who breaks the stereotype is Shah Nawaz. He is a staunch member of the Muslim League and during the period of rioting his blue Buick is seen doing the rounds of villages ostensibly to carry arms and ammunition to Muslims in their fight against Hindus but the same person is a great friend of Raghu Nath’s and helps him when help is needed most. Moreover he retrieves his friend’s wife’s jewellery from their old house. Sheikh Nur Elahi and Lala Lakshmi Narain have been class fellows and though the narrator describes them as ‘fanatics’, Nur Elahi helps to shift his bales of cotton to a safe place during the rioting. In a well-known injunction, Henry James laid down: ‘Dramatize, dramatize.” Following him, Percy Lubbock said: “The art of fiction does not begin until the novelist thinks of his story as a matter to be shown, to be so exhibited that it will tell itself." (Italics added) Dramatizing or showing is thus of crucial importance, There are no long analyses of characters, for the novel doesn’t focus on any one individual or family. The writer depends upon both telling and showing. ‘The accent is always on showing, on dramatizing, When we meet Shah Nawaz first, he is already escorting Lala Lakshmi Narain and family to safety and the very first sentence introduces him as ‘a trusted friend among friends’. His later conduct more than confirms this trait in his character. But the kick that he gives Milkhi reveals the staunch prejudiced Muslim in him, something that the writer wants us to infer from his conduct. ‘The great merit of Bhisham Sahni is that he is happy presenting the scene or character in action and keeping his own comments or remarks to the minimum, The novel can take you in by its apparent simplicity but it places a great responsiblity, on the reader, the responsibility to read with an alert ‘mind and draw inferences and see comparisons and contrasts. Activity 1 Keeping these observations in mind can you find out how Nathu is characterized, or how the character of Vanprasthi is presented and whether the writer is making use of irony in characterization? 4.4 | SUBALTERNS IN THE NOVEL ‘The novel highlights the part played by the poor and the deprived in the communal rioting in the city and its environs and their sufferings dt communal violence. Characters and Characterization 5556 Tamas ‘Nathu’s role as the unwilling killer of the pig that triggered off the riots has already been referred to. From the periphery the writer has brought him centre stage. Moreover, he could also be called the conscience of the novel. ‘An important category of those who suffer is the domestic servants like Milkhi, Raghu Nath's servant, and Nanki, Lala Lakshmi Narain’s servant. Both are left behind to look after their masters” property after they themselves have shifted to safer places. Lala Lakshmi Narain’s wife shows some concern about Nanku’s safety when she opposes her husband’s idea to send him with a message to their relative of theirs during the rioting at night: “Nanku too is the ‘son of some mother. Don’t push him into the jaws of death’ (158). (italics added) Similarly, while others moved to the safety of the gurdwara, the peon of the Khalsa School at Syedpur was asked to do his duty guarding the school and he died doing it (283). ‘The omniscient narrator also lets us listen to two important conversations. In the first a coolie is reporting to another coolie his dialogue with a babu. When the babu whose load he was carrying told him that India was about to be free, he said, ‘Babuji, what is that to me? I am carrying loads now and shall continue carrying them then. Our lot is to carry loads’ (127-28). This remark gives an indication of how little the poor expect their lives to be touched by ‘hat we consider to be most important events. In the other conversation, two college peons are talking to each other before the start of the Peace Committee meeting in the college attended by the elite of the town. One of them said to the other: ‘We poor people are such ignorant ‘fools, we go breaking each other's heads, These well-to-do people are so ‘wise and sensible. ‘They are all here, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs. See how cordially they are meeting one another’ (343). (italics added) This shows a certain rise in the consciousness of the common man. Besides, the poor constitute the most vulnerable section of society in any emergency and probably they die in greater numbers than the rich and the powerful. This was the assumption behind Comrade Dey Datt's suggestion to the Statistics Babu to add another category to the statistics he was eollecting- how many of those killed were poor, how many rich (325). As he says, this ‘important aspect’ would reveal ‘quite a few things". {All these examples show how the author enables us to hear some of those voices, which we would otherwise never have heard. 44.1 Jarnai He is a middle-aged Sikh activist of the Congress who is absolutely fearless and is passionately devoted to the cause of freedom. Somewhat eccentric, he is always in the thick of things: making the announcement of a meeting, taking part in the constructive programme, giving a speech, or courting imprisonment. During his younger days he had attended the Congress session at Lahore in 1929 and since then has always worn the volunteer’s uniform. When a pig’s carcass is spotted at the steps of a mosque, it is he who helps Bakshiji to remove it. During the riots while everyone else is sitting in thesafety of his home, he is out making a speech to spread Gandhij peace. It is during one such speech that he falls to the lat zealot. message of 4.4.2 Murad Ali Murad Ali is Muslim League sympathizer whose action of throwing the pig's carcass at the entrance of a mosque precipitates the whole riot. Whether (or not he has done so at the behest of the authorities is not clear. In other words we do not know whether he himself has been made use of just as he has made use of Nathu. But the mysterious way he conducts himself afterwards and the way in which he avoids talking to Nathu suggest that he is a part of a well-laid conspiracy. After the rioting is over and a joint Peace Bus is to go round the town, he sits in front and shouts the slogans for peace most passionately. This is highly ironical and is meant to suggest how poor the chances of success of such attempts are. 4.43 Richard — The Imperial Representative ‘A very important focus of the novel is the exposure of British imperialism and how it works to exploit the religious differences between Hindus and Muslims ‘and Sikhs to alienate them from one another, ‘The writer's exposure of the British rulers and their machinations to foment communal trouble in India is competently done. If the suspicion that Richard is the mastermind behind the riots is correct, then the whole operation has been planned very meticulously. As itis, there is only a suspicion and nothing can be said with certainty, Murad Ali remaining an enigmatic figure. But there is nothing new or startling about this exposure. What is new is the introduction of Liza, wife of the Deputy Commissioner who by being presented as a contrast to Richard, serves the purpose of exposing him and his imperialistic designs. The clearest statement about the imperialistic designs comes from the naive Liza when she says: ° In the name of freedom they fight against you, but in the name of religion, you make them fight against one another’ (50). This draws the confession from the hard-boiled Richard: ‘Darling, rulers have their eyes only on differences that divide their subjects, not on what unites them’ (51). “This is in essence the British policy of “Divide and rule’ and his defense of his inaction in controlling the possibility of riots in the town in the name of letting the communities resolve their differences themselves is a perfect illustration of this policy. ‘An important aspect of Richard’s personality is his interest in ancient Indian history and culture. He has a huge collection of Buddha heads and statuettes and Indian folk art and is a great admirer of them. But he has kept his private interest and his administrative responsibility in watertight compartments. The result is that as an administrator he does not have a human face. 444° Liza Liza is a perfect foil to her husband Richard, the administrator. She comes through to us as a sensitive individual who wants Richard’s love and human company but has had neither. All day long she has to pass her time surrounded by Buddha heads and books that Richard has collected. She feels Characters and Characterization 3738 Tamas ignored and emotionally unfulfilled and also aggrieved. ‘The threat that the Buddha heads seem to hold towards her is actually an expression of her own emotional insecurity, more particularly because these heads take away those hours of leisure that Richard is left with after attending to his official work. She feels hugely bored and has sought a route of escape through drinking beer. In her drunkenness she even wets her dress. Since she has no colonial hang-ups, she can see British designs for what they are. When Richard says that while in the name of religion Indians fight one another, in the name of freedom they fight against the British, she corrects him: “Don’t try to be too clever, Richard, [ also know a thing or two. In the name of freedom they fight against you, but in she name of religion you make them fight one another. Isn't that right?” (50) (italics added) Liza is not able to differentiate between a Hindu and a Muslim and a Sikh, which I think is the writer’s way of suggesting that the differences between them are superficial, Also since as Richard says that both Hindus and Muslims belong to the same racial stock, she feels that they have little reason to fight, In fact she asks Richard to point this fact to them (53-4). Her interaction with Richard highlights his callousness as much as it brings ‘out her own sensitive nature. When later Richard tells her that 103 villages hhave been burnt down and that he is busy, she cuttingly says: ‘So many villages burnt down, Richard, and you still have work to do? What more is there for you to do?" (312) Later when he unfeelingly offers to take her to the countryside where he has heard a lark, her reply is even more indignant: ‘What sort of a person are you Richard, that in such places too you can see new kinds of birds and listen to the warbling of the lark?” (314) 4.4.5 Dev Datt and Comrades ‘Comrade Dev Datt is a young communist who is shown engaged in bringing the warring communities together. He makes his appearance rather late in the novel in Chapter 11. Earlier he is mentioned only once when Jarnail points ‘out that he has seen Kashmiri Lal in the company of a communist, Dev Datt (16). He and his friends are perhaps the only characters towards whom Bhisham Sahni’s attitude is wholly laudatory. A clue to this attitude could perhaps be found in the writer’s reply to a query made by Alok Bhalla in an interview. When asked about his attitude towards the Communist Party for its support to the Muslim League and its demand for Pakistan, he frankly admitted that he had been very much confused at that time. But it seems that his personal fondness for a communist friend prevailed. The prototype for Dev Datt was a fellow lecturer in Rawalpindi, who, Bhisham Sahni said, was a very good organizer, who gave him books to read and who he liked very much (‘I liked hhim because he was a very sincere and a very active man.’) (Pangs, Il, 105- 06) But ideologically, he said, he was not convinced by him. In the face of this confession one can only say that his later ideological compulsions made him present Communist characters in an entirely favourable light.Activity 2 The following are some of the key lines in the novel that are typical of one or the other important character in the novel. Identify the character and the context and then comment on them. This exercise will help you to fix your attention on important aspects of characters and help you to understand them better. * A passion had gripped his soul, and on the strength of that passion he ‘was able to bear the troubles and tribulations of life. + ‘All Lean say to them is that their religious differences are their affairs and should be resolved by them. The administration can render any help that they may want.” * ‘If you cannot set up army pickets you can certainly clamp curfew on the town. Police pickets can be set up, 100.” © ‘What sort of a person are you Richard that in such places too you can see new kinds of birds and listen to the warbling of the lark?” © ‘It seems kites and vultures will hover over the town for a long time.” © ‘Shall I push out a person who has come seeking shelter? Everyone has to go into God’s presence one day. + “May God be with you! May God be with everyone!” * ‘To put a stop to the riots, it is imperative that we bring together leaders of the Congress and the Muslim League, to arrange a meeting between Hayat Baksh and Bakshi * Coming down the staircase, as he passed by 's body, he felt like lifting his foot and hitting Milkhi on the face so as to crush the centipede. © ‘I would rather lay down my life than see any harm come to him. If anyone dare so much as touch him, | shall skin him alive.” © ‘Whatever | did, was done in ignorance. What about those who are setting fire and killing innocent pedestrians and committing such heinous crimes? Why are they indulging in such foul acts with wide open eyes?....F | am a criminal, aren’t they worse criminals?” © ‘Ranvir, you slaughter this hen. This is your initiation test. You have to prove how mentally tough you are.” © ‘Killing is not difficult. I could have killed this man easily. One has only to raise one’s hand and it is done. It is fighting that is difficult, particularly when the other person stands up against you.” * ‘Won't it be worse if we walk away from it? Do you think the Muslims will remove the pig’s carcass from the steps of the mosque?" ‘+ ‘In the name of freedom they fight against you, but in the name of religion you make them fight one another. Isn’t that right?” * ‘We are not the tail of the Congress. We are professional revolutionaries.” 4.5 SOME IMPORTANT EPISODES As we stated earlier in our objectives, the episodes discussed in will help you to understand the plight of the poor and the exploited. These are: ‘The Citizens’ Delegation to the Deputy Commissioner (For details of the it, read the summary of Chapter 7 together with the summary of Chapter 4 given earlier.) Characters and Characterization 39o Tamas Richard’s handling of the delegation is a perfect illustration not only of the British policy of divide and rule in actual operation but also of British callousness. Bakshiji, the Secretary of the District Congress Committee, who has got this delegation together, is deeply apprehensive — and rightly so — that rioting is imminent and that unless steps are taken precipitately, hell will break loose on the city. But Richard is immovable. To disarm criticism, he begins offensively saying that they had little faith in the British government and they ‘wouldn't care to listen to what he had to say. ‘Then he proceeds to shoot down every single proposal that Bakshiji makes to prevent rioting. Ironically these are the very steps finally taken but not before he has let the communal fire blaze for full five days and the communal gulf has become unbridgeable. These steps are: patrolling by army/police and posting army/police pickets at sensitive spots; ii, imposing a curfew; iii, an aeroplane flying over the city as a warning. Whether or not Richard is personally responsible for the throwing of the careass of the pig, he wants the rioting to take place before stepping in to restore law and order. He wants to reap the bitter harvest of communal antagonism, In Chapter 12, Inder stabs a poor old Muslim scent seller. It needs to be read together with chapter 6 dealing with Vanprasthi and Master Dev Vratt and Ranvir's initiation as an Aryavir by Masterji Lala Lakshmi Narain’s 15-year old son, Ranvir is a very keen member of the Hindu Youth Wing, apparently a fundamentalist Hindu organization and has passed the initiation test administered by Master Dev Vratt, which is chopping Off the neck of a hen. He is now the leader of the small band of Hindu warriors or Aryavirs as they are called in the original Hindi version of the novel. They are: Inder, Dharmadev, Manohar, Shambhu and of course Ranvir. Ranvir is short-statured and follows the ideals instilled in him by Masterji. He cast himself in the role of Shivaji in his confrontation with Aurangzeb. ‘They plan to kill their first Muslim prey. The details are all given in the summary of Chapter 12 given elsewhere and need not be tepeated. Still itis important to recall some important points of this event. ‘You remember that on the fateful day several persons enter the lane and the choice of the group falls on an old Muslim scent seller. He is a stranger, burdened with bags, he cannot run away and looks tired. All these are favourable factors that make him an ideal victim.We are then told how Inder follows him and then catches up with Ata suitable opportunity he stabs him and doesn’t forget to give a twist to the knife, as his mentor had told him to. This incident shows Hindu fanaticism at its worst. Several things make horrific. First, it is a cold-blooded murder, which is entirely unprovoked. Moreover it is done to a man who cannot defend himself and more than anything, because he is a Muslim. It is particularly dangerous because it proceeds from the beliof that India is a land that has been blighted by the presence of Muslims who, inferentially, have no right to be here. It is even ‘more dangerous because the perpetrator of the murder is a teenager Inder who has imbibed this lesson of extreme intolerance from people like Vanprasthi and Master Dev Vratt. The original Hindi version of the novel uniformly calls him Vanprasthi the English version eliminates the respectful suffix ji. Vanprastha is the third stage in the scale of spiritual ascension of man among Hindus. So Vanprasthi or Vanprasthiji indicates a person who has given up worldly interests and has gone to the forest. But the Vanprasthi in the novel is presented as a hypocri He mouths mantras that speak of concern for al life but in his actual thinking, considers Muslims to be the evil doers on this land, The murder is meant to be an exemplification of the ideology of hatred preached by people like him. Bhisham Sahni mocks at him by giving him the name of Vanprasthi and by calling him a punyatma in the beginning. As such the incident is both an exposure and a warming, ‘Then there is Old Karim Khan's story of Khizr and Musa. You will recall that the story of Khizr and Musa is told by old Karim Khan. It is afternoon and he is sitting in a group at a nanbai’s shop in the Shivala Bazar before the outbreak of riots. (Old Karim Khan says that once Musa approached Khizr to accept him as his disciple. Khizr was already a prophet. Musa too was to be a prophet but that was later. Khizr agreed but he said there was one condition. The condition was that Musa should not make comments on whatever he did. Musa said he would keep quiet. Once Khizr and Musa were to cross a river, They saw a boat tied at the bank of the river and sat in it. As the boatman rowed the boat across, Khizr started making holes in the bottom. This shocked Musa, He burst out in alarm: ‘What in God’s name are you doing? We shall all be drowned.’ Khizr put his forefinger on his lips. It seemed a new boat and it was getting flooded. After hhe had made holes, Khizr put stoppers in them. Soon they reached the other side safely. Then they came across a young boy. Khizr saw the boy playing on the ground. Khizr went up to the boy, picked him up and without saying a word, wrung his neck, Musa shrieked: ‘What! You have put an innocent boy to death.’ But Khizr again gestured to him to keep quiet. But Musa couldn’t keep back his outrage and asked how the boy had offended him. They started walking on, Soon they came to a village. They came across a dilapidated boundary wall. Khizr stopped and started putting the bricks lying fon the ground one on top of the other on the wall in order to repair it. Musa was again non-plussed. He told him that he had put a young boy to death and Characters and (Characterization 6a Tamas here he was repairing an old wall. But since he had given his word to Khizr, he kept quiet. Khizr then explained everything to Musa. About making holes in the bottom of the boat, he said that the ruler was a tyrant and his men would certainly have taken his new boat away for his pleasure if he had not bored holes in it He didn't want the boatman to lose his livelihood. Second, he had killed the boy because he was a bastard and the son of a very wicked and cruel man. Khizr was able to foresce that he would grow up into a heartless man who would torment innocent people. He said: ‘Now tell me, was my conduct right or wrong? What about the repairing of the old wall? Under the wall lies a buried treasure. He wants the villagers, who are poor and needy, to discover it and become prosperous. This they will do when they plough the land. Finding the wall in their way, they will demolish it and discover the treasure. Old Karim Khan draws a moral from the story: ‘A ruler can see what you and 1, ordinary folk, cannot.” He goes further: ‘The British ruler has ail-seeing eyes, otherwise how can it be possible that a handful of firanghis coming from across the seven seas should rule over so big a country? ‘The firanghis are very wise, subtle, very far-sighted..."(124) ‘What is the point of the story? “The story, a Muslim friend has told me, is taken from the Quran and is meant to enforce the moral that God's ways are inscrutable and indecipherable. Here it has been used to illustrate a secular point. But the question still remains: ‘What is the point the writer wants to make.” In the context of the novel the story has an ironical application, In the original story Khizr foresees all the three mischiefs and takes steps to stop them. Here the irony is that though the British ruler is definitely far-sighted, he takes no steps whatsoever to put a stop to the rioting that takes place even when he is requested to do so, Old Karim Khan's telling of it uncritically itself amounts to a worshipful attitude towards the British rulers. Such an attitude was not ‘uncommon in the days of partition. Witness the attitude of S. Kishen Singh, a veteran of World War Two, who salutes the British pilot circling over the riot- tom Syedpur and bringing the violence to a stop. He almost goes overboard and shouts: ‘God save the King Sahib, God save the King!” Finally the episode of the Sikh women’s saerifice. This episode is described as part of the Sikh response to the attack by Muslim marauders in Syedpur in Chapter 18. So it should be read together with Chapter 15, which deals with the state of mind of the Sikhs assembled in the local gurdwara, A few important points could be recalled: One that the Sikhs assembled in the gurdwara were one in their resolve to fight to the last for the sake of the panth. They were all in an ecstatic state of mind. The Sikh congregationists saw themselves as being pitted against their traditional enemy, the Turks of Jong ago when the panth was in danger and when the Khalsa army hadconfronted them. They saw their present confrontation as a link in the same tradition. ‘One such ecstatic soul was Jasbir, daughter of Harnam Singh, who had a tea stall at Dhok Elahi Baksh. She stood out among the Sikh women present in the gurdwara: by her sharp, high-pitched voice, her small kirpan that hung by her side, and the sparkle of sacrifice in her eyes. She had inherited her piety from her father and she served the congregation in all sorts of ways. Its also important to know that Bhisham Sahni is critical of the Sikh attitude towards the Muslims as being romantic and unrealistic. This is clear from hat is said through Comrade Sohan Singh and the omniscient narrator. The points of criticism are the following: First, the Sikhs distrusted all Muslims who they imagined to be their traditional enemies, the Turks, just as. the ‘Muslims distrusted them. (“The warriors had their feet in the twentieth century while their minds were in medieval times.) Second, the Sikhs were being instigated against Muslims as they were being instigated against the Sikhs. Third, the Sikhs were unrealistic, indeed blind to the presence of the English and their manipulations. (If anything was not there [in their minds}, it was the British presence.) Like Dev Datt and Mir Dad, Sohan Singh kept insisting that it was all a mischief of the English. But his plea was ignored. ‘The episode of the Sikh women jumping into the well to save their honour ‘must be seen in the light of this background. As you will recall, this incident occurred when the second attack on Sikhs by Muslim marauders was imminent. Sensing danger, women and children got together and led by Jasbir made their way to a well outside the gurdwara. ‘They tied their dupattas round their waist and wore no shoes. Some of them shouted: “The Turks have come.’ They seemed to be under a spell. They didn’t know where they were going or why. Jasbir was the first to jump. She just uttered “Wah guru’ and jumped into the well. She was followed by other ‘women, who jumped with or without children. By the time the marauders actually came, there was not a single woman left inside the gurdwara. Now the TV version of this incident is celebratory. Jasbir’s role was played by Uttara Baokar and the jumping-into-the-well scene is accompanied by the chorus singing of Guru Gobind Singh’s well-known song. I suggest that Bhisham Sahni’s attitude is more complex. One commentator has described his attitude as ironical, which is nearer the mark. In any case the heroism of the scene in the novel seems underplayed. There are no laudatory words used by the writer. What is your own reaction? Read the scene carefully and decide for yourself. LET US SUM UP The writer uses both modes of characterization, telling as well as showing. Because of the writer’s intention to present a comprehensive picture of a town in the grip of communal frenzy the attention given to characters is necessarily brief. He has drawn specific attention to the poor and the exploited who suffer ‘most on occasions like the riots. He has tried to break stereotypes and has pleaded for a sane and rational approach. Characters and ‘Characterization aon Tamas QUESTIONS Discuss the two modes of characterization, telling and showing. Which one does the narrator prefer? Do any of the characters surprise you at any stage in the novel? Who are they? Give at least two examples to show how characters behave in extreme circumstances.