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BS ENGLISH

FINAL EXAMINATION

Year, 2020

(8th SEMESTER/EVENING)

POST COLONIAL LITERATUR

Student Name : Zainab Ihsan

Roll Number : 42

Program : BS-English

Semester : V-III (Evening)

Course Title : Post Colonial Literature

Course Code : ENG - 408

Session : 2016-2020

Submitted To : Dr. Qamar Khushi

Total no. of pages :7

Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan

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SECTION-1
Question number. 1:

How would you characterize Baby Kochamma? Why does she not only take pleasure in
other people's grief and misfortune but actively seeks to perpetuate it? Why does she
harbor such resentment towards Ammu and twins in particular?

Answer:
The writer, Arundhati Roy, introduces only some of the characters in the first chapter of the
novel and one of them is Baby Kochamma as she states,

Baby Kochamma was still alive . She was Rahel’s baby grand aunt, her
grandfather’s younger sister.She became Baby Kochamma when she was
old enough to be an aunt.

Baby Kochamma’s real name was Navomi Ipe . The character of Baby Kochamma is built
gradually throughout the novel and it’s in the end only when we come to know about her
reality that what part she played in the lives of the members of the Ipe family and how she
manipulated each of them in her own way and how ever she wanted.

As far as her early life is concerned in her younger age fell in love with an Irish Monk ,
Father Mulligan , who was her father’s friend but Baby Kochamma developed feelings for
him and all her life that traumatic love story forced her to be what she was or what she
became. Baby Kochamma and father Mulligan were never meant to be together but she tried
her best to try and find ways to be with him. Against her father’s wills she turned to ROMAN
CATHOLIC and even went to convent but never stayed there. After coming back her father
knew that she wouldn’t be able to marry anyone so he offered her a degree of two years from
ROCHESTER in Ornamental Gardening.

In her mind she had kept an organized careful account of things she'd done
for people and things people hadn’t done for her.

This was how she was in her relationships with other people. She thought of everyone not
treating her right in many ways and as revenge she hurt those people back for not treating her
nicely. She always held in her mind opinions about people that she thought to be true even if
they were rude and untrue to a great extent.
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Her attitude towards Ammu was not at all good and she punished her in many small and
drastic ways that lead to her death in an apartment where no one was there with her. She
disliked or I may say hated Ammu for marrying a man who was Hindu on her own and also
because she got divorced by him. She held a view that a divorced daughter had no place in
her father’s home and a divorcee had no position anywhere at all and it couldn’t be described
in words the views she held for a daughter that was divorced after a love marriage. So she
punished Ammu for these all reasons. Rahel and Estha were treated as such because she
thought that they were proficient of doing anything.

They may steal their past back.

These were not all the thoughts of Baby Kochamma , she even thought that they were kind of
an amalgamation of Syrian Christians and Hindus so no one would marry them too. So
Baby Kochamma showed them in different ways how inferior they were, punished them
severely over petty mistakes even evesdropped at the talk they both had with each other. Also
she tried to humiliate them in front of Sophie Mol and before her arrival taught them how to
behave in front of her as if she was a member of inspection team who came to observe their
behaviour.

Baby Kochamma for me was the main evil character of the story as she played a main role in
Ammu's exile, Estha being sent away to his father and Valetta’s death.

She was furious at Velutha as when they were going to Cochin they passed through a march
of Communist Party workers where one of them misbehaved with Baby Kochamma and she
took out that anger on Velutha because Rahel saw him at the march that day. When the news
of Ammu being in an explicit relationship with Velutha broke into the house Baby
Kochamma was the one who went to the police station to file a report against him. She told
the inspector whatever she knew and most of it was her imagination. As she put false
allegations to him about trying to rape Ammu and threatening the family that led to his death.

Baby Kochamma manipulated the twins when Inspector Matthew warned her of false
allegations. She gave them two options , either they could save Ammu or Velutha and also
said that they both were responsible for SOPHIE’S DEATH. That left a permanent mark on
their minds throughout their lives.

It was her idea to first lock away Ammu in her room and then she convinced Chacko that it
was a good idea to send her away (exile her) and also send Estha to his father that broke the
family and Ammu died of sickness and grief .

But according to Baby Kochamma all this was a small price to pay.
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Question number. 2:

Why did the author choose the title The God of Small things would you choose the
same? if not why not? if yes why yes?

Answer:

The title, The god of small things, and it’s importance can be described in many ways
according to everyone's own perceptions after reading the novel and understanding it.

The first thing that caught my attention was , god, as according to the beliefs of HINDUISM
they believe in many gods and goddesses . The family portrayed in the novel is of Syrian
Christians but they have a great impact of society on them and that is why they believe in the
gradations made by the society and also as they are convertees they also know about the
Hindu’s beliefs.

Also there are Autobiographical elements in the novel so we see touches and pinches of
Hinduism too in the novel and in the title too. So we may say that is also writer’s own
interpretation of the society and religion that gave birth to the idea of this title in her mind.

The main focus of the writer in writing this novel was to portray the caste system in Indian
society and their beliefs about the untouchables (paravans , shudras , dalits and all the
subcastes ) . So she presented an untouchable (VELUTHA)as the god of small things to show
that they are also human beings and they should be treated as all the other beings are treated
and should be given the equality that they deserve. That is the reason she kept the title, THE
GOD OF SMALL THINGS.

SMALL THINGS are the things that are small details of life that not everyone notices and
we in our busy routines forget to notice these things, moments , instances or seconds that
could literally bring us satisfaction and happiness but we being humans want the big things
that make us happy for a small amount of time and we return to our grey coloured, boring ,
unsatisfactory life again. The writer wanted to show that these untouchables who are even
deprived of their basic rights are the ones who notice these things may be she wanted to say
that they see life from a different angle and somehow are more satisfied in all they have.

As HELLEN KELLER says,

The most beautiful and the best things cannot be held by hand or even
touched, they must be felt.

As the story proceeds all the small things are described by the writer thoroughly that we may
think are exaggerations or overly described and all the main or big events are described very
briefly. That is how she justifies her title that all the small things should be observed and
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given importance and the big things are already noticed by everyone so she doesn’t pay much
attention to that aspect. She describes all that is abstract like love, joy, madness, hope, insides
of mind, thoughts of each and every character separately to show the importance of small
things.

I would have chosen the same title if I wrote this story because the system of classes is a big
issue in Indian society that must be addressed. Even the Government gave rights to these
oppressed in 1950s but still the change of mindset is needed. Not only the writer showed how
Ammu’s family reacted to the situation but also she described the reaction of Vellya Pappen
that he thought it to be his duty to go and tell Mammachi what he saw as that was his duty
and he owed everything even his life to the Ipe family . So we see both sides of the coin ;

Neither the dominants want to give the rights to the opressed nor the
oppressed think that they deserve those rights as human.

So, the writer very accurately describes the problem in the story and skillfully decides the
title of the novel. She shared the story of an untouchable who had more rights than they ever
had, got his education at the untouchable's school and learned the skills of using tool .
Velutha was appointed as a carpenter at the Paradise Pickles and Preserves. As Mammachi
said ,

That was a big step for a Paravan.

Velutha was of a rebellious nature and wanted to break the rules of the society by not only
breaking these laws of the society but by showing that they also are humans and they ought to
have the same rights as any other normal human being. That is the reason he stayed away
from home and joined the COMMUNIST PARTY.

He didn’t know what was going to be his end as the communists won’t even support him and
use his death as a mean to create an issue that is what COMMERADE PILLAI did. Still he
remained optimistic as his last thought was,

Everything would get worse and then all would be okay.

But the writer shows how wrong she was and how brutal the society is that his rebellious
attitude led to his death and no one was blamed neither Baby Kochamma nor the police men.
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SECTION – 2
Question number. 3:

Create the character sketch of Dadu as portrayed in the short story Moustache?

Answer:

The story starts with the description of the family who had a glorious past and had land of
their own but gradually the glory was taken away and they had to move to some other village
to escape the disgrace and shame that they were facing and that is the point where the first
main character is introduced i.e. Allah Dad.

Dadu is one of the two main characters described by the narrator who is himself a part of the
story . The writer , Tariq Rehman , through the character of Allah Dad whose nick name is
Dadu tries to tell the readers about the typical mindset of villagers in the Pakistani society
and he takes the wool off their eyes by tragically ending the life of Dadu due to the same
reason that family was proud of i.e. his Moustache .

When the family moved to the other village, Pind Izzat walan , that was the part of the story
when dadu was growing into a young chap and started to grow his moustaches . He was a
young man with a height of six feet and deep black, thick, up- twisted moustaches . The
family being villagers and having seen a downfall took these moustaches as a symbol of self
– esteem and uprightness. Dadu became the apple of the entire adult’s eye and was seen as a
sign that the disgrace would be fixed and the honour of the family would be restored and all
this due to his Moustache.

The story basically tells of the superstitious beliefs of the people living in the village who
think of turbans, moustaches and ajraks as a symbol of honour . Through Dadu the typical
male of a village is portrayed by the writer as he used to beat men of his village and the other
villages. Took part in kabaddi tournaments and laughed unnecessarily. Also a typical male
chauvinist is shown in his characters as he stared at the women when they came to wash
their clothes. But still all the old men of his family and the village praised him for his
moustaches and that made him the overconfident and arrogant lad that he was.

The gossips of this man with moustaches came to Chaudhary as he also thought only himself
to be the one who should be praised asked him to cut off his moustaches but Dadu in his
pride shouted and threw things saying that he won’t.
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He didn’t want to live a life of a slave.

So Chaudhary sent his men to do that work. That scene is described by the narrator who is
dadu's cousin in the story. Dadu took him there to show a cobra that he had killed. In short to
boost about his masculinity and to show off his manliness that how strong and brave he was.
The men of Chaudhary came who called him (Dadu) names and beat him mercilessly, abused
him to shatter his pride and cut of his moustaches and stuffed them in his mouth.

This incident is a pure example of the Pakistani culture where,

Might is right.

And the one who has power has all the rights to behave as he wants with his slaves that are
called as Kammis in the story. Also that shows that no person is superior or inferior on the
base of physical appearance, that’s just disillusionment.

Question number. 4:
How predictable is the ending of God of small things? Would you have ended it the
same way? Why or why not? What clues did Roy provide about the ending?

Answer:
The ending of the novel was going to be tragic that we knew but we weren’t given a clue that
who else is going to die except for Sophie Mol. Her death was being explained from the very
start of novel and how it’s going to take place and how that event of her death is going to
haunt the Ipe family forever but the rest of the ending was not very predictable. As far as
Ammu's relationship is concerned we had hints about that too and also about its destructive
end but we didn’t know that Velutha would be killed brutally and Ammu would be exiled
and no one could predict that Estha would be sent to his father as he was not in contact with
his children . Also we weren’t aware of Commerade Pillai's part in the story that if he had
helped Velutha he could be saved.

If i were the writer I would end it in a more tragic way. Tragedy is a main part of life.

Tragedy is a tool used to make people feel what the characters are feeling
and allow the readers to put themselves in character’s shoes and seek
refuge from their tragedies by feeling that everyone is in some kind of
hardship or the other coming out of it as strong as ever.
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So , that’s what I think is the purpose of tragedy to be included in novels , for the pain to be
felt and for the people to give them hope and to make them sympathetic towards people
living in other cultures , to make them realize how hard life can be.

Roy is a writer who uses the technique of flash back as most of the post colonial writers do.
She thinks that it is not important to start the story from the beginning. She builds the
characters and makes them familiar to the readers by showing them inside out. By telling
their positives and negatives and what they are capable of. That’s how she designs the story
and sketches out the characters and in between we are shown that Sophie Mol is going to die
and she repeatedly points out to her death telling time by addressing the day of her death (
two days before her death , day before her death etc).

AMMU’S end is pointed out in a ways telling that she was rebellious in nature and was
capable of anything also by telling ,

She had so less to loose . She had in her a tenderness and motherly
affection and also an anger of a suicide bomber.

So we knew or we anticipated that something is going to be done by her that would lead her
to a tragic end and that’s exactly what happened. She had an explicit relationship with
Velutha that was started by her and that lead both of them to a tragic end.

Velutha was introduced to be a person who had thoughts and actions that his father feared
would doom him. He had a kind of confidence that paravans shouldn’t have and he had no
hesitation in giving ideas or opinions and according to his father that traits are not a part of a
paravan's nature. So in that way we had a clue that he is going to face it someday. The horrors
of the revenge of the touchables but no one knew that he would be beaten to death so brutally
that he would die of it and Estha would be made the reason because of Baby Kochamma's
manipulation. And that Estha would be haunted by that throughout his life.