Father may be an elephant and mother only a small basket, but... by gogu shyamala

 

All the children gathered on the bunds outside the village as the sun broke briefly through the rain clouds. It was just before dusk. The droplets on the grass glistened in the sunlight. The boys played chedugudu in one corner and the girls played hide-and-seek, running to catch each other. The younger boys always played with the girls. We flipped a coin-heads or tails and today it was Baindla Ramulu's turn to catch us! We hid-behind the bushes, between large sleepy rocks and under the mountain-high bunds. We were lost in our game, and nothing in the world could distract us. We had not played like this in all the days it had been raining. We were desperate not to let a moment go to waste. The newly washed sun pierced once again through the dark clouds.

 

A rainbow blossomed: it was perfect! We counted from one side and we counted from the other side, trying to find all the seven colours. Though she counted many times, Potbelly Narsi could only find six. When I found all seven, I jumped with joy again and again until from a distance I heard one of Pandugala Sayanna's songs being sung. It was Talari Anthanna on the bund of the village tank. He was mounted on his buffalo, a long vayili stick in his hand, and singing a kinnera.

 

I strained to listen. It was my favourite song, this Pandugala Sayanna song. When my ears picked up the words I started to sing along.

 

Orori Sayanna, oh Panduga Sayanna! Paalamuri eedigas' carts of rice are going, twelve puttis of rice are going, going to Tandur!

 

Don't let go: even if you lose your life Don't let go Sayanna, Kin kin kin...

 

Ponnalolla Balamani ran along with me. She would always compete with me. When we played; when we sang; when we ran. As we ran, she sang along with me:

 

Kottapeta market, on your head a blanket. Sayalu, you run, I run, Sayalu.

 

Children flitted along the bunds like dragonflies. The grass under their feet bounced up after they passed. The droplets had disappeared in the sun. We played till it was time for our mothers to return from the fields. We stood on the bunds trying to pick out the women walking towards us from a distance. As if a thousand crows had flocked to the clouds, the sky suddenly darkened. Near the mala-madiga drinking-water well the road split into two. The mala women went towards the mala keri and the madiga women towards the madiga keri. My mother was not among them. I kept watch. The rain fell fast and

 

in big drops but the women did not change their pace. They were already wet anyway. I was also drenched, and my body cold and tired, but I just stood there, waiting.

 

Darkness surrounded us as the rain lashed on. But I didn't really notice any of this as I waited there for my mother. That day's rain had drenched the women who had gone to weed the paddy fields and they were not yet dry. They squeezed out their wet kulla and placed them back over their heads. As though furrowing their way back home, they walked briskly, one behind the other, along the narrow ridges on the paddy fields. I was still looking for my mother. All the women had their heads covered with kulla and they all looked the same to me.

 

My mother had stitched a new green kulla. She had torn up an old sari and made a new kunchi. Although my eyes were looking for Mother, my thoughts wandered to that kunchi. First, she had cut the soft bits of the torn sari into neat rectangles; to those she attached the stronger bits and lined both with a piece of my father's old white dhoti.

 

Then she stitched on the silk border of the sari on the top. It looked beautiful from behind when she wrapped it around her head. When we covered our heads with it, the silk border shone brightly as it hung down our backs. I would drape my head with it and pretend I was a princess. My elder sister was always fighting with me for it. We would snatch it away from each other to cover ourselves at night. Unable to pacify us, my mother stitched two small kulla for both of us. My mother is just brilliant at stitching kunchi! That's why our neighbour Ningampalli Sayavva would say in praise of my mother, "Her fingers spin like tops... she is the fastest at stitching kunchis."

 

I stood there in the rain and watched the entire village return from work. But my mother did not come. Then at a distance I saw a woman walking alone, like a whirlwind in the darkness. I knew it had to be her. It was my mother. She was not at all pleased to see me drenched in the rain. I rushed to her and clung to her waist. "Why are you here, my dear? You should have lit the lamp at home and waited with your younger brother. You are an adamant girl, clinging to me like the very rain. What did you think I would bring from the forest-fruit or food?" she scolded me. I wanted to search her kulla. But Mother held on to my arm and pulled me home. My younger brother was sitting on the threshold, worried and weeping. That fellow was a coward. He was even scared of thunder and lightning. When my mother saw him like that she scolded me even more. She let go of my hand and quickly picked him up.

 

"Are you scared, son?" she said stroking his back. She turned to me. "Look at this fellow, how scared he is! And what are you doing just standing there! Have you lost something-look at you you look like an owl drenched in the rain!" Her scolding me made my brother so happy, 

he forgot his fear. Then he said, "Amma, I am hungry," and I remembered my hunger too. My anger disappeared. Quickly she put him down, took out some tender green gram from her kunchi and gave it to us. She kept some aside for our elder brother. She had come late and alone because of the tender gram. Only after she had soothed our pangs of hunger did she notice the smell of wet earth in the house.

 

Our house always smelt like that when it rained. The rain had seeped everywhere into the house where we stored stuff, where we cooked, and by the low dividing wall. We had lots of little pools in the middle of the house. Black, grease-like dirt constantly flowed along the walls. Mother placed german silver vessels in some places and earthen pots in other places to catch the rain dripping from the roof. But there were still places where it was dripping, and I looked for things to place at those spots. Then Mother brought out bits of broken earthen pots. The house was filled with music of the rain falling into the many pots and vessels. Tapa tapa tan tan tin tin... Mother moved through the music throwing out the water that had collected in her pots and vessels. I was eating tender green gram with one hand and chucking out water with the other.

 

"Look, behind the ventilator, it's leaking there," my younger brother called out. Mother ran to put the iron gampa under the ventilator. "The house has become a sieve. Where should I put what? Every year he used to re-thatch the hut. But he is not here this year, and look at the mess this house has become," Mother grumbled as she walked round. The rain did not subside. Amidst the sounds of rain and thunder outside, and sounds of dripping water inside, we could barely hear each other.

 

"The boy must be drenched by now.... Has he reached the village? Is he still in the forest? I have no idea... and the old woman has not come back either." Just as Mother was saying this, Sangavva entered. She had gone in search of work but had not found any. She had been to the dorasani's house, cleaned out the sand from three sacks of jowar and for that she had got some of yesterday's rotte and a small vessel of watery dal. She brought it home covered with her sari pleats. From the kulla bundle she took out the paddy in fistfuls and poured it into the winnowing basket. Mother put it in the grain pot, covered the pot, and put it in a dry corner. Elder brother came home completely drenched. My mother was happy to see him back, and called out loudly, "Ramchandrappa is home!"

 

"Hang that wet gunny bag on the wall, wash your feet with the water in the pot and come in son," she said. Sangavva asked, "Was the rotte that you took enough for you, child?" My brother sounded irritated, "Where avva? Did the calves allow me to sit and eat? They kept trying to push their way into the patel's fields. I let them graze along the bunds with the cane in my hand. At 3 o'clock I took them to the pond to drink. When they finally lay down under the trees to chew the cud, I opened my rotte bundle. Just then the rain stole down on me like a thief. I quickly packed the rotte again and came back towards the village."

 

Drying my brother's head with a towel, mother said angrily, "Those rascal calves don't stay where they should. They have killed my son's hunger, haven't they? My son is stunted roaming like this from place to place. Once this year is over, we can get rid of this trouble son. Next year your father will come back from the town. He'll pay back the debts. Not too many days now; the harvest is over. It will be one year on new moon day since he left. If we repay the four instalments that we owe, it will be one year." Mother consoled him, stroking his back.

 

My mother did not believe a single word she was saying. She said that Father would earn money and come to pay back the debts only for my brother's sake. Sangavva lit the stove. All of us sat around it for warmth. Brother gave us younger ones some of the rotte he had brought back, and ate the rest. We took a share of his green gram also. After a while he asked, "Mother, when will Father come back from town? Why have Venkatreddy Patel's people stopped asking?"

 

"No son, don't utter their name now. It will just give you heartburn. They put the entire blame on your poor father. They separated him from his family. They ruined us. The thief is one of them, but they put the blame on your father. Goddess Ellamma is not blind to this. Thanks to her, the real thief was caught and everyone is witness. If you try to burn another's house, how can the fire not burn you? They knew the truth but blamed your father. We devote our labour to the patel and we have always trusted them. How can we steal from them? We have no guarantee that we will get paid for our labour, but we have never demanded an account of our wages. Can we be thieves? We know how to work hard, not how to steal. They know all this, and yet they blame us. He was scared of being beaten to death, so he has gone god knows where. Shameless bastards. The elders didn't say for nothing that frogs have no tails and the kapu have no morals. Your father will give his life but not his pride."

 

"If he had heard that they had caught the real thief he may have come home by now. Don't know where he is or what he is doing ... no trace of him even after a year," Sangavva whined.

 

It kept raining that day. Even then, Mother swept the front of the house, plastered the ground with dung and cleared the rubbish. As she put the basket on her head and was about to cross the threshold, my father walked in. Mother cried out, "Look, children, your father is here!" We sat up. My younger brother ran up and held onto our father and started to weep. My elder brother and I went to him, he put the younger one on his shoulder and held the both of us as he too wept. In our happiness we stood rooted, taking him in from head to toe. Our Sangavva went in and brought water in a vessel, still weeping. Father took the water and put it next to him on the raised platform outside the hut. Mother started to put her basket down, but neighbour Ellavva called out saying, "It isn't auspicious to put a basket down as soon as you lift it ... walk a few steps ahead, empty it out and come." She ran to empty her basket, and then she and Sangavva sat down on either side of Father.

 

As soon as they sat, our Sangavva started: "So many days, my son where were you, what did you eat, what work did you do? You have turned into a black stick, my child. You have become half of yourself. Your wife, your children we have all been waiting for you like orphaned birds." She thought the better of going on like that, and said instead, "Whatever it is son, go wash your feet, quench your thirst, then we can talk."

 

Mother took the jowar we had kept aside for seed to the flour mill, brought the flour back and quickly made hot rotte. My father ate his full and burped, saying, "How many days since I ate like this! Today I feel like I have eaten." He started telling us about the miserable life he lived in the town. He had done all kinds of work. For a few days he worked as a construction labourer, then for a few days he waited at the adda. Then he even sold peanuts in a basket. With the wages of his labour he bought a spade and a crowbar but a police raid took place in the town. The police took my father when he was waiting for work and charged him a fine. He sold his tools to pay the fine and only then was he released. He had left home with clothes on his body and came back in rags. Our Sangavva felt agonized just looking at my father. "Bad luck followed you from here to there." With her hand on his shoulder, she cursed, "May those tools and that town be brought to dust! What is lost is lost. You have come back, that is enough, son. Mother and children, all four of us will work hard together and we will not be slaves anymore." Father sat looking at the floor, running his fingers through the little one's hair.

 

Ningampalli Sayavva of the neighbouring keri came, asking, "How are you, Balappa?" Sayavva was holding a big cow-dung basket, two patched gunny bags and a worn-out yellow kunchi. Flies swarmed around her and she smelt of neem fruit. "If a person is alive, we will meet him some day. Only if he is buried will we never see him again. You have come back after so many days, my child. Where had you gone, my son? They banished you to strange lands, those immoral people. These are the true mother and daughter-in-law... your people! They looked after your piece of land, they brought up your three children. Life has become a thorny fruit in these days of drought," said Sayavva to my father. My father told her he had gone towards the town. Immediately, Sayavva said, "Our person has come back to our fold. Work hard, live well... as long as your arms are strong, you have life." As she said this, she turned to my mother and Sangavva: "Come on now, let's go quickly. You have three people in the house now, haven't you?" There were four working people in our house now. My younger brother and I were the only ones who had to be fed. My elder sister was already married.

 

Mother poured thick gruel into a bowl, put a little salt in it and put it in the groove in the wall for both of us. "If the dogs come and eat it, you will be hungry. Be careful, don't leave the doors open and go to play," she warned us, as they left for the forest. They gathered neem fruit in the forest, cleaned it in a pond there, dried the fruit and sold the seeds to Komati Narayana Shavukar on their way back. Then they bought food grains for the night like they did every day.

 

"This famine has come like Yama. People like us will survive only if the rains are good this year, otherwise a time may come when all of us will starve to death," my mother mumbled as she washed the pots.

"All these days we managed by feeding the children gruel. Now my son has come. The house is full of neem bitterness. My mouth tastes like dry grass. Today we have gathered a few more neem seeds.... We can buy salt, chilli, broken rice. Why not go to the butcher Ismail and buy a kilo of meat and make a curry?" my grandmother said, and Mother agreed.

 

They came back home with everything they needed for the meat curry. My younger brother and I were very excited. The little fellow didn't seem to need a reason to keep laughing. Watching us, my mother's face glowed with happiness. The satisfaction that she could feed us to our heart's content that day was written all over her face. My younger brother hung on to my mother's sari end, playing the brat, saying, "Mother, a piece for me." So, my mother took a few pieces from the curry, threw them into the wood fire, and gave us a beautifully roasted piece each. She kept aside some pieces for my elder brother. We came out to where our friends were and made their mouths water as we ate slowly, relishing our pieces of meat.

 

On one stove the meat curry was cooking and on the other the broken rice was boiling away. A mouth-watering aroma filled the house, spilling out over the threshold. Father came back from the bazaar, and sat on the platform outside. "Is your mother cooking meat? Such a wonderful smell." He called out to my mother, "Give me a little money, I feel like drinking toddy today." She said, "Where is the money left after buying salt, chilli and meat? It's all over." After some time, he said again in a loud voice, "You give me ten excuses when I ask for a little money to drink toddy." She said, "This is not fair where did I hide any money? You've seen everything. You know how things are.... how can you still ask me for money?" My father pounced on my mother, "You say it's not fair? You've learnt to talk! What? Have I seen everything? How do I know what you have done?"

 

Mother went inside quietly and sat at the stove adjusting the firewood. "What? You, you! You don't say anything! I am asking you... what have I seen?" He kicked her hard on her back. My younger brother and I screamed. Father looked daggers at us. Scared of him, we quietly hid in a corner. Father beat her like she was cattle. She was wailing, saying, "Oh mother, I am dead, he'll take my life." But Father did not stop. I felt as if I would die, watching my mother being beaten like that. My younger brother trembled and pissed in his pants. We did not have the courage to stop Father. We were scared that he might beat us too if we went near him. We were also scared that Mother might die.

 

Women going to the drinking water well gathered around my house hearing the noise. Each one of them called out to my father. Finally, Father stopped and walked out of the house. We went to Mother. She was lying so still. We could not wake her up. Then Sangavva came and started abusing Father. "Not even three days since you came back and you have started beating her up, you asshole. You have fallen like Yama on her! How much will you beat her? Look at the injuries all over her body. You have made her helpless! How do you think she will work? If you have the balls go show this anger to the people who called you a thief. When you left us to wander around the country, she looked after your children and me. Anyone else would have left us to our fate. She starved her own stomach to fill ours. She kept all those who cast their eyes on her at a distance and looked after this house, you jackass." Sangavva continued abusing him. All the women scolded, "Is this what you learnt in town... to beat your wife? All this while her eyes were sore, waiting for you to come back what she gets from you." and this is

 

Just then, some of our relatives from the neighbouring village arrived. They brought the news that my elder sister had given birth prematurely. She had gone to the fields to work and she delivered there. Women in the fields helped her deliver and cut the child's umbilical cord with a sickle. They told us that they had taken mother and child home on a bullock cart. Both mother and child were doing well, they said. They had come to take my mother with them, immediately.

 

Our Sangavva broke into a cold sweat. "The child had still two more months to deliver. How did it happen now? We thought of bringing her home for delivery. God had other plans. Tell me, my dear, are the mother and child doing well?" she asked again. Then Sangavva turned towards my father: "What will you do now, you shameless idiot? I gave birth to a good-for-nothing fellow. You have broken her back. Now who will wash your daughter's stained clothes? The tradition is that the mother should help at the first delivery. What shall I do now?" she cried, with her hand on her head.

 

Ningampalli Sayavva came forward and said, "What is the use of saying all this now? The new mother needs her mother to wash her soiled clothes. Did the elders say in vain that 'an elephant-like father may go, but the small basket-like mother should stay'?"

 

She told us to fetch some vayili leaves and foment mother's back with them to numb her pain. I ran towards the vayili tree.

 

TRANSLATED BY DIIA RAJAN

 

Swimming Lessons — Rohinton Mistry summary and analysis

 

Rohinton Mistry and the Background of the Story

Rohinton Mistry was born in Bombay in 1952 and moved to Toronto in 1975. His experience of migration becomes an important background to his fiction. His collection Tales from Firozesha Baag consists of interconnected stories about Parsi life in Bombay. Kersi Boyce appears on the margins of these stories and eventually migrates to Canada. “Swimming Lessons” is the concluding story of the collection, in which Kersi attempts to understand and accommodate himself to his new cultural environment. The unit also notes the considerable autobiographical element in these stories.

The story therefore has a double geographical and psychological setting:

Bombay — memory, childhood, family, Parsi identity and the past.

Toronto — immigration, isolation, cultural difference and the uncertain future.

The movement between these two worlds constitutes the central structure of the story.

Kersi and the Old Man

The story opens in Toronto with Kersi observing an old, disabled man living in his apartment building. The old man moves around in a wheelchair and spends much of his time in the lobby talking to residents.

When he first meets Kersi, he asks him to guess his age. Kersi guesses sixty-five, while the man reveals that he is nearly seventy-seven. Kersi notices that other residents also participate in this little ritual, giving the old man younger ages depending upon his mood.

The old man immediately reminds Kersi of his grandfather in Bombay, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease. Thus, an apparently ordinary encounter in Toronto opens a door into Kersi’s past.

Kersi remembers his grandfather’s illness in Bombay.

His grandfather had suffered from Parkinsonism and osteoporosis. His mother had taken enormous responsibility for caring for him, dealing with bedpans, dressings and bedsores. Eventually, because of his deteriorating condition, Grandpa was admitted to Parsi General Hospital.

Kersi remembers that he did not visit him often enough. After Grandpa's death, this becomes a source of guilt and regret.

One of his strongest memories of Grandpa is not his illness but the small acts of affection from his earlier life: whenever Grandpa went out, he would bring pink and white sugar-coated almonds for Kersi and his brother Percy.

This memory demonstrates how nostalgia works in the story. Kersi does not simply remember historical events; he remembers sensory fragments and emotional details.

The Parents in Bombay

A major structural feature of the story is the simultaneous presentation of Kersi's life in Toronto and his parents' life in Bombay.

Kersi's parents receive letters from Canada. His mother is excited whenever a letter arrives, but his father complains that Kersi's letters reveal almost nothing about his actual life.

Kersi writes about:

Canadian weather,

his new apartment,

being fine,

ordinary details of life.

But he does not reveal his emotional condition.

His father therefore suspects that Kersi is hiding something.

This is important because Kersi's silence becomes a representation of immigrant experience. Physical distance creates emotional distance. His parents know that he is in Canada, but they do not really know what Canada is doing to him.

From his apartment, Kersi watches two women sunbathing in bikinis.

At a distance, they appear attractive and glamorous. He becomes fascinated by them and imagines getting a closer look.

When he eventually encounters them in the building's elevator, however, the illusion disappears. Under the harsh fluorescent lighting, he notices:

wrinkles,

ageing hands,

sagging bodies,

varicose veins.

The episode is comic but also significant.

It reveals Kersi's voyeurism, sexual desire and loneliness, while simultaneously exposing the difference between fantasy and reality. Distance allows him to construct an imaginary Canada; direct contact destroys the illusion.

The story repeatedly demonstrates that appearance and reality do not coincide.

The Decision to Learn Swimming

Kersi decides to take swimming lessons.

The decision has a deeper significance because he has never learned to swim even though his childhood home in Bombay was close to Chaupatty Beach.

Why did he never learn?

There were two major obstacles:

1. Money

Private swimming clubs were too expensive.

2. Pollution

Chaupatty Beach was extremely polluted. When his mother tried to teach him there, garbage repeatedly floated against their bodies, making swimming almost impossible.

Thus, the sea—which conventionally represents life, freedom and regeneration—has become polluted and threatening.

The swimming pool in Toronto appears to offer the possibility of a new beginning.

The unit explicitly identifies swimming as a metaphor for acceptance and assimilation into the new culture.

The First Swimming Lesson

Kersi attends his first swimming lesson.

The instructor, Ron, tries to reassure the nervous students.

Before entering the pool, however, Kersi encounters three young boys. They mock him because of his Indian appearance.

One of them makes a racist reference to curry and suggests that Kersi will make the entire swimming pool smell of curry.

This moment is crucial because Kersi's fear is no longer merely a fear of water. It becomes a fear of social rejection.

The boys reduce him to a racial stereotype. Kersi does not confront them. Instead, he internalizes the humiliation and begins to question whether he can ever belong in this society.

This is one of the story's clearest representations of racism and stereotyping.

Kersi's Fear of Water

During the swimming lesson, Kersi is terrified.

Ron takes him towards the deep end, where the water is fifteen feet deep. He is instructed to hold a metal hoop and jump into the water.

Kersi obeys because he is too frightened to resist.

He jumps, swallows water and struggles desperately. Eventually Ron pulls him back to safety.

The class applauds.

But instead of feeling triumphant, Kersi thinks:

What if he had lost his grip?

His fear becomes associated with his racial anxiety. He begins to wonder whether the instructor genuinely cares about the lives of non-white immigrants.

The swimming pool therefore becomes psychologically complicated. It is simultaneously:

a place of learning,

a site of fear,

a symbol of Canadian society,

a possible site of assimilation,

and a space in which racial difference becomes visible.

Kersi Gives Up

Kersi attends another lesson but remains deeply anxious.

He struggles to float and paddle while constantly trying to maintain his dignity.

Eventually, he stops attending the classes.

Ron telephones, but Kersi lies that he has the flu.

He never returns.

His swimming trunks are placed in an unused drawer, and his swimming lessons become another failed attempt at transformation.

The narrator initially concludes that there has been “no watery rebirth.”

This is significant because water traditionally symbolizes purification, rebirth and renewal. Kersi has entered the supposedly clean Canadian swimming pool but has failed to achieve the expected symbolic transformation.

Meanwhile, Kersi has sent his collection of stories to his parents.

His parents are delighted to discover that their son has secretly become a writer.

His father had assumed that Kersi was still working as a clerk in an insurance company.

The book therefore reveals an aspect of Kersi's life that his letters had concealed.

His mother reads the stories emotionally and realizes that they are filled with memories of Bombay. She concludes that Kersi must be unhappy in Canada because he continues to write about his childhood and home.

His father offers a different interpretation.

He argues that writers naturally use their memories and experiences. Writing about Bombay does not necessarily mean that Kersi is unhappy.

The Story Becomes a Story About Storytelling

Mistry introduces a striking self-reflexive dimension.

Kersi's parents are not merely reading a book. They are discussing the nature of:

memory,

fiction,

autobiography,

artistic transformation,

truth,

imagination.

The father explains that writers alter experience. They may:

add,

subtract,

rearrange,

transform,

intensify,

or diminish reality.

Therefore, fiction cannot simply be equated with fact.

The story consequently becomes a commentary on how personal experience becomes literature.

The Canadian Winter

As the story progresses, Toronto moves into winter.

Snow begins to fall.

Kersi reflects on the way immigrants from warm countries initially enjoy snow but eventually become tired of winter.

He realizes that even his memories of snow are mediated by childhood books such as Enid Blyton's stories.

This is an important insight.

Kersi's Canadian experience is not simply a direct experience of Canada. His imagination has already been shaped by literature.

The Old Man's Decline

The old man in the apartment building becomes increasingly weak.

His body deteriorates, and he suffers another stroke.

Eventually, he is taken to hospital.

Kersi notices that the medicinal smell associated with the old man disappears from the hallway.

Only then does he fully understand that something has changed.

Later, when Kersi attempts to learn the old man's name, he discovers that the old man has died.

The irony is painful:

Kersi had spoken to him repeatedly, yet he never knew his name.

This becomes a powerful representation of immigrant alienation.

People live physically close to one another but remain emotionally and personally distant.

Berthe's Broken Family

Another subplot involves Berthe, the building superintendent.

She frequently quarrels with her husband and son.

Eventually, her husband and son leave her after a major quarrel.

Kersi imagines them driving away through the snow.

This subplot mirrors the story's larger concern with broken relationships and displacement.

The apartment building contains many immigrants and families, yet none of them completely understands one another.

The building becomes a miniature multicultural society: people share physical space but retain separate histories, languages, identities and emotional worlds.

Kersi's parents eventually finish reading all the stories.

They feel that they have come to know their son better.

Yet they also realize that there is much more about him that they do not know.

The father's statement that the whole story can never be told and the whole truth can never be known becomes particularly important.

Kersi Finally Enters the Water

Near the end, Kersi cleans his bathtub and decides to take a bath.

This ordinary act becomes symbolically important.

He immerses himself in the water.

Initially, he is afraid. He holds his breath and goes underwater.

Then he tries again.

He opens his eyes underwater and slowly begins to see.

He repeats the action several times.

This is the crucial transformation of the story.

He failed to achieve rebirth through formal swimming lessons, but he now voluntarily confronts water in the privacy of his own space.

The final image therefore suggests that real transformation cannot simply be imposed from outside. It must arise from an individual's willingness to confront fear.

The Ending: A New Beginning

The story ends with the arrival of spring.

The snow melts.

Water flows through the streets and drains.

Kersi thinks about joining the swimming class again.

This is important because the story does not end with complete assimilation or a dramatic declaration of success. Instead, it ends with a renewed willingness to try.

The final movement from winter towards spring suggests:

fear → confrontation → understanding → renewal.

The Other Woman” by Dina Mehta summary and analysis

 

The story opens late at night in the luxurious Mumbai flat of Maganlal, a thirty-six-year-old wealthy man.

Maganlal is slightly fat, slightly bald and suffers from insomnia. His inability to sleep has also produced a fear of darkness. Whenever he wakes at night, he moves from room to room switching on the lights, as though darkness itself were an enemy trying to invade his home.

This opening is important because the physical darkness reflects Maganlal’s mental and emotional uncertainty. His marriage is troubled, his creative confidence has collapsed, and he is unable to understand how his relationship with his wife has reached this point.

His wife Vimla, meanwhile, is sleeping peacefully in the bedroom after another quarrel.

The contrast is immediately comic: Maganlal is tormented by the situation while Vimla can simply fall asleep.

Maganlal's Disillusionment with Marriage

As Maganlal sits in his study, his thoughts move back to the beginning of his marriage.

Before marrying Vimla, he had possessed a romantic and rather conventional image of a wife. He imagined her as a gentle domestic figure—a woman who would serve food, care for children, speak respectfully and provide affection and companionship.

Reality, however, has disappointed him.

Vimla is not the submissive wife he had imagined. She is educated, articulate, intellectually confident and capable of strongly criticising her husband.

Maganlal therefore compares his marriage to a violent thunderstorm. What he had imagined as a source of warmth and happiness has become a source of emotional disturbance.

The contrast between his romantic fantasy and the reality of marriage introduces one of the story's important concerns: people often enter relationships carrying unrealistic cultural expectations about husbands and wives.

Maganlal: Wealthy Businessman and Aspiring Artist

Maganlal belongs to a wealthy business family.

His actual source of income is the family jewellery business. His friends repeatedly encourage him to devote himself more seriously to the business because it provides his wealth and social position.

Yet Maganlal's real passion is writing film scripts.

He has written six Hindi film scripts that have become successful at the box office. However, the irony is that his scripts have earned only a negligible amount for him compared with the enormous profits made by producers, distributors and actors.

Nevertheless, Maganlal continues writing because the creative process gives him a sense of achievement that money cannot provide.

This distinction between economic success and personal fulfilment is central to the story. Maganlal is already wealthy, but wealth alone does not satisfy his desire to become an artist.

The Nature of Maganlal's Cinema

Maganlal is proud of his six successful films.

However, he openly admits that they are largely imitations of Hollywood movies.

He defends himself through the argument that modern culture is no longer divided neatly between East and West. Contemporary culture, he believes, is an amalgamation of different traditions.

His films therefore combine:

Indian classical music,

jazz,

Western popular culture,

Indian dance,

Western dance,

melodrama,

comedy,

romance,

action,

Indian cultural monuments,

stereotypical Indian women,

Westernised female characters.

His most famous creation is Jit Bharati, an Indianised version of the glamorous Western action hero, particularly James Bond.

The irony is that Maganlal regards these mixtures as evidence of artistic creativity, while Vimla considers them examples of superficial commercial entertainment.

Jit Bharati and Maganlal's Hidden Insecurity

Jit Bharati is not merely a fictional hero.

He represents everything that Maganlal himself is not.

Maganlal is:

short or physically unimpressive,

fat,

balding,

mild,

ordinary.

Jit is:

handsome,

athletic,

sexually attractive,

confident,

heroic,

glamorous.

The actor who plays Jit, Nikhil Fernandes, possesses the physical beauty that Maganlal secretly wishes he had.

Maganlal even suspects that Vimla admires Nikhil's attractiveness.

Thus his creation of Jit can be interpreted as a form of compensation for his own physical insecurity.

He creates, through fiction, the masculine ideal that he cannot embody in reality.

Vimla has a degree in English Literature from Bombay University.

She considers herself culturally sophisticated and possesses a highly developed vocabulary of aesthetic criticism.

During an argument with Maganlal, she criticises his films for being:

superficial,

clichéd,

commercially oriented,

aesthetically inadequate.

She urges him to study serious filmmakers and film theorists such as:

Eisenstein,

Renoir,

Ingmar Bergman,

Satyajit Ray,

Mrinal Sen,

New Wave cinema.

She wants him to abandon the formulaic commercial cinema represented by Jit Bharati.

Her criticism is not entirely wrong. Maganlal's scripts genuinely rely upon clichés.

But Mehta gradually reveals that Vimla's own sophistication is also limited.

She knows the vocabulary of modern aesthetics, but her emotional responses remain deeply conventional.

The Great Argument

The conflict between Maganlal and Vimla reaches a serious point during their journey home from the Silver Jubilee celebration of Jai, Jai, Jit.

Vimla attacks Maganlal's writing.

She questions why he continues producing formulaic stories instead of attempting something genuinely artistic.

Maganlal feels humiliated.

He asks, in effect, why he should abandon Jit Bharati when Jit is commercially successful.

For Maganlal, the success of his films is evidence that his work has value.

For Vimla, commercial success cannot compensate for artistic shallowness.

Thus their argument represents a larger conflict between:

commercial popular culture and elite aesthetic culture.

Eventually Maganlal declares that he will continue writing and insists on his authority within the household.

But the argument leaves him deeply wounded.

Maganlal Loses His Creative Confidence

After the quarrel, Maganlal discovers that he can no longer write.

The character Jit Bharati, whom he had previously tolerated and enjoyed creating, suddenly seems to him artificial and corrupt.

Vimla's criticism has entered his consciousness.

He begins to doubt his own artistic ability.

This is psychologically important: Vimla's criticism has succeeded where financial considerations could not.

Maganlal can ignore the advice of his friends because they are concerned mainly with money.

But he cannot ignore the judgement of the woman whose respect he desperately wants.

The Secret Manuscript

After a prolonged period of sleeplessness and self-doubt, Maganlal decides to begin again.

He destroys his old notes and starts writing a completely new screenplay.

This time he wants to produce something more serious and sophisticated—something that Vimla might actually admire.

He imagines the pride that will appear in her eyes when she reads it.

The manuscript therefore becomes more than a piece of writing.

It becomes:

his artistic experiment,

his attempt at self-improvement,

his attempt to win Vimla's respect,

his private emotional world.

But there is one major difference.

He keeps the manuscript secret.

Earlier he had openly discussed his films with Vimla. Now he refuses to tell anyone what he is writing.

The manuscript becomes his private fortress, a secret space into which he can retreat.

The Great Misunderstanding

This secrecy produces the central misunderstanding of the story.

Vimla notices that Maganlal has changed.

He:

stays up late,

becomes secretive,

stops discussing his work,

becomes emotionally detached,

spends less time trying to please her physically,

appears absorbed in something she cannot understand.

Instead of considering the possibility that he is writing, Vimla reaches a familiar conclusion:

There must be another woman.

This is the story's decisive comic turn.

Maganlal is not secretly involved in an affair.

He is secretly involved in art.

But Vimla interprets artistic absorption as sexual infidelity.

The manuscript has effectively become the “other woman.”

. Vimla's Jealousy Becomes an Obsession

Once Vimla suspects infidelity, her imagination becomes uncontrollable.

She imagines the rival as a morally corrupt woman—perhaps an actress, perhaps a sexually attractive stranger.

Maganlal denies everything.

But his denials make the situation worse.

Because he is embarrassed and reluctant to explain his secret work, Vimla interprets his hesitation as evidence of guilt.

Vimla becomes obsessed with discovering the identity of the imaginary woman.

Her insecurity is also connected to her fear of losing her youth and beauty.

The woman she had previously imagined herself to be—confident, desirable and intellectually superior—is suddenly threatened by an imaginary rival.

Vimla's Religious and Violent Responses

Vimla's jealousy takes increasingly dramatic forms.

She begins fasting on particular days and gives alms to beggars, hoping that divine intervention will bring her husband back to her.

When these attempts fail, her anger becomes more violent.

She imagines terrible punishments for the imaginary rival, including sewing her into a sack and throwing her into the sea.

The comic exaggeration is important.

Mehta turns an ordinary domestic suspicion into almost melodramatic cinema.

Ironically, Vimla begins behaving like the kind of exaggerated heroine who might appear in one of Maganlal's films.

Maganlal's Increasing Isolation

The quarrel becomes unbearable.

Maganlal cannot:

sleep,

work,

concentrate,

communicate successfully with his wife.

Even silence becomes suspicious to Vimla.

If he says nothing, she interprets his silence as concealment.

If he speaks, she interprets his explanations as evidence of guilt.

He is therefore trapped in an impossible situation.

The irony is that truth cannot convince Vimla because she has already constructed her own reality.

The Arrival of Sunil

At this stage, Sunil, Vimla's brother, enters the story.

Sunil is one of the most satirical figures in the narrative.

He had once been considered brilliant.

But he abandoned college, rejected conventional education and wasted his inheritance.

He claims to dislike money and prefers to speak about:

originality,

sensitivity,

artistic development,

higher values,

finding oneself.

Yet he survives by borrowing money from others.

His sister even sells some of her jewellery to help him.

Thus Sunil's intellectual superiority is largely a performance.

He is a classic example of hypocrisy disguised as intellectualism.

. Sunil's Confrontation with Maganlal

Sunil believes that Maganlal has been unfaithful to Vimla.

He is actually amused by the idea.

Until this point, Sunil has considered Maganlal dull and conventional. The possibility of an affair suddenly makes Maganlal appear more interesting in his eyes.

Sunil begins mocking him.

He suggests that Maganlal has deceived both his wife and himself.

He then demands that Maganlal take an oath never to look at another woman again.

The situation becomes unbearable for Maganlal.

Maganlal finally loses his temper.

He slaps Sunil.

Then something extraordinary happens.

Instead of continuing to deny the affair, Maganlal pretends that the affair is real.

He declares that he will never give up the other woman.

He speaks passionately about his love for her.

His language becomes excessively heroic and melodramatic.

This is extremely significant.

Maganlal suddenly begins speaking like Jit Bharati, the very hero he has created in his films.

The timid, mild businessman momentarily becomes the brave hero of his own imagination.

The Final Irony: Vimla Becomes a Film Heroine

Vimla hears Maganlal's declaration.

She rushes out of the bedroom and falls at his feet.

She begs him not to abandon her for the other woman.

The scene is almost exactly like a melodramatic Hindi film.

And this is the story's most brilliant irony.

The woman who criticises Maganlal's commercial cinema now behaves like one of his heroines.

She is emotional.

She cries.

She clings to her husband.

She fears abandonment.

She pleads with him not to choose another woman.

In other words, Vimla's real behaviour is much closer to Maganlal's popular fictional world than to the sophisticated aesthetic world she claims to admire.

Maganlal is momentarily astonished by the transformation of the situation.

He had invented the “other woman” merely to defeat Sunil's arrogance.

But the lie has unexpectedly revealed Vimla's emotional attachment to him.

When Maganlal sees Sunil's reaction, he orders him out of the house.

He then turns towards Vimla.

The story ends with

out giving us a conventional romantic reconciliation.

Instead, Mehta leaves us with an ironic and psychologically complex moment.

The marital conflict has been transformed by a fictional woman who never existed.