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Feasting, Fasting

By Anita Desai

Anita Desai is one of the new generation of contemporary Indian writers who convey their stories in English. Born of an Indian father and German Mother, she conversed in German at home and in Hindi with friends and neighbors. She first learnt to write in English, and therefore, identifies it as “the language of books.” After graduating as a BA in English from Delhi University, Desai went on to become one of the world’s most celebrated authors.

Desai’s writing deals mostly with the feelings and intricacies of human relations rather than physical occurrences. She aims to reveal “the truth that is nine-tenths of the iceberg that lies submerged beneath the one-tenth visible portion we call ‘reality’.” Her largely feminist writings portray to perfection the hybridization of the west and east in India and western countries. Feasting, Fasting, nominated for the Booker Prize in 1999 has been written in the same vein.

Set in a small provincial town in mid-twentieth century North India, Feasting, Fasting follows the lives of Uma and her family. Middle-aged and bound to her parents in servitude by two marriages put to farce, Uma is no better than a servant in her own home. Blessed with the desire to learn and obey, but lacking in the capacity to perform, Uma is seen as a burden on the household. A failure in school, and later in the most important job of a woman, to make a good marriage, Uma lives her life chained to her family by spinsterhood, despised by her parents.

In stark contrast to Uma, her sister Aruna is gifted with brains, beauty and a good marriage to a fabulously handsome, rich and successful man. She thus fulfills her ambition and moves to Bombay, leaving her small town roots behind her.

“MamaPappa”, different in body but singular in thought and action, rule their little domestic kingdom with somnolent routine. Desai aptly demonstrates the relationship between a man and his household through Papa’s character. Papa is an established dictator. He controls his family with unquestioned and for the most part, unreasonable authority which stems from an all-consuming need to assert himself. This need for superiority pervades not only his domestic but his professional life as well. Mama, in her capacity as consort and mother of his son, performs her daily rituals of serving Papa tea and agrees with his every thought and action.

Arun, Papa’s asthmatic son and heir, is everything that Papa wished against in a son. Abhorrent of weakness in any form, Arun’s frailty and vegetarianism never fail to irk him. Nonetheless, Papa sets about to educate his son with the most rigorous of schedules and the best schools and tutors that money can buy. In effect, from the moment he is born, Arun’s life is chalked out for him by his expectant father. Oppressed by his family’s expectations, Arun longs for anonymity. Ultimately, he is pushed into the University of Massachusetts for further studies where he finally finds what he seeks.

During the summer break, when dorms are closed, Arun goes to live with the sister of a missionary’s wife from his home town. Desai here sheds light on the plight of women in the west and its startling similarities to that of their eastern sisters. Mrs. Patton, Arun’s kind host, trapped in the conformations of middle-class suburbia, finds relief in her friendship with Arun. In him, she finds an excuse to indulge in vegetarianism and escape from her family’s penchant for meat. Mr. Patton’s character can be identified as a western hybrid of Papa’s character. Mrs. Patton’s compliance with her husband’s ritual of making steak is reminiscent of Mama’s observance of Papa’s daily rites. Arun discovers, during his time with the Pattons, their daughter Melanie’s anorexia, a fact of which Mrs. Patton remains oblivious till the end of the summer.

Through Feasting, Fasting, Desai brings out the most disturbing aspects of female existence in feminist India; their lack of freedom and status as independent individuals. Uma, bound to her parents, Anamika, the brilliant cousin, broken in spirit and burnt to death by her cruel in-laws and even Mama, the embodiment of the Indian matron, all serve as illustrations of the plight of women in the east. Desai deals, in Arun’s character, with the pressure of Indian society on the male child to excel. Cornered by expectation on all sides, Arun turns into a recluse of sorts, shunning any semblance of intimacy. Through Papa’s character, Desai portrays to perfection, the mid-twentieth century upper-middle class man’s need to affirm his authority over his women-folk. To him, his home was his castle, his daughter’s were objects to be disposed of with inordinate sums of money in dowry and his sons, vehicles for the attainment of unfulfilled dreams. Desai sheds light on the similarities between the restrictions society places on women in the east and west in Mrs. Patton’s compliance with her husband’s habit of eating meat. She also brings out the prevalence of the problem of anorexia in the west through Melanie’s character. Disturbingly revealing, Feasting, Fasting can be compared in style and substance with period novels like Anna Karenina.