Reading the Chunksters discussion

I think one theme is rebellion of culture and tradition. I truly enjoyed getting to know the history of the two tailors and all that they and their fathers had to overcome just to break out of the untouchable caste and still not being able to participate in an honest election. The injustice of it just left me boiling with rage. Very evocative chapters. I now understand why Om seems so bitter toward Dina. He sees Dina as privileged instead of a rebel as himself. I see them as similar beings. Ishvar doesn't want to lose his only family so he tries to hush Om so definitely the loss theme continues.

Question: I read the background notes on Midnight's Children. When the Muslim family were going to escape from the Hindi riots in town, were they going to Pakistan? I understand my knowledge is limited, but from teaching 6th grade world history I was lead to believe that Pakistan is where the Hindi people first originated, sort of their religion's birthplace. I have always wondered, if this is the case, why is Pakistan a Muslim nation? Maybe, I am showing my ignorance too much.

One thing that this book opened my eyes to is that Islam is a direct threat to the Hindu Caste system. By promoting that everyone is equal under god, the lower class would want to convert to Islam easily while the upper class would lose their lower class that they treat little better than slaves. You would have to mentally manipulate them into staying Hindu with threats of physical/spiritual punishment in order to keep them in check or you would have to remove Muslims from the equation.

They amount of physical and mental abuse that the lower caste Hindus take in chapter 3 illustrates this. Also the love that the lower caste Hindus say they receive from Muslims rather than their own Hindu "brothers" also alludes to this.

Chapter 2
It didn't take long for Dina to take on the Nusswan role. Om acts like he has options.

Nusswan is an interesting character. It's easy not to like him, but he isn't evil, and he does take care of his family the way he thinks he is supposed to. He places great value on acting responsibly and appropriately. (I read this to mean behavior acceptable to his peers.) He tries to do the right thing with his sister but keeps messing up.

He's hard when he should be understanding. His ego keeps getting in his way, and he takes everything personally; he's easily insulted. She's a kid. How much of this is Nusswan himself instead of culture, I cannot say, but culture can influence ego.

It's interesting to watch how Dina becomes Nusswan as soon as her livelihood depends on those in her employ. They can be a life saver; they can also ruin her life. She's concerned, if not scared. Was Nusswan scared too? Responsibility was thrust upon him unexpectedly. Relying on others can be a b@@@@.

Chapter 3

Some early thoughts. Not close to finishing this chapter.

Getting a bird's eye view of provincial life in the countryside. Seeing a real difference between city and village life, I think.

The stench of tanning leather -- thinking skunk here -- is so wretched, Dukhi considers flaying himself. Ouch! Life is bleak.

Though they have always been hungry, Roopa doesn't start stealing food until she has a baby boy. She doesn't steal when she has two baby daughters. Both are dead. It is left unsaid why they died.

The casual brutality directed at the "unclean" in the village makes Nusswan's use of a ruler on his sister look almost benign. Scapegoats and scapegoating. The time period is early 1940's, and the parallels between India and the U.S. are obvious to me.

But molten lead in the ears? I thought that was a Game of Thrones original.

I enjoyed Dukhi's visit to the brahmin -- high comedy. The Unclean visits the cleanest of the clean, and the Cleanest burps, farts, and sends fire hose streams of snot all over his home. Nice respite from all the depressing stuff. I enjoy criticism wrapped in humor, satire, parody, or exaggeration.

Chapter 3 is such a good chapter. It has such a rich mixture of truly heartbreaking scenes intermixed with a lot of heartwarming scenes.

Ishvar:
Ishvar Darji is almost inhumanly calm, to be able to keep such an optimistic attitude in the wake of the savage massacre of his family is incredible to me.

Locked apartment:
I have a bad feeling of them smoking in a locked apartment. Mistry pointed out that they can easily start a fire.

Mekki wrote: "One thing that this book opened my eyes to is that Islam is a direct threat to the Hindu Caste system. By promoting that everyone is equal under god, the lower class would want to convert to Islam ..."

I never thought of that possibility, but I can see it happening.

Lorna wrote: "A chapter from the 2nd Chapter title For Dreams to Grow- I can only guess who that is referring to but we will get to that.
The chapter starts out with a inkling of the trouble to come because it i..."

I would have gotten as mad as Om and would have felt justification for smoking and wallowing on her couch. HA! She doesn't liked to be tied down to her brother and his family, but she did it to her employees which to me implies that she feels better than they - not equals. Very hypocritical, in my opinion.

Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "Chapter 2
It didn't take long for Dina to take on the Nusswan role. Om acts like he has options.

Nusswan is an interesting character. It's easy not to like him, but he isn't evil, and he does tak..."

I also thought of the parallelism between US and India. Torturing a couple of people as an example - just to terrorize a certain community. Humans can be deplorable creatures. I am thinking of 14 year old Emmett Till who was tortured and killed in Mississippi.

Yes, Emmett Till is an excellent example.

Jim Crow is the parallel.

The backstory gives us insight into the how and why of Ishvar and Om. Both suffered the great tragedy of the loss of all their family members. However, growing up, Ishvar had a brother Narayan and learned to cooperate and share with an equal. Om, on the other hand, is the only son and thus was spoiled and treated better than his two sisters. These influences are reflected in Ishvar and Om's current personalities

Brian wrote: "The backstory gives us insight into the how and why of Ishvar and Om. Both suffered the great tragedy of the loss of all their family members. However, growing up, Ishvar had a brother Narayan and ..."

Great insight Brian. I didn't think of how their very different personalities were formed. Some of my favorite parts, so far, are when Om frustrates Ishvar and Ishvar feels the need to reprimand him because even his brother didn't want him to spoiled which is why he had Om doing some work with the dead animals.

Lorna wrote: "I guess I kind of wonder why Ishvar never married, why such a solitary figure, when it was time to find wives, Ishvar said that is for Narayan not me, and though he was the eldest brother was happy..."

I wondered that as well. I'm hoping that there will be a connection between Ishvar and Dina.

Wow! I was not expecting these two chapters to be so raw. I love how frank the whole situation is presented, but it felt a little bit like someone had just ripped a bandaid off.

For example, in chapter four it says that if you can’t get the equivalent of food stamps the regular way, you can always get a vasectomy and be approved. The ethics involved around this alternative requirement really stood out to me. Basically, what this is saying is that if a person agrees to not ever have children that would need support through this services, they can receive a ration card.

It is like one of the dirty little secrets of living of poverty. Usually, we all know there are dirty little secrets like this. No one really talks about them, but they are a reason that most people know that poverty is something to avoid if possible.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but these two chapters exceeded my expectations.

I've been looking into some of these atrocities.. Many of them did happen:

"Despite being termed ‘privileges’ it is clear that for families lacking other means to access these facilities the element of choice was minimal. Other disincentives overtly related to necessities rather than ‘privileges’ included the stoppage of salaries and denial of ration cards for citizens who refused operations. This served unofficially to provide the compulsory sterilisation that Singh leaned towards in his policy outline. As a result of this inclination for compulsion and the broad spectrum of incentives and disincentives instituted, sterilisation became a means of accessing basic amenities rather than a way of planning families during the Emergency."


https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/luminary/...

Wow, thanks for sharing that information. It is just crazy how dystopian things like this sound. That is how I think I would describe this book if it were not based on events that didn’t happen that long ago. It is very dystopian in some ways.

Two very good chapters. I was reminded of this book: Untouchable as I read about the caste system. That's an excellent book and very short if anyone wants to read it.

I continue to rather dislike Om, although obviously poor he has grown up in as much privilege as it's possible to do given his circumstances. My heart bled for his two sisters - how demoralising to be so neglected in favour of another sibling. It's the same old story of people only feeling their own problems and not being concerned about others. The mother who neglects her daughters in favour of her son, the lower castes who spit on those lower even than themselves while wailing about how unfair their life is. I read a lot of history and it's such a repeating pattern. White guilt is only a thing because that's how the cookie crumbled - I'm absolutely sure that if, say, Africa had been the dominate culture it would have been white slaves imported and there'd be discussion nowadays about 'Black guilt'. It really doesn't matter which culture wins, they will almost certainly crap all over those underneath them and claim moral superiority whilst doing it. Human beings. In general we just suck.

It's those rare individuals who swim against this tide and think outside of just what concerns them that drive social change. Those who manage to change hearts and have the courage to say 'if it's not fair for me, then it's not fair for you or for them'. Narayan was a great man and he met the fate of many a person of personal moral strength. He was clever but he didn't have the social streetwise brain that he needed to survive. I could see his death coming a mile away. He would have needed publicity to make his stand successfully. He needed a way to ensure that his murder wouldn't just be able to be ignored but would be reported, maybe even make the news.

Tammy Dayton wrote:When the Muslim family were going to escape from the Hindi riots in town, were they going to Pakistan?"

Yes. This was at the time of Partition.

Tammy Dayton wrote:I was lead to believe that Pakistan is where the Hindi people first originated, sort of their religion's birthplace. I have always wondered, if this is the case, why is Pakistan a Muslim nation?."

No idea - but I wouldn't put too much faith in it :-) I'm sure if you did some digging around the internet you'd get a better understanding although the understanding might very well be 'Well, it's complicated...'

Mekki wrote: "One thing that this book opened my eyes to is that Islam is a direct threat to the Hindu Caste system."

Yup. Christianity too, being fairly much the same religion.

By promoting that everyone is equal under god, the lower class would want to convert to Islam easily while the upper class would lose their lower class that they treat little better than slaves.

Worse than slaves in many cases. People often treat their personal 'property' with some care seeing as it's considered valuable.

Lorna wrote: "Do you think Dina is a fair employer? I guess it is not totally fair to lock people in a apartment but do you think she had a good reason?

No not very. But I do think she had a good reason for locking them in although it should have been explained before hand. However, considering that Om straight away started trying to find out the suppliers so they could go to them direct shows that she was certainly right to be cautious. Om doesn't even try to have patience and work hard and build up a relationship - he wants everything right now and started producing shitty work within a month. He's been spoilt, is young and has nothing but contempt for Dina even though he knows nothing about her.

They've spent six months having no luck, they finally get work and straight away start doing their best to ruin it. I get that it probably isn't the highest paid but still, be smart, get some money, make some more contacts, start advertising themselves. This kind of sulky behaviour is just stupid.

Xan Shadowflutter wrote: But molten lead in the ears? I thought that was a Game of Thrones original."

Not even close. Human beings are really really inventive when it comes to the ways we can inflict unspeakable pain and suffering on each other.

Mekki wrote: "I have a bad feeling of them smoking in a locked apartment. Mistry pointed out that they can easily start a fire."

Me too :-)

Nicola wrote: "It really doesn't matter which culture wins, they will almost certainly crap all over those underneath them and claim moral superiority whilst doing it. Human beings. In general we just suck...."

This is why literary classics endure. Like I tell my students, fashions change, language changes--people don't, regrettably. Romeo and Juliet might have worn weird clothes and their speech might be almost incomprehensible to the modern youth, but inside they were still just teenagers--foolish, impetuous teenagers.