Karma - Detailed Analysis

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Introduction

                         “A boomerang returns back to the person that throws it.”

"Karma" is a short-story by renowned Khushwant Singh. It was published in 1989 in Singh's The Collected Stories. It is the story about a so-called Indian Gentleman who always strive to adopt the manners and lifestyle of Upper Class Englishmen such as speaking English with Oxford accent, and about his relation with his wife. It clearly represents a duel of the manners and attitude of the Upper-Class people and the Lower-class people.

About the Author

Khushwant Singh (born Khushal Singh, 2 February 1915 – 20 March 2014) was an Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician. His experience in the 1947 Partition of India inspired him to write "Train to Pakistan" in 1956 (made into film in 1998), which became his most well-known novel.

Though he was born in Punjab, he was educated in Modern School, New Delhi, St. Stephen's College, and graduated from Government College, Lahore. He studied at King's College London and was awarded LL.B. from University of London. He was called to the bar at the London Inner Temple. After working as a lawyer in Lahore High Court for eight years, he joined the Indian Foreign Service upon the Independence of India from British Empire in 1947. He was appointed journalist in the All India Radio in 1951, and then moved to the Department of Mass Communications of UNESCO at Paris in 1956. These last two careers encouraged him to pursue a literary career. As a writer, he was best known for his trenchant secularism,[3] humour, sarcasm and an abiding love of poetry. His comparisons of social and behavioural characteristics of Westerners and Indians are laced with acid wit. He served as the editor of several literary and news magazines, as well as two newspapers, through the 1970s and 1980s. Between 1980-1986 he served as Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Parliament of India.

Khushwant Singh was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974; however, he returned the award in 1984 in protest against Operation Blue Star in which the Indian Army raided Amritsar. In 2007 he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest civilian award in India.Singh died of natural causes on 20 March 2014 at his Delhi residence, at the age of 99. His death was mourned by many including the President, Vice-President and Prime Minister of India.

Theme

The theme of arrogance, ignorance, and prejudice is explored throughout Khushwant Singh's short story “Karma” in connection with the main and secondary characters. It is the story of an arrogant Sir Mohan Lal who despises everything Indian and tries to acquire the attitude and manners of English people. He hates his wife Lachmi only because she is a native Indian. But he wants to embrace the arrogant English soldiers as they belong to the King's class. The story is based on the clear contrast of the two types of life, one that most Indian lead and the other the English people lead and some Indians like Sir Mohan who tries hard to follow but fails. The story also deals with the theme of originality and artificiality. Lady Lal represents the original way of Indian lifestyle. On the contrary Sir Mohan Lal stands for the artificial way of life that some Indian tries to lead to look sophisticated and modern. It also deals with the theme of unhappy married life. Sir Mohan represents some of the Diwan Bahadurs of British India who tries to grovel on the English officers and not only hates but tortures their fellow Indians. 

Summary

                The story is about an anglophile named Sir Mohan Lal. An anglophile is a person who is an admirer of everything of England and the English people.  The story begins at a first class waiting room at the railway station. Sir Mohan Lal is found standing before the mirror. The mirror is worn-out and partly broken. He hates the mirror as he hates everything of India. But he admires his own appearance. He looks perfectly like a sahib. The train is yet to come. He calls the bearer and orders a drink.

  Outside the waiting room, Lachmi, his wife is sitting on a small grey steel trunk. She is chewing a betel leaf. She is a traditional Indian woman and is commonly dressed. She requests a coolie to carry her luggage to the end of the platform. She will get into the inter-class woman compartment. She is not allowed to accompany her husband in the first class compartment, because her husband is a high government official, a barrister. He will meet many officials in the compartment. But Lachmi cannot speak English and does not know their ways. Obviously, she cannot travel with her husband. She hardly enjoys the company of her husband. He visits her rarely at night. Then Lachmi plays the role of a passive partner. They have no child.

  The train arrives at the platform. Lachmi enters the inter-class compartment. It is almost empty. She prepares some betel-leaves and starts chewing one.

  There is a lot of noise. Passengers are jostling on the platform. Sir Mohan Lal totally detests them. He is calm and quiet. He is still enjoying his drink. He has spent five years in Oxford University. He strictly follows the manners of the English. He rarely speaks Hindustani. He speaks in English with a foreign accent. He can talk on any subject like a cultured Englishman. Indeed, he always feels at home with the English. He expects some Englishmen as co-passengers. In that case it will be an enjoyable journey for him. But he shows no sign of urge to talk to the English like most of the Indians. He pretends to read The Times. He has already his Balliol tie. He orders whisky. And lastly, he opens his gold cigarette case full of English cigarettes. He knows well that all these things will automatically arrest the attention of the Englishmen. Now he recalls his five-year glorious life of England. He loves everything of the country. Even the prostitutes of England are more charming to him than his wife Lachmi.

  However, Sir Mohan enters his reserved first class coupe. It is empty and so he is sad. He begins to read The Times. Just then two English soldiers appear. They are looking for a suitable compartment. Sir Mohan is ready to welcome them. The two soldiers ultimately choose Sir Mohan’s compartment. But they order him to get out from the compartment. Though it is reserved, the soldiers do not care for it. Sir Mohan protests mildly. His royal English, sahib like appearance and The Times come of no use. The soldiers throw all the belongings of Sir Mohan out of the train. Finally they push him out of the train. The train quickly passes the station leaving him on the platform. His wife, totally unaware of his condition, chews the betel leaves, spits and sends a jet of red dribble flying across like a dart.

The Features

  The word 'karma' is a Sanskrit one and literally means destiny. It also has a Hindu theological idea, but it has been used as the title of the story only to speak about the identity crisis of a person who blindly imitates the western culture and fashion under the impact of British colonialism in India.

  Irony forms one of the basic characteristics in Khushwant Singh’s style of writing. The consequence of Sir Mohan’s babu-culture is ironical. The irony lies in the fact that he is neither a British nor an Indian. He has no real identity. He himself has lost it. Khushwant Singh has portrayed a deep ironical view of the world around him through this story.

  Mohan Lal and Lachmi are totally opposite characters though they are couple to each other. Mohan Lal is a blind follower of the English culture, whereas his wife Lachmi is a typical Indian woman. Finally, Mohan Lal loses his identity, but Lachmi has no such crisis.

  Through this story, Khushwant Singh warns us against our false belief in foreign excellence. It teaches us not to cut our roots off with our own soil, men and civilization. Otherwise, we are sure to face humiliation and tragic doom.

  The story shows Khushwant Sing’s art of presenting the psychological aspects of human beings nicely. His power to study of man is as remarkable here as the glamour of his linguistic style to present them vividly.

Character Analysis
Sir Mohan Lal

According to Khuswant Singh's short story, Karma, Mohan Lal is a vizier and a barrister. He seems to aspire to every characteristic of the British upper-class, whether in dress or in conversation (he enjoys speaking in either British-accented English or anglicized Hindustani). He also fancies himself handsome and distinguished.

Sir Mohan Lal is such a self-important man that he travels first class on the train, while his wife is relegated to economy or general class. Fancying himself above his countrymen in every respect, Sir Mohan Lal enjoys displaying what he thinks are habits highlighting his unfailing good taste. From his propensity towards drinking Scotch while in the company of Englishmen to his inclination of working crossword puzzles in The Times in full view of others, Sir Mohan Lal is the epitome of the typical narcissist.

In the story, Khuswant Singh highlights the irony of Sir Mohan Lal's airs: while trying to ingratiate himself with two British soldiers, the soldiers end up throwing him out of first class and the train altogether. Being common British soldiers, they fail to recognize nor to be impressed by Sir Mohan Lal's 'King's English.' They merely see him as an usurper who does not belong in first class despite Sir Mohan's protestations to the contrary.

Lady Mohan Lal/Lachmi

Lady Mohan Lal or Lachmi is one of the two main characters of Khushwant Singh’s short story ‘Karma’. Singh with the portrait of Lady Lal’s character distinguished the issues of cultural identity. Lady Mohan Lal (Lachmi) is portrayed as a native woman right from the moment she is introduced in the story. She has been described as simple and ordinary Indian woman. She is short and fat and in her middle forties. She is simple and unsophisticated. She is not so careful about her fashion. She wears a dirty white sari with a red border, and a diamond nose-ring along with several gold bangles on her arms. She is a very talkative woman. She is illiterate and has no knowledge of English culture and the way of life of English people. She is very naive and simple woman. She is the representative of native Indian women dominated by their husbands. In the conclusion we may say that the physical appearance of Lady Mohan Lal has been criticized only to recognize her native Indian identity. She has been presented as exactly the opposite of Sir Mohan Lal to brought up the issues of cultural identity. She represents true Indian Culture.

Critical Analysis 

The story “Karma” by Khushwant Singh follows a non-traditional plot structure. The action itself is brief, and the story presents the characters, their life, and their behaviour at length, sometimes using narrative techniques like foreshadowing. The characters include Sir Mohan Lal and Lachmi, his wife, as main characters, and the two English soldiers, the bearer, and the coolie who speaks to Lachmi as secondary characters. The events take place in a train station in India. The social setting explores topics such as the class system in British India, social status, and racial and gender discrimination.

The events are described by a third-person narrator, who also has access to the characters’ feelings and thoughts. The narrator is generally not explicit about what happens in the story. While he describes the characters and the events in detail, he does not comment further on the implications of the characters’ behaviour or the meaning of the events. The language used by the narrator includes antithesis that helps highlight Mohan Lal’s contempt for India and his love for British culture. Irony is also used by the author to portray the characters and suggest that Sir Mohan receives an ironical lesson about his own arrogance and need for humility.  

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