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Facts and Fantasy in Kiran Nagarkar's Ravan and Eddie

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Facts and Fantasy in Kiran Nagarkar's Ravan and Eddie Research Review ISSN : 2321- 4708 The Refereed & Peer Review International Journal July. 2020, Year - 7 (87) www.researchreviewonline.com Paper ID: RRJ546526 Facts and Fantasy in Kiran Nagarkar’s Ravan and Eddie By Dr. Poonam Kumari Assistant Professor Dept. of English Snagp Syiem College Mawkyrwat, Meghalaya --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abstract Realism in literature is an attempt to portray life as it is. It shows life with camera fidelity, omitting nothing, that is ugly or painful, and idealizing nothing. To the realists, the artist’s main function is to describe as accurately as possible what is observed through senses. Kiran Nagarkar is among India’s foremost novelist whose book such as Ravan and Eddie, Cuckold, God’s Little Soldier have won him readers and admirers all over the world .The Ravan and the Eddie trilogy is the quintessential Mumbai novel. Nagarkar portrays the world of reality and fantasy where he paves the way for serious and the fantastic world far away from reality. Being a multitalented and resourceful writer he has keen eyesight for the contemporary world and brings before the reader the sharp reality of the society with the drapery of the fantasy. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Keywords – Myth, Fact, Fantasy, Realism, Multiplicity, Hierarchy, Social Structure Introduction Literature is work of art, since origin it deals with the multifarious aspects of the society and with the imaginative creation of the writers. Literature of the facts believes in the real and authentic representation of the society and the history. It always treats the truthful event and its consequential occurrences. Indian novelists treat various facets of the history and of the society in factual manner. Novelists like Mulk Raj Anand, R.K.Narayan, Raja Rao, Bhabani Bhattacharya, Manohar Malgonkar, Ruth Prawar Jhabvala, Anita Desai, Chaman Nahal, Arun Joshi, Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Kamala Markendeya, Nayanatara Sahgal, Arundhati Roy contributed towards the realistic presentation of the Indian society which leads to the flourishment of Indian English fiction in the realistic way. The realist form if fiction deals with the life as it is. Commenting on the role of the realist writers Dorothy Figuiera remarks: The novelist is a new kind of god, who loves people, who overcomes his own isolation, puts his own knots alongside theirs, grows with them, manifests himself in the multiplicity of their beings and releases them into their own unique life, and co-exists with them in the joys and sorrows of their human life (Dorothy) Realism in literature is an attempt to portray life as it is. It shows life with camera fidelity, omitting nothing, that is ugly or painful, and idealizing nothing. To the realists, the artist’s main function is to describe as accurately as possible what is observed through senses. Fantasy in the work of art deals with the remote world totally opposite than that of the fact of the society. The fantasy world is far away from reality without any sense of the factual happening. Many a times it deals with the illusion, heroism, and the adventures of the individual life , remote from the world of suffering and human race. The Indian English novel has a readable history of the creation. The contemporary events and the social events are mirrored in the novels. The formation of the Indian novel is the result of the various 1 ingredients of the past history. Commenting on it Meenakshi Mukherjee observes that: Page Publishing URL: : http://www.researchreviewonline.com/issues/volume-7-issue-87-july-2020/RRJ546526 1 Research Review ISSN : 2321- 4708 The Refereed & Peer Review International Journal July. 2020, Year - 7 (87) www.researchreviewonline.com Paper ID: RRJ546526 The novel in India can be seen as the product of configurations in philosophical, aesthetic, economic and political forces in the larger life of the country. Despite obvious, regional variations, a basic pattern seems to emerge from shared factors like the Puranic heritage, hierarchical social structure, colonial education, disjunction of agrarian life and many others that affect the form of novel as well as its content. (Mukherjee) New writers create own identity of literature who narrates the most significant aspect of the social milieu. The contents of these new writers are very much suitable to the contemporary era. Bijay Kumar Das in his Postmodern Indian English Literature rightly points out as: There is a shift in emphasis- we have moved away from the Gandhian era of village centrism to the city centrism of the post-emergency era. The ‘locale has shifted from the village to the metropolis of our country and then abroad. East-west encounter which is explained in terms of hybridity in relationship by post-colonial critics, takes a space’ in postmodern Indian English fiction. When the world has become ‘a global village’, no culture, or society is pure or insular today. That is why Indian English fiction now takes characters, situations, both from the inside the country and abroad into its orbit and develops them. (Das, n.pag.) Kiran Nagarkar is among India’s foremost novelist whose book such as Ravan and Eddie, Cuckold, God’s Little Soldier have won him readers and admirers all over the world .The Ravan and the Eddie trilogy is the quintessential Mumbai novel. Its characters reflect the cosmopolitan ethos of the city. His work Cuckold is remarked as one of his best work, in 2000 he won Sahitya Akademi Award for the great work. Makarand R. Paranjape considered it to be part of a canon of Indian English novels (Paranjape) Jaina C.Sanga considers the book as a great one. The book has been praised for its "blending of traditional narrative against a historical backdrop presented with relentless detail” (Sanga) Fact in Ravan and Eddie The novel represents the fact of the lives of the Mumbai city. The people who lives in the Chawls where a dozens of the family members share common toilet and bathroom, drinking water from public tap, lack of privacy. In the Chawls resides the families of driver , conductor, lower division clerk, and of peon whose income is very marginal. The novel traces the lives of two boys, Ravan Pawar belongs to Hindu and Maratha, family and of Eddie Coutinho, Catholic Christian boy. Nagarkar reflects the real life of the Mumbai life and the society with multi cultured and multi lingual facets. The poverty of the Chawls life leads to the hardship of the life of the people. He describes the infrastructural details of the Mumbai. In a real sense today we find that the constructions of the Mumbai is touching to the sky. We find the competition of the buildings. With the density of the population increases the problems of the basic facilities like water, health , education, employment, hygiene, pure environment. With the rise of the multilingual facets the fact of the fusion of language is at rise in the Mumbai. It deals with the amalgamation of languages like Marathi, Hindi, Parsi, Gujrati, Kokni. Today the world facing the water crisis. In the summer days the rural and the urban belt of population faces water problems. Crisis of water in the Chwal is reflected by the Nagarkar with the sharp eyes. His following lines in the novel brings before the eyes of the reader the scarcity ad the acute need to the human race. “Water, Blood. Is there a difference? The water wars had started. It had taken a long time but the CWD chawl women had finally begun to understand the value of water”(R&E 72). India is poor country. Population percentage living below the poverty line is more in the country. Such percentage we find in the metro city like Mumbai. Though the country advance with the science and technology field still the basic need of the people are not satisfied due to the poverty. Religion is the backbone of the Indian society. It is base of the political turmoil. Writer in detail discuses the issue 2 based on the religion. He describes the two different forces of the religious creeds. Hindu and Christian. Page Publishing URL: : http://www.researchreviewonline.com/issues/volume-7-issue-87-july-2020/RRJ546526 2 Research Review ISSN : 2321- 4708 The Refereed & Peer Review International Journal July. 2020, Year - 7 (87) www.researchreviewonline.com Paper ID: RRJ546526 Both the sects shows force in the commitment of the religious activities. Each on looks to the other inferior and tries to prove self superiority over the other. The picture of the religious disharmony in the country like India is seen everywhere. Since childhood the religious preacher ad the saint tries to inculcate the seed of the religious feeling in innocent mind and nurture it for the future so that they can use the religious army to breed their political food. Ngarkar tactfully bring out the fact of the religion in the country like Indi through the microscopic observation. Nagarkar left untouched the sexual life of the Mumbai. Actually it is the symbolic representation of the Indian society. By focusing on the sexual life of the Chawl of Mumbai he tries to bring out the reality of the Indian society. Today every corner we came across the sexual abuse and the illicit relationship in the news papers. Fantasy in Ravan and Eddie William Wordsworth and S.T .Coleridge described about role of fancy and imagination. For fancy is passive which reflects external world and imagination is the poetic power, for Coleridge the fancy is untouched with the reality and is the most logical way of organizing sensory material. In the novels of the Kiran Nagarkar we came across the logical thinking of the world. He titled the novel by the name of Ravan. In the contemporary world the mythological character lives n reality but it appears only by name and not by character.
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