Sunlight On A Broken Column

Attia Hosain
Chapter Wise Summary
Part Three
Chapter 1:35
The first chapter of the third part introduces Hamid’s sons.
Kemal, the elder, and Saleem, the younger, returned in the
summer. Laila was almost nineteen by now.
Kemal, having faced “colour prejudice” in England, had
developed a “reserve” which had changed into “general
shyness.” He was a hard-working pupil, and after a period of
indecision, had given up the idea of becoming a lawyer and
decided to join the Indian Civil Service like his father. Saleem
was stocky and slow of movement. He had an “inquisitive mind,
strong opinions” and a “hearty manner, laugh and appetite.” To
make up for being not good at games, he read a lot of Marx and
Lenin, become a Nationalist and went for being a barrister.
Both the brothers were shared a closeness born out of their
“isolation from home” and had learned to be
“undemonstrative”, so much so that their inadequate response
to Saira’s material emotion often distressed her. Laila and the
brothers became friends easily.
Laila observes, “My life changed.” Earlier, her life “had been
restricted by invisible barriers almost as effectively as the
physically restricted lives of” her “aunts in the zenana”, but
now she “was drawn out, made to join in, and not stand aside
as a spectator.”
As the summer heat increased, it became time to go away to
the hills. But before that, the brothers had to be taken to
Hasanpur. And so they went to the ancestral home. Yet
everything now appeared different to Laila. She observes, “I
returned with them to find time had changed me towards
Hasanpur. As my circumscribed world opened out slowly, books
I had read, people I had met affected my feelings towards it,
undermining them with a sense of guilt.” Consequently, while
earlier she had seen everything “through a screen of
emotions”, now she saw there “poverty and squalor”, “disease
and the waste of human beings.” This confession indicates at a
more clear perception of life and reality on the part of Laila. It is
also a moment of self-correction where she recognises how she
been ignorant and blind earlier. It is a moment of anagnorisis of
self, signalling her maturity and grown of self.
Kamel and Saleem were made to sit in the wide veranda where
they are visited by the villagers and who pay their respects with
a “silver rupee” according to customs. They had come to see
the young men of Baba Jan’s family and “ten years of
estrangement” is easily “swallowed” up by “Centuries of
kinship” in a moment. Sharifan entertains them with her songs.
In the day, the brothers and Laila retires to the “darkened
rooms” of the house to avoid the heat. Saleem plays his
records, filling the rooms with the “strange sound of jazz” and
Laila, thinking about her dead ancestors’ graves, questions
herself, “They had been kept alive by generations that
respected their traditions. Did our alien thoughts and alien way
of living push then into oblivion? Or was it final release for then
and freedom for the living?” The question is perhaps central to
the novel: indeed the past is kept alive by the present and
future’s respect and reverse to its ways, its codes, its traditions.
The obeying of these codes of conduct, these rules, ensures the
existence of the past. But times are changing, lives are
changing, India is changing. Will this change, this radicalism,
this new wave of modernity and westernisation, break the
chains of the past from the future and let it sink in the darkness
of oblivion? And this breaking, will it be a release for the past
and freedom for the future? For indeed the both cannot coexist
without smouldering the future. Future can only be free if the
past is lost. And yes, the loss of one’s past is bound to un-root
one from one’s identify. How to maintain the equilibrium then?
Laila observes, “Everything in those days of my years ended
with a question mark.”
Chapter 2:36
The second chapter of Part Three introduces a soothing
interlude.
Laila observes how that summer their home in the hills seemed
more beautiful because she was able to see it from Kemal and
Saleem’s eyes. They mingled memories, at times re-discovering
places, and at other times became young men, “eager to be
part of their heritage.” Laila enjoyed herself. Saira insisted on a
“recognition of social pattern” and Hamid said a little
concerned over the upcoming elections.
Since Kemal was only on a month’s leave, Saira and Hamid
decided to start their “season’s entertaining earlier” with a
party for their sons. Preparation began, with Saira worrying
herself over “remembering everyone whom the social code
made it obligatory to invite or not to invite.”
In the discussion over the names of people to be invited, we
she Hamid’s opportunistic political policy particular on two
occasions when she asks Saira to invite Waliuddin, a man who
was rumoured to have first “instigated” the Shia Sunni riots and
then “came out as the hero who stopped it.” Hamid
pragmatically says, “I am not concerned with his methods. All I
am concerned with are the results.” The second occasion
involves his asking Saira to invite Mr. Agarwal. Despite the lack
of his feudal heritage, Hamid is willing to invite Agarwal simply
because he has risen up the social ladder and later became a
person of power and eminence. We here see how power, which
it itself fluid, influences people. The mention of Agarwal also
reveals that Kemal’s acquaintance with Sita in London.
After the conversation is over, Laila observes a contemplating
Kemal, looking out of the window, and observes that though he
never argued with his mother about “understanding his
heritage and culture”, he had confided in her that his
“readjustment” was not as easy as Saleem’s.
Kemal launches on a monologue about time, and how time
seems to stop in the hills, and in the conversation that ensues
between him and Laila reveals that Saira has asked him to
consider marrying Laila. Laila observes that it must have been
to keep the “house” and the “property” undivided. Kemal has
denied for he saw her as a sister, and thus the act as “incest.”
We soon learn that Saira has asked the same to Saleem too,
who equally has denied on grounds of not being in love with
her, thereby proving Laila’s point about Saira’s intentions.
The three friends performs a mock marriage and take vows to
be friends in “sickness and in heath till death” parts them.
Chapter 3:37
This chapter reintroduces Sita and Sylvia.
The party begins, the guests start to pour in.
Amongst the guests is the Raja of Bhimnagar, whose second
wife, we discover is Sylvia Tucker. Laila does not talk to her.
Next is Mrs. Waheed and Nadira. Then came to Agarwals and
Laila beholds an entirely changed Sita. England has made her
more beautiful. She has not been able get a nice degree, but
has managed to get an attitude nonetheless. She is beautiful
and she knows it, and uses it to draw and lure men, who flock
to her like bees to honey.
Laila, Nadira and Sita strike a conversation, but it soon becomes
clear to Laila that time has taken its toll. Sita is sometimes
arrogant, sometimes critical of Laila, sometimes uncaring. As
Nadira observes, “It seems as if all your freedom has not helped
you to be free of something you are fighting inside yourself.”
Then comes the Raja of Amirpur, his son, Kunwar Raza Ali, and
his cousin Ameer Hussain, “a stranger, yet not a stranger.”
The men join the women and Laila meets Ranjit, a childhood
acquaintance, after years. It is revealed that Kemal and Ranjit
share a “warmth and ease” that is deep. (Perhaps they will do
‘gullu-gullu’ later. That is the best I can think being a gay man
reading a hetero-normatic novel.) Kemal observes, “The trouble
with the East is that it does not loosen its hold on anything” and
perhaps he is correct.
Laila is quite nervous in front of Ameer and yet bursting to
meet eyes with him or strike a conversation.
The men arrange tennis for the next day in which they and the
women are to meet. Ameer leaves and then the party lose its
charm for Laila.
Chapter 4: 38
In this chapter, Ameer and Laila share their first conversation.
Laila observes, “The silence and the tension between us ended
so easily the next time Ameer and I were together that I
wondered at them. For the first time I became aware that
barriers built by the mind had no more substance than the
fears that raised them; once they were overcome by action, it
was hard to believe they had ever existed.” This reveals a
psychologically maturing phase in Laila’s growth that makes
here aware of the fact the restrains and barriers of mind are
only guarded by fear. Once the fear is overcome, they can be
easily overcome.
Two days after the party, the tennis match is arranged. These
two days seemed “two long days” to Laila. Initially, Ranjit is
sitting Laila. When he leaves to partake in the game, he is
replaced by Ameer. They soon strike a conversation and Laila
discovers that he is as much over her as she is over him. They
speak through metaphors of the medieval romances, of the
damsel and the knight sundered by two worlds, separated by
“thousand taboos fiercer than the most fiery dragons” and
Ameer finally admits that he used to drive past Laila’s
University every morning, much in the Indian-romance-style, to
get a glimpse of her, and waited for her to come out. By the
end of the conversation it is quite clear that Ameer is head-
over-heels in love with her.
Laila and Ameer are interrupted by Hamid, who joins them to
watch his sons play, and Laila observes, “I felt a kind of wonder,
as if layers of a mask were flaking off and I was seeing my uncle
more clearly as a human being than a symbol of authority.” She
notes that ever since his sons had returned, she had been
catching “fleeting glimpses of a human side of him” that she
had not known before. If this humanises Hamid, then we
should also notice how the use, and perhaps even misuse of
power and authority, dehumanises human beings. It is not only
the victim who is victimised by the victimiser in the historical
process of victimisation; the victimiser is himself an ironical
victim of his own tyranny since it robs him of the most potent
gift of his nature—his humanity.
A shadow of discord is spread over the happy group by the
arrival of Mr. Agarwal and Sheikh Waliuddin, who have come to
discuss politics and Laila decides to leave them. As Laila
contemplates about her uncle, her thoughts and observations
intimates us with the political, and in the readers’ context, the
historical situation of India at this point in the novel. Laila
notes, “For some time Uncle Hamid had been absorbed in
problems and controversies relating to the elections that were
to be held under the new Government of India Act.” This is
probably a reference to the 1935 Government of India Act, the
last one. In this context, the election referred to, will be the
1937 Indian Provincial Election, the election fought right before
the Partition of India. The novel, then, at present must be
unfolding sometime around the summer of 1936.
The election is the general topic of discussion everywhere.
Though Hamid’s friends are confident of success, Hamid
recognises the challenge of the Congress and the Muslim
League now that millions of ordinary men and women are given
the right to vote. It was Hamid’s first attempt to enter national
politics, and though initially he thought it best to represent
Taluqdars from their own constituency, the Raja of Amirpur
persuaded Hamid to stand for a ‘safe’ constituency which
covered his and the Raja of Bhimnagar’s estates.
Laila returns to the house and tries to read a magazine, but is
unable to concentrate, thinking how she is missing out on the
time she could have spent with Ameer. When she hears the
two guests leaving, she goes out, and is informed by Mr.
Agarwal that Sita could not join then because of a “bad cold.”
When Laila joins the group back at the lawn, she finds Saleem,
and gets to know from him that Begum Waheed is standing as a
Muslim League candidate in the upcoming elections. When she
reveals her dislike for the Agarwals and Waliuddin, Saleem
observes, “It is your instinct, my dear Laila, which makes you
uneasy, those gentlemen are the instruments by which the
historical process is going to destroy your class, though both of
them hang on to the fringes of feudalism.” On enquiring about
Kemal’s dislike for Sita, Saleem informs Laila that his brother
rather used to love, and perhaps still does. Her wanted to
marry her, while in London, and initially she “seemed to
welcome his attentions”, until “matters became serious.”
Saleem notes, “...for all her sophistication, scratch her and
you’ll find an orthodox Hindu full of prejudices against
Muslims.”
The conversation between Saleem and Laila begins to grow a
bit serious, Laila reminding his through Baba Jan’s and Ranjit’s
grandfather’s example that people can be best friends despite
their religious differences, and Saleem asking her not to
“reduce a whole political and social problem to an individual
one”, and Laila asking him not to “generalise” it either, until it is
time for Raza Ali to leave, though Ameer stays back for dinner.
One thing that Laila and Saleem’s conversation beings to the
forefront is the issue of communism. As the group departs
inside, Ameer says to Laila softly, “At this rate of swallowing it
I’ll have no pride left.”
Chapter 5:39
Chapter 5 of ‘Part Three’ seems to cast an ominous shadow on
Laila’s budding love story.
During dinner, the atmosphere of the room was affected by
Hamid who had been quite affected by the visit of Mr. Agarwal
and Waliuddin. It is thus a relief when he retires to his room. In
his absence, the young generation starts to talk about politics,
though in an unserious manner.
Laila suddenly notices that she has misplaced her handkerchief,
and she to the door to find it. Ameer follows, and they share a
brief moment together. When they join the others, Kemal has
started on a speech about politics and party in the assumed
tone of a public speaker. The sudden entrance of Hamid results
in an outburst on his part after the mood is tensed. This
outburst indicates at how Hamid always beings the chaos of the
outer political world in the speaker of his home. It also
indicates as his misuse of authority and power: worked by the
visit of Agarwal and Waliuddin, Hamid here misplaces his anger
on his son, Kemal, who is apparently innocent, and escapes
with dignity and un-criticised as enjoys power in the family,
which, despite the modernisation that it has went through, still
retains some of its traditional binaries of power and privilege.
In this context, we get a view of the ruptured kind of existence
of this family, which is torn between two ideals, one of the
past, and the other of the present—something that the
younger generation must mediate to establish a balanced
future.
It is time the guests to leave and Ameer takes his leave. While
they depart, Saira comes and notices them, and in her enquiries
to her sons about the men it is revealed that Ameer, despite
being the cousin of the Raza Ali, belongs to the “other branch”
of the family, i.e. he is the son of the Raja’s second wife’s
family, and thus is “very ordinary” and of “no breeding”
according to Saira. Consequently, despite being a teacher of
history at the Aligarh University, a “Junior Lecturer”, he is a
person no so significance to Saira, whose world is still ruled by
binaries of feudal power and politics. This indicates at the larger
socio-historical context where feudalism is eroding, and India is
being taken over by an order of people with ‘achieved’, instead
of ‘ascribed’ status, who are rising in the social scale as the
result of the newly enabled dynamics of social mobility. Yet, the
older order is still not able to accept the newer one, as revealed
through Saira’s opinion. Consequently, when Laila observes, “I
tried to smile, but a day that had been bright had ended with a
depressing sense of foreboding” her words indicate at
possibilities of problems in the future in her budding romantic
relationship with Ameer due to his “ordinary” breeding.
Chapter 6:40
The sixth chapter of the third part, marks the passage of time,
and comments on the ways of the fashionable society.
Laila is lately permitted to “go out” with her cousins because of
their insistence, though Saira firmly believes that “an
unmarried girl’s freedom should be restricted.” Parties did not
matter to Laila themselves, however. All that mattered was the
presence of Ameer. Laila observes, “The conflicting values of
the world that I lived in with my aunts Abida and Majida and
the one I lived in now made me so full of doubts and questions,
I retreat more and more within myself.”
Laila reveals how life in the upper circles was “regulated by the
invitations that poured in by post and messenger.” The worth
and importance of people got determined by “Oblong bits of
gilt-edged cardboard and crested bits of paper” and their
“selectiveness” determined one’s “position within the
geometrical designs of circles that constituted Society.” The
phrase “geometrical” indicates at the cylindrical structure of
networks that these men create on basis on power, privilege
and importance. Consequently, the members of these
‘Societies’ lacked the “quality” of friendship that existed
between Baba Jan and Mr. Freemantle. Mr. Freemantle, who
died a year later Baba Jan, had wished in his will to be buried
beside his friend, and only a “simple marble cross”
distinguished his grave from the others in the Taluqdar family
graveyard of Hasanpur. This comparison indicates the
shallowness, the frivolousness of these modern ‘societies’
which are at once transient and temporary. Laila also notes
about the peculiarity of reactions of the adults at the ‘intimate’
scenes in movies.
Laila enjoyed her own circle where she and Nadira could
mutually dislike Sita. Raza Ali is all over the latter, who
deliberately became more “gay and flirtatious” in Kemal’s
presence. Sita particularly loathed Mrs. Lal for she was her only
competition.
Chapter 7:41
This chapter brings bad news for Laila.
Laila receives three letters. The first is from Nandi, informing
that Saliman has passed away from this “world of grief and
cruelty.” Saira comments “on the inevitable fruits of evil” and
Laila sheds tears. The second is from Abida’s husband, asking
Hamid’s permission to shift her to the ‘Ashiana’. She had been
pregnant four months, but had had a miscarriage. She is out of
danger, but still seriously ill. When she had taken ill, only a local
midwife had been called, because the woman doctor was away
and her mother-in-law refused to allow “a man” to attend to
her. Only after her condition had become dangerous, had her
husband insisted on calling in the Civil Surgeon who had
immediately taken her to the Medical College Hospital in
Lucknow. The third is from Zahra, detailing her time in Simla,
with passing references to the Viceroy and Members of his
Executive Council, ending with a paragraph on her mother’s
letter about Abida.
The letters pull Laila back to the world of which she had
become oblivious lately. She observes, “I was filled with anger
against the murderous hypocrisy and bigotry that had let
Saliman die and nearly Killed Aunt Abida.” She is simultaneously
filled with guilt for having not written to her. Going to Saira, she
asks to be allowed to return to the ‘Ashiana’ so that she could
be with Abida. Saira initially brushes the question, but says that
they will talk about this after Hamid returns.
Later in the evening, Ameer is shocked and pained to hear the
news of her apparently departure—something that makes her
“curiously happy.” This indicates at the emotional self that felt
validate by Ameer’s reaction to her departure, revealing her
importance in Ameer’s life. Ameer insists “Must you go?” and
adds, “We have all to go very soon. Holidays do not last
forever.” Laila is finally persuaded her Ameer’s words and logic.
She observes, “We were sitting without touching each other,
and he was not looking at me anymore” “but we were nearer
than we ever had been.” She finally says, “I’ll stay.” And as
Ameer thanks her, making a comment about the uncertainty of
time, Laila ponders, “But Time had no meaning because I could
not imagine it having a beginning or end at this complete
moment.”
Chapter 8:42
Chapter 8 of ‘Part Three’ is a chapter of unmasking.
Laila and Ameer grow more close. Abida recovers. Time draws
towards the close of the holidays. It is time for Kemal to leave
and Ranjit throws a farewell party for him.
The party is in the Boathouse Laila is quiet familiar with. As she
walks in, she is disappointed to find Ameer missing. Mrs Lal and
Raza Ali is all not come. Nadira and Laila speak about their
dislike for Sita before they join in. They sit most of the time in
the darkness by the windows. Saleem casually remarks,
“Unfortunately our generation is caught in the stresses of a
period in transition”, thereby impinging on one of the central
themes of the novel. Sita deliberately selects a song that
troubles Kemal and then asks him for a dance. As they finish
their dance, Mrs Lal arrives. She has been late for her husband,
Doctor Lal, who had been called to Amirpur House to attend
Raja Sahib.
After some time, Laila discovers that Sita and Kemal are
missing, and Mrs. Lal, after looking down through the window,
insists on going on boating. Saleem however manages to ask
her for a dance, having comprehended her intentions. Laila
leaves to the bathroom from where a door leads to the gardens
to look for Sita, but discovers no one. She returns to the
dressing-room, and on being overcome by a headache, sits on
the sofa. Sits enters through the garden door, “her eyes red,
her face drawn.”
Laila angrily asks her to leave Kemal alone and Sita reveals that
she actually loves him. Laila insists that had she loved him, she
would not have rejected him, and Sita counter-comments,
“Could I do otherwise? I, Sita, loved him, Kemal, and still do.
Two individual human beings. But it would have been the
daughter of my father and mother marrying the son of his
parents, with different backgrounds and different religions, two
small cogs in a huge social machine.” Sita insists that it is for his
sake that she left him, and when Laila asks why she did not do it
completely then, Sita answers, “Because I will never again be
able to see him like this...” She then reveals that she is soon to
be married. When Laila accuses of her love of being not strong
and determined enough, Sita argues, “You know your uncle and
aunt would hate me. Would it be right to drag Kemal between
my love and their hatred.”
Mrs. Lal enters and Sita immediately changes her expressions,
becoming “self-assured, bright and brittle” as always. Mrs. Lal
tries to provide her but ultimately fails. After Sita leaves to join
to others, Mrs. Lal sits down defeated. She struggles lighting a
cigarette, having drunk more than usual, asking whether Kemal
loves Sita and Laila stammers, “How should I know?” She also
advices her, “Take my advice. You cannot store innocence and
trust beyond their season. They lot” and ignores her husband’s
calls.
Thus, the undefeated marks of both Sita and Mrs. Lal are
revealed in this chapter to reveal a victim of social forces and a
defeated middle-aged woman. We are not led much
information about Mrs. Lal. Perhaps she wanted to outdo Sita,
considering her as a rival and a competition in her world in
which she sought validity through the attention men paid her.
Her failure to break Sita breaks her own self. Or perhaps it can
also be that Mrs. Lal secretly loves Kemal and thus considers
Sits as her rival.
When Laila returns to her chair by the windows, she discovers
Ameer. He asks her to meet him the next day alone and she
promises to see him at the “corner bookshop” at ten o’clock
Chapter 9:43
In this chapter Ameer reveals that he has to leave.
Laila prepares herself and when everyone has gone out, she
runs down though the hills, past the bazars, to the main road,
where he say Ameer. Ameer arranges for two horses and
together they ride to the “ridge” of the mounting. In a clearing
among the pines they dismount, and around the huge
“cathedral columns” of the deodars, they kiss and Laila finds
herself overcome by a “sense” of such “completeness and
harmony” that she finds herself at once one with nature.
Ameer proceeds to inform her that he has to leave the very
next day and Laila is devastated. She observes, “The world fell
into separate little pieces.” And Ameer confesses that he loves
her, and that given his background and position in life, her
uncle and aunt would never “approve” of him. Laila reminds
him that she loves him to and he seems to “forget that.” Ameer
tells her that it is the first time she has worded it and wonders
as why she has chosen to love him of all. Remembering Sita,
Laila utters in protest, “It cannot be that love must always,
always be denied. What we are to do?” and Ameer asks her to
“wait” for him until he becomes something. And Laila agrees.
One thing that this chapter makes clear is Laila’s idealistic view
of life, that is devoid of the materialism and pragmatism that
dictates her acquaintances. She quiet clearly separates herself
from her “aunts” and “Zahra”, realising fully by this point that
she is different. She may have thought about it many times
earlier, but this her first moment of vocalisation of this thought.
Chapter 10:44
This chapter marks the return of the Taluqdars back in Lucknow
and re-entering the political life.
Laila joins the University for post-graduate studies. Hamid
became involved in intensification of political manoeuvres as
elections drew near. Accepting that he could not successfully
oppose Waliuddin, he decides to stand as a representative of
the Taluqdars. Yet, as Laila observes, in Hamid there was “no
political passion, only an implacable wish for power.” Saira
struggles to maintain her position of leadership in the women’s
organisation against a newly emerging rival class. Saleem
begins to attend courts, though his heart remained in politics.
His growing friendship with Raza Ali and attachment to Nadira
influenced his beliefs. Raza Ali begins for work for the Muslim
League while Nadira begins to accompany her mother to places
and places she had only known in “theory” to help her election
campaign. Laila admits that she was not as close to Saleem as
to Kemal, for Saleem was defined by his needs for himself. She
continues correspondence with Kemal and when he visited the
‘Ashiana’, the house seemed to “change from s political
headquarters into a home.”
Chapter 11:45
Chapter eleven brings some kind of justice upon Ghulam Ali and
a comic interlude in the otherwise solemn novel.
Laila finds herself town between two worlds, an outward world
of the present reality, and an inner one in which only she and
Ameer existed. She kept lapsing in an out of them, and only
Nandi comes close to comprehending the matter, though quite
ignorantly.
We come to know that Nandi had begun to do Laila’s work
without being asked for. She felt comfortable in her company
but could not disclose her secret for Nandi, quite naturally, saw
the world as a battle field of the sexes. She comments, “A
man’s love is no different from an animal’s. He takes what he
can get, because he is not the one who has to bear the
consequences. It is the injustice of the gods that a woman
alone must be fearful.” Nandi’s use of animal images here and
in her second metaphorical reference to men as “jackals” in the
same chapter indicated at the animalistic existence that of men
in the society. It is more true of Nandi’s world that exists below
the fashionable world of Hamid and Saira, where law and order
are almost non-existent and men enjoy power and exploit it as
beasts. It also indicates at Nandi’s hardened view of life.
Nandi sees a dream one night of Saliman asking for help and
decides that justice must be served to her and Ghulam Ali.
Carelessly beautiful, and quiet conscious of it, she first lures
Ghulam Ali and then one night while her father is away, waves
her other servants with her protesting screams, claiming that
Ghulam Ali had tried to assault her and had escaped at her
scream. Laila mentions, “With the fervour of defenders of
virtue the servants fell upon Ghulam Ali...and beat him more
when he called Nandi a liar.” Though Hamid could comprehend
the truth in the matter, he could not do anything for “Nandi
had become a heroine” and thus Ghulam Ali had to be
dismissed.
Chapter 12:46
In this chapter Saleem voices his intention to marry Nadira.
Laila notices how the atmosphere in the ‘Ashiana’ drastically
changes. She notes, “No one seemed to talk any more;
everyone argued.” A new type of visitor—the fanatic, bearded
men and young zealots began to frequent the house along with
rough country-dwelling land-lords and their ‘courtiers’, to see
Saleem and Hamid, respectively. Suave, sophisticated tea and
dinner parties had become infrequent, and Government House
receptions an interlude. When Laila reflects, “Every meal at
home had become an ordeal as peaceful as a volcanic eruption”
we get an idea of how the outer world world had affected,
arrested, and assulted the sanctity of the ‘Ashiana’.
Hamid had recently returned from a four day long canvassing
tour, and as Laila enters the drawing room, she hears Hamid
and Saleem arguing over politics. The issue is about the Muslim
League, the power and privileged of the landlords and the rise
of a new class. The issue threatens to take a menacing turn
when dinner is announced.
The discussion continues even in the dinning, and as mounts to
a climactic point and when Hamid questions Saleem’s lack of
preoccupation in his profession and his recent helping of
Begum Waheed, Saleem bursts out with the revelation that he
“intends marrying her daughter.”
The whole table is shocked, and Hamid bangs his fist and says,
“You can marry anyone you like. You can do what you like. But
independently of me. As long as I am master of this house, I
decide who lives in it.” and Saleem retorts, “I do not question
your right. I shall not outstay my ‘welcome.’“
Hamid here obviously cannot believe any one can challenge his
authority, least of all his own son, which obviously is the most
general thing that happens in every household.
As Hamid leaves, Saira re-questions Saleem about Nadira and
when he answers in the affirmative, she bends to his wishes,
observing, “Everything will be done in the proper way.” She
asks Saleem to apologise to his father, to which Saleem finally
agrees to. Saira is here obviously paranoid about having just to
think that Saleem will move out. Already he has been away his
entire life and his present presence is all that she has to fulfil
her material urges. A thought of a clash between father and son
will sunder her as she will neither be able to support her
husband, to whom she has her duty, nor her son, who owes her
heart.
Chapter 13:47
In this chapter Ameer visits Laila.
In the December holidays, Laila had planned to visit Abida, but
sudden news of Ameer’s visit cancelled her plans. Ameer came
and they began to see each other. Laila observes, “The whole
city was richer because he was in it, and every street, and turn
of a road held the possibility of his appearance.”
When Ameer visited the ‘Ashiana’ Saira behaved even more
politely to hide her disapproval of him. It is soon time for
Ameer to return. His train is leaving late and night and Laila
plants to see him alone. She lies that she needs to see an old
friend at the hostel, and Saira, preoccupied in her own affairs,
surprising agrees without protest. The car will be dropping her
off and picking her up. The time is 6. The meeting goes as
planned. But as soon Laila with Ameer in his car she bursts out
at the consciousness of having to lie as if she is doing
“something wrong.” They renew their vows and Ameer drops
her in time.
Chapter 14:48
In this chapter we get to know about Asad’s feelings for Laila.
A week before Begum Waheed’s election, Asad cane to
Lucknow to work for the opponent. As Laila sat drying her hair
in the veranda, Asad came from behind and almost frightened
her.
Laila is overjoyed to see Asad and they talk about time and how
it has changed things. Asad observes philosophically, “Strange
—how strange it is. After all this house was my home for many
many years. The house has not changed, yet everything has,
and it cannot mean ‘home’ to me again. How many years since
the day I left—surely not as long ago as it seems?” and Laila
answers that it has been “Five years.” Laila was fifteen and
Asad eighteen when Baba Jan died. Now she is twenty and Asad
twenty-three. And here we get the first mentioned of a
historical frame of time, 1937 when Asad invests the present
year with animation, “But 1937 is young, and exciting, with
everything changing and moving forward.”
As they talk about how they have changed physically, Laila
suddenly becomes aware of Asad’s feelings towards her. Then
Asad talks about Ameer and Laila knows that he knows. Asad
questions her if she is sure, and he assures him. The
conversation trails to politics and Laila notes that while she and
Saleem has grown discussing political theories and studying
political science, candidate like Begum Waheed, Waliuddin, of
Agarwal knows nothing about them. They have perhaps never
read “a book on political or economic theory, or for that matter
any book” and yet they are standing in elections. Laila notes,
“They merely use slogans and appeal to the lowest instincts—to
fear and fanaticism.” This hints at the social truth of how the
political world works.
Laila bursts out, “I want to get away from it all” and Asad
observes, “But you cannot run away from your thoughts, being
what you are” and when Laila asks impatiently what can she do,
Asad returns, “Do something, anything. Otherwise you will
always be restless and confused.” Laila finally maintains, “Some
day, when I am independent, I shall learn to live as I want to.”
The conversation trails back to Ameer. Laila observes to herself,
“I felt disturbed, trying not to recognise Asad’s real feelings
towards me, and was resentful of the danger to the relationship
I wanted to maintain.” When Asad reminds Laila of others who
pose a threat to her love, she protests, “Others do not matter.”
The chapter ends by reflecting on how Hamid and Saira
symbolise the “others”, or the larger biased society, with their
“Cold, disapproving eyes. Sharp tongues.” But Laila assures
herself that can “fight then all when the time comes.”
Chapter 15:49
Laila visits Abida.
Laila boards a train with a servant to meet Abida. On the way,
she describes the “gesticulating, clamouring, anxious peasants
and their families and bundles” that waited at every station to
mount the trains. To her, they seemed to be “suspended in an
eternity of waiting for trains that would never arrived, on a
journey that had no beginning.” This perhaps hints at the
endlessness of wait for the end of struggle in the life of an
underprivileged peasant and hope for better days. The line
describes their life as an endless chain of waiting.
Abida’s husband picks Laila from the station, and soon she is
with Abida and Hakiman Bua. Laila describes Abida’s “austere
and near” room where they sit and began to talk about their
family. They talked about every except Abida and Laila catches
a “glimpse of a withdrawn, settled sadness behind the love and
joy that brightened” Abida’s “thin, pale face.” Laila observes,
“To love and be loved was the answer to every question.”
After lunch Laila begins to record currents of “conflict” “lurking
behind outward forms of dutiful relationships” among Abida
and her step-daughter and mother-in-law. When the mother-
in-law comments about Laila’s age and most common
possibility, at least according to her, of one of Hamid’s sons
marrying her, and the other marrying Zahra and the step-
daughter correct her by informing that Zahra was already
married, she expresses her utter astonishment at the thought
of marrying a “stranger while there are suitable boys in the
family.” When Ejaz, Abida’s husband, impatiently interrupts
saying “The boys in the family are sometimes unsuitable”, his
daughter protests and he leaves the room in a rage. Laila soon
discovers that the step-daughters marriage has been proposed
to a son of Ejaz’s brother but Ejaz has objected due to the boy’s
illiteracy, and from then onwards the household “blamed”
Abida, hinting that she “alienated” Ejaz from the family. Laila
observes, “I was disillusioned in my hopes of an escape into
peace, but I suffered more because of Aunt Abida’s acceptance
of her life—and her silence.”
When it came time for Laila’s departure, Abida broke down and
“wept.” She reminded her that she must “honour and obey”
her elders and Laila protests silently in her thoughts. When
Laila leaves, Abida was dry-eyed and calmly prayed, “God be
with you” while Hakiman Bua and Laila cried.
Chapter 16:50
In this chapter, Ghulam Ali takes his revenge.
Nandi’s father and old husband said that Ghulam Ali threaten
to cut Nandi’s nose as revenge. Nandi herself did not care, but
never went anywhere alone.
Nandi regrets for having accepted “a doddering old man” for
her husband, but explains that at that time she was angry with
the world and did not wanted to be like Saliman. She expresses
her only wish to have a “child” of her “own.” Else, when she
dies, there will be nothing to remember her by. This hints at the
basic human instinct that triggers us to procreate.
One day, a circus comes to town, and as Nandi watched it from
the gate, laughing, Ghulam Ali attacked Nandi, and “scarred her
bright beauty” for ever.
Chapter 17:51
Chapter 17 introduces the day of election and Ameer’s arrival.
On the day of the election, Kemal came to be by his father’s
side. As Kemal, Saleem and Laila spoke, Kemal mentions how
much Saleem has changed. We also learn that Begum Waheed
has had a victory in elections.
Later in the day Kemal comes to Laila and informs her that
Hamid wants her to attend to some Taluqdar purdah women
who have been “rounded up” for voting. Kemal drives her to
the Baradari where the voting is to be held and there Laila
encounters another girl from the opponent party.
Women come and go, dropping their votes until a comic
interlude follows in which a fat uneducated Rani has trouble
voting. Laila however looks it from a critical point when Mr.
Cowley talks with a patronising tone to her.
Laila is bored and suddenly she sees Ameer. Ameer has lowered
his pride to ask the Raja to work his influence and get him a job
in the University in Lucknow so that he could be near Laila. Laila
is suddenly disturbed at the thought of having to lie and be on
guard but soon feels guilty. Before Ameer leaves, he informs
Laila that Kemal will soon be there to collect her.
Chapter 18:52
In the last chapter of ‘Part Three’ Laila’s affair is revealed to
Saira.
Hamid wins the election. In happiness, he “embraced”
everyone. The Raja of Amirpur came and congratulated Hamid.
He was a big reason behind his success. Rajin came and have
the idea of a party and Laila proposes to go to the river. Rajit
leaves. Ameer comes and they have dinner, Saira
disapprovingly judges her. Saleem goes to collect a few friends,
and as Kemal went to collect his father’s car, Laila and Ameer
are alone.
They speak about Saira and her disapproving looks, and Ameer
notices how or Hamid will never approve of him. He observes,
“It is not easy to fight conventions, to defy one’s people—” and
Laila utters in a vulnerable moment as to how she has “not
courage”, she never had, that how all the decisions of her life
were taken for her. The conversation trails as they kiss, and
Laila notices Saira looking at them from the door, Kemal behild
her.
Kemal takes Saira away and Laila is frightened. Kemal returns
after some time and casually asks, if they should leave. When
Laila enquires about Saira, Kemal mentions that he knows how
to handle her and assures her that things will be okay.
“But tomorrow...” stammers Laila, and Kemal laughingly
mentions, “Tomorrow will soon be another yesterday.”
As they leave the house, Laila observes, “In the morning the sun
would come and waken me in this house as it had done since I
became a conscious being. Yet I had already left this home for
ever.”