Karma (short story)

Last updated

"Karma" is a short story written by Indian writer Khushwant Singh. It was originally published in 1989 in Singh's The Collected Stories.

Contents

"Karma" is about an Oxford-educated Indian man who adopts upper-class English culture and lifestyle only to be rejected by British colonial officers.

Plot

Mohan Lal is a middle-aged Indian man living in India during the British Raj. He admires British culture, having studied in Britain for five years, and he has adopted British diet (including drinking scotch), clothing (wearing Balliol ties), and leisure activities (solving the crossword). He is preparing to board the first-class compartment of a train, and he hopes to impress the British officials he may encounter. His wife, Lachmi, by contrast, describes herself as a traditional woman, and she is perceived negatively by Mohan Lal. Lachmi, having spent her time in the waiting area eating traditional food, preparing her betel leaf, and conversing with a porter, is traveling in the general women's compartment.

When Mohan and Lachmi board, the British officials violently kick him off of the train. Lachmi begins a pleasant voyage.

Themes

The title of the story comes from an Indian concept, karma , which is about the consequences of actions in a system of free will. [1] This may be reflective of the consequences of Mohan Lal's lack of self-awareness with regards to his education, [1] or it may be about his treatment of his wife. [2]

The story also portrays the proverb "Pride comes before a fall." [2]

Narration

The story is narrated from the third-person omniscient point of view, and the narration switches between the parallel journeys of Mohan and Lachmi.

Characters

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tribhuvan of Nepal</span> King of Nepal

Tribhuvan Bir Bikram Shah, was the eighth King of Nepal. Born in Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal, he ascended to the throne at the age of five, upon the death of his father, Prithvi Bir Bikram Shah, and was crowned on 20 February 1913 at the Nasal Chowk, Hanuman Dhoka Palace in Kathmandu, with his mother acting as regent. At the time of his crowning, the position of monarch was largely ceremonial, with the real governing power residing with the Rana family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Khushwant Singh</span> Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician (1914–2014)

Khushwant Singh 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, which became his most well-known novel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yashpal</span> Hindi writer (1903–1976)

Yashpal Singh was a Hindi-language writer, political commentator, a socialist and an essayist. He wrote in a range of genres, including essays, novels and short stories, as well as a play, two travel books and an autobiography. He won the Hindi-language Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel Meri Teri Uski Baat in 1976 and was also a recipient of the Padma Bhushan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raja Rao</span> Indian-American English writer

Raja Rao was an Indian-American writer of English-language novels and short stories, whose works are deeply rooted in metaphysics. The Serpent and the Rope (1960), a semi-autobiographical novel recounting a search for spiritual truth in Europe and India, established him as one of the finest Indian prose stylists and won him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1963. For the entire body of his work, Rao was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1988. Rao's wide-ranging body of work, spanning a number of genres, is seen as a varied and significant contribution to Indian English literature, as well as World literature as a whole.

<i>The Company of Women</i> (Singh novel)

The Company of Women is a novel by Indian author Khushwant Singh about a divorced man's extensive sexual exploits. The novel also addresses themes of globalization and the hedonistic lifestyles of the newly wealthy upper-middle class.

<i>Train to Pakistan</i> 1956 historical novel by Khushwant Singh

Train to Pakistan is a historical novel by writer Khushwant Singh, published in 1956. It recounts the Partition of India in August 1947 through the perspective of Mano Majra, a fictional border village.

Magistrate, MP, Sardar Bahadur, Sir Sobha Singh, CBE was an Indian civil contractor, prominent builder and real estate developer of the modern day Delhi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kakori conspiracy</span> 1925 train robbery in Action (now in Uttar Pradesh, India)

The Kakori Train action was a train robbery that took place at Kakori, a village near Lucknow, on 9 August 1925, during the Indian independence movement against the British rule in India. It was organized by the Indian revolutionaries of Hindustan Republican Association (HRA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Railway porter</span> Railway worker who assists passengers

A porter is a railway employee. The role of a porter is to assist passengers at railway stations, and to handle the loading, unloading, and distribution of luggage and parcels. In the United States the term was formerly used for employees who attended to passengers aboard sleeping cars, a usage unknown to British or Commonwealth English where such staff are known as attendants or stewards, terms which are also common in translation in non-English speaking European train travel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mohan Singh Oberoi</span> Indian hotelier (1898-2002)

Rai Bahadur Mohan Singh Oberoi was an Indian hotelier, the founder and chairman of Oberoi Hotels & Resorts, India's second-largest hotel company, with 31 hotels in India, Egypt, Indonesia, UAE, Mauritius and Saudi Arabia.

<i>Train to Pakistan</i> (film) 1998 Indian film

Train to Pakistan is a 1998 Indian Hindi film adapted from Khushwant Singh's 1956 classic novel by the same name set in the Partition of India of 1947 and directed by Pamela Rooks. The film stars Nirmal Pandey, Rajit Kapur, Mohan Agashe, Smriti Mishra, Mangal Dhillon and Divya Dutta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mohan Singh (military officer)</span> Indian army officer and politician

Mohan Singh was a British Indian Army officer, and later member of the Indian Independence Movement, best known for founding and leading the Indian National Army in South East Asia during World War II. Following Indian independence, Mohan Singh later served in public life as a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha of the Indian Parliament.

<i>The Perfect Murder</i> (1988 film) 1988 British film

The Perfect Murder is a 1988 English-language Indian film directed by Zafar Hai and produced by Merchant-Ivory. The film is based on the 1964 novel The Perfect Murder by British crime fiction writer HRF Keating and stars Naseeruddin Shah as Inspector Ghote, the leading character in Keating's novels. Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård as well as many noted Indian actors such as Madhur Jaffrey, Amjad Khan, Dalip Tahil, Ratna Pathak, Annu Kapoor and Johnny Walker appear in the film.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arun Joshi</span>

Arun Joshi (1939–1993) was an Indian writer. He is known for his novels The Strange Case of Billy Biswas and The Apprentice. He won the Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel The Last Labyrinth in 1982. His novels have characters who are urban, English speaking and disturbed for some reason. According to one commentator, "The shallowness of middle class society is not for him a point of rhetoric, intended to show off his own enlightened superiority, but a theme to be explored with actual concern."

Sir Shri Ram was an Indian industrialist and philanthropist. He was the son of Rai Bahadur Ram Kishen Das Gurwale, the founder of the Delhi Cloth & General Mills, which remains one of the oldest firms in India today.

Gurdial Singh Rahi was an Indian writer and novelist who wrote in Punjabi. He started his literary career in 1957 with a short story, "Bhaganwale." He became known as a novelist when he published the novel Marhi Da Deeva in 1964. The novel was later adapted into the Punjabi film Marhi Da Deeva in 1989, directed by Surinder Singh. His novel Anhe Ghore Da Daan was also made into a film of the same name in 2011 by director Gurvinder Singh. Singh was honoured with the Padma Shri in 1998 and Jnanpith Award in 1999.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madan Mohan Malaviya</span> Indian independence activist, scholar, educator, politician (1861–1946)

Madan Mohan Malaviya was an Indian scholar, educational reformer and politician notable for his role in the Indian independence movement. He was president of the Indian National Congress two times and the founder of Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha. He was addressed as Pandit, a title of respect, and also as Mahamana.

Durgavati Devi, popularly known as Durga Bhabhi, was an Indian revolutionary and freedom fighter. She was one of the few women revolutionaries who actively participated in armed revolution against the ruling British Raj. She is best known for having accompanied Bhagat Singh on the train journey in which he made his escape in disguise after the killing of John P. Saunders. Since she was the wife of another Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) member Bhagwati Charan Vohra, other members of HSRA referred to her as Bhabhi and became popular as "Durga Bhabhi" in Indian revolutionary circles.

Khushwant Lal Wig (1904–1986) was an Indian physician, medical academic, writer and the director of the All India Institute of Medical Science, New Delhi. He was a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London and a recipient of Dr. B. C. Roy Award, the highest Indian award in the medical category. The Government of India awarded him the third highest civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan, in 1964, for his contributions to the Medical science.

K. L. Gauba, also known as Kanhaiya Lal Gauba or Khalid Latif Gauba, was an Indian lawyer, writer, politician, and son of Lala Harkishen Lal. Born into a Hindu family, Gauba later converted to Islam and was elected to the Punjab Legislative Assembly by a Muslim constituency. He emigrated to India following partition and died in poverty.

References

  1. 1 2 "The education of Sir Mohan Lal: on Khushwant Singh's "Karma." | Studies in Short Fiction | Find Articles at BNET". web.archive.org. 2010-02-25. Retrieved 2024-04-05.
  2. 1 2 Maheshwari, C.N. Baby (August 2018). "Critical Analysis of Khushwant Singh's Karma" (PDF). International Journal of Research in Arts and Science. 4 (2): 6–7.
  3. "A bearer character". June 15, 2022.