Diana Mond P.

Directo

Dr. Lily Rose Tope

CL 340

3 September 2009

Inheritance of Loss is a novel that tells of parallel stories of different

members of the Indian race, and of how, in the present time, they are
confronted with issues of multiculturalism, discrimination, economic
inequality, and globalization. At the beginning, the house of the Judge is the
central part of the story. We can find here different faces of ancient Indian
culture – Sai, ideal Indian woman, “the cook,” a typical servant, and the
judge, real-time epitome of the Indian male. From that point thereon,
narratives of the present and the past intertwines in a particular structure
that is nonlinear. The story moves back and forth to the present, the recent
past and the past. Alongside with this, are chunks and bits of the story of
Biju, a parallel story with the same theme, occurring in a different place, to
represent the face of the new Indian – the illegal migrant and the migrants’
encounters with discrimination.

The Indian woman, repressed for years, finds in herself a realization to

find her own identity by becoming conscious of individuality. We see her in
front of the looking glass, thinking of her future, as if she herself can arrange
it. Her affection for Gyan, forbidden and unthinkable in the light of Hindu
tradition opens this for her. However, such a love did not prosper, because
we see Gyan fighting for another form of freedom as he joins the Nepali
movement for liberation.

The typical servant is found to have given much hope, and a tendency
to believe in a messianic hero, his son, Biju. In chapter 15 of this story,
amidst the celebrations that exclusively belongs to the Indian culture, he was
holding another celebration, a celebration of his son’s so-called
achievements in his stay in New York, flaunting his ambition to go to that
greener world. He offends his heritage, and he offends the son, who was
almost crawling between restaurants, experiencing the most demeaning
taunts from the foreign race.

The story has been set in present India, a product of the transition
from the traditional India that we know of to the present past-colonial
“modernity.” In this novel, we will see how traditional Indian practices mix
with that of the new post-colonial practices. What changed? What amount of
progress has been made? It is clearly demonstrated here that as much as
the country is lifting itself up from the hierarchical order of things, borders
are built anew, nothing really changed. Brahmins still remain the highest
caste although members of other classes get to move to higher ranks
through education, as that of Jemubhai’s. I see a sort of rearrangement of
classes, changing of methods of oppression. If the Hindu religion has become
an implicit promoter of old hierarchies and subjections in the old society, as
that of Ramayana – Rama’s exile, Sita’s ordeal, etc.

Education, economic status and migration has produced for India a

new basis for elitism, like those women for whom Biju has delivered bowls of
soup and for which Biju had to transfer to another restaurant again.
Alongside with it is the hope for a change toward the piecemeal modernity
that can only be attributed to their past colonial masters. The judge himself
is a glaring example for it, and Lola’s obsession for her British-accented BBC
reporter daughter. The cook also had his share, believing in the American
dream, as if having a son abroad gives him a different place in the society.
Moreover, we see that they admire the works of modernity but they still
forcibly cling unto their traditions. Like the Judge and Lola, they begin hating
their own race for their backwardness but this kind of behavior is still
backward, and is set to be able to push their country farther back.

The novel seems to have been a portrayal of the Indian race as a

struggling race, struggling from the backward ways of the old and the
oppression that they get from the new setup. India is a race who had taste of
different flavors of oppression and humiliation. In America, Biju landed in
what the writer spoke of the “the Gandhi café, [where] the lights were kept
low, the better to hide the stains. It was a long journey from here to the
fusion trend, the goat cheese and basil samosa, the mango margarita. This
was the real thing, generic Indian, and it could be ordered complete, one
stop on the subway line or even on the phone: gilt and red chairs, plastic
roses on the table with synthetic dewdrops.” Indeed, the Indian can be found
almost anywhere in the world, tainted, stained with pain.