Hullabaloo in the guava orchard II

Kiran Desai

Secondary characters

Flat, static c : tharacters : the spy

The spy is a schoolteacher who hates his job in Shahkot and hopes to win fame as an undercover agent. Sampath Chawla is his first assignment from the Branch to Uncover Fraudulent Holy Men (BUFHM).

The spy hangs around listening to Sampath’s answers to questions, writing them down in his book and trying to make sense of them. He grew up in poverty and thinks he will one day win fame in the papers as an intellectual on TV.

He interprets everything as a fraud because he begins in that frame of mind. He believes the country is held back by beliefs in crazy holy men, and he personally wants to champion intellectualism over religious fraud.

Because he came from a poor background, he likes to identify with the upper classes. He decides to persecute Sampath because of the emptiness of his own life, but he traps himself by falling into Kulfi’s cauldron while spying on her cooking.

Characters:The Brigadier

The Brigadier is head of the local army post.

He sits on a western style toilet, using his binoculars for bird watching, which soothes him.

His goal, more important than his job, is to spot a green pigeon.

Each morning he methodically washes a different part of his body.

His soldiers seem the least interesting part of his concerns, but he doesenjoy shouting at them.

In the crisis, he plans a firing squad to shoot in the bush and scare off the monkeys.

KULFI CHAWLA

She seems bored with domestic life and sits by the window, as though she is in a cage and would like to escape. She lets Ammaji run the house. She rarely cooks; only wild and exotic food will satisfy her. She is a sort of food artist.

In watching her son’s retreat to the orchard, she remembers her own youth when she felt the need to escape. She knows why he is sitting in a tree; Kulfi and Sampath are the only ones in the family who understand one another.

Inspired by what she takes to be Sampath’s wisdom,she begins finally to cook the masterpieces that have been in her mind.

PINKY CHAWLA Pinky Chawla Pinky, the younger sister of Sampath, is a

rather empty-headed teen Indian girl interested in clothes, appearances, and romance.

She is embarrassed by her brother initially and only gradually feels sympathy for him. She is pretty and likes to get her own way; she is not afraid to ride the bus and stab aggressive men with her hairpin. She is a dramatic and emotional young woman who insists that men follow her around.

She luxuriates in her romantic despair under Sampath’s tree. She pursues the Hungry Hop boy, not sure in her adolescent confusion whether she likes him or not. She bites through his ear but is not arrested because she isthe Baba’s sister. She pursues the Hungry Hop boy until he agrees to run away with her but scorns himwhen he is unable to live up to her demands

MR CHAWLA Mr. R. K. Chawla is Sampath’s prosaic father;he has

the opposite personality of Sampath or Kulfi. He is a finicky and exact bureaucrat, the head clerk of the Reserve Bank of Shahkot.

He does not like irregularities in life, so he hardlyknows what to make of his wild wife and son.

Early on, he gives up trying to influence his crazy wife and tries to mold Sampath, which proves equally impossible.

He sees only the materialistic aspect of the situation, yet he believes himself to be honest

He feels vulnerable in all the hullabaloo and comes up with the final plan to catch the monkeys.

Secondary characters: Ammaji

Ammaji is Mr. Chawla’s mother and Sampath’s grandmother. She takes over the duties of her son’s wife, since Kulfi seems to be incompetent.

She represents the older traditional habits and lore of India, while her son is the modern trained colonial servant.

She defends Sampath to the other family since he is proud of her grandson’s success, which she once predicted.

THE DISTRIC COLLECTOR

The D.C., or District Collector, comes from Delhi to the backwater of Shahkot as his first posting. He is quiet and firm in his ideals, and is still young to government service. He is thin and weak.

His father is influential in the Indian Administrative Service. He is afraid of getting a black mark on his record if he doesn’t handle the crisis in Shahkot carefully without offending any group.

Each official pushes his own plan to get rid of the monkeys in hopes of winning glory.

Chief Medical Officer (CMO)

The Chief Medical Officer is a hypochondriac ,worried about his ulcers. When they flare up, he drinks onion juice.

He does not want to deal with the monkey crisis and passes it off to the biology department at the university. He is a satire on the Indian civil servant, more concerned with his own benefits than with helping the public.

Hewants to get promoted to get out of Shahkot, and proposes to solve the monkey problem by revoking all liquor licenses, which is a very unpopular move.

Bibliography

In Constantakis, S., & Jordan, A. D. (2012). Novels for students: Presenting analysis, context and criticism on commonly studied novels. Detroit: Gale.

Pandey, B. (2001). Indian women novelists in English. New Delhi: Sarup & Sons.

Hullabaloo PPP por Gabriela Claudia Domínguez se encuentra bajo una Licencia Creative Commons Atribución 3.0 Unported.