Assignment 6

"He studied in London Oxford," Mrs. Pillai said. "Will you do your recitation for him?"

Latha complied without hesitation. She planted her feet slightly apart.

"Respected Chairman"–she bowed to Chako–"mydearjudgesand"–she looked around at the imaginary audience crowded into the small, hot room–"beloved friends." She paused theatrically.

"Today I would like to recite to you a poem by Sir Walter Scott entitled 'Lochinvar'." She clasped her hands behind her back. A film fell over her eyes. Her gaze was fixed unseeingly just above Chacko's head. She swayed slightly as she spoke. At first Chacko thought it was a Malayalam translation of "Lochinvar." The words ran into each other. Like in Malayalam, the last syllable of one word attached itself to the first syllable of the next. It was rendered at remarkable speed:

"O, young Lochin varhas scum out of the vest

Through wall the vide Border his teed was the bes

Tand savissgood broadsod heweapon sadnun

Nhe rod all unarmed, and he rod all all lalone..."

The poem was interspersed with grunts from the old lady on the bed, which no one except Chacko seemed to notice.

"Nhe swam the Eske river where ford there was none;

Buttair he alighted at the Netherby Gate,

The bridehad cunsended, the gallantcame late."

I chose the passage on page 257 describing Comrade Pillai's niece, Latha, reciting a poem in English. This passage relates to the theme of Global/Colonial English. Even though the English no longer rule India, their language and culture continues to be valued above Indian language and culture. The passage demonstrates this. Mrs. Pillai calls her daughter to recite the poem in order to show off to Chacko. She treats Chacko as an important guest because, "He studied in London Oxford." Oxford is not in London. Arundhati Roy seems to be trying to show us how Mrs. Pillai is awed by anything English, whether or not she truly understands it.

This passage also draws a contrast between the image of the civilized English that the Pillai family worships and their actual day-to-day life. Latha makes her introduction to "the imaginary audience crowded into the small, hot room," and Chacko is the only one to notice that "the poem was interspersed with grunts from the old lady on the bed." Arundhati Roy interrupts the fantasy of her characters with doses of reality to remind us how far they really are from England. To an American audience, this passage is comedic, but Roy seems almost to be scolding her fellow Indians for making fools of themselves.

Roy plays with the language of the poem to show that Latha is not speaking in English in the sense that she actually understands what she is saying and can successfully communicate. Roy takes a famous poem and makes it foreign to us by changing the language to reflect Latha's accent.

The particular poem that Roy chose for this passage is also important. Here is a link to the original poem, without Roy's editing. Many people reading the novel would have memorized "Lochinvar" in their childhood and would recognize the words. The poem seems to relate to the love between Ammu and Velutha and the theme of the Love Laws. It is a story about a knight who kidnaps his lover right before she is to be married to another man. The knight and his lover break the Love Laws just like Ammu and Velutha.