UPAMANYU CHATTERJEE: Phase 4-A STUDY OF HIS IMAGE AND SYMBOLS

Mohamad Akram
2014 An International Refereed e-Journal of Literary Explorations November   unpublished
In this study, Chatterjee has quite sarcastically exposed the condition as well as the predicament of the Welfare State. Each word is a symbol in its own way. The last chapter 'WAKE-UP CALL' is also tinged with Chatterjee's piquant yet witty symbols. The very title of the chapter indicates a new beginning amidst the all ends like Eliot 'in my beginning is my end'. The very last page is very much soothing as well as abstract in the sense that though it is ended with 'tetra pack' yet Chatterjee's
more » ... groan is inexplicable here:-"Agastya, who was at that time inside the cabin, was not however at fault. He had just that moment managed to prise open the stiff fingers of Suroor's left hand and place in his swollen, livid palm a Yin Yang box full of dope. He then remoulded the fingers tight over the box. 'You look as though you need it, friend.' Miss Natesan turned the knob and opened the door a fraction when they all distinctly heard from somewhere inside Rajani Suroor a groan. It was a slow, loud and deep rumble of disgust, exactly the sound that one hears from someone who is wrenched out of sleep by the heat. To Agastya, it sounded dreadfully like a long-drawn-out Pa-yn-cho-om. They were a set of syllables appropriate for the occasion, he felt, a couple to bid adieu to the dead and with the balance, to greet the world of the living." 26 Chatterjee realized the Welfare State that was truly everywhere and it is not clumsy at all. The height of sarcasm in the form of dispersed images is evident also in the chapter 'FIREFIGHTING ON A WAR FOOTING' where the very first paragraph along with the second one shows awesome commitment of Agastya:-"To lesson the awesome amount of paperwork in the Welfare State, as a last resort, one government servant does sometimes, request another to arrange a fire in one of the rooms of an office (not in his own, naturally, for that would be conduct unbecoming of him). A great many files are disposed of in this way. Numerous instances of this style of decisionmaking spring to
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