Hindu characters in Nayantara Sahgal’s fiction as prisoners of their faith

Abstract

            Nayantara Sahgal being a postcolonial novelist, the whole corpus of her fiction is pervaded by, among others things, the questions of religion, culture and tradition. Especially, it reflects that she is acutely aware of the Hindu beliefs being a potent force in determining the social and political behavior of the Hindus. While some of the characters in each of her novels now and then present critical comments on the role of Hinduism in the life of a Hindu, the writer herself quite often intervenes to make a direct commentary on it. At the same time, many of her Hindu characters are deeply influenced in their outlook by religious beliefs, Hinduisms beliefs to be precise, which impart to them an authentically Indian sensibility. Evidently, Hinduism, Sahgal believes, is a major force in India shaping not just the personality of an individual but also the culture, the civilization and the very ethos of the country. It is the very fountainhead of the Indian customs and traditions. Even a casual reader is struck by the numerous instances in her novels evidencing the indestructible bonds between Hinduism and everyday life of an average Hindu in India. The narrator in her debut novel A Time To Be Happy curiously notes that  India is a country where men still greet one another with Ram Ram, where the carved images of many-armed gods and goddesses reign over the countryside (04). In one of her essays The Schizophrenic Imagination, Sahgal admits, I have been much preoccupied with the effects of Hinduism on character in my novels (98).