Arunjoshi’s “A Trip for Mr. Lele” and

ARUNJOSHI’S
“A TRIP FOR Mr. LELE” AND “SURVIVOR”

With five novels and a collection of short stories to his credit, Arun Joshi is regarded as one of the important contemporary fiction writers. He was catapulted to literary fame when his novel The Last Labyrinth had earned him the much coveted Sahitya Akademi Award for the year 1982. Undoubtedly, his untimely demise in 1993 is a big blow to the field of Indian writing in English.

Much of the criticism on his creative output, both novels and short stories, claims that Arun Joshi is an existentialist novelist writing in line with Alberta Camus and Franz Kafka. As a matter of fact, with his advent on the Indian literary scene, the fiction in English has shifted its focus from social realism to psychological realism. He has attempted to explore the depths of the psyche of an individual trapped in the matrix of decaying human values. The characters in his fiction seem to have been engaged in a relentless search for true being. Besides, Arun Joshi in his fiction, displays an awareness of what makes for human tragedy in the society. He sees that the forces of industrialization and urbanization have exerted a deleterious influence on the life of man. Consequently, even the relationship between husband and wife is reduced to the condition of a commodity essentially. It is this aspect of life which in Arun Joshi’s view has marred the human essence as could be found not only in his novels but also in his short fiction. This aspect has largely suffered a neglect at the hands of the critics.

Except for a few passing references, not much effort is made to evaluate Arun Joshi’s short fiction which touches on the varied issues that predetermine the existence of man. The present paper seeks to examine the thematic concerns of Arun Joshi with reference to the stories “A Trip for Mr. Lele” and “Survivor”. These stories, along with eight others, appeared in 1975 under the title Survivor which, as C.V. Venugopal rightly observes, is a collection of “artistically satisfying pieces” and Joshi here “probes the alienated individual with sympathy and understanding”.

The protagonists in both the stories are helpless husbands and sensitive fathers whose separation from their daughters helps them emerge from their cocoon - like existence and rebel to realize their personal freedom.

            “A Trip for Mr. Lele” is a touching tale of a sentimental relationship between a conscientious father and disabled daughter. Mr. Lele, the central figure, is the highest paid vendor of toothpastes in the country, next only to his boss to whom he is accountable. However, the job is not a bed of roses because he has to always maintain the rise in the sale by employing innovative gift schemes. So he carries on with his job, inspite of himself. He, often thinks of resigning and stamping on the “horn-rimmed glasses” of his boss who being practical, does not care for sentiments and tries to extract more from him. Mr. Lele is helpless. Besides, he is a victim of the subversive ideals of his wife, Mrs. Lele. Interestingly, it is she who keeps him , unlike other women, not by tears or threats but by simply letting him know of her social status. She is a representative of the “western emancipation and oriental indolence”. She believes that marriage is a “solemn contract”.

It is her personality and the force of her ideas that have obliged Mr. Lele to believe that the contract is “not only as solemn as something the violation of which might let loose divine retribution”. Over the years he has developed a tatalistic attitude towards life. He makes no attempt to impose his will on his wife. He is obliging in his dealings. But he is a responsible father. He has a daughter who is pale and small for her age. She also has a club foot. He is very much concerned for her. It is not really love but a sense of sympathy that draws him to the handicapped child. He finds in her “all the beautiful and perishable things with which so much of life’s mansion is furnished”. He longs to be in her company to let her feel assured. He is always careful not to let his official responsibilities interfere with his paternal obligations. He cannot brook to see his daughter suffer any more since she is already struck with “so disabling and grotesque an affliction”. He is filled with a secret sorrow for the pathetic condition of the child. It is this sentimental concern of a father towards his daughter which gives the story a human touch.

The physical deformity of the child symbolically represents Mr. Lele’s own inability to articulate his inner protest against both his wife and his boss before whom he appears as weak and fragile as the child. It is perhaps the realization of his weakness which makes him more attached to the child than to his wife. To compensate, as it were, for the terrible injustice meted out to the child by fate, Mr. Lele makes it a habit of keeping her happy while his wife is busy attending to the problems of Ladies club. He takes pleasure in satisfying every wish of hers. In fact, he finds a sense of solace in her presence. The important thing that he never misses is her birthday which is only five days away when the story begins.

About this time, Mr. Lele is compelled to leave for Bombay and then to Hyderabad to save the falling trade. Having promised to return on her birthday, he reluctantly goes on the trip. But it takes more time than he expects and he feels anxious about the child home. He sends a telegram saying that he may not attend her birthday. Symbolically, the trip Mr. Lele undertakes from north to south brings about a transformation in him. His sojourn in different places and his confrontation with different situations peel the layers off his self which he for the first time finds in his own way and rebels.

In fact, his heart lies in his daughter. The farther he travels the nearer he feels to the child mentally. He fails to show any interest either in his assignment or in the new places which sans his daughter appear dull and drab. His nausea increases. He simply stops speaking. But can he rebel out and out? Ironically, he is aware of his own limitations. He has to think of “his contract with his wife, his firm, with the forces of circumstances”. However, the inevitable has to take place. On his final trip, he confronts a boy who has the makings of an artist. The boy tells Mr. Lele that he wants to paint “the sea, the sky, the sun, the stars, the night, especially the night, and even the wind, except that ... has no colour”. He says further that he had a sister whom he loved dearly. But when she died of leukemia, he was not informed as he was away at school. This sad tale of the boy really touches Mr. Lele and he, thinking only of his daughter, takes the next flight to Delhi to greet her on her birthday and it casts him his job.

The story “Survivor’ assumes significance in that it reflects Arun Joshi’s basic concern in the anthology. It focuses not only on the growing dominance of modern women in all spheres of life but on the resultant rupture in the human relationships both in the family and the society, on account of urbanization and commercialization.

Kewal Kapoor, the narrator-protagonist of “Survivor” is a typical modern man who has no illusions about the progress made by human civilization. Like Mr. Lele he also suffers at the hands of his indifferent wife. But he is more eloquent in his expression of protest than his counterpart. However they serve as foils to each other. Relegated to the position of “an engine for manufacturing money” he feels isolated.

Arun Joshi effectively employs the device of dramatic monologue to reveal the inner self of the protagonist who, unable to adapt to the prevailing social norms, “sets sail towards terrible shipwrecks”. He provides us an insight into the life of middle class people who, in their anxiety to reach the higher rungs of the social ladder, hurtle down to the pits of eternal despair and lose the essence of their beings.

What Kewal Kapoor wants is a “bit of life”. Instead, he gets a “bloody-minded nagging” and a constant talk of money. Kapoor dislikes everything, particularly all that is associated with money. But as an ideal husband, he is expected to earn to meet the growing needs of his wife. He leaves one job for another till he gets fixed up in a drugs company where he has to do with the public relations. Ironically, he himself has many a complaint to voice, but he is fated to listen to the complaints of others. Though he tries to do his best in his new assignment, it takes him no time to realize that he is a misfit. Denied a change of job he is overwhelmed with a sense of boredom and he becomes an introvert. He forgets how to laugh. The agony of not belonging is so intense in him that he runs away from his office so as to find peace of mind in the artificial things like cinema and transistor radio. As a result, he gets hooked up to the Indian theaters seeing twenty films a month.

His infatuation with self-fulfillment through films, sometimes flirting with girls results in the loss of his job. He is estranged from his wife. However, it does not scare him. He moves from one place to another only to feel despair and depressed. He realizes that the modern society with all its progress is devoid of human love and sympathy and money is the be all and end all of life. Fed up with “money talking imbecile world” Kapoor inches towards total alienation from the society. Interestingly, it is the thought of his daughter that brings him and gives a sense of relief to his tormented soul.

The only two persons who love him in the world are his brother, Robu and his little daughter. He confesses: “I kept missing my daughter...As Divali drew closer I grew desperate. I just had to see her. I was terrified she would forget me”. Thus, obsessed with an urge to see her, he joins hands with thieves who putting on masks, enter the house on the day of Divali. While he enjoys the company of his child, his associates rob people of jewellery. Ridiculous it may seem though, the act of Kewal Kapoor has a sense of inevitability that it is only love that sustains human relations and imparts meaning to human existence.

The story of Kewal Kapoor recalls the problem of Billy Biswas of Joshi’s The Strange Case of Billy Biswas. Billy is disillusioned with the phoney values of the modem world and he leaves for the primitive world. He becomes one with the tribals who are free from the hypocrisy of the mainstream urban life. Similarly, Kapoor also leaves his home. But unlike Billy, Kapoor attempts to realize his individuality and consolidate his position in the society not away from it. Kapoor is not idealistic as Billy. However, he, like Billy, is in quest for humane society which is filled with natural love and where people feel secure in one another’s company.

In the end, Kewal Kapoor, after throwing the booty into the dark sea, utters a few words which indict the dehumanized morals of the modern society. He is scathing in his outburst: “I am a survivor of that fantastic racket that passes for the MODERN INDIAN SOCIETY...of that greatest disaster of them all, THE MODERN INDIAN WOMAN”.

The protagonists of both stories - “A Trip for Mr. Lele” and “Survivor” are placed in a similar predicament. They are survivors of the cataclysms and disasters of the so called progressive society. Being alive to their inner self, they defy the system which tries to encroach on their personal freedom. Mr. Lele and Kapoor crave for simple love which they find in their daughters who as innocent children serve as invisible bonds between the overriding mothers and sensitive fathers. The Society which traps and challenges man, also provides a way for liberation. And it is man who has to fight to realize his dream of freedom. As such, a transformation from conformity to confrontation is discernable in the narratives.