5.
Depiction of Illicit Love Affairs in
Chaman Nahal's The Gandhi Quartet
Khomdram Shyamsundara Singh*
Abstract: In Chaman Nahal's The Gandhi Quartet. illicit love affairs play a pivotal
role in the fictionalisation of many historical and political events of Indian history
from 1915 to 1952.They are employed mainly to serve as a literary technique to
reduce the characters to mere mortals by portraying them as being unable to resist
the temptations of their carnal desires, thereby preventing them from being
idealised and making them appear as ordinary human beings, not as demi-gods.
But for their illicit love affairs, all the prominent characters, especially Gandhi's
followers, namely Sunil, Kusum, Raja Vishal Chand, Vikram and Rahena would
have appeared so ideal. Another purpose that illicit affairs serve in the epic novel
is the reflection of socially unacceptable forms of man-woman relationship like
elopement, free love, incest and live-in prevailing both in Indian society as well as
in British society during the time of Indian freedom movement.
Keywords: Fictionalisation, Consummation, Ashramites, Padyatra, Interimgovernment, Marxism, Himmat, Incestuous, Firmament.
Chaman Nahal's magnum opus, The Gandhi Quartet, comprising four
volumes—The Crown and the Loincloth, The Salt of Life, The Triumph of the
Tricolour and Azadi are perhaps the best Indian fiction in English which deals
extensively with Indian freedom movement and paints a comprehensive, realistic
and unsparing picture of Gandhi's personality. Unfortunately, the grandeur of the
above-mentioned themes has dwarfed the theme of man-woman relationship,
which indeed plays a pivotal role in the fictionalisation of many historical and
political events of Indian history from 1915 to 1952. Man-woman relationship
portrayed in the novel may be categorised into two kinds: the one that exists within
the bounds of marriage and the other that falls beyond the wedlock. The latter,
which is, by common consent, referred to as illicit relationship or illicit love affair,
actually outweighs the former in terms of the space it occupies in the novel as well
as the manifold purposes it serves to make the narrative of Indian freedom
struggle, with Gandhi as its protagonist, a wonderful fiction.
The ulterior motive behind the employment of a number of illicit affairs
in the novel is not actually to spice up the political events of national importance,
but it is mainly to avoid idealising the prominent fictional characters and lend them
a realistic hue by attributing to them the most common and at the same time the
biggest human failing; that is, the inability to resist the temptation to taste the
forbidden fruit. Important characters, especially the most faithful votaries of
Mahatma Gandhi, namely, Sunil, Kusum, Raja Vishal Chand, Rahena and Vikram
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are, therefore, made to get sucked into illicit affairs. Even Mahatma Gandhi,
though he is not exposed to any illicit affair, is not completely spared; he can't but
look at his wife's body without desire even after having taken the vow of celibacy
in 1906. In this regard, Ambuj Sharma says, “Mohandas loved Kasturbai's beauty
even after taking the vow of celibacy.” (Gandhian Strain in the Indian English
Novel: 133). Gandhi also fails to remain ignorant of Kusum's beauty or frigid when
they walk closely by the river one morning in The Salt of Life.
In keeping with the instructions of Gandhi, Sunil, the most important
character of The Crown and the Loincloth sacrifices all that he has on the altar of
becoming a Congress volunteer; he forsakes his job as a government high school
teacher and a peaceful and secure life at his father's haveli in Ajitha, becomes the
first person to set up a Khadibhandar in Ajitha, goes to Rohru, a town in Simla
Hills, to help the plantation workers exploited by the British and timber merchants
and extends his stay there of his own volition to help the untouchables called Doms
joins the mainstream of life—he even employs Chandru, a Dom, as his cook, much
to everyone's chagrin. However, for all his sacrifices, his extra-marital affairs with
two women, Rahena and Priti, taint his image of being an ideal follower of Gandhi.
The two affairs are diametrically opposed to each other in that Sunil-Rahena affair
involves no consummation of love whereas Sunil-Priti affair is completely based
on lust and it is very much a case of a one-night stand.
Sunil and Rahena, Muzzafar's wife, fall in love with each other while
working together as Khadi sellers in Ajitha. Though their love grows stronger and
more intense with each passing day, they do not indulge in physical intimacy in
order to keep their love alive forever. Rahena believes that consummated love can
only bring an end to their passion or craving for each other. Rahena succeeds in
convincing Sunil of her concept of everlasting love when he expresses his desire
for the physical fulfilment of his passion with her. Rahena tells Sunil:
I wish we had had an affair and the matter would have ended, or would
have dragged along for some time and then ended. But I truly love you
and I believe you love me, too. It is a precious and the only way to keep it
alive is by not coming too close physically. Consummated love is no
better than an affair.(The Crown and the Loincloth: 291)
Rahena, by dint of her sincere and efficient work, rises through the ranks in
the local Congress hierarchy and becomes a representative of Ajithakhadi
sellers at the All India Khadi Bandhar Workers' Conference summoned by
Manganlal Gandhi in Bombay, but her affair with Sunil, though
unconsummated, serves as a black mark against her being a woman of
substance. On the contrary, Sunil-Priti affair is marked by consummation of
lust. Sunil, in spite of being a married man, has no self-control when Priti, the
wife of three brothers—Amin Chand, Labh Chand and Duni Chand, pays him
a passionate visit every night for many weeks while staying in Rohru.
Surprisingly, Sunil neither feels guilty nor is unfazed by any notion that their
affair might become known to Priti's husbands, and Priti is too clever to
betray anything that would arouse their suspicion. Regarding the behaviour
of the two lovers, the novelist remarks:
He had no hesitation in facing Duni Chand or Amin Chand in the
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morning. He didn't bother if they knew; they were the ones who
had set the pattern for him, had given him the idea. When he met
Priti she showed no signs of any special intimacy between them.
Yet she came to him with the same hot passion each subsequent
night. (The Crown and the Loincloth:246)
Kusum, Nahal's most important female character, and Raja Vishal
Chand, the Maharaja of Lambini, figure among those followers who are very close
to Gandhi, but they are knocked off their pedestal by their illicit affair. After the
death of her husband, Sunil, Kusum joins Gandhi's ashram at Sabarmati along
with her son, Vikram, as a token of her service to the nation. There she shines as a
paragon of virtue, for about six years, by living like a nun; she keeps everyone at an
arm's length and does her duty sincerely and efficiently much to the admiration of
many ashramites and Gandhi. Raja Vishal Chand, one of the many who attend
Gandhi's prayers, falls for Kusum and lusts after her. One day, when he gets a
chance to talk to her, he manages to win her sympathy by talking about his late
mother, and the conversation takes them to the Maharaja's bungalow next to the
ashram. There he seduces Kusum surprisingly to her gratification because, instead
of getting her conscience pricked, she feels that her femininity has been finally
restored. Expressing Kusum's fulfilment of femininity Chaman Nahal writes:
Rather it brought a relief, a restoration of femininity and dignity. The
seed in her had sprouted again. The Raja Sahib might or might not
marry her; it was inconsequential. She sat satiated in the worship that
had been offered at her feet. (The Salt of Life: 86)
The news of Kusum's illicit affair with Raja Vishal Chand and their decision to tie
the knot very soon shocks Gandhi and Vikram beyond measure. Their relationship
is formally solemnised in a simple wedding ceremony performed by a priest in the
ashram's school compound, and it is attended by Gandhi and Kasturbai.
Of all the followers who shine in Gandhi's firmament, Vikram is the
brightest for he neither attains premature martyrdom like his father, Sunil, who
died while saving the Prince of Wales by taking the bullet fired at the Prince by
Rakesh, a revolutionary, nor fizzles out like his mother, Kusum, who entered into
an illicit affair with Raja Vishal Chand, after a brief and seemingly promising glow
in the ashram. In The Crown and the Loincloth, he remains in the shade of his
father as a small kid, and after his father's death, he joins Gandhi's ashram at
Sabarmati along with his mother. The moment his mother decides to marry Raja
Vishal Chand and leave the ashram in The Salt of Life turns out to be a watershed in
his life; he decides against going to Lambini, his new father's palace, and starts
considering the ashram as his real house. He becomes a national hero at the tender
age of thirteen when he takes part in the Dandi March and gets badly injured due to
lathi-charge by the police. His affinity with Gandhi goes on in The Triumph of the
Tricolour and at Gandhi's behest he takes part, in a padyatra intended to put out the
fire of communal riots triggered by the formation of interim government in 1946.
In Azadi, after Gandhi's assassination, he decides to stay in his Sevagram ashram
and carry on the activities started by the departed soul.
Vikram is indeed the one who comes closest to being called an ideal
follower of Gandhi. However, his pre-marital affair with Julie, the daughter of
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48
Colonel Michael Fogelson, counts against him. Vikram's first meeting with Julie
dates back to 1941 in Lambini during a mountaineering expedition organised by
Raja Vishal Chand to Gompah monastery. After the Maharaja's death, they happen
to meet again in Sialkot. As they both live in Sialkot, Vikram frequents Julie's
residence and their acquaintance gradually blossoms into love. Vikram is torn
between his loyalty to Gandhi's edicts, according to which he must remain
celibate, and his desire to consummate his love with Julie. When it comes to the
crunch, Julie convinces Vikram that celibacy can be attained through indulgence
too.About Julie's theory of celibacy, the novelist writes: “Came Julie Fogelson and
she slumped into his arms and sobbed. Don't worry, there can be celibacy through
indulgence as well, she whispered into his trembling ears. How is that, he asked.
And she showed him.” (The Triumph of the Tricolour: 59) Their physical intimacy
results in Julie's pregnancy, but as her parents are very much opposed to Julie's
affair with Vikram, they force her to undergo an abortion. Eventually, their love
proves to be too strong for any obstacle or objections, and they get married with the
blessings of Julie's parents.
Nahal portrays elopement, an outrageous and blatant form of illicit
affair, as a social stigma. Shyama falls in love with Rakesh, her brother Sunil's
close friend who later becomes a revolutionary. Rakesh visits her house on a
regular basis to meet his friend Sunil apparently, though his hidden agenda is to
meet Shyama secretly. Rakesh is against feudal lords, among whom Shyama's
father Thakur Shanti Nath is one, and Rakesh's revolutionary ideas quite contrast
with Gandhi's ideas of truth and non-violence which Sunil admires and worships.
Their ideological differences gradually bring their friendship to an end and
Shyama is forced to choose between her Haveli and Rakesh. Being an innocent
village girl, she doesn't dare to dream of a world without Rakesh, whereas he lusts
after her more than he loves her. She finally runs away with Rakesh. Her
elopement with Rakesh is considered to be a disgrace which does irreparable
damage to the pride and honour of Thakur Shantinath's family to the delight of his
rival landlords and ill-wishers.The situation is described by Chaman Nahal in the
following words:
The news spread in no time and, as it pertained to a family as eminent
as that of Thukur Shanti Nath, it left a mighty whiplash. His own
tenants were sympathetic and showed grief. Yet the majority were
happy, as they always are in the misfortunes of others. His rival
zamindars felt the man was growing too tall and he needed a dressing
down. (The Crown and the Loincloth: 114)
Nahal meticulously explores the kind of man-woman relationship that
prevailed among the revolutionaries during the Indian freedom struggle. Illicit
affairs like elopement, free love and live-in relationship were very common
among the revolutionaries, thereby making a mockery of social institution called
marriage. Sengupta and Charulata lived together, Rossie left her husband, an
engine driver, and lived with her beloved Hoshier Singh, Zahir eloped with
Sultana, the daughter of a Lahore medico, Joseph lived with Dulara, a Hindu girl
and Darbara Singh's Salma was a former prostitute of Hira Mandi. The young male
revolutionaries were able to easily impress girls with bombastic jargons of
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Marxism which had not figured in their minds. Revolutionaries like Sengupta and
Charulata were so spirited, aggressive and daring and always talked about
revenge, but whenever time permitted them, they made love. They lived together
and moved together from one place to another by passing off as siblings or cousins.
The nature of their lifestyle and their work is described in an ironical manner in the
following words of Nahal:
The girls abandoned all ties and ran away with the revolutionaries. Posing as
sisters. Posing as cousins. Yet sleeping with them and talking of Marx. There was
a mushroom of man-woman teams going around the country, generating political
sedition during the day and sexual sedition during the night. They moved around
in homespun white kurtas and pyjamas or they wore Western style clothes. (The
Crown and the Loincloth: 379)
Since revolutionaries lead a very insecure and unpredictable life, a lasting loveaffair is a distant dream for them, and it has little value when compared to their
mission to liberate India from the foreign rule. The novelist also shows that an
unhappy married life can circumstance a person to have illicit affairs with other
women through the depiction of Lala Dharam Das' relationship with his wife,
Viran Vati. On learning that her mother is seriously ill, Kusum comes to her
parental home in Wazirabad after a long time. She is shocked to find that her
mother's illness is marked by frequent outbursts of anger, and her father is usually
at the receiving end of the tantrums. One late night, Kusum happens to look into
her father's room while trying to change her wet clothes, but she can't believe her
eyes when she sees her father sleeping with a woman. When chided by her
daughter for doing such a despicable act, Dharam says that his wife, Viran Vati has
not allowed her husband to come near her and denied him conjugal rights from the
very first night of their marriage onwards, and out of frustration he used force.
Deprived of conjugal rights, he started seeking pleasure from other women. He
tells her the kind of torture he has been subjected to by her mother: “Your mother
has driven me to other women. From the first day of our marriage, she has shown
nothing but hostility, and anger and harshness.(The Salt of Life: 236)
Chaman Nahal talks about the existence of free love, incest and true love
among the British. The one-night stand between Cutlass, a British army officer,
and Ginger Barnes, the wife of David Barnes, a British ICS officer, at Ugoki while
a ball is taking place inside the church goes to show the prevalence of free love and
promiscuous behaviour among the British. However, the most sordid man-woman
relationship present in the British society is incestuous relationship exhibited by
Percy Wand and Jennifer Wand. They are brother and sister, but the manner in
which they mingle with each other in public far exceeds the bounds of sibling
relationship. Both the British and the Indians suspect their relationship and make a
rumour. But the rumour serves as a stimulant to their relationship. Like lovers they
are together most of the time. They also dance together and embrace each other in
public. Their incestuous behaviour is described vividly by Chaman Nahal in the
following words:
The gossip about the two of them was not confined to the Indians
alone. Their own folks spoke in similar innuendoes. Percy and
Jennifer did nothing to curb the gossip. They rather felt stimulated by
it. They danced together in the Lahore Club, embraced each other in
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full view of the elderly members of the club, and whenever occasion
permitted travelled together on their trips—as the person near the bus
stop said.( The Salt of Life:153)
The novelist does not rule out the prevalence of incestuous relationship
in Indian society. Lala Kanshi Ram's children, Arun and Madhu, though they do
not enter into any sort of illicit love affair, they are too frank with each other as if
they were lovers. While writing about Nahal's portrayal of their relationship,
Mohan Jha observes: “The sort of openness that is exhibited in relation to Madhu
and Arun verges almost on incest which does violence to our sense of propriety.”
(Chaman Nahal's Azadi: A Search for Identity: 44)
In “epilogue” which is added to the 1993 edition of Azadi, Chaman
Nahal depicts socially unacceptable or uncommon man-woman relationships
prevailing among the British. Percy Wand and Jennifer Wand, in spite of being
siblings, live together in Australia. John Tree, a priest, instead of leading a pious
and morally chaste life, has a live-in relationship with his beloved Carol Schnicke.
Ginger divorces her husband David Barnes and lives with Brigadier Alan Cutlass.
Lucy, the daughter of Ginger and David, does not love and is not happy with her
step-father. She is intent on going to India to be with her father, much against the
wish of her mother.
Illicit love affairs in Chaman Nahal's The Gandhi Quartet serve the dual
purpose of preventing the characters from being idealised by making them unable
to resist the temptation of carnal desires and bringing out the various kinds of manwoman relationship outside the wed lock. Illicit love affairs, therefore, do not
simply spice up the story of Indian freedom movement in the epic Quartet but play
an important role in the fictionalisation of the various political events pertaining to
Indian freedom struggle.
REFERENCES
Sharma, Ambuj. 2004. Gandhian Strain in the Indian English Novel. New Delhi :
Sarup& Sons.
Nahal, Chaman. 1993. The Crown and the Loincloth. Vol.I.The Gandhi Quartet,
New Delhi: Allied Publishers Ltd.
1993. The Salt of Life. Vol. II.The Gandhi Quartet. New Delhi: Allied Publishers
Ltd.
1993. The Triumph of the Tricolour, Vol. III. The Gandhi Quartet. New Delhi:
Allied Publishers Ltd.
1993. Azadi. Vol. IV. The Gandhi Quartet. New Delhi: Allied Publishers Ltd.
Jha, Mohan. 1987. “ChamanNahal'sAzadi: A Search for Identity” Studies in
Indian Fiction in English, ed. G.S. Balarama Gupta, Gulbarga: JIWE.
*Ph.D. Research Scholar, Department of English, Manipur University,
Canchipur, Manipur.
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