Ajodha Character Analysis in A House for Mr Biswas

Ajodha is Tara’s wealthy, scrupulous, and health-obsessed husband who always makes Mr Biswas uncomfortable. Ajodha owns a rumshop, garage, and bus service, among numerous other business ventures, and pays the young Mr Biswas to read him a health column called That Body of Yours. His status indicates Mr Biswas’s social class to the Tulsis; when Mr Biswas later visits him to borrow money for his house in Green Vale, Ajodha sends him away with a number of vitamin supplements instead. At the end of the book, Mr Biswas does borrow money from Ajodha for his new house on Sikkim Street, but ultimately dies deeply indebted to him.

Ajodha Quotes in A House for Mr Biswas

The A House for Mr Biswas quotes below are all either spoken by Ajodha or refer to Ajodha. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

As fatigue overcame him he began to long for the day to end, to relieve him of his freedom. He went back to the dark rooms tired, empty, miserable, yet still excited, still unwilling to sleep.

Related Characters: Mr Biswas, Ajodha, Bhandat

Page Number and Citation: 61

Explanation and Analysis:

There was no need to ask where Jagdat was going. He was going to his family. He too, then, lived a divided life.

Related Characters: Mr Biswas, Tara, Ajodha, Jagdat, Rabidat

Related Symbols: Houses

Page Number and Citation: 241

Explanation and Analysis:

Ajodha Character Timeline in A House for Mr Biswas

The timeline below shows where the character Ajodha appears in A House for Mr Biswas. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Education, Work, and Language Theme Icon

Ajodha, Tara’s thin and cold husband, made Mr Biswas uncomfortable. Ajodha liked when others read to... (full context)

...defend Dehuti, who eloped with the yard boy at Tara’s house. Upon visiting Tara’s house, Ajodha implored Mr Biswas to explain how he got himself kicked out of Pundit Jairam’s; at... (full context)

Colonialism, Oppression, and Escape Theme Icon

Alec had begun working in Ajodha’s garage, “doing mysterious greasy things.” Mr Biswas went to Ajodha’s rumshop, run by his brother... (full context)

...twenty volumes of The Book of Comprehensive Knowledge, mistakenly delivered by an American traveling salesman. Ajodha never read them, but he was happy to see Mr Biswas doing so, and so... (full context)

Ajodha encouraged him to convince Bhandat’s boys to read The Book of Comprehensive Knowledge, but they... (full context)

One weekend, after one of Ajodha’s relatives died, Bhandat’s family went with Ajodha and Tara to the funeral, leaving Mr Biswas... (full context)

Ramchand felt sorry for Ajodha (who was “just asking” to “fall really sick”), Pratap (whose donkeys kept dying), Prasad (who... (full context)

...to discover that one of Bhandat’s sons had taken over his old job reading to Ajodha. Bhandat had run off with his mistress after his wife died in childbirth; Tara took... (full context)

...like when he worked on signs through the night or hung out the doors of Ajodha’s buses as their conductor, shouting the “glorious Amerindian names” of faraway places. (full context)

...Mr Biswas’s family and asked who his father was—Mr Biswas simply responded that he was Ajodha’s nephew, and Seth said he remembered selling Ajodha some land. C, one of Shama’s sisters,... (full context)

...he liked “the child” and he affirmed that he did. Seth offered to speak to Ajodha and insisted that Shama was “a good child” with “a little bit of reading and... (full context)

...of emotional support and found Bhandat’s younger son (Rabidat) reading That Body of Yours to Ajodha, who exclaimed, “Married man!” and called Tara over. She wept and gave Mr Biswas twenty... (full context)

...the job, rather than “any dowry or big wedding,” because his was a “love match.” Ajodha yelled “Love match!” in excitement at Rabidat, Bhandat’s younger son, whose taunts Mr Biswas primarily... (full context)

...before and fantasize about finding the comfort and satisfaction that had let Pundit Jairam and Ajodha live so happily. But he never found it, instead feeling uneasy at realizing that he... (full context)

...want to borrow money from Seth, Mrs Tulsi, or Misir, so he decided to try Ajodha, but found that he did not want to go, thought about going to Hanuman House,... (full context)

Tara’s yard looked the same as ever, and although Ajodha was definitely busy milking the cows nearby, Mr Biswas wanted to speak with his aunt... (full context)

...for dinner and to talk about his children, and then the Tulsis, whom she and Ajodha always hated for being too devout and insufficiently modern. “In [Tara’s] clean, uncrowded, comfortable house,... (full context)

Ajodha walked onto the verandah, briefly exchanged words about a lorry with Rabidat, and then began... (full context)

Mr Biswas resumed talking about his steady job and future house, but Ajodha began talking about a supplement called Sanatogen. Rabidat asked Mr Biswas how he could afford... (full context)

Tara and Ajodha continued asking Mr Biswas about the house, but Bhandat’s older son, Jagdat, soon came to... (full context)

...on the shoulder and offered him a cigarette—nobody was allowed to smoke at Tara and Ajodha’s house—and explained that he and Ajodha both knew that Mr Biswas had come to “squeeze... (full context)

Jagdat explains that Ajodha might help with vitamins but never with money—he barely paid his gardener and even docked... (full context)

Mr Biswas started taking the kids to Tara and Ajodha’s beautiful new house, but they returned weekend after weekend to their dull and gloomy lives... (full context)

...one another had to say, they would smoke and drink together in order to break Ajodha’s rules (and the law that closed rumshops on Sunday morning). They would always get drunk,... (full context)

...alone to contemplate the house’s atmosphere of tension and conflict. One day, when Anand asked Ajodha to donate to his fund for Polish refugee children, Ajodha was insulted and replied, “who... (full context)

...their ride was nowhere near as satisfying as their first visit; they decided to visit Ajodha on the way, and both he and Jagdat were skeptical of the new car’s sturdiness... (full context)

...go back yet found the energy to go ahead.” He decided to visit Tara and Ajodha; his aunt was excited for him to finally leave the Tulsis, and his uncle loaned... (full context)