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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Vendor of Sweets, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Communication vs. Fear
Generational Difference
Commerce, Taste, and the Good Life
Religion
India vs. the U.K. and the U.S.
Summary
Analysis
Jagan says, “Conquer taste, and you will have conquered the self,” to a man whom he considers his cousin, though it’s not clear how they’re related. When the cousin asks why you’d conquer yourself, Jagan says that “our sages” suggest it’s a good idea, though he doesn’t know why himself. The two men are sitting under a portrait of the goddess Lakshmi across from a kitchen where they can smell sweetmeats frying; each afternoon, the cousin stops into Jagan’s shop, tastes the food, and gives Jagan advice about ingredients and prices.
Jagan owns a sweet shop, yet he believes that it may be a good idea to “conquer taste” as well as “the self” because “our sages”—that is, holy or religious wise people—have suggested it. The ironic contrast between Jagan’s sweets business and his somewhat idealistic belief in self-denial hint that struggles around commercial consumption will be important going forward. Lakshmi is a Hindu goddess associated with wealth, beauty, and fertility; her portrait in the shop indicates that Jagan is Hindu and possibly—given Lakshmi’s association with wealth—that he is trying to square his worldly business pursuits with his religious beliefs.
Themes
Jagan tells the cousin that he decided to stop eating salt because people should only eat “natural salt.” The cousin asks whether “natural salt” is what dries on you after you sweat. Jagan dislikes this crude suggestion. He’s an ethereal person: a slim, balding man who rarely shaves because he thinks that staring too often in the mirror is “an intolerable European habit.” He spins yarn for an hour each day, makes his own clothes, and sells the remaining yarn—a habit he has kept up for more than 20 years, ever since Gandhi visited his town and praised his spinning.
It isn’t entirely clear what Jagan means by “natural salt”—perhaps he is talking about a no-salt-added diet—but given that he sells fried sweets, his enthusiasm for a healthy diet ironically underscores the inconsistencies between his business and his personal beliefs. Jagan’s opinion that looking in the mirror is an “intolerable European habit” indicates his disdain for Western cultural mores. His decades-long hero-worship of Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948), the famous leader of India’s nonviolent independence movement, suggests his patriotism and perhaps his personal involvement in the movement.
Themes
Jagan used to make his own sandals from the skin of already-dead animals because, as an adherent of Gandhi’s, he doesn’t want to kill animals. As a child, Jagan’s son (Mali) enjoyed his father’s leather tanning activities, but he started whining about the smell when he got older. Jagan’s wife (Ambika) always disliked the smell and would hide in a room for days until Jagan finished a bit of tanning. On her deathbed, she mumbled something that Jagan interpreted as “throw away the leather,” so he gave away the last leather he had tanned and began commissioning his cruelty-free sandals from the Albert Mission.
Jagan’s son Mali began complaining about his father’s idiosyncratic sandal-making habits as he got older, which hints that tension between parents and children—and perhaps between generations—may be important to the novel’s plot going forward. Meanwhile, Jagan may have misinterpreted his wife’s final words as “throw away the leather”—it’s not clear what she actually said—which may foreshadow that miscommunication will also be important.
Themes
The cousin sees Jagan blush at the cousin’s crude speculations about “natural salt.” Amused, the cousin says soothingly how independent and austere Jagan’s life is. Jagan, pleased, informs the cousin that he has given up sugar and rice too. The cousin—gesturing at Jagan’s sweet shop—asks why Jagan keeps “working and earning,” but then he quiets down because it’s 6 p.m., when Jagan counts his money in privacy.
The cousin’s question about why Jagan keeps “working and earning” hammers home the inconsistencies between Jagan’s austere, inexpensive life and his apparently successful sweet-shop business. Jagan’s personal values seem not to align with what he sells to others.
Themes
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Though during the day the shop fills with the sound of frying while Jagan reads the Bhagavad Gita, it is silent when he counts the money, which a boy he employs brings in two containers at 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. Jagan talks over the day’s sales with his cooks and dismisses them; then he puts away the Bhagavad Gita and counts his money. He keeps two accounts—one for the tax man that contains all the money that comes in the 6 p.m. bundle, and one secret account that includes the money that comes in the 7 p.m. bundle. Then he locks up his money.
The Bhagavad Gita is an important scripture in Hinduism. That the shop is full of distracting noise while Jagan reads scripture but silent while he counts money implies that Jagan’s business isn’t conducive to religious contemplation, only to profit. Meanwhile, Jagan’s tax evasion indicates that he sometimes fails to put Hindu ethics—which look negatively on greed and stealing—into practice.
Themes
