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Chapter 2
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
One morning at breakfast, Mali tells Jagan that he is quitting college. When Jagan asks whether Mali is being bullied, Mali says school isn’t “interesting.” When Jagan suggests that he could go to the college and talk to someone, Mali glares. Jagan suggests that they talk about it later—though he feels he should tell Mali to go to school—because he’s afraid of putting Mali off his food. Ever since Ambika was hospitalized for the first time with “brain fever,” Jagan has cooked a lot for Mali—though eventually Mali insisted that he would eat in the college canteen and would only accept breakfasts from Jagan. Now Jagan asks where Mali is going to eat if he isn’t in college. Mali retorts why it matters when Jagan is always saying people can go without food; then he leaves.
In this scene, Jagan repeatedly fails to communicate effectively with Mali. Ignoring Mali’s implicit claim that no bullying is occurring, he offers to go to Mali’s college to intervene in the (non-existent) bullying—thereby annoying his son. Then he swallows his urge to encourage his son to continue in school out of fear. Finally, he fails to get a straight answer from Mali about where Mali will eat. Thus, this scene hints that Jagan is a timid and ineffective communicator, at least when it comes to his son.
Themes
That evening, when the cousin visits Jagan in his shop, Jagan tries to call him over—but the cousin goes into the kitchen to taste the wares first. While waiting, Jagan sees schoolchildren gaping at the Sweet Mart window, but he refuses to pity them, thinking that he can’t give out sweets for free. He begins thinking about poverty in India. When the cousin comes out of the kitchen, Jagan announces that people don’t know how good they have it—“especially young men.” He tries to quote a report he read on the subject but forgets exactly what he wanted to say.
Jagan represses any guilt he may feel about hungry children who can’t afford his sweets by telling himself that his business simply doesn’t allow him to distribute free sweets—a repression indicating that commercial success represses virtues like pity and generosity. Yet the hungry schoolchildren lead him to think about poverty in India, suggesting that food insecurity in India troubles his patriotic sensibilities. Interestingly, he displaces his guilt about the hungry schoolchildren by claiming that the younger generation is more privileged than it knows. That he singles out “young men” as particularly clueless and ungrateful suggests his buried annoyance with Mali.
Themes
Jagan tells the cousin about Mali’s idea to quit college and explains that he’d hoped Mali would get a B.A. because he himself never did. He claims that he left college because Gandhi told him to engage in non-violent resistance, and so Jagan spent his college years in prison—omitting to mention that he had repeatedly failed the B.A. exam and dropped out of his college prior to protesting under Gandhi. Then he asks the cousin what excuse this generation has not to study. The cousin suggests Jagan talk to Mali about it; Jagan retorts that the cousin should talk to Mali and tell Jagan about it later that night, adding that Mali has called the cousin “uncle” since childhood.
Mahatma Gandhi led the nonviolent political movement to protest British colonial rule of India and demonstrate for self-rule from the 1920s through the 1940s, culminating in India’s 1947 independence. Though Jagan dropped out of college before joining the independence movement, he seems to feel that the cultural context of his youth—in which Indians were fighting for sovereignty and self-determination—justified dropping out of college in a way that Mali’s post-independence cultural context simply doesn’t. Meanwhile, Jagan dodges communicating directly with his son—presumably out of fear or other awkward feelings—and manipulates the cousin into acting as a go-between instead.
Themes
At 10 p.m. that night, the cousin comes by Jagan’s house, and they take a walk. The cousin explains to Jagan, who is spinning disaster scenarios in his mind, that Mali simply wants to become a writer. Jagan understands the term “writer” through the lens of British colonial rule, when “writer” meant a lowly clerk for the East India Company. He asks why Mali would want such awful work.
The East India Company (1600–1874) was a British joint-stock company that began colonizing parts of India well before the UK officially took over India as a colony in 1858. That Jagan understands the profession of “writer” with reference to the East India Company shows how the British colonial context of his youth continues to influence his thought patterns in the post-independence context.
Themes
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The cousin, not realizing that Jagan has misunderstood the word “writer,” continues: he waited for Mali outside the college, where Mali was saying goodbye to his school friends, and overheard Mali telling his teachers that Jagan might send him to America. Jagan shouts, “America indeed!” and bewails Mali’s strange notions. When the cousin points out that Mali could be a “Tagore or Shakespeare,” Jagan suddenly realizes what kind of writer Mali wants to be. Relieved, he asks the cousin what Mali wants to write. The cousin, unsure, suggests that Mali may want to write poetry or something.
When Jagan cries “America indeed!”, it implies that he as a negative view not only of India’s former colonizer the UK, but also of the U.S. as another globally hegemonic Western cultural influence. “Tagore” refers to Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941), an Indian novelist, playwright, and poet who won the Nobel Prize in 1913; William Shakespeare (c. 1564–1616) was a globally famous English playwright. That the cousin chooses both Indian and English examples of great writers for Mali to emulate shows the ongoing influence of the UK on Indian culture in the post-independence period.
Themes
The cousin explains that when Mali finished speaking to people outside the college, the cousin invited him for coffee. At a restaurant, Mali told the cousin that he loathed the college and everything about it; at one point, Mali even ripped up a schoolbook and asked a waiter to burn the pages in the kitchen. Jagan, horrified, asks the cousin how Mali could do that when books are “a form of the goddess Saraswathi.” When the cousin suggests that since Indian education is so poor, it makes sense to tear up books, Jagan says he hopes the cousin hasn’t been talking to Mali like that. But when the cousin says that Mali composed a verse about book-burning on the spot and ate a great deal at the restaurant, Jagan is pleased again and offers to reimburse the cousin for the food.
Saraswathi is the Hindu goddess of education and knowledge. Jagan interprets Mali’s attack on his schoolbook as a sacrilegious act, which shows both Jagan’s pious Hinduism and the near-divine importance he accords to education. Yet Jagan is still pleased when the cousin tells him that Mali ate well and improvised clever verses about his book-burning, which shows that Jagan loves Mali and wants to be proud of him despite their divergent religious and generational views.
Themes
Jagan and the cousin keep walking and talking until midnight. Suddenly, a frustrated Jagan wonders aloud why Mali can’t study and write at the same time. The cousin offers that Mali said studying interfered with his writing. Jagan asks whether Shakespeare had a B.A. When the cousin points out that Kalidasa didn’t, Jagan retorts that Kalidasa lived 3,000 years ago and was “a village idiot” before receiving divine inspiration from Saraswathi. The cousin suggests that perhaps Mali could become “another Kalidasa.”
Kalidasa (c. 4th–5th century CE) was a Sanskrit poet and playwright. Jagan is exaggerating somewhat when he says that Kalidasa lived 3,000 years ago, but his hyperbole—and his claim that Kalidasa was an “idiot” without support from the goddess Saraswathi—underscores his belief that comparing Mali, a modern young man, to Kalidasa is not appropriate and does not excuse Mali’s sacrilegious assault on books.
Themes
As soon as Jagan gets the chance, he peeks through Mali’s keyhole into his room. Much to Jagan’s disappointment, he sees Mali sitting around glumly, doing nothing—he was hoping for some Kalidasa-esque writerly activity. He knocks hard on Mali’s door. When Mali opens it, Jagan muscles past him into the room and asks whether he wants a nicer table for his writing. Mali asks how Jagan knows about the writing, and Jagan—who can see no evidence of writing in Mali’s room—says that “these things become known.”
Jagan first spies on Mali and then answers him vaguely and evasively—simply saying “these things become known”—when Mali asks how Jagan knows about his writing. Both incidents highlight Jagan’s failures to communicate openly and honestly with his son.
Themes
Humbly, Jagan asks what Mali is working on. Snootily, Mali replies that he is working on a novel. When Jagan asks how Mali learned to write novels, Mali asks whether Jagan is grilling him. Jagan tries to ask more questions about Mali’s project, but Mali claims not to know many of the answers, saying that writing isn’t “like frying sweets.” Jagan asks whether Mali’s friends are writers too, and Mali dismisses his friends disparagingly. Jagan, who thought Mali liked his friends, thinks wonderingly how little he understands his son, whom he has known for 20 years.
Though Jagan does repeatedly fail to communicate with Mali openly and honestly, their communication problems are not all Jagan’s fault. When Jagan does manage to ask Mali direct questions, Mali dodges them or offers unsatisfying answers. He also indirectly insults his father’s business by speaking contemptuously of “frying sweets” in contrast to the (by implication) more noble pursuit of novel-writing.
Themes
Mali explains that he saw a novel-writing competition with a 25,000-rupee prize in Ananda Vikatan. Competitors must send in their submissions with a filled-out coupon from the magazine before September 30th. Jagan points out that it’s May, and Mali retorts that he has five months. When Jagan asks whether Mali has started his novel and what it’s about, Mali complains that Jagan is grilling him and doesn’t believe in him.
Ananda Vikatan is a Tamil-language magazine that was founded in 1926 and is still published today. Mali’s explanation of his writerly ambitions—that he saw a big money prize—implies that his desire to write is as much commercial as it is artistic. Meanwhile, Mali’s complaints in response to basic questions from his father again emphasizes that Jagan is not solely at fault for their communication problems.
Themes
Jagan effusively claims to believe in Mali. Meanwhile, though, he wonders why an “invisible barrier” exists between him and Mali, even though Jagan has always been a kind, giving father, especially since Ambika died of a brain tumor 10 years before. He remembers Mali looking frightened and confused after the family doctor visited Ambika during the final hours of her illness, asking what the doctor had said to Jagan. Jagan abruptly broke down, “wail[ing].” Mali looked at him with confusion and “dismay”—and ever since, there has been distance between father and son.
Jagan seems to believe that the “invisible barrier” between him and Mali arose because Jagan broke down “wail[ing]” in front of Mali after Mali’s mother died—because Mali had an intense negative response to witnessing his father’s uncontrolled emotion. It isn’t clear whether Jagan is a reliable interpreter of Mali’s response: Mali may have felt “dismay” out of empathy for Jagan’s pain rather than disgust at Jagan’s emotional outburst, for example. Nevertheless, readers can infer that Jagan has limited his open, emotional communication with Mali due to Jagan’s perception that Mali was horrified by his father’s uncontrolled grief.
Themes
Jagan tells Mali again that he believes in him and that he only asked about the story because he was curious, due to his love of stories. Then he claims to be a writer himself, mentioning his book at Truth Printing. Mali asserts that he’s trying to write “something different.” Father and son continue talking deep into the night. During this conversation, Jagan learns that Mali cut the competition coupon from Ananda Vikatan in his college library rather than buying his own copy to get back at the college librarian, whom Mali believes is stuck up.
Unusually for Jagan, he tries here to share with Mali and identify directly with him. Yet Mali rebuffs Jagan’s attempt to share the identity of “writer” with his father, claiming that his own writing will be “something different” from whatever Jagan has done in the past. Mali’s claim of difference hints that he sees his father’s ideas as antiquated and out of touch.
Themes
At the sweet shop the next day, Jagan brags to his head cook that Mali is going to earn 25,000 rupees with a novel he’ll write by September. When the cousin arrives, Jagan tells him about Mali’s plans too and adds that he hopes Mali will “emulate [Jagan’s] philosophy of living” after he wins the prize. The cousin wonders aloud why Jagan keeps making money at business, given his philosophy of simplicity, and Jagan replies that it’s one’s duty to work—and besides, he’s supporting his employees. Then, out of nowhere, he announces that he will never use “essences for flavouring or colouring” but only natural ingredients in his shop.
When Jagan brags about Mali’s plans to his cook and to the cousin, it shows his desire to believe in Mali and be proud of him despite Mali’s hostile and sullen behavior. Yet again, the cousin asks Jagan why he keeps accumulating money despite his frugal “philosophy of living,” and Jagan gives rather unsatisfactory answers: even if it is one’s duty to work, it isn’t necessarily a duty to make a lot of money in business. Jagan’s sudden claim that he’ll never use “essences for flavouring or colouring” suggests that he’s trying unsatisfactorily to square his commitment to an austere, healthy, all-natural diet with his fried-sweet business.
Themes
