The Vendor of Sweets: Chapter 5 Summary & Analysis

Cows are sacred in Hinduism, and due to Hinduism’s emphasis on nonviolence toward all living creatures, religious vegetarianism is common in India. Mali’s decision to start eating beef shows his Western-influenced secularism in contrast with Jagan’s patriotic and religious vegetarianism.

China invaded India in October 1962, starting the Sino-Indian War; the reference to China violating India’s borders, like the earlier reference to the Kennedy assassination, places the narrative’s events in the early to mid-1960s (likely late 1963 or early 1964). Jagan’s shock at Mali’s marriage to an ethnically East Asian woman shows his conservatism in contrast with Mali’s more modern cultural mores.

Mali’s disdainful claim that “nothing has changed” in his hometown after years of absence suggests that he thinks the town—as well as India as a whole, perhaps—is insufficiently committed to modern values of continuous progress. Grace’s exclamations over the scenery’s beauty suggest a somewhat condescending, tourist-like attitude toward India. When Mali uses the American endearment “honey” to refer to Grace, it confuses Jagan about Grace’s actual name—suggesting that Mali’s adoption of American cultural norms will lead to further communication problems between him and Jagan.

Neither Jagan’s father nor Jagan himself ever bothered to renovate the house before, feeling that “usage” had made it sacred—yet Jagan has renovated the house in preparation for Mali’s arrival. This step shows Jagan’s desire to please Mali despite not agreeing with Mali’s Americanized, secular outlook on life.

Jagan’s confusion and shame over his American daughter-in-law indicate that while people of Mali’s generation might accept interreligious marriages, people of Jagan’s and the cousin’s generation will be curious and disapproving about whether Grace eats meat (Hinduism advocates vegetarianism). Jagan’s claim that “one can only do one’s duty up to a point” may foreshadow that there are actions he will refuse to take on Mali’s behalf, despite his eager desire to please his son. Meanwhile, the cousin’s supposition that Jagan’s renewed piety is a sign of psychological distress shows that the cousin views religion as a kind of mental crutch, in contrast with Jagan’s genuine devoutness.

It might be reasonable enough for Jagan to join a conversation in his own home, yet he fears that Mali will find him “presumptuous” for trying to talk to his son and his son’s friends—another instance of Jagan’s fears preventing him from communicating. Meanwhile, Mali wears European clothes and acts like a ”celebrity” when he leaves the house, actions that imply his Westernization and his sense that his time in America makes him an important, noteworthy person.

Whereas Mali wears European clothes and presents himself as an Americanized sophisticate, Grace seems eager to identify as an “Indian daughter-in-law”—which may foreshadow conflict between the two. While Jagan often avoids communicating with Mali out of fear, Grace brings him out of his shell by praising his ideas and predicting that his book will be a “best seller.” The conversation shows that Jagan is just timid rather than naturally uncommunicative.

Readers may have been surprised when the sullen, rather uncommunicative Mali wrote so many letters to his father. Now the mystery is resolved: Grace, not Mali, was the one composing the letters. Grace’s surprise that Mali hasn’t told Jagan about his degree and her earlier insistence on writing letters to Jagan suggests that she values communication and family—which may foreshadow conflict between her and Mali.

When Jagan lies about Mali writing him letters separate from Grace’s, it indicates that he knows that his and Mali’s communication is unusually sparse and is ashamed of this fact. When Grace questions whether Jagan needs to know anything about her background, meanwhile, it may indicate that Grace is hiding something—or may simply indicate generational and national differences between the two characters in how important they consider a person’s background to be.

Grace’s surprising claim that she is “Indian now” again suggests that while Mali wants to identify with the U.S. and the West, Grace wants to identify with Mali’s family and home country—another possible future source of conflict between them. Though the novel does not state this explicitly, Grace’s desire to assimilate into Mali’s family may be due to her American father’s abandonment, which might have left her feeling disconnected from the U.S. and without as much family as she would have liked. The Indian caste system is a birth-based social hierarchy dividing people into groups called castes; Grace may have worried that she would face social exclusion in India because she has no caste. Jagan’s reference to his hero Gandhi here suggests that he is trying to rationalize Grace’s acceptance into his family based on authentically Indian, patriotic principles.

Though Mali went to the U.S. to study creative writing, his references to “associates” and “business” imply that he has returned with commercial rather than artistic aspirations. The Vedas (composed c. 1500 BCE – 900 BCE) are the oldest extant Hindu scriptures; Jagan’s reference to these scriptures emphasizes his devout Hinduism, while Grace’s excited reaction shows her naïve enthusiasm for Indian culture and her desire to assimilate into Mali’s family.

On one of the few occasions where Mali attempts to communicate with Jagan at length, Jagan becomes violently distracted by Mali’s socks, which Jagan thinks of as a fundamentally unhealthy European garment. This comic scene shows that Jagan’s patriotism and anti-Western sentiments as well as his interpersonal timidity inhibit his ability to communicate with and understand his pro-Western son.