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Chapter 4
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
After Mali leaves, Jagan brags to everyone that his son is heading to America. One day, he receives a brief letter from Mali stating that Mali has arrived in New York, and Jagan is so excited that he rushes into Truth Printing to tell Nataraj. When he tells Nataraj that Mali has reached America, Nataraj asks whether he received a telegram. Jagan claims that Mali is too shrewd to waste 10 rupees on a telegram when he can send a letter for 10 cents—and then asks Nataraj how much a cent is worth in rupees. After puzzling over conversion rates for a moment, Nataraj just tells Jagan that he’ll give him proofs for his book soon. Jagan assures Nataraj that he knows.
Telegrams arrive considerably more quickly than letters. Jagan attributes Mali’s choice of letter over telegram to his financial sense, but the novel seems to be implying that Mali just doesn’t care about corresponding promptly with his father—another detail that shows how Mali contributes to the failures of communication between him and his father.
Themes
Jagan leaves Truth Printing and heads for work. On the way, he stops a couple acquaintances to tell them about Mali’s letter; both annoy him by offering their own ideas rather than accepting “enlightenment on the subject of America” from Mali’s first-hand account. When the cousin visits Jagan’s shop at 4:30 as usual, Jagan informs him of Mali’s safe arrival; the cousin says that he should make an offering to Ganesha in thanks, and Jagan says he certainly will. The cousin asks what news Mali included in the letter, and Jagan replies that in America there are cars everywhere and everyone is wealthy.
Ganesha, also known as Ganesh, is the Hindu god of (among other things) beginnings; when the cousin and Jagan agree that Jagan should make offerings to Ganesha, it suggests both their devotion and their desire that Mali make a good start in America. Meanwhile, Jagan’s belief that he can offer “enlightenment on the subject of America” to others after one letter from Mali shows that his beliefs and opinions about America are based more on his own relationships, commitments, and prejudices than on evidence.
Themes
Uncharacteristically, Mali communicates a great deal via letter—though he generalizes about American culture rather than sharing anything personal. Jagan reads and re-reads these letters, which supplant his daily Bhagavad Gita, and forces information about America on everyone around him. He even gives his acquaintances a blow-by-blow of the Kennedy assassination.
U.S. President John F. Kennedy (1917 – 1963) was assassinated on November 22, 1963, indicating that this portion of the novel takes place in the early 1960s. That Jagan reads Mali’s letters instead of the Bhagavad Gita as usual shows how his worldly and familial concerns now interfere with his religious practice.
Themes
After three years, however, Jagan receives a letter whose contents he does not share with anyone: in it, Mali says that he has started eating beef and suggests that Indians should start killing and eating their cows rather than taking any American food aid. Jagan, horrified, tries to figure out how to express his outrage. Jagan is still trying to figure out how to express his horror when he receives a cable from Mali saying that he is coming home with someone else.
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.
Themes
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Jagan, perplexed, goes to meet Mali’s train with the cousin. When Mali appears, he seems taller than before and surrounded by fancy possessions. He introduces the woman with him, Grace, as his wife. Jagan is shocked: Mali never said that he was married. Moreover, Grace looks Chinese, and China has just violated Indian borders. Jagan wonders whether Grace might be Japanese instead but is too afraid of offending this new, fancy-looking Mali to ask.
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.
Themes
On the taxi ride home, the driver talks about the availability or lack thereof of various cars in India, while Mali periodically declares that “nothing has changed.” Meanwhile, Grace stares out the window happily. When she exclaims at the town’s loveliness, Mali says, “Honey, live in it and see what it is like.” Jagan wonders whether her name is Grace or Honey.
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.
Themes
When they reach the house, Jagan becomes anxious, as he spent a lot of money in the past two weeks renovating the house with an indoor bathroom by Mali’s bedroom. Mali goes to wash up while the cousin and the driver handle Mali’s luggage, leaving Grace alone with Jagan. He offers to get her anything she likes, not knowing what exactly she needs. She praises his kindness. Yet after another awkward exchange, Jagan excuses himself by saying he has to go mind his shop and flees.
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.
Themes
As the days pass, Jagan starts dodging his acquaintances because he doesn’t want to explain who Grace is. The cousin, curious whether Mali and Grace eat meat in Jagan’s house, asks indirect questions about how the household cooks; Jagan says that he provides what he usually does and that even the Bhagavad Gita says that “one can only do one’s duty up to a point.” The cousin takes Jagan’s renewed interest in the Bhagavad Gita as a sign of his resurgent psychological distress.
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.
Themes
Every so often, one of Mali’s old friends will visit and talk quietly with Mali; Jagan, who can’t hear what they’re saying, wants to join the conversation but worries it would be “presumptuous.” Instead he wanders close by, hoping to be included, while Mali shows off various American items from his packages. (One of the packages included a picnic basket that Grace presented to Jagan as a gift, but as Jagan had no idea what to do with it, he just put it away.) Mali is always sulking in his room wearing European clothes; when he goes out with Grace, he acts “like a celebrity avoiding the attention of the rabble.”
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.
Themes
One day, Grace enters Jagan’s side of the house and starts cleaning. When he tries to stop her, she proclaims, “I must not forget that I’m an Indian daughter-in-law.” Jagan tries again to stop her, but she points out that she has nothing else to do. As she cleans, she praises the beauty of the house. Another day, she asks to cook for Jagan. He explains that he only eats what he cooks for himself. When she responds to this idea enthusiastically, he finds himself telling her about his salt- and sugar-free diet and the health book he is writing. She tells him it will be a “best seller.”
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.
Themes
Soon Jagan, uncomfortable, asks Grace whether Mali earned his degree in America. Grace, surprised, asks whether Jagan doesn’t know. Jagan says that he and Mali haven’t had time to discuss it yet. Grace says Mali should have mentioned it and declares that she’ll ask Mali to talk to Jagan about it. When Jagan says that Mali only informed him about America in his letters, not about personal things, Grace laughs and asks to see the letters. Jagan, hesitantly, brings the letters to her. She points to the signature, “GM,” and explains that it stands for Grace and Mali—Grace is actually the one who wrote the letters.
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.
Themes
Jagan, uncomfortable, says he couldn’t have known—he didn’t know about Grace. When Grace asks whether Mali never wrote his own letters to Jagan, Jagan lies and says that Mali only wrote that he was going to marry, not whom. All Jagan knows is that Grace is “a good girl.” When Grace asks whether he needs to know more, Jagan says that in India it’s normal to inquire about people’s backgrounds.
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.
Themes
Grace claims that in other countries, only bureaucrats care about people’s backgrounds, but since she’s “Indian now,” she explains that she’s the daughter of a Korean woman and an American G.I. who served in Asia after World War II. Her father took her mother to New Jersey on leave and abandoned her there. Eventually, Grace went to Michigan to study domestic science, where “Mo” (Mali) was taking creative writing. They met at a football game. Abruptly, Grace asks whether Jagan is pleased. When Jagan nods, she admits that she was scared to come to India because she’d heard about the caste system and thought people might reject her. Jagan, trying to be kind, tells her vaguely that Gandhi was against the caste system and that it’s in decline.
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.
Themes
One day, Mali rushes up to Jagan and asks him to get a telephone for the house. When Jagan says he’s never considered getting a telephone, Mali replies that he was unable to give his “associates” a home phone number, which humiliated him. Jagan asks what associates Jagan is talking about, and Mali calls Grace to join them for a “business” conversation. Mali leads Jagan to the hall, where Grace has placed some margosa shoots in a vase. Jagan, suddenly emotional, informs Grace that margosa “is the ambrosia mentioned in our Vedas.” Grace, excited, repositions the flowers reverently.
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.
Themes
Jagan, examining Mali up close, sees that Mali looks unwell. He suddenly notices that Mali is wearing socks with his sandals and thinks in horror that socks interfere with heat dispersal and with “beneficial magnetic charges” from the ground, thus causing more heart attacks in European countries, as he explains in his book. While he is thinking furiously about socks, Mali is talking at length. Jagan only zones back in to Mali’s monologue at the end, when Mali says, “You get it?” Jagan, unable to answer, makes ambiguous noises. Mali tells Jagan to think about it and leaves the house to check on more baggage arriving at the train station. Afterward, Grace asks Jagan whether he has any more questions. Jagan suggests they can always talk about it again.
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.
Themes
