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Chapter 5
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
At the sweet shop, the cousin makes conversation about a fight at the market because he’s noticed Jagan doesn’t want to discuss Mali. Jagan complains that the other merchants raising prices have no “sense of service” and notes that one man can only eat or wear so much, no matter how rich he is. The cousin jovially tells Jagan that he doesn’t know how to live—yet he still gets rich! Jagan decides to repay the cousin for his flattery with information about Mali: he mentions that Mali has talked to him about his plans.
Jagan’s limited parceling-out of information about Mali to the cousin shows that he is a poor communicator not only when afraid but also when upset. Meanwhile, Jagan’s claim that the other merchants have “no sense of service” indicates that he thinks businesspeople have a responsibility to their customers over and above their bottom line—a somewhat controversial belief in business contexts. Finally, Jagan’s argument that people only need so much is a common-sense argument against capitalism’s preference for indefinite accumulation and economic growth.
Themes
After a digression in which Jagan and the cousin discuss how Mali seems to have borrowed a friend’s scooter, the cousin asks whether Jagan likes Mali’s “scheme.” Jagan, startled by the word scheme, asks one of his employees to get rid of the children staring at the sweets in the shop window, who make him feel obscurely guilty. Meanwhile, the cousin—who has felt cold-shouldered by Jagan not talking about Mali with him—is pleased to be able to give him news. He explains that he encountered Mali at a friend’s house, and Mali told him he plans to “manufacture story-writing machines.”
The word “scheme” carries negative connotations, which may be why it shocks Jagan. Jagan’s guilt over the children staring in the shop window, meanwhile, indicates that he is not living up to his own ideal of businesspeople as public servants—to make money, he has priced poorer potential customers out of buying his sweets. And finally, Jagan learns of Mali’s plans to “manufacture story-writing machines”—a bizarre, science-fictional object—from the cousin rather than Mali himself. That was because when Mali told him about the machines, Jagan was distracted by Mali’s socks, an odd detail suggesting that the machines may come to symbolize the various failures of communication between Jagan and Mali.
Themes
The cousin, noting Jagan’s confusion with pleasure, asks whether he’s never heard of the story-writing machines in America. Jagan admits he hasn’t and asks how the machine writes stories. The cousin says that, not being an engineer, he has no idea—but Mali said it was “‘electronic’ or ‘electric’ or something like that.” He suggests that Jagan ask Mali about it.
The “story-writing machines” are American, so—if they do come to symbolize Jagan and Mali’s failure of communication—they may represent how those failures spring from Mali’s generation’s Westernization in contrast with Jagan’s Indian patriotism. The cousin’s inability to explain how the science-fictional machines work, meanwhile, emphasizes that readers are supposed to take the machines symbolically, as a novelistic device, rather than as any kind of real-world object.
Themes
The next morning, when Grace comes to clean Jagan’s side of the house, Jagan asks her whether Mali is free to talk. Grace goes to ask, comes back, and tells Jagan Mali will talk to him in 15 minutes. Annoyed to be kept waiting, Jagan recalls when Mali used to beg him for money—but at the appointed time, he goes to Mali’s room and asks how the story-writing machine works. Mali says that he already explained it. When Jagan admits that he didn’t fully comprehend, Mali gives him a condescending look, pulls an “object that looked like a radio cabinet” out of a package, and tells him that the object can write stories using knobs, “a transistor,” and “ordinary valves.”
Mali’s vague invocations of knobs, “a transistor,” and “valves”—none of which explain how the machine works, only what parts it has—hint that Mali may not know how the machine works either but is hiding this fact from his father. Thus, the machine represents another failure of communication between Mali and Jagan: this time, Mali is deceiving Jagan about his own knowledge because he wants to appear worldly, modern, and technologically savvy in contrast with his father, whom he implicitly views as old-fashioned.
Themes
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Jagan asks Mali whether he actually wants to write using the story-writing machine. Mali says he will not only write with it but manufacture and sell it in India to redress India’s “backward” publishing industry: whereas America has 10,000 new books every year, India has only “old stories” like Ramayana and Mahabharata. Jagan cautiously approaches the peculiar device, reading labels on various parts of the machine for manipulating characters, emotions, climaxes, and so forth, and asks how you can compose a story with it. Mali replies that it’s just like using a typewriter.
When Jagan asks whether Mali really wants to write using the machine, the question implies that there is something disappointing and unoriginal about using a mass-produced machine to standardize one’s artistic choices. Mali’s enthusiastic affirmation, in which he praises the U.S. publishing industry for producing a large number of new books while criticizing time-tested classics of Indian literature as “old stories,” suggests that he values novelty, quantity, and commerce over artistic quality—values he may hold as a representative of a generation more interested in U.S.-oriented global capitalism than Jagan’s.
Themes
Grace enters the room and says to Jagan how intelligent Mali is. Jagan, wondering what exactly Mali’s scheme is, tells Grace that the Indian epics were composed orally and not written down for generations. Dismissively, Mali interrupts to say that in the modern era, India must compete with “advanced culture” in art as well as commerce. He tells Jagan that he may have to give up his business and come work for Mali in an office. When Jagan asks whether people actually compose stories on story-writing machines in America, Mali and Grace assure him that many do.
Jagan tries to explain to Grace a different, older, authentically Indian form of artistic production—only for Mali to interrupt him and implicitly claim that India is not yet an “advanced culture.” Mali’s interruption exemplifies the failures in communication between Mali and Jagan, while Mali’s valorization of modern, mechanized cultural production shows his pro-Western, capitalist values. As such, this exchange further emphasizes that the story-writing machines symbolize a breakdown in communication between father and son due to their different generations and values.
Themes
Mali tells Jagan that if they raise $51,000, their American backers will give them help worth $200,000 to start the business, including aid in setting up the factory and running it for the first half year. Jagan asks what Grace studied in college; she reminds him that she studied domestic economy. When Mali asks why Jagan’s interested in that, Jagan says he was curious whether Grace had studied business too. Then he leaves.
“Domestic economy” is another phrase for “home economics.” Jagan’s question is sarcastic: he is pointing out that neither Grace nor Jagan—who studied creative writing, after all—has an academic background in business. Yet rather than making this point directly, he subtly insults Mali and Grace before walking out—yet another failure of direct communication.
Themes
When the cousin enters the sweet shop that afternoon, Jagan asks him what $50,000 is in rupees. The cousin says “two lakhs”—a conversion he checked after talking to Mali. Jagan asks where Mali expects to get the money, and the cousin replies that Mali expects it from Jagan, whom he believes to be rich. Heatedly, Jagan exclaims that he only maintains his shop to support his employees and that “money is an evil.” The cousin asks whether he’s going to throw away the jug where he collects his money—and they laugh. Then Jagan asks the cousin to tell Mali that Jagan doesn’t have the money. When the cousin suggests that Jagan tell Mali directly, Jagan says he doesn’t want to upset Mali.
A lakh is equal to 100,000 rupees. Mali has requested a huge amount of money from Jagan—huge especially given that the novel takes place in the early to mid-1960s—on the assumption that Jagan has it, without directly asking whether he does. And yet again, Jagan asks the cousin to communicate to Mali that Jagan doesn’t have the money rather than doing so himself. These incidents exemplify the circuitous and ineffective way that Jagan and Mali speak with each other. Meanwhile, Jagan claims that “money is an evil” while running a fairly lucrative business—and laughs when the cousin suggests throwing out his money jug. This scene suggests that while Jagan may recognize that earning lots of money isn’t necessary to a good life, he isn’t yet living in accord with that abstract knowledge.
Themes
At home, Jagan feels that Mali and Grace are now putting themselves in his path and looking at him significantly. One day after breakfast, Mali comes into the puja room while Jagan is praying and tells him that people use electronic machines for all kinds of tasks now. Eventually, Grace summons Mali away so that Jagan can keep praying, and Jagan thinks: “Prayer was a sound way of isolating oneself—but sooner or later it ended: one could not go on praying eternally, though one ought to.” He begins avoiding Mali and especially Grace at home—he’s simultaneously glad that Grace cares about Mali’s future and suspicious that she has organized Mali’s campaign to get his money.
Puja is a devotional prayer practice in Hinduism; a puja room is thus a mandated religious space. Jagan is using the puja room and his prayers in part to “isolat[e] himself” and so avoid Mali and Grace. This questionable use of religious practice shows that while Jagan is genuinely devout, he also deploys his religion instrumentally to avoid his worldly and familial problems. Meanwhile, his avoidant behavior underscores yet again his difficulties with direct communication.
Themes
One day, while Jagan is walking to work, the homeless man by the statue asks him for money. Jagan gives the man a small coin, and the man asks why Jagan doesn’t talk to him about America anymore and asks how Mali is doing. Jagan tersely says that Mali is going to found a factory for machines of some kind and makes his escape. Then he ducks into Truth Printing and asks Nataraj about his book. Nataraj says he’ll do it as soon as he’s less busy—Mali has hired him to print a “prospectus” for his business to be delivered in three days. Nataraj shows Jagan the prospectus, which lists Jagan as “one of the principal promotors of Mali Enterprises.” When Nataraj asks whether Jagan isn’t happy, Jagan claims he is and flees.
Nataraj seems to be delaying printing Jagan’s book indefinitely, whereas he prints a business prospectus for “Mali Enterprises” at great speed. The sharply diverging ways in which Nataraj treats Mali’s and Jagan’s projects suggests that people are far more respectful of commercial enterprises like Mali’s than they are of projects devoted to health and spirituality like Jagan’s. Meanwhile, Jagan flees from conversations with the homeless man and with Nataraj when they ask him upsetting questions, showing yet again his tendency to avoid any kind of difficult conversation.
Themes
Jagan reaches the sweet shop and opens the Bhagavad Gita, but all he can think about is Mali’s prospectus. He’s angry that Mali didn’t tell him about putting his name on the prospectus, yet he wonders whether he should take it as a sign of Mali’s trust in him. Soon Jagan is seeing the prospectus all over town; it claims that India is backward and that the story-writing machines will bring progress to the country. Mali stops riding a borrowed scooter and starts driving a green car. One morning, while Jagan is praying, Grace comes and tells him that the company bought the car used for business travel. Jagan asks a few polite questions and then meditates until Grace goes away.
Jagan cannot concentrate on reading the Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu scripture, because he’s upset about Mali, showing how worldly concerns distract even devoutly religious people from their spiritual concerns. Mali’s rather contemptuous references to India’s “backwardness” indicate that the story-writing machines represent his generation’s pro-Western, pro-capitalist leanings in contrast with the Indian patriotism Jagan’s generation grew up with. As Mali does not yet have a business, his buying a car for “business travel” seems to represent his commercialism and desire for material status symbols in contrast with Jagan’s simple lifestyle.
Themes
Jagan decides that he will use “non-violent non-cooperation” of the sort he learned from Gandhi to deal with Mali and Grace. One morning, Grace asks him whether he’s come to a decision about investing in the company. Rather than answer, he comments on the jasmine flower in her hair. She tells him since it’s Friday and she’s a “Hindu wife,” she has cleaned and put flour on the threshold. Jagan wants to retort that no real Hindu wife would wear a bob like Grace’s; instead, he asks how she knew Fridays are “auspicious.” She says her friends tell her these things.
Jagan decides to use “non-violent non-cooperation” against Mali and Grace as if they were British colonizers, which implies that he subconsciously sees his Americanized son and Mali’s American romantic partner as representatives of another destructive, hegemonic Western power. Grace, meanwhile, is clearly trying to assimilate into Mali’s family. Rather than directly expressing his displeasure with her, Jagan asks how she knows that Fridays are “auspicious”—that is, holy and lucky—in Hinduism. When he swallows his real, negative feelings, it shows yet again how averse he is to direct confrontation.
Themes
Mali calls to Jagan before Jagan can escape. When Jagan enters Mali’s room, Mali asks whether Jagan has come to a decision. Jagan says that Mali put his name on the prospectus without notifying him, and Mali retorts that Jagan agreed to have his name on the prospectus when Mali first explained the business to him. Jagan—knowing that he may well have done so in his zoned-out state—counters that he thought Mali might ask again before printing the prospectus. Mali groans that nothing gets done in India because people dither and redo things like that. Jagan, recalling India’s cultural heritage and his own struggles for independence, tells Mali not to blame India for everything.
Jagan usually avoids expressing direct disagreement with Mali. Yet when Mali criticizes India yet again for—in his view—failing to adhere to Western business norms, the patriotism that the Indian independence movement fostered in Jagan leads Jagan to speak out in India’s defense. This fact shows that Jagan is not entirely awed by his son, and that their differing views on Indian culture versus Western culture are a major part of their ongoing personal conflict.
Themes
Mali tells Jagan that they need the money soon or their business associates will back out. Jagan claims he has no money but offers Mali the sweet-shop business. Mali contemptuously refuses, saying he has higher aspirations than selling sweets. Jagan stands up to go; seeing Grace’s unusually expressionless face, he wonders whether she is truly “a good girl or a bad one.” On his way to the shop, the homeless man stops him. Jagan complains that he has no money, and the man chides him not to talk about himself like that. Jagan thinks that the homeless man is kinder to him than Mali is.
Jagan is already subconsciously conflicted about his sweet-shop business because it’s too lucrative and worldly; by contrast, Mali believes the sweet shop isn’t lucrative enough. This contrast shows how Mali—and the generation he represents—is much more gung-ho about capitalism and wealth accumulation than the previous generation. Meanwhile, Jagan’s curiosity about whether Grace is a “good girl or a bad one” seems to stem from his uncertainty about whether she truly wants to assimilate into his and Mali’s family or not, and whether she is truly as well-disposed toward Jagan himself as she has seemed.
Themes
When the cousin enters the sweet shop that afternoon, he sees Jagan looking miserable and so praises the quality of that day’s sweets. Jagan, smiling, says he only uses “pure,” quality ingredients. The cousin asks why Jagan started this particular business anyway, and Jagan explains that he was given a cooking job while in jail and decided to keep at it after his release, in particular to offer “pure sweets” to “poor children.” Abruptly, he announces that he’s going to lower his prices. The cousin asks about his profits, but Jagan retorts that he has “enough.”
If Jagan did in fact start his business to offer “pure sweets” to “poor children,” he has not lived up to his ideal: at various moments in the novel, readers have seen Jagan react guiltily to children outside the shop window who are too poor to buy the sweets inside. Jagan’s decision to live up to his past ideal and lower prices comes right after Mali has derided the sweet shop as economically small potatoes. It seems that Jagan is reacting against Mali’s commercial-mindedness by becoming less concerned with wealth and commercial success.
Themes
The cousin asks whether Jagan plans to give up his business, and Jagan says that Mali isn’t interested in taking over for him. The cousin tells Jagan that there’s no better way to make money than the sweet-shop—but Mali has his own “ideas.” Jagan says that money is “evil” and that it’s enough for a business to be “self-supported” without it making additional profits. Then he orders one of his employees to give free sweets packets to the children staring in the shop window. The cousin, alarmed, warns Jagan not to make any rash decisions and offers to speak with Mali and Grace. Jagan says that the cousin can speak with them about whatever he likes—but Jagan isn’t asking him to.
The cousin makes vague reference to Jagan’s “ideas,” indicating Jagan’s long-held interest in self-restraint and health in contrast with his lucrative sweet-shop business. When Jagan declares money is “evil” and that businesses should make only enough in profits to be “self-supported,” he is rejecting the logic of indefinite wealth accumulation characteristic of Western capitalism that Mali seems to have accepted. Yet rather than telling Mali or Grace what he is doing and why, Jagan refuses to speak with them—showing yet again how consistently he fails at directly communicating with the people close to him.
Themes
