Abstract:
Literature represents contemporary society, its culture and ethos. More than any other genres of literature, the form of novel perhaps offers greater scope to depict the social milieu of any nation, age or time. The author venturing on a journey of fiction has been bestowed with a high degree of sensibility and tremendous sensitivity because of which he cannot keep himself detached from his surroundings. Esther Lombardi appropriately remarks: “Works of literature, at their best, provide a kind of blueprint of human society. From the writings of ancient civilizations such as Egypt and China to Greek philosophy and poetry, from the epics of Homer to the plays of William Shakespeare, from Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte to Maya Angelou, works of literature give insight and context to all the world's societies.” (Lombardi) Aravind Adiga is one the representative Indian English writers who has been bestowed with the sheer ability of microscopic observation to see the minutiae of people and telescopic vision to present the far reaching consequences of their day to day engagements. His novel Last Man in Tower (2011) has been set in the imaginary Vishrma Society of Mumbai which is inhabited by a variety of middle class Indian people. The novel faithfully projects before the readers, men and women of the Indian metropolitan society, their relations with one another, their preferred care for some and deliberate negligence of others, their usual activities, the formation of their personality through these repetitive activities and the seeds of their future sprouting and flourishing from those activities, their dreams and desires, their troubles and tribulations, their quest for happiness through material gains, their search for money under the sham of religion, protection or justice. The present research paper aims to throw light on the host of minor characters of the novel, their grooming, their mental makeup, their ambitions, their self-centred approach, their callousness, their corruption, the worst kind of degeneration that they lower themselves to realise the dreams of their life, and, of course, a rare reflection of loyalty, integrity and dedication to secure bread and butter for their family.
Key Words: metropolitan society, materialism, selfishness, corruption, struggle for existence
“Indian Writing in English is one of those voices in which India speaks of their own culture, heritage and modernization of values and systems. Rapid growth, increasing popularity, award winning creative contributions, all are going to justify the truth that the Indian English Literature provides an opportunity to make a deep dive in Indian consciousness and sensibility” (UKESSAYS)
Author of the man-booker prize winning novel The White Tiger (2008), Aravind Adiga has penned another novel of great significance which has a wider scope to deal with a host of people inhabiting the Indian metropolitan society. Adiga’s background in the profession of a journalist and his extensive travels to different parts of India as a correspondent of Time has sharpened his observation of the life and people around him. The rare combination of a journalistic way of looking at the happenings of life along with the extraordinary talent of a literary artist makes Adiga’s characters real flesh and blood human beings on the pages of his novels. Writing on the purpose of the novel, Mulk Raj Anand says,
The novel should interpret the truth of life from self-experience, and not from books. And one should adventure through new areas of life and always try to see, in the intricate web of circumstances of human existence, the inner core of reality, or at least attempt to probe the depth of human consciousness.” (Sharma 5)
The booming construction industry in Mumbai, known as ‘the industrial hub of India’, has inspired Adiga’s imagination to create a poignantly real world of Vishram Society, a microcosm of the metropolis, which begin to throb with an unprecedented vigour and zest when its occupants come to know that their dream of living a life of brand new shining flats is going to come true. Vishram Society, the central location of Last Man in Tower is an old residential apartment situated in Mumbai where a number of middle class people including Masterji (a retired teacher), the old couple Pintos, a mean and calculative secretary, a corrupt broker, a typical middle class women including Mrs. Puri and Mrs. Rego, a cybercafé owner Mr. Kudwa and others live for quite a long time. With these major characters, a set of minor characters are connected with the main thread of the novel through their relation, occupation or ambition with the major ones. Dharmen Shah, a construction businessman’s life-changing redevelopment offer to the residents of Vishram Society rolling before them the promise of a bundle of notes reveals the innermost core of these characters as the life of almost all of them is going to transform through this offer. The way these characters respond to this offer, play different tricks to materialise the offer or face looming dangers to their secure living in the wake of this offer make an interesting study to fathom the deepest layers of their mind. All characters in the novel get lured by the offer of the builder except Masterji, the last man, who is finally murdered by the denizens of the society to materialize the offer.
A metropolitan city is formed by the people of different classes, cultures and backgrounds who settle there to fulfil their dream of better life, higher comfort and more happiness. The people of the metropolis are in turn affected by the space called city: the roads of asphalt and high bridges, the mushrooming of glossy concrete buildings along with the spread of slums showing the worst side of life, the constant struggle of earning their daily bread, the endless maze of traffic, the constant uproar and noise of its vehicles, the surging crowd in metro rails, the pressures of job and the competitive race of corporate culture, the constant ticking of clock pushing the humans to run and turning them into robots and creating an internal void in them, the idea of consumerism and the shopping culture of malls offering an end number of products and pushing the person to hoard costlier and bigger products to fulfil their psychological void. Adiga’s novel under discussion is populated by the modern men in the metro city of Mumbai whose lives are tremendously affected by their pursuit for monetary security, constant desire to climb the social ladder, and better living conditions. This quest either bears the idea of development and redevelopment in their mind or makes them attracted to it as it promises to fulfil their cherished dream. Valentine Gersbach’s observation in his review of Adiga’s The White Tiger can very well be applied to Last Man in Tower:
“Perhaps the true villain of the piece is the city of Mumbai, shown here as a mixture of aching property, slick wealth, glamour, greed, envy, stunning beauty and teeming humanity. Where you live here is what you are to the world.” (Gersbach)
Masterji’s wife: an ideal homemaker
Purnima is Masterji’s wife. Adiga has depicted her character using flashback technique. Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer after Masterji’s retirement, she dies within a few months. We know many things about her through Masterji’s reminiscences caused by the tapping of the calendar in which she used to write short notes, through cupboards in which she kept household things. Adiga’s portrayal of her character shows her as an ideal Indian lady and a caretaker, the way she keeps everything orderly, neat and tidy shows she lived her life with systematic planning, cared for the house, her children and everything. Adiga gives a glimpse into the world of Purnima, a flesh and blood home engineer by taking the reader inside Godrej almirahs where:
… Purnima had stored everything from her wedding jewellery to the ledgers in which she did the household accounting … one shelf in an almirah was for her saris; one was for saris in which bundles of coins and notes were hidden; one was for saris in which cheque books were wrapped; one was for documents relating to their children’s education; one for their finances. (Adiga 76)
Gaurav: a modern man’s quest for materialistic life
Gaurav is Masterji’s only son, he lives in a nuclear family in South Mumbai. He is a junior branch manager in the Canara Cooperative Society bank. He is a job oriented fellow and the entire management of the house is done by his wife. Masterji, a widower, living a lonely life at the age of sixty-one reveals a modern day domestic conflict between a father and a son and the halt of his wife in the affairs of the entire family. Gaurav is a henpecked husband and a disenchanted son who is only interested in the property of his father. When his mother is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he shows no feelings for his mother’s health, her well-being and her recovery, but he is interested in her gold ornaments. This callousness being shown here by the son for his mother reveals his true identity and does not save him from the interpretation that he ill-treats his father primarily to avenge him for his frequent scolding and beating for his negligible mistakes during his childhood. Being Masterji’s only son, he is a legal heir to all his belongings and property. But his haste in acquiring or rather grabbing his mother’s ornaments shows modern man’s concern for material gains and his haste to become financially secure overnight. Both Gaurav and his wife together scheme to grab the property belonging to Masterji, they do not like the gifts of a book or a radium packet brought by Masterji for their son Ronak. Rejecting it Gaurav shamelessly asks Masterji to give gold to Ronak and gives him a repetitive reminder about his mother’s Vummidi necklace. In the following observation, Adiga, a great reader of human motives, sees through the son’s rare visit to his father’s house:
“A month after her death, Gaurav had called to ask for her diamond necklace, the one she had bought at the Vummidi store in Chennai; Sonal was eager that her mother-in-law’s jewels shouldn’t be lost. Masterji said he did not remember any such necklace, but promised to look into the cupboards. His son’s coldness, he was sure, had started from this time.” (Adiga 76)
Normally Gaurav never calls his father or asks about his well-being. But when the news of the builder’s offer reaches him, he immediately calls his father. Masterji very well understands his motive, as he reflects: “The moment he smells money on me, my son calls.” (Adiga 98)
Masterji’s daughter-in-law: a representative citified wife
Sonal, Gaurav’s wife, is a typical modern day woman. A sexagenarian Masterji carrying on a lonely existence tells a lot about the character of his daughter-in-law who lives in the same city. During his occasional visits to his son’s home, the interaction going on between the two reveals a lot about the selfishness of the woman of the metropolis. Sonal’s act of serveing Masterji ‘tea and bad news’ expresses the double gesture of formality and making him uncomfortable while having a cup of tea. The bad news of Gaurav’s not returning to home until midnight shows the heavy load of work in modern day offices where an employee’s incoming time is fixed but there is no certainty of his exit time. More than that the news expresses the cunningness of the daughter-in-law who does not want to make the old man stay for a longer period of time in the house informing him that he would not be able to see the face of his son until midnight. Another sentence expressed in negative shows her double standards: “Why don’t you wait?’ (Adiga 44). On the one hand, she asks him to stay, but in reality, she does not want him to stay. Her last sentence “you can stay overnight. It’s your home, after all….” (Adiga 44) sums up Masterji’s position in his son’s home and his daughter-in-law’s sole rights; like a queen of the house, she gives permission to Masterji to stay in the house but just for an overnight. Masterji’s longer stay in the house means additional responsibilities for the daughter-in-law, taking care of his meals and his routine from time to time, it means greater affinity between the grandson and grandfather and ‘spoiling’ the child.
Sonal is a modern day housewife. When it comes to claiming her rights, she claims it without any hesitation. During his rare visit to his son’s house, she communicates a little with Masterji and whenever she speaks, she demands money and gold ornaments from him. Passing a very little time with Masterji, Sonal immediately retreats into an internal room to convey a clear message of two very different kinds of relations with the two old men – giving all love and care to her father while saving none for her father-in-law. Bed ridden due to advanced Alzheimer’s, her father is “fed, bathed, and clothed” (Adiga 44) by her. If at all she offers Masterji a glass of juice it is under sheer expectation of getting lakhs of rupees, the more zeros are added, the more she is going to pour the content of juice in his glass. Moreover, offering a tea or a juice to Masterji is a clear signal for the old man to push off, when Masterji refuses to drink the juice due to health concerns, she bluntly asks him “are you sure you won’t drink that pineapple juice before you leave?” (Adiga 194) Her selfishness reaches its worst when she slyly suggests Masterji to buy a one-bedroom flat in Vakola for him which is for lower class people while out of his remaining money, she schemes to buy a flat in a posh area for her family. Though the relationship between Masterji and his son is strained, he truly loves his grandson Ronak and gives his quality time to him, brings small gifts for him every time he visits, but she poses as a hindrance between the proximity earned through sheer love between the grandfather and grandson, returns all his gifts with insult, giving Masterji a message that what they want is money and pure gold. Masterji’s feeling of rejection and sheer insult is revealed in his painful reflection during his return journey to his home: “Was that flat so small they couldn’t keep even one book of his in it? The boy’s own grandfather – and they had to shove my gift back in my hands?” (Adiga 45)
Ramu - the only person detached from the world of metropolis
Ramu is Mrs. Puri’s eighteen year old son. Afflicted with Down’s syndrome, a neuron disease, he is hardly able to do anything on his own. But though a mentally retarded person, perhaps he is the only person in the entire Vishram Society, who is sensitive, has noble human feelings and is totally selfless. When a nest is built up by a crow above Mrs Saldanha’s kitchen, Ajwani, another resident in the society, drops it down because of which the two chicks suffer and one of which is crushed under Kothari’s foot. This makes Ramu sob for a longer time. Further, he is also attached to Masterji and does not like it when his mother ill-treats him. Ramu’s depiction suggests that unless a person is mentally abnormal, he cannot keep himself detached from the waves of a metropolis.
Rosie – a modern girl’s desperate attempts to become a model
Rosie is an aspiring model who has come to Mumbai all the way from Ranchi to become an actress in the movies. She is twenty-six years old. Through a chance meeting in a Versova restaurant, she offers her friendship to Dharmen Shah. An act of stealing in a gym results in her arrest by the police which turns into a meeting point between Rosie and Mr Shah. A chance meeting between the two turning into a regular sexual relationship tells a lot about the patch up and break up culture of man and woman relationship in a mega city. Fed up with his lighter-skinned mistress Nannu, Mr Shah was in search of a new excitement, a pretty girl while Rosie was in search of a man who could patronise her in the costly city during her search for a role in a movie; using his influence, Mr Shah frees her from the police lock-up only to make her a slave of his body lust. Rosie’s quest for future independence reduces her to a slave of a builder who uses her body to satisfy his lust – this condition of Rosie makes her character realistic and life-like, as so many women like Rosie with a dream to make their future bright do not think twice to sell their bodies. In return for her total submission, Shah promises to help her ‘in setting up a hair-dressing studio of her own’ (Adiga 90). Through her culinary skills, patient listening and submissive stance she wins the heart of Mr Shah.
Acting as a mistress to Mr Shah, Rosie’s real interest lies in his son Satish who is going to be the sole heir to all the property that Mr Shah possesses. She is bold enough to express her wish to Mr Shah during her complaint: “Why don’t you introduce me to Satish, Uncle? I’m in his age group, I can talk to him if he’s in trouble.” (Adiga 91) Rosie perfectly knows the modus operandi to come closer to a well to do man like Mr Shah. It is through her forward approach and introduction in a restaurant that Rosie successfully reaches closer to Mr Shah. She wants to apply the same technique to get closer to Mr Shah’s son. She perfectly knows the psychology of men in trouble who need patient hearing from women. Clever women like Rosie turn these occasional talks into a regular meeting through their undivided attention, making men addictive of their big beautiful eyes, silky hair and floral perfumes. The liking grows so much that soon it results in regular physical contact; getting her a reward of a bag of money in return for the physical satisfaction given.
Aspiring models like Rosie know that the path to the world of glamour and prosperity in a city like Mumbai is almost impossible without keeping the charm of their body alluring and without offering it unconditionally to the rich and powerful men. They know very well the posh areas of the city, and places like bars and restaurants from where they grab their prey; through their forward looking manners, white skin, silky hair and bold clothes they catch the attention of the right man, let them be used and abused and get their lot of fortune. As Mr Shah is ill with chronic bronchitis, he is required to consult the doctor regularly. During his stay in hospital, Rosie keeps him occupied with her sexuality by wearing skimpy clothes, keeping her arms around him and kissing him. However, behind her show of sexuality, Mr Shah very well understands, lies her ambition, as Adiga penetrates into her motives: “The girl didn’t just want a hair salon, she wanted everything: all his money, all his buildings. All his money above and below the earth. Marriage.” (Adiga 407) However, she is quite patient and she does everything to keep Mr Shah happy and takes care of him in the best possible manner, she caters to the needs of his belly, mind as well as body, and perfectly plays the role of a ‘surrogate mother’.
Satish – the perfect version of a next generation builder
Satish is a spoilt son of the builder Dharmen Shah. He is a plump and fair-skinned sixteen years old boy. Corrupt policemen feeding on Shah’s money and his under the table dealings with them spoil him more. The money churning business of his father has certainly an effect on corrupting the character of Satish. He is studying in a school but at such a little age he is showing all the signs of a bad boy and does all the activities that are not befitting of a student of his age; he is part of a gang and its name is ‘Soda Pop’. To his father, he has become an unavoidable ‘curse’. When Mr Shah comes to his home, Giri, a servant, informs his boss: “He did it again. He was spray-painting cars outside the school; they caught him and brought him here.” (Adiga 58) More remarkable than his naughty act is the sign of nonchalance when his act is reported by the policemen to his father.
Satish’s activity at the time of waiting outside the Siddhi Vinayak temple for his father shows that he has nothing to do with the temple; God and prayers do not fit in the frame of his mind. Keeping with him the latest issue of the magazine Muscle-Builder he practises tricep curls. However, this does not mean that his father is a religious man. Mr Shah has just gone to the temple to pray to God for the success of his offer at Vishram and if God does not grant his wish he will forget God and force the residents out of the building. In fact, Satish knows the ins and outs of his father and he actually shapes himself into the mould set by his father. A man of mounting ambitions, having spread his properties in the posh areas of Mumbai and keeping himself occupied with his redevelopment business, Mr Shah does not know that his son hates him for what he does. But like all fathers, however bad they are, Mr Shah wants his son to be a good human being. Adiga puts the thoughts of the son for his father in these words: “The bastard works in construction, Satish thought, and he has the guts to tell me I am the bad one in the family.” (Adiga 99) The author further comments, “Thinking about his father, he goaded himself into practising his tricep curls faster. He thought about the way that man chewed gutka like a villager. The way he wore so many gold rings. The way he pronounced English, no better than Giri did. (Adiga 99)
The character of Satish shows that sooner or later children catch everything that their fathers do. Mr Shah takes every care to carry on his real estate business, his corrupt transactions with the police and the politicians and his sexual adventures with the girls under cover, but a time comes when Satish grows and comes to know about the dirty activities of his father. When he again spray paints a politician’s car with his urine and is caught by the police, he becomes shameless in the presence of his father and shows no signs of repentance. When Mr Shah gets scolds him for disgracing his family name, he replies his father on his face about the murder of Masterji in Vishram. Speaking about his gang, he reveals: “All of us in the gang are builders’ sons. If you don’t let us do these things now, how will we become good builders when we grow up?” (Adiga 405) Mr Shah’s son has degraded to such a state that he is able to understand the type of activity and exposure which is required to become a good builder; that it is the accumulation of all vices, dirty activities, a number of FIRs in a police station, association with a gang of hooligans which is required to become a ‘good’, a successful builder. Further, Mr Shah though outwardly showing his displeasure for his son’s bad behaviour actually provides him indirect motivation to carry on with his usual activities by acquitting him from police custody using his connections at the police station. Not only that, after acquitting him he gives back his credit card and additionally gives him a 500-rupee note for lunch at a Bandra restaurant.
Mary: an oppressed lower caste maid’s desperate attempts to eke out existence
Mary is a maid-servant, a cleaning lady of Vishram Society. Introducing her character, Adiga remarks: “Her life was a hard one. She had married a pair of muscled arms that drifted into and out of her life, leaving bruises and a child; her father sometimes turned up under the vegetable stalls in the market, dead-drunk.” (Adiga 140) Mary is a typical lower class character struggling to drag her existence in a metro city. Coming from a very poor background and born of a drunkard father she is destined to be pushed into a marriage which makes her life even worse. Referring to her husband Adiga calls him ‘a pair of muscled arms’ making it clear that her husband does not possess any characteristics worth calling him a human being. The only thing he has got is physical capacity, and Mary’s marriage with such a man only means a marriage between two bodies. The bruises on her body indicates the violence inflicted on Mary’s body; he might not be doing any work to earn a living and thus passing the burden of running the family on Mary, beating her frequently to vent out his frustration and subjecting her to forced sex after her day’s back-breaking work.
However miserable her life is, Mary is still a good mother and with her meagre means she does everything she can to groom her son into a fit and fine human being ready to face the upcoming challenges of a mega city life . Further, she is concerned about her son’s study and does not like him to play with older, rough boys and rightly fears “he would soon start to look up to them.” (Adiga 144) With a ten-rupee note, after completing her work, she directly goes to the market to buy beetroots for her son. Her decision to buy beetroots comes from Mrs Puri’s (one of the residents of Vishram) talks about its benefits for children’s brains; the information which Mrs Puri reads from different magazines that she subscribes to. Through this little incidence, Adiga points to the usual activity of middle class women like Mrs Puri who commit their lives for the wellness of their children and husbands and also lower class women like Mary who sources and practises such health related information from their mistresses giving them in turn a chance to oblige them and puff up their egos. When a crow builds a nest above Mrs Saldanha’s kitchen windows, Mary’s motherly feelings prevent her to do anything as she believes, destroying the nest and tossing the eggs down would bring bad luck.
Throughout the novel Adiga is not just concerned to portray the workings of redevelopment industry from the point of view of the builders rather he takes the reader into the kitchens, dining rooms as well as the common meetings of the society and into the minds of its dwellers and enables the readers to peep into the struggle some lives of those who run their families from the income they earn from working in the Society and a glance at what in store lies from them. Like a core realist, Adiga’s scope is hugely wide and shows the sweeping effects of the redevelopment offer which springs from the soaring ambitions of the builders, shakes the stagnant lives of its dwellers and deals a heavy blow to the poor employees of the society breaking their steady source of income which might break their families, robbing them from educating their children to settle them and might push hard working and family oriented women like Mary into a flesh trade. To many it is a dream come true, to others it is a scary nightmare which they never want to come true.
Shankar Trivedi – a priest’s acquisitive concerns under the sham of religion
Adiga’s characterization is very realistic. While introducing every new character in the novel, Adiga gives a vivid picture of the person, enabling the reader to visualize the person’s physical features, his dressing and other associated details suitable to the person’s occupation. The name Shankar Trivedi itself is suggestive of his caste as a Brahmin whose occupation is to perform religious rituals during good or bad occasions in different families of Vishram. Unfolding his character, Adiga says: “Everyone in Vakola was familiar with the sight of Shankar Trivedi’s shirtless, mesomorphic torso – a white shawl draped over the shoulders – dramatically entering or leaving a building on a red Honda scooter, like an angel of birth or death. (Adiga 125) Much like real-life priests, Shankar Trivedi is a family priest who when once performs religious rites on an occasion, builds a bond of trust with the family and is appointed to carry out religious rituals during all subsequent family occasions whether it is birth, marriage or death. He also performs a cleansing ritual to purge the dead one when the death happens in untoward circumstances. Trivedi has performed the last rites for both Masterji’s daughter as well as his wife. To add an extra portion of income, Trivedi gives lessons “in the proper recitation of Sanskrit verse to paying pupils.” (Adiga 126) Referred to as ‘the Gold Coin priest’, Trivedi is a greedy man; apart from building loyalty with different families through his work, he knows how to take benefit from the expertise of his different clients. Similarly he takes the benefit of Masterji’s knowledge of science to teach his son science. Trivedi’s tight-fisted and unscrupulous nature and covetousness make him akin to real life characters belonging to his profession.
Adiga’s powerful technique of characterization makes all the characters in the novel, including that of the priest connected to the redevelopment offer made by Mr Shah. Though a family priest to Masterji, Shankar Trivedi clearly says no to perform memorial rites on his wife’s first death anniversary because though by occupation a priest, Trivedi like the neighbouring people of Vishram has started to expect a big rise in his own property in the wake of the builder’s offer. Adiga comments: “Masterji understood. Trivedi and the others had realized their own property rates would rise – the brokers must have said 20 per cent each year if Shanghai's glass façade came up. Maybe even 25 per cent. And at once their thirty-year-old ties to a science teacher had meant no more to Trivedi and the others …” (Adiga 358)
The advocate: a ‘legal hawk’ with neither soul nor conscience
Fed up with the constant threats on phone and frustrated after visiting the police station, Masterji approaches an advocate to seek legal help in the wake of Mr Shah’s redevelopment offer. The character of Mr Parekh, the advocate, has been portrayed with minute realistic details. A person doing intellectual labour and giving excessive load to his body as well as brain cannot carry on the load without constantly injecting caffeine inside his body. The number of tasks going on at his table shows his extraordinary workload. Adiga draws a pen picture of the advocate in the following lines:
“Mr Parekh … was drinking tea. He stopped to blow his nose into a handkerchief and turned to use a spittoon before returning to his tea; he was like some non-stop hydrostatic system able to function only while accepting and discharging liquids. As with liquids, so with information; he was simultaneously talking on a mobile phone propped on his shoulder, and signing documents that an assistant held out for him…” (Adiga 255)
The signboard kept by the advocate with the words ‘legal hawk with soul & conscience’ is just kept to lure more and more clients in his legal web. The advocate’s communication with Masterji reveals how clever he is in inculcating trust in him by telling Masterji of his vast experience of dealing with redevelopers. Further, when he comes to know that his client is a teacher, he associates Masterji’s profession with Hindu Dharma and tells him of his deep knowledge of Western law as well as Indian Dharma. Like many real life lawyers, he possesses an in-depth legal knowledge, refers to different acts and refers to a judgement given by Bombay High Court in similar cases. Though knowing very well that under the pressure and constant threats of the builder, Masterji has to finally give in; he pretends to support his client when Masterji speaks of resisting the developer for ever. Lonely in his flat, when Masterji calls Mr Parekh, the response from the lawyer shows up to what extent of lying a lawyer can go: “You are not alone. Parekh is with you. All four Parekhs are with you. If they threaten you I will send a legal notice: they’ll know they’re dealing with an armed man. Remember Dolly Q.C. Mehta versus Bandookwala. The Mofa Act is with you ... Say to yourself Mofa, Mofa, and close your eyes. You sleep with the law by your side.’ (Adiga 261) The last two lines of the lawyer express Adiga’s ironic humour. Taking the obstinate bent of his client’s mind into consideration, the lawyer does not spare any words to give him a hollow reassurance which Masterji recognizes only at the end.
Adiga’s realistic depiction sees through the corrupt network of builders and redevelopers with the secretaries of the societies, police, politicians as well as the lawyers. Adiga shows that in fact there is no one under the earth where a builder does not have a reach and it is by money that he purchases anybody and everybody. Adiga seems to suggest that it is money and nothing else which runs the entire world of Mumbai. This observation is quite true about Mr Parekh. In fact, during the first visit of Masterji to his office, he speaks of ‘settlement’ but looking at Masterji’s determination to continue his fight with Mr Shah, he pretends to help and support him. But when Masterji complains him about cutting of water and electricity in his flat, the lawyer cleverly asks him to give the secretary’s number with the pretension of mediating; by calling the secretary of Vishram, the lawyer solves Masterji’s problem temporarily but by communicating with him he indirectly gives a hint so as to invite the builder’s assistant to strike a deal with him. The lawyer succeeds in doing so and during Masterji’s second visit to his office which takes place after his meeting with Shanmugham (the builder’s assistant), the lawyer shows his real character which has neither soul nor conscience. Like all real life lawyers, Adiga’s lawyer is true to his profession, speaking one thing at a given time with great assertion and then twisting the same thing and speaking quite the opposite of it. During Masterji’s first visit, he speaks of Mofa, that is, Maharashtra Ownership of Flats Act 1963 and also MCSA Act 1960, that is Maharashtra Co-operative Societies Act 1960 and assures Masterji that he is the sole sovereign authority of his flat and he also refers to Bombay High Court’s judgement given in 1988 to assert that “the Society cannot force you to sell said flat, even by majority vote.”(Adiga 257) But during Masterji’s second visit, the lawyer under the weight of builder’s money, takes a complete U-turn and makes a contradictory statement to Masterji:
“Your Society is the sovereign of your flat. ….. If the Society decides to sell your flat, you have no right to dissent. ….. Common man cannot understand subtleties of Mofa Act.” (Adiga 283)
Thus the lawyer applies all kinds of different tactics to persuade Masterji to accept the re-developer’s offer. But when Masterji is firm, not wanting any settlement, the lawyer begins to threaten him.
Corrupt police officers: license to engage in all kinds of illegal activities
Adiga refers to the corruption in the police system by narrating several incidents in the novel. When Masterji’s wife’s purse is snatched away, a systematic show is made to register the FIR but beyond that nothing is done. The author painfully observes: “the bag was never recovered; nor did the crime wave materialize”. (Adiga 243) Masterji with the hope of getting some help from the police when goes to meet them due to pesky calls supposedly from the builder’s men, he immediately understands that “they were not the police force of the Indian Penal Code, but of the iron law of Necessity.” (Adiga 244) When Masterji sees Ajwani at the police station, he clearly gets the idea about the unholy nexus between the broker and the policemen:
“Any person looking to rent in a good building had to furnish, by law, a Clearance Certificate from the local police station to his prospective Society ... people were always turning up at Ajwani’s office without authentic drivers’ licences, voter ID cards, or PAN cards; men with flashy mobile phones and silk shirts who could afford any rent demanded of them yet could not prove that they were employed by a respectable company … The broker came here to procure the necessary certificates for these men, in exchange for the necessary sums of money. With a smile and a hundred-rupee note, he invented legitimate occupations and respectable business offices for his clients; conjured wives for unmarried men, and husbands and children for single women. (Adiga 244)
The above dealings reveal that anything is possible by producing money at the police station. Even well to do people do not possess their identity cards but corrupt people like Ajwani can produce anything by using his connection and bribing the police officers. Through Ajwani’s invention of fake employment as well as marriage certificates, Adiga indicates the volume of crime that might be flourishing in the metro city under the motivation of those protecting the law. Thus police rather than helping curb the crime is shown being instrumental in motivating the crime.
Conclusion:
Ulka Anjaria remarks: “Like more traditional works of social realism, Last Man exposes the hypocrisy of bourgeois respectability in the face of greed, and as such is intended … to stir the middle classes out of their political apathy.” (Anjaria 124)
The peep taken into the lives of a galaxy of minor characters of the novel opens up their mental makeup. Just as an innocent act of throwing a stone into a pool of water creates multiple circles in the water, Adiga’s thoughtful introduction of the central incidence of the builder’s redevelopment offer is instrumental in reflecting the hidden dreams and desires, moves and motives, pretensions and frailties of the residents of the Vishram Society, who are representatives of an Indian metropolitan city where - a typical Indian wife unaware of the unpredictability of life, plans and prepares to secure the lives her loved ones, a son, by snatching the property of his father, wants to build the bright future of his nuclear family, a modern wife while giving all loving care to her father almost kicks her father-in-law from his son’s home, a beautiful girl by stooping to all kinds of ugly activities hopes to build her dream life, a son, by inheriting his father’s culture, degenerates into becoming a worst possible builder, a maid, in spite of undergoing all kinds of tortures does not deter from protecting her home and her family, a priest, under the garb of religion is hankering after money, and a police officer and an advocate whose dirty nexus lays bare under the table dealings. To conclude, Elen Turner’s observation on the characters of contemporary Indian fiction is quite appropriate in this context: “Characters are middle-class, with aspirations of social and economic mobility, from sections of society benefiting from the economic liberalization that began in India in the early 1990s …. Characters are usually young and grapple with some kind of identity crisis brought about by the "clash" of tradition and contemporary life.” (Turner)
Works Cited
- Adiga, Aravind. Last Man in Tower. Noida: HarperCollins Publishers, 2012. Print.
- Anjaria, Ulka. "24-Realistic Hieroglyphics: Aravind Adiga and the New Social Novel." MFS Modern Fiction Studies 61.1 (2015): 114-137. Article.
- Gersbach, Valentine. "Review of The White Tiger. How Evil Happens." 23 February 2012. Review. 30 January 2021.
- Lombardi, Esther. "What Literature Can Teach Us." 16 February 2021. thoughtco.com. Article. 10 05 2021.
- Sharma, K.K. (ed.). Perspectives on Mulk Raj Anand. Gajiyabad: Vimal Prakashan, 1978. Print.
- Turner, Elen. "Gender Anxiety and Contemporary Indian Popular Fiction." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 14.2. 2012. Article. 26 01 2021.
- UKESSAYS. "Indian Writing in English." November 2018. ukessays.com. Essay. 02 05 2021.