The Koyal And The Guava – An Analysis
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Sarayu Ahuja, in her story “The Koyal and the Guava” delineates the muted remonstration of an orthodox Brahmin family struggling in a stratified social structure that often serves to discommode the ones alleged be stationed in the loftier heights of the social ladder. The author, through an efficacious juxtaposition of a conventional Brahmin-populated locality, Mylapore with the changing social climes in the city of Madras and the world at large, successfully limns a portrait of a society where issues of progress, equity and fairness become conflated in one nebulous miasma of distorted reality.
The story commences in the modern, “antiseptic” ambience of an air-craft. The prevailing theme of conflict between traditions and the vacuous ethos of a fast changing world is etched right away, through the objective observations of the author – as she simultaneously lends a patient ear to the cavils of an old prototypical Tamil Brahmin lady and observes the insane frenzy that issues in the craft over the presence of celebrated actors in the plane. The actors lionized and deified by people become symbolistic of a world where ideas of heroism and art have decayed to a gratification of sensual pleasures and carnal needs. At the antithetical pole, stands the old woman, Meenakshi, yearning for the days when simplistic values and noble ideals constituted the props of an individuals existence. This contrast in perspectives set against the cocooned locale of an ultra-modern air-craft stamp in the readers minds a first impression of a fast metamorphosizing world and the unobtrusive attempts of some to retain an identity amidst the squalor.
As the story unfolds, the reader is transported along with the author to the indigent alleys defining the life of a social worker, Vidyakar. The shanty, which spells shelter for scores of abandoned children, which defines life for destitute young girls – the shanty which stands as a dizzying personification of the dregs that modern society willfully veils in a mask of progress and supposed equity and fairness, presents a glaring contrast to the resplendent banners urging denizens to be “proud Indians”. Sarayu Ahuja, once more through a clever insertion of a musty, dilapidated section of society in the larger fabric of a long dormant city finally yielding to the tides of time and change succeeds in gently probing the minds of the receptive reader with questions – how does one define progress in a society where anguish and abuse still scourge households ? Where does one glimpse fairness and equality for all in society where stratification still looms large, only in varying forms?
In the final settings, the author nudges the reader along to the orthodox setting of Mylapore – to the private quarters of Meenakshi and her husband – a quintessential Brahmin dwelling. The rooms adorned with framed pictures of the Gods, the conventional courtyard structure of the house, the husbands attempts to stamp a shade of pious connotation to the