Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Possession was the third novel by Kalpana Markandaya that was published in 1963. One can say that the basic story of Possession could be the inspiration behind the recent successful movie RRR. The novel depicts the intermingling of Indian ethos and British culture and presents a contrast between materialism and spirituality. Unlike her first novel Nectar in a Sieve, Kamala didn’t write Possession in an autobiographical manner, rather she wrote this novel as a narrative narrated by a character of the novel. Possession is another example of Diasporic literature in which Kamala Markandara, despite being an expatriate British depicts the clash of British culture and Indian spirituality realistically and appears to side with her roots in India. The story is set in 1949, that is, Independent India.
Characters of Possession:
Valmiki is the protagonist of the novel. He is a simple young man from an Indian village belonging to the goatherd community. Though Valmiki is illiterate, he is a naturally gifted artist who loves to draw paintings on the walls of the rocky caves near his village. He is attached to a spiritual guru Swami who lives at the hilltop near the village. Swami is a well-known person who is a globetrotter with no fixed home. Valmiki has immense faith in Swami and he spends most of his time in or around the Ashram of Swami while remaining detached from his parents and other relatives. Caroline Bell is a British young woman belonging to a rich aristocratic family. She is a typical capitalist who believes in exploiting the poor physically as well as mentally. Caroline discovers the talent of Valmiki and tries to possess him as his talented pet artist to satisfy her ego and lust while pretending to provide a greater better platform and society to Valmiki whom she buys from his parents and rechristens as Val. Ellie is a young British woman battered in body and soul by the Germans during the Second world war. She is physically maimed and is emotionally so bruised that despite the daily raping that she had been subjected to as a war prisoner, she has lost her fertility. Val sympathizes with her and loves her. His warmth brings a lot of improvement in Ellie who becomes pregnant with his child. Annabel is another British teen girl who becomes her friend of Val. Anasuya is an Indian woman, a journalist, and a reporter. She is a friend of Caroline who tries to dissuade her from buying Valmiki but Caroline remains adamant. Anasuya is the narrator who tells the story from an Indian point of view.
Summary of Possession:
The story depicts a clash between the western materialistic society with capitalistic ego and the spiritual sensual ethos of India. Caroline Bell is the representative of typical capitalism who believes in exploiting the poor physically as well as mentally. Swami on the other hand represents the human bond in its most nascent form. Kamala Markandaya chose Valmiki as the protagonist’s name because traditionally, Valmiki is the saint-poet who composed the Ramayana. As per the folklore, Valmiki was a hunter who became an ascetic on divine inspiration, learning to chant the holy name of Rama; turned ascetic and one day discovered that he had become a poet.
The story begins as Caroline Bell, a high-class English woman travels to India along with her friend Anasuya. When she visits a remote South Indian village she discovers the genius of an inspired artist who is a simpleton goatherd having no touch with modern society. Caroline is too impressed by him and his art but instead of feeling genuine love and appreciation, she emerges herself in feelings of egoistic possession and decides to somehow own the man as her pet artist and become his patron. Thus, she devises a plan to buy this artist so that she may possess him and his art. This artist is Valmiki who belongs to the goatherd community. His parents are very poor and he spends most of his time near the Ashram of a local Hindu saint Swami whom he considers his Guru. Swami inspires Valmiki who has a natural talent for painting. Valmiki often spends his time painting the walls of local caves near the hill of the village. When Caroline observes those paintings, she realizes that Valmiki has a rare talent, a born artist. But a born artist is not faultless and needs investment for improvement. She proposes good fortune for the parents of Valmiki if they let her take Valimiki to London, Britain where she will groom her to be a successful artist. To achieve her goal, she takes the help of her Indian friend Anasuya who is a young journalist and reporter. Anasuya realizes that under the veil of helping an artist, Caroline wants to possess Valmiki as property to satisfy her lust and greed. When Caroline persists, she argues that the Indian boy Valmiki may have a family whom he may not want to leave them. They may not want to leave him. She further argues that Valmiki is a human being, even if he is a goatherd and a simpleton. He is not a toy to be picked up and discarded when something else takes your fancy. However, Caroline remains adamant. Caroline manages to persuade Valmiki’s parents as she offers a huge amount and other facilities to them, but she finds strong resistance from Valmiki who is not willing to go away from his Guru Swami. Caroline is concerned Valimiki is a way to achieve success for her in society but she is worried about Swami whom she considers his main adversary who can stop her from achieving her goal. Anyhow, she succeeds in taking hold of Valmiki through her conceits.
Valmiki is still a young adolescent boy, away from the lustful life of adultery. Caroline takes him to Britain where she keeps him as a pet artist and being his patron, they live under the same roof. Caroline gradually introduces Valmiki to the Western culture and starts proselytizing him. He has so many charms to develop lust and he does start changing. Meanwhile, he is also getting modern education and training as an accomplished artist. She gives a new name to Valmiki and he becomes famous as Val.
In Britain, Val develops a friendship with Annabel who is a typical English girl of the 1950s. She is against her family's will and turns down their plans for getting her married. She gets too impressed by Val and develops an amicable relationship with him. At heart, she loves and desires Val. Caroline starts feeling jealous of Annabel and tries to create differences between them. Meanwhile, Val meets another British girl Ellie, a twenty-year-old Jewish girl who has suffered the cruelty of Nazis in the camp. She is raped there almost every night. She is an orphan, helpless, suppressed, and battered in body and soul by the Germans during the Second world war. She is physically maimed and is emotionally so bruised that despite the daily raping that she had been subjected to as a war prisoner, she has lost her fertility. Observing her sadness, Val sympathizes with her and soon he starts feeling true genuine love for her. Ellie too starts feeling secure with Val. Caroline cannot bear Ellie’s presence near Val but she cannot stop them as Ellie genuinely becomes an inspiration for Val in his art. Val indulges in Ellie so much that she becomes pregnant with his child. Caroline informs Annabel about Valmiki's illicit relationship with Ellie and thus, she succeeds in keeping Annabel away from Val.
Caroline again conspires to repossess Val only for herself. She exposes him in his next phase of training to her affluent society and gives him an education in its language and in its value, he learns all that avidly. Becoming a fashionable man, he gradually loses patience with Ellie’s incurable inelegance. Caroline manages things with consummate shrewdness and she makes the poor girl feel alien in the atmosphere, and she brings about the desertion of Ellie from society. Being marginalized and humiliated, Ellie decides to run away. Caroline does not reveal Ellie’s whereabouts to Val and by the time he comes to know of it, Caroline has sufficiently lulled him so thoroughly that she instinctively feels relieved that he is not burdened by the responsibility of Ellie and her child. However, Caroline fails to keep Val under her control again and again as he becomes more popular and meets many important people in society while making relationships with many women. Val is completely different from Valmiki, the young innocent spiritual goatherd boy of an Indian village, he is a shrewd modern British man.
Meanwhile, Swami gets a chance to visit London. When Val’s guru visits England and he reminds him in his unobtrusive way of the values that he stands for and the differences between Val’s new values and his original ones. Valmiki realizes how he has been duped. Caroline is very much disturbed by Swami’s presence in England because his spiritual effect on Val is a threat to her plan of physical and materialistic possession of human beings. She wants to control Val not only physically but mentally as well which is why she wants to send Swami back to India. From the very beginning, she is aware of the fact that Valmiki is deeply influenced by Swami. She is very eager to possess Val and to do so she seduces him into an almost incestuous carnal alignment despite the wide difference between their ages.
Meanwhile, Val discovers the forged letter and also Caroline’s selfish motives behind Ellie’s disappearance. He tries to relocate her but fails. At last, he decides to save his art and his inner integrity. Once that decision is taken, he behaves with a singularity of purpose, fights free of Caroline, and sails back home. Caroline still doesn’t accept defeat and follows Valmiki back to India
to regain him but Valmiki denies it as he does not want to be possessed by her again.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the History of English literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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