All About H. Hatter by G.V. Desani | Characters, Summary, Analysis

All About H. Hatter by G.V. Desani | Characters, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. G.V. Desani was a British-Indian writer, novelist, educator, and lecturer. His full name was Govindas Vishnoodas Desani. He was born in 1909 in Kenya in an Indian family. His family moved back to India in 1917. At the age of 17, Desani left his home and traveled to England. He was not well-educated and couldn’t speak English but soon he learned well and was befriended by several prominent Londoners. He joined the British Museum Library as a reader and worked as an artist, model, and correspondent for Reuters, Times of India, and The Associated Press. G.V. Desani is known for his only novel, All About H. Hatter, published in London in 1948. All About H. Hatterr chronicles the adventures of an AngloMalaya man who calls himself, Hindustaniwallah Hatterr. Like the classical Bildungsroman, the plot of Desani’s novel revolves around its protagonist H. Hatterr in search of wisdom and enlightenment. The novel has seven chapters and it deals with his search for the self. He visits seven cities and consults seven sages, each of whom has specialized in a different aspect of “living”. The novel is a comic extravaganza. The character of Hatterr is presented in a comic vein. The charm, vitality, and linguistic humor created a unique hero with dazzling and puzzling prose. The novel gained instant fame and was praised by the likes of T.S. Eliot, Salman Surshdie, Anthony Burgess who wrote the Introduction to the 1970 edition of All About H. Hatter, and many others. Salman Rushdie praised the nativization or Indianization of the English language in the novel and mentioned it as the “chutney-fication” of English. G. V. Desani’s All About H. Hatter has been compared to Laurence Stern’s Trishtam Shandy and James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Characters of All About H. Hatter:

H. Hatter is the main character of the novel. The name H. Hatter stands for Hindustanwallah Hatter who is a fifty-five-year-old man who writes his autobiography. H.Hatter’s father was a European gentleman while his mother was an Oriental, a Malay Peninsula-resident lady. After his birth, his family moved from Penang, Malaysia to East India (or undivided Bengal). When he was one year old, his father died of malaria and pneumonia. The Anglo-Indian court gave the infant boy to “a Dundee-born Scot” jute trader instead of his mother for adoption. H. Hatter remains uneducated yet an erratic, well-read, almost endearing soul who is constantly getting into hilarious situations and getting out of the mess he has created for himself. He can’t decide whether he is an Eurasian philosopher or a believer in Buddhism, Christianity, or Hinduism.

Nath C. Banerjee is a friend of H. Hatter. He is older than Hatter and tries to help him out during his tough times. Banerjee is very fond of H. Hatter and believes that he has great potential. Nath C. Banerjee encourages H. Hatter to move out of India and visit London where he may succeed and become a famous successful man. Yati Rambeli is a lawyer friend of Nath C. Banerjee who befriends H. Hatter and defends him whenever he gets caught in legal matters. Yati Rambelie means ‘gigantic belly.’ Yati Rambeli is also known as Y. Rambeli or ‘Why Rambelling’. He believes that H. Hatter is a genuine, innocent, and truthful gentleman with a pure heart. In the search for his philosophical and spiritual quest, H. Hatter meets seven sages namely The Sage of Calcutta, Rangoon, Madras, Bombay, Delhi, Mogalsarai- Varanasi, and the Sage of All India. However, he realizes that most if not all of them are fake, pretenders and false mendicants. Mr. Chari-Charier is a newspaper editor who employs H. Hatter as a reporter. Mr. Bill Smythe is a circus owner in India who employs H. Hatter to work in the circus. Rosie Smythe is Bill’s wife who is a lion tamer. Hatter gets infatuated by Rosie and she exploits him for her benefits. Rialto is an English lady whom H. Hatter marries. She is an aged woman who marries Hatter for her sexual desires but leaves him when he insists on a family. Sadanand XX is an Indian saint whom Hatter meets and becomes his assistant. Jenkins is a street dog whom Hatter considers his pet.

Summary of All About H. Hatter:

The story is about the spiritual and philosophical quest of H. Hatter told in a comedic and hilarious manner and how he succeeds in finding his own truths. The novel is divided into seven chapters.

H. Hatter’s father was a Christian European merchant seaman who met her mother in Malaya, Penang, and married her. His mother was a pagan native of Malay who had never traveled outside her nation. She gave birth to her first son and soon after that, her husband insisted on traveling to India and settling there. The family came to East India and settled in Calcutta, Bengal. When H. Hatter was just one year old, his father died of malaria and pneumonia and the court decided not to let the Oriental pagan mother have the custody of the son of a European Christian man. A Dundee-born Scot Jute trader got the custody of the infant boy. The jute trader didn’t have much time for the boy so he decided to give him to an English Missionary Society to be raised as a Christian orphan child. Thus, H. Hatter became an Anglo-Indian Sahib, a Christian Englishman born in India. However, Hatter always found himself more Indian than European. Yet, he had a great desire to England and observe the land of his dead father. He gets elementary education at the Missionary school but being an orphan and of mixed race, he feels discrimination. He runs away from school at the age of 14 and we find him getting a different kind of education. He is educated by five Indian sages, three women, and a South Indian loanshark.

As a young growing boy, H. Hatter had huge dreams of gaining the admiration of the world and establishing the H. Hatter dynasty. He always dreamed of marrying a sweet woman and having a big family. Being of European lineage, he easily got admission into an English men's Club. The washerwoman or the Dhobin of the club had an interest in Hatter. However, H. Hatter rejects her sexual advances. Angered by him, the washerwoman makes a scene at the Club accusing him of not paying her bills. The Chief Secretary of the club was Harcourt Pankhurst-Sykes who admonished Hatter and decided to forfeit his membership in the club. This hurts Hatter’s ego and he decides to be completely Indian. His friend Nath C. Banerjee introduces Hatter to Mr. Chari-Charier who runs a daily newspaper titled Bazaar. Mr. Chari-Charier appoints Hatter as a reporter. His first assignment is to interview the ‘Sage of Wilderness’ or the ‘Sage of Calcutta.’ The sage turns out to be a fake man who makes him drink six glasses of highly intoxicating todi, the beer of the tropics, and then fleeces him of all his belongings including his clothes. The Sage tells him the story of the crafty potter Ali Bee and his fluent parrot Ahmed instructing him to master the technique of “dispelling credible illusions” and to be always suspicious of others’ motives.

Later, Hatter discovers that the sage ran a second-hand clothes business with the aid of his brother in Lucknow. When Hatter informs Banerjee about this incident and many such others, Banerjee advises him to go to London as he believes he is a good man, a good Christian, and will succeed in his father’s land. Hatter too wishes to go to London but realizes that he loves India more and cannot leave Banerjee.

Banerjee then introduces Hatter to Mr. Bill Smythe who runs a circus. His wife Rosie Smythe is a lion tamer. Hatter begins working at the circus. He soon gets infatuated with Rosie Smythe who begins exploiting him for her purposes. She deliberately fans Hatter’s illicit passion towards her and makes him do her bidding. Once, she convinces him to become a human plate for her lion as she lets her lion eat a piece of steak served on his bare chest, which frightens him and sends him into a reverie. He remembers Braganza, the previous helper of Rosie who ran away and whom Hatter replaced. He realizes that Rosie is ‘sexploiting’ him. He leaves the circus and complains about Bill Smythe to Banerjee saying that Bill deliberately tried to excite his libido towards his wife to serve his purpose. Banerjee comforts him and says that he got caught in a crossfire between his ‘inborn goodness’ and the ‘Vienna libido school’ and has made his inborn goodness triumph.

Hatter then meets an aged English woman named Rialto and engages in an amorous relationship with her. Hatter calls her Kiss-Curl and marries her wishing that he will have a huge family with her. However, Rialto is only interested in sex and she doesn’t wish to be a mother. This creates a rift between the two. While Banerjee tries to help the couple, Hatter begins to worry that Rialto is unable to become a mother. At a gathering where Hatterr was being conferred the title "Ocean of the Musical Art" or Sangita Kala Sagara by a music society, his wife Kiss-curl Rialto appears with her Anglo-Indian lover in her arms and asks to disperse from the spot and threatens to shoot everybody with her six gauge shotgun foiling Hatterr's ambition of possessing the prestigious title and making Hatterr run semi-nude in the garden in lashing rain.

Hatter then meets the Sage of Rangoon the second religious imposter, instructs him to destroy his desire for physical gratification, and says, “In the female lies moral degradation. I say save thyself from amorous temptation!” This Sage too turns out to be an imposter who robs Hatter of all his belongings.

Hatter then decides to go to England. He boards a tramp ship and reaches Liverpool where he is accepted as a Western-looking man owing to his mixed race. However, Hatter is terribly disappointed by the English society. He tries to settle in England and earn a good fortune. He pursues many hair-brained schemes such as digging up a pyramid to search for diamonds but instead finds five fleeing mice. Hatter fails to adjust to the materialistic modern West and begins missing the spiritual and metaphysical traditions of India.

Hatter returns and reaches Madras where he meets the third Sage, the Sage of Madrass who instructs him to become a vegetarian once a week to overcome greed and avarice. Hatter tries to follow the sage but soon learns that the Sage of Madrass was a stock exchange business in his mundane life. Due to his elevation in his business, he had a conflict with his father and had to be separated from his family for four years. After acquiring a lot of wealth, he toured around the world and tasted all kinds of meat, including beef. The sage charges money from his disciples and dispels them away when they cannot afford to pay. The sage tells Hatter to meet another wise man named Sheikh Ell See Arabi who ‘instructs’ Hatterr to become a prosperous ‘burrasahib’ by exploiting upper-class connections and following the dress code of an elite ‘brotherhood’. The two wise men again rob Hatter and he runs away from them. He goes to Mysore and begins working as a salesman for a Sandalwood wholesaler. During his stay in Mysore, he encountered an unknown south Indian swindler, who deceived him arousing his sympathy by narrating his acute poverty and emotionally blackmailing him to borrow an amount on loan on his behalf, which doubled in one month. The South Indian loan shark stops correspondence with Hatterr later and he is prosecuted for repayment of the loan amount. Hatter meets Yati Rambeli, a lawyer for help who finds him a good man and promises to help him. Hatter loses his job and runs away to avoid paying Rs 600 to the swindler. He begins living in the forest as a mendicant. Meanwhile, Banerji tells the court that Hatterr has been eaten up by a tiger.

He then meets Sadanand XX who is a young saint. Hatter befriends him and becomes his assistant. He learns that Sadanand XX i.e. “Always Happy XX” was a private lottery agent in his materialistic life and enters into an agreement with him to cooperate as a disciple under his pseudonym the "Bitter One" and agrees to share the profit in the ratio of sixty and forth between them. The sage uses Hatterr to get rid of another competitor sage named Hiramanek Mukti. After accomplishing his motive, the sage gets rid of him without giving him his promised forty percent share of profits from the lottery commission. Hatter begins developing his own philosophy and learns that “Life is a contrast.” There are always opposites or contrasts in life that every man confronts.

Hatterr meets the Sage of Bombay also known as Master Ananda Giri-Giri who becomes infatuated with Hatterr and attempts to have a physical and spiritual union with him and also attempts to murder Hatterr in a fit of delirium. When Hatterr tries to escape, the sage's disciples accuse him of being possessed by a ghost and try to burn him at the stake. He somehow saves himself and runs to Delhi where he meets the Sage of Delhi and his disciple. The Sage of Delhi preaches to Hatterr that the reality of the world is a mystery. The Sage of Delhi teaches him, “All Appearance is false. Reality is not Appearance.” Hatterr meets a sage of the “Order of Nagas” or Naga Sadhu. Pretending to be concerned about Hatterr, the sage finds out that Hatterr is hiding his money in his loincloth. The sage then steals his money and disrobes him in a mock wrestling duel.

Hatter admits to his friend Banerrji that he lost his mother early in life and has no relatives at all. He says, “’ I haven’t had my mother to love me. Not long enough, old friend. I have no relations, don’t you see? I am afraid, can’t you see?’” Baneerji advises him to trust in God and Hatterr admits that even if God does not exist it is worth loving him. Hatter says that he thinks God is his father, his Governor and he believes that God looks after her mother like his dad used to.

Hatter then gets engaged in treasure hunting as he searches for maps for the treasure looted from the Moghuls by Shivaji and the Marhatta soldiers, now buried somewhere in the Western Ghats. He procures 200 rupees and goes to UP, Mewar to look for Shivaji’s buried treasure where he meets a sage in a bush, gets into a fight with him, and loses all his money.

The last sage Hatterr encounters is Pandit Punchum, a fat and naked ascetic, whose satsangHatterr attends. He brainwashes him to donate his month's salary to charity. Hatterr realizes that the satsangs were a trick by which Punchum and his men cheated people. Hatter was still working as a correspondent for the daily newspaper Bazaar but he lost this job too. Hatterr becomes an insolvent and has to leave society due to his insolvency. Hatterr is bereft of any family too. Hatterr loses his father at an early age. The whereabouts of Hatterr's mother are unknown. Rialto, Hatter's wife, takes an Anglo-Indian lover from the English club and leaves Hatterr. In the end, Hatter is alone, he begins writing his autobiography and while he is not sure if anyone will support him, his own lawyer Y. Rambeli supports him and writes a strong supporting critique of his work under the heading “With Iron Hand, I Defend You Mr. H. Hatter, Gentleman!” Hatter begins to realize his philosophy of “Life is a Contrast.”

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of Indian English Literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!