Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Only American from Our Village is a poignant and heart-wrenching short story by Arun Joshi, published in his short story collection The Survivor and Other Stories in 1975. It is a story about a father who sacrifices his own comforts to provide his son with the best education and career. The son becomes successful in America but forgets his cultural roots and responsibilities to his father. The story critiques materialism and delves into themes of pride, arrogance, identity, isolation, and belonging. The story is narrated by an unnamed narrator in the third person from the omniscient point of view.
Characters of The Only American from Our Village:
Doctor Khanna is an Indian-born physicist in America working at the University of Wisconsin. He is a brilliant physicist and scientist who is known for his ground-breaking result-oriented research. He is the son of a poor middle-class Indian man who worked hard to provide good education and better opportunities to his son. After leaving India, Dr. Khanna completely devotes himself to his materialistic pursuit of money making and achieving higher and higher success. He has a strong desire to put his past behind him and focus on what he considers to be a world of opportunity, He prefers life in America, a place where he is recognized for his achievements and gets the merit that he thinks is owed to him. He marries an American girl Joanne against his father’s wishes with whom he has two sons.
Kundan Lal is Doctor Khanna’s father who is very proud of his son’s achievements. He was a brilliant student but couldn’t get enough opportunities and to fulfill his responsibilities towards his family, he compromised with his own career and aspirations. His wife died years ago and after his son left for America, he remained alone and isolated in his village. He wishes that his son would return to India and work for his nation but when he decides to stay and settle in America, he accepts his decision and rejoices that his son is the only American from his village. Radhey Mohan is an elderly man a childhood friend of Kundan Lal. He meets Dr. Khanna during his visit to India and informs him how close he was to his late father Kundan Lal. Radhey Shyam has a fatherly feeling towards Dr. Khanna and he talks to him without any malice or harshness. However, ridden by his own guilt of not attending to his ill father during his ending days, Dr. Khanna feels uneasy when Rahdey Mohan approaches him.
Summary of The Only American from Our Village:
Dr. Khanna is the most outstanding immigrant physicist at the University of Wisconsin, America. He is a very intelligent and fine physicist, who pursued his dreams of money and achievements. He left his father on his own in India and settled in America where he married an American girl Joanne against his father’s wish. He enjoys a happy and successful life with his wife with whom he has two sons. As time passes by, he forgets his father and motherland. But now, he is invited to a physics meeting in Delhi, India. He left India fifteen years ago and never thought of returning back. But he realizes that he will get too many accolades and praise and thus, he decides to make a week-long trip to India along with his wife and sons. Dr. Khanna’s tour is a success by all accounts. He is welcomed by an official of the Council of Scientific Research. He delivers some lectures at various seminars and conferences, meets the President and the Prime Minister of India, and is offered great respect. His wife and children are “worshipped” by his relatives for whom they have brought “Gillette razors, pop records, and a mass of one-dollar neckties.” Though advanced, these gifts are of little use to his relatives due to their cultural differences. His middle-class relatives still strive for the things necessary for their lives while Doctor Khanna is leading a lavish materialistic lifestyle, chasing his American dream.
At the fag end of his successful visit after his “final talk, at a college in his former hometown”, he meets an old man, Mr. Radhey Mohan, who sells court papers in front of the District Courts and who out of the fraternity and old relations comes shuffling along and insists on “shaking Dr. Khanna’s hands.” Mr. Radhey Mohan introduces himself to Dr. Khanna as a childhood friend of his late father Kundan Lal. Dr Khanna, due to the lack of human values, looks “puzzled” at the meeting. Mr. Radhey Mohan is a simple villager but has sharp eyes on the matters of life and society. He tells Dr. Khanna: “Your father and I were very close to each other, like brothers”. His way of talking, “slant of the lips”, “glint in the eye” and his father’s “accent” makes Dr. Khanna “uncomfortable”. Dr. Khanna tries to avoid him but Mr. Radhey Mohan does not let him go.
Mr. Radhey Mohan further tells about his friendship with his father. He tells him that his father and he have gone to the same school. They sat at the same desk. He says that when he was a schoolboy, he had carved the two names on the two sides of the school bench where he and Dr. Khanna’s father Kundan Lal used to sit. He informs that before his death, Kundan Lal and he went and looked for the desk and they found the desk was still there and so were their names. He informs that he could not pass matriculation while Dr Khanna’s father, a brilliant and studious student, stood third in the state, had his name on the Honours Board, and won a scholarship for his further education. Being poor, Dr. Khanna’s father had to get an education by winning scholarships. But, he made a mark as a brilliant student not only in school but also in college, and “if he had made a mark he did not let it get to his head” and he was “always the same” with the old man. He says that despite being a brilliant student, Kundan Lal was humble. It reveals his human values. He was also a man of high morals as he was unaware of “the dancing girls of Lahore” and “such things” despite getting an education in the same city. He loved his mother very much: “When his mother died, he cried a lot” Soon after his graduation, he took a job. Over time, he retired. He looked old, older than his years, but he was happy and very proud of his only son, who had settled in America.
Radhey Mohan informs that his father longed for his return. He used to say that his son would be a big government man when he returned to India. He would say his son was coming back in one year, in two years, any time. Then he got information about his son’s marriage to an American girl and he was quiet for many months. But he started talking again. He said his son was the only American from his village. He continually talked about his son and what he has achieved for those who live in the village. Kundan Lal was so proud of his son’s achievement that he ignored the fact that his son had lost moral and cultural values by shattering his father’s hopes. He lived in his native place and hoped to see his son on his homecoming, but the selfish, materialistic, and unresponsive son did return neither during his father’s lifetime nor at the hour of his pathetic death. Despite all this, Kundan Lal never showed any disappointment. Even when he was severely ill, he accepted that his son was unable to visit him.
Radhey Mohan tells Dr. Khanna that once he asked Kundan Lal why he is so proud of his son? “We had a foot in the grave, all of us what did we care for your achievements; what you did, and what you did not do?” He further informs that Kundan Lal got livid at this question. Radhey Mohan further says Kundan Lal wished to visit his son and see his grandsons once. Dr. Khanna promised him to send a return ticket to America. Kundan Lal kept hoping to visit Dr Khanna in America but the ticket never arrived.
Suddenly, Radhey Mohan takes out a bidi from his pocket and begins smoking. Dr. Khanna feels nauseated by the smoke while he remains indifferent to his father’s sad story. Dr. Khanna says that he tried to visit his father when he was ill but couldn’t get time. Radhey Mohan says nothing to it and continues to talk about the old days. He tells Dr. Khanna that his father belonged to a poor family. His father’s economic condition was always bad. When he was a student he had no money to pay his fees. He had only “two pyjamas and two kurtas and he had no shoes”. While going to school, he had to cross half a mile of boiling sand in which one can “roast corn” in May. So, he would have to stop at this end of the sand, take a handful of dhak leaves, tie them on his naked feet with a string, and then cross the sand. That is how the shoeless father used to cross the hot sand for ten years of his educational life. Radhey Mohan tells all this without any harshness but Dr. Khanna feels a bit disturbed. Radhey Mohan informs him that when Kundan Lal fell ill, he sent a telegram to Dr. Khanna who was in America. But he got a reply in a letter informing him about his inability to visit his ill father due to “some conference.” Radhey Mohan says that the letter shattered all hopes of Kundan Lal and never mentioned his son again.
At last, Radhey Mohan tells Dr. Khanna how his father got terminally ill and died. He says that after receiving the letter, Kundan Lal insisted on visiting their school again. While returning, they crossed the boiling sand of cho with dhak leaves on his naked feet, as he used to do in his school days due to the lack of money to purchase shoes. He stepped into the sand with dhak leaves tied on his foot while Radhey Mohan carried his shoes, trying to stop him. But Kundan Lal didn’t stop and while walking on the hot sand he lost the dhak leaves that were loosely tied to his feet. By the time he crossed the sand, he had a high fever. He was already ill and died the very next day. After telling this, Radhey Mohan goes away. Doctor Khanna too returns to America with his family but he feels a change in himself. He begins to feel guilty. He would often look at his feet as though it reminded him of his father and how he may have not served him well. Dr Khanna’s work output decreases dramatically and he begins feeling mentally disturbed. When he meets a psychiatrist, and confides that often feels a disturbing burning sensation in his feet. Dr. Khanna begins feeling as if he is cursed. On the other hand, his father’s sacrifices and sufferings went in vain as he failed to teach his son the significance of healthy values for a happy and peaceful life.
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!
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