Page 137 - EW May 2025

the Marabar Cave incident. vulnerability in general just as ambiguous, disori- episode will dispel many
Anamika’s story heals the and rape in particular, the enting, and ominous as in assumptions about the
wounds within Adela, in novel reprises the central Forster’s presentation. so-called mysticism in the
a way, and transfers the paradigm in Mutiny nar- Forster had repeatedly aum like echo. Instead,
blame for her suffering to ratives which present a ra- said that his novel was in- Trivedi’s meticulous
the assumed superiority cialised rhetoric of Indian tended to be poetical, not documentation and
of the men — Indian and masculine rapacity and political, and had given the interweaving of Forster’s
English. English feminine vulner- example of the three sec- biography, poetics
The final section has ability,” she writes. tions connoting the Indian and manuscript drafts
a generic title, ‘Issues In the next essay, seasons of cold, hot and of Passage leads to a
and Comparisons’, but Ipshita Chanda, while rainy weather. Even the startling conclusion.
the essays are a stimulat- acknowledging previous indeterminacy of the inci- “It may be reasonable
ing reworking of several critical studies about via- dents in the Marabar Cave then to surmise that it was
well-known themes. Gaura bility of ‘friendship’ across bear witness to his poetic Forster himself who was
Narayan centre-stages the racial barriers and implicit efforts, he maintained. distracted at the caves and
Uprising of 1857 to de- animosity that marked Harish Trivedi contests afflicted by sexual fanta-
velop an intricate essay on the colonial encounter, all of this while being sies which he projected on
race relations. Her equa- offers an unexpected and respectful of Forster’s to Adela, even when this
tions may be questioned insightful comparison intention. He carefully was not consistent with
but nonetheless open into of Forster’s ‘cave’ and marks the actuality of the her character as developed
a valuable discourse on Rabindranath Tagore’s novelist being embedded by him right up to this
the interconnectedness ‘cave’ episode depicted in in political events of his point in the novel”. With
between story and history, Chaturanga. In Tagore’s time, and being connected that surmise in mind,
as in her summation, “In novel, the sequence is nar- with people who carried everyone should read this
choosing heterosexual rated as a diary entry and the imperial bias. essay.
desire in its most violent not a direct experience; Trivedi’s close reading MALASHRI LAL (The
aspect of gender-based however, Tagore’s cave is of the Marabar Cave Book Review)

MAY 2025 EDUCATIONWORLD 137