1 Entrapments at Home and Abroad in Anita Desai’s Fasting, Feasting

Anita Desai’s Fasting, Feasting, as it is implied in the title itself, is a novel of contrast between two cultures, the one, Indian, known for its pious and longstanding customs representing ‘fasting, ’ and the other, American, a country of opulence and sumptuousness epitomising ‘feasting. ’ The plot unveils through the perceptions of Uma, in India, and of Arun, in America. Both of them are entrapped, irrespective of the culture and enveloping milieu, by oppressive bonds exercised by their own parents, MamaPapa. They are just MamaPapa or PapaMama but remain nameless throughout the novel. Yet, this namelessness does not indicate their anonymity but signifies their universality. They are the prototypical parents found everywhere in the middle-class families of India, who discuss, plan, plot, control, govern the activities of their children, be it marriage or going abroad for studies. And in their over-domineering concern, they tend to ignore the inadvertent possibility of entrapping their own offspring. Thus, they do not give contingency to the fact that perhaps their children too can have a life to call their own. May be even their own preoccupations, their own priorities, maybe an agenda for themselves that goes beyond what they actually want for their children. The novel beings with a snapshot of MamaPapa in a contemplative mood: “The parents sit, rhythmically swinging, back and forth. They could be asleep, dozing—their eyes are hooded—but sometimes they speak.”1 That is when a sudden deluge of ideas hit them and they order their eldest daughter, Uma, to carry out them without delay. Uma is asked first to inform the cook to prepare sweets for her father, with neglectful impatience that she has been already asked to pack a parcel to be sent to her brother Arun in America. While she comes literally running on her toes, she is entrusted with an additional job of writing a letter to their son. Somewhere in the middle of the novel, the reader understands that it is the usual scene that goes on in the household of MamaPapa. “All morning MamaPapa have found things for Uma to do. It is as if Papa’s retirement is to be spent in this manner—sitting on the red swing in the veranda with Mama, rocking