Adapted from Raphiphat Phatthana’s previous homework at CMU
Vishnu, the guy from Nagpur are agonizing at her landing in the flat where there were four main household characters; the Asrani, the Pathek, the Jalal, and Mr. Vinod Taneja. Only Jalal family is Muslim. When Vishnu was terribly ill, both of the Asrani and the Pathek refused to be in charge of the cost of the treatment. On this period, Vishnu had an illusion on the memorable with Padmini, his former girl friend. Despite his unfailing devotion (stealing the car and drive her to the beach) to her, she still regarded his romantic fantasy as an absurdity. Vishnu also thought about the story of Hindu God told by his mother. At the same time, Salim, the son of the Jalal eloped with Kavita, the Asrani’s daughter, Rajan, son of the pathak started playing in the role of Salim with Shyamu, the Asrani’s younger son, who played as Kavita. Then, Mrs. Pathak and Mrs Asrani got a verbal fight, as Mrs. Pathak tried to tease Mrs. Asrani on the mysterious disappearance of Kavita at the same as Salim’s. Mrs. Asrani, then tried to accused the Jalal family of kidnapping her daugther. The short ganga heard this conversation, and made an assumption based on religious bias blended with previous incident between Muslim and Hindu that the Jalal family planned to kidnap Kavita. During the elopement, Kavita who was socialized by Bollywood film was shocked with Salim’s future plan to set up the Mechanic Shop. Kavita went back to her family who hid the elopement as a secret. Upon her return, her mother told her to keep silent in order to protect the family’s reputation that she has never run away with Salim.
No one can argue that every word in the Fiction project the author’s mind. Hence, the author, whether consciously or unconsciously, is the one who puts his own voices to address his attitudes, values, and beliefs to his characters. However, Fiction refers to books and stories about imaginary people or events, rather than book about real people or events[i]. His characters or his stories, although, are true in his head, when the book is published in the category of Fiction, it would always be regarded untrue matters.However, the fictions containing religious topics are often viewed by some critique as the blasphemy . On releasing this kind of Fictions, many writers were received a death thread, a ban from several countries. Consequently, the right to discuss the religious matters, and the right to protect the religions, gradually, were poignantly debated. Hence, the careless judgement without considering fundamental background should be strictly avoided.The death of Vishnu[ was written by Dr. Manil Suri, the professor of mathematics at the University of Maryland. Unless analyzing carefully, the story was likely to be only the social comedy of Bombay Metropolitan. Ironically, most of the Hindu, in the story, seemed to be the pretender. Mr. Asrani perceived participation in every religion as an experiment. Every saturnday, Mr. Asrani would take to bus to go to the mosque, the church, and the temple, as he believed that it will cast away the Nazar or his bad luck. Both of Hindu housewives (Mrs. Pathek and Mrs. Asrani) cursed each other that the other encounter was always trying to take advantage on the public property such as water and ghee (clarified butter, used as a cooking medium). Sandwiched by Hindu families, Mr. Jalal obsessing with both eastern and western philosophies, suddenly, announced that he was the God Vishnu prophet, and claimed that Vishnu, an agonizing man was the God Vishnu himself[ .
Mistaken the announcement as a joke combined with the suspicion that the Jalal had kidnapped Kavita, the Asrani’s daughter. Mrs. Jalal was beaten to dead and Mr. Jalal was broke his leg while trying to escape. From this, the reading might notice that a Muslim man has tried to show his belief to Hinduism was treated by The pretended Cosmopolitan Hindu who have less knowledge on their own religion that the Muslim man.
Seemingly, The Death of Vishnu did not blame Hindu, but remind them not just practice the ritual ceremony, but also keep up with its ideology. To retrieve the forgotten faith, Suri, the author retold the Bhagavad-Gita and the advent of Muslim in India which are paralleled to the event in the Bombay’s middle-class flat in the story. Suri also attempted to present the Socio-polical mapping of the co-existence of two religions.
In this paper, the first assertion is that even though the religious matters presented in the novel offended some of its reader, the novel itself still serves its own purpose as fictional and imaginary piece of writing. Secondly, When the book caused controversial issues, it aroused critics, academia and the religious followers to present fact of religion to the general public. As a result, when the preferred understanding of the religion is revealed, it strengthened the religion itself.
In order to solidify the first claim, some of questions will be posed to lead the direction of the discussion. First instance, “ Will we say sometimes when we are unhappy with the authorities or the pressure caused by someone such as the government? The answer can be yes or no. If the answer is yes, it shows that the freedom of expression of the speakers is still well protected. But if the answer is No, surely, the unhappiness can be transformed into the fiction. Even though some of sensitive issues towards religious topics offended some of its readers. The legitimacy of the writers to be claimed is that Literature is a self-revalidation. It is free from any rules or any restrictions. But if the problems arisen are that “ Does the so-called self-revalidated piece of writings violate the personal right of faith?” the readers could simply make a sanction on not buying that piece of writing.
In this story, Suri clearly expostulated with the segregation of the two sides of different religions. He directly satirizes the “static” concept of identity by portraying the cold-hearted reaction of the Asrani family towards the Jalal whom she perceived as “ The other” caused by an identity of Religion. When Vishnu, the main character was badly sick, None of Hindu families lends their hands to help. Conversely, when Mrs. Jalal tried to help Vishnu by sending him to “ Hajrat Society” which is the Muslim charity, the Hindu families refused. Suri did not blame all Hindu family but the point that he had made was that the sense of humanity is more important to the rule of religion (forbidding people to receive help from others, as it can lead to conversion). Vishnu, for many years, had taken good care of the apartment very well, if the Hindu families could not afford to send him to the hospital, they should other people be in charge of. In other word, Vice and Virtue can not be judged on in which Religion one was born to. Another example that Suri had made is the social pretension of the Hindu followers, not the religion itself. ( to be continued in the comment)