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Abstract
In today’s times during which modern parameters for judging any country is the level of its emergence as a developing nation in association with its wealth, the number of literary works produced on these lines continues to be very sparse. Apart from R.K.Narayan’s ‘Financial Expert’, published almost immediately after independence, there have not been many writings exploring the direct relationship of money with human beings. Not many in a language we understand at least. The Novella titled Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag, which has been chosen here to trace this trajectory, is a recent attempt to bring forth the fraught nature of the bond between Indian populace and their economics. The reason why this has echoes with the evolution of Indian writing is that it signals a ripening maturity of engagement in the fictional form by a litterateur. It is a story about an Indian family rooted in its recent past and depicts the phenomenal transmutation and change in sensibility that accompanies life after coming into money. India and its writings are otherwise most closely associated with spiritual leanings or post-colonialist anger or a writing accused of being elitist and smelling of colonial hangover in the sense that the story is not its own but trying to achieve an aspirational high. They are written in ironies and sarcasm and in magic realism and obscure language but do not hit the nail on its head. One of the critics said of the language of Indian English used in Ghachar Ghochar- “language real enough for semi-literate and devoid of literary grace”. There is no doubt that the involvement of the writer with the translator to give the most authentic experience of this novel is high. Apart from that, the dynamics of the publishing industry is India has taken an upward shift and they are no longer veered only towards top award winning writers of the age. Indian writing has been most diverse in its own languages and by bringing them out in the forum of a more popular medium of English, what is being done is enabling the most original Indian story adaptation. As D.Prasad, a scholar has written in the journal, ‘Language in India’, “the writers of Indian writing in English have tried to express Indian sensibility in their works. Sensibility can be defined as an unconscious yet habitual stance of mind, heart and soul towards men, things, events, nature and God. It is an innate susceptibility to impressions and reactions. It is like ‘rasa’ in Sanskrit literature.”