A Passage to India: Portrayal of India

India in A Passage to India stands for more than India A Passage to India is a story, Walt Whitman Says, of a passage more than. It undoubtedly on the surface treats of the difficulties of Aziz to become friendly with Fielding but on probing beneath the surface we detect that it deals with a problem more fundamental, which concerns mans inability to achieve harmony and order in a universe which he is not able to understand and which remains foreign to his hopes and desires. India stands for more than that India; it represents the primal formlessness, which sets at naught all considerations of from and sense. The earth elsewhere may be gratifying to man and his itch or the seemly. But when a Westerner leaves the Suez and the Mediterranean which represent to him the human norm, he confronts the monstrous and extraordinary. it leads to the strangest experience, which brings in its wake a terrible disillusionment. It tells about the insubstantiality of all romance and idealism. Unlike Grasmere a typical Indian landscape cant be romantic yet manageable. She extends hints of infinity, but it is always elusive and incomprehensible to human mind. It remains inaccessible to all means of human civilization and understanding. There is something hostile in that soil that baffles human intellect. Nothing in India is identifiable; the mere asking of a question causes it to disappear or to merge into something else. In this land a mole and an elephant are identical and everything is nothings. How can the mind take hold of such a country? asks Forster. Generations have tried but they remain in exile. The important towns they build are only retreats, their quarrels, the malaise do men, who cannot find their home. India known their trouble. She knows of the whole worlds trouble to its uttermost depth. She calls Come, through her hundred mouths, through objects, ridiculous and august. But it comes to what? She has never defined. She is not a promise, only an appeal. Indias primal bleakness- Indians primal bleakness is not conveyed more graphically by any other object than the Mara bar caves. There is something unspeakable in the these outposts. They are like nothing else in the world, and a glimpse of them makes the breath catch. They rise abruptly, insanely without the proportion that is kept by the wildest hills elsewhere; they bear no

relation to anything, dreamt or seen. To call them uncanny suggests ghosts and they are older than all spirit. Nothings, nothing, attaches to them, smallness of mans capacities and the inadequacy of his arbitrary creeds are exposed and man is intimated times and again that his existence is rather precarious in a universe which is unmanageable to his social proprieties are thwarted, outraged and upset. The cant surrounding mans consciousness is dispelled forth with and shows to him his exact real self. He receives a shock too severe to be endured and the terrible disillusionment which is thus caused neither poetry, nor idealism nor logic can resist or even alleviate. Universal chaos in what India represents- India represents as were a universal chaos. Man is not able to achieve harmony in this eternal formlessness, or is he in a position to embrace the entire humanity, as he finds his efforts in this direction as futile. The universe is unmanageable and it can be managed only by divine love. All invitations, says Forster, must proceed from heaven, perhaps it is futile for man to initiate their unity, they do but widen the gulfs between them by the attempt. The garden parties, the Bridge parties, the liberal friendships, and prudent marriages with all their characteristic gaiety and joviality are not able to restore order in the chaotic world which encompasses us, nor do they in way help to bring about an understanding of the universe at large. Mrs. Moore has the nightmarish vision, which has been described thus: Though people are important, the relations between them are not, and that in particular too much fuss has been made over marriage. Centuries of carnal embracement, yet man is no newer to understanding man. Harmony can be achieved in this realm of chaos by the power of love and the secret understanding of the heart. The world seeks a solution to its difficulties in the birth of Lord Krishna Infinite love took upon itself the form of shri Krishna and caves the world. All sorrow was annihilated, not only Indians, but for foreigners, birds, caves, railways, and the stars all became joy all for laughter, there had never been disease, nor doubt, misunderstanding cruelty, fear, etc. Everything is drawn closer and melted into the universal warmth. Men too forget their petty discords and for the time being leave their acts of knowledge, develop a life of spirit and feel united, and achieve an understanding of each other. The unions which are based on the secret

understanding of the heart, are blessed but those which are grounded on cold logicality are ultimately rejected.