A House For Mr Biiswas Analysis

V. S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas is a story of Indian Hindu migrants whose grand-parents have been migrated in Trinidad and Tobago as indentured labourers on the sugarcane estates and started living there permanently. Two families have been described particularly in the novel in the main plot. One is Mohun Biswas’s family and other one is Tulsi family in Arwacas. Hindu rituals, rites and customs have been criticized in the novel at many places. Mr. Biswas tragic Hindu life starts when he was a mere child. According to Cudjoe, “Given the Hindu sensibility that informs the text, Mr. Biswas’s tragic dimension can be perceived as poetic necessity. (Cudjoe 74) When Mr. Biswas’ father drowns in the pond and subsequently dies in an effort to find his son in the pond, then this family loses the respect which is reserved to Hindu Brahmins. They eat food in Sadhu’s house as per Hindu rituals. Biswas’ family belonged to a Hindu Brahmin family and as per Hindu customs the garlic and even onion is not used in their food as it is considered a tamasik bhojan; then how this family eats the meat served to them and there is not mentioning of any resistance or reluctance of non-vegetarianism by any of the member of family. They eat non-vegetarian food there. It is only Mr. Biswas who feels nauseated and vomits all the food: According to Hindu rules, dead body is always cremated but in the novel the body of a Brahmin father, Raghu’s body is buried which is against the Hindu rituals,