Hullabaloo In The Guava Orchard

Well known critic Matthew Arnold says ‘literature is criticism of life’. Life of human being depends upon nature. So nature and literature having intimate relationship goes hand in hand. Literature reflects everything happening around us. Nature is origin of all sciences. Any branch of science can’t be studied without study of natural elements. Literary field is also not exception. Not any writer could keep himself away from beauty of nature and its depiction in literature. Since pre-independence period poets, novelists have been writing about nature. This nature gives life force or prana to writers by which all living entities are upheld and on manifestation nature takes on the forms of earth, water, fire and ether. Global environment crisis

Orchard became source of pleasure and happy solitude. Beautiful trees, birds, coolness of orchard created a desire in Sampath to swallow all that pleasantness so that he can be permanently happy. Orchard provides ecological base and setting to this novel. All characters wander and live in orchard which is main place of all events and hullabaloo as suggested in the title. Orchard has rich ecological wealth. Kiran Desai pictures various scenes and landscapes of orchard. It plays important role in development of theme. Orchard gives Sampath identity as tree-baba. It gives monetary wealth to Mr. Chawla. Kulfi could foster her obsession of cooking by using all wealth of spices, herbs, plants, trees. Brigadier is obsessed with watching various types of birds. All eccentric characters create not only pollution but also environmental destruction. So called babas are responsible for ecological imbalance and its ruin. Man always tries to control and to overpower the nature and animals but it is impossible for him. He has always become helpless in front of mighty nature. In their meaningless efforts to catch monkeys there is a great hullabaloo in guava orchard. From ecological point of novel can be called as ‘Ecohullabaloo’. It is representative novel in the field of ecocriticism which shows man’s attitude towards nature. Novel reflects Kiran Desai’s ecological concern and she successfully depicts that concern and draws attention to preserve it, care it and create