The Last Labyrinth By Gandhi Essay

Indian writing in English is a product of the colonial rule. The Indo-English novelists find it difficult to get out of Western influences. It is in the sense that in their effort to give an expression for individuality the Indian writers in English lose their sense of identity – both personal and national – and feel alienated in their own home, making frantic efforts to seek, organize and affirm identity. In many cases, not only the novelists but also the characters in their novels face what psychologists call identity crisis.
The protagonists of Arun Joshi’s novels are perplexed and they find themselves in the fast-moving world with no clear ambitions in mind. Som Bhaskar, the protagonist of The Last Labyrinth, seems to explore the hidden

He had been educated in the world’s best universities. He is married to Geeta, an extraordinary woman who has borne him two children and is “all that a wife could be” (40). Yet he suffers from an insatiable hunger: “Hunger of the body, Hunger of the spirit” (11). Though he is a millionaire, he knew that “money was dirt, a whore. So were houses, cars, carpets” (11). He suffers from an indefinable hunger, restlessness and the great desire: “I want, I want” (11) haunts throughout his life. He is never at peace with himself and spends sleepless nights, drinking and taking tranquilizers. He goes on desperately living, clinging to one thing or person and trying to seek satisfaction in sex, wealth and fame but finds himself increasingly restless and realizes that “I am dislocated. My mind is out of focus” (107). He finds himself in spiritual waste land. All these compel him quest for his identity.
Som is always in search of someone who has the potentiality to settle the contradictions of his life. He does not find it in his wife or in the clever Professor Leela Sabnis even though she attracts him more powerfully. But Leela’s world of reason and mystery does not satisfy him. Leela analyses his dilemma as “a problem of identity”. She tells