Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Absurdity and Chaos
Nature vs. Modernity
Traditions, Customs, and Expectations
Exploitation of Spirituality
Summary
Analysis
Meanwhile, in the quiet and peaceful orchard, Kulfi mutters in her sleep as she dreams of all the ingredients that should go into the monkey dish she’s planning to make. Suddenly, she awakens as she realizes that she needs cicada orchids to make the meal perfect, as surely it’ll be a disappointing disaster without this crucial ingredient. As she hurries up the hillside to search for this flower, the spy watches the scene from the shadows, knowing that this is finally his chance to investigate the cooking pot he’s been suspicious of for so long. At the same time, Pinky waits in town for the Hungry Hop boy, feeling angry and unhappy for reasons she can’t explain.
Even in the tranquil orchard, the absurdity of the novel’s climax continues. As Kulfi continues her mad pursuit of cooking a monkey to perfection, the spy investigates a cooking pot that isn’t nearly as important as he assumes it to be. Pinky’s unexplained frustration foreshadows that the Hungry Hop boy is likely to disappoint her, leading to yet another chaotic and messy failure. Amid all these disasters, the authorities’ plan to restore order to Shahkot seems more laughable than ever.
Themes
Sampath lies in his tree, sitting perfectly still and quiet for a very long time. As the night and dark early morning wear on, he remains in his stillness and feels an odd sense of peace wash over him. It seems that he can sense every slight noise and sensation in the natural world around him, almost becoming one with his surroundings. Darkness envelops him, and he picks one of the ripe guavas from the branches. He admires its perfect shape, its bumpy texture, and the cool feeling of the fruit against his skin. As he holds it close, the night continues, and Sampath lies still in the perfect peace and quiet.
On the most tense and uncomfortable night of his life, Sampath finds an unexpected moment of inner peace. The symbol of the guava fruit returns to remind him of the wild notion that brought him here to the tree in the first place. As he reflects on the idea of perfect simplicity and freedom one last time, he seems to blend into nature. It’s possible that he can only escape modernity through a kind of transcendence. In this moment, he seems to find it.
Themes
Back in Shahkot, the Hungry Hop boy nearly goes mad as his indecision persists. He drives wildly through the narrow streets, still unable to make up his mind about Pinky and the bride his family has chosen. Looking around, Pinky spots the Hungry Hop van and feels a moment of relief, followed by confusion as she watches the van pull into another street, away from the agreed-upon meeting place. Time and again, she watches the van pass by, growing angrier and more incredulous each time. The van also blocks the monkey-catchers’ path again at regular intervals, driving the Brigadier to near-madness. Fuming with rage, he swears he’ll shoot the boy driving that van that keeps getting in their way. Nervously, Mr. Gupta tries to calm him down, but the Brigadier’s anger grows as the delays continue.
As the Hungry Hop boy contributes his own delay to the authorities’ morning of misfortunes, more comic relief ensues. His trouble with the Brigadier could be interpreted as his (Hungry Hop’s) punishment for his indecision. But at the same time, he doesn’t seem capable of making up his mind, as he and Shahkot’s government officials are trapped in their own absurd circumstances.
Themes
Mr. Chawla shouts up into the tree to tell Sampath that the monkey-catchers will be arriving soon. Brimming with nervous excitement, the spy takes advantage of this one last quiet moment to approach Kulfi’s unattended cooking pot. He climbs up into a nearby tree, precariously positioning himself on a branch directly above the cauldron. From this vantage point, he'll be able to see everything that happens with the cooking. He can even take samples of the brew with his glass vials and string. Finally, it seems, he can discover the secret of Sampath’s inexplicable success.
From his own point of view, the spy is a heroic figure, trying to expose how a conman has been exploiting people’s spiritual needs for personal gain. But as close as he is to realizing the truth, he’s also comically far off. His ridiculous position on the branch paints him as a lunatic, driven by obsession to chase clues that lead nowhere. Despite his claims of rationality and truth-seeking, the spy seems just as unhinged as everyone else this morning.
Themes
Get the entire Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard LitChart as a printable PDF.
At last, just as dawn comes, the brigade of monkey-catchers finally arrives in the orchard. The monkeys in Sampath’s tree scatter in panic as Mr. Chawla loudly announces the brigade’s arrival. The army men immediately leap into action to follow the plan, but they quickly hit another snag. The Brigadier had caught the Hungry Hop boy in the monkey nets to prevent him (the boy) from causing any more delays with his van in the narrow streets. As the men struggle to extract the Hungry Hop boy from the nets, Pinky looks at him with scorn. The boy gives her a sorry expression, but she appears to give up on him; he looks pathetic, and he’s disappointed her at just the wrong moment.
At last, the romance between Pinky and the Hungry Hop boy comes to a sudden end, just as absurdly as it began. Because Hungry Hop was so hesitant to make a choice, Pinky’s decided for him. Hungry Hop caught in the monkey net is also a perfect image to reflect Shahkot’s complete inability to tame nature. The town’s citizens were so busy squabbling with each other that they don’t even have an empty net upon arriving to capture the orchard’s monkeys. Given all these mishaps, modernity might fail once again to bring nature under its control.
Themes
Mr. Chawla shouts up into the tree, urging Sampath to come down for his safety, as planned. But he receives no reply, and he soon realizes in horror that Sampath is nowhere to be found up in the branches. He shouts and looks wildly around for his son, and everyone gathered in the orchard frantically helps with the search. They can’t find Sampath anywhere, but they soon spot a much stranger sight. Up in the tree is a large object on the cot that they hadn’t noticed before. It’s an enormous guava, much bigger than any of the others. The monkeys surround it, and on its side is a large brown bruise, like a familiar birthmark. Just as Ammaji recognizes the strange guava to be Sampath himself, the Cinema Monkey grabs it and carries it away, followed by the other monkeys.
In the most miraculous and unexplainable turn of events yet, Sampath has somehow transformed into the same fruit that inspired him to run away to the orchard in the first place. Given that the guava has symbolized freedom and perfect simplicity throughout the novel, it seems that Sampath has finally gotten his wish. He hasn’t just escaped into nature; he’s become one with it. This incredible event punctuates the absurdity of the climax with one last outlandish moment to top them all.
Themes
The entire crowd gives chase as the monkeys retreat with their enormous guava up the hillside and into the forest. In the midst of the chase, Pinky sets her romantic sights on the Brigadier, who suddenly seems dashing and is surely a much more ambitious man to aim for than the Hungry Hop boy. The monkeys race deeper into the forest and higher up into the mountains, crashing through the trees as they ascend. The apes briefly rush past Kulfi as she gathers flowers. Shielding her eyes from the rising sun, she watches as the monkeys travel up to the summit of the highest mountain, where the trees briefly shake as if waving goodbye. Then the monkeys and their guava are gone at last.
Just like in Sampath’s wildest dreams, he finally escapes from modern life and expectations by retreating deep into the wilderness where none can follow. In the end, Sampath seems to be the only character who truly gets what he wants. By never abandoning his tree or his desire to be free from social norms, Sampath absorbed himself into nature as he always wished to. The waving trees seem to be his final goodbye to his mother—a heartfelt thanks for understanding him for all these years. Everyone else’s lives might carry on largely as they did before. But through his mysterious transformation, Sampath has done it: he’s finally free.
Themes
In the ensuing silence and stillness, the people hear a strange series of sounds: a loud crack, a howl, and a sudden splashing noise. Kulfi wonders what the noise was, and everyone asks each other what it could possibly be. Turning their attention from the mountain summit to the cooking pot, they notice a broken branch above it. In the pot, they smell delicious herbs, seasonings, and all the exotic ingredients Kulfi has added to her brew…along with something else. Carefully, everyone approaches Kulfi’s simmering cooking pot.
After a climax full of noisy and absurd shenanigans, the novel’s ending is surprisingly quiet and apprehensive. The spy falling into Kulfi’s cooking pot seems to finally quiet things down, as if everyone can sense that someone has died. Kulfi planned to cook a monkey in her pot, but now a person is cooking instead. Symbolically, this blurs the line between monkeys and humans—between society and nature. After all, the people of Shahkot have acted just as wildly and chaotically as the apes they tried to capture. In this view, maybe the line between nature and modernity hardly exists at all.
Themes
