After moving up into a tree and accidentally becoming a famous holy man, Sampath does in fact grow more deeply in touch with nature and spirituality, even though that wasn’t what he was setting out to do. Meanwhile, his father Mr. Chawla’s determination to make a profit from this situation is a reminder of how easily spiritual and religious matters can be exploited for personal gain. While Sampath might be gaining some mysterious kind of enlightenment during his life in the tree, it’s also clear that nearly everyone around him is using him in a way that’s contrary to his intentions. Sampath’s spiritual sense of peace comes from the simplicity of his natural surroundings, but Mr. Chawla disrupts this peace by monetizing his son’s newfound mysticism.
Eventually, even Sampath’s devoted followers begin to exploit him in their own ways. As they argue with one another in front of his tree, they use him as a pawn in their selfish political games. Sensing this, Sampath begins to feel sick, angry, and in no mood to engage with anyone. These events highlight the ironic and unfortunate human tendency to ruin something simple and innocent by trying to extract as much personal gain from it as possible. By trying to appropriate and twist something transcendent and mysterious for their own selfish aims, Sampath’s devotees undermine and accidentally destroy the sense of peace they were seeking in the first place. In this way, the author suggests that material greed and spirituality cannot coexist peacefully for long, and satirizes the human ability to exploit and distort spirituality.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Exploitation of Spirituality ThemeTracker
Exploitation of Spirituality Quotes in Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard
Sampath might make his family’s fortune. They could be rich! How many hermits were secretly wealthy? How many holy men were not at all the beggars they appeared to be? How many men of unfathomable wisdom possessed unfathomable bank accounts?
And he began to think of stocks and shares. Stocks and shares were a good idea because they were not in the least ostentatious and Mr. Chawla realized, when he saw the respect for the austerity of Sampath’s life that visitors displayed, that he must keep a careful balance between the look of abstemiousness and actual comfort.
“Ah! For one like him, it is hard to keep the mind on such petty and mundane matters. He will look out of the window and everywhere there is the glory of God.”
The behavior of the monkeys was just another proclamation of Sampath’s authenticity. “Think of all those shams,” said Miss Jyotsna, “all those crooks posing in their saffron, those gurus who are as corrupt as politicians…”
Oh, they gloated, their Baba was not like that. He was an endless source of wonder. He had even cast his spell upon the wild beasts of the market.
He and his father were as different as black from white, as chickens from potatoes, as peas from buckets. What did he think? Did he think he would just climb down and return to his old existence like some old fool? He had left Shahkot in order to be alone. And what had they all done? They had followed him.
But all the same, he was sure he could not have felt this emotion, which was stronger than the men who displayed it. What was it? It existed beyond a person and anything any person could individually be capable of. They shook with this gigantic force.
How much had changed since he had first arrived in the orchard such a short time back. How quickly it was becoming more and more like all he hoped he had left behind forever. Ugly advertisements defaced the neighboring trees; a smelly garbage heap spilled down the hillside behind the tea stall and grew larger every week. The buzz of angry voices and the claustrophobia he had associated with life in the middle of town were creeping up upon him again.
