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Chapter 2
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in In Custody, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Memory and the Passage of Time
Ambition and Failure
Family, Gender, and Indian Tradition
Beauty vs. Utility
Indian Identity and Pluralism
Summary
Analysis
Deven follows Murad’s office boy through the suffocating, nightmarish maze of Chandni Chowk, past textile shops and food stands, astrologers’ booths and jewelry lanes. Just when Deven stops the boy and insists that Nur cannot possibly live here, a cycle rickshaw full of packages almost crashes into him. The packages fall and the boy helps replace them while the driver curses Deven. They continue on into a fetid-smelling alley next to an ayurvedic hospital. The boy insists on stopping for tea and rest, but Deven angrily refuses.
The Chandni Chowk bazaar is the heart of Old Delhi, the part of the city built under the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. Its symbolic importance is immense: it was the Indian capital’s commercial heart for centuries, as well as the birthplace of the Urdu language and its literary tradition. In this sense, it represents the core of the old, precolonial Indian tradition and identity that Nur’s work (and the Urdu language) represents. Desai’s description of the area also deepens the atmosphere of chaos, danger, and mystery that Murad’s erratic behavior helped establish in the last chapter. Notably, it strongly contrasts with her depiction of Mirpore: even though both are chaotic and dirty, Chandni Chowk is full of life, art, and commerce, while Mirpore is dying, soulless, and economically stagnant. This contrast only underlines the sense that Delhi holds the solution to Deven’s troubles.
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They turn into another lane, where the boy bangs on a faded, nondescript door. Someone calls down from the windows above, declaring that only “a great fool” would disturb an elderly man’s afternoon rest. Convinced that this must be Nur, Deven joyously calls back that he is a fool. A woman opens the door; Deven enters the building courtyard and then sprints up the stairs. He is thrilled: Nur is like a god to him, and he’s convinced that his life is going to change forever. He opens an upstairs door to a dimly lit room with ugly green tile walls, a single armchair, a rickety table, and a vast pile of tattered books. The poet, an imposing, bearded man dressed in all white, is reclining on a divan, immobile like a marble statue.
After the meaningless madness of Murad and the bazaar, Nur’s call down to Deven seems like a lightning bolt of substance. Not only has Deven finally reached his objective, but Nur also speaks with a clarity, honesty, and decisiveness that nobody else seems able to match. Deven is so relieved and thrilled to hear Nur’s voice that he inadvertently insults himself. He may think he is praising Nur’s intelligence by calling himself a fool in comparison, but ironically, what he’s actually doing is foreshadowing the way that so many other people—including Nur—take advantage of him over the course of the novel. Lastly, when he praises Nur by comparing him to a marble statue, he is alluding to the greatest architectural achievements of Islamic India (like the Taj Mahal). The clear implication is that Nur’s poetry is also a wondrous, timeless achievement.
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Nur asks who sent Deven to disturb him. Deven pulls out Murad’s letter, and the poet asks him to read it aloud. He does, even though it’s full of Murad’s shallow attempts at flattery. Nur calls the letter-writer a “joker” and asks if Deven is “part of his circus.” Deven says no—he just writes for Murad’s magazine. Deven explains the feature he’s writing on Urdu poetry and debates whether to reveal that he has already written a whole monograph on Nur’s work. Somehow, everything is silent outside.
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Nur asks how there can be Urdu poetry if the Urdu language is already dead and buried. Deven insists that he and Murad are trying to keep the language alive. But he also admits that he teaches Hindi, not Urdu. Deven explains that he grew up speaking Urdu with his father, who died when he was young. He ended up studying and teaching Hindi to make a living, but Urdu is his true passion. Nur calls Deven unworthy of Urdu and tells him to sit.
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Nur speaks a line from one of his poems about suffering, and then Deven starts confidently reciting the rest of the poem, which was one of his father’s favorites. Surprised, Nur laughs and compliments Deven’s pronunciation. As he recites, Deven he feels a divine kind of intimacy, peace, and self-awareness.
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A servant boy (Ali) enters the room with tea, interrupting the scene, and several other people rush up the stairs. Mayhem ensues. The boy gives Deven a scalding metal cup of tea, a baby starts crying, and several young men start demanding money from Nur and making racy jokes. Scandalized, Deven starts to leave, but Nur stops him and says they will go to the balcony instead. He gets angry when Deven doesn’t know bring his cushions and pillow along, and he sends the servant boy to do it. All the while, he complains about his age and his piles (hemorrhoids).
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Deven follows Nur outside and sees a flock of birds swarm around the old man and start picking at his bald head. Nur calmly has Ali feed the pigeons, and they leave him alone. Deven asks if Nur is alright; Nur comments that birds usually inspire poets but are now threatening one. Inspired, Deven tries to make a profound comment, but instead meekly asks if Nur will agree to the interview. Suddenly, “an ancient gnome of a man” shows up at the terrace, eases Nur down onto a couch, and starts aggressively massaging him. Between his grunts and cries, Nur chats about professional wrestling with the man, who soon leaves.
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The servant boy (Ali) brings Nur inside to take a bath. Deven sits down, frustrated that everyone is ignoring him. But just then, people pour out from the building to the terrace, where they watch the sun set above and the bazaar light up for the night below. Surrounded by the crowd, Deven debates whether to go home or keep waiting to interview Nur—which seems impossible amid this chaos.
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Soon, Nur returns from his bath and starts chatting with his rowdy visitors, who jubilantly drink, banter, and recite poetry. They remind Deven of his bohemian friends from college. Deven is shocked: he expected Nur to be living the refined, secluded life of a scholar, not to be partying with “clowns and jokers and jugglers.” Laying on his sofa, Nur drinks cup after cup of rum, and then starts to eat gluttonously. He scarfs down handful after handful of biryani and kebabs, which spill all over his clothes. (Ali tries and fails to clean up after him.) Someone hands Deven a plate of the greasy food, which he worries will upset his stomach. Suddenly, Nur looks over and asks if Deven likes Delhi’s royal cuisine better than the food at his college canteen. Deven starts to dig in.
Deven watches while the visitors recite poetry, act out stories, and argue in front of Nur. He doesn’t understand how Nur finds the energy to deal with them, or the concentration to write poetry when he lives in such a bustling bazaar. But actually, Nur is talking about poetry: he announces that his visitors are reciting mere nursery rhymes, not true poetry that would revitalize Urdu and defeat Hindi. One man tells Nur to save Urdu through journalism, not poetry, but another calls this idea hopeless. The conversation seems canned, as though it repeats every night, and nobody has ever changed anyone else’s mind.
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Nur interrupts to announce that everyone is wrong: the problem is not Hindi versus Urdu, but time. Deven feels a sense of relief and remembers why he loves poetry: men like Nur know how to put everything in perspective and restore a sense of calm. Deven gets lost in thought, then notices Nur pointing at him. Nur asks Deven to recite his (Nur’s) poetry, but Deven is shocked and struggles to speak. Nur mocks him for teaching the “safe, simple Hindi language.”
A tall man interrupts to declare that Hindi poetry is vibrant and recite an unimaginative short poem about nature. Nur declares that even film songs are better than this poem, and he yells at Ali to go wake up his son and have him sing. The tall man angrily kicks a stack of used metal plates across the terrace; someone throws his glass on the ground, shattering it. Another man starts crying because a film director stole a song he wrote.
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While the revelers chatter on, Nur quietly disappears into the house. Put off by the crowd and hoping he will finally get an interview, Deven follows him inside. But he’s shocked at what he sees, and he tries to avoid remembering it ever again. He hears a child cry, a woman shriek, and Nur mumble downstairs. Following the sound, he finds Nur face-down on a mattress while his wife (Imtiaz) screams at him. Nur has vomited all over her floor. He blames his stomach ulcers, but she blames his drinking.
Deven embraces Nur, but in an angry tirade, Imtiaz says that, if Deven loves Nur so much, he can clean up the vomit. Nur’s followers pretend to worship him, she continues, but they just want free food and drink. Deven declares he has come to pay his respects to a great poet, but Nur’s wife accuses Deven and the other revelers of reducing Nur to a gluttonous, vile animal who is barely able to work. Deven knows that she’s right, even as she starts throwing books and papers at him. He notices her son crying in the corner of the room and then starts cleaning up the vomit in the corner with a wad of papers. Nur and his wife keep arguing; when she looks away, Deven runs outside with the vomit-soaked paper.
Deven waits out on the verandah, unsure what to do, as Nur and Imtiaz continue arguing inside. After some time, following his instincts, he runs down the stairs and out into the street. He dumps the paper in the gutter and runs off. Then, he realizes that Nur may have written poetry on those papers. Besides the moment when he heard Nur and his wife’s voices from upstairs, this is the other memory that sticks with Deven. He doesn’t want to admit that he abandoned his idol, defaced his poetry, and ran away.
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