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Chapter 5
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Vendor of Sweets, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Communication vs. Fear
Generational Difference
Commerce, Taste, and the Good Life
Religion
India vs. the U.K. and the U.S.
Summary
Analysis
At the sweet shop, the cousin makes conversation about a fight at the market because he’s noticed Jagan doesn’t want to discuss Mali. Jagan complains that the other merchants raising prices have no “sense of service” and notes that one man can only eat or wear so much, no matter how rich he is. The cousin jovially tells Jagan that he doesn’t know how to live—yet he still gets rich! Jagan decides to repay the cousin for his flattery with information about Mali: he mentions that Mali has talked to him about his plans.
Jagan’s limited parceling-out of information about Mali to the cousin shows that he is a poor communicator not only when afraid but also when upset. Meanwhile, Jagan’s claim that the other merchants have “no sense of service” indicates that he thinks businesspeople have a responsibility to their customers over and above their bottom line—a somewhat controversial belief in business contexts. Finally, Jagan’s argument that people only need so much is a common-sense argument against capitalism’s preference for indefinite accumulation and economic growth.
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Themes
After a digression in which Jagan and the cousin discuss how Mali seems to have borrowed a friend’s scooter, the cousin asks whether Jagan likes Mali’s “scheme.” Jagan, startled by the word scheme, asks one of his employees to get rid of the children staring at the sweets in the shop window, who make him feel obscurely guilty. Meanwhile, the cousin—who has felt cold-shouldered by Jagan not talking about Mali with him—is pleased to be able to give him news. He explains that he encountered Mali at a friend’s house, and Mali told him he plans to “manufacture story-writing machines.”
The word “scheme” carries negative connotations, which may be why it shocks Jagan. Jagan’s guilt over the children staring in the shop window, meanwhile, indicates that he is not living up to his own ideal of businesspeople as public servants—to make money, he has priced poorer potential customers out of buying his sweets. And finally, Jagan learns of Mali’s plans to “manufacture story-writing machines”—a bizarre, science-fictional object—from the cousin rather than Mali himself. That was because when Mali told him about the machines, Jagan was distracted by Mali’s socks, an odd detail suggesting that the machines may come to symbolize the various failures of communication between Jagan and Mali.
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Themes
The cousin, noting Jagan’s confusion with pleasure, asks whether he’s never heard of the story-writing machines in America. Jagan admits he hasn’t and asks how the machine writes stories. The cousin says that, not being an engineer, he has no idea—but Mali said it was “‘electronic’ or ‘electric’ or something like that.” He suggests that Jagan ask Mali about it.
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Themes
The next morning, when Grace comes to clean Jagan’s side of the house, Jagan asks her whether Mali is free to talk. Grace goes to ask, comes back, and tells Jagan Mali will talk to him in 15 minutes. Annoyed to be kept waiting, Jagan recalls when Mali used to beg him for money—but at the appointed time, he goes to Mali’s room and asks how the story-writing machine works. Mali says that he already explained it. When Jagan admits that he didn’t fully comprehend, Mali gives him a condescending look, pulls an “object that looked like a radio cabinet” out of a package, and tells him that the object can write stories using knobs, “a transistor,” and “ordinary valves.”
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Themes
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Jagan asks Mali whether he actually wants to write using the story-writing machine. Mali says he will not only write with it but manufacture and sell it in India to redress India’s “backward” publishing industry: whereas America has 10,000 new books every year, India has only “old stories” like Ramayana and Mahabharata. Jagan cautiously approaches the peculiar device, reading labels on various parts of the machine for manipulating characters, emotions, climaxes, and so forth, and asks how you can compose a story with it. Mali replies that it’s just like using a typewriter.
Grace enters the room and says to Jagan how intelligent Mali is. Jagan, wondering what exactly Mali’s scheme is, tells Grace that the Indian epics were composed orally and not written down for generations. Dismissively, Mali interrupts to say that in the modern era, India must compete with “advanced culture” in art as well as commerce. He tells Jagan that he may have to give up his business and come work for Mali in an office. When Jagan asks whether people actually compose stories on story-writing machines in America, Mali and Grace assure him that many do.
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Themes
Mali tells Jagan that if they raise $51,000, their American backers will give them help worth $200,000 to start the business, including aid in setting up the factory and running it for the first half year. Jagan asks what Grace studied in college; she reminds him that she studied domestic economy. When Mali asks why Jagan’s interested in that, Jagan says he was curious whether Grace had studied business too. Then he leaves.
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Themes
When the cousin enters the sweet shop that afternoon, Jagan asks him what $50,000 is in rupees. The cousin says “two lakhs”—a conversion he checked after talking to Mali. Jagan asks where Mali expects to get the money, and the cousin replies that Mali expects it from Jagan, whom he believes to be rich. Heatedly, Jagan exclaims that he only maintains his shop to support his employees and that “money is an evil.” The cousin asks whether he’s going to throw away the jug where he collects his money—and they laugh. Then Jagan asks the cousin to tell Mali that Jagan doesn’t have the money. When the cousin suggests that Jagan tell Mali directly, Jagan says he doesn’t want to upset Mali.
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Themes
At home, Jagan feels that Mali and Grace are now putting themselves in his path and looking at him significantly. One day after breakfast, Mali comes into the puja room while Jagan is praying and tells him that people use electronic machines for all kinds of tasks now. Eventually, Grace summons Mali away so that Jagan can keep praying, and Jagan thinks: “Prayer was a sound way of isolating oneself—but sooner or later it ended: one could not go on praying eternally, though one ought to.” He begins avoiding Mali and especially Grace at home—he’s simultaneously glad that Grace cares about Mali’s future and suspicious that she has organized Mali’s campaign to get his money.
One day, while Jagan is walking to work, the homeless man by the statue asks him for money. Jagan gives the man a small coin, and the man asks why Jagan doesn’t talk to him about America anymore and asks how Mali is doing. Jagan tersely says that Mali is going to found a factory for machines of some kind and makes his escape. Then he ducks into Truth Printing and asks Nataraj about his book. Nataraj says he’ll do it as soon as he’s less busy—Mali has hired him to print a “prospectus” for his business to be delivered in three days. Nataraj shows Jagan the prospectus, which lists Jagan as “one of the principal promotors of Mali Enterprises.” When Nataraj asks whether Jagan isn’t happy, Jagan claims he is and flees.
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Themes
Jagan reaches the sweet shop and opens the Bhagavad Gita, but all he can think about is Mali’s prospectus. He’s angry that Mali didn’t tell him about putting his name on the prospectus, yet he wonders whether he should take it as a sign of Mali’s trust in him. Soon Jagan is seeing the prospectus all over town; it claims that India is backward and that the story-writing machines will bring progress to the country. Mali stops riding a borrowed scooter and starts driving a green car. One morning, while Jagan is praying, Grace comes and tells him that the company bought the car used for business travel. Jagan asks a few polite questions and then meditates until Grace goes away.
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Themes
Jagan decides that he will use “non-violent non-cooperation” of the sort he learned from Gandhi to deal with Mali and Grace. One morning, Grace asks him whether he’s come to a decision about investing in the company. Rather than answer, he comments on the jasmine flower in her hair. She tells him since it’s Friday and she’s a “Hindu wife,” she has cleaned and put flour on the threshold. Jagan wants to retort that no real Hindu wife would wear a bob like Grace’s; instead, he asks how she knew Fridays are “auspicious.” She says her friends tell her these things.
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Themes
Mali calls to Jagan before Jagan can escape. When Jagan enters Mali’s room, Mali asks whether Jagan has come to a decision. Jagan says that Mali put his name on the prospectus without notifying him, and Mali retorts that Jagan agreed to have his name on the prospectus when Mali first explained the business to him. Jagan—knowing that he may well have done so in his zoned-out state—counters that he thought Mali might ask again before printing the prospectus. Mali groans that nothing gets done in India because people dither and redo things like that. Jagan, recalling India’s cultural heritage and his own struggles for independence, tells Mali not to blame India for everything.
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Themes
Mali tells Jagan that they need the money soon or their business associates will back out. Jagan claims he has no money but offers Mali the sweet-shop business. Mali contemptuously refuses, saying he has higher aspirations than selling sweets. Jagan stands up to go; seeing Grace’s unusually expressionless face, he wonders whether she is truly “a good girl or a bad one.” On his way to the shop, the homeless man stops him. Jagan complains that he has no money, and the man chides him not to talk about himself like that. Jagan thinks that the homeless man is kinder to him than Mali is.
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Themes
When the cousin enters the sweet shop that afternoon, he sees Jagan looking miserable and so praises the quality of that day’s sweets. Jagan, smiling, says he only uses “pure,” quality ingredients. The cousin asks why Jagan started this particular business anyway, and Jagan explains that he was given a cooking job while in jail and decided to keep at it after his release, in particular to offer “pure sweets” to “poor children.” Abruptly, he announces that he’s going to lower his prices. The cousin asks about his profits, but Jagan retorts that he has “enough.”
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Themes
The cousin asks whether Jagan plans to give up his business, and Jagan says that Mali isn’t interested in taking over for him. The cousin tells Jagan that there’s no better way to make money than the sweet-shop—but Mali has his own “ideas.” Jagan says that money is “evil” and that it’s enough for a business to be “self-supported” without it making additional profits. Then he orders one of his employees to give free sweets packets to the children staring in the shop window. The cousin, alarmed, warns Jagan not to make any rash decisions and offers to speak with Mali and Grace. Jagan says that the cousin can speak with them about whatever he likes—but Jagan isn’t asking him to.
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