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Grace
The cousin is a friendly busybody who claims to be related to nearly everyone in the southern Indian town of Malgudi, including Jagan. Each day around 4:30 p.m., he stops into Jagan’s sweet shop, samples the wares, and gives Jagan advice about ingredients and prices. Whenever Jagan is too afraid of offending his son Mali to ask Mali something directly, he asks the cousin—whom Mali calls “uncle”—to find out the relevant information for him. Though the cousin repeatedly advises Jagan to speak with Mali directly, he inevitably gives in to Jagan’s requests to play go-between because he likes being included in family matters. Unlike Jagan, who is suspicious of Mali’s story-writing machine business idea and horrified by Mali’s premarital relationship with Grace, the cousin has a more laissez-faire attitude, believing that commerce is generally good and that each generation has its own behavioral mores. As the novel ends, the cousin has just rushed to tell Jagan that Mali has been arrested for alcohol possession and is trying to convince Jagan to get involved with the legal case. Though Jagan refuses to get involved, insisting on retiring to a religious shrine instead, he gives the cousin money for Mali’s bail and leaves the cousin in charge of his sweet shop until such time as Mali agrees to take it over.
The Cousin Quotes in The Vendor of Sweets
The The Vendor of Sweets quotes below are all either spoken by The Cousin or refer to The Cousin. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1 Quotes
“Conquer taste, and you will have conquered the self,” said Jagan to his listener, who asked, “Why conquer the self?” Jagan said, “I do not know, but all our sages advise us so.”
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Chapter 3 Quotes
“Writer” meant in Jagan’s dictionary only one thing—a “clerk”—an Anglo-Indian, colonial term since the days when Macaulay had devised a system of education to provide a constant supply of clerical staff for the East India Company. Jagan felt ghast. Here he was trying to shape the boy into an aristocrat with a bicycle, college life, striped shirts, and everything, and he wanted to be a “writer”! Strange!
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Chapter 4 Quotes
“I hate to upset him, that’s all. I have never upset him in all my life.”
“That means you have carried things to the point where you cannot speak to him at all.”
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“Did Valmiki go to America or Germany in order to write his Ramayana?” asked Jagan with pugnacity. “Strange notions these boys get nowadays!”
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“They eat only beef and pork in that country. I used to know a man from America, and he told me . . .”
“They also take a lot of intoxicating drinks, never water or milk,” said the cousin, contributing his own bit of information.
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Chapter 6 Quotes
“You are not one who knows how to make money. If you were unscrupulous, you could have built many mansions, who knows?”
“And what would one do with many mansions?”
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Chapter 10 Quotes
“Our young men live in a different world from ours and we must not let ourselves be upset too much by certain things they do.”
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Chapter 13 Quotes
“That’s why I discouraged his idea of buying that horrible green car!” He vented his rage against the green automobile until the cousin interrupted, “A bottle could be sneaked in anywhere . . .”
“You don’t understand. It’s the motor car that creates all sorts of notions in a young fellow,” said Jagan[.]
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“If you meet her, tell her that if she ever wants to go back to her country, I will buy her a ticket. It’s a duty we owe her. She was a good girl.”
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The Cousin Character Timeline in The Vendor of Sweets
The timeline below shows where the character The Cousin appears in The Vendor of Sweets. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...taste, and you will have conquered the self,” to a man whom he considers his cousin, though it’s not clear how they’re related. When the cousin asks why you’d conquer yourself,...
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Jagan tells the cousin that he decided to stop eating salt because people should only eat “natural salt.” The...
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The cousin sees Jagan blush at the cousin’s crude speculations about “natural salt.” Amused, the cousin says...
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Chapter 3
That evening, when the cousin visits Jagan in his shop, Jagan tries to call him over—but the cousin goes into...
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Jagan tells the cousin about Mali’s idea to quit college and explains that he’d hoped Mali would get a...
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At 10 p.m. that night, the cousin comes by Jagan’s house, and they take a walk. The cousin explains to Jagan, who...
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The cousin, not realizing that Jagan has misunderstood the word “writer,” continues: he waited for Mali outside...
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The cousin explains that when Mali finished speaking to people outside the college, the cousin invited him...
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Jagan and the cousin keep walking and talking until midnight. Suddenly, a frustrated Jagan wonders aloud why Mali can’t...
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...is going to earn 25,000 rupees with a novel he’ll write by September. When the cousin arrives, Jagan tells him about Mali’s plans too and adds that he hopes Mali will...
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Chapter 4
...whether or not Mali has written and sent off his novel manuscript. One day, the cousin arrives in the shop and exclaims that despite Jagan’s comfortable economic circumstances, he looks “careworn.”...
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When the cousin asks when Jagan last had a conversation with Mali, Jagan realizes it was a brief,...
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After four days, the cousin comes back to the sweet shop and announces that Mali wants to travel to America...
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...wonders aloud, “Why America?” He worries that people only eat cattle and pigs there. The cousin adds that in America the people drink a lot of alcohol and the women are...
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The cousin says that Mali has already gone to Madras for his passport and stolen the travel...
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Chapter 5
...rather than accepting “enlightenment on the subject of America” from Mali’s first-hand account. When the cousin visits Jagan’s shop at 4:30 as usual, Jagan informs him of Mali’s safe arrival; the...
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Jagan, perplexed, goes to meet Mali’s train with the cousin. When Mali appears, he seems taller than before and surrounded by fancy possessions. He introduces...
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...house with an indoor bathroom by Mali’s bedroom. Mali goes to wash up while the cousin and the driver handle Mali’s luggage, leaving Grace alone with Jagan. He offers to get...
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...Jagan starts dodging his acquaintances because he doesn’t want to explain who Grace is. The cousin, curious whether Mali and Grace eat meat in Jagan’s house, asks indirect questions about how...
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Chapter 6
At the sweet shop, the cousin makes conversation about a fight at the market because he’s noticed Jagan doesn’t want to...
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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...
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The cousin, noting Jagan’s confusion with pleasure, asks whether he’s never heard of the story-writing machines in...
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When the cousin enters the sweet shop that afternoon, Jagan asks him what $50,000 is in rupees. The...
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When the cousin enters the sweet shop that afternoon, he sees Jagan looking miserable and so praises the...
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The cousin asks whether Jagan plans to give up his business, and Jagan says that Mali isn’t...
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Chapter 7
When the cousin comes to the shop two days later, Jagan has lowered the price of every sweets...
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...going only between his house and the sweet shop and thinking only about Mali, the cousin, and his business. He remembers how, in his youth, he listened to Gandhi give inspiring...
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Chapter 10
At the sweets shop, when Jagan asks the cousin whether he has run into Mali lately, the cousin says he ran into Mali at...
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Two days later, while Mali is showing the cousin the land where he plans to build the factory for his business, Jagan goes into...
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When the cousin enters the shop, Jagan tells him that Mali isn’t married. The cousin asks whether Jagan...
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The cousin suggests that Jagan ask Mali’s “side of the story.” Jagan points out that Mali told...
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Jagan asks the cousin how he can continue living in his house. The cousin suggests he use the back...
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Chapter 13
As Jagan walks away from the house, the cousin speeds by on a bicycle and then falls off. When Jagan exclaims, the cousin gets...
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The cousin says that Mali is in jail and that they could have bailed him out the...
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When Jagan admits that he didn’t know Mali drank, the cousin says under Prohibition they can charge you even if you just smell like alcohol—but that...
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The cousin goes over possibilities for Mali’s defense: the lawyer—who is thinking of buying stock in Mali’s...
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...be involved: he is going away with nothing but the bag he’s carrying. When the cousin asks where, Jagan tells him about the retreat. Horrified, the cousin asks whether the bearded...
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...goddess carved from stone—and then stay or go as he sees fit. He encourages the cousin to think of him as a dead man from now on, gives him the keys...
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