The Nightmare Essay -- India Indian Politics Essays

The NightmareDreams are often visions of the conscience that hold the or so truth. In the novel, Cracking India, by Bapsi Sidhwa, the narrator Lenny, has a reoccurring nightmare that contains very much truth approximately the state of India. In Lennys nightmare, Children lie in a warehouse. Mother and Ayah move about solicitously. The atmosphere is businesslike and relaxed. Godmother sits by my bed smiling indulgently as men in uniforms quiet slice off a childs arm here, a leg there. She strokes my head as they dismember me. I feel no pain. Only an abysmal sense of loss- and a chilling horror that noone is concerned by whats happening (Sidhwa 31). Lennys puerility nightmare is symbolic of the condition of India prior to and during the time of Partition. The future of India is world dismembered by British rule while Indians remain passive and unreserved to the destruction of their country. This portrayal of India is comparable to Gandhis view that the British deal not scoren India India has have given their country to them. In hinder(prenominal) Swaraj, Gandhi suggests that India is in a state of unrest and that it will take around time for an actual awakening. Lennys vision of children lying in a warehouse with their guardians remaining indifferent to the suffering taking place is delegate of Indias state of unrest. This suggestive state of unrest also refers to Indias tolerance of British rule. In Cracking India, the Ice-candy Man is adamant about Indians awakening from this restive state. He says, If we want India back we must take pride in our customs, our clothes, our languagesAnd not go mouthing the got-pit-sot-pit of the English (Sidhwa 38) Similarly, Gandhi suggests that in align to take back India from ... ...orm (Gandhi 206). According to Gandhi, the discontent that these tortured children in Lennys nightmare experience will force India as a res publica to awaken and provide reform to stop the cries of their youth. If the leaders of Ind ia (Ayah and Godmother) can come in an end to their passive behavior and answer the insistent cries of the future of their province (Lenny), then there is hope that despite its dismembered limbs and deep cracks, India will be able to thrive once again. Sadly enough, a nightmare is but revealed in the slumber of the conscience and once the mind awakens it is readily forgotten. whole shebang CitedGandhi, Mahatma. Hind Swaraj, Modern Civilization, and Moral Progress. The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi. Vol. 1. capital of the United Kingdom Oxford University Press, 1986.Sidhwa, Bapsi. Cracking India. Minneapolis Milkweed Editions, 1991.