Kiran Desai’s Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard: A Critique

Abstract

In Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, her debut novel, Kiran Desai has experimented in the making of a comic fable.  She presents a hilarious story of life, love, and family relationships - simultaneously capturing the vivid culture of the Indian subcontinent and the universal intricacies of human experience.  The story is set in a small Indian but fictitious town called Shahkot.  Sampath is the protagonist who belongs to a middle class family.  After experiencing drastic boredom in his life, Sampath decides to spend his life in trees.  And then after, the story reveals its real mood.  At a deeper level, the novel displays the theme of alienation, magic realism, rebellion, etc.  Desai is a masterful dialogue writer, and she uses this skill to great effect in Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard.  She infuses the dialogue with local idioms and paints a vivid portrait of life in a small city in India.  With a clear objective of writing a comic satire, she also makes a satirical attack against the creation of gurus in Indian society.