54 pages • 1 hour read
Gita MehtaA River Sutra
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1993A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “The Executive’s Story”
Nitin Bose lives a life of indulgence in Calcutta. The city is struggling to overcome the challenges of the partition 50 years prior and the war in Bangladesh 20 years prior, but Nitin and his friends are above that struggle. However, he becomes disillusioned by his indulgent lifestyle and chooses an assignment to manage a tea estate, which is an isolating and lonely job. At the estate, Nitin puts on a persona of an older man, managing the workers and servants gracefully. His grandmother sends him his grandfather’s library—books on Indian legends and religious beliefs—and he begins reading in the evenings. The first year is fortunate, and Nitin receives commendations on his tea crop. This allows him to give bonuses to the workers and he earns him their respect. He stops drinking and loses interest in women, focusing more on his grandfather’s books.
The second year is also a success, and Ashok, who is an executive in the tea company, offers Nitin the role of director of the company. Ashok is surprised that Nitin does not drink and has not had sex in two years; Nitin rejects the job offer, irritated with Ashok’s insensitivity. After Ashok leaves, Nitin becomes depressed; he begins thinking increasingly about sex and drinking heavily. In the nights, a woman named Rima begins seducing Nitin, though Rima disappears before Nitin can see her fully. As Nitin descends into isolation and anger, he becomes dependent on Rima as a source of physical and emotional comfort. He also begins reading more about the Vano tribe of half-snake people and learning the words to their songs. When Nitin is ordered to company headquarters in Calcutta, he tells Rima he is leaving, and she tells him she is married to a worker at the estate; this breaks the spell and disgusts Nitin. In Calcutta, he accepts the director position and returns to the tea estate to settle affairs for his successor. On the night of an eclipse, Rima lures Nitin into the jungle and casts a spell on him and possesses him. Nitin is disoriented over the following days, singing Vano songs and calling Rima’s name. A priest helps him regain his senses temporarily, allowing him to write everything in the diary; but the priest says Nitin must find the Narmada River to overcome his possession.
Chapter 8 Summary
Having stayed up all night reading Nitin Bose’s diary, the narrator gives instructions to the servants at the rest house and then goes to bed. Mr. Chagla wakes the narrator, telling him that Nitin left with the Vano guards and their wives to perform a ceremony. He explains that though outsiders are banned from the tribe’s practices, the spirit that possesses Nitin links him to the Vano people. The narrator is worried about Nitin’s safety, but Mr. Chagla urges him to eat before they go to a secret place where they can watch the ritual.
Mr. Chagla says Nitin must craft an idol of the Vano goddess, which he will then take to the Narmada to wash away in the river. Mr. Chagla explains that Nitin’s issue is that he denied his desire, which is the source of all life. The narrator thinks the ritual is foolish. However, Mr. Chagla explains that the Vano goddess is a representation of human desire, and denying desire is harmful, since it is seen as offending the goddess. The two men find their hiding spot and watch Nitin carry the idol to the river and wash it away, chanting a prayer with the Vano people for protection against venom. For three weeks after the ritual, Nitin remains at the rest house and continues his prayers at the Narmada, and the narrator is constantly worried for his safety. After Nitin leaves, his uncle writes to the narrator, thanking him for caring for Nitin and letting him know that Nitin is publishing an article on the Vano practices. Mr. Chagla reports that the Vano people are now singing the song that Rima sang to Nitin Bose.
Chapter 9 Summary
The narrator tells Dr. Mitra about Nitin Bose’s possession and recovery, and Dr. Mitra jokes that Nitin will become a mythic figure with a shrine for pilgrims to visit. Dr. Mitra compares Nitin’s struggle between desire and class as a reimagining of the ongoing struggle between pre-Aryan and Aryan cultures along the Narmada, even though the Aryan conquest ended 4,000 years prior. He explains how the pre-Aryan culture of the Naga people (whose tribal name meant snakes) represented a tribal, spiritual society, while the Aryans represented pure reason; the former Naga people are now called the Vano. He says the name Narmada, in Sanskrit, means “whore;” the narrator takes offense at this, but Dr. Mitra explains that the Narmada is still holy. Dr. Mitra recounts how the Greeks wrote about the Narmada and the religious suicides that take place along its banks; he notes that the Greeks had a singular mythology, whereas Indian cultures have always continuously expanded their myths. Dr. Mitra tells the narrator about the Immortal, Avatihuma, who lives by the Supaneshwara temple north of the Narmada. The narrator is confused and disbelieving, and Dr. Mitra calls in a Vano guard who confirms that the Immortal was decapitated 4,000 years ago, but his head sleeps in the jungle and cannot die. However, the guard says they cannot visit the Immortal because bandits have overtaken the area around Supaneshwara.
The rainy season starts, and Mr. Chagla struggles to keep the generator running at the rest house. After a month, the narrator is frustrated by being constantly indoors in the humidity. Mr. Chagla brings an old woman to the rest house, and the narrator reluctantly agrees to let her stay for a night. She is looking for her daughter, who was kidnapped by bandits. The narrator wants to call the police, but the woman refuses, saying the police are afraid of this bandit group. The woman decides to tell the narrator the story of how her daughter was kidnapped, so the narrator will understand why the police will not help them.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
Similar to Ashok’s story in Chapter 2, Nitin Bose is a wealthy young man indulging in excesses of alcohol, sex, and opulence, but he is discontented by the seeming meaninglessness of his life. His story furthers the theme of The Conflict Between Materialism and Enlightenment. Nitin Bose links the dissipation of his wealthy city life with England and colonialism, commenting that he and his friends “believed success lay in imitating the anglicized aloofness of our superiors who assured us the city had passed the point of no return” (105), urging them to ignore the widespread poverty in Calcutta to focus on accumulating their own wealth and pleasure. This comment once again links Nitin to Ashok, as Ashok laments the painting of him sleeping with a white woman, which shows his desire to emulate English behavior. Both these young men reject materialism—which they come to associate with Western ideas of happiness and pleasure—and seek fulfillment through renunciation. However, while Ashok turns to religious ascetism, Nitin focuses on sexual abstinence.
Nitin’s story also highlights The Diversity of Indian Religious and Cultural Traditions. The postcolonial nature of India, the disparities in wealth throughout its society, and the differences in class and religions create competing and varied cultures; individual characters are located within a web of possible ties and connections to other traditions and communities. When Nitin notes that he is “suffocated by the sheer weight of Calcutta’s inescapable humanity,” craving the “solitude of the tea estate” (109), he is trying to escape the mixture of different classes, communities, and traditions that populate the city. However, he finds still more traditions and beliefs at the tea estate through the former Naga people, or Vano, in his relationship with Rima. When Nitin leaves the estate, he says it is because he “could no longer remember any desire for Rima” and “could not overlook the poverty” (125), carrying the distinctions of class into the isolated, rural world of the tea estate. This contrast between rural desire and urban classism reminds Dr. Mitra of the ancient conflict between the pre-Aryan Naga people and the Aryans, “pitting Aryan reason against the primal beliefs of the tribals” (143). Mr. Chagla and Dr. Mitra illuminate the narrator’s understanding of Nitin’s story by explaining how desire is a necessary part of life, and Nitin’s offense against the Naga goddess of love was his rejection of desire. Mr. Chagla surprises the narrator with his eloquence in saying, “The goddess is just the principle of life. She is every illusion that is inspiring love” (135), portraying the deity as an abstraction of human emotion.
The Spiritual Significance of the Narmada River continues to reveal itself in Dr. Mitra’s explanation of the meaning of the river and its value in Indian culture and history. The diversity of beliefs that value the river result in numerous holy sites along its banks and differing practices to honor the river. When Dr. Mitra laughingly says, “Someone is sure to commemorate Nitin Bose’s recovery by building a temple where he immersed the idol. It will become a place of pilgrimage, attracting hosts of lunatics to your riverbank” (142), he is alluding to the fact that the river’s bank is covered with such shrines, temples, and idols from various rituals and beliefs over thousands of years. Though he calls the pilgrims “lunatics,” Dr. Mitra does not devalue the river. He assures the narrator that, even though the name Narmada means “whore,” the river is nonetheless holy—the meaning of the definition, here, is that the river serves the needs of many religions and traditions. In that sense, the river increases in value as it is a sacred region for several belief systems.
