Negotiating Tradition, Modernity and Independence: A Postcolonial Reinterpretation of Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy

Abstract

Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy (1993) provides an extensive picture of India in the years that followed independence. The novel is Salted against the political, social and cultural changes of the early 1950s. It brings pleasure to readers with the conflict between civilizational traditions of the past and the aspirations of the times to come., First and foremost, the book is about Lata Mehra’s quest to find ‘suitable’ husband. Nevertheless, Seth addresses a variety of other important questions dealing with nationhood, secularism, caste, religion, gender, class, democracy and individual freedom. This study offers a post colonial re-reconstruction of A Suitable Boy. It reevaluates how tradition and modernity as well as independence are not offered as mutually exclusive. Seth’s India, after independence, is a society where the colonial, the indigenous and the modern interpenetrate in a continuing interaction. Lata’s struggle for self-definition gains great importance. This study shows that the quest for personal freedom is structured within social constraints and is often reflected in marriage. Here, the casual cluster of personal choices and nation building is explored in relation to caste, religion, communal dynamics, and politics, with particular emphasis on women.