52 pages • 1 hour read
Anita Rau BadamiThe Hero's Walk
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2000A 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 21-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 21 Summary: “The Flood”
It has been raining for days, but it finally stops in the morning. There’s standing water everywhere. The flower girl comes by and sells some to Nirmala. Many other women in the neighborhood buy some from her as well. Gopala makes sure that the construction trucks no longer dump their loads near Big House. Gopala asks Sripathi if any other problems need fixing. Gopala refers to Sripathi as a brother. By evening, it is raining again.
That evening Putti awakens with a fright. The downstairs of the house is flooding. There is dark, oily, putrid water floating around her and Ammayya’s bed. They have to wade through the sewage to get to the stairs and higher ground. Ammayya wails about being unclean. Once at the top, the rest of the family awake from Ammayya’s cries. They all need to leave the house, and the only way out is through the staircase leading outside that only Koti uses. Having to use the servant’s entrance only exacerbates Ammayya’s wailing. Outside, Sripathi learns that the flooding only affects their house. A sewage main underneath has burst. Nandana doesn’t know where her kitten is.
Ammayya falls very ill from her ordeal. She says she is dying and curses Putti as the cause. Sripathi rushes her, against her will, to the hospital. Once there, the doctor’s force Sripathi to sign legal documents before they will treat Ammayya. They also force him to pay before they help Ammayya.
Arun and Sripathi await news. Eventually, the doctors wheel Ammayya out, covered by a green blanket. The doctor says they did all they could, but in the end, they couldn’t save her. They take her body back to Big House. Nandana’s kitten survived the flood. Nirmala prepares Ammayya’s body and finds an incision on her side. She remembers rumors about organ theft, but she decides not to mention it. “‘What is gone is gone,’ she whispered. ‘No point creating unnecessary problems’” (351).
Chapter 22 Summary: “The Heart of the Sea”
The family spreads Ammayya’s ashes in the same place where they released Maya’s. It is dusk. Everyone returns to the house except Arun and Sripathi. They sit together and watch the sea. Arun wants to watch the turtles come in to lay their eggs. When they arrive, the turtles astound Sripathi, and it causes him to think deeply about the nature of life. There is a certain catharsis in watching the turtles, and Sripathi feels closer to his son than ever before.
Munnuswamy’s boys clean up Big House. Ammayya’s jewelry escaped damage, but it’s discovered that most of it is fake. On the balcony, Sripathi looks through Maya’s old letters and postcards. Nandana comes out to him. She wonders what is in his box. He shows her his pens and offers to let her choose anyone she wants. Nandana chooses a cheap red one. Nandana wants to write a letter to her friends in Vancouver. Sripathi sits down to write one of his letters-to-the-editor. He will write about the turtles.
Chapters 21-22 Analysis
Chapter 21 has the ominous title of “The Flood.” The flood itself symbolizes several things that span the entire novel, including the destruction of the old world in order to usher in a new one. While the flood is the central motif for the chapter, there are other important elements worth discussion. For one, religious beliefs play a role in magnifying the problems Ammayya faces when the sewage main ruptures and Big House floods with wastewater. While no one would enjoy wading through raw sewage, for Ammayya, the uncleanliness of doing so goes deeper than the need to take a shower afterward. For Ammayya, it would necessarily require certain rituals to clean her, for her soul would also become sullied by the waste. Ammayya’s theatricalities regarding the old caste system have been farcical throughout the novel, and imagining an old woman screaming because feces is floating near her adds a tinge of criticism to the belief of impurity. The belief in spiritual impurity, however, is only subtle in its criticism when compared to the open criticism of aspects of Indian healthcare found towards the end of the chapter. It is apparent that the doctors attending Ammayya are not at all concerned for her welfare, and it is no surprise that sometime later they wheel her out of the Operating Room deceased. Not only is the hospital’s lack of care highlighted, but also that fact that they harvested Ammayya’s organs as soon as they could and even had the family sign paperwork (before surgery) that would, in essence, allow them to do such a crime without fear of legal repercussions.
Chapter 22 concludes the novel and returns the narrative to its starting point. Oceanic images opened the novel, and the answer to life for Sripathi reveals itself when he watches the turtles come onto shore to lay their eggs. It is in this moment that Sripathi fully heals from Maya’s death and can reconcile with his son, Arun. Sripathi is able to finally bring himself to read the letters Maya wrote over the nine years of his feud with her, and Sripathi shares a loving moment with Nandana wherein he grants her the opportunity to have one of his pens. Even though Sripathi has several very nice, fancy pens (he even recommends one to her), Nandana chooses a cheap, red one, which reminds Sripathi of Maya. Ammayya’s character ends sadly as well in this chapter when the family discovers the jewelry that Ammayya has been hoarding and guarding like a dragon is almost all fake. In the end, Ammayya tried protecting yet one more offense and source of humiliation in her life. The chapter and novel concludes with Sripathi writing one of his letters-to-the-editor, but he decides now that the content of his letter will not be about gripping and complaining about the injustices around him, rather he will write about the sea turtles and the beauty of the world around him, which highlights his change from being a very negative individual to becoming a positive one.
