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 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “Images in a Mirror”
Putti sits on the verandah and watches her brother leave. She also looks over at their neighbors, the Munnuswamys, particularly Gopala. When Gopala was younger, he used to sell milk from door-to-door; it’s how the family business began, but they have since expanded. The father is even a member of the Legislative Assembly, and even though the Munnuswamys no longer need to sell milk, Gopala still delivers milk directly to the long-standing customers, like the Raos. Putti finds Gopala very attractive.
Putti goes back indoors, where her mother immediately accosts her. Ammayya is controlling of her daughter and very critical. Ammayya also likes to steal newspapers from the neighbors to sell later on. It fills her with a sense of pride to make money off of other people. Putti has to share a bed with her mother. Putti longs to be married, but her mother has disapproved of every possible suitor. Putti also wishes to go and work, but her mother finds that unbecoming of a lady: “Ammayya cocooned herself in the past, in traditions and rituals, and the prospect of change terrified her” (88).
Ammayya determines to keep Putti by her side until she dies. She feels Putti is hiding something from her, and she plans on finding out what that is. She is very disappointed in everyone: in her son, Sripathi, in Nirmala, Arun, and even Maya. She remembers being frightened of her husband, Narasimha, and did not enjoy making love to him. She also recalls complaining to her mother about the time she discovered Narasimha had a mistress, but her mother told her she should be proud to have a man who could afford two women. Ammayya has a chest of jewels under her bed that she guards like a dragon guarding its treasure.
Nandana accompanies Uncle Sammy to her house to get more clothes. She goes by everything that reminds her of her parents. She remembers interactions with them correlated to certain pieces of furniture. Her mother taught her about the protection Lakshmi offered. Nandana remembers her dad telling her that she must respect books. She will have to ask Aunty Kiran to pack them very carefully for the trip to India.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Maya”
While Sripathi is trying to get his scooter to start, he has a conversation with one of his neighbors, Balaji, a bank manager. Sripathi does not like Balaji, but remains amiable because he may need to take out another loan. He gets the scooter started and drives away. On his way to work, Sripathi thinks about the past with Maya.
He went nine years without speaking to his daughter. Maya would write letters that Nirmala would read, but Sripathi refused any contact. His pride was too injured. When Maya was born, Sripathi had wanted to name her Yuri after the Soviet cosmonaut, but Nirmala was firmly against it. Maya means illusion. The last time he saw his daughter was the day they saw her off at the airport before she left to study in America. He remembers how excited he and Nirmala were when they found Maya’s match, an educated man from a good family named Prakash Baht. What was even better was that the Bahts did not want or expect a dowry, and they offered to split the costs of the wedding 50/50. Prakash presented Maya with excellent jewels, too. Maya agreed to the engagement, but she wouldn’t get married until her studies were over. However, into her third year away she wrote home informing them about Alan Baker and that she wanted to marry him instead. She broke off the engagement to Prakash, and that is when Sripathi stopped speaking to his daughter as if “She is dead for me” (113).
Nandana hides in her parents’ closet. Her mother’s clothes smell sweet. She spots a spider crawling across the floor and crushes it under her foot. “Dead, she told it. You are dead” (117). She then waits for Aunty Kiran to come looking for her.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Journey”
Sripathi visits his best and oldest friend, Raju Mudaliar. They had been best friends in their school years. Raju was more successful than Sripathi after school. He married a woman named Kannagi and fathered two sons. However, Raju’s sons moved away after they grew up and rarely contact him. When his handicapped daughter Ragini turned 15, Kannagi died, and Raju never found a maid to help out. He now cares for Ragini alone. Nevertheless, he maintains a positive outlook on life. Sripathi tells Raju all about Maya’s death. Sripathi asks Raju about his guilt at not having written Maya. Raju agrees he should have, which angers Sripathi. He feels that everyone is against him and blames him. Raju comforts him and tells Sripathi that he needs to concentrate on taking care of Nandana.
Sripathi goes to the travel agency and purchases the airline tickets for himself and for Nandana to return. Afterward, he drives over to the Torturpuram Trust Company to try and borrow money for the trip. He already owes them a lot of money. However, once the people there learn of Maya’s death, they loan Sripathi the money. Sripathi then drives around the city for a while. When Sripathi returns home, he speaks again with Balaji, who talks to Sripathi of possibly selling Big House. Balaji says he can get a good price for him. Inside, Nirmala is giving dance lessons. She teaches the girls about Lord Rama and Ravana and the meaning of a hero.
It has been 15 days since the Old Man (Sripathi) arrived. Maya is in bed enjoying the outside air from her open window. It is August. She does not like having Sripathi there. She avoids him as best she can while he packs up her house.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Shades of Blue”
Sripathi has been in Vancouver for a month and a half already. He doesn’t like Vancouver: “He wanted no part of the place where his daughter had breathed her last” (141). He spends a lot of time packing the house. Nandana hides from him in her room, where she keeps the door shut. He tried coaxing her out at one point, but just leaves her alone now. Dr. Sunderraj had informed him earlier that Nandana refuses to speak anymore. Sripathi finds an old sari of Maya’s. He remembers the day she bought it long ago. She had asked him if she looked beautiful in it. He had said she should have bought the pink one. Sripathi gives away all of Maya’s and Alan’s clothes to the Salvation Army except for two coats, one from Maya and one from Alan, with which Nandana will not part.
At the airport, Nandana will not let Sripathi hold her hand or carry her backpack. At the gate, Nandana keeps away from him, only joining with him when it is time to board. While waiting, Sripathi thinks about Maya’s childhood and worries about how to care for Nandana.
When they land in Madras, there is no one to greet them. Sripathi takes Nandana to the train station. Nandana doesn’t protest when Sripathi takes her hand. She seems overwhelmed by the heat and crowds.
Nandana thinks India is very hot when they get off the train. She hears Nirmala say something in Kannada, which her mother had spoken with her at times. Nirmala hugs her. Ammayya asks Nandana if she has any gum (Maya used to send some to her from time to time; she’s now hooked on it). Nandana recognizes Arun. Later, at night, while lying in the bed that used to be her mother’s, Nandana wonders about her future, about how long she will have to live in India.
Chapters 5-8 Analysis
One significance to Chapter 5’s title, “Images in a Mirror,” relates to the mother-daughter relationship between Ammayya and Putti. In most ways thus far the two characters don’t resemble mirror images of one another, and thus, the significance is less literal and far more metaphoric. It relates to how Ammayya views her daughter. Ammayya projects her personality onto Putti. She assumes, for example, that because she did not enjoy sexual intercourse with her husband, then it means that Putti, too, must be better off without having to experience such a thing. Of course, Ammayya is well aware that Putti is not her mirror image, which causes Ammayya to keep Putti as close as possible for fear of losing the one person who cares for her every whim, and in her old age, since she feels that Sripathi betrayed her long ago and is good-for-nothing. The other “image in the mirror” is Putti’s own. On page 78, Putti sits before the Belgian mirror and observes herself. What she sees is a relatively realistic image of herself: still attractive but with marks of aging appearing. She also sees the bed she must share with Ammayya. This image reminds Putti of her mother’s miserly ways: “Yes, Ammayya held on to everything, including—thought Putti bitterly—me” (80). This reveals that Putti is well-aware of her mother’s intentions towards her. In essence, what Putti sees when she looks in the mirror is a woman who will be destined to become her mother if she cannot escape the path Ammayya is laying down for her to follow in life.
Chapter 6, “Maya,” deals primarily with Maya’s background, including which of her actions enraged her father to the point that he would no longer speak to her (breaking off the arranged marriage). Furthermore, Badami explains what the name Maya means in Sanskrit: illusion. This revelation is significant in understanding the structure of the novel for several reasons. The image of Maya in her father’s mind is itself an illusion, as illustrated in the chapter. Sripathi had a specific idea of who his daughter was, and this image did not correspond to reality, the reality Maya held for herself. In short, Sripathi saw Maya as someone she was not, and when Prakash Baht came along, who represented (in Sripathi’s mind) the perfect suitor for his daughter, his illusion of his daughter’s wants and needs became subordinate to his hopes and dreams and desires for her. Oddly enough, what Sripathi wanted from Maya strongly resembles the same wants and desires that Ammayya held for him, and thus, his estrangement from Maya is hypocritical, because not even his mother treated him as roughly as he treats his daughter, when, in essence, she did little worse to the family’s honor than he did from Ammayya’s perspective (67). Interestingly, the Maya in Sripathi’s mind did not correspond to the true Maya, because it begins to explain the complex emotions within Sripathi that caused him to become so angry with her, namely honor and prestige as pillars of one’s existence.
The notion of illusion appears in other chapters as well. The illusion of control, which hazily emerges earlier in the novel, also comes more into focus in this section. This will only increase in significance as the story progresses. Sripathi (with his warped imagination regarding his daughter Maya), is not the only character suffering from an illusional reality. Nearly every character in the story has, in one way or another, built up in their minds a perceived conception of the world that gets shattered following Maya’s death; furthermore, the question of, What is reality and what is illusion?, permeates every aspect of the novel as it develops.
The closing lines of Chapter 6 reveal a shift in Nandana’s personal development: “Dead, she told it. You are dead” (117). Nandana crushes a spider she finds crawling in her parents’ closet, thus showing her understanding of what death is and that she has comprehended the death of her parents. After crushing the spider and exclaiming those words, Nandana then awaits Aunty Kiran to come and get her. Previously, Nandana had always been waiting for Maya or Alan to come and get her.
The journey referenced in Chapter 7’s title, “Journey,” is largely metaphorical. It is true that Sripathi “journeys” around Torturpuram, running errands and purchasing a plane ticket to fly to Canada, but focusing solely on Sripathi’s physical peregrinations overlooks the “metaphorical journey” he takes while driving around. Sripathi journeys through his history and recollects many of the decisions he made in his past that have formed his present. The first stop, both literally and metaphorically, is at his best friend Raju’s house, where Sripathi juxtaposes his life with that of his friend’s. In a way, Raju represents Sripathi’s foil. Financially and socially speaking, Raju was more successful that Sripathi, even though as children Sripathi was the better student. However, Raju was unluckier later in life when his sons moved away and broke contact with him, whereas Maya continued to try and reconnect with Sripathi, and Arun is still at home. Also, Raju’s wife died, whereas Nirmala is still alive and vibrant. Raju must also care for his handicapped daughter. Sripathi lives with his wife, son, sister, and mother, and they have a long-time maid, Koti, who comes by to help. And yet, most importantly, Raju, despite his difficulties, maintains a positive outlook whereas Sripathi is fairly negative. After leaving Raju’s place, Sripathi purchases his plane ticket and then drives around the city to his next destination. While doing so, he witnesses several quotidian scenes with philosophical significance. For example, on page 132, Sripathi connects the confusing city bus lines with the nature of life: “[…] you never knew what you were getting into or where you were headed until the very end, and then it was too late” (132).
In Chapter 7, the thematic element of theology becomes more pronounced and carries greater importance as the novel’s actions reach their climax. On page 121, Sripathi and Raju are talking over a game of chess and Raju speaks about “that bastard God” who thought that Raju’s life was going too well, and thus, added some misery (his handicapped daughter, Ragini) to his life to balance things out. As Sripathi notes, it was the first and only time he has “ever heard his friend sound so dejected” (121). The role of the Gods and religion in the lives of the characters has come up before (e.g. Nirmala in the gods’ room after learning of Maya’s death (42)), but after this chapter, it becomes more pronounced as a topic of discussion and contemplation for the characters. Furthermore, the meaning of the novel’s title gains clarity. Nirmala teaches young girls some of their culture’s traditional dances. One of these dances happens to be the hero’s walk, wherein Lord Rama and Ravana each strut, one with humility (Rama) and the other with pompousness and braggadocio (Ravana). As Nirmala points out, it is Rama who is the true hero, because Ravana is “a man who is too proud and therefore not heroic” (136).
Chapter 8, “Shades of Blue,” focuses on symbolism in color. Blue is a primary color that carries with it a myriad of symbolic representations that have spanned millennia. Sripathi remarks on the wall color of his daughter’s house: “The walls of the house were painted in different shades of blue” (142). Blue is the color of the sky and the sea, and the sea is an important thematic element in the novel. The blue walls correspond to the blue of the sea around Torturpuram, connecting Maya’s life in Canada to her life in India. However, the blue also represents a change in Maya, as Sripathi remembers that Maya used to prefer bright, vibrant colors as a child (142). Blue is conveys the sense of mourning and sadness felt by Sripathi (and Nandana) as he packs away the remaining material representations of his daughter’s life. The different shades of blue, and their associations, can also define Maya’s personality: loyal (she never stops trying to contact her family), intelligent, knowledgeable, and faithful (she maintains her religion, culture, and even the Kannada dialect).
