The Vendor of Sweets

“Do you realize how few people ever really understand how fortunate they are in their circumstances?”

Jagan is unaware that he is also fortunate, and also lacks understanding of his own privilege. He is able to see things in others that he is unwilling—or unable—to see in himself. 

“If I had passed the B.A., I could have done so many other things”

Despite his insistence that he is fulfilled with his ascetic life of the mind, Jagan is quick to blame circumstances for his occasional bouts of self-doubt. He knows that his choices led him to his current position, but it is more comfortable for his to shift responsivity to something he can’t control. And he typically blames events in the past, because the past can no longer be changed. Therefore, it cannot be his responsibility. 

“Nature would sooner see us dead. She has no use for a brain affected buy malignant growth, that’s all…”

The doctor who treats Ambika is furious with Jagan’s ideas about natural cures. Even while watching her suffer, Jagan ignores the doctor’s ideas and trusts to his own unearned wisdom. The fact that he has written a book about natural cures is proof enough to him that he must be right. He must reconcile the doctor’s statement about the cruelty of nature with his own ideas about a unified, harmonious existence in which nature is a mother figure.  

“I hope he will also emulate my philosophy of living. Simple living and high thinking, as Gandhi has taught us”

It is significant that Jagan says that he hopes Mali will follow his philosophy of life, and not his life itself. Jagan may subconsciously be aware that his ideas and quotes are a better example of right living than his actions are. There is also so little of reflectiveness in Jagan that the idea that he practices high thinking is farcical. 

“Every human action acquired a meaning when it was performed as a service”

The varied motivations behind any action are among the richest territories of the novel. An act can benefit the one acted upon, but still remain meaningless—or even cynical—to the one performing the action, depending on why he does it. However, every actions gains significance if done for the good of others. 

“He sat…feeling like a burglar himself, instead of one whose cash had been extracted”

When Jagan sees that Mali has been stealing from him, he literally feels displaced in his own home. Mali’s presence will result in an escalating series of violations that will push Jagan further away from the familiar life he has created for himself. And yet, he does not confront Mali about the theft, making himself an accomplice to any subsequent betrayals of trust. 

“He had never thought he could feel so superior about it. Now it [Mali’s trip to America] seemed to him worth all the money and the pangs of separation”

Jagan cannot abide feeling insecure for long. In order to feel safe, he must convert every situation into something that benefits his ego. Despite hating the idea of Mali’s trip to America, and the fact that Mali robbed him

“You know it’s a country of millionaires. Everyone is so rich”

Jagan speaks with complete conviction about things he knows nothing about. He cannot think of any reason why Mali would want to go to America, unless it was to become corrupted. The poignant irony is that America is rich compared to much of the world, even though it is overrun with millionaires. Jagan is right, in part, without knowing it.  

“He carried himself like a celebrity avoiding the attention of the rabble”

Jagan is disturbed by Mali’s bearing when he returns from America. He wears a suit, hat, and carries a briefcase. And, despite the fact that at this point Mali has not said anything scornful about India’s people, Jagan intuits that this is what they must look like to his son. The rabble. 

“He silently prayed to Gandhi’s spirit to forgive the lie he was about to utter”

Jagan does not pray to a God in his moments of weakness, but to Gandhi’s spirit. Gandhi is not a deity, nor would he have wished to be. Jagan wishes to be forgiven by someone whose role is not to forgive sinners. 

“Today we have to compete with advanced countries not only in economics and industry, but also in culture”

Mali’s distaste for India and its glacial progress (in his view) stems from the fact that it is not an advanced country. Not only are its economics and industry lagging, but its culture as well. This is a provocative indictment: culture is the sum of a society’s ideas and art. India has never been lacking in ideas or art. Mali’s aggressive stance is most likely to be found in a hasty youth who has not put serious time into contemplating what he says.  

“Money is an evil”

If Jagan believed that money was an evil, either he would not skim it off the top of his profits from the candy shop, or he knowingly participates in the accumulation of evil. It is more likely that he is simply quoting authority figures that he reveres. He seems to believe their theories, but his devotion is selective: he can always find a reason not to apply their maxims to himself. 

“I have better plans than to be a vendor of sweetmeats”

Mali’s rejection of Jagan’s offer is even harsher than it appears on the surface. Not only does he not want to follow in his father’s footsteps, his remark reminds Jagan that his life has not gone according to plan. Becoming a vendor of sweets was not his goal. It was simply where his failures led him. His goal was to pass his exams, and to publish his book, victories that he never achieved.

“He has the whitest beard and sells the blackest hair-dye. Why does he not apply it to his own beard?”

Jagan wishes to be seen as wise. However, rather than continual study, he demonstrates his wisdom to himself by finding faults and inconsistencies in others. Wisdom is, among other things, the ability to take one’s own advice, a skill that Jagan has not mastered.

“Husband and wife must vanish into the forest at some stage in their lives, leaving the affairs of the world to younger people”

The transition between Indian’s old and young generations is never put more poignantly than in this passion. It is not presented as a passage of knowledge from between the two periods. Rather, the old and their institutions—such as the traditional ideas about men and women marrying for life—simply vanish.

“Who really needed help, and from whom?”

Jagan has always seen himself in the role of wise helper and patriarch. When confronted with the sculptor, his ideas about himself are inverted. Even though the sculptor is asking him for help, Jagan realizes that it is he who feels like he is being done a favor. This insight can now be applied to all of the relationships in his life, and shows him that perhaps he is not always as helpful as he had believed. 

“Our young men live in a different world from ours and we must not let ourselves be upset too much by certain things they do”

The cousin refuses to be troubled by the conflict between generations. It is his ability to acknowledge his own helplessness that shows him as more enlightened than Jagan, who clings to the idea that his personal turmoil must have meaning. 

“We are blinded by our attachments. Every attachment creates a delusion and we are carried away by it…”

When Jagan feels unsure or defensive, he rarely relies on words of his own. Rather,  he quotes those he believes to be wise, and expects his listeners to attribute the wisdom to him. Until he encounters the sculptor, it is clear that most of what Jagan considers his own ideas are appropriated from other sources.

“People must respect other people’s privacy, that’s all. We don’t find it in this country. In America no one stares at others”

It is interesting that, despite America’s smaller size, Mali sees it as a place where one can maintain relative anonymity. In India, given the family traditions and rules of propriety, family member are by necessity aware of what everyone in the family is doing. Mali is uncomfortable being stared at, which he associates with feeling judged.  

“When he came home and waited in his room for his wife’s company and she was busy elsewhere, he sulked and quarreled with her or pretended to be absorbed in his studies when she came”

Jagan was a spoiled, petulant husband. He used Ambika primarily to satisfy his own desires and raise his own status. He ignored his family on behalf of her, even though she knew this was a mistake. It is becoming clearer that Mali’s self-absorption has much to do with his father’s attitude.  

“Your mother remarked that, being uneducated myself, I want to drag you down to my own level”

Jagan has never had to take responsibility for his own failures. His parents coddle him, blaming Ambika for his own inability to pass the exams. This greatly stunts his emotional growth. 

“He had no need to learn anything more”

Jagan has always treated new knowledge as a tool with which to impress others. Now that he feels no need to return to his own home, he realizes that he no longer needs to impress others with what he knows. His epiphany is that he can be fulfilled and happy, whether he is alone or not. He no longer needs the praise of others. 

“I am a free man. I have never felt more determined in my life…everything can go on with or without me”

Jagan finally admits that he is not the center of the universe. At the beginning of the novel, the suggestion that the world would continue without his influence would have wounded him. But now he finds the thought liberating. He is only responsible for himself, and no longer feels any pressure to engage with society.