The Storyteller's Secret

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018

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Part 8: “Jaya”Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 8, Chapter 32 Summary

It is Holi in Jaya’s time as well. Ravi takes her to the temple where Amisha once prayed. After her miscarriages, Jaya lost all faith in religion. Ravi maintains his faith through the kindness of other people. What matters in life is the way you treat the people you love: “All that was left of the person was bones” (230) while the influence of their kindness lives on.

Only recently has India attempted to dissolve its caste system, allowing Ravi and his relatives to use the temple. Though Ravi and other Untouchables are legally allowed to enter temples, they still face social stigma from the rest of the community: “laws are slow to change what is in people’s hearts” (233).

During the feast of Holi, Jaya and Ravi discuss the Hindu pantheon, focusing on the goddess Durga, which Jaya is indescribably attracted to. Durga was also a favorite of her grandmother’s. Jaya meets Ravi’s great-granddaughter, Amit’s sister Misha. The girl suffers from polio and must wear braces around her legs and torso to help her walk.

The next day, at the school garden, Misha tells Jaya a story that Ravi told her to explain her health struggles. Jaya remembers her own mother’s wisdom. Lena would mark a small black dot Jaya’s face as a child: “If [God] realized he had let perfection go, as all babies are, then he might call the child back to heaven” (241). This gives Jaya extreme comfort as it allows her to think of her failed miscarriages as perfect children.

In a blog post, Jaya describes the dance Dandiya Raas, and how freeing the Holi celebrations were for her. She describes the inequality in the village’s community, while proposing to let music define each person, rather than their differences. She seeks for a way to live without being defined by the labels “daughter, reporter, wife, and now soon to be divorcée” (243).

Part 8 Analysis

In this chapter, the function of the heart as symbol and metaphor drives much of Ravi’s conversation, with seemingly contradictory discussions of what the heart may signify in the text. The pillar of Ravi’s faith as a belief in the good hearts of others, a belief inspired by Amisha’s kindness: “I am talking about her heart [...] As a human, she was imperfect, as all humans are. But her heart always fought to do the right by others” (229). Ravi’s faith grew because he believed in the strength of acting with compassion. However, when Ravi speaks of the Untouchables’ entry into the village temple, he uses the metaphor of the heart in a contradictory way. Stigma and prejudice still follow the Untouchables, regardless of the fact that the caste system has been legally abolished. Westernization may have prompted this change, “[b]ut laws are slow to change what is in people’s hearts” (233). Here, hearts are no longer innately good; instead, Ravi implies that his belief in the heart as a symbol of goodness does not apply to every person. Ravi’s metaphor therefore has two sides: A heart has the potential to sustain discrimination and separation or acceptance and devotion. Both facets can be extrapolated onto Stephen and Amisha’s relationship, with both isolation from and devotion for each other defining the nature of their love.

The goddess Durga, the source of power, energy, and creativity, draws Jaya’s attention, offering her a space for her to connect with her female ancestors. That Durga was one of Amisha’s most treasured goddesses connects Jaya to her grandmother, in a different way than their shared love for writing. Durga’s extraordinary importance in the Hindu pantheon points to the power of feminine energy in Hindu belief. Despite this reverence for powerful female divinities, however, the earthly lives of Hindu women lacked respect and freedom.