A Suitable Boy: Blurring the Line Between Fiction and Non-Fiction

Abstract

Vikram Seth was the son of a judge and a businessman was raised in London and India. He has written about a variety of themes and topics including music, travel, work environments, family, homosexuality and Catholic belief. He wrote poetic novel The Golden Gate and turned to prose in his epic novel, A Suitable Boy. It functions as a political fable, a roman a clef, showing the emerging polity of the newly independent India. Seth has used a variety of characters to show how in the very first decade after independence the mood of the people changed from euphoria to despondence. While debating the role of students in politics, Seth briefly mentions his central theme thus, “Their post-independence romanticism and post-independence disillusionment formed a volatile mixture” (p. 815). His diagnosis-vote-bank politics and communalism as an election tool have corroded the soul of the fledgling Indian democracy.