'ONE OUT OF MANY' | THEME | BROAD NOTE | DESCRIPTIVE NOTE .

 

ONE OUT OF MANY

Q. Present your knowledge on the theme of the story ‘ONE OUT OF MANY’.

Ans.      ‘One Out of Many’ is a famous story of V.S Naipaul in which he explores the concept of freedom and culture. The story is about a young Indian from Bombay named Santosh who starts a new life in Washington D.C. where he struggles with his personal identity. Through character of Santosh is portrayed as a rather simplistic character with a view to showing the fact how little he knows the cultural differences of USA and his native place Bombay in India.

                The employer of Santosh is transferred to Washington DC and this situation hurls Santosh into the question of livelihood and security. Santosh questions himself: “was there a job for me in Bombay?” This expression shows his  deep concerns and his reluctance to stay in Bombay without the security that had been provided for him by his employer. Will Santosh take the available job of tourist partner, the hard task carrying big tanks on head? Santosh is with the idea that such type of job is not for him: “It was no longer the sort of life for which I was fitted.”  He thinks himself a city man who is accustomed to some sort of comfort. Such mental position exposes his search for identity and mind for freedom.

                A number of events that happened to the protagonist Santosh helped to shape his own sense of self identity and thus bring him to question the freedom which he bears in his own life. The first event is his immigration to Washington with his employer leaving his wife and two children behind. Search for financial freedom brings about the separation in his domestic life. In the aero plane Santosh is into an environment which is entirely alien to his life in Bombay. The airhostess girl starts ignoring Santosh  as  soon as she notices him in his  somewhat stubby appearance. This is his experience of cultural encounter with western people who look down upon the natives; another point is that Santosh himself starts hating the Hubshi people on the street of Washington. Those situations help him establishing some stage of his self identity.

                “I understood I was a prisoner” declares Santosh point blankly. He loses all hiss freedom. He immediately discovers that he is confined to a little limited world: “the apartment, my cupboard, the television set, my employer, the walk to the super market and the Hubshi woman.” He is a prisoner not just of circumstances but of his place on the class ladder. Santosh is not strangled in this limited space and he starts finding his own way of freedom. Santosh goes on his own adventure what may be called ‘American Dream.’ He even goes to some shameful act, the sexual encounter with a Hubshi woman. Santosh is now free from his own Indian culture, from his employer, from social restrictions and he establishes his identity. Later Santosh expresses his sense for guilt and desire for repentance.  This is also a key event of Santosh’s pursuit for freedom and self identity.

                Throughout the story we find a constant fight, an internal battle, between Santos’s own spiritual  identity and the materialistic way of American life. It may be supported   from the political point of view because the protagonist goes to Washington during the time of ‘Civil Right Movement’ there. Being attracted by the talk and philosophy of Priya Santosh runs away from his employer and works as a cook in Priya’s restaurant. He earns more, gets his own room, enjoys more financial freedom but he finds no dignity that he felt with hi old employer. It deepens his  desolation. We can raise a question in time if conclusion, how much freedom does the character Santosh have and how much of his life is ultimately in his own control?

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