Description of Inder Lal’s wife

Inder Lal’s wife, Ritu, seems to be a very shy person. You can see that when the narrator visitis Inder Lal’s flat. Then [Name] never talks to the British narrator, though she knows some Hindu. She doesn’t just ignore her, she even flees from her.

One day when the narrator visits Inder Lal and his family she goes into the bathroom and stays in there for the whole visit.

Maybe she acts like that not because she’s shy but because she’s afraid of the British. They came to “her” country and ruled it for many years – also with violence. Thus she got a bad impression by the British although she never really talked to one of them.

Perhaps Ritu is jealous of the narrator. Inder Lal and the narrator spend a lot of time since her arrival in India together. He shows all the interesting places to her and they always have a good time together. When Inder Lal talks to his wife in the evenings and tells her about his experiences over the day with the British girl his wife could think Inder Lal feels attracted to this European.

Another aspect of Ritu is that she doesn’t seem to have a high education. When the British narrator talks to Inder Lal’s mother she tells her that she didn’t want a high educated wife for her son. She bases this statement because in her opinion, educated wives are difficult to deal with. They have their own mind so they don’t simply accept the things they are told by their husbands and mothers-in-law.