Historiographic Metafictionistic Narration in Four Man Booker Prize Winning Novels of India

Bolla Jyothsnaphanija
Ph.D Research Scholar
English and Foreign Languages University
Hyderabad
Jyothsnaphanija@gmail.com

Historiographic metafiction excentuates writer’s imagination in telling the storey in more conjuring style, as a postmodern tool this literary technique privileged many revolutionary writers in debunking the cannon. Postcolonial writers have the double advantage of this technique in overthrowing colonial constructed histories, and empowering their own forgotten histories. Salman Rushdie in his Midnight’s Children (1981), Arundhati Roy in her The God of Small Things (1994), Kiran Desai in her The Inheritance of Loss, (2006), and Aravind Adiga in his The White Tiger (2008) armed this technique in retelling History of India in the postcolonial overtones. These four novels accredited Man Booker Prize for their critical vision. This paper highlights what is common theme that was adapted in these four novels. It is not only the postmodern narration, not only the magic realism, pungent language, East West encounter, and critique of post independent India that is similar in these four novels, but fictionalizing the reality, erasing history / reconstructing history is common in these novels. This paper focuses on historiographic metafiction as an empowering technique for postcolonial narration in analyzing these four novels, and highlights how these four writers have architected their own language, metaphors, and symbols, in sculpting Indian history.

Historiographic metafiction is self-reflexive and historically connected. As Linda Hutcheon opines historiographic metafiction is quintessentially postmodern art form with the reliance on the textual play, parody, and historical reconceptualisation. It is re writing history through fictional characters. All these four works function as metafictions or what Robert Alter terms self-conscious or self-reflexive novels employing intre-extra metatextual devices blur the lines between fiction and reality, and doing so, calls in to question the very role literature plays, in creating or recreating in ontological terms versions of real and verisimilitude. For Alter metafictional text expresses seriousness through playfulness, and is acutely aware of itself as a mere structure of words even it had tried to discover ways of going beyond words to the experiences seek to indicate. In these novels, there is a constant effort to convey to the readers a sense of the fictional world as an authorial construct setup against the background of literary tradition and convention. While in Midnight’s Children and The White Tiger the protagonists narrate their life stories, in The God of Small Things and The Inheritance of Loss omniscient narrator deciphers the circumstances of the characters. While Rushdie and Desai trace Indian history from the pre independence, Roy and Adiga explore postcolonial India in leaving the traces of the past.

These novels are about written stories. But how history serves for sculpturing artistic success have to be examined which would provide complete understanding of plot. Saleem the oral narrator in Midnight’s Children is perfect instance for postmodern unreliable narration. The similar unreliability is present in Balram’s narration in The White Tiger. Both of them present inaccurate history which is a key feature of historiographic metafiction. To misread history, to mislead the readers is the playfulness of historiographic metafiction. Saleem and Balram present falls history. The constant shift of narration in The God of Small Things and The Inheritance of Loss strengthens perplexed history. These novelists are not merely a storey tellers, but attempted to preserve the past in giving new interpretations to historical context, challenges accuracy of history, and relates national history with individual’s life.

History can be referred to written document. When the word losses meaning, the history slips away. This emphasizes on historiography. The past does not exist as a historical fact until it is written. These four novels challenges this notion, while in Midnight’s Children, Saleem narrates orally his storey to Padma the critique, who sometimes would not believe him like the reader who is reading Rushdie, in The White Tiger, Balram’s expeditions are told to Chinese Premiere who slips the happenings, the unreliable narrator in The God of Small Things and The Inheritance of Loss voice many forgotten stories of Kerala and Kalimpong where the places become mere factors for past. All the four novels demand reader’s participation in decoding the erasing history.

The imaginative re writing, construction of the past provides the opportunity to tell alternate stories or histories which place the oppressed and the colonized in the centre rather than in margin. Midnight’s Children is about the postcolonial India, where political upheaval, chaos, poverty, dissolution are perplexing citizens, The God of Small Things is about the invisible people whose stories are ignored in history of India, The Inheritance of Loss is about formation of states in post independent India with emphasize on marginal struggles, and The White Tiger is about the history of the underprivileged. All the four novels imply that poverty is same in post independent India. All the four novels challenge still continued colonization in India in the form of castism, corruption, hunger and dissolution, sufferings of the marginalized, and the globalization and government’s power.

Historiographic metafiction rejects projecting present beliefs and standards on to the past, and asserts for the specificity and particularity of the individual past event. It also suggest the difference between events and facts that marked by many historians. Since the documents become the signs of events, which the historians transmute in to facts as in historiographic metafiction that the past is once existed, our historical knowledge of it is re interpreted and transmitted. Midnight’s Children accounts for Hinduism, history of Islam religion in India from Indus Valley Civilization, creation of Bangladesh, modernization of Pakistan, British rule in India and several other historical facts. The God of Small Things presents history of Communist Party in Kerala, Marxism vs Communism, Priests of Australia, and Christianity in Kerala, Western machineries in India, Kerala Tourism and Development Corporation and Western emigration. The Inheritance of Loss limns Non Cooperation Movement, Gandhi’s Sathyagraha, Nehru’s government, two World wars, origin of Sikkim, high prices, increasal of taxes for basic needs, Gorkha land movement, and number of historical facts. The White Tiger portrays how underprivileged section of society is neglected in postcolonial India, corruption of the government officials, Naxalite Movement, transformation of Delhi and several facts.All the novels question the relevance of historical facts in to the present knowledge on them.

Historiographic metafiction points to the fact by using peratextual conventions of historiography to both inscribe and undermine the authority and objectivity of historical sources and explanations. Linda Hutcheon questions facts and events. Hutcheon refers to facts as discourses defined an event is not, in other words, events have no meaning in themselves and facts are given meaning. In Midnight’s Children details of Roulat Act IN 1919, Jallian Wallah Bhag massacre in 1919, Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi, Mahmud Ali Jinnah, Indira Gandhi, Nehru, in The God of Small Things raise and fall of Communist Party, Indo Pakistan war, in The Inheritance of Loss the violence of Gorkha National Liberation Front, Rajiv Gandhi’s ascendance and Indira Gandhi’s assassination, Mahmud Ali Jinnah and Muslims in India and Pakistan, tea plantation, and in The White Tiger the altering beauty of Tajmahal, India’s expedition towards globalization are given meaning with reference to plot.

Postmodern novels assert that there are only truths in the plural and never one truth and there is rarely falseness per see just others truths. Postmodern fiction suggests to re write and to present the past in fiction, and in history it is to open up to the present to prevent from being conclusive. The re writing history is also problematic. History and fiction are not same even though they share the social, cultural, ideological contexts and formal techniques historiography as emplotment. Postmodernism deliberately confuses the notion that history problem as verification and fiction as veracity. Historiographic metafiction suggests continuation of relevance of fiction and fact such an opposition. Historiographic metafiction installs and inscribes and then blurs the lines between fiction and history. Saleem says “I had been mysteriously handcuffed to history, my destinies indissolubly chain to those of my country.” (Rushdie, 1.) Saleem’s life has no escape from the smell of history. “Long before the Marxists came. Before the British took Malabar, before the Dutch Ascendency before Vasco da Gama arrived, before the Zamorin's conquest of Calicut. Before three purple-robed Syrian bishops murdered by the Portuguese were found floating in the sea, with coiled sea serpents riding on their chests and oysters knotted in their tangled beards. It could be argued that it began long before Christianity arrived in a boat and seeped into Kerala like tea from a teabag.

That it really began in the days when the Love Laws were made. The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how.

And how much.” (Roy, 14). Rahel and Esther cannot tolerate the sicksweet smell of history to be freed from forbidden love. “As he floated through the market, Gyan had a feeling of history being wrought, its wheels churning under him,” (Desai, 165). Gyan cannot decipher the smell of secretive history totally lost by his own revolutionary sense. “Out of respect for the love of liberty shown by the Chinese people, and also in the belief that the future of the world lies with the yellow man and the brown man now that our erstwhile master, the white-skinned man, has wasted himself through buggery, cell phone usage, and drug abuse, I offer to tell you, free of charge, the truth about Bangalore. By telling you my life's story.” (Adiga, 4). Balram’s half baked life can never taste the cruel smell of history whose footprints are lost. As Chacko says, one has to smell the smells of history, these protagonists cannot be re united with the smell of pickles, the smell of sheaf of buss tickets, the burning smell of air, Paravan smell, poignant smell of mutton cooking and the smell of the Historiographic metafiction amalgamates national history with personal history. Saleem the pickle factory worker, presents incommensurability of Indian history in Midnight’s Children. Aadam Aziz Saleem’s grandfather is a doctor by profession who had foreign education, believed in modernity, assisted wounded people in the Jallian Wallah Bhagh massacre, represent Extremists OF India. He foresees India’s freedom. In Indow Pakistan war in 1965 Ahmed Sinai and Amina Sinai Saleem’s parents, Naseem Gani his grandmother, his aunt were killed. Parvathi his wife was killed by government forces after the imposement of emergency by Indira Gandhi in 1975. Rushdie also remarks on Sanjay Gandhi’s projects mainly mass sterilization to prevent growing population. Shiva the father of Parvathi’s son abandons her due to her poverty. Saleem though married to Parvathi remembers Jamila his sister for whom he showed love and rejected by her. As in accordance with the prophecy made by Ram Ram Sethe Saleem becomes father to Parvathi’s child. The remaining Midnight’s children were sterilized. Rushdie ironically refers to Indira Gandhi’s tyranny. Saleem was born at the stroke of midnight when India was independent, and his son Aadam Sinai was born when emergency was imposed. Saleem says “no celebration was made, no procession was followed he came.” (Rushdie, 443). India’s celebration of freedom after twenty-eight years that celebration was no longer continued, freedom was curtailed in the name of political successors.

In The God of Small Things, Rahel and Esther can never access history house of their ancestors. History house is metaphoric of History of India which is constructed by the colonizers which the present inhabitants cannot access its authentic version. Why Jhalkari Bhai’s adventures are not recorded by the British historians can be analyzed for decoding falls history of India. How Gandhi became the father of nation, why Subash Chandra Boash’s adventures are not highlighted can be taken for understanding how history is framed by the others. Roy also relates national events with what happens to her characters. “Ammu was eight months pregnant when war broke out with China.” (Roy, 21). Rahel and Esther’s arrival to this world is important as their country is still fighting for what they didn’t accredit in future. When Indo Pakistan war began, Ammu got separated from her harassing husband. “the war with Pakistan began, Ammu left her husband and returned, unwelcomed, to her parents in Ayemenem.” (Roy, 20). Velutha’s relation with Ammu, sweeping history of Communist Party, Ayemenem house is being haunted by the ghosts of unknown all signify how national history impacts small people. Many secrets are unconquered in this novel, many secrets are evaporated in Indian history. Ghost of Sophie Moal haunting the other family members replicates the loss of voiceless people in history. Pappachi’s ghost tormenting the remaining family members equates present colonization in the form of globalization. "Pappachi's Moth was held responsible for his black moods and sudden bouts of temper. Its pernicious ghost—gray, furry and with unusual dense dorsal tufts—haunted every house that he ever lived in. It tormented him and his children and his children's children" (Roy, 48). The globalization as modified form of colonization would kill many more generations.

The Inheritance of Loss intensify the relation of individual’s difficulties in falls history. Gorkha liberation movement separating Sai and her lover Gyan, Nehru Welcoming Committee at The Cantonment Railway Station separating Jemubhai Patel from his wife Nimi, tea plantation systems disprivilaging the real inhabitants, robbery of fighters in taking money of Biju, illustrates history is inseparable from the lifes of these people. Desai couples national events and personal events inseparably. “when Jemubhai was still a child, Gandhi had marched from Sabarmati ashram to Dandi where, at the ocean’s maw, he had performed the subversive activity of harvesting salt.” (Desai, 119). She plays with the time and interstice of personal life in making them inescapable from history.

“While Biju had been away, Indira Gandhi had been assassinated by the Sikhs in the name of their homeland;” (Desai, 176). She presents history of the world and its mark over the shadows of fading Indian history.

In The White Tiger, Bihar alienation killing the spirit of Balram, chaotic politics making him murderer, celebrating India’s glory and oppressing the oppressed correspond to fictionalized reality. Balram, is also handcuffed to Indian history. “The fighting between the Naxal terrorists and the landlords was getting bloodier. Small people like us were getting caught in between.” (Adiga, 51). The small people have never voiced their agonies in history, and now they have no voice to express their discontentment about the present situation. Balram’s untimely death with tuberculosis, which would be passed on to his brother Kishan, a typical skin disease to conquer the poorer, are unaddressed ever before. In critiquing village India, Adiga ironically puns the paradise of Indian village, and paradise within a paradise of Indian village school. The technological invasion, echoes the unpreserved historical data.

In Midnight’s Children, Saleem was born at the end of colonization. But though the colonization was ended, it fragmented. India at the time of independence, was strong, wealthy with sufficient resources like Saleem at the wealthy family, but Saleem’s wealth was short lived and India was destructed. Midnight’s children conference parallels underground organizations in India and a competitor like Shiva desiring power through violence agenda. In the Indo Pakistan war Saleem’s life was changed forever, and India invaded Pakistan India’s identity was changed. After the defeat with Bangladesh Pakistan underestimated India’s strength and waged war against India. India’s identity was changed in to brutality after this war. Saleem attains peace, India continues to be vulnerable. Saleem’s appearance is absurd and postcolonial India is in absurdity. In The God of Small Things, Rahel and Esther were twins yet different, like India and Pakistan which were born at same time, almost part of each other but yet different. In The Inheritance of Loss, Sai’s parents die at Russia, she has no one nation or culture or language to either to express or to experience. Her father’s interest in spaces cannot fill her empty interstices. In The White Tiger Balram cannot write the history of his own unless he kills the intruder.

In a historiographic metafiction, protagonists can be any type. In Midnight’s Children Saleem is fragmented physically, psychologically, have telepathic powers but results in self destruction. In The God of Small Things, Rahel is alienated, lonely, confused, disinterested, and lovesick. Esther in the other hand, has the same dissolution what Rahel has. In The Inheritance of Loss, Sai is unwanted, lonely, matured than her age. And Biju in this novel, is melancholic, nostalgic. In The White Tiger, Balram is revolutionary, self-interested. The protagonists are metaphoric of India’s various phases. Loneliness symbolizes India being alienated with its orthodox beliefs, and being revolutionized with its role in globalization. As Sebastian Pillai points out, postmodern protagonist has no self to speak out feels like a human, something floating about in a universal nature medium. His existence is negative because he is completely available to others, to causes, to events, forces as if he is a kind of liquid capital. He is extremely dispositional; his self is constructed through standard sufficient materials. It refers to loss of self in postmodern literature and art. In historiographic metafiction, historical data is rarely assimilated. Magic realism, unreliable narration, Deconstruction subverts historical aspects of the novel though it is the foundation. The subject in historiographic metafiction is not confident of his – her abilities to know the past with any certainty. In these novels, nothing survives, the instability caused by re thinking of past in non continues terms. Postmodernism installs and subverts the traditional concept of subjectivity.

Parody is one of the postmodern ways of literary incorporating the textualised past in to the text of the present. Postmodern intertextuality has the desire to close the gap between past and present of the reader and have a new desire to re write the past in a new context. Postmodernism suggests that there is no presence, no external truth which verifies or unifies but is only self-reference. Historiographic metafiction self- consciously suggests this, and uses for discursive nature of self-reference. Every representation of past has specifiable ideological implications. The postmodern ideology is paradoxical in its claiming and denying its own truth for questioning history it seeks to re construct and critiquing its ideology it is influenced by. It is part of postmodern ideology not to ignore cultural bias and interpretive conventions to question the authority even its own. All the novels employ historical aspects for the progression of plot. All the novels used historical events from their nation’s and new interns bring radical changes in viewing history. These four novelists adapt history with different phases. As Gregson says “postmodern preoccupation with language and textuality has lead to an insistently periodic culture. For these authors have deconstructed unfamiliar ides, exploited familiar things, and introduced philosophical preoccupations.” (Ian Gregson, Postmodern Literature, 35.) Rushdie, Roy, Desai and Adiga introduced philosophical preoccupations to history.

Faction is one of the art form which can be often compared with historiographic metafiction. Faction like historiographic metafiction presents the text in which it is impossible to know the difference between fiction and fact. Saleem says “one day the world may taste pickles of history” (Rushdie, 531, .) pickles are an edible, comestible but they have curious properties they are sour but appealing for many people like the episodes in Indian history. Paradise Pickles and Preserves has to tolerate changes from time to time. Pickle factories are instable, and history is instable. Rushdie was born in the year when India got independence. His life also is handcuffed to Indian history with few incidents in Indian history such as Indow Pakistan war, and politics of India. The title Midnight’s Children was taken from Nehru’s speech on the eve of Independence to India in 1947. Roy also faced several difficulties in the patriarchal family, and Desai in the foreign land. Adiga also envisages changed India from foreigner’s eyes. These novelists are chained to their own experiences in exploring history.

In Midnight’s Children, Saleem is Rushdie’s perforated sheet. The writer’s genius glimpses through Saleem. India is represented in pieces a place that has its own share of fractures and fissures so the novel becomes India’s perforated sheet complete with thousands of bloodstains. It gives false identity to Indian people. This novel besides Indian history, presents World’s history and its impact and impact of Indian history on the world history. It accounts for the end of World War One in 1915, Gandhi died in wrong time questions the accuracy of history. British imperialism, transfer of powers, five year plannes, 1956 elections, linguistic re organization of states which parallels washing chest incident, circus ring incident, communist party winning large number of seats in 1957 elections, attack on Saleem in 1958, Sabarmati affair in 1976, India’s arrival at a nuclear age, captivity of 420 Midnight’s children ironically reflect on India’s growing expeditions. When Saleem was nine year old, midnight’s children were 581 resemble officials of India governmental administration.

As a student of architecture, Roy experienced the otherness within herself. She equates Rahel’s disintegrated self in The God of Small Things. The small people represent the intellectual notion of Kerala, Baby Kochamma’s the secluded, Sophie Moal the anglicized Malayali, and Pappachi Mammachi’s relation as the re integration of centre states relations. Baby Kochamma’s love with Irish monk who came for seminary in Kerala, Rahel’s marriage with foreigner, Chacko’s scholarship at Oxford, substitute colonial invasion of small people’s psychies. Roy also talks of Communist Party winning elections in 1957. She also presents world view of history. Chacko’s unfamiliar relation with Margaret Kochamma’s, and Sophie Moal as the result of their mysterias pasts, revolution at state, and resistance at home all the events have lost their traces. The whispers of history they cannot hear, the gloominess of history they cannot involve, the joy of history they cannot feel.

In The Inheritance of Loss, Sai represents the modernity, Gyan the revolutionary, The Judge the colonial mimic. Sai’s parents at Masco fail to re integrate. Death of Sai’s father in space exploration, is ironic of inability to construct at the land which is not one’s own. References to human expedition on moon, Tenzing’s socks replicate musiamized facts. At the convent, the nuns have to labor to identify the roots of Sai. “There were other parts of the tale that none of them would be able to piece together, of course, for some of the narrative had been lost, some of it had been purposely forgotten.” (Desai, 35). Similarly, India’s past is forgotten, diverted, interpreted, manipulated, and deliberately forgotten. In The White Tiger, Balram represents criminalized perfurtrators, Ashok corruption, his father orthodoxy. Balram’s life fictionalizes reality to the extent that, the intertextual echoes are almost reversed in to future. The reversal of Malayali writings in The God of Small Things, the reversal of roles in Inheritance of Loss is characteristic in Balram’s reversal of life.

All the novels recall what happened in the past allegorically. These novels are parodies of parodies. All the novels are parodies of national myth and magical realism. Between historical and elevated, personal and trivial, juxtaposes middleclass and lower class, snakes and ladders, nose and knees, light and darkness, language and whispers, silence and anger, food and cosmetics, sweetness and sourness, English and Hindi, love and hatred, big bellies and small bellies, with Saleem and Shiva, Rahel and Esther, Patel and Gyan, Balram and Ashok, marginal and peripheral, author and reader, entertainer and artist, history and myth with national unification and personal fragmentation, national birth and personal birth, nation’s longing for form and personal quest for meaning, national fragmentation and bodily fragmentation. Saleem takes responsibility for all historical happenings, Rahel’s arrival disturbing nature, Kanchan Ganga changing its colours when Biju calls his father, river Ganga’s holiness being contaminated by the copses are hyperbolic.

In a work of historiographic metafiction critiques have often raise the question of feminine voice and its prominence. In a work of historiographic metafiction, feminine voice losts its importance. Padma the enthusiastic listener is not treated equal by Saleem. To be unveiled from the label of feminist, Roy and Desai also do not account any women’s voice in these novels. In The White Tiger, women’s role is almost absent.

In blurring the boundaries of history and fiction, historiographic metafiction employs self-reflexive intrusion for demystifying the role of individual and nation. All these four novels tackle with 1947. It is the year not of common importance, but for these four writers, it is the year of world staring at India’s plight. India’s independence is as challenging as these protagonist’s lifes. At the stroke of midnight, when India got independence, when Saleem was born, when newspapers celebrated the arrival, the history of India has started pulverizing. In The God of Small Things, referring to India’s independence Chacko remarks it is the war where India has won and lost. It is the same time the country has experienced victory and defeat. Desai also expresses the relentless loss. “War broke out in Europe and India, even in the villages, and the news of the country disintegrating filled the newspapers; almost a million were dead in riots, three to four million in the Bengal famine, thirteen million were evicted from their homes; the birth of the nation was all in shadow.” (Desai, 314). Years of independence, the day of peace when Gandhi Jayanthi, October second 1988, the violence of this movement reaching its peak is ironic. On Gandhi’s birthday, Sai and her friends preferring non vegetarian food shows Desai’s sharp critical vision at how long life struggles for the freedom are just vanished by the anglicized Indians. In April 1947 itself, Gorkhaland movement emerged, but it was not given independence. Gyan’s fanciful relation with Sai is buried with his involvement in Gorkha National Liberation Front. They have stolen Judge’s guns, taken away Father Booty’s property, and violently suffered Biju, and Noni’s family. If the government is certain, these victims miseries are concerned. Adiga expresses the exploitation of these victims oppression. “thanks to all those politicians in Delhi, on the fifteenth of August, 1947—the day the British left—the cages had been let open; and the animals had attacked and ripped each other apart and jungle law replaced zoo law. Those that were the most ferocious, the hungriest, had eaten everyone else up, and grown big bellies. That was all that counted now, the size of your belly. It didn't matter whether you were a woman, or a Muslim, or an untouchable: anyone with a belly could rise up.” (Adiga, 51). This novel is the most outbreaking in proposing retribution to the loss.

All the novels imply reader’s participation in the plot. Reader’s participation in Saleem’s oral narration, reader’s imagination to reconstruct Ammu and Veluta’s relation and Rahel’s with Esther, readers presence in keeping track of parallel stories of Sai and Biju, and reader’s forgiveness in justifying Balram’s crime mark the novel’s introspective ability. These novels are often compared with Laurence Stern’s Tristan Shandi, James Joyce’s Ulysses though they are modern art forms. These novels demand multiple reading. All the novels frequently use metaphors. Pickles, spittoons, in Midnight’s Children, hills, rivers, pickles, shattered glasses, empty shells, whispers, violins, jams and jellies in The God of Small Things, hills, mountains, windows in The Inheritance of Loss, rivers, malls, monuments, and palaces in The White Tiger suggest fragmented history which still is in the form of stable particle. These novels can also be compared with Water for Chaklet. Some of the elements in these novels are also present in Thomas Pynchon’s Guide to Life and Against The Day. In Grass’s The Tin Drum the storey is told by a little boy about Germany who would never grow up. Similarly the statement where Amina receives from a prophet that Saleem becomes old before he is old in Midnight’s Children also refers to the growth of a nation through individual’s development. References to unsolved Kashmir problem, Morarji Desai, assassination of Yian Abdullah who convocated Islam religion in 1942 serve for the expansion of plot. The other three novels also talk on Kashmir problem.

Saleem is the mirror of new nation. It has 1001 plots. After the publication of Midnight’s Children Rushdie received vehement criticism from Indira Gandhi for his statements on emergency in 1975. in later publications, those examples were not written. Rushdie says he used history as a tool for his protagonist’s experiences, as without history Saleem’s identity becomes unanswered question, and Rushdie did not deliberately express his discontent towards postcolonial India. But he is disappointed with the similar conditions in the country even after colonization. The God of Small Things is a reminiscence of Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. The chetnified language, the pickle factories, and employing historiographic metafiction also could have been influenced by Rushdie. Rahel mirrors the beauty of this nation yet unidentified. Sai as an anglicized Indian girl represents modernized Indian cultures. Balram’s corruption reflects corrupted India.

The history presented here in these novels is shattered in to pieces. If it is the history of Delhi and Lahore, history of Kerala or Kalimpong, or the history of Bihar and Bangalore but on the whole it is the history of India. It could be the history of Muslims in India, or Christians in India, Nepalis in India, the underprivileged in India but it is the representation of the complete people of India. But these histories are presented in fragmentation, unreliable narration, complex philosophical undertones, flowing language, and intertextual paradigm or in Hutcheon’s terms ‘interdiscursive’ approach. Historiographic metafiction is different from a historical novel. Historiographic metafiction uses and abuses history, which is absent in a historical novel. The lines between history and fiction are absent. There is no hierarchy of these two elements. As Hutcheon says in “Historiographic Metafiction - Parody and the Intertextuality of History”, “Historiographic metafiction works to situate itself within historical discourse without surrendering its autonomy as fiction. And it is a kind of seriously ironic parody that effects both aims: the intertexts of history and fiction take on parallel (though not equal) status in the parodic reworking of the textual past of both the "world" and literature.”, these four Man Booker Prize winning novels compose fictionalized history in inviting new critical studies in Indian English Literature and invoking the artistic skill of Indian writer in no way subversive to other world’s writers like Carter, Marquez, Rhys and many others. Historiographic metafiction cozened these writers to record the forgotten history.

Works Cited

Hutcheon, Linda. A poetics of Postmodernism, History, Theory, Fiction. New York: 1988.
Rushdie, Salman. Midnight’s Children. UK: Jonathan Cape Publishers, 1981.
Pillai A, Sebastian Dravyam. Postmodernism an Introduction. Tiruchirapall: Theresa Publications, 1991.
Gregson, Ian. Postmodern Literature. Great Britain: Hodder Headline Group, 2004.
Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. New York: Harper Perennial, 1994.
Desai, Kiran. The Inheritance of Loss. Canada: Penguin Group, 2006.
Adiga, Aravind. The White Tiger. New York: Free Press, 2008.

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