Ecological Consciousness in Kiran Desai’s Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard

Abstract

Kiran Desai’s debut novel Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard (1998), on the one hand, manifests Nature as a source of peace and tranquillity; on the other hand, it also throws light on the estranged relationship of man with his environment. In its background, the novel echoes the popular modern world’s song of anthropocentricism. The central character Sampath’s escape from the human-centred society to a guava orchard, which soothes his perturbed heart, is utilised by his father for his family’s material gains at the cost of his son’s peace, the tranquillity of the orchard and the natural life of the monkeys dwelling in Shahkot. The other chief characters of the novel too seem apathetic towards the non-human world. The novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, presents a world where, instead of Nature, man has become the centre of life. This research paper, through an ecocritical reading, is a preliminary attempt to discuss Kiran Desai’s Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard as an ecologically conscious novel.