An Analysis of Anita Desai’s -The Accompanist’ BY DR. RAM SHARMA SENIOR LECTURER IN ENGLISH J.V.P.G COLLEGE, BARAUT, BAGHPAT, U.P. AND Dr.Anshu Bhardwaj(Sharma) Senior Lecturer in English Depts. Arya College of Engineering & Information Technology SP-42,RIICO Industrial Area Kukas ,Jaipur
Anita Desai, short listed three times for the Booker Prize and honoured by the Padam Shri for her literary forte, is one of the literary luminaries of the contemporary Indian fiction writing in English and a prolific post colonial writer who like Virginia Woolf deals with the psychology of mind and goes deep into the heart of her characters to expose their inner feelings and dig out the hidden questions that spring at the core of their heart and ,thus, she appears travelling with the modernist sensibilities of T.S. Eliot and Faulkner. The author of the highly acclaimed novel -Fire On The Mountain’ and six other novels, has shown her craftsmanship even in the shorter fiction i.e., short stories rather than her novels. It is true that she finds the short story form -much less satisfying-1 than the novel ,yet she keeps on writing story as she started writing it -as early as her college days.-2 In her short stories her style shows to even more advantage than in her novels. Her short stories are witty, evocative, tender and perceptive and perfect in revealing her skill and dexterity in handling this genre. Not only her novels but her short stories also are the great exposure of her psychological perspect.
Desai’s -The Accompanist’, an extract of -Games At Twlight’ (1978) delineates the emotional state of a tanpura player who, in this story, proves a true shishy and a true accompanist and is known as Bhaiya or the accompanist. The story is woven in the thread of true human relationship between ustad Rahim Khan,a former classical musician and Bhaiya ,the tanpura player who accompanies him in his performance having the quality of love and devotion.