In Custody By Anita Desai Novel Plot Summary , Introduction , Characters and Proper Explanation

In Custody By Anita Desai

In Custody By Anita Desai - In this post you will get all the information about ‘In Custody ’. The proper and easy explanation of the novel is written below, i hope will read the summary and know everything about ' In Custody ’.

Introduction

In Custody By Anita Desai - In Custody (1984) is a novel set in Delhi, India by Indian American writer Anita Desai. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1984.

Characters

· Deven Sharma

· Nur Shahjenabadi

· Murad

· Siddiqui

· Imtiaz

· Sarla

About the Author

In Custody By Anita Desai - Anita Desai, born Anita Mazumdar (born 24 June 1937) is an Indian novelist and the Emerita John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a writer she has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times. She received a Sahitya Akademi Award in 1978 for her novel Fire on the Mountain, from the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters. She won the British Guardian Prize for The Village by the Sea. The Peacock, Voices in the City, Fire on the Mountain and an anthology of short stories, Games at Twilight. She is on the advisory board of the Lalit Kala Akademi and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, London.

Desai was born in 1937 in Mussoorie, India, to a German immigrant mother, Toni Nime, and a Bengali businessman, D. N. Mazumdar. Her Bengali father first met her German mother while he was an engineering student in pre-war Berlin; and they got married during a period when it was still unusual for an Indian man to marry a European woman. Shortly after their marriage, they moved to New Delhi, where Desai was raised with her two elder sisters and brother.

In Custody By Anita Desai - She grew up speaking Hindi with her neighbours, and only German at her home. She also spoke Bengali, Urdu and English out of her house. She first learned to read and write in English at school and as a result, English became her "literary language". She began to write in English at the age of seven and published her first story at the age of nine.

She was a student at Queen Mary's Higher Secondary School in Delhi and received her B.A. in English literature in 1957 from the Miranda House of the University of Delhi. The following year she married Ashvin Desai, the director of a computer software company and author of the book Between Eternities: Ideas on Life and The Cosmos.

In Custody By Anita Desai - They have four children, including Booker Prize-winning novelist Kiran Desai. Her children were taken to Thul (near Alibagh) for weekends, where Desai set her novel The Village by the Sea. For that work she won the 1983 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a once-in-a-lifetime book award judged by a panel of British children's writers.

Desai published her first novel, Cry The Peacock, in 1963. In 1958 she collaborated with P. Lal and founded the publishing firm Writers Workshop. She considers Clear Light of Day (1980) her most autobiographical work as it is set during her coming of age and also in the same neighborhood in which she grew up.

In Custody By Anita Desai - In 1984, she published In Custody – about an Urdu poet in his declining days – which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 1993, she became a creative writing teacher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The 1999 Booker Prize finalist novel Fasting, Feasting increased her popularity. Her novel The Zigzag Way, set in 20th-century Mexico, appeared in 2004 and her latest collection of short stories, The Artist of Disappearance, was published in 2011.

In Custody By Anita Desai - Desai has taught at Mount Holyoke College, Baruch College, and Smith College. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and of Girton College, Cambridge (to which she dedicated Baumgartner's Bombay).

Summary

In Custody By Anita Desai - Deven earns a living by teaching Hindi literature to college students. As his true interest was in Urdu poetry, he jumps at the chance to meet the great Urdu poet, Nur. Under the advice of his friend Murad, an editor of a periodical devoted to Urdu literature, Deven procures a secondhand tape recorder so that he can help transcribe Urdu's early poetry, as well as conduct an interview or even write the memoirs of Nur. However, things do not happen as he expects them to.

In Custody By Anita Desai - Devens' old friend Murad visits Deven unexpectedly with an offer for him to interview a great Urdu poet Nur Sahjahanabadi who lives in Chandni Chowk, Old Delhi for his magazine. Deven is fond of Urdu poetry. He accepts the offer. At first, he thinks that he is getting a chance to sit before a great Urdu poet but after reaching his house he notices the unbearable condition of Nur's house. When he meets Nur, he refuses to give an interview by saying that Urdu is now at its last stage and soon this beautiful language will not exist. But he shows some trust in Deven.

In Custody By Anita Desai - But Deven gets annoyed by the condition of Nur's house and drops the idea of interviewing Nur. Murad again convinces him to interview Nur with the help of tape recorder so that it can be further used for audio learning by Urdu scholars. Deven, who is a poor lecturer, asks for money from the college for a tape recorder. He goes to a shop to buy, where the shopkeeper, Jain, offers him a second hand tape recorder.

In Custody By Anita Desai - At first Deven refuses to purchase it but later Jain convinces him that it is a machine with good quality and his own nephew Chikua will help them to operate it while recording the interview. Unwillingly, Deven agrees to purchase it. Nur's first wife promises Deven that she can arrange a room for Deven if he gives her some money.

In Custody By Anita Desai - Deven arranged the money for the payment to her by the college authority with the help of his colleague-cum-friend Siddiqui. He then goes to Delhi with Chiku for recording, but he fails to record the interview. Now, he not only has no recording but also has to bear the expenses like payment demanded by poet, his wife, nephews of Jain, etc.