Form and the Fiction of Raja Rao

The proposed article intends to The theme of East and West has been perennial theme in Indian English fiction. Raja Rao, it must be recalled, lived in Europe, i. e. , France, therefore the meeting of the East and West obviously became very important for him. He explores this theme through his novel The Serpent and The Rope (1960). The Serpent and the Rope, has been called by scholars a modern Indian Mahapurana both in content and form; it is an attempt at a Puranic recreation of story-telling. It contains story within story, fables-legends, philosophical reflection on Christianity, Buddhism, and Vedanta: Tantra, mystical experience, interesting observations on religion and politics. The idealized mental projection of India suggests the harmony and unity of life as a homogenous cultural tradition, and the weight of sensory and intellectual data indicates the multifarious illusions of realist, historical Europe, the two worlds equally form parts of Ramaswamy’s consciousness.