54 pages • 1 hour read
Gita MehtaA River Sutra
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1993A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 14-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 14 Summary
Tariq Mia asks the narrator if he thinks the Narmada has the power to help the musician’s daughter, and the narrator says he does not. The narrator complains that he feels caught in the webs of other people’s lives, and Tariq Mia tells him that he came to the Narmada to embrace the world through other people’s stories—not to escape the world. Tariq Mia teases the narrator by singing a song about the Narmada, and the narrator is irritated until he listens to the words of the song. Tariq Mia explains that he learned the song from an ascetic of Shiva called the Naga Baba of the Naga sadhus (or ascetics); Tariq Mia met him in the jungle by a waterfall. The ascetic was teaching this song to a young girl, who ran away when they spotted Tariq Mia, and Tariq Mia stayed to hear the ascetic’s wisdom. The ascetic sang the song to the Narmada, explaining the Sanskrit words to Tariq Mia. Then the young girl returned, still frightened by Tariq Mia’s presence. The narrator asks why the girl was afraid, and Tariq Mia asks if the narrator truly wants to know. Then, he begins narrating the ascetic’s story.
Chapter 15 Summary: “The Minstrel’s Story”
The Naga Baba remembers his training: His master left him in a mountain cave in the Himalayas for a winter, and then in the desert for days, training him to resist the need for food and water. Wandering, he covers himself with ash; he is naked with matted hair. On the night of Shiva, he meets a man who cremates corpses and begs him for alms; then, he goes to the lowest-caste neighborhood. The lowest-caste people welcome the Naga Baba, giving him alms in exchange for his blessing. After he eats and drinks, the Naga Baba goes to a brothel, and the woman in charge is reverent, offering him food. The Naga Baba, seeing a young girl being abused by a man inside, says he wants to take the girl, instead. The woman agrees, assuming the Naga Baba will return the girl in a day or two, but the Naga Baba says he will never return her—he threatens to curse the brothel if he is refused. The woman gives in, asking the Naga Baba not to curse her on the night of Shiva, and the Naga Baba leaves with the girl.
The Naga Baba and the girl wander toward the Narmada. The girl tells the Naga Baba that she is the youngest of four siblings—the only girl. Her father called her “misfortune” because her mother died in childbirth. After years of abusing her, her father sold her to the brothel where she was abused further. The Naga Baba tells her that they are going to the Narmada to live away from such people. The girl sees that pilgrims and travelers welcome the Naga Baba, asking for his blessing. At the brothel, the girl was called Chand, or moonlight, but the Naga Baba renames the girl Uma, meaning peace in the night.
When they arrive at the Narmada, the Naga Baba identifies a cave for them to live in during the summer, and they build a two-room house to live in during the rainy season. The girl is frightened when the Naga Baba says that she is getting a new mother, as her father said the same thing before he sold her to the brothel. However, the Naga Baba only baptizes Uma in the Narmada, meaning that the river will be her mother. They live along the river, with the Naga Baba teaching Uma to read and write, as well as to sing the songs and meditations he knows.
Chapter 16 Summary: “The Song of the Narmada”
Tariq Mia tells the narrator that he saw the Naga Baba and Uma for three years, but he has not seen them since. The narrator feels that Tariq Mia is frail, and he leaves to return to the bungalow. A group of archeologists arrive with Dr. Mitra, who explains that Professor Shankar, who is leading the expedition, plans to stay at the rest house while his crew will stay at the dig site 40 kilometers away. The narrator is nervous, noting Professor Shankar’s military appearance, and he has Mr. Chagla prepare a lunch for everyone. During lunch, Shankar and his assistants are boisterous, and Shankar says he does not think the river is holy, just immortal. The narrator asks what he means, and Shankar explains that erosion has never altered the course of the river; it is just the same in the present as it was thousands of years prior. The group begins listing the writers, artists, and holy men who were inspired by the Narmada.
In time, Shankar transforms the rest house into a research headquarters, and his group eats their meals there. The narrator stops going to see Tariq Mia, feeling caught up in the active rhythm of the dig crew. The narrator asks Shankar to send any minstrels he finds along the river to the bungalow, hoping to meet the Naga Baba or Uma.
When the crew is gone for a week, the narrator misses the activity. The day before the crew returns, a woman arrives at the rest house in minstrel garb, and she sings Shankaracharya’s hymn to the Narmada. The hymn attributes different traits to the Narmada, like lust and calm, and holiness and sensuality; it discusses how the river was born from Shiva’s desire. At the end of the hymn, Shankar arrives, and the minstrel ignores the narrator, bending to Shankar’s feet. Shankar reveals that he is the Naga Baba, and the minstrel is Uma, who plans to move on to Rudra. The narrator cannot believe that Shankar is the Naga Baba, insisting that the Naga Baba is in a cave seeking enlightenment, but Shankar tells him that the Naga Baba has reentered the world as a man. Shankar and Uma leave, and the narrator stares into the river, where numerous diyas or clay lamps are flowing downstream, making their way toward the ocean. He wonders what he would do if he left the bungalow.
Chapters 14-16 Analysis
The conclusion of the novel reaffirms The Spiritual Significance of the Narmada River, expanding its role in The Conflict Between Materialism and Enlightenment with the story of the Naga Baba and Uma. Their story also impacts the narrator’s life and understanding of the world. At the beginning of Chapter 14, the narrator tells Tariq Mia that the “beauty of the Narmada makes it a perfect retreat for anyone like [himself] wishing to withdraw from the world” (215), insisting on his original position that he took the job at the rest house to renounce the world. However, Uma’s song at the end of Chapter 16 repeats the idea that the Narmada is not useful in only one way nor is it only one thing—its multiplicity serves the needs of many religions, cultures, and individuals. When Tariq Mia tells the narrator that he cannot find the Naga Baba and Uma, he says: “Such people are like water flowing through our lives, little brother. We learn something from the encounters, then they are gone” (245). In this way, he draws a direct link between the Narmada as a physical river, at which people gather and disperse, and the Narmada as a spiritual waypoint, at which people learn and grow together before moving on. The narrator only starts to realize at the end of the novel that choosing the bungalow as a retreat from the world was counterproductive. The rest house, like the entire river, is central to the “world” of humanity, spirituality, and culture.
Resolving The Importance of Storytelling in Creating Meaning and Knowledge, each story of the novel is only a microcosm of the myriad pilgrims, travelers, and visitors the narrator has met and will meet in his current role, with each encounter teaching him about lives and lifestyles that are foreign and mysterious to him. Since the narrator initially assumes that he is similar to the Naga Baba, he is infuriated to find out that Shankar is the Naga Baba, insisting, “He is in a cave somewhere, seeking higher enlightenment” (264). His frustration is mostly due to the fear he feels when he finds out that the Naga Baba “has reentered the world” (264), which implies that the narrator should do the same and embrace the diversity and richness of the Narmada’s inhabitants and their various stories.
The Naga Baba’s story explores a different side to The Diversity of Indian Religious and Cultural Traditions than was shown in prior stories; he associates with the Dalits, or those belonging to the lowest caste. Unlike prior characters like Ashok and Nitin Bose, who came from wealth and privilege, the Naga Baba survives on the kindness of strangers, like the Dalit sweepers “waiting in front of their colony with offerings of food” and asking for a blessing, which they are denied “from the temples that they were forbidden to enter” (230). The Dalits were outcast from society, working in jobs like the Dom, who cremates dead bodies, or the sweepers, who clean the streets. Among the poverty of the Dalit village, the Naga Baba finds Uma, who tells him how she was abused by her father, then sold to the brothel owner who “just kept me in that house for those men” (237). The destitution and abuse that the Naga Baba witnesses reveals the depths of human suffering. Regardless of the wealth and spirituality shown in other stories, crime and injustice persist. However, by the end of the novel, the Naga Baba is an archeologist, and Uma is a minstrel, both changed by the Narmada and by each other’s influence. The diversity of cultures in India offers opportunities for change, just as the narrator changes his path from overworked bureaucrat to a meditative rest house operator.
