My touch, your trembling, our caresses…
If anything, I’d say he blesses The innocent bodies that express
So forthrightly such happiness. (98)
In spite of Phil’s persuasion, Ed is hesitant about homosexual love. Ed considers homosexuality a sin. He is afraid of religious contamination.
The point is that my body is
Not mine –I don’t disdain it-
But it’s God’s instrument- my bliss
Is in his will-and its perfection
Resides in love, whose chief projection
Is to give life. All other use
Falls short of this. (98)
But with time one sees Phil-Ed love which has all the warmth and caring for each other which characterizes the best man-woman relationship. It is the outcome of need and alienation. However, if one were to examine the development of Edward’s character, it is intriguing to see how Seth positions his only overtly homosexual character in the novel. Ed’s passion for Phil is at war with his religiosity and is thus fated to end. The one character left out of everything in the end is Ed.
At the close of the novel Ed is left with neither friend nor partner. It is as if the
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The theme of morality Seth subscribes to the concept of conventional India morality. The moral code presented in the novel is the moral code that America lives by ‘casual sex is a way of life’, as are homosexual relationship, pick-up bars and so on. Social morality, or what one owes to the world at large, has been brought to the forefront by the episode of the peaceful demonstration against lungless labs. Vikram Seth through this novel depicts the new hopes of the then government. In the words of John .F. Kennedy in, Remarks at Amherst College( 1963) he says: I look forward to a great future for America- a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.(mobile.brainy