FICTITIOUS TRUTHS AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS IN RUSHDIE’S MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN AND CHANDRA’S RED EARTH AND POURING RAIN
FICTITIOUS TRUTHS AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS IN RUSHDIE’S MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN AND CHANDRA’S RED EARTH AND POURING RAIN

Summary/Abstract: According to Western thought, truth and reality are generally seen as being diametrically opposed to fiction. This paper advances the idea that Rushdie’s Midnight Children and Chandra’s Red Earth and Pouring Rain reconfigure the widely-held, Western view on the nature of reality and truth. It is shown that they do so through the lens of a South-Eastern myth-ritual shrine which largely relies on fiction and departs from our familiar truth(s). Most importantly, still, it becomes apparent that their truth-values represent not lesser versions of the Western counterpart, but legitimate archetypal ones; although superficially unfamiliar, they are consistent with the mental forms acknowledged in the West. To this end, three salient dimensions of the novels are examined – performance, fabulation, and memory. The first criterion encompasses the vast and intricate artistic outlets of the Indian people, which expand and infuse every field of their existence, lending mundane experiences the magnitude and theatricality of staged performances. Then, through the lens of fabulation, drawing on Bergson’s and Durand’s theories, these literary works are shown to actually gain profundity and truthfulness from their cultivation of fiction and alternative facts. Finally, memory represents both the fuel and the mechanism of the Indian story-telling tradition. Although often dismissed as unreliable, it is not so with Rushdie and Chandra; there is “memory’s truth…its own special kind” (Rushdie 211).

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