Images of Post-Colonial India and Naipaul’s Discovery of Self and Disillusionment in Area of Darkness

Abstract

Naipaul depicted India of 60s in his controversial travelogue 'An Area of Darkness', first in 'Indian trilogy'. It conveys the sense of disillusionment which the author experiences on his first visit to India in the sixties, marked with poverty and corruption. The book is divided into three parts. The book was banned in India for its "negative portrayal of India and its people". The book is also considered Naipaul's reckoning with his ancestral homeland and a sharp chronicle of his travels through India of the sixties encountering distressing poverty in the slums, corrupt government workers in the cities, to the ethereal beauty of the Himalayas, covering a vast canvas of the subcontinent. According to some book reviewers, the title of the book, An Area of Darkness, was not so much a reference to India of the sixties, as to Naipaul's feelings of distress and anxiety encountering poverty and suffering in India. In the part named "The Colonial '', Naipaul gives up on the condition India is in during the Sixties. His dissatisfaction is finished when he sees rottenness and destitution in each side of India. Realistic depictions of unhygienic propensities, all out shortfall of disgrace or shame, and tricky codes of conduct fill each page in the part. The author’s nausea and fury are daintily camouflaged and no place in the book is Naipaul’s outrage more apparent.