Michael Thomas Harbuck						English 1201-SCC
26-02-2008								Essay 04
Ambrose								Sanford, Florida

Essay on the Effect of Indian Values upon the characters in Anjana Appachana’s
The Prophecy

The challenge facing the protagonists in this story is one of classic disagreement within 

the structure of the generations of the social society.   Young persons who fight against the 

pull of the world outside of the wishes and constraints of the experienced men and women 

charged with securing the moral future of those under their protection begin to form new 

customs which in some cases breaks the bonds of the social stigmas, but can also be reduced 

to a severe learning experience from the ruling moral and social majority.  

	Indian culture is the immediate setting within the story The Prophecy, by Anjana 

Appachana, and affects the characters throughout the story until the end paragraph.  The 

instructions for the essay demand that the affects of the culture are studied, however there are 

some instances of reaction, which are not mentioned, and which also are derived from the 

culture of modern India, or rather would be expected, yet not mentioned.  Customs in India 

have been unchanged centuries long , and the mixture of new with old is what man sees today 

in the literature before the reader.  
	
Foregoing the hair raising ride on the extremely dangerous precariously wheeled motor 

scooter, which most certainly has an effect upon the two young women who have engaged the 

driver, having been both victim of and victor over those in their cast society all within the time 

frame of a single ten minute journey and moving along the time line of the story, one finds, 

that the ingrained sense of mysticism in the Indian culture leads the young women to consult a 

mystic before attending an appointment at a doctor of gynecology.  The belief that the 

religious deities of the Hindu religion represented by a man of social honour would produce a 

prognosis of greater value than that of a doctor of medicine, can only be viewed as a product of 

the ever-present force of the cultural mysticism in the nation of India, which the two young 

college students have been a part of for the duration of their short lives.  

	The force of the society woven together with the wishes of the parents is apparent at 

the end of the story, as one is given the outcome of Amrita.  How this woman has recouped 

her life does not reflect the youthful and natural love between herself and Rakesh, nor the 

natural world, where she is able to revel in the joy of life and the wonder of birth, but rather is 

bound fast by the society, which sadly, not unlike the mysticism which abounds, magically 

herds her into the regime of the masses, where she is now perfect in every respect, exactly as 

the society, and the prophecy foresees.
	 
	The young woman Amrita has a choice of following the will of the society in which she 

lives, or being an outcast within it.  There are some persons, human beings, who are capable 

of leaving their society of birth, and leaving all behind in order to do what they feel and want. 

Perhaps this is a gift, which has produced the variety of peoples throughout our planet.  To 

leave the comfort and security of the society is not looked upon with favour, nonetheless, often 

it is the social outsider, who shows the courage and tenacity to overcome the superstitious and 

illogical characteristic of humans.