Social Politics Behind the Faces: A Realistic Study of Shashi Tharoor’s The Five Dollar Smile

Abstract

Although life has always been running around almost in the same way, to see it closely, literature takes the initiative and becomes helpful to interpret it. The stories of modern authors are inclined to unmask the smallness of society through a realistic approach that aims at brevity. This inclination is a result of progressivism in literature and proves itself very useful to society as it raises the finger where it needs to reform. Postmodern authors accept that seeing and hearing are not the work only of eyes and ears, for they are useless without the cooperation of the mind, so they write what they feel, and then they create characters real and near to life. Indian English literature, in this sense, is very prosperous, having a long list of successful realistic authors, and no doubt its highest rank starts with writers like Shashi Tharoor. Tharoor is indeed well known as a novelist and non-fiction writer, but sadly, as a short story writer, he is a victim of critical omission. The present paper is an endeavour to fill this gap.