Character Analysis: The Wounded Sea

Nandan’s novel, The wounded Sea is a not very fictionalised account of his life in Fiji. It is divided into four parts. The first three parts tell of his early life, before became a politician. They tell of a relative paradise in Fiji, after the indentured Indians had become free and before the 1987 coup. The fourth part tells of the coup and its aftermath. The young Nandan (he is not named in the book, till the final section) came from a family of Indians.

However, the charm of the novel is Nandan's story about the characters in the village. There is Birbal, the English teacher, who does not really speak English but manages to fool the school inspector by somehow finding out the questions he is going to ask prior to his visit and having the class prepared. He will later become the local pundit. There is Nani who worships a monkey god and grows "cocknuts" and Zhaman who lives nearby and is a little crazy. A young boy is drowned in a well and she rescues him, though there is suspicion she may have pushed him in. When her lover - Nandan has caught them in the act - is found hanging from a tree, the
He is given the position of Minister of Health. He is, understandably, full of praise for this government, maintaining that it did much good during its short existence, particularly for the native Fijians. One day, Nandan is attending Parliament. An opposition MP is making his maiden speech, a poor one in Nandan's view. Nandan criticizes him Address the Chair, you larrikin. These will be the last words of that parliament, as, immediately afterwards, armed soldiers enter the building, staging a coup. The government and Indian MPs are held captive for some time and fear for their lives. Nandan's account of these events is presumably historically accurate. He and his family are eventually allowed to leave the country and they emigrate to Australia, where he wrote this book. (He later