Setting

Physical setting

The short story “Karma” by Khushwant Singh was published in 1989. However, the presence of English soldiers in the story suggests that the story might take place sometime before India gained its independence from Britain (1947).

The story takes place in a railway station in India, and on a train, in its first-class and its second-class compartments. The author does not give the name of the city or town where the action happens, but we are told that it is a cantonment (a permanent military camp in British India) (p. 181, ll. 5-6).

At the beginning of the story, Sir Mohan Lal is in the waiting room for the first class. He describes the mirror there, which is made in India. Mohan Lal’s view of the mirror shows his negative view of India as a whole:

Sir Mohan Lal looked at himself in the mirror of a first-class waiting room at the railway station. The mirror was obviously made in India. The red oxide at its back had come off at several places and long lines of translucent glass cut across its surface.
‘You are so very much like everything else in this country, inefficient, dirty, indifferent,’ he murmured. (p. 178, ll. 1-7)

Lachmi, Sir Mohan’s wife, is at first outside the waiting room. She then waits for the train on the pla...