Chameleon

CHAMELEON

A) TRANSLATION

Rita, the main character in the short story “Chameleon”, is caught between two cultures. On the one hand, she is doing everything she can to fit into the English society, and on the other hand she wants to respect her parents and keep parts of her Indian identity. She is in love with a white English man, but at the same time her parents are pressing her to marry an Indian into an organized marriage. At a time in the short story, Rita thinks about the free choice in the Western, in real is so much more humane, than the restrictive duty in the Indian culture.

B) Written work

1) Continue the story where it ends. What happens as Rita enters the living room with Mark?

Downstairs, I opened the door. “Mum, Dad, I’d like you to meet someone”….

“This is Mark”, my heart took an extra beat. I was so scared of their reaction. “Mark and I are in a relationship, and I’m not going to marry any other man, than him, in this world”. I looked at Mark, and he smiled at me. I think he was happy about my decision, to tell my mum and dad about our relationship. After 2 years of lies, I think both of us have had enough and wished to tell the rest of the world about the truth. I turned my head toward my dad, and saw the wet eyes he was started to get. “For how long time have this gone on Rita?”, my mum asked with a depressing look in her eyes. “For about 2 years mum”.

“Why haven’t you told us!”, my dad break out weeping. “You know this is wrong Rita. You were going to marry a sweet and nice Indian man. This is against our culture and religion. This isn’t what we have taught you to do through your whole life”, my dad said. I knew it was a risky decision to tell them, but I had any other choices. I knew that I could lose the whole of my family, because of this white not Indian man, but they had to understand, and had to know. “I’m in love with Mark, and Mark is in love with me. You can’t chance that, and I don’t want to change it. You have to respect my decision, because it’s my choice to decide whom I want to marry. Not you, not the religion, not anyone. I know our religion says something else, but I don’t care. You have to respect it, because this is what I want and what I am going to do. If you want your daughter to have the best thing in the world, you have to let me do this, and not cut me out of the family. Regardless of what you are going to do, I am not going to change my decision. I am staying with Mark, and it’s the best thing I have ever done in my whole entire life”, I said to my parents. Mark had this look in his eyes. He finally seemed happy again, and I know he would help me thought this conversation with my parents. “But Rita, this is going to be so hard