“And he had soon become possessed with an overwhelming desire to live their life. He had been told they were sahibs, superior people. He had felt that to put on their clothes made one a sahib too. So he tried to copy them in everything, to copy them as well as he could in the exigencies of his peculiarity Indian circumstances” (Anand 10).
The narration aims to make the reader aware of the whitewashing nature of colonization. A mention of sahibs as “superior” makes it known of a disparity between Indians and the British in the novel .”Possessed” insinuates that Bakha is being overtaken by an overpowering force (whiteness) to try to emulate British culture. The text’s reference to being Indian being a “peculiarity” appears to be a reflection of Bakha’s thoughts emulated through the narrator.