A Study of Urban Materialism, Elderly Exploitation, and Familial Disintegration in Ratnakumar Sambhariya’s Story ‘Keel’

Abstract

The present study analyses the issues of urbanization, materialistic consciousness, and familial disintegration in contemporary India through Ratnakumar Sambhariya’s short story “Keel” (from the collection Airgun ka Ghoda, 2007). The protagonist Sonvati, a rural elderly woman, is summoned to the city by her only son Ramsharan and daughter-in-law Dhandevi solely to seize her property; she is subsequently deceived and abandoned. The research aims to establish that the materialism spreading in the name of modernity is not only dismantling joint families but also reducing parents to mere “useful objects”. Adopting a qualitative and analytical methodology, the study employs the primary text as its main source and draws on existing criticism of contemporary Hindi fiction as secondary material. Through textual analysis and symbolic analysis, it demonstrates that the hammer-and-nail motif functions as a sharp satire on materialistic society. The major findings are: (i) urban migration is not merely geographical but a displacement of values; (ii) in elderly exploitation, the daughter-in-law’s role can be even more ruthless than traditional patriarchy; and (iii) Sambhariya’s story serves as a merciless mirror of today’s middle-class society.