Plot of The Binding Vine.

 The plot of The Binding Vine is intricate. It has three strands running parallel. These are the stories of three women, different in age and time: Kalpana, who is comatose; Mira, who is dead; and Urmi, who discovers life’s meaning through the stories of Kalpana and Mira. Shashi Deshpande comments on these stories that, “the biggest problem was weaving them together, bringing out what is common to all the three”. For a reader, the problem comes while encoding the plot.

The plot of The Binding Vine does not follow the traditional pattern of unity of time and action. Since it is a stream of consciousness novel the action moves back and forth with the past and the present overlapping. It is set in the India of the 1980s. Urmi, Vanaa, Harish, Kishore, Inni, Dr. Bhaskar are all members of the Indian urban middle class, while Shakutai and her family are from the lower class. Mira, Baiajji and others belong to the time past. In order to bring them close to us the author uses memory. The time-shift is managed through the interweaving of the subplots. The two subplots—one of Mira and the other of Kalpana are intricately woven with the main plot of Urmi. Urmi and Mira are related but they are separated by death. Urmi and Kalpana are strangers but they are united by human concerns. In the case of Mira-Urmi, Mira’s writings provide the bridge; in the Kalpana-Urmi relations, Shakutai becomes the link. Although the plot does not have a traditional beginning, middle and an end, the overall effect is of a unified whole. The opening is grim, the to and fro movement of the middle is sometimes happy, sometimes sad, but the end is optimistic.

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