Malathi In 'One Amazing Thing'

Johnathan Heu
02-12-2014
English 10 9 a.m.
Professor Stanley Malathi
Malathi, of Indian descendant, is a young and beautiful woman. She is a character of many confusion in the story of One Amazing Thing. Throughout the whole book, she is described in many various way. The reader first thought that she seem to be witty, useless, and adulterous. She would be what you called disgraceful because of the present things she's done with a man named Mangalam. As you dig in deeper into her past, you will see why she is much different from before than now. Why she would do the things she do. It's all base on choices in our life that makes us who we are. Inside, we're all asking what our purpose are in life, and it's a call for help. Here is
She knew she was having an affair with a married man and feared that bad karma would come to her. As she walked out of the office of Mr. Mangalam, "karma began rolling, and retribution struck in the form of an earthquake" (22). After the earthquake occured, she was praying to Krishna to ask for forgiveness. She knew she was being punished for her adulterous behavior. When Uma was hurt in the earthquake by protecting herself with her hand, she injured it. Cameron asked that they needed her sari to bandage up Uma's hand. She rejected saying "it will destroy her womanly modesty." In doing so, she screamed out "Illay Illay!" (28). She didn't want to give away her sari that represented her and her religious view. Soon enough, she gave it to Cameron in exchange for Uma's sweatshirt. The reader may now think that Malathi is just nothing but unreliable, unselfish, and adulterous.
Now, Malathi also wasn't a bright person back in her younger days. She failed the tenth grade twice, and her parents figured that it be a waste to put her in school again. They soon decided to marry her off instead. She was brought up into a Indian culture that all woman was destined to be in an arranged marriage. Malathi avoided that controversy by finding a beauty shop to seek refuge. That's when her story changed the perspective of the reader's
In process of that, she managed to avoid all of the controversy by being rescued by Miss Lola. She became one of the ladies to work for Miss Lola's beauty shop. Soon enough, she relied on the beauty shop like it was her new family. While she was there, she also met a young servant girl of Mrs. Balan, and her name was Nirmala. Nirmala seemed to have taken a liking in Mrs. Balan's son, and she didn't approve of it. Mrs. Balan soon had Nirmala remodeled to meet a rich person. Malathi felt some sort of protection for Nirmala because she kept "calling me Elder Sister" (102). After that day, they never saw Nirmala again. Malathi knew that Mrs. Balan planned to get rid of Nirmala for her son's sake. When Malathi found out, she became furious with what Mrs. Balan did. She took matters into her own hand and took off all of Mrs. Balan's hair with her last words saying, "Such an outcome is most unlikely, madam" (110). When she did this, the reader thought it was amazing of how she wasn't witty at all. She became more conscious of what she did, and didn't regret it. It showed a side of her that you should never harm another person no matter of their status. It soon opened a chance for Malathi to start new and independently on her own. She was forced to move out of town, and begin her journey to what it is