Book Review: The Home And The World

The “Home and the World” is one of the great literary works of Rabindranath Tagore. It revolves around the story of three people Nikhil, Bimala and Sandip with Swadeshi Movement  in the background. The word ‘Home’ points to the house of Nikhil and ‘World’ refers to events in the outside world like the Swadeshi Movement. The novel encompasses the feeling of Nationalism, Love and a bit Modernism. All the aforementioned characters have their own confusions and mindsets regarding the above.

Tagore divides the novel in several chapters which are narrated by the three protagonists alternatively. The First Person writing style delivers a slow pace to the story which initially imparts difficulty but after completing the novel it’s crystal clear that Tagore has used the best way for narration. The whole nation is going through a period of social change but the writer focuses on the personal happenings and emotions of the three characters.

Nikhil, the husband, marries Bimala, who is poor and has dark complexion. Bimala is portrayed as a traditional picture of a Hindu wife enjoying her life with the dust of her husband’s feet in the first place but later on transforms to a passionate modern woman after facing the real world combining with the influence of Sandip and the Swadeshi movement. Nikhil belonging to a rich family with noble, peaceful and gentle nature contradicts to his revolutionist, pragmatic and egoistic friend Sandip. Calling Bimala “Queen bee” Sandip arouses patriotic feelings in Bimala which makes her to fall in his trap and she ends up stealing money for a selfish cause of Sandip.. Both Nikhil and Sandip have a different viewpoint about the Swadeshi movement. Nikhil supports the idea of non-violence,

 “You are dark, even as the flints are. You must come to violent conflicts and make a noise in order to produce your sparks. But their disconnected flashes merely assist your pride, and not your clear vision”

 and knows that such a movement  could harm both the notion and struggle for freedom which eventually proves to be right as there is an unrest created among the Muslims. Sandip on the other hand is the leader of Swadeshi movement in the estate and believes in the idea of achieving freedom at any price.

"We go by the author of the Gita who says that we are concerned only with the doing, not with the fruit of our deeds."

In the whole novel Nikhil sticks to his idea of rationality and idealism. According to Nikhil serving Humanity is the right path and he does so by helping poor farmers like Panchu but on the contrary Sandip believes in aggressive and radical methods. In the second episode Nikhil finds out Bimala’s love for Sandip but he let it pass without doing a thing as he believes in true and selfless love between husband and wife. In chapter 5, Meeting with Panchu , Nikhil’s heart  undergoes enlightment and suddenly he becomes familiar with the fact that there are other things in the world than the union or separation of man and woman. Bimala undergoes a transformation when she steps in the real world pictured by Sandip. And his ambition, turbulent ideas and orative skills were the key features which Bimala was longing for in Nikhil but couldn’t find it and eventually results in weakening of her love for Nikhil. Bimala’s love passes three phases, firstly it builds up for Nikhil then after nine years it weakens under mere temptation and Sandip owns it then when Bimala finds out the true face of Sandip and sees the wounded Nikhil it once again arouses for Nikhil.

During the final phase of novel Tagore removes all the illusions and the cover hiding the character of Sandip. Sandip, just to establish himself on political grounds, cares for himself before contributing for the cause. He first wins over Bimala and then persuades her for stealing from Nikhil’s treasury for a political cause but suddenly his character gets revealed in front of everyone when he allegedly acquires the money for himself.

I would like to conclude by saying that the novel is extremely slow in picking up its pace, and sometimes it gets a little too deep in terms of philosophy with makes the characters extremely fake. The action is concentrated entirely in the last few chapters, and the novel could have been a much better one had the same pace been set throughout.