The Home and the World

The Home and the World

Rabindranath Tagore

Translated by Surendranath Tagore

The first thing that appeals a reader as he plucks a volume off the bookshelf (or in my case: as he clicks on the ‘free download’ link) is the title of the book. The author hopes to reflect his piece’s considerable length and the great efforts and thoughts behind it in just a word or two. The title – “The Home and the World” is significant in several different contexts and levels, the most obvious being the distinction between the calm and cocooned domestic space in which the female protagonist – Bimala has been brought up, versus the society and country outside the walls of her palace. The readers see Bimala trying her best to balance her duties towards her home and her country, as she tilts from one side to the other.

The Home is also symbolic of her husband – Nikhil, and the World (literal Bengali translation being ‘the Outside’) represents his friend, Sandip. The novel traces Bimala’s dilemma as she finds herself in a position where she has to choose between the two men.

The title also highlights Tagore’s attempts to shun nationalism politics and to motivate people to follow the path towards global unity. The proof of such efforts can be found in the episodes based on the harassment of Bimala’s teacher and companion – Miss Gilby and the uprising of the Muslims against the propagators of nationalism.

The novel is written in first person format by the three principal characters: Bimala, Nikhil and Sandip.

At the start of the novel, the readers see Bimala as a devoted and traditional wife. Her world is limited to looking after the house, bantering with her sister-in-law and worshipping her husband. However Nikhil tries to modernize her. He arranges for her to be taught and asks her to step outside the domestic boundaries as he feels that true love can only emerge outside the constraints of the household.

Even though Nikhil is extremely dear to Bimala, the raw passion and fire in Sandip appeals more to her feminine side. As Nikhil smartly observes:

Bimala has no patience with patience. She loves to find in men the turbulent, the angry, the unjust. Her respect must have its element of fear.

Egged by Sandip’s flattering words, and the idea of him considering her as the living image of Mother India (Bharat Mata), Bimala ignores her home, and blindly devotes herself to the Cause.

Nikhil and Sandip give a touch of allegory to the tale. The novel is full of debates, rich in poetry and metaphors, between the two on several issues ranging from the Swadeshi movement to the question of representing a nation in a godly figure. Sometimes Bimala also joins these arguments and sides with Sandip, while Nikhil’s teacher Chandranath Babu takes the side of his pupil. Nikhil usually wins these debates by wit, but Sandip resorts to the same retort, saying that the words and ideals of Nikhil no longer have a place in the heart of the modern society. Nikhil treads on the path of righteousness while Sandip believes that he must acquire what he wants using any means necessary. Despite being cautious and morally correct, Nikhil is unable to find people who agree with him, but Sandip’s merciless demonstrations of power and ferocity win him several supporters including Bimala.

It is a clash of Truth vs. Illusion, Righteousness vs. Force, and Pragmatism vs. Idealism when Nikhil and Sandip discuss art, psychology, freedom or patriotism.

Rabindranath Tagore decorates these arguments with deep logic, beautiful and cunning metaphors, and witty counter arguments. Nikhil and Sandip are presented as equally strong debaters, who always take the opposite sides in an argument. Chandranath Babu observes:

I now see that though you two do not rhyme, your rhythm is the same.

Besides the love triangle involving Bimala, Sandip and Nikhil, the novel also explores two other important relations. One is the motherly-sisterly bond between Bimala and Sandip’s follower Amulya. Bimala having no son of her own, showers Amulya with motherly affection, and in exchange Amulya goes at great lengths to help his ‘sister’. The other bond is between Bimala’s widowed sister-in-law and Nikhil. Nikhil is reminded of his sister-in-law’s immense love and care when he sees that she is even willing to leave the palace and the zenana and go with him to Calcutta.

The novel also brings in light the dark and historically neglected side of the Swadeshi Movement, mainly through Nikhil. There are several episodes which bring out the injustice and the flaws of the nationalistic movement, such as drowning a boat of an Indian to discourage him from selling foreign goods or burning a bundle of foreign cloth and thus destroying the livelihood of a poor man. The author shows instances of zamindars oppressing tenants in the name of the country and selfish men filling their pockets with the money dedicated for the Cause. The shaping of gods in the form of the nation and mixing politics with religion creates uproar amongst the Muslims and violence and chaos breaks out towards the end of the novel.

Despite being set in a particular time and place, and being partially based on the politics and events on a national level, the novel has a universal appeal to it and an allegorical characteristic courtesy the love triangle. It dwells equally on the events in the society as well as the introspection of the characters, again justifying it’s title. The language is rich in philosophy, proverbs and poetry, although the beauty of the poetry has been lost in translation, as Amartya Sen wrote:

[...] anyone who knows Tagore's poems in their original Bengali cannot feel satisfied with any of the translations (made with or without Yeats's help). Even the translations of his prose works suffer, to some extent, from distortion. E.M. Forster noted [of] The Home and the World [that] "[t]he theme is so beautiful," but the charms have "vanished in translation," or perhaps "in an experiment that has not quite come off."

Though the story has been told from the point of view of three very different characters, I find their writing styles exactly the same, and it’s just the thoughts that vary. The author could have made it a lot more realistic and interesting if such a variation could have been achieved.

I appreciated the glossaries at the end of every chapter, because the translator not only provided the literal translations of words but also wrote about traditions, beliefs and myths that might be alien to the reader.

To conclude, I would like to say that The Home and the World, in spite of lacking a great storyline and interesting pace, is bound to leave a deep impact on its readers. Its richness in philosophy, history and love is sure to brighten your home as well as your world.