The Home and the World – significance of the title

The real significance of the title ‘The Home and the World’ lies in the different choices that Bimala has to make throughout the book – choices between the different ‘homes’ and ‘worlds’ that form a backdrop to this love story. Most importantly, a study into the different ‘homes’ and ‘worlds’ she has to choose between reveals the different levels at which this multi-layered story can be interpreted. In the first layer lies Bimala’s actual ‘home’ – her life behind the purdah, and the ‘world’ – the outer sphere beyond the zenana that she reluctantly enters. If you strip away this layer, the literal interpretations of ‘home’ and ‘world’ give way to the symbolic representation of Nikhil as Bimala’s ‘home’ and Sandip as Bimala’s outside ‘world’. And if you venture deeper into the novel, the ideals that Sandip and Nikhil espouse come to represent the two ideologies she must choose between, that is, Nikhil’s pragmatism that represents the ‘home’ and Sandip’s idealism that represents the ‘world’.

Home - behind the purdah, World - beyond it

Bimala lived her entire life in a secluded, sheltered existence behind the purdah. Yet, this was the life she was reared to aspire to, and it was the life she was happy with. It was Nikhil who, not content with Bimala’s seclusion, pushed his reluctant wife to learn English and explore the world outside the zenana. He almost forcibly dragged her to the outside world to give her the freedom of her own choices.

Yet, for all of Nikhil’s exertions, the real circumstance which finally prompted Bimala to cross the threshold and enter the outside world was Sandip’s entrance into their lives. It was at the sight of him that Bimala, drawn to his nationalistic fervour, made the choice between staying inside her ‘home’ and meeting him in in the outside ‘world’, and chose the latter.

Ironically enough, it was Sandip who came to stay in Bimala’s house, and refused to leave it until he was forced to, proving, as Nikhil observed, that ‘if you will not go to the world, the world will come to you’. Thus, the author uses the purdah – the zenana - as a sort of luminal threshold separating Bimala’s inner sanctuary, her ‘home’, from the outside, or ‘world’.

Home - Nikhil, World - Sandip

Smitten by Sandip's fiery speeches and his vision of her as the ‘Queen Bee’ as contrasted with her own husband Nikhil's ostensibly indifferent attitude towards the freedom struggle, Bimala found herself increasingly attracted to Sandip. Her thoughts on their first meeting illustrate her fascination with him: “I did not know how it happened, but I found I had impatiently pushed away the screen from before me and had fixed my gaze upon him. Yet there was none in that crowd who paid any heed to my doings. Only once, I noticed, his eyes, like stars in fateful Orion, flashed full on my face”. Nikhil was the man of her home; Sandip represented to her the outside world, not only because he was her link to the nation, her source of information to all that was happening outside her home in the country, but also because he was an outsider who embodied all the vitality and passion that she supposed the outside world to contain but that had been absent from her own domestic life. She emotionally tripped, vacillated between Sandip and her husband, and committed a final act of betrayal until she returned home bruised and humiliated but with a more mature understanding of both Nikhil, her Home, and Sandip, the World.

Home - Nikhil’s pragmatism, World - Sandip’s idealism

The author explored the war between idealism and pragmatism inside Bimala’s mind (through the love triangle) and extended its sphere of influence to encompass the issues dividing India during those times of strife and struggle (through the depiction of the revolution and the Swadeshi movement).

In the novel, Nikhil, who was keen on social reform but repulsed by nationalism, gradually lost the esteem of his spirited wife, Bimala, because of his failure to be enthusiastic about anti-British agitations, which she saw as a lack of patriotic commitment. However, despite seeing clearly that she was unimpressed by his worldview, he refused to compromise his principles and persisted in his quiet belief in humanism over nationalism because in his own words, “I am willing to serve my country; but my worship I reserve for Right which is far greater than my country. To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it." This measured stance of her husband towards politics failed to win Bimala’s approval.

Unconvinced by this non-flamboyant, practical approach towards freedom and fascinated by the illusive utopia presented to her by Sandip, Bimala was torn between the two extremes. Her choice was between the inclusive humanism practiced in her Home and the militant nationalism followed by the World. She wavered towards the latter, taken in by the goddess image Sandip created of her and the power he seemed to impart in her every time he spoke, and said of him: “I was utterly unconscious of myself. I was no longer the lady of the Rajah’s house, but the sole representative of Bengal’s womanhood. And he was the champion of Bengal. As the sky had shed light over him, so he must receive the consecration of a woman’s benediction…” But in the end, when Sandip was finally revealed for who he really was, her dreams were shattered and reality struck and she came back to her husband “hesitatingly, barefoot, with a white shawl over her head”, back to the ‘home’ she had abandoned and neglected.

Home – India, World - Other nations

The title of the book, ‘The Home and the World’, is the English translation of the title of Tagore’s book Ghare Baire, originally written in Bengali. On first reading, it may seem to be an accurate translation. But ‘Baire’ in Bengali means not ‘the world’ but ‘outside’. Thus, a faithful translation would have been ‘The Home and The Outside’. Why, then, was a change introduced into the title? The answer, I think, lies in another interpretation of the ‘world’ here – it represents the actual world, the countries outside India.

It is well known that Tagore, after a brief dip into the Swadeshi movement, became disillusioned with nationalism and condemned it on the grounds that ardent nationalism, in the process of uniting all Hindus, would end up alienating other religions and nationalities and promoting hatred and exclusivity that would break the country apart and destroy people’s humanism. In that context, the title of the novel can be interpreted as an appeal to strive towards global unity and shun the politics of nationalism. There are several plot points in the novel – such as the harassment of Miss Gilby, and the alienation and consequent uprising of the Muslim traders - that can be considered evidence of this.

In fact, Tagore’s own Nobel Prize acceptance speech is the best illustration of his global sentiments: “…. Now, when in the present time of political unrest the children of the same great India cry for rejection of the West I feel hurt…. We must discover the most profound unity, the spiritual unity between the different races. We must go deeper down to the spirit of man and find out the great bond of unity, which is to be found in all human races…. Man is not to fight with other human races, other human individuals, but his work is to bring about reconciliation and Peace and restore the bonds of friendship and love.” Thus, through Nikhil, who was Tagore’s spokesperson and his counterpart in many ways, Tagore tried to explain his dream of his ‘home’ coexisting in harmony and mutual friendship with the ‘world’.