The Shadow Lines: A Novel of Diaspora

The Shadow Lines: A Novel of Diaspora

The Concise Oxford Dictionary has defined the term Diaspora‘ as the dispersion of the Jews among the Gentiles mainly in the 8th -6 th century BC. (01) It means in that period, Jews were sent to the areas outside Palestine. The novel The Shadow Lines‘ depicts the general diaspora for it portrays the terrible experiences of two diasporic families viz Mr. Lionel Tresawsen and Dutta-Chaudhari that belong to and travel in three countries called India, Bangladesh and England. So, we have three metropolitan cities such as Calcutta, Dhakka and London. The people of three generations witness delight and suffering through their interaction with different regions. Partition compels them to leave their birthplace and settle in abroad though momentarily. However, they maintain their cultural and civilizing identity which underscores the diasporic element of the present novel. In his essay ―A Reading of the Shadow Lines‖, Prof. A. N. Kaul observes: Crossing of frontiers—especially those of nationality, culture and language-has increased the world over, including India. Of this tendency The Shadow Lines‘ is an extreme example.

 The novel The Shadow Lines‘ is fundamentally portrays the Hindu-Muslim riots caused by partition and rumours spread thereafter and consequently its evil effects on innumerable innocents. Owing to this predicament, the characters are sent to various regions and areas where they are in search of their own identity. This exploration on their part has bestowed general diaspora to the present novel. Ultimately, the characters cross their social, cultural, and national boundaries which have given a theme of multi-culturality and diversity to the novel. In 1964, due to the disappearance of holy hair relic from the Huzrat Bal Mosque in Kashmir Valley riots broke out in the region and many people breathed their last. When it was flashed in the dailies of Dhaka, the city had lost its tranquility. People came out on the roads to brutally kill the innocents who were ignorant of all this. Tridib was one of such innocents who died for no faults of his own. Thus, his death becomes significant. The narrator tries to understand the sense of violence exploded in the wake of partition. In this way, partition was a great shock to the people of the time. Due to it, they had lost their relations of blood. They did not believe in the existence of the imaginary dividing shadow lines on the maps of the country. To them, it was the political administrators and designers who had created such lines for their selfish gains. Otherwise, the entire Hindustan had long been living in peace and harmony. Though people had different religions, they were living in mutual cooperation and collaboration. The political administrators had forced the country to undergo the evil experience of partition. Mr. M. A. Jinna was quite determined in his stand for the formation of Pakistan on the cause of religion. His claim had no vision behind it. Ultimately, his stand proved to be hazardous for in the riots broke out after partition it has been unofficially stated that about five lac people lost their lives during and after partition. But then the industrious people on both sides of the border lived peacefully. No doubt, there were gossips that their relatives are killed in the other parts. And the people to suffer from such scandals were not the creators of borders. They were not the political administrators but working men on both sides. They did not even know who Mr. Jinna or Mr. Nehru was. They were unknown to the cause of partition too. That‘s why in the novel the old uncle of Tha‘mma called Jethamoshai in Dhaka gives entry to a Muslim family who looks after him. Khalil of the Muslim family is a rikshaw driver. He looks after the old man more carefully than his own family. But both the innocent people i.e. the old man and Khalil are killed in the riots. These innocent people have an unqualified love for their motherlands irrespective of the borders drawn between them. The old uncle does not leave his old ancestral house in Dhakka. He loves his house and the city very much. He does not believe in the demarking lines between India and Pakistan. He says, ―Once you start moving you never stop. That‘s what I told my sons when they took the trains. I said: I don‘t believe in this India-Shindia. It‘s all very well, you‘re going away now, but suppose when you get there, they decide to draw another line somewhere? What will you do then? No one will have you anywhere. As for me, I was born here, and I‘ll die here.

He even refuses the grandmother‘s proposal of going back to Calcutta. In this way, the old people live where their roots are founded. They are emotionally involved with their origin. So out of her love for her birth place grandmother Tha‘mma crosses the lines between the two countries and visits her old house in Dhaka. As a consequence, the novel has the characters like grandmother Tha‘mma or her old uncle who have been deeply rooted in their culture. Being deeply patriotic, Tha‘mma thinks that a nation is formed on the sacrifices of its people. Hence, she strongly revolts against the idea that her own motherland has become foreign now. They are very much loyal and devoted to their own ideology irrespective of any opposition to it. That is why; they strictly oppose the behavior against their own belief and conviction. The grandmother is a starch nationalist. Thus the narrator notes: ―All she wanted was a middle-class life in which, like the middle classes the world over, she would thrive believing in the unity of nationhood and territory, of self-respect and national power: that was all she wanted-a modern middle-class life, a small thing history had denied her in its fullness and for which she could never forgive it.  Hence, when narrator tells her about Ila‘s tensed married life and racist treatment at school in London where she was not even defended by her philandering husband, she gets exploded in fury. She scolds Ila for choosing a home outside her own country. She even does not like her stay in abroad being culturally and nationally foreign there: ―Ila has no right to live there, she said hoarsely. She does not belong there. It took those people a long time to build that country; hundreds of years, years and years of war and bloodshed. Everyone who lives there has earned his right to be there with blood and their father‘s blood and their son‘s blood. They know they are a nation because they have drawn their borders with blood‖. As against the character of grandmother, Ila is not perfectly rooted in her culture. She is the daughter of Jatin who is an Economist in the U.N. As such she has travelled widely and only comes to Calcutta during holidays. As her childhood days have been spent in various countries, she does not have any special attraction for Indian culture. In fact, she is ultra-modern in her looks, behavior and thinking. Her looks and clothes are not appropriate to her Bengali middleclass origins. The grandmother comments on it as: ―Her hair cut……….whore‖ Her concept of freedom is also totally different. The grandmother very rightly comments on it when the narrator says that she stays in London because she wants freedom as: ―It is not freedom………before‖ And Ila too admits the difference in her behaviour when in the night club of Calcutta Grand Hotel, after heavily drunk she is not allowed to dance with a businessman by Roby. Here, she shouts to the narrator: ―Do you…………free of you‖? Ila always lives in the present. And in order to enjoy her present she tries to get rid of her cultural roots. Hence, she is different from her people both in thought and culture. In short, she does not believe in the traditional role of Indian women. She is an unimaginative realist because, she lives in the present. She does not have any good reminisces. That is why, her boyfriends change as quickly as one changes the toothbrush. It was also because of this and her lack of roots in the culture that she cannot think of the compatibility of her relationship or subsequent marriage with Nick Price which ends in failure. She is not fixed to any single nation. To her, “ho ivaSvaica maaJao Gar” as stated by Dnyaneshwar in Samagra Dnyaneshwari. Thus, once she tells the narrator that she does not like his culture. She utters, ―Free of your bloody culture and free of all of you‖. This love of her for freedom underlines modern diasporic trend as mirrored in literature. Her constant interaction with new cultures abroad or the partition of India does not influence her solid psyche. This idea of universe hood of Ila gets clashed with grandmother‘s deep faith in nationality, culture and borders. Though lived first in East Pakistan, then in Burma and finally in Calcutta it does not lessen grandmother‘s love for her birthplace. Once, she desires to see the borders between India and East Pakistan. She feels that there might be soldiers of both the countries pointing their guns at each other. But her expectation gets cracked and she utters with despair: ―My grandmother thought this over for a while, and then she said: But if there aren‘t any trenches or anything, how are people to know? I mean where‘s the difference then? And if there‘s no difference both sides will be the same; it‘ll be just like it used to be before, when we used to catch a train in Dhaka and get off in Calcutta the next day without anybody stopping us. What are it all for then—partition and all the killing and everything –if there isn‘t something in –between?‖ All this reveals that the matters of boundaries and national culture are deceptive and delicate. Universal humanity cannot be divided. The dividing line exists inside the human mind not outside it. Universal life is like the time which has been divided into past, present and future by us for our convenience. Actually, there is no such division in time. Similarly nations have no separating lines between them. In this way, we have two different diasporic worlds in the novel, the one which believes in the past while the other survives on the present. The first is traditional while the other is modern. In short, we have two different generations represented by the grandmother and Ila. As against the character of Ila, the grandmother is quite traditional by nature. She strongly believes in Indian culture. She has the experience of freedom struggle. Consequently, she has become a staunch nationalist. In her life she always cherished a middle class life with self respect. Therefore, she is highly critical of both Ila and Tridib who want to live in a free space. She regards Ila as a whore and highly critical of her concept of freedom too. She does not like the narrator‘s meeting her. Out of anger, one day, she writes to the Dean in Delhi where the narrator was pursuing his Ph.D. that her grandson had been visiting the whores and he should be sent back to home. In this way, she is a foil to the younger generation. She is a critic of those who she thinks have been deviated from Indian traditions. Thus, she disliked her sister Mayadebi‘s husband too for he was ultramodern in fashion.