stood for. When he tried to recollect the shape of her body, hands, face, he would only remember pliant windows, doors, stairs, and verandah!’ (Palit, 69). This speaks of how with losing the house, Alam has also lost Raka, both belong to the other side of the border. Home, we realize rather than being a physical space becomes an irrevocable feeling, as opposed only to the idea of ‘Homeland’, which is characterized by geographical boundaries.
Vijay Mishra recalls an incident where V.S. Naipaul is asked, ‘Where do you come from?’ (Mishra, 4)
With Partition migrants we see how this question manifests into an identity crisis which leads to a ‘double consciousness’ (Mishra, 5) within their psyche: since the question interpreted from the Indian perspective …show more content…
The ‘silence’ that surrounds the Bengal Partition is qualified by Ashis Nandi as a ‘psychological defence’
(xii).He argues that the educated, urbane people who were dazzled by the scope of two brand new states banished the memories of Partition and decided to conduct the affairs of the new states on the ruins of the past: armed with the fragile defensive shield of anti-memories. It is important to note here how the different classes responded to Partition in different ways. Bengal Partition conjured two very different kinds of realities for the migrants of East and West Bengal. The political instability post independence – the kind of security promised to Muslim Bengalis this side of the border and Hindu Bengalis at that side differed both in speech and practice – made the refugee crisis on both side of the border difficult to deal with. For East Bengalis it became a long life of uncertainty; of endless effort to combat hunger, disease, homelessness and unemployment. Their narrative became very distinct from people who migrated to
West Bengal: their primary concern being loss of a specific class identity and the crisis of homelessness.
In the nostalgic sentiment of the migrants of East Bengal there exists universally the notion of losing
Vijay Mishra recalls an incident where V.S. Naipaul is asked, ‘Where do you come from?’ (Mishra, 4)
With Partition migrants we see how this question manifests into an identity crisis which leads to a ‘double consciousness’ (Mishra, 5) within their psyche: since the question interpreted from the Indian perspective …show more content…
The ‘silence’ that surrounds the Bengal Partition is qualified by Ashis Nandi as a ‘psychological defence’
(xii).He argues that the educated, urbane people who were dazzled by the scope of two brand new states banished the memories of Partition and decided to conduct the affairs of the new states on the ruins of the past: armed with the fragile defensive shield of anti-memories. It is important to note here how the different classes responded to Partition in different ways. Bengal Partition conjured two very different kinds of realities for the migrants of East and West Bengal. The political instability post independence – the kind of security promised to Muslim Bengalis this side of the border and Hindu Bengalis at that side differed both in speech and practice – made the refugee crisis on both side of the border difficult to deal with. For East Bengalis it became a long life of uncertainty; of endless effort to combat hunger, disease, homelessness and unemployment. Their narrative became very distinct from people who migrated to
West Bengal: their primary concern being loss of a specific class identity and the crisis of homelessness.
In the nostalgic sentiment of the migrants of East Bengal there exists universally the notion of losing