Hello and welcome to the Discourse. The Homecoming is a short story by Arun Joshi published in his short story collection titled ‘The Survivor’ in 1975. The story is about an unnamed soldier, a lieutenant in the Indian army who returns from the Bangladesh Liberation War to his hometown in India. It describes the failure of a soldier, a war survivor, to establish meaningful contacts with others, a failure that results in a painful loneliness experience. The story explores the hypocrisy and ignorance of the self-proclaimed intellectual elites of our society. The story is about the psychological effects of war and violence on individual soldiers. The psyche suffers during combat challenges. It can be tough when it is time to return home and start adapting to civilian life. Then the soldier may be disturbed by dreams about the war and may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, which affects veterans.
Arun Joshi explores this post-traumatic stress disorder of the individual returning from the war front and the indifference of the society that remains largely peacefully, away; in a contrasting manner. The story is told from a third-person point of view with an omniscient narrative style.
Characters of the story:
None of the characters have been named in the story. There is a young army officer who just returned from the battleground of the Bangladesh Liberation Movement that resulted in the independence of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971. He is a survivor, a winner of the war. He was awarded with the Veer Chakra. He was recruited as a lieutenant in the Indian army just a year ago and it was the first battle he faced. Many of his colleagues were lost during the war, which was a hard experience for him. His fiance is a young girl looking forward to marrying him and having a family. He loved his fiance and was very keen to marry her before he joined the army. But now he has doubts in his mind. His mother is a caring woman and his father is a responsible businessman with a busy schedule. All of them are cheerful at his return but none of them can understand his trauma, his feelings, and his psyche that has been largely disturbed by the violence that he witnessed on the battlefield. He used to be close to his sister who understood him. But since his return, he feels that his sister too has changed and he couldn’t express his feelings to her.
One of his former classmates who was keen on literature, has become a renowned poet. He meets him and other members of the elite class at a party.
Summary of The Homecoming:
The story begins as a young soldier, a lieutenant of the Indian army returns to his home city. He was posted on the Eastern Front in Dinajpur, Bangladesh. The war was over, and he was awarded the Veer Chakra for his services and bravery. He is a newly recruited officer and it was his first experience of the battleground. The memories of his friends from the battalion still linger in his mind. Nine had died on the very first night.
As the train reaches the station, he sees his fiance, with his mother who receives him. They had been worried for him but now he is back, they seem all happy. His fiance wore an emerald sari and she appeared pretty. He always loved her and was so keen to marry her before the war began.
She asked him if he was was bad and he answered he wished not so many of his men were killed. His fiance discusses the details that she had heard on T.V. and radio news, she told him she was so eager for him to return. He found it hard to connect with her feelings. She said that she was worried for him and kept indoors and hence, she might have gained some weight but now she will follow a diet to get to her normal figure. His mother interrupted and said that diet often leads to anemia, and that may cause problems during the pregnancy. It becomes clear that the soldier’s family is keen on his marriage.
However, he fails to understand all this. He remembers the hunger of the soldiers stuck in the battleground. He remembered the situation of relief camps after the ceasefire. He had been a supervisor of such a relief camp where many poor people who lost their homes and family members during the war were admitted. There were many survivors but the ration was limited. Their hunger was bigger and food was less. The older and weaker people could not stand in lines and compete to get their ration, he saw many of them dying out of hunger. Here, his fiance and mother are talking about dieting and anemia. The battleground has changed something in him. He still remembers the scene of the hockey field strewn with the skeletons of boys. He had never seen a dead body before that.
He belongs to a rich family. His father, a successful businessman, opposed him joining the Army, but he had a wish to serve his nation. Now he wonders what was the meaning of one man's marriage; one man's life. He had been wondering what life was all about. Who, he had been thinking, could possibly be running the world. Such thoughts filled his head with confusion as he sat about or played cards or went out with his father for a game of golf.
He realized that no one could understand his feelings. His sister, who used to understand him well, too appears a stranger to him now. One day, her sister insisted on attending a party. There were many of his childhood friends. The sons and daughters of rich businessmen. He had known them since his childhood but failed to recognize them. They were wearing stylish modern clothes and goggles with awkward hairstyles and some of them had beards. Some girls were in pantsuits while many of them were without bras. All of them were smoking and drinking alcohol. He too was offered a cigarette but he politely refused. He was caught up in an artillery barrage during the war and had to suffer a lot of sulfur dioxide. The army doctor instructed him to avoid smoking for some time. But he took some drink.
He observes that everyone is keenly discussing the war that just ended. They discuss how horrifyingly the TV and radio news have offered the war reports. The TV news has declared that it was a genocide. The rich brats in the party discuss if it really was genocide or if the TV reports are exaggerations. One of his former classmates, who now is a poet, says that it is undeniable that many cruel things have been done during the war, but it certainly wasn’t a genocide. The others agree with him. However, the soldier notices that none of them actually know the big terms they are using in their discussion. Some of them turned to him and asked him how it really was during the war. They asked what happened after the tanks the artillery and the aero-planes destroyed the enemy? The lieutenant informed them that it wasn’t the case, the enemy was still there and our soldiers, he included, had to face them hand to hand. None of them actually believed such a horrifying description of the war.
After the dinner, the poet recited a nice poem about the war and praised the bravery of our soldiers. He talked of Golden Bengal bleeding under a violet sky. The lieutenant said it was a good poem, but at heart, he felt hurt. He realizes that none of them actually understood the severeness and dangers of war. They thought that soldiers were safe enough while fighting the enemy. He remembers that was not the case, he remembers how he and his colleagues and friends, faced death every moment of the war, many of them were lost. He further talked about his experience in Bangladesh. He said he once visited an abandoned village during the war. There was no alive, just a dead child stuck on a bayonet before every hut. In another instance, his battalion raided a girls' school where the girl students were forcibly raped by the enemy soldiers, they succeeded in rescuing some girls, but many died.
He remembers how six young soldiers of his Unit were asked to go in the dark of the night to blast the bridge that could help the enemy. The soldiers knew it was a suicidal attempt and there were bleak chances of their returning alive, they were pensive and afraid, but they did the job. He remembers how as a lieutenant he was forced to take a decision to march his men to intercept a convoy head-on. Many of his men died within minutes, yet, he succeeded in destroying the convoy and returned safe. He was awarded the Veer Chakra for the same act. One of his subedar, while fighting the enemy soldier got stuck in his own bayonet. He killed the enemy soldier but sacrificed his own life too. After the war, the lieutenant went to meet his family in his village, he was a poor man. His widowed wife was very young in his 20s. He had two kids. She cried and begged for his help, wondering how she would feed her kids now. He tried to help her by recommending the name of the dead Subedar for an award and monetary help. He doesn’t know if the widow got any. He wonders how that girl of 20 with two kids will survive her life alone as society won’t allow her to remarry. Now when he sees civilians talking about the war in such a light manner, he wonders what will happen if the next war happens right in the city center. He thought of leaving the army, but he realized that wouldn’t solve the problem. How will he make sure that no other Subedar will be killed by his own Bayonet during the war? He left the party and returned home. Nothing changed the next morning. His sister was preparing for another party, his mother was insisting he marry soon, his father asked him to leave the army and join his business, and he wondered if he ever would be able to settle with them, his soul was troubled, alone, searching the meaning of life and how to end the wars.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of Indian English Literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and regards!
No comments:
Post a Comment