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Indian Writings in Literature

Notes stage in the process of social evolution, a stage towards which all the experience of past and
present is impelling us. Until this issue is acknowledged and addressed none of the ills afflicting
our planet will find solutions, because all the essential challenges of the age we have entered are
global and universal, not particular or regional. So powerful is the light of unity that it can
illuminate the whole earth. The Shadow Lines wishes to establish such orders. How far is this
attainable is yet to be seen but it certainly wants to do away with the petty differences that are
killing the mankind everywhere. Whether it is Tridib, the narrator, Roby or Tha’mma—they are
all disillusioned and disappointed by these differences which are a source of many a trouble
afflicting the humankind. Roby cannot get over the trauma of Trdib’s death and this haunts him
like a nightmare. He thinks that he will be able to forget it but it comes back to him no matter how
hard he tries, wherever he goes. He says,
‘I’ve never been able to rid myself of that dream ever since it first happened. When I was a child I
used to pray that it would go away: if it had, there would have been nothing else really to remind
me of that day. But it wouldn’t go; it stayed. I used to think: if only that dream would go away, I
would be like other people; I would be free. I would have given anything to be free of that memory.
‘Free’, he said laughing.
And then he also muses on the subversive and the secessionist tendencies of some of the misguided
people. So far as freedom is concerned, turning away from a piece of land or carving out a new
state does not make the person free. The whole thing is a mirage.
‘..........and then I think to myself why don’t they draw thousands of little lines through the whole
subcontinent and give every little place a new name? What would it change? It’s a mirage; the
whole thing is a mirage. How can anyone divide a memory? If freedom were possible, surely
Tridib’s death would have set me free. And yet, all it takes to set my hand shaking like a leaf,
fifteen years later, thousands of miles away at the other end of another continent, is a chance
remark by a waiter in a restaurant.’
Tridib had always been against these lines and had been a visionary. He had gone for the world
without these lines. His tragic end marks a very poignant part of the story and increases an
aversion for the mind troubling bickerings and bizarre human nature. Though man is a social
animal and craves for the company he cannot stay in peace with them either.
The narrator has also done a lot of work on these lines and wondered about the strange calculus
they present. His work on Bartholomew’s Atlas where he has measured the distances between
various countries and the conclusion he reaches is quite contrary.
2.2 Themes

The Shadow Lines hosts a number of themes. The first and foremost being that it is an attempt to
draw the attention of the world to do away with borders that divide the people. Humanity after all
is the same everywhere and any attempt to create differences is not only hazardous but also futile.
There is nothing on earth that can divide a memory. Many lines and borders may be drawn but it
can never set people free of their reminiscences, free of their associations, free of the love and a sense
of belonging for their place of birth. The second thing it considers is how many of these lines can be
drawn or divisions made. It is all a mirage. The world cannot be divided into innumerable small
stages to satisfy the urge of the people to give their frantic sense of nationalism a political entity and
a name. In Indian context, first it was the creation of Pakistan then the demand arose for Punjab, the
North East and then Kashmir. Partition or secession is no solution. It may on the other hand trigger
never ending hostilities and violence. There can be no better example than India.
For Dutta Choudarys the borders have already stopped existing. They frequent from one country
to another and are quite at home and comfortable in other states. For Sahib and family India,
London or Dhaka; it’s all the same. He is as comfortable there as he is in India.
For Ila, frontiers of nations have reduced to airport longes. Like her father she is also a frequent
visitor of the countries. But besides territorial borders, she does not recognize cultural borders as
well which as the novel reveals may be fatel.

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