Page 54 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

Indian Writings in Literature

Notes For Ila frontiers of nations have been reduced to airport lounges. 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 fatal.
Tridib’s ideal story is about a time when Europe was a better place, a place without borders and
countries—, a man without a country who fell in love with a woman across the seas. In his
powerful imagination there exist lots of countries and people but no frontiers.
Narrator believes in the reality of space, that the distance separates but is sadly mistaken. He felt
that the two pieces of land would slip away from each other like the tectonic plates of Gondwanaland
but is amazed to find that there had never been a moment in the four-thousand-year-old history
of that map when the places they knew as Dhaka and Calcutta were more closely bound to each
other than after they had drawn their lines —so closely that he (narrator) in Calcutta had only to
look into the mirror to be in Dhaka; a moment when each city was the inverted image of the other
locked into an irreversible symmetry of the line that was to set them free—their looking glass
borders. These borders that are drawn are mere shadow lines according to the author, which often
play a role opposite to what they are actually meant to. They reflect not the differences but the
similarities and interdependence.
Tha’mma is another example in the novel who cannot bring her to adjust to the fact that her
freedom of movement has been restricted by the line that we call border. Her Dhaka is still very
alive and colourful in her memory as it was before in reality until Tridib’s killing in Dhaka.
There are a good number of instances, which show a good fusion of language, culture and counties
to bring home the point that the earth after all is like one country. But at the same time The
shadow Lines is also a warning for the cultureless identity. Ila is a burning example.
Another theme of the novel is the concept of nationalism that is gaining ground in today’s world.
The author has held the extreme form of nationalism responsible for many a problem these days.
The separatist and secessionist tendencies are the outcome of it. Love of the country, passion
inspired nationalism and intoxication of patriotism cannot but lead to jingoism. Thus nationalism
which had and which has great uses can become the greatest obstacle to world peace. This tribal
instinct has been magnified beyond all measures resulting in political and economic megalomania.
And the novel in its enthusiasm to prove the point has gone a little too far to proclaim that
nationalism is a defunct force and in this background Tha’mma is ridiculed as ‘a still surviving
specimen of fossilized nationalism.’
Another theme of The shadow Lines is that the time and distance are shadows. The novel makes
a smooth transition from present to the past and from past to the future without causing any
friction. The novel highlights the reality of the fictions people create around their lives. Tridib says
that every one lives in the story for stories are all there to live in, it is just a question of which one
we choose. Thus it is a flight into the imagination where distance and time melt away. The story
moves back and forth and many event in London are just the reliving of the events the narrator
had imagined sitting in Calcutta. These events, however, do not bring about any dislocation
because in time and space actual and imagined have a harmonious co-existence.
Self-Assessment

1. Choose the correct options:
(i) It is all a mirage
(a) Roby (b) Tridib
(c) Narrator (d) None of these
(ii) Shadow Lines is a warning for the cultureless identity, for example
(a) Ila (b) Tridib
(c) Grand Ma (d) None of these

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