The novel “Home and the world” is written by famous Indian author Rabindranath Tagore and it was originally published in 1916. The story of novel revolve around a woman, Bimala, who is married to a man who love her for infinity and support her in every phases of her life.
THE HOME AND THE WORLD BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE
Summary of The Home and the World By Rabindranath Tagore
The story of novel follows the life of Nikhil, who has just completed his bachelor’s degree and now pursuing his M.A. He has one faithful wife, Bimala, who is fully devoted to him. The third important character of novel is Sandeep, who has recently joined the Swadeshi Movement. The story begins with Bimala, a devoted wife who always try to fulfil her husband wish. She loves living like a traditional woman like waking up early in the morning, worshipping God and wearing vermilion etc. On the other side, we have Nikhil whose parents died a long time ago, since then his grandmother is the mistress of the house. Nikhil is jewel of her grandmother’s eye.
Nikhil is an open-minded person and very supportive husband who has allowed complete freedom to his wife to do anything in life. He believes that husband and wife are equal in love because of their equal rights on each other. He always force Bimala to explore outer world and start interacting with other people. He even hires an English tutor named Miss Gilby to teach English to his wife, Bimala.
The story now jumps to an era of Swadeshi Movement. The people who have been involved in Swadeshi movement are requesting all the people to boycott foreign goods and start using domestic goods. There comes a third important character named Sandeep, a leader of Swadeshi Movement and a good friend of Nikhil to whom Bimala meets when she joined Swadeshi movement by requesting her husband. The first time she met Sandeep was when he was giving motivational speech to his troops on boycotting foreign goods. Furthermore, she starts attending all the rallies and motivational speeches of Sandeep as she is deeply influenced by his charisma. Afterwards, she seem attracted to him.
One day, Bimala asks her husband, Nikhil to invite Sandeep for dinner at their home. Nikhil listens to his wife request and ends up inviting Sandeep at their home. As Sandeep come for dinner at Nikhil’s home, he requests him to use his house as headquarter for few weeks. Nikhil without hesitation allowed him to use his house. As the story progresses, we follow Bimala and Sandeep who are falling for each other. Sandeep has started meeting Bimala secretly in her home. On the other side, we have Nihil, who is acquainted by the attraction of Bimala for his friend, Sandeep. Furthermore, Sandeep comes at Nikhil’s home with his troops and ask him to boycott foreign goods. Nikhil denied his request as foreign goods are cheaper and more affordable than domestic woods.
Afterwards, Sandeep asks Bimala to give him fifty thousand rupees for the welfare of his troops. Bimala hesitates at first but than she agrees to give him fifty thousand. She sold all her marriage’s jewellery to arrange 50 thousand for Sandeep. As soon as Sandeep gets money from Bimala, he runs somewhere very far away.
Bimala feels apologetic as she has betrayed her husband for someone who just runs aways after stealing all her money. She decides to apologize to her husband. Nikhil comes home but he was in rush as troops are abusing women, so he decides to help them. On the other hand, Bimala is waiting for Nikhil to come back home, but when he returns, he was on stretcher in very bad condition. As Bimala saw Nikhil on stretcher, she started crying. The story of novel end with suspense, we do not know whether Nikhil lives or die.
RECOMMENDED READING