The Home And The World – Rabindranath Tagore

Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s novel Ghare Baire (1916) is set against the Partition of Bengal in 1905. The story is narrated by the three protagonists—the mild-mannered Nikhilesh who hails from the Bengali landed gentry, his dutiful wife Bimala whom he encourages to connect with the world beyond the confines of her home, and his friend Sandip, the strident and seductive leader of the Swadeshi Movement with whom Bimala falls in love. Torn between her home and the world, Bimala’s life takes a tragic turn that portends thewidespread destruction and turmoil of Partition in 1947. Translated into English by his nephew Surendranath Tagore as The Home and The World (1919), this love story and political drama, is an equally incisive study of the condition of women in feudal Bengal.