The Home and the World

“Purity, they imagined, was only becoming in those on whom fortune had not smiled. It is the moon which has room or stains, not the stars”

Sandip preaches greed and acquisition. Nikhil believes that there is more to a person than things, which can be acquired or lost. There is a sense that Nikhil would be the same person if he were the richest man in the world or the poorest.

“But my husband would not give me any opportunity for worship. That was his greatness. They are cowards who claim absolute devotion from their wives as their right; that is a humiliation for both” 

Bimala admires Nikhil for his awareness that devotion must be earned, not bestowed. Ironically, it is this passivity in him that casts Sandip in a favorable light when he enters her life. 

“God may grant us gifts, but the merit of being able to take and hold them must be our own. Alas for the boons that slip through unworthy hands!” 

The agency of humans is what leads God’s plans astray. Any gift can be corrupted in the wrong hands, and gifts can be misinterpreted by the unrighteous as something to which they were entitled, no matter what their actions are. 

“A moment is sufficient to overcome an infinite distance” 

Life is a series of moments for Nikhil. Every moment is a choice to be either at peace or in torment. This is discouraging to those who are trapped by their own greed, habits, and addictions. It is cause for optimism for him, because any moment can represent a turning point, setting the course for a new reality. 

“Perfect gain is the best of all; but if that is impossible, then the next best gain is perfect losing” 

Nikhil prefers that things be clear. He would rather lose everything, and know it for a fact, than have ambiguities. As long as he knows where he stands with others, and with himself, he can consider all events a gain of some sort. 

“My husband was very eager to take me out of purdah. One day I said to him, ‘what do I want with the outside world?’ ‘The outside world may want you,’ he replied” 

Nikhil knows that Bimala has much to offer. He would feel selfish keeping her attributes all to himself. He would rather risk her being exposed to other ideas and people than imagine that he is keeping her from benefiting others. This is true generosity. 

“I have read in books that we are called ‘caged birds.’ I cannot speak for others, but I had so much in this cage of mine that there was not room for it in the universe—at least that is what I felt then” 

Before meeting Sandip, Bimala seems to want for nothing. It is only when the negative elements of his personality and agenda become enmeshed with her life that she suddenly feels as if she has always been in a cage of which she was unaware.   

“I was his queen. I had my seat at his side. But my real joy was, that my true place was at his feet”

At the beginning of their marriage, there is no sign that Bimala is, or will be, unhappy with anything about Nikhil. She feels like a queen. It is ironic that when Sandip begins flattering her, he often uses the word queen. But she has no urge to serve Sandip, or to sit at his feet. It is mere infatuation. 

“To worship my country as a god is to bring a curse upon it” 

Nikhil understands that patriotism, as with any ideology, can lead to zealotry. To elevate the good of the state above that of its citizens is to curse those citizens through the trivialization of their individual needs.

“I would have you come into the heart of the outer world and meet reality”

Nikhil wants for Bimala what he would want for anyone: a clear vision of what reality is. He knows that it is not simply dwelling within the walls of privilege. To be a fully realized person is to continually broaden one’s horizons. He does not want her to be subservient to him, but to grow, even if it means exposing her to other ideas. 

“We women are not only the deities of the household fire, but the flame of the soul itself” 

Women are presented many times as the animating force behind all passion—politics, romantic love, and the driving force of the soul. 

“You are dark, even as the flints are. You must come to violent conflicts and make a noise in order to produce your sparks. But their disconnected flashes merely assist your pride, and not your clear vision” 

Violence can become a habit like anything else. The adrenaline of aggression can also become an addiction. At the very least, it is for Nikhil always an obstacle to clarity. Wisdom does not reside in the heat of battle, but in the stillness of gentleness and contemplation. 

“Only the weak dare not be just” 

Nikhil sees all coercion as a form of weakness that pretends to be strength. All strong-arm tactics are unjust, and therefore are the province of the morally weak. 

“Men can only think. Women have a way of understanding without thinking. Woman was created out of God’s own fancy. Man, he had to hammer into shape” 

Sandip flatters Bimala’s intuition. It is notable that, for all his preaching about strength and snatching, Sandip states that men are not capable of doing more than thinking. Also, he thinks only of himself. 

“When at last we have to die it will be time enough to get cold. While we are on fire let us seethe and boil” 

Sandip would rather be full of strong emotion, even if the emotions were negative, than feel nothing (coldness). He cannot abide silence, stillness, or methodical thought. This makes him an inspiration to others who are dazzled by charisma, but are equally impatient with the tedium of thinking about the rhetoric and logic behind the words.

“Man is so much greater than the things he loses in this life” 

Sandip preaches greed and acquisition. Nikhil believes that there is more to a person than things, which can be acquired or lost. There is a sense that Nikhil would be the same person if he were the richest man in the world or the poorest. 

“Life is indefinite—a bundle of contradictions. We men, with our ideas, strive to give it a particular shape by melting it into a particular mould—into the definiteness of success” 

Sandip can admit that he sees hypocrisy in all humans, and men in particular. He knows that there is no way to ultimately bend the universe to one’s will, but success is the closest alternative to true mastery of the world. 

“Now that a full flood of music has swept over our country, let Nikhil practice his scales, while we rouse the land with our cracked voices”

Sandip mocks Nikhil for his emphasis on contemplation of right and wrong, likening it to a naïve focus on musical technique, treating it as if technique and practice have nothing to do with the music itself. For Sandip, all action is valorous; all contemplation is weakness and a stalling tactic.

“I have not forgotten the basic fact that man’s goal is not truth but success”

Sandip is mercenary by nature, in all his dealings and thoughts. That a man is successful, for Sandip, is proof that his actions were right, or true. Of course, Sandip has a narrow view of what comprises success.

“To tyrannise for the country is to tyrannise over the country” 

This is similar to the outlook that there is no such thing as a good or just war. Tyranny and totalitarianism are, in themselves, repugnant evils. They cannot be practiced in good faith.

“I have come to the gateway of the simple; I am now content to see things as they are. I have gained freedom myself; I shall allow freedom to others”

Nikhil has no interest in pretending things are other than they are. Only by those who are compelled to unnecessarily complicate matters to draw attention away from their own avaricious agendas are his views seen as simplistic. Nikhil is at peace, although he also experiences occasional doubt and self-scrutiny. 

“Woman knows man well enough where he is weak, but she is quite unable to fathom him where he is strong. The fact is that man is as much a mystery to woman as woman is to man.” 

Despite having comparatively obvious temperaments and goals in the novel, the strength of men is still presented as something alien to women. The weakness of men, however, is something women can comprehend. The suggestion is that women understand men’s weakness because they are also weak, but they do not comprehend strength because they have little experience with it. 

“Is there any country, sir…where submission to the Government is not due to fear?”

The university students cannot comprehend a situation in which someone would obey a government dictum on its merits. Such is the poisonous effect that Sandip has had on their minds.