The Home and the World

Bimala reminisces about her mother. She resembles her mother, which she resented as a child. Bimala marries into a Rajah’s house. Her husband, Nikhil, is not fairy tale handsome, but she is happy to serve him. One morning, she tries to clean dust from his feet while he sleeps. This is done by touching one’s feet and then, quickly touching one’s head with the same hand. It is not something wives typically do for their husbands. He wakes, and she is ashamed, worried that he will think she was trying to gain favor in secret. But she simply wants to be a good wife. “It was my woman’s heart, which must worship in order to love” (3-4).

Her husband is a modern man who does not drink, even though he lives in a household ruled by his grandmother and her traditions. Because he is going to Calcutta to read for his M.A. degree, her husband brings in a teacher named Miss Gilby, who will instruct Bimala and be her companion. He writes her letters while he is away, which she treasures and keeps in a box.

Bimala’s sister-in-law, the Bari-Rana, scorns his modern ways, but he always forgives her, and she is always able to get her way with him. Her ingratitude to him exasperates Bimala. The fact that Bimala’s husband is a good man, while so many others are drunks and adulterers, seems to annoy his sister greatly.

Her husband is eager to take her away from the cultural practice of purdah, a religious and social practice of female seclusion where women are secluded in the  zenana, the inner rooms of the house where the women live. Bimala doesn’t understand. There is nothing in the outside world that intrigues her. Nikhil says that they will be able to have each other more fully in the outside world. As it is, they must arrange their time together each day according to his grandmother’s customs. However, it is because of his grandmother that Bimala is reluctant to leave. The old woman dotes on them both and has been kind and generous. Leaving, for Bimala, is not worth the pain it would cause her. Nikhil’s grandmother does not approve of the European dresses her grandson buys for Bimala, but eventually she comes to enjoy some of his modern tastes, including the English stories that Bimala reads to her at night.

After his grandmother’s death, Nikhil wants her to live with him in Calcutta. He tempts her with the idea of getting away from his sister, however, Bimala is not interested in running. “To leave everything in the hands of the enemy, would be nothing short of owning defeat” (16). Her husband could compel her to go, but he does not. It is a show of his strength, in Bimala’s view, that he does not use power simply because he has it.

A nationalist movement known as Swadeshi begins. Swadeshi focuses on the production and commerce of a country’s indigenous people. Since he began college, Nikhil has been trying to get the things his compatriot’s need produced in their own country. He starts a small bank, but his rates of interest are too high and the bank fails after an initial burst of enthusiasm.

In the passion of the Swadeshi movement, Bimala vows to stop wearing her European clothes. She also says they must get rid of Miss Gilby because she is English, but her husband convinces her that would be a mistake. One day, a boy in the care of Bimala and her husband insults Miss Gilby. Nikhil expels the boy from the house, which provokes the town. Under their relentless pressure, he is forced to send Miss Gilby away. There are rumors of a scandal between Nikhil and Miss Gilby, and Bimala is ashamed of him, even though she knows it might not be true.