Summary and Analysis on a Segmant from the Home and the World

Chapter Eight, Bimala’s Story XIV, pp. 136-142
(i) Summary:   Bimala feels as if the meeting of her and Sandip was fate. She looks at Nikhil in a completely different way then she did at the beginning of the book. Her emotional draw to him as left her. She recollects things her husband has told her about how he has set her free and how the life at home seems empty compared to the sparks of life that Sandip gives her. Shortly after being reunited with Sandip, she promises him that she will provide the 50 thousand dollars without a doubt.   She determines that she will try to acquire the money from the treasury. Afterward, she spent half the night outside the office buildings mischievously scheming a plan to acquire the money. She sends for Amulya, her younger brother, in order to scheme with him about the plan. He is a radical supporter of the Swadeshi movement and willing to kill the old guard of the treasury in order to obtain the money. This automatically awakes her maternal instincts as his older sister. She tells him that she will take care of the situation and that he is not to participate. After an emotional departure Amulya hands over the pistol and offers his respect to her. The next day she sees Sandip again and is consumed by him and the movement and speaks about their soon victory.
(ii) Analysis: Bimala’s hubris pours off the page immediately as she talks about how she needs not argue with Nikhil because, “for there was magic in the very air about me.” (pg. 136) She views herself as superior to her husband and this fills Nikhil with distraught.   “Never in all these nine years have I seen such a far-away, distraught look in his eyes – like the desert sky” (pg. 137).   Although Nikhil believes that he set Bimala free, she describes it as an empty freedom, which is correct.   You can’t expect a human to be able to just take up his belongings and go live on Mars. Its simply impossible, and it’s the same for Bimala. “It is like setting a fish free in the sky...