A COMPARATIVE STUDY AND DETAILED ANALYSIS OF ARUN JOSHI S NOVEL THE STRANGE CASE OF BILLY BISWAS PRAVEEN KUMAR

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1 A COMPARATIVE STUDY AND DETAILED ANALYSIS OF ARUN JOSHI S NOVEL THE STRANGE CASE OF BILLY BISWAS PRAVEEN KUMAR COUNSELLOR OF ENGLISH SUBJECT, ARJUN SINGH CENTER JAMIA MILLIA ISLAMIA, NEW DELHI, INDIA Arun Joshi's novel, The Strange Case of Billy Biswas, is another example on the pattern of the doomed existential search for values in a mad, bad, absurd world. The theme of anxiety, frustration and resultant separation, which first appeared in The Foreigner, is further developed here in The Strange Case of Billy Biswas, with different aspects through the bitter and traumatic experiences. The present novel has in it many similarities of Joshi's first novel The Foreigner. Though the two novels differ in their major themes, and their techniques. Both the novels are single-character based, and are mainly preoccupied with the sensibilities, faith, search and the destinies of their heroes. To begin with, Sindi Oberoi and Billy Biswas both feel alienated from the environment in which they have been brought up. But whereas Sindi seems to be more or less a foreigner and an alien till the end, Billy is at least able to find an amount of fulfilment in his whole life. It may be considered that the writer's vision in SCBB is not so gloomy and dark as to make his hero feel alien to his world. Billy has to pay a heavy price for giving up his so-called cultured life. 35

2 The Strange Case of Billy Biswas becomes a metaphor for the agonized existential cry of Billy, who having had too much of this world, longs to give it up and go in for some better alternative, which may authenticate his being and satisfy his inner urges. In order to fulfil his "greater duty to [his] soul" (SCBB 186), he desperately desires to avoid the meaningless world of the familiar obligations. He least wants to be involved into the impersonal and materialistic society. But, ironically, in spite of his best efforts to keep this material world at an arm's length, it sticks to him, killing him in its wake. It represents Billy's serious search for his true self. Billy Biswas, an "engineer, anthropologist, anarchist" (SCBB 45), is born and brought up in comfort and good atmosphere. Unable to seek authenticity in the glossy surfaces, Billy turns into a sort of rebel. During his journey through the strait labyrinths of existence (SCBB 4), there comes a moment in Billy's life when he encounters two kinds of alienation: alienation from the self, and alienation from society. In his attempt to adjust with society through its institution of marriage, he only becomes alienated from the self. His desperate tries for finding his self leads him to feel "refugee from the civilization." (SCBB 138). The pattern of Billy's life and his peculiar experiences ultimately lead him to the existential crisis of his life. He starts searching for meaning of life, and for self among the tribals of Satpura Hills. 36

3 While analysing the vision of Arun Joshi in The Strange Case of Billy Biswas, Harish Raizada reads threefold division in the novel corresponding to the three stages of evolution in Billy's life: This division helps us to understand better the life of Billy and also Joshi's vision. The strangeness of Billy's character and the restlessness of his soul among the people of the civilized world becomes evident right from the beginning of the novel. A student in the New York University, and belonging to a rich and respectable Indian family, Billy deliberately chooses to live in Harlem, the Black ghetto of America, because he finds it "the most human place" (SCBB 5). His continuous search for self-realization urges him constantly to live at Harlem, where he can nurture in himself a sense of belonging by preserving his identity. He, in fear of losing his identity, studies anthropology all against the desire of his parents who wanted him to be an engineer. It was, in fact, around his interest in the primitive world that his entire life had been organised. The restlessness and chaos of Billy's soul finds a poignant expression in his desire to "travel, travel, travel" (SCBB 10), and is symbolically externalised in his extraordinary reading obsession. He says: "I read about bizarre happening. About expedition and archaeological expedition, about crime." (SCBB 11). Billy's sense of restlessness, and his longing for identity is almost ingrained in Billy's personality, and has deep roots. He 37

4 receives the intimations of his primitive self from the moment he emerges from the railway station at Bhubaneswar where he goes to spend his holidays in his childhood. But at that time he is not able to analyse his feelings properly: "I could not figure out what excited or troubled me unless it was a sudden interest in my own identity. Who was I? Where had I come from? Where was I going?". It seems to him that the sculptures of Konark and the Adivasies can provide a solution to his problem of identity and search for self. Billy is brought face to face with the futility of civilized life, which makes him terribly unhappy. And thereafter throughout his life goes on making efforts to retrieve his identity, which escapes him for a long time. Tulla Lindgren,a Swedish lady of thirty, who has come to America for advanced training in psychiatric social work, and has extraordinary intuition (SCBB 173) understands the dilemma of Billy s life fully. She knows what goes on in his dark, inscrutable, unsmiling eyes. She tells Romi that Billy, who is an exceptional person feels inside him a great force, searching force. Romi, the second person to understand Billy after Tulla Lindgren, understands his (Billy s) internal sufferings. The kind of person Billy is, he is bound to remain an unfit outsider, a stranger, in the materialistic upper middle class society of India, where he returns from America. He tries to find his identity in individuals like Linda and Meena. But every time he feels frustrated and thoroughly cast down. His concern with his real self, which began to be felt in 38

5 America, forces him more frequently in India. This inner madness and incomprehensible urge continues to surface with all its ferocity. Suffered by his predicament and his aversion to the superficial reality of the so-called civilized world, Billy is reduced to an existential being; a searcher for his own identity, lonely, afraid and insecure, fighting with depression and hallucination, and simultaneously probing into the impersonal darkness of this world. Billy desperately tries to get away from "hallucination business" (SCBB 179) and his fear of loneliness. But, ironically, he gets caught in the web of social conventions. In order to cure his obsession for the searching feelings, Billy marries Meena Chatterjee--a sophisticated and beautiful girl of his own Bengali community. This marriage, however, turns out to be a miserable failure, because of lack of understanding. Things soon start "falling apart" (SCBB 70). Billy's incompatibility with his wife underlines the futility of social conventions in providing moral and social problems in life. Unable to realize his 'self in the marriage, Billy's whole being is shattered. Describing this change in Billy, Romi says, "Gone was the staggering intelligence, the spectroscopic interests, the sense of humour. He had either turned banal... Whatever it might have been, the Billy Biswas... was finished, snuffed out like a candle in the rain" (SCBB 66). Absence of any meaningful relationship and communication in marriage, with his unfulfilled life, Billy feels awfully frustrated with his life in this world. In a place like 39

6 Delhi, he feels as if he is "pinned down... like a dead butterfly" (SCBB 43). Billy, Disillusioned by - his meaningless existence, lapses into a mood that alternates between bitter condemnation of this respectable world and an anguished longing to embrace of nature with life. Billy's experience separates him from society is evident from his ruminations. His marriage and its tragic aftermath lead Billy to the despair, resulting in the seduction of Rima Kaul. However, he soon realizes that he is behaving in a manner that in other men would have excited his greatest contempt. All his attempts take him away from his own self, so that there is a danger of his self being lost. The terrible shock he feels at his degeneration provokes his flight from meaningless existence. The rules of the society impact upon his individuality in the final crisis in his life. ln Arun Joshi the search for identity is inspired by some crisis or difficult situations. The seduction of Rima Kaul brings about this awareness in Billy, and leads him to problems in his life where he has to make a choice, a choice which can ultimately affirm his true self. In a bid to seek communion with the primitive world, Billy opts out of the modern world, rejecting its "Post-independence Pseudo-western values. These childish values, he realizes, have began to make inroads into his character, not only by attacking his freedom and humanity, but also by separating him from his true self. Billy, thus, hears the voice of his soul, and renounces the materialistic society, family responsibilities, filial expectations and social obligations to take up the life of 40

7 noble savageness. Like Kurtz in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Billy forsakes civilised human society, adapts himself to the primitive world, and even has a native mistress. Billy finds his fulfilment and essence of human existence in the primitive tribal life. Among the Tribal Bhils, he feels himself free. Here, he feels a certain sense of divinity in human life, it being so natural. Billy's union with Bilasia makes him discover "that bit of himself that he has always searched for, and without which his life is nothing more than a poor reflection of a million others (SCBB 140). It brings about a transformation in him, reducing him to those elements with which we all begin when we are-born. He says: "Layer upon layer was peeled off me until nothing but my primitive self was left trembling in the moonlight" (SCBB 119). Devinder Mohan writes that The Strange Case of Billy Biswas thus opens a case of fictional discourse which epitomizes man's exaltation of his Psyche within the primitive world against the technological verifiable constituents of contemporary western society. 3 Billy's deep-rooted urges, his primitive energy which could not find an outlet during his pursuits of an engineering degree and in the indulgences of materialism and in Meena find satisfaction in the primitive rhythm of Bilasia's world. Billy's urge towards primitivism is thus the first step towards his search for "the other thing," for it enables him to transcend his alienation through his meaningful, unrestrained and unselfish human relationship with 41

8 Bilasia and Dhuna. Free flow of human instincts and passions enables Billy to feel the core of human existence. Though his becoming a primitive is not the end of his search. It is only a means to an end. Billy is still looking for a system of beliefs which may provide a way to his life, as God does in the lives of millions of others, including the primitives. Perhaps, it also hints at Billy's desire to create a new world-order in which mankind can live without a sense of guilt and meaninglessness which is prevalent in todays world. D. Prempati analyses Billy's consciousness thus: The epigraph - "It irk'd him to be here, he could not rest"--reveals the making of the spirit soaring higher and higher to the invisible vision or the Chandtola of the primitive concept. Are we condemned simply to get on with the business of living? Mustn't we have the Dream, the vision? we cannot really understand that we have lost these things largely through the passivity we have elected to go by. And we cannot understand what we have lost unless we are prepared to look critically at the culture in which we live and which we take so much for granted. 4 The whole search for meaning and search for self is conducted by Billy in a very hostile atmosphere. The sophisticated society, the "middle class mediocrity," makes it a 42

9 point to bracket men like him with "irresponsible fools and common criminals," and does all that is possible to prevent them from seeking such fulfilment of their destiny as their tortured lives allow. The effort to bring Billy back to civilization by arresting him, only leads to the final tragedy. Billy pays with his life for not conforming to the norms of the urban civilization--for daring to step out of its stifling confines. Regarding this the novelist Arun Joshi himself concludes: "The strange case of Billy Biswas had been disposed of in the only manner that a commonplace society knows of disposing its rebels, its seers, its true lovers" (SCBB 238). The writer seems to be duly conscious of the importance of "the point of view technique" used in the novel. It is Romesh Sahai, the narrator, who acquaints the readers with the strange case of Billy Biswas, instead of Billy, the protagonist. The need for using Romesh Sahai as the narrator lies in the complex character of Billy. Billy is all the time grappling with himself in order to know his identity and to find answers to his various metaphysical queries. He could not have revealed himself as thoroughly and effectively as he has been through his friend's narrative. But, in the case of personal experiences, Billy is made to narrate his own story, as he alone can tell where he has been and what experiences he has undergone. Thus, the most crucial incident in the novel, Billy's disappearance in the Maikala hills could be narrated only by Billy himself. Billy's letters to Tuula are also used aptly to reveal his character and sensibility. Everywhere 43

10 in the novel, they add symbolic richness to the narrative, and act as textual motifs in the larger structure of the novel. At one place, Billy's conversational mannerism is described in such a manner as to make it appear a metaphor for his entire personality: "It twisted and turned like a firefly in a garden, lighting first this flower, then that, revealing not only the mind of the speaker but also the dark, unknowable layers of the mysterious world that surrounded us." (SCBB 22) Billy's disgust with his stay in Delhi, regarded by him as a virtual imprisonment, is described figuratively: "One is pinned down there, like a dead butterfly" (SCBB 43). Arun Joshi's canvas in the present novel is broad enough to embrace many aspects of life. The first locale is that of in New York, but it fails to evoke a typically American atmosphere. In his earlier novel, The Foreigner, Joshi, succeeds in creating an American atmosphere in all its richness. In The Strange Case of Billy Biswas the action of novel soon shifts from New York to New Delhi, and then on to Shimla. Billy's tragedy is the tragedy of every man who wants to know his identity, his true self. Billy abandons the civilized world not because he is a psychic case or a criminal, but because his vision can see beyond what is usually visible. He does not leave the first-rate luxuries at home so as to be inspired by the songs of nature but because he is faced with higher metaphysical and spiritual predicaments. Nature is not a place for play for him, but rather a possible answer to his inner queries. He joins the tribals not because he is an 44

11 escapist, but because he feels a compulsive urge to go to the primitive world and explore the deeper mysteries of existence.the most tragic part of the story is that none tries to understand Billy's problem even after his death. Nobody realizes that Billy was making a "search for truth" which is hard to come by, and even harder to understand. "His is not an escape from reality but an escape into reality, a rich inward life. This exit reminds one, in a way, of prince Siddhartha's renunciation of wife and child in search of enlightenment. To Billy too, it is a movement from darkness to light." 7 A search on his part for selfrealization, for a union with the missing part of his soul. He is in search of a surrounding that is in harmony with his soul. In the beginning, Billy does not understand his fascination for the searching life. However, soon he realises that it is not merely a fascination, but a search for his own self through a sensory brought about in him by Bilasia. Bilasia is an incarnation of the searching force. His union with Bilasia makes him realize joy in communion with nature, a joy rooted not in possessions, money or competitive success, but in singing, dancing and love-making. When Bilasia makes herself available to him, he does not feel that it is a union of two separate bodies as it was in his relationship with Meena or Rima. It is, rather, a split self realizing wholeness. It is as Bilasia is Prakriti: and he is Purusha, and the cosmic whole is experienced in their union.. According to the Sankhys system of philosophy, evolution takes place when Purusha and Prakriti come together. Prakriti needs 45

12 purusha in order to attain liberation and joy. Again, as the ever active unlimited power, Prakriti is Shakti. Bilasia is Shakti for Billy. Only in Billy's union with Bilasia does he find his real self and gets liberation. That the pilgrim is, so to say, near his goal before his death is amply clear. The end of Billy's story is, in many ways, akin to that of The Hairy Ape. Yank in O'Neill's play is also a symbol of man who has lost his old harmony with nature, the harmony which he used to have as an animal, and has not yet acquired in a spiritual way. Yank's symbolism extends beyond psychology and philosophy, and, in a sense, to anthropology. Yank shakes hand with a Gorilla and is crushed by him, and, thus, in his death he returns to his anthropological past. Billy is killed by the police in the process of their retrieving him from the primitive world. His case is disposed of in the only way the civilized world can do it. Billy, like Yank, explores the profoundest human dilemma of belonging, and is a different searcher for him self. WORKS CITED 1. Harish Raizada, Double Vision of Fantasy and Reality in Arun Joshi s Novels, The Fictional World of Arun Joshi, op. cit., p R.K. Dhawan, The Fictional World of Arun Joshi, The Novels of Arun Joshi, Ed. R.K. Dhawan, op. cit., p

13 3. Devinder Mohan, The Image of Fire in The Strange Case of Billy Biswas, The Fictional World of Arun Joshi, op. cit., pp D. Premapati, The Strange Case of Billy Biswas : A Serious Response to a Big Challenge, in The Novels of Arun Joshi, Ed. R.K. Dhawan, op. cit., p Meenakshi Mukherjee, The Twice Born Fiction (New Delhi : Aronid Heinemann, 1974), p