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Palak Sahu

Mrs. Payal Madhia

Partition Literature

19 April 2022

House and Home in Syed Waliullah’s ‘The Story of a Tulsi Plant’

Abstract: How does one define home? A common definition one would give is that it is a place

of belongingness. ‘Home is where the heart is’, is a saying we’ve all heard, but, in a turbulent

world of uncertainty, loss, and dread, we interpret "home" as a sign of uprooting and enrooting.

The purpose of this article is to bring to light the erasure as well as the enduring memory of the

1947 Partition of Bengal for those migrating from West to East Bengal. It will explore the idea of

home and belongingness in The Story of a Tulsi Plant by Syed Waliullah, and depict an

unsettling transition for Muslims, and refugees in general, attempting to move into East

Bengal/East Pakistan to begin a new life.

The world saw the largest human mass migration in 1947, when the British left India and

divided it into two nations, India and Pakistan. This uprooting and rerooting caused communal

violence at unprecedented levels which the literary critics and authors have written about in

Partition literature at great lengths. While the Partition of 1947 caused religious-identity-based
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mass movements in different parts of the subcontinent, the nature and pattern of these

movements were distinct from one another in Bengal and Punjab. Literary works originating

from Punjab have been characterized by a focus on communal riots and massacres, whereas in

Bengal they have been marked by a concentration on identity crisis and settlement concerns in

the new nation-states. While we examine the predicaments of these migrants in the texts of

Partition Literature and their search for a home in the new country, that is, East Pakistan, we

shall also closely examine and study the concept of home and house, and the identity of migrants

which falls into flux in the aftermath of Partition.

‘The Tale of a Tulsi Plant’ opens with the description of a big forlorn house. “A hundred yards

from the bricked river embankment, where it curves like a bow, stands the house”. There is a

sense of solitude and emptiness in its depiction in the opening paragraph. This emptiness

signifies the uprootedness of the original occupants of the house which they would formerly call

their home. The lingering laughter is now replaced with the gloominess of memories. But we see

that this forlorn house becomes the home of the refugees as they start settling in.

The two words, house and home, though used interchangeably carry a difference. The former is a

physical area with material features such as walls, ceilings, doors, and so on, whereas the latter is

a physical and psychological environment that transcends existence's changeable materiality. A

person's home is an effective place because it contains the people, culture, and values that shape

them, it is one that contains a sense of warmth and security.

““House" means shelter, and implies edges, walls, doors, and roofs- and the whole repertory of
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the fabric. "Home" does not require any building, even if a house always does. You can make a

home anywhere: a little tinder, even some waste paper, a few matches, or a cigarette lighter is all

you need.” writes Joseph Rekwert. For example, in this story, we see the Muslim Bengalis

occupying this house that was once a home of the Hindus and then the trajectory of making it

their home again. The tulsi plant in the yard is a symbol associated with the Hindus hence it

brings back the memories of the original occupants performing their morning prayers around it.

Pablo Bose highlights “refugee diasporas may indeed be a group of people forced by conflict or

persecution to flee lands and homes to which they have long-standing political, economic, and

cultural ties – but it is more often ‘homes’ that are left behind, rather than ‘nations’” . In the

same way, Waliullah focuses on home rather than the state in the story; the characters are less

concerned about losing a nation than losing a home that can give them a sense of existence. In

“The Tale of a Tulsi Plant,” the refugees, who have been forced to leave their actual homes in

West Bengal, are desperate to make a new home in a different country despite various obstacles.

“They had come to this town during the tumultuous days of Partition. Then, dawn to dusk, from

the moment of arrival, they had looked for some sort of shelter. One day they had seen this

house- a huge building, deserted, forlorn.”

The above paragraph narrates how the home that now stands deserted and forlorn by the

uprooting of its original tenants is now a house, one that these Muslim refugees seek to take

shelter in. It is also stated in later parts of the story how undesirable elements began arriving at

the place, ‘also with the hope of finding shelter’. Thus, the story expands on the idea and

Rekwert’s definition of house as a shelter.

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Migration is often associated with loss, as it entails leaving one's home and occasionally losing

goods and loved ones; nonetheless, these Muslim migrants in the story appear to benefit from it.

They lived in the small, smelly quarters of Mcleod Street, Khansama Lane, and Blockman Lane

while in Calcutta; now they have this big house with bright light and gentle breezes to enjoy, and

"the radiance of health and prosperity would light their faces, as it lights the faces of those who

earn a few thousand rupees". We know that for refugees and migrants home and nation are often

intertwined, but here we notice that these migrants miss their immediate physical space and

surroundings where they lived more than the ideological space which is the nation. It is

imperative to note that though the streets of Calcutta were one of belonging for them, they have

moved to a new place for their religious orientation and cultural values. It can then be said that

these migrants left their homes to seek places and shelter(house) to color it with their cultural

values and orientation to call this new place their home. We see, with the passing of time, in the

story how they start accepting this new home as their identity, “Now they began to believe that

they had really left behind the life of McLeod Street, Khansama Lane and Blockman Lane and

had begun a new life with abundant light and air”. We also notice how this house has provided

them shelter and how they have instilled life in this house to be again called home, “Overnight

the house came to life”. Waliullah writes that the migrants felt “as if they had been saved”.

It is also important to comment on the emotional loss of migration in connection with home. We

see Matin, one of the refugees imagining about the sorrowful woman of the house who left

behind her home and the tulsi plant. He recalls his job as a railway worker and imagines how the

original occupants of the house may have taken their journey to the other side of the Partition. It

is true that when people move away from places, they leave some memories in that place and
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also carry some memories with them. The story presents a vivid picture of how during the

Partition, people were uprooted from their ancestral homes and detached from their close kins.

We can then see how the residents of a home leave behind traces of themselves through the

simplest of objects, such as a tulsi plant in this story, which in turn triggers the memory of the

residents that are occupying the space now.

One may also notice when the word ‘home’ is first used in the story. Waliullah uses the word

‘house’ in every instance of the story except when Matin wants to say that “they could not send

home the required amount of money”. We can understand how the refugees still attach a sense of

homeliness to their native lands and where their family resides.

Further, the Tulsi plant is a symbol of home in the story. Of memories of the past, of emotion, of

the woman who would light a lamp in its vicinity, of a lozenge designed to treat maladies. It is an

embodiment of care, feeling and security which are all attributed to home. As a living being, the

plant is a powerful presence in the house. When the men leave the home, it begins to wither

away. After all, a house becomes a home because of the people living in it, and their conscious

attempt to fashion and color this place according to their culture and habits.

The joy of liveliness in this house is short-lived as the government has requisitioned the house

and have asked the refugees to leave. We then see that when the men leave, the home becomes a

house again- a place of refuge, a structure of bricks and stones but not a cozy, comfortable place

of joy, celebration, feeling, or most importantly life. Thus, the story ends with the “homed”

refugee group becoming homeless again as they are evicted and so does the house which is now
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not home.

Works cited

Bose, Pablo. “Dilemmas of Diaspora: Partition, Refugees, and the Politics of ‘Home.’”

Waliullah, Syed. “The Tale of a Tulsi Plant.” The Escape and Other Stories of 1947

Brickell, Katherine. “Geopolitics of Home.” Geography Compass