Alienation and Separation

What interests me about Basti is the recurring theme of estrangement. The story thus far has been a sequence of one “partition” to another- Zakir’s disconnect with his father, his move away from the idyllic utopia of his childhood, an estrangement from Sabirah his childhood love interest and lastly, an estrangement from history, his roots and in effect, himself. All these events resonate loudly with the larger political theme of the novel, which is that of partition. In fact, Zakir’s increasing isolation is intimately linked with (if not directly caused by) the event of partition itself.

Zakir’s father reminisces about a romanticized past “Kya tehzeeb thi us zamanay ki”…and later ,Zakir notes that “aba jaan tehreek-e-khilafat ke zamanay se abhi tak baahar nahi aye hain”. A generational/ideological void separates the father and the son throughout the course of the story and the gulf only widens with the progress of the novel.

 Rupnagar is another example of a spatial alienation. Rupnagar is associated with childhood, home, innocence, co-existence, purity and peace; all of which are taken away from Zakir who becomes, instead,  a rootless and aimless wanderer. He is estranged from the very idea of home and family.

Sabirah is perhaps the most significant example of emotional estrangement. We note a genuine camaraderie between the two children that matures into adult love that unfortunately does not find any articulation at all, and instead ends in barren uncommunicative alienation.

Estrangement is a recurring idea in the novel. Perhaps the worst possible kind of alienation is one that is from the self .. "Magar apni taareekh? Mai apni taareekh se bhaaga howa hoon". 

If we were to concede that history informs our identity, and that Zakir is a historian who neither likes, nor is able to comprehend his own history, then perhaps he is also estranged from himself and that could very well be the real hamartia of our protagonist.