Bornali Nath Dowerah

M.Phil Scholar

Dept. English

Paper- Cultural Studies and Pop Culture

Dibrugarh University

3 July 2014

Home as a Fantasy/ Reality

Construct in Ruskin Bonds The
Room on the Roof
 ABSTRACT

Home is meant to be a dwelling place for an individual where s/he can

find solace, comfort, safety, protection (as a guard from the other world),

freedom of space to feel happy to some extent. In this paper an attempt is

made to unravel the notion of fantasizing Home as Reality. It has been

also intended to identify elements of Reality associated with Home that

has been presented by Ruskin Bond as a Fantasy, an unachievable space.

With the methodology of poststructuralism and psychoanalysis the

philosophy of home has been studied and critically analysed. Bond has

been found to represent home in two significant dimensions- one is that of

a concrete structure ( considered as real) and the other in a psychic

dimension. The concrete structure is the reality space in this novel as the

author- narrator tends to add a reality touch through the descriptions of

sights, sounds, smell and colours. On the other hand, through the

character of the protagonist, Rusty, the author introduces the readers to

the realm of fantasy and imaginative space of nothingness yet everything.

KEYWORDS- Reality, Fantasy, Space, Home, Freedom.

 Home to a child is not merely a dwelling
place but also an attitude. For a real child
or a fictional character, it is a place of
comfort, security, and acceptance a place
which meets both physical and emotional
needs. (Stott & Francis 223)

The novel is not targeting any particular class or age of readers. But, the
experiences of the protagonist may be associated with that of a young
adult. Different hues and shades of I have been layered by the author.
The interesting part is how Bond connects the sense of I to Home. The
way how fantasies become reality and reality becomes fantasy are
dexterously manoeuvred by Bond. He manages Rusty to slip into these
two dialectical frames of references from which he cannot distance
himself. Its through the mind of Rusty that Bond speaks. Its through
fantasizing that reality is displayed. It is in reality itself the element of
fantasy. And home is such an idea that concretizes fantasy as real,
achievable yet unachievable.

Home is a frame of mind where one discovers oneself without the

interference of the other. Home has been considered as the best place of
relaxation. Home may also mean a family regardless of structures and
building. Home also can be ones motherland. Many definitions have been
assigned to home. And it also varies from person to person. In this respect,
for a small child home can be his or her parents living in a particular
environment that s/he has been living since babyhood, for a common man
his home lies in his family and for a woman, in general, may be where she
finds her own space, it may be her family or may not be. For every
individual there is a dwelling place whether in real or in fantasy, an
uncanny space called Home. It may not be wrong to contest and
proclaim that the philosophy of home begins from the Real stage as
defined by Jacques Lacan.

According to Lacan, this stage is harnessed by both the earlier two stages
in human psyche 1. The Imaginary Stage, 2. The Symbolic Order. Both
these two stages tend to seek power at the Real stage and hence the psyche
is trapped between the lack in the dialectic condition. Thus, the desire for
the mother, for an individual, is pushed into the unconscious. Lacans Real
is that which is outside language and that which resists symbolization
absolutely. He also defines Real as which is impossible to achieve and
imagine. So, the Real becomes an object of anxiety so far as it lacks any
possible mediation. Not proceeding into too much details of Lacans
theory and proposition it is intended, hereby, to make an argumentative
connotation found in the novel of Ruskin Bonds The Room on the
Roof. Now a question arises at this juncture that how the concept of
home fits into this stage. Then first of all, the answer would be a
psychoanalysis of the character of Rusty, the protagonist of the novel.

Rusty cannot be separated from Ruskin Bond at all when it comes to I,

Home, and human psychology. Bond seems to fantasize through the
character of Rusty the sense of belongingness, the sense of freedom, the
sense of power, the feeling of love, attraction, jealousy, joy and
satisfaction. These are all different kinds of deferral in the signifying chain
attached to home. In search of freedom from the tyranny of Mr. John
Harrison Rusty leaves the home of his guardian. The forbidden Bazaar is
like the Forbidden Tree in Bible. Just like the First Man, Adam, Rusty gets
the taste of the hot, spicy Chaat and Gol-gappas and the sense of joy in
the myriad colours of Holi, he had to leave home to wander about. He
discovers his physical and inner strength when he strikes back at Mr.
Harrison. His friends play significant role in his life. In fact, they are the
ones who show Rusty the mirror. Rusty, earlier, was escaping from reality
as he was not allowed to move freely under the strict vigilance of his
guardian. In fact, that is why he is unable to realize the sense of his self
and its attachment with a space called home. It has been an epiphanic
moment for him when he sees his friends enjoying in the forbidden
Bazaar. He realizes that the marketplace is an amazing and fascinating
place to explore.

One cannot move ahead by simply being ignorant about certain things in
life. Rusty comes out of his bindings, takes recourse to streets and
benches, his friend, Somis home and finally to the room on the roof
allowed by the Kapoors. Kishen is the son of Meena and Mr. Kapoor. And
Rusty is asked to teach English and control Kishen. It has been found that
everytime the meaning of home defers in Rustys case in the novel. He
was trained to follow English living styles but he lands up in a small room
on the roof.

Mr. Harrison was supposed to be the cousin of Rustys father. And Rusty
hailed from an Anglo-Indian background. The setting of the novel is
mostly in Dehradun. Mr. Harrison is a suggestive of typical Anglo- Indian
community. This is a minor community. And this novel can be interpreted
also as a finding a room for the Anglo-Indians. This is such a community
that came into existence in the colonial era. The Englishmen or Britishers
who served in India and had relationships with Indians the children born to
them comprises of the Anglo-Indian community. And Rusty is a part of
this community with English features : golden hair, white skin and the
like:

The community consisted mostly of elderly

people, the others had left soon after
Independence. These few stayed because
they were too old to start life again in
another country, where there would be no
servants and very little sunlight. (13-14)

It is not only about search for freedom, but the sense of home and space
that Rusty has longed for. Earlier, when he was staying at his guardians
residence he had to follow certain rules. He was not allowed to interact
with the sweeper boy who passed by his window. He was not allowed to
go to the bazaar or mingle around with anybody. The feeling of
hopelessness and loneliness haunted him everytime that he tried to escape
from the reality called life.

He stood in the side- track and stared down

the empty road; and, to his surprise and
disgust, he felt immeasurably lonely. (9)

Perhaps, he was unable to understand what he actually was craving for.

Absence of mother and then loss of father were other traumas that he
could not relate. And hence, absence of his parents causes him the absence
of the space called home. There was some kind of lack in his mind that
neither he understood nor he can relate to. This lack is filled by Kishens
mother, Meena. Rusty desired for her and even Kishen was aware of the
fact. Just as Rusty finds his space in the room at the rooftop his desire for
Meena gives a kind of solace to his desire. The kiss that they share in the
jungle becomes wish-fulfilment for him. Somewhere the absence of his
parents is successfully deferred and the Kapoors occupy the place. This
gradually leads him to find his home in that room which did not have any
water, electricity or toilet:
 It is a very nice room, she said, but of
course there is no water or electricity or
lavatory. (78)

In the novel, Bond tries to enthuse the reader with elements of reality by
producing the sounds of different objects:

Carriages passed them on the road ,

creaking and rattling, wheels squeaking,
hoofs resounding on the ground; and
thewhip cracks above the horses ear, and
the driver shouts, and round go the wheels,
squeaking and creaking, and the hoofs go
clippety-clippety, clip-clop-clop

Rustys home is somehow related to his absent mother. This is evident

from the fact when he leaves his guardians residence, initially, there is no
place for him to stay. Then a prostitute invites him to sleep with her but he
leaves after getting a hint of her intention. This is too an epiphanic
moment for Rusty. On the other hand, he is afraid if his friends do not
come to his rescue then he has to, perhaps, return to the woman:

If tomorrow there was no Somi at the chaat

shop, no Ranbir, then what would he do?
This question badgered him persistently,
making him an unwilling slave to reality
Perhaps he should return to the amorous
lady in the bazaar. (49)

Here Bazaar has been represented as a colourful self- fascinating place

which Bond tries to fantasize. In this regard, the bazaar, as real as it
sounds and is seen, the author mingles it with fantasies. It is common in an
Indian marketplace for gang of youths to gather, gossip and have fun.
Similar is in the matter of Rustys friends- Somi, Suri, Ranbir and later
Kishen. In no time Rusty becomes an important part of the gang. In the
novel, the bazaar is located on the other side of the Clock Tower. As he
moves on, Rusty begins to feel the fascination through the noises, sounds,
sights and smell:

Rusty moved along with the crowd,

fascinated by the sight of beggars lying on
the roadside: naked and emaciated half-
humans, some skeletons, some covered with
 sores Every little shop was different from
the one next to it. (19)

Accustomed as Rusty was to the delicate

scents of the missionarys wifes sweet peas
and the occasional smell of bathroom
disinfectant, he was nevertheless
overpowered by the odour of bad vegetables
and kitchen water that rose from the gutter.
(20)

The solace and comfort of the home can be associated with Rustys absent
mother, the prostitute to some extent and Meena, but not the missionarys
wife because:

The missionarys wife was fond of putting

Rusty to work in her garden: if it wasnt
cutting the hedge, it was weeding the
flower-beds and watering the plants, or
clearing the garden path of stones. (17)

It is more like a mistress and man servant kind of relationship that Rusty
has to undergo. There is no question of love. Bazaar is such a place that
Rusty forgets the real existence of his guardian. On the contrary, everytime
Mr. Harrison tries to impose his rules upon Rusty. He says:

I have told you never to visit the bazaar. You

belong here, to this house, this road, these
people. Dont go where you dont belong.
(29-30)

Here bazaar seems to be a reality construct which allures and fantasizes

young adults most:

Rusty buried his head in his pillow and

tried to shut out reality; he forced a dream,
in which he was thrashing Mr. Harrison
until the guardian begged for mercy. (32)

Here Rusty has been struggling with his desires of home and freedom. Mr.
Harrisons projection of home is also a reality construct in this regard. For
Rusty, home is such a place in which he begins to develop a kind of
belongingness, peace and comfort. Home becomes a constructed zone in
his psyche. When he learns about Meenas death the lack of his life widens
as he begins to love her. One after the other he begins to part from his
friends. This situation takes him back to the earlier times when he was
with his guardian, feeling lonely and wretched. But he decides to go back
to England from Dehradun:

He was determined to break away from the

atmosphere of timelessness and resignation
that surrounded him, and decided to leave
Dehra. (147)

Home has been fantasized by Bond in terms of maidan here, when the
author- narrator says:

Rusty remembered his first night on the

maidan, when he had been frightened and
wet and lonely; and now, though the maidan
was crowded, he felt the same loneliness,
the same isolation. In the bazaar, he walked
with a heavy heart. (151)

Home is also a reality construct when Bond cannot force Rusty to remain
in one place all alone. This is evident the protagonist says:

I am not interested in today, I want

tomorrow. I cannot live in this same small
room all my life, with a family of lizards,
living in other peoples homes and never
having one of my own. I have to break away.
I want to be either somebody or nobody. I
dont want to be anybody. (147)

There is a thin line of demarcation between fantasy and reality. And

Ruskin Bond in the form of Rusty tends to swing between the dialectical
conditions. This implies that the notion of home can be neither a pure
reality construct nor a pure fantasy. No matter how much Bond tries to
give structure of reality to the fantasy or vice versa he puts his effort in
pulling Rusty back to his room in Dehra. It is clear at last that it is not
home as a structure sufficient in bringing solace in ones mind but the
bonding, attachment, love and a comfort level that makes a home worth
staying. Same thing happened with Rusty when he is about to leave for
England, but finds home in Kishen, just the way the former finds home in
his stay with the latter. Again it is not about staying at the room on the roof
because Rusty meets Kishen at Hardwar and he quits to go to England.
They decide to go back to Dehra :

The room on the roof will still be vacant

when I return, no one but me could be crazy
enough to live in such a room I will go
back to the room as though nothing had
happened, and no one will notice that
anything has. (169)

Space of home cannot be restricted within the four walls of a real and
concrete structure. Home is a space in that part of human psyche which
senses a strange kind of attachment. Rusty and Kishen find their home in
each others company. Their feelings about a home is their togetherness
and their time spent in Dehradun. This cannot be confined within the
reality structure of a room. They enjoy being together even in open spaces.
In this regard, the bazaar and the chaat house can be considered as home
to the boys like Rusty, Ranbir, Somi, Suri and Kishen through the sense of
attachment called friendship. Therefore, home as fantasized by Bond in
his imagination is more about the space in the mind. This is clear from the
following:

what was Kishen to him? He was sure of

one thing, they were both refugees- refugees
from the world They were each others
shelter, each others refuge, each others
help. Kishen was a jungle, divorced from the
rest of mankind, and Rusty was the only one
who understand him because Rusty too
was divorced from mankind. And theirs was
a tie that would hold, because they were the
only people who knew each other and loved
each other. (172)

Bond has clearly given an idea of home towards the end of the novel that
delimits its possibilities as a pure fantasy or a reality. Another instance lies
when an old woman asks Rusty about him noticing his blue eyes and
golden hair(171). To this Rusty replies : I am nothingI am everything.
(172) This statement made by Bond through Rusty defines his own sense
of the self and can be related to the Hindu mythical god, Lord Krishnas
saying to Arjuna, before the battle of Kurukshetra in the Holy Book, The
Bhagavad Gita: I am the creator of this system, you should know that I
am yet the nondoer (238)

This clarifies the philosophy that home can be deferred to a chain of

signifiers as a fantasy in ones imagination and at the same time it can be
given the concrete form of reality. But in both cases, home is a
construction of such reality that cannot be distanced from fantasy either.
Home can mean the whole world, Gods abode, the Universe yet it can be
nothing. Its meaning tend to defer in the endless chain of signification.

_________________________________________________________

References and Works Cited

Bond, Ruskin. The Room on the Roof. New Delhi: Puffin Classics,
Penguin, 2008. Print.

Swami Prabhupada, A. C. Bhaktivedanta. Bhagavad- Gita: As It Is.

Mumbai: The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust International, 2004. Print.

Evans, Dylan. An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis.

London: Routledge, 1996. Print.

Francis, C. D., and J. C. Stott. Home and Not Home in Childrens Stories:
Getting there and being Worth it. Childrens literature in education 24.3
(1993): 223-33.