Failure of Reconciliation in the Contact Zone: Anita Desai’sBaumgartner’s Bombay

Abstract

InBaumgartner's Bombay, Desai fuses multicultural strands in artistic fashion. Her Indo- German parentage provides the novel a transparent sincerity whereas her own expatriate experiences create for her a synthesis. Hugo Baumgartner, a German Jew, comes to India to survive the holocaust. The plot of the novel has a quest-motif in which the principal character, Hugo tries to establish his identity in an alien culture. He makes sincere but ceaseless efforts to come to term with Indian culture throughout his life. He learns to speak Hindi, befriends Indians, earns his living in India, wears Indian cloths--adopt Indian way of life but in return, he is always cheated, mistreated and abused. His quest for ‘home,’ for safety, security and identity, which runs through emptiness and isolation, ends tragically, in failure, frustration and disgust. Baumgartner is forced tolive the life of seclusion and withdrawal. The only company is that of cats that he nurses and loves. Accepting but not accepted becomes Hugo’s fate in India. Even after staying for fifty years he remains a Firanghi–a foreigner. The failure of reconciliation and the tragic isolation leads Baumgartner to death. Baumgartner, throughout his life, sails in the same boat of isolation in an alien country; with the memories of his parental home, that he left some fifty years ago, and the dreams of a cultural new home, which remains only a dream.