Navigating Dualities: Unweaving the Lingering Threads of Trauma of Displacement in Dibyendu Palit’s “Alam’s Own House”

The coercive displacement coupled with mass persecution that exacerbated religious and ideological cleavages is an inadvertent repercussion of Radcliffe’s freshly demarcated arbitrary territorial borders. This research paper aims to re-examine the innumerable psychological ramifications of physical relocation that manifests as trauma in the mind of the protagonist Alam in Dibyendu Palit’s short story “Alam’s Own House.” The internal conflict, rootlessness and estranged consciousness penetrates through the narrative. The displaced character navigates and oscillates between his multifaceted bifurcated identities in the present polarized and crumbled socio-political landscape, and the uncontested past, and furthermore grapples to reconcile his ordered past with the chaotic present. A profound sense of nostalgia, bewilderment and a quest for inclusion and acceptance pervades the story. This paper critically aims to elucidate the dynamic complexity of identity formation and exposes strategies of reconciliation. The study also re-evaluates the concept of ‘Home’, which is depicted as not only a physical and emotional construct, but also a transforming space that metaphorically reflects uncertainty and precariousness, thereby highlighting the transitory nature of existence as to how the coercive uprooting and dislocation transforms the meaningful spaces into sites of estrangement and indifference.

Keywords- Displacement, Trauma, Identity, Home