ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the intricacies of displacement, home and homeland, referring closely to Dibyendu Palit’s celebrated short story, “Alam’s Own House”. The chapter explicates how Partition exhibits its ravages not just in terms of mass massacre and organic displacement but also in an estrangement of the human subject, creating numerous manifestations of homelessness and exile. The chapter explores the dystopia that is often involved in possibilities of reconciliation with home and homeland and argues true return as an impossibility, as the exiled subject can only return to the objective truth of a politically determined territory called homeland but not the subjective truth of home, which is founded on the personalized experiences of time and space.
