The Home-coming
ICSE · Class 10 · English Literature-Treasure Chest ( Poems and Short Stories)
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About the Author — Rabindranath Tagore
- Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) was a Bengali poet, writer, philosopher, composer, and artist — one of the greatest literary figures of the modern world.
- Born in Calcutta into the prominent Tagore family; began writing poetry as a child and published his first substantial poetry collection at age seventeen.
- In 1913, he became the FIRST NON-EUROPEAN to win the Nobel Prize for Literature — awarded for his poetry collection Gitanjali (Song Offerings).
Plot Summary — Events of the Story
- OPENING — PHATIK AND THE LOG: Phatik Chakravorti is the ringleader of village boys. He organises them to roll a large log lying on the riverbank. His younger brother Makhan stubbornly sits on the log
- THE FIGHT AND THE STRANGER: A grey-haired stranger watches from the riverbank. Phatik is rude to him. Their mother arrives, blames Phatik without hearing his side. In fury at the injustice, Phatik hit
- THE OFFER: Bishamber offers to take Phatik to Calcutta, enrol him in school, and educate him alongside his own children. Phatik is overjoyed — not for the education, but because he feels unwanted at h
Character Analysis
- PHATIK CHAKRAVORTI — PROTAGONIST: Fourteen years old. Ringleader of village boys. Bold, mischievous, restless — not a bad boy, but a boy without a place. His bravado in the village conceals a deep nee
- BISHAMBER (UNCLE) — WELL-MEANING BUT PASSIVE: A genuinely well-intentioned man who offers to educate Phatik. However, he is passive and blind to his nephew's suffering. He does not check his wife's co
- PHATIK'S AUNT (BISHAMBER'S WIFE) — THE INDIFFERENT ANTAGONIST: She is not villainous in a dramatic sense — she is simply indifferent. Already stretched with her own family, she resents having an extra
Themes — Major Ideas in the Story
- THEME 1 — ADOLESCENCE AND THE ABSENCE OF BELONGING: Fourteen is the most painful age in the story. Phatik belongs nowhere — too wild for his mother's house, too raw for the city. Tagore's meditation o
- THEME 2 — EMOTIONAL NEGLECT: Phatik is not starved, beaten, or imprisoned. He is simply ignored, mocked, and made to feel unwanted. Tagore argues that passive neglect — the withdrawal of love — is as
- THEME 3 — HOMESICKNESS AS A PHYSICAL NEED: Phatik's homesickness is not merely nostalgia. It is a physical, biological need — like hunger. He needs his mother, his river, his open fields. Denied them,
Key Concepts
Central concept: The Home-coming: A story of adolescent loneliness, neglect, and longing for belonging
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