Monday, September 9, 2013

Longing for a home that never exists: (A)historical emotion and return of the repressed


When hostel students organise farewell and freshers' welcome, the hostels are usually transformed to a carnivalsque. It becomes upside down. Pupil suddenly becomes eager to confess, there are boundaries that get dissolved and people like Kaleidoscope often sees naked reality. So once in a programme like this, in a moment when Kaleidoscope's pupil were in a mood of confession, a young boy shouted "if you don't have brother don't make a dummy brother, if you don't have a sister don't make dummy sister." It suddenly opens a window, a nostalgic one where Kaleidoscope can see pupil's longing for a home that never really exist.

What might have happened:

Possibility I:
1. The guy had found a sister (highly probably) in a girl
2. The sisterhood continued for a while and it got broken up

Possibility: II
1. The guy was looking for a significant relationship in an otherwise manly hostel world and he finally ended up in getting a sister (and not a fiancee)
2. Eventually the girl realised the underground demand and they broke up

Possibility: III
1. The guy and girl both seek a significant relationship
2. They found each-other
3. At the end of the year either one (in this case probably it is the girl) got back to the lost home, went back to the real brother (or the sister, probably not in this case), hence eventual painful separation because "blood is thicker than the water."

Well Kaleidoscope can keep on listing numerous permutations and combinations of the possibilities. However, the bottom line is that there are people who continue to seek for the world that never really exist. Kaleidoscope would rather see this as a restorative effort of the people who are born in a nuclear family (or are compelled to live in a nucleus life), miss out relationships which are historically defined as important but absent. The reflective dimension of nostalgia is intertwined as Svetlana Boym sees it not as an individual sickness but a symptom of our age, a historical emotion. As the world evolves to modernity, worlds find new time and space coeval with it. A result of which is longing for not only a space but also for a time. Hence worlds are filled with ancient ghosts, people's restorative efforts and a heterotopic outcome. It is highly likely that it will call for more uncalled for carnivalsques engulfing Kaleidoscope in his restorative efforts and his longing for a imagined home. The hostel boy, the transformed spaces, vanishing places and juxtaposed and nucleus modernity do make a space for the return of nostalgia as repressed are often returned.

3 comments:

  1. hmmm compelling and challenging Kaleidoscope.

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  2. This possible interpretation of yours Kaleidoscope reminds me my pain, longing in significant occasions and above all missing something significant in my entire life... Some people's searches never end. Thanks for writing on this apparently mundane issue.

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