Instruments of Exile: The Self

Perhaps the most effective instrument of exile is the 'self'. It is exile at the most fundamental level which culminates in the mind and body, and is a manifestation that goes beyond the isolation created by external entities and instead is more prevalent in the unspoken words, the severed bonds, memories of the past and visions of the future. Ibn-ul-Vaqt finds himself caught in a similar exile, suspended in a paradigm of its own, not tangible yet impacting his life and decisions greatly. And in doing so creates the illusion of individualism, disguising the exile in ones relationships, interactions and deeply embedded in one’s thoughts.

Hence in the case of Ibn-ul-Vaqt, we see a man living in a cage of his own creation, a cage that will exist so far as he continues to desperately struggle to choose between religion and reformation, both of which will place alienate him in way or the other, and at the same time he will try to reconcile both to attain some sort of peace of mind. Ibn-ul-vaqt’s attempt at reformation of the community is at a deeper level an attempt to reform himself into to a figure who feels at home. In some way the acceptance of his exile is perhaps the only chance the writer gives him to emerge out of the exile. In fact the readers are able to understand how his exilic state must transcend from the physical: when he moves out of his home, to the mental with the acceptance that such a task will alienate him from those he associates himself with. And so it is interesting to realize that the very instrument of exile is at the same time the only possible instrument of freedom from the exilic state.

It is Ibn-ul-Vaqt’s very nature of wanting more than he can have and trying to accomplish more than what is possible that pushes him further into exile. And this is a reflection of the problem of India, where the colonizer expects it to fit neatly into the oriental discourse and adhere to the imagination of the European colonizer, while the ‘Indian’ cannot even be defined as one particular identity let alone have India meet the expectations of a home. It is in this manner that the reader realizes that Ibn-ul-Vaqt in essence is not the ‘son of time’ but the son against time, pursuing an idea that could not be trusted by any of the parties within India, and hence Nazir Ahmed seems to communicate that Ibn-ul-Vaqt is in state of exile long before the events of the novel unfold, and so the novel is not so much about how Ibn-ul-Vaqt is exiled but how he must accept that exile that exists in the confines of his mental and physical state.