Reinterpreting the ‘Maladies’ of ‘Self’ and ‘Exile’: A Study on the Select Poems of Adil Jussawalla

Abstract

Life beyond the homeland can resemble a sugar-coated pill meant to comfort, like a gentle balm for a feverish child. Yet for a grown man like Adil Jahangir Jussawalla, the sweetness only masks the bitterness within. The transitions between Europe and India feel less like a journey of discovery and more like a relentless carousel, spinning him from one disillusionment to another, with every change of scenery revealing a deeper layer of disappointment beneath the glossy surface. The bitterness of exile and alienation has always been a source of trauma in Jussawalla's observations (Wong and Hassan). As we know, a precise thought needs an accurate expression. Jussawalla’s observations on such issues are precisely expressed in his two anthologies of poetry, Land’s End and Missing Person. Are these anthologies a remembrance of such chaotic trauma that ultimately left Jussawalla disillusioned regarding his homeland? Is the aspiration for homeland a new way to define the ‘self’ of the observer? Can problematic issues like ‘Self’, ‘Exile’, ‘Alienation’, and ‘Disintegration’ be called a malady? If they are, they require interpretation and re-interpretation. This essay will attempt to address the problematic issues already touched upon in the discourse's title.