ARUN JOSHI’S THE STRANGE CASE OF BILLY BISWAS: A SPIRITUAL ODYSSEY

Arun Joshi's The Strange Case of Billy Biswas is a satire on the modern materialistic world where man finds trapped in the clutches of phony glitter of the outward world. He seems to give a clarion call as what the Romantics exhorted in the late 18th century— ‘Return to Nature'. The portrayal of Billy Biswas' life-journey answers the questions related to the meaninglessness and fulfillment, peace and prosperity, tradition and modernity, body and soul. The juxtapositioning of the primal, tribal and modern, materialistic world by the writer raises many issues to be addressed in a world where the people at the margins remain out of the focus in present times. By mapping the meandering of Billy's internal conflict in search of fulfillment and meaningfulness in life this paper aims at analyzing his life as a spiritual odyssey.