Born Again in the Saal Forests:

A Reading of Arun Joshi’s The Strange Case of Billy Biswas

Abstract

Regarding ‘Born again’, Nicodemus, the Jewish leader in the Bible has a pertinent question; he puts his question across Jesus Christ, the Master-teacher. Jesus explains to him, “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (St.John 3:3). Christian faith largely depends upon this fundamental statement of Jesus Christ. What Christ means of this is that one has to confess all the sins that that person has committed and should be pure in mind as a new-born baby. The underlying idea is that when one feels truly penitent, that person is absolved of his / her sins and is instantly freed of his / her weighing guilt. Elsewhere in the Bible, it is mentioned that we are all born sinners. God alone is sinless. However a sinful man can redeem himself from his sins by expiation. In other words, if a truly penitent sinner confesses his / her sins to the mighty powers above and truly feels sad for all his / her misdeeds and misgivings, the lovable God in heaven will forgive and accept that person as His own child. This is Christian theology. Billy Biswas in Joshi’s novel The Strange Case of Billy Biswas is not a saint. He is an ordinary man and goes on committing sins after sins, but a day comes when he feels sad for all his sins and disappears into the Saal Forests of the Maikala Hills. He does so because the forest with the primitive people in it with plenty of flora and fauna can keep him out of the sinful track and also the mighty spirit of Nature can heal him of his ills in both his psyche and physic. The experience that he undergoes in the jungle is nothing short of a spiritual regeneration akin to the Christian born again experience. Instead of going into a church and standing before a priest and confessing his sins one by one, the penitent Billy Biswas goes into the Maikala Hills and stands before Nature Incarnate and truly feels sad and gets himself absolved of all his sins and lives a quiet life in perfect harmony with nature.