I have not lived abroad long enough. Nevertheless, my stay here as a student on scholarship, accompanied by the family of a wife and two children, is considerably enough for me to identify some of the parallels that I share with Mr. Biswas, the protagonist in V. S. Naipul’s A House for Mr. Biswas. It may seem an overstreach to locate shared experience(s) with an Indo-Trinidadian character in a novel that thematically addresses issues outside the intricacies and complexities of contemporary migration, but that is the beauty of literature. Literature presents compelling human characters capable of influencing the audience’s worldview, to see themselves and things within and outside textual boundaries. Therefore, like Mr. Biswas, I find myself submerged in complex realities, preoccupied with unending pursuit for stability, hopeful for some sense of independence, even if the signs do not promise much.

For starters, A House for Mr. Biswas is a semi-biographical novel that locates the life and experience of Mohun Biswas (the author’s father) from childhood to his death at the age of forty-one years. Mr. Biswas is a Hindu, born in the rural parts of Trinidad and Tobago, with the narrator explicating the intrigues of his peculiar and unique birth and childhood. He ‚accidentally‘ marries Shama from the Tulsi family, and finds himself submerged by the powerful force of the family. The novel portrays Mr. Biswas in a constant and relentless quest for success in career (as a journalist) and life, and his overall determination to buy and own a house. All these are metaphorical of his desire for autonomy, as living with the powerful renders him unhappy, emasculated, and always in the shadows of his wife, Shama.

Throughout the novel, Naipul is preoccupied with describing the tension between Mr. Biswas and the Tulsi family, which fuels the anti-hero’s quest for his own house. Eventually, Mr. Biswas buys a house, whose description and condition as per the text are not encouraging, but still worthy enough to offer him the satisfaction that comes with autonomy, a masculine pride of fulfilling the duty of providence to his family, and of course, a chance to escape from the frequent banters from the Tulsi family. The novel, according to a friend of mine, is pessimistic, for there are hardly any admirable attributes from Mr. Biswas, and this is exercabated by the fact that he dies at a young age, unable to enjoy the autonomy that he dedicated his life to attaining.

As an international student, living and studying abroad through a student visa, I am equally trapped and submereged by a powerful force that threatens my autonomy and personal progress. This is not to say that I am ungrateful for the scholarship that I was awarded. Neither am I ungrateful to my host city and nation for accommodating me. I am sincerely thankful to both, for they are critical in the realization of my intellectual growth and actualization of my research, which will be beneficial to many. Instead, this is a mirror reflection of my experience and how my condition affects me. Mr. Biswas is married to a powerful Hindu family, with whom he lives, as is typical of Hindu communities.

It is easy to assume that his new status presents him opportunities for social and economic growth. Instead, his status impedes his growth, and he sinks into a deep hole that robs him of dignity. He is frequently demeaned and disregarded by his in-laws. His tragedy is similar to my experience, and that of several international students who receive scholarships to study abroad. As international students, we are married to the funding bodies, immigration offices, and labour laws of the host nation. This marraige takes away our ability and capacity to help ourselves outside academics in the exchange of a monthly stipend. We are obliged to study, for that is the ‚only thing that brought us here,‘ where working is sometimes prohibited or limited, and is, in the end, punishable by cancellation of the funding or deportation.

Like Mr. Biswas, we feel entrapped, and yearn for freedom, which I believe can only come through work. To live in the expectation of a monthly stipend, where you count the days until your next payday, places the individual into a situation akin to begging. In a way, it is indignifying, especially in the awareness that this stipend comes not from the traditional view of wages from work. For firm believers in the traditions of work, I am convinced that it is more satisfying to be paid for your sweat. It builds confidence, promises independence, self-reliance, and agency of the self. Work becomes the only way in which a human being can effectively grasp full control over his or her life, assert power and direction over it. As a married man with children, my situation is depressing to think of, considering that I have to rely on bodies and the state to take care of my family. I want to take full control of my life and family, but this is temporarily halted because of my studentship condition, in spite of my relatively advanced age.

In conclusion, there are things international students abroad may not tell you regarding their abroad experience, perhaps because of shame, and this is one of them. It could also be applicable to asylum seekers or refugees as part of the migrant communities abroad that must rely on aid to live today and the next day. We are all in a moment (im)permamnent loss of our own agency and autonomy because of the ‚families we married to, just like Mohun Biswas. We must strive to get out of these limiting spaces even if our conditions remain least promising.