What light does A Farewell Party throw on the behaviour of the host

What light does A Farewell Party throw on the behaviour of the hosts and the guests.

Ans.

The farewell party seems to be a meeting ground of people coming from different social and professional backgrounds. They way they behave in the party presents two kinds of disposition-one common to a particular group, the other individual differences. There is a gender-divide too, the menfolk comprising one set of people and behaviour and the women of their own. It is significant that Bina forgets to provide lights and the enveloping darkness makes well nigh impossible to recognize even familiar face unless they come very close. The guests appear time to time emerging as ‘vague and without outlines but eventually recognizable’. Bina, the host, had little time to really mixing up with her neighbours and acquaintances on a more familiar or friendly terms. So, she does not really know them, i.e. she is in the dark about them. There are unwritten and invisible yet very much real codes of conduct that controls the behaviour of a particular group or individual in the party. All the invitees are conscious of their classes and will not readily associate with those belonging to the lower strata of social or professional hierarchy. (The executives of foreign or once foreign companies). Even a flourishing but exclusively Indian company in which Mr. Raman is placed is looked down upon by the company executives of the elite set of British., American of at least companies with American collaboration. The cigarettes made by The Indian Company to which Mr. Raman belongs when passed around by him ‘Struck a note of bad taste’. The guests, however, were trying to be as friendly to Bina as was possible on so slight an acquaintance.

The hypocrisy of the guests become evident when one of them, Mrs. Ray, the commissioner’s wife whom Bina met only twice during her fives years stay, asks:

“Why are you leaving us so soon, Mrs. Raman? You’re only here two years, is it?”

As the writer says, “Bina blinked at such words of affection from a woman she had met twice, perhaps thrice before.” Not all the guests were, however, of simulating types. There is one Mrs. D’Souza who was her daughter’s teacher who was different – An honest individuality that all those beautifully dressed and poised babblers lacked, being stamped all over by the plain rubber stamps of their husbands’ companies”.

One out-of-the way character is that of Miss Dutta, who does a lot a socializing and is office-holder of so many ‘societies’. She is rumoured to be a ‘man eater’ and Mr. Raman had a hard time extricating himself from her amorous advances.

One amiable company that the Raman had when the rest of the guests left was that of the doctors, who were closest to them in sympathy and the couple warmed up to them who were ‘closest to them in sympathy’. The party as the doctors said, ‘now truly began’. About the rest of the time a very vivid and concrete image is given by Anita Desai in the following words, about the spirit of the party:

“There was about it exactly that kind of sentimental euphoria that is generated at a ship-board party, the one given the last night before the end of the voyage. Every one draws together with an intimacy, a lack of inhibition not displayed or guessed at before, knowing this is the last time, tomorrow they will be dispersed, it will be all over. They will not meet, be reminded of it or be required to repeat it.

In the end, a serious note is added to the atmosphere when Dr. Bannerji’s wife, who had studied in Shanti Niketan sang one of Tagore’s sweetest and saddest songs:

“Father, the boat is carrying me away,

Father, it i carrying me away from home.”

The plaintive note of the song brought tears in the eyes of the last remnants of the guests, tears (that were compounded equally of drink, relief and regret).