Borders, Boundaries, Belongingness and orphans of the storm: A critical analyses of Selina Hossain’s short story ‘The Return’

This paper is an attempt to critically analyse Selina Hossain’s short story ‘The Return’ whichwas published in ‘LOOKING BACK THE 1947 PARTITION OF INDIA 70 YEARS ON’.The Partition stories have been vital to understand the complexity of the human life in thosetangled and troubled times. Thus, the Partition Stories reflect the Partition comprehensivelyin all its totality, reality, and variety. They [the partition stories] are rather witnesses to aperiod in which we fell out of a human world of languages, customs, rituals and prayers intoa bestial world of hatred, rage, self-interest and frenzy (partition). The Return is the story of a15 years old girl, Rafeza. Her father died during partition riots in Bangladesh and her motherin the prison of India, where she could not get proper treatment. This story throws light on thejourney of Rafeza from Bangladesh to India, her life in prison and her journey from India toBangladesh. This paper is an attempt to show how borders, boundaries and belongingnessaffected the life of orphans like Rafeza during and after partition and how a persons’ wholeexistence and life was put in and determined by a passpor