Child has been a part of literature the world over, but the way the colonial and postcolonial writers have used the symbol of the child as a metaphor and site for the presentation of cultural conflicts is interesting. "In his traditional innocence, the non-judgmental child seems best equipped to mirror the complexity of the postcolonial in its totality without censorship". It is also important to remember that these writers of colonial and postcolonial times are more bicultural in their outlook and their choice of writing in English itself reflects this bicultural heritage. Though they have a universal appeal in their situation, their writing is culture-specific. For example, the father-son relationship is important in western culture, whereas the mother-son relationship is crucial in the Indian setup. The child is an important image of the post-modern decentered consciousness.The clear and untainted child's vision helps in making sense of a disjointed world. The child in Byculla Boy, named Neilkant Jhaveri, is the child of an Anglo-Indian mother and a Hindu father. Ashok Banker highlights the confusion in the nine year old's life when neither his father nor his mother shoulders the responsibility of taking care of him. His maternal grandparents do give him a roof to live under, but it is never a home for him till he is able to resolve and integrate his bicultural heritage.

The trope of the child has a visible presence in literature the world over. However, as far as critical attention is concerned, there is a lot to be done. Jacques Derrida writes: "man calls himself man only by drawing limits excluding his other from the play of supplementarity; the purity of nature, of animality, primitivism, childhood, madness divinity". A definition of man would then involve the binary who is not animal, not primitive, not a child, not mad and is not god. The child is man's early stage and is hence, in a less privileged position. According to Philippe (1962), childhood was recognized as a category recently in the history of mankind in the Western world. In other words, it was created or constructed recently. This was the result of changes occurring in an industrialized and scientific world.

The concept of childhood is as varied in cultures as child-rearing practices. In most cultures the parents or adults are the providers, hence are superior to the dependent child. Although the hierarchy of domination of adults over children has its very dark sides, such as child abuse, neglect, child exploitation and misuse, and indoctrination, this structure provides the only means of protection and nurturing necessary within the structure of society. As children were beginning to be `discovered' (or invented), they were also simultaneously and perhaps inevitably subject to more specific attempts to conquer and control them. Adults are childhood's `other' and childhood is adult's `other'. In the Western world, the concept of the child has been historicised by Philippe Aries and Llyod (1975). Both hold the opinion that the further in history one goes back, the lower is the level of childcare and nurturing. With industrialization and the development of the nuclear family, contraception and birth control, the importance of the child in the family slowly gained momentum. Improving quality of life was the call of the industrializing world. This had a direct bearing on the child, making society more and more child-centered, especially through the education. With scientific study of humans and children, and a general interest in the child's education, a new outlook towards children developed. Freud proposed the theory that childhood had to be survived because of the materialistic subjectivity of modern life. "It is the modern childhood-which-survives-childhood from which Freud sought to liberate civilization". Freud attributed conflict to man's instinctual demands and society's restrictions through culture, post-Freudian thought begs to differ believing that every child is born with the ability to assimilate the culture into which he is born. All cultural traditions are internalized in childhood through the superego. All societies have an ideal adult character towards which they train and mould their children. All rewards and punishments are training towards attaining this ideal. Human behavior is learnt in this way. These become the habits of the later adult; hence all childhood experiences are important in relation to the making of the adult identity.

Ashok Banker's Byculla Boy, Traditional innocence, Bicultural heritage, Western culture, Madness divinity, Scientific world, Child exploitation, Technological mass societies, Global scenario, Human relationships, Psychological traumas.