This volume explores the instrumental role played by memory in our daily and collective narratives and the manifold ways in which it can destabilize those prevailing in India. It explores manifestations of memory and postmemory through written narratives, within India’s social, political, and cultural memoryscape. Drawing on archival research, oral history collection, and textual and critical analysis, the book endeavours to reconstruct Indian experiences in all their richness and diversity, while challenging dominant paradigms and expanding the boundaries of collective memory.
An important contribution, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of history, memory studies, partition studies, sociology, cultural studies, English literature, decolonization, and South Asian studies.
This volume explores the instrumental role played by memory in our daily and collective narratives and the manifold ways in which it can destabilise the ones prevailing in India. It explores manifestations of memory and postmemory through written narratives, within India's social, political and cultural memoryscape.
List of figures vii
List of contributors viii
Acknowledgements x
Introduction: Locating Literary and Cultural Registers of Memory,
Identity, and Resistance in India 1
AMAL P MATHEWS AND ELWIN SUSAN JOHN
PART I
Recall: Shadowed and Mapped Memories 19
1 Cryptopolitics: Memory, Landscape, Identity 21
SAHANA MUKHERJEE
2 The Rebels Silhouette(s): Reception and Resistance in South Asia 31
RHITAMA BASAK
3 Of Translocal Memories: Remembering and Forgetting in New Town, West Bengal
44
DEBARUN SARKAR
4 Paradesis Jewish Soul: A Tapestry of Memories Woven in Stone and Spirit
57
LAKSHMIPRIYA P SANTHOSH
PART II
Retell: Reconfigured and Reclaimed Memories 75
5 Memory as Praxis: Reconfigurations of the Home in Select Anglophone Texts
from Northeast India 77
SAMRITA SINHA
6 Archives, Indigeneity, and Decolonization in Indian Childrens Picture
Books 90
SUDEBI GIRI AND BINAY SAWAIYAN
7 Bene Appétit: Consuming Food and Remembering Jewish Identity in the
Selected Works of Esther David 109
ANANDHA LEKSHMI NAIR
8 Mythopoeic Menus from the Spice Coast: Food, Memory, and Community in
Kerala 124
MEENU JOSE
Index 137
Elwin Susan John has been Assistant Professor of English at Sophia College (Autonomous), Mumbai, India since 2015. Her doctoral study was on the sociocultural intersections between skin and diseases by reading literary narratives on colonial South India. She is actively involved in interdisciplinary research ventures along with full-time teaching. She is the co-editor of Media Technology and Cultures of Memory, published in 2024.
Amal P Mathews has been Assistant Professor of English at Assumption College (Autonomous), Kerala, India since 2012. Besides being involved in various teaching-learning initiatives at her workspace, she is also interested in exploring new dimensions of literature and translation. She is currently pursuing doctoral research in the interdisciplinary field of childrens human rights in 21st century fiction. She is the co-editor of Media Technology and Cultures of Memory, published in 2024.
