Page 18 - DENG503_INDIAN_WRITINGS_IN_LITERATURE

Indian Writings in Literature

Notes doctor to examine the relevant body part only and shroud the rest in parda. The doctor as
expected falls in love with the hidden lady (in fact her limited exposure adds to the fetish all
the more!), but the whole is unfortunately not a sum total of parts as the doctor had imagined.
The perforated sheet has since become a symbol of limited perception.
In the context of contemporary writing in English the pressing question is: what makes the
author suggest a contest between history and personal experience? As mentioned earlier the
credibility of public narrations has of late come under scrutiny. Whether it is Salman Rushdie
treating history and religion with a celebratory irreverence or Mukul Kesavan attempting a
revision of the Civil Disobedience Movement from the point of view of the Muslim Congressmen,
or the scores of personal memoirs, giving a personal record of public events, a skeptical look at
history has characterized great deal of Indian Writing in English for the past few decades. Most
of these authors have been a part of the infamous history—they have either witnessed or been
affected by events like partitioning of the country and consequently the writing of it. It is not
unnatural then that they as witnesses to the discrepancy between lived events and recordings
of them become natural critics to this entire enterprise. Some like Kesavan who is himself a
historian claims to achieve through fiction that which history has denied to him. According to
Jon Mee they are ‘responses to debates currently circulating within Indian culture from this
perspective the desire to return to Indian History might be seen as the expression of a generally
critical attitude to the form of nation-state of has emerged since 1947.’
Amitav Ghosh is concerned with both these facets of history writing: its claim of objectivity
and its alignment with position of powers. The Shadow Line tries to examine History especially
the writing of Indian History and its treatment of certain events in Post-Independence India
like Partition and Civil Strife. It is here that he shows the deceptive depiction of Partition by
Indian History. Firstly the history writers justify partition by falsely creating difference between
the two sides (refer: the upside-down house) and then completely ignoring the human suffering
that it entailed. Similarly the depiction of Calcutta riots experienced by the narrator is not
given any place in history inspite
of the influence it exerts on his psyche. By providing stories and anecdotes as a means of
relating history he provides an alternative to the public history that emanates from the centers
of power and aligns it to the people.
2. Title of the Novel
The title ‘The Shadow Lines’ is evocative of one of the major concerns of the novel: that of the
creation of nations with boundaries that are both arbitrary and invented. This issue becomes
more pertinent when viewed in the context of the Partition of the Indian subcontinent. That
which, on surface, is projected as completely opposed to another is actually a part of it. The
author uses the trope of house to explain this. As children Tha’mma and Mayadebi witness the
family dispute between their father and his elder brother (Jethamoshai) that leads to the division
of the house.
Tha’mma as a child in Dhaka house makes stories about the upside down house (the other half
of the house occupied by the uncle’s family) and narrates them to the younger sister. In the
other half of the house, these stories talk of everything as being upside-down. The artificial
constructedness of the ‘otherness’ of the house is very evident and gives to the keen reader a
foretaste of a similar exercise in constructing the difference between the two sides of a partitioned
nation. What is significant is that the two nations were united at one time but the course of
history (or failure of vision) makes them two and for sustaining their separation this difference
has to be invented. It is ironic therefore that Tha’mma who was herself a creator of that
artificial difference cannot see through the strategy of the state. “But if there aren’t any trenches
or anything, how are the people to know?” The case of the Partition of the Indian subcontinent
has been very different because the state has been forced to create a difference where none
existed and show the two nations as inherently opposed.
It is the fear that comes of the knowledge that normalcy is utterly contingent, that the spaces that
surround one, the streets that one inhabits, can suddenly and without warning become as hostile

12 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY