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Unit 1: Amitav Ghosh; Shadow Lines: Introduction to the Text

For these countries in Asia, Africa and S.America, the experience of colonialism has become a Notes
major reference point in understanding their recent history. When we see this perception in the
literature of these countries we study it as Post-Colonial literature. In their book The Empire
Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures (1989), Bill Ascroft, Gareth Griffiths
and Helen Tiffin say that though historically Post-Colonial means “after colonisation”, in
literature it signifies “all the experience affected by the colonial process from the beginning of
colonisation to the present day.” John Theime, the editor of the famous Arnold Anthology of
Post-Colonial Literature (1996) talks of two pivotal concerns of Post-colonialism:
(i) Interrogation of Euro centric conceptions of culture;
(ii) Interrogation of former canonical orthodoxies of “English Studies.”
The methods, modes and means of analyzing information, perceiving life experiences and
institutions have, under colonial influence always been affected by the notion of European
superiority and native people’s inferiority. With the coming of Post-colonialism this placement
of Europe in the center as a model has ceased. The cultural systems and ethos of these new
nations are now being analysed not with an outside European standard but by their own
standard. It is like the locus of control has shifted from without to within. In India this talk of
the change in the curriculum of English departments emerged and was first appeased by the
introduction of a cursory paper on Commonwealth Literature. However the growing consensus
on revising syllabus cannot be ignored for long. Recent years have seen a remarkable change
in both the content and approach to the teaching of English in the entire country. The syllabii
have not only seen an inclusion of more Indian writers writing in English but also that of
Indian Writing in regional languages translated into English. Though in India we have not
taken the radical route of “abolition of the English Department” as suggested by the famous
Nigerian author Ngugi Wa Th’ongo, we have certainly considered rereading the prescribed
English texts and the new Indian and Other World writings with a renewed sensibility by
which we are no longer the subjects. Indian Writing in English today has to shake off the
western influence it has been wearing since it was first introduced and has to begin asserting
its credentials more genuinely.
7. Home/Homelessness
In the novel The Shadow Lines home is in an allegorical relationship with nation. Tha’mma talks
of her upside-down house in Dhaka and the story of that house is in deed the story of partitioned
India. As children living in a joint family in Dhaka, Tha’mma and her sister Mayadebi are
witness to the feud between their father and his brother. Things come to such a pass that they
think of dividing their house. This division is so tangible that an actual line is drawn in the
middle of the house dividing everything including the commode. In this ludicrous detail the
partition comes out for the reader as an event that was both irrational and avoidable. Another
aspect of Partition of the house that is later applied to the nation is about the ideological
division that follows this material division. Once the Partition has taken place, the other side of
the house becomes inaccessible to everybody including the two girls, Tha’mma and Mayadebi.
Since Tha’mma is the elder one, she talks of the house as the upside down house in which
everything is the opposite of how things naturally are. The two nations just like the two parts
of a household were united at one time but the course of history (or failure of vision) divides
them and for sustaining their separation the difference has to be created. These stories that
Tha’mma creates to bring alive to her younger sister the situation of the other part of the house,
are in spirit comparable to the modern version of fake national pride that is also likewise based
on false stories of difference. Her decision to go to Dhaka, which is her erstwhile home in order
to bring back her old sick uncle, is a very unsettling time for her. Routine activity of furnishing
her personal details while finishing the documentation for her visa forms raise fundamental
doubts about her identity. For the first time the sure shot and composed Tha’mma goes through
pangs of some fundamentally disturbing interrogation. She wonders as to how the ‘place of her
birth had come to be messily at odds with her nationality’. She cannot resolve the chaos that
surfaces in the patterns that are so essential to her identity. The book has two sub-sections:

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