Postcolonialism and indian english fictions

The extreme violence that women suffer during conflict does not arise solely out of the conditions of war; it is directly related to the violence that exists in women's lives during peacetime. Throughout the world, women experience violence because they are women, and often because they do not have the same rights or autonomy that men do. They are subjected to gender-based persecution, discrimination and oppression, including sexual violence and slavery.
(Elizabet Rehn and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. (2002, 10)

This paper discusses the identity of Indian women in diaspora in the short stories of two American Indian women writers, Bharati Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri. This paper uses the theories of diaspora and diasporic identity. Leaving the home land and entering the host land have created ambiguous situations for Indian diasporic women. However, although they have similar aims of immigrating to the host land, their ways and perspectives of inserting themselves to the host land are different. They are not only challenged by the reality of adapting and adopting the cultural values of the host land but also at the same time maintaining the values of the old world. These female characters have particular roles of creating 'the old world' in the host land and balancing the dynamics of the two worlds. Efforts of adapting self to the new world and given roles of maintaining the old values in the new world have somehow modified the ideas of women's identities in newland.

(English) This article investigates the interconnected themes of language, mobility and identity and their narrative renditions in the anglophone context by providing an interdisciplinary analysis of some extracts from two recent novels, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers (2008) and We Need New Names (2014), respectively written by Xiaolu Guo and NoViolet Bulawayo, who resourcefully elaborate new linguistic and textual forms to express the plural questions of identity. The helpful notion of 'language and mobility' discussed by Pennycook (2010) lends support to the argument that language, identity and mobility represent coterminous cultural forces at work in the constant shaping and changing of the contemporary globalised and postcolonial world Abstract (Italiano) L'articolo prende in esami l'intreccio tematico fra lingua, mobilità e identità, e delle sue rese testuali nel contesto anglofono, in particolare attraverso un'analisi di taglio interdisciplinare di due recenti romanzi, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, di Xiaolu Guo (2008) e We Need New Names, di NoViolet Bulawayo (2014), che affrontano il nodo plurale dell'identità elaborando nuove forme narrative e giochi linguistici. L'articolo adotta la prospettiva critica promossa da Pennycook, attraverso il concetto di language and mobility (2010), quale utile strumento analitico per esplorare le sovrapposizioni di lingua, identità e nomadismi/migrazioni che costantemente hanno luogo nei mutamenti del mondo contemporaneo, globalizzato e postcoloniale.

The Adivasis of India have been subjected to systematic oppression for centuries and postcolonial India continues with the same processes by different means. Hansda Sowvendra Sekhar's short story, "The Adivasi Will Not Dance" explores the subalternization of such communities as well as the evolution of subaltern consciousness, as manifested by the protagonist of the text, Mangal Murmu, whose monologue constitutes the narrative. The paper will not only explore Sekhar's representation of such subaltern consciousness, situated within the context of contemporary conflicts, but also intervene in vexed debates about representing the subaltern, especially in the context of Indian Writing in English where subalternized characters, especially Adivasis, either remain scarce or persist as stereotypes bereft of agency.

Mulk Raj Anand, R. K. Narayan and Raja Rao are known as the trio of Indo-Anglian fiction writers. Anand, senior among the three and committed to creative writing, is a prolific writer. His popular novels include Untouchable, Coolie, Two Leaves and a Bud, The Sword and the Sickle, etc. Besides, he has more than seven collections of short stories to his credit. A committed humanist, he presents the predicament of the deprived people of society not only in his novels but also in his short stories. The paper explores the depiction of the realistic picture of the deprived and the untouchable people in his short stories, who are subjected to perpetual pains and sufferings in our society, and his concerns and sympathy for such people. The short stories discussed in this study include "Old Bapu", "The Barber's Trade Union", and "Lajwanti".

Pre-publication text of this 2007 paper, originally deliverd at the R.K. Narayan Birth Centenary Conference, Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore, October 2006.

Abstract
A comment by Narayan on the “false geography” of his “imaginary town” provides the departure-point for a discussion of Malgudi, which argues against the frequently held view that it is a metonym for a quintessential India, or South India.  Taking its cue from the cultural geographer Doreen Massey’s assertion that “The identities of places are always unfixed, contested and multiple”, the paper contends that Malgudi is a multi-faceted and transitional site, an interface between older conceptions of “authentic” Indianness and contemporary views that stress the ubiquity and inescapability of change in the face of modernity.  It argues that Malgudi is far more than a physical locus, viewing it as an episteme that incorporates numerous ways of perceiving India – social, spiritual, mythological and psychological among them.  Focusing on Narayan’s representation of heterotopias, it considers the demarcations between “pure” and “polluted” space in The English Teacher, the simultaneity of different layers of Indian culture in The Financial Expert and the contrast between Malgudi and a larger Indian world in The Painter of Signs.

Rohinton Mistry's “The Ghost of Firozsha Baag”  as disruptive and cohesive influence in postcolonial Indian writing. 

Rohinton Mistry is an expatriate Parsi Indian writer who has lived in Canada for more than thirty years and who has within the past twenty years developed a reputation as one of the influential postcolonial voices in Indian fiction.  Often compared to the realist novelists in the 19th century, his writing is known for its power of description, its quietist prose, and its attention to the quotidian details of the alienated Parsi community in India.  He is been criticized by one scholar for not “getting beyond the particulars” to develop any kind of ideological point of view.  In this paper the author has tried to show that ideology is implicit in the point of view of the narrator, and thus the writer.  Through an exploration of point of view in light of postcolonial literary theory the author of this paper reveals Mistry as a writer with contradictory ideological aims however subtle this ideology manifests itself in the  “The Ghosts of Firozsha Baag,” Mistry’s masterpiece of subalternity.

This paper uses literary linguistics to analyze how point of view reveals contradictory political views of Rohinton Mistry.  Paul Simpson's linguistic theory from his book Language, Ideology and Point of View is used as a framework  to explore perspective. 

Not much had been written about Rohinton Mistry's work at the time of publication so this paper is an important contribution to postcolonial literary studies.

The present paper is based on Sidhwa Bapsi’s much acclaimed novel Ice-
Candy-Man (1988) and the movie based on the novel 1947:Earth (1998)
produced and directed by renowned film maker Deepa Mehta. Sidhwa
Bapsi, an Indian by birth but turned up a Pakistani after partition with
Parsi roots, later on emigrated to USA and currently known as a Diaspora
writer with different sensibility that amalgamates the east and the west
with its merits and demerits. Her Ice-Candy-Man is an authentic
presentation of colonial and post-colonial, pre-independence and postindependence
and pre-partition and post-partition violence, horror and
bloodshed through the eyes of an eight year old polio affected girl childnarrator
Lenny Sethi who sees the changing world around her with
parents and a team of servants and puts it without any prejudices. The
innocent world of the child suddenly turns into burdens and tensions and
ends with a permanent ‘void’ of losing her inmates. Turning to Deepa
Mehta, the maker of her famous trilogy is one of the most leading and
controversial female film makers of India though currently resides in
Canada she is a writer, critic and a filmmaker of true Indian sensibility.
Her movie 1947: Earth covering up important illustrations from the novel
represents nationalism, religious fervor, friendship and betrayal during
the transitional period of the divide of the Indian subcontinent. The
adaptation of a novel into a movie, and a print medium into non-print
becomes very interesting and passionate drama of emotions by the
filmmaker.

The patriarchal societies that existed in India have compromised Indian consciousness in order to have great impact on the half of the women population. Men thought that women are not worthy of education and they themselves considered Independent, superior and omnipotent. Men have always been bread winners and women was to share what he gained. It was a totally masculine world. No We can see the characteristics of women in ancient India. There is tremendous potential, untapped and not utilized. Women were generally treated as 'Abla nari' means helpless women. Also women were confined to four walls of the household. But things have changed and slow transformation was seen within. As civilization changed, society Transformed, Indian women were to escape the shadows without proving themselves. Women were ready to reveal their splendour and the beauty of the world they lived in, where not doing anything productive and simply spending time inside. When we analyse the rise of women literature in Indian context, the country had a situation of not accepting independent, bold, brave and dominating women. They were against the prevailing social norms and social order. There existed unwritten rules like, women should be warm, gentle, decent, dependent, submissive, ready to accept anything that the patriarchy ask them to. When we look into one if the ritual that was performed in India includes 'Sati'. 'Sati' was a very problematic ritual. When we look that in the light of contemporary situation. It was self immolation of women by jumping into the fire that burns their husband, this practise evidently states that there was no standing for independent or single women, the unwritten law was to end their lives when the male partner dies. A very strange fact was that, when Sati was finally abolished by British law, there were women protesting against the abolition of the practice. From a society holding a very old consciousness, the women have developed into winning international recognition for writing and other contributions to the social distribution. The literature of women have a great role in development of women from that to this. Women got equal educational opportunities when the Colonial rule came and made education accessible to everyone.

ABSTRACT: Postcolonialism, defined by Simon During as “the need, in nations or groups which have been victims of Imperialism, to achieve an identity uncontaminated by Universalist or Eurocentric concepts and images” (Hsieh), has left scars on neo-colonial psyches, spaces, identities and cultures among others. It has simultaneously, opened up new avenues for resistance and hegemony. Postcolonial literatures allow writers of manifold post-imperial territories to devise ways to recover the losses incurred and experienced. R.K Narayan’s The Guide evokes the defiant and hegemonic ideologies within the Indian literary arena and social fabric.
KEYWORDS: Postcolonialism, Universalist, Resistance, Hegemony, ideologies, Eurocentric.

Indian English Fiction allowed a more comprehensive study of the Woman’s
Question. Women were used as symbols of rebellion, heroic values and passionate
desires. From Arundhati Roy to Jhumpa Lahiri and Anita Nair, the novel conveys a
vast “feminine mystique”. Writing about almost anything under the sun, these
women novelists are aware of their society, principles, and ideologies, convention
along with the power, the strengths and weaknesses of the woman.

This paper will conduct a reconfiguration of nation as a more inclusive space which includes ambivalent migrants, who are also global citizens. Thus, nation comprises subjects who are more or less than just the ideal national citizens. It will explain the liminal spaces that these migrants occupy in between the nation and the global world. The objective of this study is to define nation beyond the geographical boundaries and in terms of the transnational and diasporic identities. The narration of nation is integrated with the ambivalent modernity, cultural transformation, migration patterns, post-9/11 resurgence of American nationalism and its impact on Pakistani diaspora living in America. In The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Hamid conceives the shift in modern life, but expands his range and focus to the shifting national identities vis-à-vis the global citizenships. When framed through nation, and diaspora, these shifting identities reflect the shifting postcolonial scene.

In the post-colonial Indian Anglophone literary scenario, the urge to represent a distinctly Indian cultural identity is the effect of both modernist experimentation and a nationalist assertion. Mythopoeia, mainly a post-religious literary aesthetic, becomes a favourite trope for certain Indian litterateurs, as it conveys an intermediate perspective between the doctrinal sacred and the liberal secular. The retelling of ancient Indian myths in the context of contemporary postcolonial reality becomes trendy in literary imagination and functional in asserting an Indian cultural identity in the second half of the previous century. To bring home the point, I would consider R.K. Narayan's The Man-eater of Malgudi as a case study, which, in the words of John Thieme, is the "most mythic novel" (120) among all the fourteen novels he has written. This paper would explore Narayan's dexterous and subtle use of religio-cultural references from ancient Indian mythology as found in the epics and the Puranas, and establish the point that Narayan's mythopoeic treatment is essentially secular. This paper attempts to challenge the superficial reception of the character of Vasu as archetypally-demonic,‖ as Nataraj's assistant Sastri finds him. Even Vasu's death at the end of the novel, which Sastri finds resembling the destruction of the mythical Bhasmasura in the 'Shiva Purana', may be seen from a post-religious perspective: justifying the death of the despicable. This paper finally aims to establish that Narayan's representation of Indian cultural identity relies more on the minute delineation of the Malgudi society, its culture and people rather than on Nataraj's campaign of the ‗sacred'.

The present paper peeps into the poetry of Kamala Das where she mainly deals with the feminist voice and the 'women questions' of love. She talks about the unsentimental, uninhibited expression of love, sex, emotional sterility in marital relationship. She talks about the trials and tribulations of the woman who struggles hard to find a place in the male dominated society. In her poetry, she not only expresses her feminine sensibility but the unfulfilled desires lying dormant in the unconscious mind. Her candid confessional revelations give a new dimension to her poetry. She explores herself through self-introduction and self-analysis. This paper explores the female psyche where rests an anxiety to care for her 'self' and to carve a space for herself in the patriarchal society. It depicts the agony of woman's heart, her emotional insecurity and loneliness. The poetry of Kamala Das is remarkable for the woman's quest for freedom and demand for the status of a human being.

This article analyses Aravind Adiga’s Booker prize-winning novel The White Tiger (2008) through the lens of justice: philosophical, legal, and literary. What is justice when its agent is subaltern—disprivileged by both caste and class—and delivers justice to himself? I argue that the fictional representation of class, caste, poverty, and violence can be similar to the structuring and translations of justice. By writing his novel from the perspective of a subaltern character, Adiga joins the call by Dalit critics to reconfigure modernity from the interests of the oppressed and the marginalized. In the process, there can be a rethinking of postcolonial literary criticism from within the postcolonial nation, rather than the established perspective of the postcolonial nation understanding its own colonial oppression. My essay provokes wider insights into the implications for justice and human rights as they are informed and represented by literary fiction, subaltern theory, and deconstructive theory. How can a writer conceive of and represent justice—literary justice—by working within and against philosophical and legal conceptions of justice? The philosophers and theorists I invoke include Drucilla Cornell, Jacques Derrida, Wai Chee Dimock, Emmanuel Levinas, Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak, and Robert Young.

The journey of Indian English Fiction since the appearance of Rajmohan’s Wife by Bankim Chatterjee paving through the trio of Narayan, Anand and Rao, finally rested on the writers like V S Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Jhumpa Lahiri, Shashi Tharoor, Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Shyam Selvadurai, Rohinton Mistry, Bharti Mukherjee and so forth. These writers articulated the diasporic sensibilities featured with Dislocation of people owing to indenture and settlement, Nostalgia, Alienation, Discrimination and quest of identity, survival, imperial dominance, Cultural change, identity and existential rootlessness. The enunciated themes by these writers gave rise to so called Expatriate or Diasporic Literature of which Amitav Ghosh is deemed to be the exclusive entity. The research paper accentuates the role of Amitav Ghosh in Indian diaspora with post-colonial attributes, highlighting the notable sensibilities in his debut novel the Circle of Reason (1986) and his sixth novel the Hungry Tide (2004). His method of historicizing multiple space of Indian diaspora with an exploration of life and suffering of humans heralds an amalgamation of anthropological and historical consequences against the backdrop of Post-Colonial and Post-Modern studies.

As can be seen from the title of the thesis, two fictional works of Bharati Mukherjee which are Wife and Jasmine have been chosen as the main sources for this study. The research focuses on three important aspects of immigration, exile, and expatriation. The researcher relates the article “Imagining Homelands” with Mukherjee’s Wife and Jasmine. This article has inspired the researcher very much as it highlights the important issues that Mukherjee has raised in both Wife and Jasmine. Indirectly, it has led to the utilization of the article’s name as part of the title of this study. In “Imagining Homelands”, these three elements have been discussed comprehensively by Mukherjee based on her personal experience with her sister as an immigrant and an expatriate. Nevertheless, the aspect of repatriation which has been mentioned also in this article has been excluded from this study due to its irrelevancy to both of the selected novels. This study intends to bring to light Bharati Mukherjee’s ideas of living in exile as an immigrant and as an expatriate. Besides, this study attempts to examine the differences between expatriation, exile, and immigration by not only studying the characters in both works chosen, but also by looking at the definitions and opinions of some important figures in the study of  diaspora literature. This research is vital in order to have a more comprehensive understanding of Mukherjee’s notion of dislocation in terms of immigration, exile, and expatriation. Qualitative approach is used as the main method for this research. This study has been conducted with the aid of library resources especially books for the two main sources Jasmine and Wife, as well as online databases and articles for the research. This research is expected to contribute significantly to the subject as the researcher has decided to discuss the phenomena of immigration and expatriation together which are usually examined independently in previous studies. Also, it is a creative attempt to link the two works, Wife and Jasmine to the important article “Imagining Homelands” which is also another new way of looking into Mukherjee’s works.

“What are the cultural grounds on which both natives and liberal Europeans lived and understood each other? How much could they grant each other? How, within the circle of imperial domination, could they deal with each other before radical change occurred?”  writes Edward Said in Culture and Imperialism (1993). These questions seek to find the degree of cultural difference that separated the British in India from the Indians. This novel sketches and represents a picture of separation.

Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide is a story about the Sundarbans, the sort that helps us understand the fascinating and sensitive ecology of what in the novel is called “the tide country,” as well as the crucial importance of this region’s continued existence. The novel is also, however, a story about environmental and social injustice in a postcolonial space, about people massacred or forcefully evicted from what they consider their homes on the grounds of a dubious environmental policy. On all levels of the story, the forces of the global interact powerfully with the local, be that in ecological, economic, or cultural terms. The paper argues that in contrast to state dependency on global capital and disconnection from the local, the development of what ecocritic Ursula Heise describes as an eco-cosmopolitan consciousness allows those characters in the novel who evince it a deeper understanding of and connectedness with one other and with their natural environments. The Hungry Tide reminds us that cosmopolitanism can, in the last instance, not be meaningful without also being eco; and while an eco-cosmopolitan awareness cannot necessarily guarantee survival in the face of natural forces or unscrupulous governments, it does help fostering a deeper sense of meaning and solidarity.

Arun Joshi's The Strange Case of Billy Biswas peeps into the life of Billy, who longs for peace and happiness and, therefore, leaves the degraded society of Delhi for the Satpura hills where he explores the different level of life. He lives among the tribals and considers himself a tribal. He traces out that the Delhian society embraces the modern values; whereas the primitive world focuses on the traditional values. His shifting from one level of life to another is his quest for life. He searches for meaning and purpose in life and while doing so he improves his relationships with Self, God, Nature and others.

MLA Citation: Chauhan, Abnish Singh. “Levels of Life in Arun Joshi’s The Strange Case of Billy Biswas.” Research Scholar, vol 1, no. 1, Feb 2013, pp. 24-28

The paper is an attempt to trace the emerging trends in the Indian English fiction, particularly novels in the twenty first century. Literature of the present century is very different from the previous one as it has new issues and challenges to address. In fact, the very concept of culture as well as literature has undergone enormous change over the years and with these changing paradigms, the authors too are experimenting profusely with themes, styles and techniques of writing in order to properly and effectively communicate the new sensibilities of contemporary time. History, myth, science, technology, ecology, environment, gender, politics-all are being told and re-told from myriad perspectives. Innovative forms and techniques are coming into being such as graphic novels, Chick-lit, Science fiction, disability novels, pulp fiction, ecological fiction, gerontological fiction, gay/lesbian novels and various others to capture all the possible aspects of human life and society.

Arun Joshi's 'The Only American from Our Village' is a very pathetic and heart-moving story. It is a story of a father Kundan Lal, who fulfills his duties and sacrifices his joys and comforts for the best education and placement of his only son. The son, Dr. Khanna gets success, earns money and reputation, settles in America, gets married to an American girl and has two children. He forgets his filial duties and responsibilities and does not turn back even at the time of his father's death. After some years, he comes to India, welcomed by the top authorities and by chance encounters with his father's friend Radhey Mohan, who relates the sad and sorry tale of his father. Now Dr Khanna realizes his mistake and feels the same burning pain in his feet, which was felt by his father walking on the hot sand without shoes. Now, evil boomerangs on him. His moral, social and cultural debasement ultimately leads him nowhere.

MLA Citation: Chauhan, Abnish Singh. "Counterproductive Values in Arun Joshi’s 'The Only American From Our Village." International Journal of Higher Education and Research, vol. 2, no.1, Jan 2013. Web Pages

This article argues that there appears to be a pattern of disregarding the literary contributions of South Asian Muslim writers who produced English texts on a variety of topics. It then mainly contextualises Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s English works in the tradition of South Asian writing in English to identify a continuous trend of undervaluing Muslim literary contributions in English in the region. The article thus argues for a re-assessment of the evaluation of this literary tradition, so that the many forgotten South Asian Muslim writers in English, including Rokeya, regain their long overdue recognition.

Eco-feminism is a branch of feminism that deals with the relationship between women and their environment. Mother Nature is essentially feminine since it gives life and nurtures it, just like a mother. This term was coined by French author and feminist, Francoise d'Eaubonne. Eco-feminists draw parallels between the oppression of women by men, and the

Train to Pakistan - written by Khushwant Singh and published in 1956 - is often considered a seminal novel in Partition studies, one that reveals the horror of a forgotten past with both realism and bitterness.
However, if one distinguishes between two types of forgetting – silence and self-exoneration – it becomes possible to suggest a re-reading of the text. Train to Pakistan, in this perspective, both undermines and upholds mainstream representations of the events of 1947.

The Indian short story is not merely a derivative of the Western genre, but owes much to the great story-telling tradition of Indian antiquity. The mythical and legendary tales as well as folktales have provided a fertile soil for the modern Indian short story to germinate. Beginning towards the end of the nineteenth century, the Indian short story flourished in the twentieth century. It became evident by the end of the past century that the canon is attuned to Indian landscape whose heterogeneous people and their diverse experiences it reflects so faithfully. The Indian short story as a distinct genre resembles a “multicoloured glass” scattering myriad hues which is analogous to the diversity of our country itself. The variegated and unbeaten genre righteously deserves critical attention which it has been deprived of.

With twenty-seven scholarly articles by academics, professors and researchers, the present critical volume is a tribute to an affluent but neglected genre of Indian literature. In accord with the genre itself, the scope of the book allows for such diversity as the classic writers like Tagore and Manto; the feminist writers like Ismat Chughtai, Kamala Das, Shashi Deshpande and Indira Goswami; the dalit writers like Bama and Ajay Navaria; the diaspora writers like Bharati Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri. The reworking of myth by Mahasweta Devi, the nature lore of Ruskin Bond, the saga of exile by the Kashmiri Pandits, the satire of Hari Shankar Parsai, the macabre tales of Satyajit Ray, the problematics of identity in Manoj Das and memory in Temsula Ao—all are taken into consideration within the structure of a single volume to make this a stimulating overview for students and scholars of Indian literature.

ABSTRACT
The story of "Cinderella" is one of the most famous of all the fairytales. According to folklorist studies, it is the best known tale in history. It can be found in almost all cultures. Scholars from diverse fields such as literary history, psychology, feminist studies and cultural studies have been trying, from various perspectives, to explore more deeply the meanings and the influence of the Cinderella story. Probably the popularity of this fairy tale is mainly due to the fact that the story brings up issues that find resonance within many women. Young girls as they get older fantasize about getting carried off by prince charming or the knight in shining armor. Colette Dowling's well-known book The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence which appeared in 1981 examines the negative influence of the Cinderella tale. She points out that Cinderella is in fact a patriarchal instrument to produce and nurture a psychological dependence in women, which is very harmful to women and their development. Women who are affected by Cinderella fairy tales have an unconscious desire to be taken care of by other people and many women suffer from this complex. Dialectically, the Cinderella story contains a strong negative narrative which serves the patriarchal purpose of keeping women in a passive and subordinate position. The Cinderella story implies that external help is necessary in transforming women’s lives. Apparently Perrault's version conforms to the patriarchal and bourgeoisie ideology of late 17th century France but now it is seen as a negative role-model for young females. However in Grimm’s version and also in almost every version except Perrault’s and its variants, Cinderella takes an active role in her transformation. She is shown as tough and resilient and as one who teaches us that wishes and desires are justifiable, but they are only obtainable if you are willing to pursue them. This paper explores how in her  debut novel Ancient Promise , Jaishree Misra’s  de-mythologizes the ‘Cinderella complex’  by subverting existing patriarchal ideologies and practices that have given rise to this psychological complex in women through centuries of social and cultural conditioning.
Keywords: ‘Cinderella Complex’, women, psychological dependency, Patriarchy, 
                        de-mythologize, Ancient Promise, subversion

The intervention of colonial laws and administration in the indigenous society of Odisha caused a lot of upheavals in the native's life. Along with the colonizers, the middle-class people also took advantage of the laws to exploit the innocent and illiterate lower class Odias. Fakir Mohan Senapati's path-breaking novel Six Acres and a Third skilfully mirrors this impact of Colonial intervention in Odia society. By giving a vivid picture of Colonialism and middle class dominance and oppression, Senapati exposes the system of his day and presents it in a satiric manner as an act of resistance. The novel, providing a micro picture of Colonialism and oppression of natives by the middle class people like Zamindars and Lawyers, depicts a number of social issues and implicitly critiques the whole system.