PARADISE & PAIN: WOMEN & TRAUMA IN SELECT CONTEMPORARY KASHMIRI FICTIONS

Abstract

This doctoral thesis conducts a detailed examination of the depiction of trauma in three contemporary novels by Kashmiri writers. Authors of the select novels take to their central focus the new forces of destabilization gripping the indigeneity of the cultural ethos of Kashmir. They deal with the institutionalized heterogeneity of violence and the repeated references to enfeebling Kashmiriyat. Their representations about the religious extremism, schadenfreude and the crisis of the collective identity symbolize the epitome of enforced migration, homelessness, and the insidious disintegration of Kashmir: once the common abode of the congenial companions: Kashmiri Pandits and Kashmiri Muslims. With the enforced departure of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley in 1989, Kashmiri Muslims have also not seen and experienced complete peace in the Valley. Therefore, Kashmiri-origin writers have begun formulating their fragmented memories and severe desperation through their fictional works. In particular, these authors‘ literary expressions on Kashmir through the antithetical imageries of paradise and pain are remarkable. They articulate Kashmiris‘ lived-experiences, particularly women‘s encounters, vulnerability, and precarity that provide strong grounds to debate about their conditions at international levels. Their works carry special significance for those Kashmiri women who have been striving for almost three decades now to achieve some sense of recognition and personhood. The list comprises the Kashmiri Pandit women, ejected from the Valley and Muslim Half-Widows and Half-Mothers residing in the Valley who encounter difficulties on a day to day basis. In light of the volatility of situations and unrest, these authors give the most vivid expressions to these women‘s predicament in a very realistic manner.