Experiences of Old Age in Indian Fiction: A Study of Two Indian Short Stories

Abstract

Abstract In India, where around 19,500 dialects are spoken, there is a great abundance of fiction quite rich in varied descriptions of old age and aging. While scholars like Pramod K. Nayar and Ira Raja have recently begun studying Indian literary texts written in English from the perspective of literary gerontology, those literary experiences of aging (which are originally in languages like Bengali, Tamil, Hindi, Oriya, etc.) are yet to be analyzed from a gerontological point of view. The present paper aims at studying the experiences of old age in 2 Indian short stories (one from Bengali Literature and another from Tamil Literature)—Bibhutibhusan Bandyopadhyay’s “Drabomoyee Goes to Kashi” (“Drabomoyeer Kashibash” in Bengali) and T. Janakiraman’s “The Puppet” (“Vilayattu Bommai” in Tamil). Regarding “Drabomoyee Goes to Kashi,” the paper interrogates the problems in the emplacement of Hindu older widows to Kashi and explores the possibilities in Drabomoyee from ecofeminist and creatural perspectives. The discussions on “The Puppet” chiefly reflect on the social exclusion of the aging bodies of people living with dementia. Through the story of Venu, the paper shows that what the society or family generally expects from the older persons suffering from dementia may not do any good to them, and may instead lead to their institutionalization and other forms of exclusion.