Understanding ‘dalit chetna’ in Adwaita Mallabarman’s Titash Ekti Nadir Naam, A River Called Titash

Abstract

In the following article, I have attempted to foreground the anti-caste or dalit consciousness of the novel Titash Ekti Nadir Naam by Adwaita Mallabarman. It is done in order to resist those readings or adaptations or interpretations of the text that have overlooked its radical content. I have looked at three aspects of the novel: the use of the folk, the question of emotionality and the relationship between spatiality and dalit identity formation. The article also delineates the kind of subject that emerges with the denouement of the novel. It is an interventionist reading of sorts that seeks to place the novel and the author in their socio-historical context. However, the essay does not engage in an anachronistic dalit critic and faults the text for the ‘absence’ of certain tropes or aesthetics that are considered to be typical of dalit writing.