Abstract: The automated balloon entity “Rover” from the iconic 1960s British television series The Prisoner represents a complex visual metaphor that may be understood via the work of cognitive theorists such as Mark Turner, George Lakoff, and Gilles Faconnnier, and especially via the work of the French theorist Gaston Bachelard. The key to the employment of a white spherical balloon as an enforcement device is its bifurcated inside-outside construction, which means that Rover is best understood as an amalgam of nurturing and control, but at the same time undermines any effort to differentiate between the two. In sum, Rover is a viable metaphor for a television series that explores the question of whether individual freedom is even possible in the contemporary world.

Freudian Analysis-I: The Critique of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(1), 20-28

Raj Kumar Barman (2026)

Article Type: Paper 

Abstract: In this research paper, the attention is given towards autobiographical writings of one of the most famous theatre actresses of the nineteenth- century Bengal, Binodini Dasi, to explore how her experiences on and off the stage create various and overlapping identities as presented in her autobiographical writings, Amar Katha (My Story) and Amar Abhinetri Jiban (My Life as an Actress). Based on theoretical literature that addresses the ontology of selfhood, this paper attempts to examine how gender, class, and performance interrelate to construct and express the subjectivity of Binodini Dasi, which is split and fragmented through her domestic, public, and artistic identities. Also, it posits that the existence of alienation or instability in Binodini that is brought about by the fragmentation of her ‘self’ reflects the structural and institutional forces that finally push her out of the mainstream socio- cultural life. This fractured sense of identity situates her life in what Judith Butler defines as precarity, a condition that is defined as vulnerable, dependant and marginalised by the social and cultural structure of that time.

Gorkhali Birta and the Narratives of Masculinity and Femininity in Madhu Gurung’s The Keeper of Memories

 DAATH VOYAGE, 11(1), 29-36

 Dr. Jemima Sakum Phipon (2026)

Article Type: Paper 

Abstract: The discourse of the ‘bir’ (brave) Gorkha reifies the Gorkha as a brave soldier armed with a khukuri (traditional machete)who decapitated the heads of enemies in the battlefield with unflinching ‘birta’ (bravery). This popular narrative of the Gorkha jati conflates the colonial formulation of the ‘Gorkha’ as a single, simplistic identity and the colonial narrative of the ‘Gorkha’ as a martial race. Ironically, this discourse which has also caught the popular imagination of the Nepalis/Gorkhas is essentially narrow, androcentric, and martial. It disregards domesticity and the quotidian, the other Nepali/Gorkha masculinities, and the female and the feminine. This paper looks at Gorkha women and their quiet, quotidian and enduring birta in Madhu Gurung’s The Keeper of Memories (2016) and few select lyrics. For generations, Gorkha women have glorified and validated the martial identity of the Gorkhas. Nepali mothers play a significant role in conditioning young men to join the Indian military service. Though Indian Nepali society boasts of being more liberal and considerate towards their women in comparison to many other Indian communities, the Nepali society is essentially patriarchal. Nepali women have been pushed to the margins and rendered silent and invisible. Madhu Gurung holds up a mirror to the realities of Gorkha/Nepali women across time and place. Indian Nepali women writings chronicle (her)stories of suffering, injustice, and oppression which have been silenced, and overshadowed by the dominant discourse of the masculine and martial Gurkha. These narratives portray that birta is not always about brandishing a khukuri but quiet endurance, waiting and ‘keeping’ familial and jatiya memories, tradition and culture.

Brand Mythologisation in the Marketplace: An Analysis of Selected Advertisements

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(1), 37-47

Dr Merin Jose (2026)

Article Type: Paper 

Abstract: In contemporary society, characterised by an ever-increasing consumerist attitude, the role and relevance of advertising narratives cannot be overlooked. Advertisements have employed various techniques to persuade people to make a purchase. A quick glance at the panorama of Indian advertising reveals many instances in which mythological stories and characters have been used effectively to reach the popular psyche. The advertisements utilise allusions to mythology through characters, stories, themes, and other elements. To make the advertising narrative more impressive. These advertisements draw heavily on the collective unconscious to connect with the target group and redirect the consumer’s psyche toward accepting an unfamiliar product. The qualities of a product are presented easily and effectively by associating them with the already internalised attributes of a name or a character with mythical lineage. The incorporation of myths in this manner plays a significant role in increasing brand familiarity, as it provides an opportunity to directly appeal to the collective unconscious. This paper explores how brand mythologisation occurs in selected Indian advertising narratives through semiotic analysis.

Himalayan Ecologies under Colonial strains: Reading Amitav Ghosh’s The Living Mountain with  Ramachandra Guha’s The Unquiet Woods

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(1), 48-57

Sonam Jalan and Dr. Narendra Ranjan Malas (2026)

Article Type: Paper 

Abstract: Indigenous practices have always been dismissed as irrational or wasteful by colonial powers in order to legitimize acts of expropriation under the guise of modernization and development. Colonial forestry and state-led development strategies have altered mountains and forests into contested political terrains, both socially and ecologically. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of these pressures on Himalayan ecologies by reading Amitav Ghosh’s The Living Mountain: a Fable for Our Times (2022) alongside Ramachandra Guha’s The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalayas (1989). By juxtaposing Ghosh’s fictional allegory with Guha’s real-world accounts, the paper illuminates the devastating impacts of colonial policies on the environment and indigenous resilient ways of adapting to the altered landscapes. Applying the frameworks of postcolonial ecocriticism and eco-orientalism- the tendency of belittling and exoticizing non-western landscapes in order to depoliticize environmental degradation, the paper explores the lingering yet often ignored impacts of colonialism on vulnerable ecosystem. The study traces the roots of environmental degradation and indigenous resilience back to the colonial development of Himalayan territories, their strategic significance, and the disastrous impact of British resource extraction and urban planning on indigenous populations. In doing so, the study calls for a decolonial rethinking of climate narratives, that transcends the eco-orientalist discussions of mountain ecologies by elevating indigenous knowledge, countering extractivism, promoting epistemic disobedience, and fostering sustainable collective living.

Across Two Worlds through a Shared Story of Womanhood in Bukowski’s Women and Anita Nair’s Ladies Coupe

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(1), 58-66

Ariharan S (2026)

Article Type: Paper 

Abstract: In literature, the female gender is barely depicted as a fixed identity but rather a state of voice, control, and survival. The works of Charles Bukowski (Women) and Anita Nair (Ladies Coupe) appear to come out of irreconcilable narrative conventions: one is defined by a confessional male voice that addresses women, another one is defined by women speaking to themselves and becoming visible. But in both novels, the authors reveal the act of negotiation of women within arenas that continue to seek to enclose them. In Women, desire is expressed by the power of masculine that makes intimacy a matter of property - “I looked at her body and I knew I wanted her” - repetition which turns females into consumables already and at the same time, the frailty of the narrative supremacy unmasked (Bukowski, 45). The women who pass through the story of Bukowski do not want to be fixed but do not want to be forgotten, disturbing the very gaze that they are supposed to be giving meaning to. In comparison, Ladies Coupe builds the womanhood by collective narration, where women express the inner struggles conditioned by marital relationships and labor, and the periods of deep silence. The characters of Nair do not question “whether they are loved or not, but rather whether a woman can ever be herself in positions strictly prescribed to her, turning the railway couple into the ad-hoc zone of feminist expression and common protest” (Nair, 82). Womanhood in both novels illustrates itself in these repetitive emotional realities: confinement, desire, withdrawal, and survival as opposed to cultural confrontation per se. Taken collectively, these texts make known the womanhood as a negotiation that exists through anticipating and defining the self.