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"We Exist in Water”: A Select Study of Mamang Dai’s River Poems 

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(2), pp 1-9

Dr. Temjenkala Yaden (2026)

Article Type: Paper  

Abstract:Rivers exist all over the world and have been an integral part of cultural identity in ways that engage with the social system. It has also been a subject of enquiry and inspiration across the ages, engaging men of science, men of faith, and men of poetry alike. In indigenous literature, water imagery appears in the trope of rain or rivers acting as an entity of their own. However, the affinity between the two runs deeper than simply co-existing in a shared space, and what is often overlooked is understanding matters of interaction and, consequently, the construction of relationships. Therefore, this paper will study the portrayal of rivers in literature, particularly in Mamang Dai’s collection of poems titled River Poems (2013), to understand the role of rivers and their significance in the cultural tradition of the people of Arunachal Pradesh. When the world is facing catastrophic events such as the global climate crisis, this paper will allow a better comprehension of how tribal cultures will be affected as well. It will also attempt to identify how rivers can contribute toward our understanding of the abiotic elements and locate their importance in the human-nature continuum. Additionally, Dai’s poetry collection will also add to the repertoire of where knowledge about rivers is produced. 

Negotiating the Human in Dystopia: Interpellation and Solidarities at the Margins in Prayaag Akbar’s Leila

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(2), pp 10-18

Dr. Anjali Dawar (2026)

Article Type: Paper

Abstract: Leila (2017), Prayaag Akbar’s dystopic novel can be viewed as a text where the state and nation have a faceoff. The power of the state machinery, which operates vertically, is opposed by the resistance mounted by individuals and horizontal solidarities forged between citizens. Akbar moves away from the ahistorical superstates of traditional western speculative fiction, by locating his novel in a hyper-local imaginary city in India. This is achieved primarily via imposition of sectarian walls and institutionalised “purity.” The exploration is primarily elucidated through the functioning of the city’s walls as Louis Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatuses, indicating that they act not merely as physical barriers but as instruments of interpellation and subject formation. Akbar examines the boundaries of state control through Shalini, situating her character as a central locus of resistance; she consistently rejects complete interpellation or subjugation by the regime. Drawing on Judith Butler’s notions of subject formation and Michel Foucault’s analysis of visibility, the paper traces the small, often silent ways in which characters resist state control. These moments of ethical witnessing and quiet solidarity suggest the persistence of an ethical agency within the margins of a totalising system. Finally, by applying Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of the Third Space to the child Leila’s identity, this paper argues that the novel finds a form of intimate resistance in the refusal of fixed categories, showing how love and memory persist as counter-narratives to the state’s demand for absolute purity.

Decolonising the Colonial Language: Reading Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(2), pp 19-25

Sanchita Mallick (2026)

Article Type: Paper

Abstract: It is always language in which one reads one’s culture and its institutional representations. History, hegemony, culture, and memory of any place find their due manifestation through language. And, here, if we look at the linguistic space of India, we find that since the colonial era, it was equally threatened and challenged; however, it remained strong and all-absorbing and hence, like a phoenix, it rose from its ashes, attaining new heights by donning the new colours of the colonial encounter. Indeed, the study of the evolution of English in India undoubtedly presents a story of inevitable conflict between power and resistance, and adoption and subversion. The growth of Indian Writing in English has always been entangled with “the politics of the Empire”, where the promotion of the study of the British language and literature in India was part of a well-thought-out colonial enterprise to demean Indian ways of reading and interpreting their own vernacular tongues. However, writers across generations subverted this attempt, and the language itself, to write “back to the empire”. Thus, the idea of ‘Indianness’ in Indian English through literature becomes an even more dynamic phenomenon. In this context, the present paper discusses Salman Rushdie’s vision of Indian Writing in English as presented in his novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990). He uses an English that decolonises itself and articulates the land's and its people's complexity. 

“We are the people of Apokalis”: Third World Disaster through Animals’ Eyes in Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(2), pp 26-32

Santi Ranjan Sing (2026)

Article Type: Paper

Abstract: The focus of this paper is to study the representation of industrial disaster, power politics and social inequity in the novel, Animals’ People by Indra Sinha. The setting of this novel is the fictitious city of ‘Kaufpur’ representing the city of Bhopal, India, that experienced the Gas Tragedy occurred in 1984. The narrative illustrates what happened after the toxic gas emissions from an American-owned chemical plant. The novel follows a 19-year-old boy’s life named Animal who was severely deformed by the disaster caused by the factory and how he perceives its social consequences on himself, and subsequently how corporate negligence and Western political dominance have affected the environment and have negatively impacted society as a whole. The novel addresses eco-crime and the notion of “slow violence” as a long-term way for those causing eco-crimes to inflict pain on both the ecology as well as the people who inhabit that space. This study examines these issues and the themes of marginalized voices, the effects of eco-crime on both human as well as the nonhuman world, and the critique against colonialist hegemony throughout the text.

Homelessness and Despair: A Diasporic Reading of Agha Shahid Ali’s poetry

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(2), pp 33-39

Dr. Shabeer Ahmad Shah (2026)

Article Type: Paper

Abstract: Virtuosity of being homeless is an ironical question, which tends to give birth to a much larger question of homelessness and its despair which sometimes acts as a painter of agony and pain on the blood shaded canvas, on the life of diaspora’s in all the corners of the world who faced it at its first hand sight and had become the citizens of no place, a traveller of no destiny and an endless desperate caravan, seeking shelter with their feared faces, confused expressions without any impression of resolution. Diaspora is a dispersion of people not only from their homes and homeland, but it is also dispersion from one’s life in which diasporas grew up and had lived a life of beautiful once from the world which was their own world. Diaspora writers, irrespective of geographical, social or linguistic backgrounds, often try to anew the past images of homelessness and despair. Agha Shahid Ali, a Kashmiri-American poet has shown the lack of order and prevalence of chaos in his writings. He tranquilized his poetry with nostalgia of past, agony, pain and obsession with memory, death, history, family, ancestors and his diasporic longing for his motherland and then his shift from diasporic longings to pain about his native sufferers which Shahid adhered in painting out his annoyance about it in his deep confluence of his poetry. This paper aims to analyse the poetry of Agha Shahid Ali, and would be an attempt to discover how Agha Shahid Ali gives a voice to his exilic feeling of anxiety to his homelessness.

Tree of Life in a Lifeless State: A Bioregional Reading of Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s “Municipal Gum” and Gieve Patel’s “On Killing a Tree”

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(2), pp 40-47

J Edwin Moses & Dr. Suresh Frederick (2026)

Article Type: Paper

Abstract:  A bioregion is identified by its distinct flora, fauna, geographical features of a place along with sustainable human cultures, dynamic relationship and evolution in  relation with the land. “A bioregion is a part of the earth’s surface whose rough boundaries are determined by natural rather than dictates, distinguishable from other areas by attributes of flora, fauna, climate, soils and landforms, and the human settlements human and cultures those attributes have given rise to”(Sale 78). Noonuccal was born on November 3, 1920, in Stradbroke Island, Queensland. Most Australians know her as Kath Walker, the name she was given by white people, but in 1988 she decided to change her name to identify more closely with her Aboriginal heritage. ‘Municipal Gum’ is a poem about a tree which is in a bad condition struggling to survive, surrounded by the hard bitumen. Gieve Patel, an Indian writer from the Green Movement describes the pain of a tree which is uprooted from its bioregion. The researcher attempts a bioregional reading of the poems which exposes the present state of the tree and the world. The loss of bioregions in Australia and India and the present condition of the Indigenous people is discussed with the need to reinhabit and protect the natural world.

The Multiplicities of Postcolonialism: A Reading of K. A. Abbas’ short story ‘Cold Wave’

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(2), pp 48-52

Dr. Atabi Saha (2026)

Article Type: Paper

Abstract: The paper analyses K. A. Abbas’ short story ‘Cold Wave’ as a modern narrative of an independent nation that is dealing each day with its colonial baggage. It is a reading of the postcolonial elite individual as a product of a transition that is far from complete and who is stranded in-between to eternally undergo the upheaval of constantly shifting identities. He represents the liminality that informs the ‘third space’ which, however, resists homogenisation as each occupant has his own unique crisis that will not be subsumed into any larger categorization. It studies the disparity that informs how postcolonialism is nurtured and negotiated by successive generations of colonised men, belonging to same origin and class. It also charts how women resist homogenisation through professional emancipation that disrupts the home/world binary and the status quo of patriarchal gendered expectations. It traces the fluctuation in linguistic acquisition, the inadvertent transformation and translation of the colonial tongue and its connection to class identities. Alongside, other subaltern issues have been dealt with to depict how Western knowledge loses it applicability in the colonised space and gets distorted through nuances of meanings to give way to curious structures of difference, showing how postcolonialism engenders an ambivalence and, in turn, is engendered by it.

Ecological Imagination and Human-Nature Symbiosis in Selected Kachchhi Folktales

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(2), pp 53-59

Ranbai Gelva & Dr Pulin Bhatt (2026)

Article Type: Paper

Abstract: Culture, traditions, and history are profoundly shaped by a region’s ecological conditions and natural environment, which influences and alters the lives of both human and non-human inhabitants. The detailed, intrinsic expressions of these aspects are often inscribed in the folklore of that region. Folklore, especially folktales, vividly portrays the interconnected relationship between ecology, culture, and collective consciousness, revealing a symbiotic bond between humans and the natural world. Kachchhi folktales, rooted in a land characterised by vast desert terrain, recurrent droughts, and a livelihood largely dependent on animals, portray the resilience and sustainable practices of communities facing ecological challenges. The study contributes to the underexplored area of Kachchh’s folk literature and unearths an embodied emotional bond that creates a unique worldview. It aims to analyse seven selected folktales of Kachchh, primarily from Duleray Karani’s folktale collections, which provide ample information about the Kachchhi language and literature. Using qualitative textual analysis, the paper examines the presence of ecological imagination and the active role of nature in shaping human life and relationships with the surroundings. The study is grounded in the theoretical frameworks of ecocriticism and environmental anthropology, drawing on Lawrence Buell’s concept of environmental imagination and Govindrajan’s perspectives on human-animal relations, respectively. 

Memories of Trauma: First Person Narratives from the Partition of India 1947

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(2), pp 60-69

Dr Indira Banerji (2026)

Article Type: Paper

Abstract:The watershed event that dramatically changed the political, social and cultural life in South Asia was the Partition of India in 1947 and this created Pakistan. It restructured geopolitics and brought new qualitative socio-political processes, which led to one of the greatest migrations in history. This was then followed by mass displacement, inter-group violence and mass human misery, as the British India was arbitrarily partitioned to form independent India and Pakistan. Division of this kind resulted in the biggest humanitarian crisis of its time that separated communities and families and displaced millions of people. The divide and rule policy by the colonial British created a bloody carnage, which had far reaching effects on identities and lives (Laxmiprasad). The decisions of the top-down politics ruined the commoners and left them with trauma which needed personal re-reflection. A state-centered approach is becoming more and more criticized by historians who are demanding more elaborate accounts that incorporate personal experience. The recent scholarship has seen a tectonic reassessment of Partition, moving beyond a strictly national history, to a group of provincial local and regional histories, which draw our attention to the many-sided and many-minuted impacts on individuals and localities (Khan). This paradigm shift highlights the human price, displacement, permanent loss, and traumatized life that transformed geographic politics of South Asia and its culture. Although political intrigue and geopolitical implications have always dominated the story, we need to know more about the life people live who witnessed the disaster. In particular, the incident caused enormous suffering on the part of Sikhs, Sindhia, Hindus, Punjabis and Bengalis and entailed not only political greed but also the abdication of power that contributed to a plethora of male and female suffering throughout the split and afterwards. The psychological effect of Partition was widespread, not only did it impact the refugees, but also eye witnesses, the perpetrators and aid workers, many of whom suffered permanent psychological health problems, including guilt and frozen emotions. The further complexification of the post-Partition society has been brought about by the intergenerational flow of this trauma, proving that the events of this scale still impact the further generations. It is on this long lasting influence that the revisiting of the Partition in non fictional writings and oral documents becomes very important in having a holistic view of the Partition aftermath particularly since collective memory and storytelling helps in coping and passing of the history to the forthcoming generation as a part of holistic comprehension. This is a reevaluation especially at a time when the population of those who firsthand experienced Partition is on the decline, and their first-hand narrative is thus very important in completeness of the historical event. These narratives are indispensible knowledge of the intricacies of displacement, identity formation and the power of human soul during the hardest time of its life. They add emotional importance and personal interest to writing of history. This paper is aimed at discussing how the reconsideration of Partition on the basis of non-fictional documentaries and oral history helps to make the historical narrative more detailed and more humanized. These are accounts providing an anti-hegemonic view, which tends to dismantle the mainstream nationalistic accounts by preempting subaltern discourses and realities of those who are most victimised. Through heightening the personal accounts, this study will fill in the gap between the macro-perspective of Partition and micro-experience of people who experienced this, which will help give a clearer picture of the long-term impacts of Partition. The methodology also sheds light on gendered nature of trauma of Partition that is often neglected and on complicated identities of the following generations being put back together. Further, the paper will also show how autobiographical first-person narratives are a vital historical and emotional source, which provides insights into the complex interaction between memory, trauma, and narrative. It will reveal how people cope with profound pain by producing coherent narratives, thus making important contributions to the research on memory and trauma by restoring the voices of oppressed communities and focusing on oral history in historical-making. 

From Scripture to Screen: A Study of Female Representation in the Textual and the Televised Ramayana

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(2), 70-79

Gayatri Muna & Dr Brahmananda Padra (2026)

Article Type: Paper

Abstract: The Valmiki Ramayana is not merely a religious scripture but a civilizational document that has shaped the national identity, socio-cultural values, and ethical foundation of Bharat. However, a substantial segment of modern Indian society takes its primary understanding of the Ramayana not from the original Sanskrit Adikavya but from the televised adaptation of the epic. Broadcast in late 1980s, the Ramayana serial of Ramanand Sagar has become the most widely popular adaptation of the Valmiki Ramayana, irreplaceable even by the technically advanced later adaptations. This paper aims to make a feminist evaluation of the Valmiki Ramayana and its televisual adaptation of Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan to identify the points of convergence and digressions between the two narratives and raises some poignant concerns about the ethical responsibility of adapting scriptural narratives with explicit acknowledgement of the interpretive departure. Grounded in feminist hermeneutics, this study will contribute to the discourse on gendered representation, mediated canon formation, and the ethical responsibilities involved in re-presenting foundational epics for mass audiences.

Marriage as Survival: Exploring the Economics of Wealth and Gendered Expectation in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(2), 80-86

Devika S Nair (2026)

Article Type: Paper

Abstract: In nineteenth-century England, the dynamics between marriage and wealth were closely intertwined, significantly influencing who people married, controlling the flow of wealth among families, and reinforcing gender expectations for men and women. Among the upper and middle classes, marriage played two specific roles. First and foremost, marriage in the nineteenth century was an economic institution. It functioned as a means of transaction to ensure the flow of wealth. Second, it was a personal relationship held up in much sacred terms. Marriage was a means of exerting control over women’s properties and was also a means of consolidating one’s social status. The equation of love in marriages was totally out of the question. This aspect is widely explored in Pride and Prejudice through the marriage prospects of Mr. Collins, Charlotte Lucas, and Mrs. Bennet. An exception to this is the marriage between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, who were initially at odds due to their respective pride and prejudice. Although their marriage is found to have an element of love, it cannot be neglected that Mr. Darcy’s fortune did play a role in securing this alliance. This article attempts to explore through the characters and their relationships, how wealth and social status influence the partners they choose in marriage, and how gender expectations are reinforced in society. Austen, having lived in an era where women were still fighting to claim their rights, paints the picture of the society that she inhabited and critiques its tendencies using the witty, sarcastic dialogues of her character, Elizabeth Bennet, thereby challenging the established conventions. Her novel continues to inspire generations of readers and is still relevant in the current scenario.

Time and Transformation: Lacanian Insights in Ali Smith’s Autumn

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(2), 87-96

Josepin Sunantha J & Dr L. Baskaran (2026)

Article Type: Paper

Abstract: Ali Smith’s Autumn, the first of her Seasonal Quartet of novels, examines temporality and processes of transformation, as well as Britain’s post-Brexit political transformation. This article examines the novel using the ideas of Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalysis, specifically Lacan’s concepts of the Real, the Symbolic, and the Imaginary, to elucidate Smith’s exploration of subjectivity, memory, and processes of subject formation. Autumn interweaves individual experience with contemporary political conditions and disrupts temporal linearity. This technique demonstrates Lacan’s idea of nachträglichkeit, or how our pasts are always being retroactively reinterpreted in relation to the present. The novel’s fragmented structure creates a sense of temporal dislocation, thereby demonstrating the destabilisation of the Symbolic Order, the framework through which meaning is structured, in post-Brexit Britain, where collective and individual identities are destabilised. Lacan’s thoughts on how societies change are useful in seeing Brexit as a breaking of the Symbolic Order, and in understanding the disturbing effect of the Real. Elizabeth’s life and her connection to Daniel in Autumn illustrate the fluidity of identity, the inevitability of transformation, and the difficulty of maintaining coherent subjectivity in a world that’s been broken.

Trapped in the System: Interpreting Benyamin’s Goat Days through Lee’s Push-Pull Theory

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(2), 97-106

Ms. Gopika B. & Dr. F. Julian Xercies Rigley (2026)

Article Type: Paper

Abstract: Benyamin’s Goat Days is a well-renowned Indian novel that revolves around migration, an act of moving from the home country to a destination for living. The story represents the real voice of an Indian Malayali migrant, Najeeb Muhammed, who migrates from Kerala (Origin) to the Gulf (Destination). The article titled “Trapped in the System: Interpreting Benyamin’s Goat Days through Lee’s Push Pull theory” aims to explore the push and pull factors concerned with Najeeb’s migration and to highlight the intervening obstacles and the personal factors he endured in the act of migration (Kerala to the Gulf). The researcher examines the realities of migration through Everett Lee’s push-pull theory by spotlighting the character Najeeb’s migration. This study examines the socio-economic forces that push and pull migrants, the intervening obstacles migrants endure, and the personal factors that depend on Individual experiences in the place of Destination. It also underscores that migration is not a uniform experience but is deeply shaped by intersecting mythologies and societal beliefs.  This paper cites Goat Days as an effective novel that gives voice to the muted struggles of migrants while pointing out that migration is a mere trap where dreams are broken in the name of opportunity.

Indentured Labourers and Cultural Diaspora: Exploring Folk Music and Food of Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(2), 107-114

Kumar Yashwant (2026)

Article Type: Paper

Abstract: The several readings on Indentured Labourers in the diasporic world of Malaysia and Mauritius have given a brief idea of the families from Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh who have contributed to an international cultural identity to Folk Music like Sohar and Chhattha Geet, and Folk Food like Thekua, along with everlasting cultural memories of these regions. The group of such Indentured Labourers formed different communities, such as the Bhojpuri-speaking community in foreign lands like Mauritius, to establish institutions that protect the Bhojpuri language and culture and to create a new transcultural relation. A similar transcultural relationship can be observed in the diasporic world of Fiji, Guyana, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and many others, as indentured labourers from Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh migrated to these host lands as well. Hence, the proposed paper shall trace the history of the Diaspora and the formation of diasporic cultural identity in Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh through cultural forms such as music and food. 

Beyond the Angel and the Monster: Reimagining Sita and Draupadi in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Forest of Enchantments and The Palace of Illusions

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(2), 115-124

Soumya Dey Sarkar (2026)

Article Type: Paper

Abstract: This paper examines contemporary feminist retellings of Indian epics against the framework of angel/monster (madwoman) binary as referred to in The Madwoman in the Attic (1979) by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar. This concept of binary is taken into consideration to study The Forest of Enchantments (2019) and The Palace of Illusions (2008) by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni to argue how these mythological novels challenge patriarchal representations of women, predominantly through Sita and Draupadi, in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata respectively. Sita in the former novel emerges as a questioning and self-aware narrator, while Draupadi’s anger and ambition in the latter are portrayed as a form of resistance rather than moral failings. The paper demonstrates how feminist retellings revise and update traditional myths by recovering marginalized female voices and perspectives and also redefine womanhood beyond such patriarchal binaries.

“Maybe it is easier to forget. But forgetting cures nothing.” –Remembering, Forgetting, and the role of Memory in Shehan Karunatilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maali Almeidai (2022)

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(2), 125-134

Boijayanto Mukherjee (2026)

Article Type: Paper

Abstract: Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka’s 2022 novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, balances fiction and nonfiction through magic realism. His novel sees its eponymous protagonist turning up in the afterlife, and being informed of the seven-moon period before his soul is lost forever. Thus, he must use this time to tie up the loose ends of his life, find his killer(s), and in the course of such actions, help change the tide of the war that has gripped his country. The narration foregoes the conventional format of storytelling, shifting perspective from the second to the third person narration and toggling between the present and the past. Apart from being deeply entrenched in Lankan culture, politics, and history, the narrative witnesses a constant pull towards the act of remembering. The novel is also concerned with how the phenomenon of recalling is an act of reclamation, a way of making voices heard, contributing to our shared as well as individual history. This makes forgetting a sort of surrendering which legitimizes the actions of institutions, while turning the act of retention into something rebellious, one that refuses to let bygones be bygones. When we remember, we speak out; when we speak out, we rebel. Using Hirsche’s idea of postmemory and Hartman’s concept of critical fabulation, this paper will examine how Karunatilaka positions memory and remembering as instruments of resistance, invoking the suppressed histories of violence that nations often choose to forget.

Rover the Nanny/Rover the Enforcer

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(1), 1-10

Robert Tindol (2026)

Article Type: Paper 

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), 11-19

Dr. Raghavendra Nayak (2026)

Article Type: Paper 

Abstract: Crime and Punishment focuses the theoretical framework of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytical analysis and the psychological complexity of Rodion Raskolnikov. This paper examines the complex relationship between distinct consciousness of individuals, social circumstances, and moral conflict, inner-stress of Raskolnikov’s actions which emerges from a seam of poverty, isolation, and ideological extremism. His confidence in actual life with the superiority of extraordinary individuals that truly reflects a psychological defence mechanism. His individual connections with the surrounding rooted in tyranny and compensatory longing. The paper is drawing on Freud’s concepts of instinct, repression, and palliative measures. It also argues that Raskolnikov’s intellectual reasonings for crime are ultimately undermined by unconscious guilt and emotive unsteadiness. His imagined pre-eminence and proof of identity with figures, such as superhuman or Napoleon, of power purpose as misapprehensions that temporarily safeguard him from anguish but steadily increase his mental and moral catastrophe. The study further reveals how his emotional fragmentation demonstrates through alienation and anxiety. Additionally, the paper explores the role of interpersonal relationships with other characters by guiding Raskolnikov toward self-realization and redemption. Thus, the paper concludes that Dostoevsky presents crime not merely as a legal transgression but as a deeply psychological and ethical phenomenon. Ultimately, the Freudian perspective reveals that human suffering arises from unresolved inner conflicts that cannot be rationally suppressed. 

Multiplicity and Marginality: An Examination of Performance, Identity, and Precarity in Binodini Dasi's My Story and My Life as an Actress

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.

Beyond the Human: Nature, Uncanniness, and Gothic Atmosphere in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(1), 67-75

Karishma Daimari (2026)

Article Type: Paper 

Abstract: This paper revisits The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by considering it through the concept of the ecological uncanny. Although the previous criticism frequently developed a psychological manner to explain the uncanny after Freud brought forth the concepts of repression and recollection of the familiar, this paper contends that Poe finds uncanniness in the material world. In the novel, the sea is not just the place where the human fear is projected, but it is the overwhelming power that disturbs the human power, rational organization, and chronology. By reading considerately, it becomes clear that the novel presupposes the idea of vulnerability of bodies, disorientation of space, and boundaries of scientific knowledge, which demonstrate the weakness of human control in large ecological systems. When Poe is presented together with ecocritical and posthuman thought, the study suggests that the Gothic novel ambiance is a result of a troubled awareness of the fact that human beings are at a loss to acknowledge the presence of things that are beyond their understanding. It is here that the ecological uncanny as a restructuring of Poe can be introduced to take a new shape outside the psychological explanations of him.

Revival of Vaiṣṇavism in Rabindranath Tagore’s Lyrics

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(1), 76-85

Suman Adak (2026)

Article Type: Paper 

Abstract: Rabindranath Tagore’s literary evolution denotes a juncture in Indian thought. His spiritual and philosophical maturity reflected in his lyrics. This paper attempts to examine a revival of Vaiṣṇavism through Tagore’s works. The paper gives special importance to his lyrics, tracing their trajectory from padāvalī poetry of medieval sentiments in Bhanusingha Thakurer Padabali to the universalized faith of Gitanjali and the foundational principles of his Religion of Man. Placing Tagore’s work within the context of nineteenth-century Bengal, this study explores how Tagore reanimated the core tenets of Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism making it relevant and universal in appeal. The paper also looks forward to Tagore’s engagement with the Baul heritage, his development of the Jīvan Devatā concept, and his modernization of kīrtana (devotional chanting and singing) influenced by the musical scholarship of the 18 th century. The results reveal that Tagore brought Vaiṣṇava humanism back to life as a method for every class of people to be spiritually free and socially acceptable.

Folk Memory as Counter-Archive: Colonial Encounter, Power, and Resistance in Bihu Songs 

DAATH VOYAGE, 11(1), 86-98

Leenasri Gogoi (2026)

Article Type: Paper 

Abstract: This paper examines Bihu songs of Assam as counter-archives that preserve and reinterpret the colonial encounter through folk memory. Drawing on the postcolonial lens of Edward Said and Homi Bhabha, the study explores how these songs articulate power, resistance and a critique of colonial modernity. The study focuses on selected Bihu songs collected from secondary sources. By employing textual analysis, it looks at how figures like the “Bongal” and the “Sahab,” along with images of steam engines and tea gardens, capture the tangled mix of domination, adaptation, and quiet defiance that shaped people’s lives under colonial rule. While the songs encapsulate the lived experience of labor exploitation and the social changes brought by colonial policies, they often reshape these memories through humour, irony, and a grounded sense of identity. By embedding colonial experiences within agrarian, ecological, and affective idioms, Bihu songs turn artistic expression into a form of historical consciousness. The study argues that these songs function as living folk archives, keeping collective memories alive and challenging the gaps and silences in official colonial histories through folk expression, remembrance, and resistance.

                                    
                                              

 

 

 

                   

 

 

 

 

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    E-mail: saikatdaath2016@gmail.com,  editor@daathvoyagejournal.com

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