Abstract: This article from Malayalam, July 2005 seeks to vindicate/exonerate Thathri of all the accusations labeling her as a whore and a seducer. It makes an attempt to locate and validate the true motives that may have driven Thathri to execute her elaborate scheme. V. T. Bhattathirippad assumes that it is not lust or the greed for wealth that instigated her, but her strong desire to protest against the grossly unfair patriarchal system of her days when woman was reduced to insignificance, into a mere Sadhanam. In fact, V.T. suggests that, in truth, Thathri is the torch-bearer of the various reform movements that were soon to follow within the Namboothiri community. Many a murderer and a bandit have turned heroes with the passage of time. The writer argues in favour of Thathri being recognised as a Renaissance heroine instead of a harlot. Many a person accused of crimes has later turned great heroes, but Thathri has no redemption in sight.
Abstract: This article provides a historical-theoretical understanding regarding how the institution of chastity trials was intertwined with the larger social concern of women’s perceived purity and the circumstances under which the exercise would be carried out.
Abstract: This paper proposes to explore how the notion of beauty is qualified en face transgender identity and experience. In her lecture titled On Beauty and Being Just, Elaine Scarry associates the experience of beauty with the desire for justice.…
Abstract: The Tamil writer P. Sivakami’s sequential novels The Grip of Change (Pazhaiyana Kalithalum, 1989) and Gowri: Author’s Notes (Gowri: Aasiriyar Kurippu, 1999) were written in the wake of the Bodi caste riots in Tamil Nadu between Pallars (a Dalit caste…
Abstract: This article attempts to examine signification of intimacy in Kamala Das’ (Madhavikkutty alias Kamala Surayya) writings and analyses how relations incorporate themselves in her works. Patterns of intimacy in its various manifestations become the mechanics of Das’ output penetrating…
Abstract : Situating Mahesh Dattani’s 30 Days in September within theatrical tradition of feminist plays in India, this article attempts to foreground the depiction of experiencing and witnessing trauma. Dattani’s work probes tangled attitudes in contemporary India towards communal differences,…
Abstract: In this article a reading of early Manipravalam literature of Keralam as a performative practice is attempted. Tracing out from the texts two historical milieus where praise poems in the hybrid tongue were performed, there is a search to…
Abstract: This article analyses how Kannagi as a symbol of chastity originated and acquired meaning; the relationship between chastity and body, its patriarchal representation in Śilappadikāram and understand the problematic working of female sexuality as a patriarchy-defined system in the…
Abstract: Religious texts and ritual practices have been equal participants in creating cultural narratives that define the mosaic of a society, sometimes subversively so. These elements are alternately causative in the creation of the paradigm of emotion that locate the…
Abstract: The present paper examines the household economy of industrial workers (male) after retrenchment from their work due to lock out and lay off industries suddenly. They were victims of union unrest and false sense of security for compensation. After…
Abstract: The articulation of sexuality within the malayala brahmana community is interspersed with the narrative representation of it in memoirs. Memories of everyday inconspicuousness of the Antherjanam considered “asuryampashyakal”, their semantics of appearance, elaborate ritualistic seclusion (ghosha) within the confines…
Abstract: Audre Lorde is a Black lesbian writer and a cancer survivor. Lorde uses the erotic as a tool to expose the hypocrisy in the white male heterosexual world that pronounces the “unexpressed and unrecognised” identities as pornography. This linguistic…
