BODHI International Journal of Research in Humanities, Arts and Science
Navigating Innovation: Challenges and Opportunities in Modern Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship has emerged as a vital driver of economic growth, innovation, and social development in the modern global landscape. Modern entrepreneurs are not only tasked with transforming ideas into viable ventures but also navigating a rapidly evolving ecosystem shaped by technological advancements, market dynamics, and shifting consumer preferences. This paper explores the key challenges that contemporary entrepreneurs face, including resource constraints, market competition, regulatory complexities, and the uncertainty associated with disruptive technologies. Simultaneously, it highlights the opportunities created by digitalization, globalization, sustainable business practices, and social entrepreneurship initiatives, which enable entrepreneurs to innovate and scale efficiently. Through a synthesis of recent literature and case studies, the study identifies strategies that foster resilience and adaptability, such as leveraging networks, adopting agile business models, and integrating technologydriven solutions. The findings underscore that while modern entrepreneurship involves inherent risks, the evolving economic and social environment provides unprecedented avenues for innovation and value creation. By understanding these challenges and opportunities, aspiring and established entrepreneurs can better navigate the complex landscape of modern business, driving growth, competitiveness, and societal impact.
Copyright (c) 2025 A. Rajasekaran, Aarcha, Mishra.V https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Spectacle of Protest: Power and Resistance in Cosmopolis
In this postmodern era, humans are evolving within systems that are deeply shaped by high-tech capitalism. Even marginalized communities are being drawn into this nest, where survival often depends on participation in the very structures that oppress them. In such a world, resistance must also evolve. It no longer looks same and now, even acts of silence, violence, or protest carry new meanings. This paper explores how people in the streets express resistance and how capitalist society chooses to view or dismiss them. In Cosmopolis, Don DeLillo presents various kinds of protest such as chaotic, fragmented, and symbolic but all of them are deeply interconnected. At their core, they demand the same thing, the right to live a peaceful life, free from the constant pressures and controls of capitalist power. These people don’t want to be controlled. They want to be seen, heard, and allowed to exist on their own terms. In Cosmopolis the protagonist Eric Packer is a billionaire, yet he is also deeply vulnerable. However, to the public, the protestors, he represents the face of capitalism. Throughout the novel, different events unfold around him that reflects the resistance of ordinary people. This paper argues that the high-tech capitalist system deliberately refuses to recognize these protests as meaningful instead they are devalues them.
Copyright (c) 2025 M. Boomika, S. Karthika https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Transgender Marginalization and Exclusion in Arundathi Roy’s The Ministry of the Utmost Happiness
This article aims to examine how Anjum, the protagonist of Arundathi Roy's 2017 book The Ministry of the Utmost Happiness, reflects transgender discrimination and identity crises. The degree to which a person possesses feminine or masculine characteristics that fit the socially prescribed description of a male or female is known as their gender identity. One psychological feature of an individual that reflects their sexual inclinations is their gender identity. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is a work of fiction that centers on Anjum, a transwoman who is trying to establish herself in Delhi. It has the powerful voice of the LGBT community in contemporary India. With varying historical backgrounds, this book reflects a number of prevalent forms of discrimination in Indian society, including caste-based discrimination against Dalits, discrimination against Muslim minorities based on religious prejudice, gender identity-based discrimination against transgender people, discrimination against women based on male dominance, and national identity crisis based on multiethnic alienation that causes identity crisis in the dislocated and disoriented people. Due to their inability to fit in with the prejudiced society, victims of discrimination have personality disorders and feelings of alienation, which are indicative of identity crises. It is explained how the study of personality using queer theory is applied to Anjum's character in Pursuit of the True Self. The hijra character is constructed and used in fictional literature as a focal point for broader anti-sociality as well as a symbol of deviance. While trying to live in a society that is becoming more and more marginalized, Hijras continue to struggle for their rights.
Copyright (c) 2025 Udhayakumar J, P. Revathy https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
A Scientific Fantasy: Amitav Ghosh’s The Calcutta Chromosome
This paper discusses The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh as a work of scientific fantasy. The narrative follows several personalities and jumps around in time, all of which are expertly woven together. Antar, an Egyptian clerk in New York City (NYC), encounters a misplaced ID card in the book. Antar met a weird man named Murugan a long time ago, and he owns it. He is the man renowned to be the foremost expert about Ronald Ross, who was responsible for the 1898 Malaria mystery in Calcutta. As Antar investigates the man's true fate, a tangled web develops, and by the time Antar becomes embroiled in it, already too late to escape. With multiple storylines from various eras, the book has multiple layers. Naturally, the goal is for them to eventually blend together nicely.
Copyright (c) 2025 Thangam S, Ponmani Subha Chellam, J. Vasantha Sena https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Psychological Isolation and Emotional Collapse: A Humanities Perspective on the Shining
This paper explores the psychological and emotional effects of isolation, as depicted in Stephen King's The Shining. Sifting through a humanistic perspective, the research looks into what happens when people endure prolonged isolation— physical and emotional—resulting in psychic breakdown and states of a different reality. Centring its criticism around Jack, Wendy, and Danny Torrance, the study discusses how the Overlook Hotel functions as both a haunted house and a trope for trapping the mind and the heart. Jack’s madness, Wendy’s growing terror and panic, and Danny’s psychic trauma mirror more general concerns in psychological humanities about the boundaries of the human brain faced with social disconnection. Through a consideration of literature as a terrain for psychological investigation, this article also adds to existing discussions of emotional strength and weakness and the cultural depiction of loneliness-induced suffering.
Copyright (c) 2025 R. Sheeba Mary https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
From Silence to Voice: Reclaiming Identity in Nadia Hashimi’s The Pearl that Broke its Shell
This paper looks at the issues of marginality, cultural displacement, and identity reclamation in Nadia Hashimi’s novel The Pearl That Broke Its Shell. In the interwoven stories of Rahima and her great-great-grandmother Shekiba, the novel showshow Afghan women negotiate with a very large-scale patriarchy that has made them invisible and voiceless. Both main characters present with cultural and social exclusion, which is a result of gender roles and traditional practices like bacha posh, which puts girls out as boys at times in which they may not otherwise have those freedoms. The novel does a great job at presenting the internal and external displacements, which in turn form the broken sense of self for the characters. Their journey is that of a struggle to restore identity in a culture that is dominated by sociocultural systems and systemic forces that undermine women. Using a postcolonial feminist lens, the study analyzes the role of storytelling and memory in empowerment and acts of defiance. It also illustrates the process of defiance and survival of the act of reclaiming identity in the context of collective and personal identity. Hashimi narrates a dissenting story portraying the socially dead women’s lives and the routes they can take toward womanhood, which profoundly highlights resistance, self-determination, and identity reclamation.
Copyright (c) 2025 S. Satheesh Kumar, S. Khaleel Ahamed https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
An Analysis of the Effects of Post-War Traumatic Stress in the Lives of Soldiers and Civilians in David Grossman’s To the End of the Land
War, the humungous destroyer of humanity, leaves a dreadful mark on the hearts of individuals. The people who are mostly affected by it: Soldiers, and civilians who see it with their naked eye. During War, cities are bombarded continuously, while captured soldiers are tormented physically and mentally. The paper brings out the Physiological and Psychological trauma faced by individuals who have experienced war. It analyses David Grossman’s To The End of The Land, and studies its characters that face the Post-war trauma, chiefly trauma present in the lives of soldiers and their relations. The novel is set in the country of Israel, so it focuses on Israelis and the struggles they face. The researcher has employed the Trauma theory of Judith Herman to study the Post-traumatic effects of war in the lives of soldiers and employed the Trauma Theory of Foa and Kozak to study the post-traumatic effects of war in civilians who experience bombings every day. By the application of the Theory, the researcher would study the effects of War and how it affects the physical and mental health of individuals. The paper is a theoretical study of War and its Post-traumatic effects in Israeli Society.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ribi Caroline Ravi, U. Kethrapal https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Impact of Visuals on the Marginalised Self in Jose Saramago’s The Double
Ever since the novel has developed into a distinct genre, various techniques in content and narration have been explored by novelists across the globe. In doing so, the genre has attempted to capture the multifaceted complexities of modern life. The Hungarian literary critic George Lukács once said that the novel was the epic of modern life, abandoned by God. This radical view of the novel is exemplified in the works of Portuguese writer José Saramago. In The Double, while addressing various major modernist themes, Saramago delves into a human consciousness that is alienated and marginalized by the overwhelming influence of visuals that dominate human life. It is not commodities, as Marx suggested but the spectacles of them that have come to dominate our existence, according to the neo-Marxist theorist Guy Debord offering a slight twist on Marx’s worldview. These visuals not merely accumulate in the present world but also govern our modern lives. Their effects are far-reaching, leading to a range of phenomena from people doubting their own reality to individuals feeling estranged from themselves. This paper aims to explore how visual culture in the contemporary world influences individual identity, leading to the fragmentation and the marginalization of the self.
Copyright (c) 2025 T. Rajaji, M. Senthil Kumar https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Echoes of Fire and Earth: Feminist Reimagining of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Draupadi and Sita
The epics Mahabharata and Ramayana have long shaped Indian cultural and moral frameworks, which supports patriarchal norms through their portrayal of women. In her novels The Palace of Illusions and The Forest of Enchantments, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni revisits these texts through a feminist lens, granting narrative agency to the silenced women, Draupadi and Sita. This research article titled, “Echoes of Fire and Earth: Feminist Reimaginings of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Draupadi and Sita” proposes to explore how two mythological women, long confined to the margins of epic narratives, are given voice to their inner world. It also aims to show how Divakaruni reimagines Draupadi and Sita not as idealised symbols of virtue or sacrifice, but as complex, feeling, thinking women navigating love, duty, betrayal, and inner conflict. Draupadi burns with questions and anger, while Sita endures with quiet strength, yet both emerge as courageous women.
Copyright (c) 2025 M. Vijayavalli, A. Suryanarayanan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Stuck in the Hood: Black Mobility, Loyalty, and Racial Caricature in Grand Theft Auto
This paper offers a critical analysis of the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) franchise’s representation of Black male identity, with a particular focus on the character dynamics between CJ and Sweet in GTA: San Andreas and Franklin and Lamar in GTA V. Through close textual analysis of narrative structure, inter-character dialogue, and gameplay mechanics, this study argues that Rockstar Games constructs “the hood” as both a point of origin and a site of confinement, reinforcing racial caricatures beneath a veneer of satire. While CJ and Franklin articulate aspirations to transcend the structural conditions of street life, they are continually recentered within the hood through relationships that frame upward mobility as betrayal. Specifically, Sweet invokes notions of familial obligation and moral loyalty, whereas Lamar employs humor and performative authenticity to ridicule Franklin's ambitions. These dynamics illustrate a broader representational pattern in Rockstar’s design. The aestheticization of Black marginality is coupled with the denial of meaningful social mobility. Drawing from critical race theory, cultural studies, and game studies particularly the works of Stuart Hall, Kishonna Gray, and Lisa Nakamura this paper interrogates how GTA grapples with, but ultimately reproduces, reductive portrayals of Black identity, aspiration, and loyalty.
Copyright (c) 2025 P. Brian Patrick, V.Saravanan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Postcolonial Texts: Expressions from the Periphery
Postcolonial literature serves as a powerful response to colonial history, offering an authentic portrayal of the experiences of people who were once colonized. This study explores the development and importance of postcolonial literary works, focusing on how they give voice to and reclaim the identities of marginalized communities. Drawing on key postcolonial theorists like Gayatri Spivak, Edward Said, and Homi Bhabha, the research highlights how writers use literature as a means to resist and challenge colonial ideologies. It also examines how concepts like intersectionality and identity politics influence the depiction of race, gender, and class in these texts. Ultimately, the study underscores the continued importance of decolonizing approaches to understanding postcolonial literature, which plays a vital role in shaping a more diverse and inclusive global literary tradition.
Copyright (c) 2025 Anne Jophina K, M. Radha https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Exploration of Gender Roles and Societal Expectations in Mahesh Dattani's Dance Like a Man
Mahesh Dattani’s play Dance Like a Man is a thought-provoking exploration of how gender roles and societal expectations shape individual identity, career choices, and familial relationships. Set in the context of a conservative Indian society, the play examines how gender identity, particularly masculinity, is policed and how individual dreams are often sacrificed at the altar of social conformity. Through the lens of Bharatanatyam dance and the lives of three generations, Dattani addresses deeply rooted patriarchal norms and challenges the traditional understanding of masculinity and femininity. This paper aims to analyze the play in the context of gender politics, generational conflict, and cultural expectations in Indian society.
Copyright (c) 2025 J. Denish Daisy https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Exile’s Bed: Memory, Displacement, and Identity in Mahmoud Darwish’s A Bed for the Stranger
This study critically examines three poems “We Were Without a Present,” “The Stranger Finds Himself in the Stranger,” and “The Land of the Stranger, the Serene Land” from Mahmoud Darwish’s 1999 collection A Bed for the Stranger. Through close reading and thematic analysis, the paper explores how Darwish reframes alienation, temporal dislocation, and exile as sources of identity rather than loss. Each poem is shown to reimagine solitude and displacement as spaces of poetic resilience transforming memory into refuge, self-alienation into collective echo, and absence into a lyrical site of belonging. By integrating vivid quotations and situating the poems within Darwish’s broader late style and political-poetic context, the article argues that A Bed for the Stranger marks a crucial evolution in Darwish’s approach to exile where grief, nostalgia, and language converge to claim presence within absence. The findings contribute to scholarship by foregrounding how poetic labor builds diasporic identity through metaphor, time, and remembered geography.
Copyright (c) 2025 S. Ummu Shamima, S. Kaleel Ahamed https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Single Parenthood and Social Inclusion in Nick Hornby’s About a Boy: A Study through the Lens of Attachment Theory
Parenting and a child’s early attachment style with their parents play a key role in shaping their self-image, identity, thinking process, attitude, and way of handling their relationships and life. Much like the roots of a tree, it serves as the foundation that ultimately shapes their mindset and life. This paper explains how a child’s attachment to their parents plays a crucial role in their life. It psychoanalyses the protagonist Marcus, in the novel ‘About a Boy’ by Nick Hornby, by employing the Theory of Attachment by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. It articulates Marcus’s drastic change from exhibiting the signs of anxious attachment when he was raised by his depressed single mother, Fiona, resulting his social exclusion, to a more mature and confident one when he forms a secure bond with Will, which ultimately enabled greater social inclusion and emotional growth.
Copyright (c) 2025 Fathi Muthu Zuhara M https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
A Psychoanalytic Perspective in Toni Morrison’s Beloved with a Reference to the Protagonist Sethe
Sethe's conflicted personality and her act of killing her own daughter in Toni Morrison's widely acclaimed novel Beloved has remained a very serious matter of concern leaving readers, researchers and critics alike in a state of shock. It is an attempt to probe into the psyche of Sethe in order to unveil certain psychological facts behind her complicated behaviour which led her to kill her own child and pushed her further into a state of unimaginable sufferings thereby. In order to example her thought process and the reasons behind an imbalance in her personality this paper took insights from Sigmund Freud's theory of personality in the three elements of her psyche resulted in Sethe's abnormal and unstable sense of self. However, the paper also detailed the ways in which Sethe' acknowledgement with her past by employing different coping strategies helped her in developing a stable personality.
Copyright (c) 2025 P. Kalai Roja https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Silenced Voices: Racial and Social Marginalization in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird
This study looks at the theme of racial and social marginalization in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, which takes place in the 1930s in the racially segregated town of Maycomb, Alabama. The book shows how people who are on the fringes of society, like African Americans, poor whites, and those who don’t follow traditional rules, are silenced or pushed to the edges. The story shows how deeply ingrained prejudice and strict class structures affect the community through characters like Tom Robinson, Boo Radley, and Mayella Ewell. The study looks at how systemic racism, class-based discrimination, and gender expectations all work together to deny some characters justice, a voice, and respect. The study also looks at Scout’s changing point of view as a way for the reader to understand these wrongs. Harper Lee brought the silenced voices to the front by Harper Lee criticizes a society that says it values justice and equality but doesn’t live up to those values. The author of this paper says that To Kill a Mockingbird is more than just a coming-of-age story; it’s also a powerful critique of how people who are seen as different, weak, or powerless are pushed to the edges of society.
Copyright (c) 2025 K. Subha https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Voices of Marginalized Women in Anita Nair’s Novels
Anita Nair is a renowned novelist and has become known as a writer possessing deep insight into the female consciousness. Her novels are all about various women's issues in contemporary Indian society. Her novels also highlight subjugation, discrimination, silence domestic violence, familial tensions, patriarchy, loneliness, and rejection of women by her husband. Feminism stands for equality and equal standards of living for every gender. Feminism as a movement stands against patriarchy. Patriarchy is a social system, whereby the male member of the family takes precedence and is considered to be the head. This paper reviews the theme of feminism in the novels of Anita Nair. Women are viewed as inferior in our society and are declared unsuitable for independent living. Many educated women nowadays are attempting to alter the traditional images that are still prevalent in our culture. Akila and Meera, the characters of Anita Nair's books Ladies Coupe and Lessons in Forgetting, have never been able to live on their own. These characters are desperate to reject their traditional identities. The protagonists in Nair's films amply demonstrated the power of education in transforming the stereotypical image of women.
Copyright (c) 2025 P. Suha Sankari https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
War and Trauma in Khaled Hosseini’s Novel A Thousand Splendid Suns with the Reference of Mariam and Laila’s Life
Khaled Hosseini is one of the most famous recent writers of Afghanistan. He has written three novels based on the Trauma and War under the background of Afghanistan. In this paper, I would like to explore the theme of War and Trauma in Hosseini’s second novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, especially with the reference of the life of Mariam. The violent history of Afghanistan is depicted in Khaled Hosseini’s novels in vivid detail, highlighting the psychological effects and human cost of war. The terrible effects of decades of civil war, turmoil in politics, and Taliban repression on common Afghans, especially women, are depicted in A Thousand Splendid Suns. Through the experiences of Mariam and Laila, two women whose personal narratives tie within the misunderstanding of struggle, this paper examines the themes of trauma, displacement, and emotional suffering brought on by war. The study uses literary analysis to show how Hosseini uses trauma narratives, realism, and emotional storytelling to illustrate the resilience of the human spirit and the generational effects of violence. In the end, the study emphasises the novel’s significance as a record of female companionship, survival, and the long-lasting effects of war.
Copyright (c) 2025 G. Ramya Sri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
A Study of Eco-Cosmopolitanism in Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide
This paper presents an eco-cosmopolitan reading of Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide, investigating how the novel engages with global environmental concerns through the lens of native ecological narratives. In the Sundarbans, a fragile and contested deltaic region in eastern India, The Hungry Tide portrays the interconnections between human and non-human life forms, reflecting a complex ecological consciousness. The novel challenges anthropocentric and Euro-centered paradigms by foregrounding transnational ecological solidarities, indigenous knowledge systems, and the ethical dilemmas posed by conservation. Through its depiction of tidal rhythms, endangered species, and socio-political conflicts, Ghosh’s narrative advocates for an eco-cosmopolitan ethic—one that recognizes global environmental interdependence while being rooted in local specificities. This paper argues that The Hungry Tide not only highlights the ecological priority of marginalized communities but also calls for a reconceptualising of cosmopolitanism in the age of climate crisis.
Copyright (c) 2025 E. Suresh https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Law as Absurdity and Study of Legal Alienation and Bureaucratic Oppression in Kafka’s The Trial
Franz Kafka’s The Trial explores the nightmarish experience of an individual entangled in a faceless, incomprehensible judicial system. The Trial is a haunting exploration of the modern legal system's potential for alienation, absurdity, and bureaucratic dehumanization. It is describe the picture of a society where laws are unknowable and justice is an illusion and the crushing weight of bureaucratic systems, offering insights into Kafka’s prophetic vision of institutional horror and existential despair. This paper examines how Kafka uses absurdity, bureaucracy, and the psychological torment of the protagonist, Josef K., to critique blind legal systems and expose the dehumanizing effects of modern justice.
Copyright (c) 2025 S. L. Sathia Sali https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Voices from the Margins: Resistance, Identity, and Empowerment in Women's Literature
In literary history, women's voices especially those of marginalized women have been silenced, misrepresented, or omitted altogether. Herein, this paper delves into how literature becomes a space of transformation in which these women retake their voice, claim their identity, and challenge dominant cultural, social, and political discourses. With a focus on works of authors like Toni Morrison, Bama, Mahasweta Devi, Maya Angelou, and JhumpaLahiri, the current research analyzes how women's lives are shaped by different intersecting forces like caste, race, and gender and how these forces were represent in their writing. It is contended here that these works are not just narratives of oppression but acts of resistance and empowerment. Whether through dispersed autobiographical forms, reinvented mythologies, or representational imagery, these writers offer spaces for the voice of the marginalized women who resist traditional canons of literature and social hierarchies. Examining thematic issues like silencing, the feminized body, displacement in culture, and articulation of language, and this paper underscores the need for inclusive literary discussion and underlines the continued relevance of marginalized women's literature in modelling both literature and society.
Copyright (c) 2025 M. Sumithra https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Silence as a Representation of Screams: The Emotional Price of Marginalisation
This article examines the relationship between marginality and mental health, highlighting the significant emotional and psychological difficulties that people who are marginalised because of their gender, caste, class, or economic standing face. The study examines Draupadi by Mahasweta Devi and Coolie by Mulk Raj Anand to demonstrate how different forms of marginalisation affect people's mental health.Dopdi Mejhen, a tribal woman in Draupadi, is the target of state violence. Despite abuse, she didn't weep or feel bad about herself. Her boldness and calmness joined together to create a strong and deep form of resistance. Poverty, class disparity, and ongoing exploitation are the main causes of Munoo's suffering in Coolie. The trauma and powerlessness experienced by those at the bottom of society are reflected in his journey. Both texts demonstrate how patriarchal environments suppress women's voices and desires, resulting in social exclusion, emotional repression, and mental health issues.These characters suffer from a society that does not treat them with dignity in addition to their own personal suffering. These texts support the claim that social exclusion, oppression, and injustice are not only medical problems but also factors that lead to mental health problems. Thus, literature becomes a powerful medium for conveying the emotional struggles of the impoverished that are often unsaid.
Copyright (c) 2025 Tamilselvi. S https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Reimagining English Language Teaching: The Role of Technology Integration in 21st Century ELT Classrooms
The integration of technology in English Language Teaching (ELT) has transformed traditional approaches to language instruction, bridging geographical boundaries and redefining teacher and learner roles. As the demands of the 21st-century workforce and digital literacy increase, the role of technological tools in ELT has become indispensable. This research paper explores how technology influences ELT by examining its theoretical underpinnings, practical implementations, benefits, challenges, and future prospects. It addresses digital innovations like AI-powered applications, mobile-assisted language learning (MALL), learning management systems (LMS), blended learning models, and virtual classrooms. Drawing upon recent research, the study highlights successful global practices, emphasizing the need for comprehensive teacher training, curriculum redesign, and inclusive access. The conclusion reinforces that purposeful technology integration enhances communicative competence, learner autonomy, and cross-cultural interaction in the digital era.
mobile-assisted language learning (MALL)
Copyright (c) 2025 A. Delbio https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Between Earth and Exile: An Ecofeminist Rewriting of Sita’s Journey in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Forest of Enchantments
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Forest of Enchantments (2019) is a feminist reimagining of the ancient Indian epic Ramayana, narrated from the perspective of Sita, a voice historically overshadowed by the grandeur of male heroism and divine duty. The novel not only humanises a mythic figure but also reclaims her agency, inner world, and resistance. This research article, “Between Earth and Exile: An Ecofeminist Rewriting of Sita’s Journey in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Forest of Enchantments”, aims to examine the novel through the theoretical framework of ecofeminism. By foregrounding Sita’s voice and interiority, the novel challenges androcentric readings of the Ramayana that have long marginalised or silenced the female perspective. The paper proposes that Sita’s narrative moves beyond a mere account of suffering and endurance to emerge as a complex site of ethical reflection, ecological consciousness, and spiritual self-determination. Her affinity with the forest, her empathetic bond with non-human life, and her rootedness in care and non-violence reveal alternative modes of agency that disrupt patriarchal and anthropocentric structures. Through a close reading of Divakaruni’s text, this research article seeks to justify how the intersection of ecological and gendered resistance is intricately woven into Sita’s journey, and invites further reflection on what it means to resist from both within and beyond exile.
Copyright (c) 2025 J. Kavitha https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Challenging Marginality: Strategies for Social Justice and Equality in Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger
Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger presents a radical narrative challenging marginalization in exposing the mechanisms that perpetuate subordination and inequality in modern India. Through the perspective of Balram Halwai, a lowercaste servant turned entrepreneur, the novel critiques the persistent systems of caste, class, and economic disparity. This study examines the different strategies employed by the protagonist, Balram to confront his marginalized position, which involve subverting servitude, enhancing linguistic capabilities, and embracing entrepreneurial capitalism. Moreover, rather than aiming for social justice through institutional changes or collective efforts, Balram’s approach is intensely personal and also morally complex, leading to challenging the questions about the implications of achieving upward mobility in a society marked by deep stratification. The examination asserts that Adiga’s novel challenges the conventional narratives of social justice by revealing that survival and self-determination for marginalized groups require radical — often violent—rebellious acts.
Copyright (c) 2025 M. Banu, GVS. Ananta Lakshmi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
A Rain of Fire: A Study of Subjugation and Rebellion of Women in Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp
This paper attempts a thematic study of the recent Booker Internatonal Winner Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq as a scathing attack on oppression and marginalisation of Muslim women. In these collection of twelve stories, Mushtaq gives voice to the burning but often unheard life stories of Muslim women in South India. They are textured exploration of gender and power dynamics. The paper aims to analyze these selected stories not just as a criticism of patriarchy and oppression but as stories of sisterhood and resilience.
Copyright (c) 2025 S. Geetha Krishnan, G. Silpa Mukesh https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Revisiting Mythology through Women Writing from irmitiya Indian Diaspora
After the abolition of slavery, several Indians were taken to different sugar colonies of Mauritius, Reunion islands in the Indian Ocean, Fiji, Trinidad, Caribbean islands such as Guyana, Martinique and Guadeloupe in order to meet the demand for cheap, unskilled labour between 1834 and 1917. This system came to be known as Indentureship and the people were referred to as Girmitiyas. Initially, the recruits were males but eventually recruitment for women was also encouraged, leading to a huge feminine presence on the islands. However, Colonial history, migrant discourse and nationalist discourses in India failed to pay attention to the fate of these women migrants who were both empowered and subjugated by this migration at the same time. The stories of these migrants are now narrated by their great granddaughters in “retrieval” narratives that recount their tales and become sites of archives with their recipes, songs and tales. In this article, I focus on Ramabai Espinet’s The Swinging Bridge, to examine the rewriting of myths around the epic of Ramayana by women writers from post-indenture Indian diaspora in ways that allow them to challenge passive and stereotypical representations of women and find means to connect women across generations. I am particularly interested in understanding the evolution of myths far from the motherland within the diasporic context and how that informs our understanding of mythology and women today from the Indian perspective.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ritu Tyagi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Satirical Realism and Lyrical Introspection: Analyzing the Works of Adiga and Alexander in Contemporary Indian Writing
This comparative analysis examines the literary contributions of Aravind Adiga and Meena Alexander, two notable Indian writers who have tackled intricate postcolonial themes. Adiga's novels, known for their satirical realism, scrutinize the sociopolitical landscape of modern India, emphasizing issues of class, caste, and gender inequality. In contrast, Alexander's poetry and memoirs explore identity, trauma, memory, and migration through lyrical and fragmented storytelling, drawing on her personal experiences of displacement and cultural hybridity. While Adiga's narratives often focus on urban settings and their inherent contradictions, Alexander's work highlights the female body and struggles women face in navigating diverse cultural identities. Adiga uses a daring, satirical style to confront readers with harsh realities of inequality, whereas Alexander's introspective and poetic approach encourages deep exploration of identity and cultural displacement. Despite their differing emphases and methods, both authors made significant contributions to Indian literature in English, urging readers to face uncomfortable truths about contemporary India and its global standing. This comparative study underscores the richness and diversity of Indian English literature, illustrating how the contrasting methods of Adiga and Alexander offer a more comprehensive portrayal of Indian experiences both domestically and in the diaspora.
Copyright (c) 2025 Preeti Asati, Soumya Tiwari https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Marginality and Social Inclusion: Bridging the Gaps in Multicultural Landscapes
This research initiates a critical inquiry into the seeming paradox of multiculturalism, posing the question: “Multiculturalism professes to construct bridges – yet why do so many still plunges into the chasm?” This examination explores the narrative of diversity within a purportedly globalized context. Beneath the vibrant surface of multiculturalism lies a persistent reality: marginality endures, silencing voices through patriarchal structures and racial hierarchies. This study investigates this paradox, analyzing how Anita Desai’s Fasting, Feasting and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye reveal the underlying fractures within societies t hat claim inclusivity while perpetuating exclusionary practices. The objectives of this research are twofold: First to investigate the complex relationship between marginality, social inclusion, and multiculturalism, clarifying the structural and psychological mechanisms that sustain asymmetry, second to extract narrative techniques within literature that challenge hegemonic norms and envision alternatives modes of connection. Grounded, in postcolonial theory, this discourse utilizes Bhabha’s concept of hybridity, Spivak’s subaltern theory, and Fanon’s psycho-existential analysis of coloniality. The constrained subjectivity of Uma within a patriarchal Indian domestic sphere and Pecola’s desperate desire for blue eyes serve as compelling symbols of the failed promise of multicultural inclusion, illustrating how internalized oppression reinforces systemic domination. This treatise asserts that literature transcends mere reflection to act as a counterdiscursive tool – amplifying marginalized perspective, destabilizing conventional paradigms, and reimagining inclusivity liberated from coercive assimilation. By integrating theoretical rigor with narrative analysis, this study delineates pathways towards a genuine multiculturalism rooted in equity rather than superficial pluralism.
Copyright (c) 2025 Anurag Badoni https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Digital Marginality and Social Media: Negotiating Inclusion and Exclusion in the Digital Age
In the age of digital communication, social media has emerged as a powerful platform for information exchange, identity formation, activism, and representation. It has become so basic that its necessity is found in all sectors, and in personal and professional space. Moreover, today’s artificial enhanced social media brings out a host of benefits for its users making them dependent on it. However, access to and participation in digital spaces is not equitable. This paper explores the concept of digital marginality—the condition of being socially or culturally excluded from dominant online narratives—and how social media both reinforces and challenges these marginalities. Drawing on case studies, scholarly literature, and theoretical frameworks from digital sociology and media studies, this paper examines how digital marginality manifests through issues of access, algorithmic bias, digital literacy, and online harassment. It also highlights how marginalized groups use social media for community building, resistance, and reclaiming narratives. The paper concludes by suggesting pathways to mitigate digital marginality through inclusive digital policies, equitable infrastructure, and critical digital education.
Copyright (c) 2025 Pritish Bhanja, Pranati Das, Sudarsan Sahoo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0