Locating The Anglo Indian Self In Ruskin Bond

Ruskin Bond's life - and, for that matter, his semi-autobiographical works - are allegories of the colonial aftermath. His is an odd but exemplary attempt at absorption as a member of the Anglo-Indian ethnic minority, a community whose role in the shaping of the postcolonial Indian psyche has yet to be systematically analysed. This study explores the dialogue between the biographical and authorial selves of Ruskin Bond, whose subjectivity is informed by the fantasies of space and time.

This book explores the dilemma of Bond's 'two selves' and his existential search for an identity. This exploration, analysed across six chapters, is informed by a variety of postcolonial, historical, informational and critical texts on Bond and Anglo-Indians. Arup Pal focuses on four key literary works of Bond-The Room on the Roof, A Flight of Pigeons, Scenes from a Writer's Life and A Handful of Nuts-from the perspective of the author's developing sense of personal, national and cultural identity. He traces the journey that the author and his protagonists embark on in order to seek and ultimately define their sense of being.

This study explores the dialogue between the biographical and authorial selves of the writer Ruskin Bond, whose liminal subjectivity is informed by the fantasies of space and time.

Revisionist in approach, global in scope, and a seminal contribution to scholarship, this original and thought-provoking book critiques traditional notions about Anglo-Indians, a mixed descent minority community from India. It interrogates traditional notions about Anglo-Indian identity from a range of disciplines, perspectives and locations. This work situates itself as a transnational intermediary, identifying convergences and bridging scholarship on Anglo-Indian studies in India and the diaspora. Anglo-Indian identity is presented as hybridised and fluid and is seen as being representative, performative, affective and experiential through different interpretative theoretical frameworks and methodologies. Uniquely, this book is an international collaborative effort by leading scholars in Anglo-Indian Studies, and examines the community in India and diverse diasporic locations such as New Zealand, Britain, Australia, Pakistan and Burma.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Notes on contributors -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: mixed race in Asia -- Part I China and Vietnam -- 1 'A class by themselves': battles over Eurasian schooling in late-nineteenth-century Shanghai -- 2 Mixing blood and race: representing Hunxue in contemporary China -- 3 Métis of Vietnam: an historical perspective on mixed-race children from the French colonial period -- Part II South Korea and Japan -- 4 Developing bilingualism in a largely monolingual society: Southeast Asian marriage migrants and multicultural families in South Korea -- 5 Haafu identity in Japan: half, mixed or double? -- 6 Claiming Japaneseness: recognition, privilege and status in Japanese-Filipino 'mixed' ethnic identity constructions -- Part III Malaysia and Singapore -- 7 Being 'mixed' in Malaysia: negotiating ethnic identity in a racialized context -- 8 Chinese, Indians and the grey space in between: strategies of identity work among Chindians in a plural society -- 9 'Our Chinese': the mixedness of Peranakan Chinese identities in Kelantan, Malaysia -- 10 Eurasian as multiracial: mixed race, gendered categories and identity in Singapore -- Part IV India and Indonesia -- 11 Is the Anglo-Indian'identity crisis' a myth? -- 12 Performing Britishness in a railway colony: production of Anglo-Indiansas a railway caste -- 13 Sometimes white, sometimes Asian: boundary-making among transnational mixed descent youth at an international school in Indonesia -- 14 Class, race and being Indo (Eurasian) in colonial and postcolonial Indonesia -- Afterword -- Index

Today, Indian writing in English is a fi eld of study that cannot be overlooked. Whereas at the turn of the 20th century, writers from India who chose to write in English were either unheeded or underrated, with time the literary world has been forced to recognize and accept their contribution to the corpus of world literatures in English. Showcasing the burgeoning field of Indian English writing, this encyclopedia documents the poets, novelists, essayists, and dramatists of Indian origin since the pre-independence era and their dedicated works. Written by internationally recognized scholars, this comprehensive reference book explores the history and development of Indian writers, their major contributions, and the critical reception accorded to them. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Indian Writing in English will be a valuable resource to students, teachers, and academics navigating the vast area of contemporary world literature.

This cross-disciplinary approach to literary reading of any provenance based on an “experimental cosmopolitan” epistemology de- and recontextualizes the texts from the points of view of multiple cultures and historical moments, enriching interpretation and aesthetic experience beyond the backgrounds of the present reader and the origin of a particular literary discourse. Trusting the authority of an author or an “original” text and ignoring the fundamental plurilingualism of the literary experience obstructs the wealth of cosmopolitan reading in a globalized and fragmented world. A thorough critique of both local and overarching theories in clear dissent from the binaries of “decolonial theory” and the overextension of “nomadic theory” supports a precise research and teaching methodology at variance with past trends of Comparative and World Literature. Considering literature as the aestheticized use of language, which is universal, the many analyses provided can be extrapolated to other genres, eras, and cultural areas.