Mapping the Past: Exploring Memory and Liminal Subjectivity of the Post-Partition Bengali Migrants in Siddhartha Deb’s “The Point of Return”

Abstract

Colonial rule in South Asia has undeniably reshaped the region’s spatial and cultural landscape. However, the tremors of colonisation’s aftermath, which include partition, genocide, refugee movements, etc., have acquired characteristics which reek distinctly of their regional epicentre. South Asian countries, as is true of most postcolonial nation-states, often posit their territorial space, defined through cartographic borders, as the most essential and fundamental factor in determining the abstract concept of nationality. Though the nationalistic discourses celebrate the sanctity and inalterability of the territorial space, this is not as fixed as discourses would lead one to believe. This article intends to examine the transience of territorial space that is continually reconfigured along linguistic and ethnic lines, which consequently determines the belongingness or alienation of an individual in the given geopolitical scenario. The ‘post-memory’ of displacement, alienation and loss that haunts the post-Partition generation of migrants and their sense of homelessness that is distinct from, yet as poignant as that of their ancestors, will be examined through the textual framework of Siddhartha Deb’s debut novel The Point of Return (2002). The article will present a nuanced study of the tension emanating from the fractured interface between nationalism and sub-nationalism, which is adroitly portrayed by Siddhartha Deb in this novel.