21CILS: 21st Century Indian Literary Studies

Volume 1, No. 121CILS: 21st Century Indian Literary Studies

Published February 15, 2026

Articles

  1. Dr Sharmi Rachel C M (Author)

    Politics of Power Ploy in Praveen Radhakrishnan’s Detective Fiction The Adventure of Black Drop (2011)

    Power struggles are one of the most common themes in literature. The perspective to envision the relationship of power with humanity in a vicious cycle has been the focus of Praveen Radhakrishnan’s fiction. His debut, The Adventure of Black Drop (2011), has the trace of power politics at various levels in terms of mental aptitude, gender, and class. These three layers of Victorian England offer a closer look at how power is intertwined with the fabric of society. Apart from being a detective novel that deals with the story of nineteenth-century England, the story shows the reality of power’s nature transcending centuries by upgrading itself as per the evolution of humans. This research article holds a thematic study accentuating the author’s opinion on how power circulates across societies and explicates them. This is clarified using the close reading technique in deconstructing the power ploy present in the novel. 

  2. Kejapriya S (Author)

    The Silent Voices: Child Widows and their Enlightenment Beyond Tradition in Mona Verma’s Lost and Found in Banaras (2018)

    A significant form of “social death” that deprives children of their rights and innocence is child marriage and its tragic consequence, child widowhood. Within the framework of traditional and superstitious Indian society, this article examines these themes through an analysis of Mona Verma’s book Lost and Found in Banaras. The protagonist, Brinda, was married to an eleven-year-old boy at the age of three and was subsequently abandoned by her family after her young husband was lost in a flood. Labelled a “bad omen,” she is compelled to live in mourning at the Nirmal Ashram in Banaras, a city renowned for its large population of marginalized widows.

    The present study aims to examine the consequences of child marriage and the sufferings of the bride when she becomes a widow and to consider how child widows are treated by society.  The study also posits that the intervention of educated individuals such as Sia and Uday disrupts the cycle of suffering and silence. These characters demonstrate that, although tradition marginalizes, education and enlightenment provide essential means of reclaiming identity and agency by promoting economic independence and highlighting the widows’ plight. While tradition and lack of education marginalize child widows in India, enlightenment facilitated by educated intervention offers a path toward restoration and agency.

  3. Arul Little Snita S (Author)

    Constructing the Womanhood-Self: Creativity, Self-Reliance, and Sustainability in Anuradha Roy’s The Folded Earth (2011)

    Women take a lead for new beginnings in life. Unexpected events disrupt a person's regular routine. The path is illuminated by the impact of a ray of hope. Retracing for logical reasoning is not a frame of traits in womanhood self. In such a context, women stand for creativity, self-reliance and sustainability. The sense of rambling for uncontrollable prospects of past and future is detained in these former dimensions. Womanhood flourishes in later stages. The novel, The Folded Earth by Anuradha Roy, puts forth three women who epitomize the former dimensions. These women sprout from different age groups: a teenager, a young adult, and a ripe old woman, and thrive under the same landscape of mountainous regions of Ranikhet. The former dimensions have an in-built progressive trait of free will. It is free from guilts, complaints and expectations. The progressive arena is essential for a high-yielding futuristic prospect. This creates a notion of essential understanding in oneself and provides courageous support to withstand the womanhood-self.

  4. S Merlin Azifa (Author)

    Geographies of Control: Land as Feminist Territory and the Architecture of Caste Surveillance in Imayam’s Pethavan (2015)

    Despite significant advancements in science and technology, society continues to be confronted with deep-rooted social inequalities such as caste discrimination, gender oppression, class hierarchies, village surveillance, control, and systemic marginalization. These realities are powerfully portrayed by the eminent Tamil writer Imayam, who emerges as an authentic voice in contemporary literature through his commitment to social realism. This article examines Imayam’s Pethavan: The Begetter, translated into English by Gita Subramanian, from ecofeminist and subaltern perspectives. The text foregrounds social realism by presenting land as a contested feminist space, exposing caste surveillance, and portraying resistance as a mode of survival. Through his unflinching depiction of lived experiences and real characters, Imayam gives narrative dignity to the marginalized. Pethavan thus becomes a powerful articulation of subaltern resistance. This article argues that Imayam’s authentic narration creates a literary space that restores marginalized voices and reaffirms literature’s role as a medium of social critique and ethical engagement.

  5. Dr. Sherly Winfred C. R., P. Antony Maria Jenobhar (Author)

    The Politiks of a Generation: Modern Indian Political Milieuin Devika Rege’s Quarterlife (2023)

    Devika Rege’s Quarterlife (2023) stands out as one of the most daring and relevant contributions to contemporary Indian Fiction. The novel dives headlong into the complex and volatile landscape of twenty first century Indian politics, confronting not only the nation’s ideological fractures but also the emotional and moral turbulence of the generation growing up amidst them. Set during the 2014 Indian general elections, a watershed moment that witnessed the consolidation of right-wing nationalism, the transformation of public discourse through digital media also the politicization of youth aspiration.

    This article approaches Quarterlife through critical and argumentative framework situating the novel within the socio-political realities of post-liberalization India. Rege through her argument highlights more than just show what happened; it also questions and criticises the underlying ideologies of the time, interrogates and critiques the ideological undercurrents of the times. The novel exposes the moral compromises, performative, activism and digital age contradictions that characterize urban Indian’s political sensibility. This paper argues that Rege’s fiction functions as a textual document of India’s political adolescence. It captures a moment when politics seeps into every dimension of private life, revealing the fragility of conviction in an era of hyper- connectivity and ideological polarization.