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Memory And Space In Jahnavi Barua‟s Rebirth(2010)

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Shiva Prasad Sharma

Abstract

Human experiences are translatable into spatial terms. Various aspects of space have meaning embedded in them which are intelligible to the members of a particular group. For members of a particular group a landscape holds the memories of friends, adversaries and also memories of some scope changing socio-political events. Therefore even after being uprooted because of circumstances from one‟s space of belonging and provided with nothing in the not so familiar conditions to call home, an individual survives by letting himself/herself loose in the intricate web of memories of the space that he/she has left behind. As an example to bring home this observation we can take the case of the Tibetans residing in India since 1962 after being displaced from their homeland by the People‟s Liberation Army of China. These Tibetans in exile have in their memory snatched away a part of their homeland from the Chinese. Young Tibetans living in exile have retained an affinity towards their homeland. Therefore their space of belonging is inextricably related to the memories of their homeland. Similarly in JahnaviBarua‟s debut novel Rebirth (2010), the protagonist Kaberi have retained memories of her space in Assam. The space called Assam becomes meaningful only when memories are inscribed into it. This particular paper will endeavour to delve into relationship between memory and space and argue that memory is meaningful only when it is rooted in a particular space.

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