This essay argues that Pakistani writer Intizar Husainâs short story âMorenamaâ (A chronicle of the peacocks), written originally in Urdu in 2002, uses the framework of pilgrimage and the South AsianâPersianate qissa genre to describe transmodern ways of apprehending the narratorâs traumatic displacement following the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent. The essay claims that the narratorâs post-Partition visits to the tombs of spiritual saints and epic battlefields in India offer pluralistic, transmodern ways of seeing and thinking beyond the horizon of European modernity. Husainâs depictions of graves and ghosts through ârememoryâ accommodate temporal and spatial perceptions that counter Western modernityâs positivistic ways of knowing and representing reality. Although the narratorâs return to familiar places fails to diminish his homesickness, the depiction of that journey as at once real and imagined â the narrative insistently blurs the distinction â decenters modernityâs distorting vision and thereby revivifies marginalized places.
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This essay argues that Pakistani writer Intizar Husainâs short story âMorenamaâ (A chronicle of the peacocks), written originally in Urdu in 2002, uses the framework of pilgrimage and the South AsianâPersianate qissa genre to describe transmodern ways of apprehending the narratorâs traumatic displacement following the 1947 Partition of the Indian subcontinent. The essay claims that the narratorâs post-Partition visits to the tombs of spiritual saints and epic battlefields in India offer pluralistic, transmodern ways of seeing and thinking beyond the horizon of European modernity. Husainâs depictions of graves and ghosts through ârememoryâ accommodate temporal and spatial perceptions that counter Western modernityâs positivistic ways of knowing and representing reality. Although the narratorâs return to familiar places fails to diminish his homesickness, the depiction of that journey as at once real and imagined â the narrative insistently blurs the distinction â decenters modernityâs distorting vision and thereby revivifies marginalized places.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 141 | 141 | 35 |
| Full Text Views | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 14 | 14 | 1 |