Politics and poetics of a sacred route in Gagan Gill's travelogue. Avāk: Kailāś-Mānsarovar ek antaryātrā

Authors

  • Alessandra Consolaro University of Turin

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/725

Abstract

This paper addresses Indian Hindi poet Gagan Gill's account of her journey to Kailasa-Mansarovar. This is a text expressing the writer’s desire to visit Kailasa-Mansarovar, but it actually becomes a reflection on myth, faith, identity, geopolitical issues of the Himalayan areas, and her own sense of finally letting go her husband after his death, happened more than one year before the journey. The journey to the mountains presents a cultural encounter with a different culture, but it is also a profound and spiritual journey.

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Author Biography

Alessandra Consolaro, University of Turin

Alessandra Consolaro is currently Assistant Professor of Hindi Language and Literature and Research Scholar at the Department of Humanities of the University of Turin. Her field of interest and research covers South Asia history (Ri-orientarsi nella storiografia dell’Asia meridionale.Rappresentazioni e intersezioni. Torino 2008; Madre India e la Parola. La lingua hindi nelle università «nazionali» di Varanasi (1900-1940). Alessandria 2003); colonial and postcolonial theory; contemporary Hindi fiction: critical study and translation (La prosa nella cultura letteraria hindī dell’India coloniale e postcoloniale. Torino 2011); feminist critique and gender studies (Voci e conflitti. Alessandria 2010). Some of her latest publications are “The errant philosopher: Rahul Sankrityayan's journeys in time and space.” In Alessandra Consolaro and Jolanda Guardi, eds., Wandering. Exploring InFluxes and Cultures in Motion, Communication and Culture Online special issue 1 (2013) e-ISSN 2217-4257, pp. 15-28; “The 'other' India in literature and film: Mohan Dās in Uday Prakaś’s story and in Mazhar Kamran’s film” in Kervan: International Journal of Afro-Asiatic Studies n. 15 (2012), pp. 65-69; Resistance in the postcolonial Hindi literary field: Mohan Das by Uday Prakash. Orientalia Suecana, vol. LX (2012), p. 9-19.

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No. 17 (2013)

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