Distressed Adolescent in Subima Misra’s Select Stories: An Anthropological Study of Indian Childhood

Abstract

Critically speaking, Indian societies tend to ignore unusual behavior or psychosexual crisis in a child or teenager. This paper attempts to tap some of those uncomfortable nerves of Indian childhood and debate some of their challenges through the lens of Indian family structure. Contextualizing some of the crucial stories of Subimal Misra, a prominent and powerful voice of Modern Bangla literature, this paper, again, sympathetically but scientifically negotiates different relations of Indian household and their effect on the psychosexual growth of a child or teenager. It attempts to ask, though not limited to, these following sets of questions: How does the presence of a mother and her behavior affect the child? What are the psychological dilemmas that push a teenager to unidentified rage and revengeful attitude? How does society influence the formulation of a veneer into a teenager? It is curious to note that the stories under consideration here, like Will You Preserve Your Chastity, Aparna (1987), or Here’s How We Wring a Quarter of Lime (1989), are ‘about’ children but not ‘for’ children. With the help of an anthropological point of view, this paper problematizes family relations, imposition of social choices, and their gaps.