De-Scribing an Ex-Centric Community: Anglo-Indian Voices in Johny Miranda’s Jeevichirikkunnavarkku Vendiyulla Oppees: Requiem for the Living

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Sharon D’Cunha

Abstract

The knowledge of a community’s presence is an inevitable step towards ensuring its visibility and accepting its authenticity. The Anglo-Indians of Kerala are distinctive on account of the intricate cultural nuances that have gone into their making which involves essences of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the native Malayalees, the Batavians, the Javanese, the Malaccans and maybe even the Africans who were probably brought in here in the course of the slave trade that was rampant then. Being such an essentially miscegenated population, the Anglo-Indian ethnicity has been defined and re-defined over the years, so much so that the community has been facing the challenge of extinction and decline. At this juncture, the novella, Jeevichirikkunnavarkku Vendiyulla Oppees: Requiem for the Living becomes a relevant record of the history of a community, beset with contradictions, benumbed with frustration and struggling to persevere even at breaking point.  Facing a crisis in gender positions and community orientations, the characters struggle to negotiate their identities and to come to terms with the reality of their being. Their obsessive quests and transgressive actions intensify the conflict raging within, eventually rendering vulnerable the status of their selfhood and the community they represent. The novella therefore is an oppees - a requiem -for a living community that is faced with the ominous prospect of extinction.

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How to Cite
Sharon D’Cunha. “De-Scribing an Ex-Centric Community: Anglo-Indian Voices in Johny Miranda’s Jeevichirikkunnavarkku Vendiyulla Oppees: Requiem for the Living”. The Creative Launcher, vol. 2, no. 5, Dec. 2017, pp. 8-16, https://www.thecreativelauncher.com/index.php/tcl/article/view/679.
Section
Research Articles

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