Reconstructing the Changing Urban Landscape beyond Spatio-Temporal Dimensions: Post-colonial ‘Allahabad’ in Neelum Saran Gour’s Invisible Ink
Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: One of the pressing concerns of our times is the rapid change of urban landscape resulting in environmental degradation.However, there are other concerns too that leads this paper to deliberate on how individual and collective experiences and identities get reshaped extensively with the change of urban landscape across temporality.Within this framework, this paper analyses Neelum Saran Gour's novel Invisible Ink (2015) which projects Indian city 'Allahabad', now referred as 'Prayagraj' in two different time scales with a gap of forty-four years mostly through the subjective experiences of two women characters, Rekha and Amina.In the conventional discipline of Geography, landscape is often assumed to be a visual entity (Cresswell, 2015) but appropriating Leila Scannell and Robert Gifford's "Defining Place Attachment: A Tripartite Organizing Framework" (2010), landscape (both built and natural) unfolds its meaning more through human interaction constructing cultural values leading to spatial distinctiveness which is always in flux.Thus, urbanization is not just a transformation of physical topography of the 'city' but 'includes the changing façade of socio-cultural environments which unquestionably impacts on the existing values of both private and public space reshaping the experiences of its people.Therefore, this article will also examine the ways in which literature documents urban spaces.Keywords: 'Landscape', 'Urbanization', 'Experience', 'Identity', 'Public space' etc. "What eternity is to time, the Aleph is to space.In eternity, all time-past, present, and future-coexists simultaneously.In the Aleph, the sum total of the spatial universe is to be found in a tiny shining sphere barely over an inch across."-"The Aleph", by Jorge Luis Borges Borges in the lines above invariably exemplifies the depth of a particular place in shaping authorial imagination and also imbibes the concerns of renowned urban geographer Edward Soja who came up with his most notable contribution on urban space Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places (1996) which is often considered as one of the key compositions behind 'spatial turn'. 1 It is this iconoclastic turn in the spatial study which reflects upon the importance of space on the similar notions of 'time' or for that matter history in shaping human experiences.Remarkably enough, space and time are not distinct to each other, rather complementary as they both are in process of incessant change and not beyond the range of literary representation of landscapes particularly in the context of approaching urbanism within a
Authors: Chhandita Das, Priyanka Tripathi
Institution: Indian Institute of Technology Patna
Language: English
Topic: Spatial and Cultural Studies
Subfield: Geography, Planning and Development
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $150
OpenAlex ID: W3043064289