‘Robbed out of mind’: Reflections on Alzheimer's and gendered subjectivity in select Indian literary narratives

Abstract

Neurological degeneration is a potent signifier molding older lives, divesting them of ‘personhood’ and making them a ‘target of care’. This article delineates the depictions of Alzheimer's and its associated losses in select Indian literary narratives- Jalsobi: In the Shadow of Light (2018) and Girl in White Cotton (2019) and seeks to understand how ‘ageing into disability’ for older women has severe implications that marginalize their embodied existence, foisting a symbolic death. Through the fictional accounts, the article explores two primary threads of consideration - how the ‘selfhood’ gets eroded/reclaimed while experiencing cognitive impairment and how the shift from the patient-centric to the person-centric approach alters the relational care dynamics in the Indian context. It also attempts to situate the conception and representation of age-induced cognitive loss within the framework of critical disability studies, which understates the reductionist biomedical perspective and fosters an alternative, inclusive, and empathetic understanding of dysfunctionality.