Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay’s Caitālī ghūrṇi and The Dystopia of Hunger

Abstract

The article reviews one of the lesser-known novels of Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay, Caitali ghurni (1931), as a dystopian narrative. In an attempt to review potential dystopian elements in vernacular texts, the article evaluates and compares the prominent features of western dystopian fiction to explore the characteristics and uniqueness of Caitali ghurni as a dystopian novel. In the process, the study sheds light on the relationship of such texts with the rise of realism in literature or bastabbadi sahitya in early twentieth-century Bengal and how that ushered in literary modernism. The primary aims of the article are to chart the contribution of the novel in expanding the horizon of dystopia as a literary genre to accommodate similarly themed literature produced in the vernacular, and thus to look beyond the confines of a western definition of dystopia. This is achieved through a close content-oriented reading of the novel, especially focusing on the aspects of hunger, social and familial relationships, and sexuality.