Delhi, diaspora and religious consciousness: heritage and palimpsest architecture in M. G. Vassanji’s A Place Within: Rediscovering India

Abstract

ABSTRACT Intangible heritage and architecture, articulate specific cultural processes and history. In Vassanji’s non-fictional narrative A Place Within: Rediscovering India, there is place-making through the lens of culture, religion, history, politics and migration. Positioning himself as a tourist to his ancestral homeland, the author makes observations that can be critiqued through the concept of ‘palimpsest’ – an intriguing ‘layering’ that gesture at wider circuits of culture. This study is an examination of the diasporic consciousness, religious encounters; heritage narrative features, the tracing of overlapping cultural spheres in Delhi, aesthetic and political tensions, as represented in Vassanji’s narrative. The article is an exploration of a broad system of cultural and religious discursive constructions and practices in architecture, as suggested in the non-fictional narrative.