Open Access
Vol. 2, No. 1 (2026)
UG Student (English Major), Suri Vidyasagar College, West Bengal, India, rajendranitua@gmail.com
Saradindu Bandyopadhyay’s immortal creation Byomkesh Bakshi stands apart from other conventional detective characters both in terms of benevolent understanding and humanitarian approach. His main objective is not merely to catch the culprit and bring him to justice, but to solve the crime and reach the crux of truth – famously identifying himself as ‘satyanweshi’ or the ‘truth seeker’. Whereas other detective characters complete their cases with a successful investigation of the crime, Byomkesh as an ‘inquisitor’ goes beyond the limited understanding of crime and punishment. His perception of truth is not confined within the finite scope of justice – either with the recovery of stolen goods or exposing the culprit; but the circumstances in which the crime has been committed. This paper is a modest attempt to critically analyse select stories of Byomkesh series, where the deductive reasoning of sleuth becomes secondary to the didactic teachings he imparts on the characters as well as readers. Byomkesh advocates exceptional methods and often takes unorthodox decisions which set him apart from the stereotype of Western detective models. His realisation of truth is as well the journey of readers from ignorance to experience. This paper also interrogates whether the ‘truth seeker’ aspect of his persona overshadows his capability as a criminal investigator.
DOI: 10.63752/pijcace.0201S08
55 Downloads
441 Views
Open Access
Vol. 2, No. 1 (2026)
Department of English, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India, vishnu.mishra0409@gmail.com, +919219317453
This research paper analyses how recent Indian graphic novels re-envision the Ramayana, not only as mythology but also as an empowering graphic-textual means of grappling with contemporary issues that concern identity, power, gender, and ethics. Using a critical reading of Vikram Balagopal’s Simian (2014) and Samhita Arni & Moyna Chitrakar’s Sita’s Ramayana (2011), the research explores how the interplay of visual composition, page layout, artistic choices, and narrative voice in both problematizes and reimagines traditional notions of dharma, heroism, and divinity. This research paper also explores how these graphic novels, evaluated through a multidisciplinary framework of graphic narrative theory, comparative mythology, and cultural studies, subvert hegemonic portrayals of Rama and recentre marginalized voices like Sita. These visual reinterpretations are not just retellings; rather, they are also acts of cultural intervention, questioning who is allowed to interpret the epic and for what purpose. By moving the visual perspective and narrative voice, they present readers with a morally nuanced and aesthetically rich encounter, prompting questions about what it means to reinterpret sacred tradition in a rapidly changing world.
DOI: 10.63752/pijcace.0201S06
50 Downloads
415 Views
Open Access
Vol. 2, No. 1 (2026)
Assistant Professor of English, Patrasayer Mahavidyalaya, West Bengal
Historically, Bengali literature has been acclaimed for its richness of fiction as well as poetry. However, not many Bengali authors have been found to be experimenting with the narrative forms. As far as themes and content of fiction were concerned the Bengali authors abundantly experimented; however, the same cannot be said in terms of the narrative style. For example, a widely accepted style like the magic realism was quite underexplored in the oeuvre of Bengali literature. Even when it is employed, as we can see in the works of Nabarun Bhattacharya, it seldom complicates the story-telling by bringing together historiography and magic realism. Rabisankar Bal precisely does that in his work, the Dozakhnama or Conversations in Hell (2010). Bal dexterously handles two different characters, namely Ghalib and Manto, belonging to two separate time periods, and retells the stories of immense historical significance. His narration provides a unique lens to look at the non-linearity of time and synthesizes discrete historical events of India that happened ninety years apart, namely in 1857 and 1947. This paper analyses some salient features of magic realism and shows how Rabisankar Bal appropriates them in his novel Dozakhnama, and in the process, creates a unique work that seldom finds any parallel in the literary realm of Bengali Literature.
DOI: 10.63752/pijcace.0201S04
27 Downloads
317 Views
Open Access
Vol. 2, No. 1 (2026)
Associate Professor, Department of English, Suri Vidyasagar College
Ecolinguistics, a relatively new sub-discipline of linguistics, is mainly based on the Sapir-Whorfian ideology of linguistic determinism which claims that the way we use language shapes our interactions with the environment. It is the study of “the life-sustaining relationships of humans with other humans, other organisms and the physical environment, with a normative orientation towards protecting the systems that humans and other forms of life depend on for their well-being and survival” (Alexander and Stibbe 105). The relations of humans with other species and the physical environment are of great importance, since the continuation of all life depends on these ecological relationships. T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922) is a frantic sincere expression of an agonized poetic soul to find out the means of getting rid of the mechanized stony cruelty-ridden modern life. The poem begins with a shocking sentential expression ‘April is the cruelest month breeding,’ but ends with the three-time asyndetic repetition of noun ‘shantih’ which a human being desires most. The present paper is a preliminary attempt to analyze and explore the poem from the perspective of ecolinguistics and to exhibit how poetic expression takes turns in depicting the integral relationship between all the constituents of environment affected by the ‘cruelest’ materialism and repaired by the peace-giving spiritualism.
DOI: 10.63752/pijcace.0201S02
53 Downloads
530 Views
Open Access
Vol. 1, No. 2 (2026)
Assistant Professor, Dept of English, SRM University, Sikkim; PhD Research Scholar, Jadavpur University
This essay examines how Japanese folk narratives produce the uncanny not through spectacular supernatural intrusion but through subtle disturbances within domestic life. Drawing on Freud’s concept of the uncanny and Kristeva’s theory of abjection, the study explores how familiar spaces (such as household) become porous environment where boundaries between human, spirit, and object begin to dissolve. Close readings of the Japanese tales of “Yuki-Onna” and “Futakuchi Onna” demonstrate how secrecy, appetite, and bodily transformation destabilize the apparent stability of domestic order. The snow-woman’s silent return as wife reveals how intimacy may conceal alterity, while the hidden mouth of Futakuchi Onna exposes the tensions between bodily need and social expectations of restraint. The analysis extends comparatively to Girish Karnad’s Nāga-Mandala and Abanindranath Tagore’s Khirer Putul, where serpent lovers and edible dolls function as mythic substitutions that articulate otherwise inexpressible domestic anxieties. Japanese traditions of animated dolls (ningyō) further illustrate how objects may serve as vessels of memory and spiritual presence. Across these narratives, the uncanny emerges through symbolic substitutions that transform landscapes, bodies, animals, and objects into alternative forms of life. The article argues that folklore imagines domestic space as fundamentally relational, where human identity remains permeable to nonhuman forces.
DOI: 10.63752/pijcace.0102W05
43 Downloads
765 Views
Open Access
Vol. 1, No. 2 (2026)
Independent Researcher and Writer, India
This paper examines Krishna Baldev Vaid’s None Other (1992) through the lens of postmodern literary theory, focusing on the themes of suffering, alienation, and existential fragmentation. The novella presents the interior soliloquy of a nameless ageing protagonist whose reflections on pain, memory, and meaninglessness unfold without conventional plot or character development. By analysing the text’s fragmented narrative structure, intertextual references, and philosophical meditations, the study situates the work within the broader framework of postmodern literature. The protagonist’s monologue reflects a crisis of identity and purpose characteristic of postmodern consciousness, where certainty, truth, and stable meaning collapse into ambiguity. Drawing parallels with works such as T. S. Eliot’s Gerontion and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, the essay explores how Vaid employs silence, repetition, and self-reflection to dramatize existential despair and the futility of human striving. Ultimately, the novella emerges as a lyrical yet unsettling meditation on loneliness, memory, and the fractured self, embodying the postmodern condition of uncertainty and the relentless search for meaning in an apparently indifferent universe.
DOI: 10.63752/pijcace.0102W06
35 Downloads
573 Views
