The Criterion: An International Journal in English

Volume 17, Issue 4 · August 2026 · ISSN 0976-8165

Decolonising the Digital Screen: Tri Loka as a Relational Framework for Analysing Paatal Lok

Ms. Namita Paul, Prof. Anil Aneja

Digital Object Identifier

10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.1

The Amazon Prime Video series Paatal Lok (2020) is often characterised as a contemporary crime thriller. This paper explores how Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) offer an interdisciplinary and indigenous framework that can be strategically mobilised to explore the socio-political universe of Paatal Lok to create a new possibility in terms of interpretation.This paper analyses the intersectionality of indigenous epistemologies and digital screen cultures, particularly OTT platforms,to examine how Paatal Lok reimagines the triadic cosmology of Svarga (“Heaven”), Dharti (“Earth”) and Patala (“Netherworld”) into a contemporary mapping of caste, gender and urban/rural divides. Key principles of IKS like holistic relationality, samanvaya (“harmonious integration”),indigenous theories of ethics and knowledge are the theoretical framework of the paper. Further, the paper uses a close reading of the text to argue that Paatal Lok simultaneously appropriates and reconstructs Indic idioms to critique hegemonic structures of oppression on Indian OTT platforms. The study argues that Hathiram Chaudhary, the protagonist of the show,is a modern sutradhar (narrator) of the series and Vedic stories like the story of Narasimha-Hiranyakashyap act as a connection between ancient wisdom and modern realities. The paper posits that it is important to bring IKS into dialogue with streaming media to counter Eurocentric media theory.

Ms. Namita Paul, Prof. Anil Aneja. “Decolonising the Digital Screen: Tri Loka as a Relational Framework for Analysing Paatal Lok.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 1-19. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.1.

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The Criterion: An International Journal in English

Volume 17, Issue 4 · August 2026 · ISSN 0976-8165

Transgender Citizenship and Conditional Recognition: Reading Indian Trans Autobiographies through the Lens of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026

Ms. Monika

Digital Object Identifier

10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.2

This study critically interrogates the changing idea of transgender citizenship in India through a careful examination of certain autobiographical writings by A Revathi, Lakshman Tripathi and Living Smile vis-à-vis the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026. These autobiographies conceptualise identity as an individualised, fluid and contextual self-identification as a product of social alienation, cultural affiliation and corporeal experience. Although the NALSA judgement has upheld the right to self-declared gender, the Amendment Bill proposes a new structure of conditional recognition, where medical certifiers and the state must validate transgender identity. By drawing upon the work of theorists such as Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, and T.H. Marshall, the paper shows that transgender citizenship in India becomes a regulated and conditional status rather than one that is completely determined and self-governed by the individual. The discussion examines the problem between self-declared and state-declared transgender identity in contemporary India.

Ms. Monika. “Transgender Citizenship and Conditional Recognition: Reading Indian Trans Autobiographies through the Lens of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill, 2026.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 20-40. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.2.

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The Criterion: An International Journal in English

Volume 17, Issue 4 · August 2026 · ISSN 0976-8165

Two Journeys Home: Gender, Class and Repatriation in Gupta’s Memories of Rain and Mukherjee’s Desirable Daughters

Mr. Lokdeshwar G More, Dr. Satyawan Hanegave

Digital Object Identifier

10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.75

Outward migration has been studied at length in the Indian Diaspora, but the journey of return has not been covered in detail. It remains undertheorised. The present paper explores two distinct modes of repatriation to Bengal: Moni in Sunetra Gupta’s Memories of Rain and Tara in Bharati Mukherjee’s Desirable Daughters. The two novels feature female characters from contrasting social backgrounds, a pairing chosen for methodological reasons. It allows analysing the impact of class by comparing two people of the same gender. It therefore meets the main objection: when class and gender differ, no reading can identify which particular process is at work behind the outcome. The circumstances surrounding the returns are different. Moni buys her ticket on her husband’s credit card; her own limit is insufficient to pay for the ticket. The novel’s ending highlights that her repatriation is a bitter sense of failure. Tara’s elite capital carries her to the homeland without friction. She recovers the female ancestral line, along with the Bengali word that comes back with the memory. One return recuperates; the other liberates in aspiration and delivers a hollow homecoming. This paper reads the difference as the work of a single structure, not of two separable forces, drawing on Safran, Hall, Mishra and Brah for the diaspora frame and on Crenshaw and on Anthias and Yuval-Davis in a supporting role. Neither novel has been read in this way, and neither appears in the field’s fullest comparative study.

Mr. Lokdeshwar G More, Dr. Satyawan Hanegave. “Two Journeys Home: Gender, Class and Repatriation in Gupta’s Memories of Rain and Mukherjee’s Desirable Daughters.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 1211-1229. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.75.

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The Criterion: An International Journal in English

Volume 17, Issue 4 · August 2026 · ISSN 0976-8165

Exploration of Physical and Mental Space: Unveiling Reality and Representation of Mental Disorder in A J Finn’s The Woman in the Window

Aswini B, Prof. Binod Mishra

Digital Object Identifier

10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.70

This study focuses on how psychologically imbalanced people experience several problems in their lives. A.J. Finn’s The Woman in the Window (2018) narrates the story of Anna Fox, who has agoraphobia. She is delusional and talks to her husband and daughter, who are dead in real life. Anna witnesses a murder scene in her neighbour’s house and complains about it; she is proven to be delusional by the police. At the end of the novel, it is revealed that whatever she said about the murder is true. Drawing on Edward Soja’s spatial theory, this article argues that different spaces play a significant role in shaping the life and experiences of the patient. It further examines the representation and reality of the patient’s medical condition and explores how these spaces contribute to the patient’s sense of confinement.

Aswini B, Prof. Binod Mishra. “Exploration of Physical and Mental Space: Unveiling Reality and Representation of Mental Disorder in A J Finn’s The Woman in the Window.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 1135-1148. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.70.

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The Criterion: An International Journal in English

Volume 17, Issue 4 · August 2026 · ISSN 0976-8165

Disaster as Cultural Memory: A Comparative Ecocritical Study of Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People and Haruki Murakami’s After the Quake

Maryam Fatimi

Digital Object Identifier

10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.73

Post-apocalyptic fictions are often read as mirrors of culture, showing socio-political tension and ecological anxiety in a form that continues to be remembered long afterwards. This paper undertakes a comparative study of Indra Sinha’s novel Animal’s People (2007) and three stories from Haruki Murakami’s after the quake (2000) — “ufo in kushiro,” “super-frog saves tokyo,” and “honey pie” — to examine how Indian and Japanese post-apocalyptic writing confront trauma and environmental memory through distinct cultural and historical contexts. Sinha’s novel is narrated by a young man who was left physically disabled by the Bhopal gas leak and who is residing in Khaufpur, a fictional city. Through him, Sinha explores environmental injustice, corporate wrongdoing, and the resilience of people whose voices usually go unheard. Murakami’s short stories take place in the weeks right after the Kobe earthquake of 1995, and register catastrophe less as a direct event than as a psychic aftershock, working through fragmentation, allegory, and the slow transformation of ordinary life. Reading Sinha through Rob Nixon’s concept of slow violence and Murakami through Cathy Caruth’s theory of trauma and belated address, the paper argues that Indo-Japanese post-apocalyptic literature converts disaster into cultural memory through markedly different narrative strategies — lived testimony and political critique in Sinha, allegorical displacement and quiet transformation in Murakami — while arriving at a shared vision of survival, ethical responsibility, and the reimagining of the future in the twenty-first century.

Maryam Fatimi. “Disaster as Cultural Memory: A Comparative Ecocritical Study of Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People and Haruki Murakami’s After the Quake.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 1185-1197. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.73.

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The Criterion: An International Journal in English

Volume 17, Issue 4 · August 2026 · ISSN 0976-8165

Decoding Masculinities: Reimagining Othello as Omkara

Dr. Kavita

Digital Object Identifier

10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.3

Race and caste have historically been studied as comparable systems of stratification, but that comparison has also been a subject of critique. In fact, since the sixties, there has been an active decline in the practice of identifying similarities between the two systems (Beteille 490). Drawing upon Andre Beteille’s argument, “inequalities of caste are illuminated in the same way as those of race by consideration of gender,” this paper argues that reimagining Othello as Omkara works not just because race and caste work as ‘cultural equivalents’ but because, at the core of it, there are shared masculine notions of gender that align Othello with Omkara, in the same way Othello’s mind works in tandem with Iago’s insinuations. It is gender, rather than race, that allows a ‘faithful’ adaptation of Shakespeare’s play.

Dr. Kavita. “Decoding Masculinities: Reimagining Othello as Omkara.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 41-52. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.3.

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The Criterion: An International Journal in English

Volume 17, Issue 4 · August 2026 · ISSN 0976-8165

Subverting Patriarchal Discourse: A Feminist Counter-Narrative Reading of Kavita Kane’s Sita’s Sister

Mr. Hiraman Pandurang Kamble, Dr. Jayashri Aher

Digital Object Identifier

10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.69

Indian classical epic literature has traditionally adopted a male-oriented perspective, in which female characters have been marginalised or confined within the dichotomy of the ‘ideal woman’ and the ‘malignant instigator.’ However, through her novel Sita’s Sister, Kavita Kane challenges the male-dominated narrative by bringing the focus to Urmila, who has remained sidelined throughout history. This research work will undertake a complete feminist study of the portrayal of women characters in Kavita Kane’s Sita’s Sister. It utilises theoretical frameworks such as Elaine Showalter’s “gynocriticism,” Deniz Kandiyoti’s “patriarchal bargain,” and Miranda Fricker’s concept of “epistemic injustice.” The study examines how Kavita Kane deconstructs the idealisation of female silence, passivity, and unrecognised sacrifice in the patriarchal structure. It also elaborates on Urmila’s intellectual independence and her resistance to traditional masculine notions of responsibility, the tacit bond of sisterhood forged among the princesses of Mithila, and the complex survival strategies adopted by the older generation of queens, particularly the ostracised Kaikeyi. Kane’s work reclaims the narrative from the margins and humanises these legendary figures, but also gives a powerful critique of the institutional patriarchy embedded in ancient literature. The study argues that Sita’s Sister is an indispensable gynocentric text and tries to re-establish epistemic agency for women. It also argues that hegemonic heroism in the ancient epics is fundamentally flawed because it neglects the psychological, emotional, and intellectual power of its female protagonists.

Mr. Hiraman Pandurang Kamble, Dr. Jayashri Aher. “Subverting Patriarchal Discourse: A Feminist Counter-Narrative Reading of Kavita Kane’s Sita’s Sister.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 1122-1134. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.69.

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The Criterion: An International Journal in English

Volume 17, Issue 4 · August 2026 · ISSN 0976-8165

The Unbearable Heaviness of Unbelonging: Exploring the Gorkha Identity in Prajwal Parajuly’s The Gurkha’s Daughter

Divya Pradhan

Digital Object Identifier

10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.71

This study examines Prajwal Parajuly’s The Gurkha’s Daughter, a collection of short stories, through Stuart Hall’s theorisation of identity as a process of “becoming” and Homi K. Bhabha’s notions of Third Space, Mimicry, and Hybridity. The paper argues that Parajuly situates his characters in a condition of unsettlement across India, Nepal, Bhutan, and America, thereby dramatising their marginalised identities. These identities are not defined by a fixed, inherent essence; instead, the characters’ shifting positions within broader historical, social, and political power dynamics continuously construct them. The postcolonial, globalised world places these characters in a state of flux as they navigate statelessness alongside barriers of gender, class, and caste. Even when they are granted agency, it remains restricted, shaped by socio-political forces that govern their lives. These characters do not fully belong to the settings of the narratives. Instead, they inhabit a third space where cultural identities, nationalities, and languages intersect and compete. Instances of mimicry within this third space reveal the characters’ desire to approximate the dominant culture, thereby often destabilising its authority. The study contends that the resulting hybridity is not empowering but disorienting; the characters’ identities are compelled to undergo painful negotiations within structures that continue to marginalise them. Reading Parajuly through the twin lenses of Hall and Bhabha reveals that the author resists the essentialisation of Gorkha identity, instead presenting it as an unresolved, ongoing process within the wider currents of postcolonial politics.

Divya Pradhan. “The Unbearable Heaviness of Unbelonging: Exploring the Gorkha Identity in Prajwal Parajuly’s The Gurkha’s Daughter.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 1149-1169. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.71.

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The Criterion: An International Journal in English

Volume 17, Issue 4 · August 2026 · ISSN 0976-8165

A Metabolic Rift Within the Tides: A Marxist Ecocritical Reading of “Rise: From One Island to Another”

Ananya Mukherjee

Digital Object Identifier

10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.72

This paper presents a Marxist-Ecocritical analysis of the poem “Rise: From One Island to Another”, by examining the effects of climate crisis and capitalist accumulation by drawing on the cheap nature model proposed by Jason W. Moore, the concept of fossil capital and the idea of metabolic rift developed by John Bellamy Foster. The study explores how peripheral island communities are systematically exploited and sacrificed to sustain metropolitan growth. Furthermore, it integrates the concept of slow violence as explained by Rob Nixon in order to articulate the gradual mechanics of submersion of the islands. Ultimately, by applying Donna Haraway’s Chthulucene, the analysis highlights an emergence of radical horizontal solidarity forged across dispossessed geographies as resistance against the environmental devastation that is inflicted upon them.

Ananya Mukherjee. “A Metabolic Rift Within the Tides: A Marxist Ecocritical Reading of “Rise: From One Island to Another”.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 1170-1184. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.72.

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The Criterion: An International Journal in English

Volume 17, Issue 4 · August 2026 · ISSN 0976-8165

“Tell You All”: A Glance into the Borderlands of Memory in James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922)

Ms. Fathima Nazarin

Digital Object Identifier

10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.4

This article primarily and particularly reviews the relationship between personal memories and family secrets in James Joyce’s 1922 work Ulysses by taking specific chapters in the novel into consideration. Hailed as a masterpiece and often a subject of persistent analyses, Joyce’s work is a modern parallel to Homer’s Odyssey with its unabashed portrayal of the core of 20th-century Dublin society through its three central characters. One compelling lens through which to interpret the novel is as a profound exploration of memory, as the protagonists are presented as grappling with their pasts persistently. This study attempts to explore how the narrative techniques invoke secrecy and how these secrets unravel the connections between memory, its traces and the stories we tell about the past. By situating Ulysses as a memory text with a focus on Annette Kuhn’s theory on family secrets and memory, the article strives to offer a fresh interpretation of the relationship between the characters and decipher how secrets become a key narrative force in the text.

Ms. Fathima Nazarin. ““Tell You All”: A Glance into the Borderlands of Memory in James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922).” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 53-74. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.4.

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