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

Effectiveness of Using TBLT to Teach Grammar in the Indian Context: A Literature Review

Mizpah Rebekah S, Dr A Vasudevan

Digital Object Identifier

10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.74

Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) fosters language acquisition through meaningful, real-world tasks in a communicative and interactive environment. Over the decades, many studies have been conducted to test the effectiveness of TBLT across ESL and EFL classrooms. The present study investigates the impact of TBLT in enhancing grammatical accuracy and learner motivation among Indian students based on the outcomes from the earlier studies conducted by Indian researchers. The research methodology involves a comprehensive review of TBLT and a thorough examination of selected studies that experimented with the efficacy of TBLT in grammar instruction. The findings suggest that TBLT can significantly enhance grammar learning outcomes and communicative competence.

Mizpah Rebekah S, Dr A Vasudevan. “Effectiveness of Using TBLT to Teach Grammar in the Indian Context: A Literature Review.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 1198-1210. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.74.

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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

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

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

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

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

Symbolism, Social Justice and Cinematic Technique in Thangalaan: A Theoretical Study

Dr Venkatesha P

Digital Object Identifier

10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.68

The field of cinema has been a strong place for Dalits to challenge dominant views that existed in history. P A Ranjith, in his film Thangalaan brings out forgotten history of Kolar Gold Field in full circle. Perspectives from which this film is made are in the eyes of Dalit people whose work and sacrifice have been mostly ignored in official accounts. Related to it the present paper examines the cinematic strategies, social justice and symbolism in theoretical lenses of Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Spivak. These concepts reveal the representation and repression of oppressed people in negotiating the identity of colonised and colonial power. Applying qualitative textual analysis, this research paper argues that Thangalaan foregrounds indigenous perspective and reimage neglected histories through narrative strategies, cinematic technique and symbolism. This paper shows the interconnections of postcolonial aspects to caste, colonial, labour exploitation and identity formation connected to exploited people.

Dr Venkatesha P. “Symbolism, Social Justice and Cinematic Technique in Thangalaan: A Theoretical Study.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 1110-1121. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.68.

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The Criterion: An International Journal in English

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

Decolonising the Narrative: A Comparative Postcolonial Study of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and Rabindranath Tagore’s Gora

Dr. Namita Chouhan

Digital Object Identifier

10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.67

This paper offers a comparative postcolonial reading of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and Rabindranath Tagore’s Gora, texts separated by nearly three centuries yet united by a shared concern with identity, power, and marginalisation. Drawing on Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, Frantz Fanon, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, among other theorists, the study examines how Christian Venice and colonial India construct the “othered” figures of Shylock and Gora through religious, racial, and nationalist ideologies. It further considers the gendered dimension of power through Portia and Anandamoyi, and asks what it might mean to decolonise the interpretation of two canonical texts. Placing Shakespeare and Tagore in dialogue, the paper argues that both narratives depict oppression while also, in different measures, resisting and reformulating the ideologies that produce it.

Dr. Namita Chouhan. “Decolonising the Narrative: A Comparative Postcolonial Study of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and Rabindranath Tagore’s Gora.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 1095-1109. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.67.

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The Criterion: An International Journal in English

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

Exploring Postcolonial Elements in Mamang Dai’s Works: A Select Study

Dr Minakshi Talukdar

Digital Object Identifier

10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.66

Mamang Dai is a woman poet, novelist and journalist from Arunachal Pradesh, North-East India. Postcolonial themes form an integral part of her literary works. This paper examines postcolonial elements in Mamang Dai’s selected works- “Birthplace,” “Once Upon A Time in Pasighat,” “The Voice of the Mountain,” “I’m Going Back To Old,” The Black Hill and The Legends of Pensam. Using Edward Said’s concept of “Orientalism” the study analyses how these texts represent history, ethnicity, culture and identity. It explores Dai’s deep engagement with postcolonial resistance. It also investigates the rich indigenous heritage of Arunachal Pradesh alongside the ruptures caused by Christian missionaries.

Dr Minakshi Talukdar. “Exploring Postcolonial Elements in Mamang Dai’s Works: A Select Study.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English, vol. 17, no. 4, August 2026, pp. 1079-1094. DOI, https://doi.org/10.66376/criterion.v17.n4.66.

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