Namita Gokhale’s Gods, Graves and Grandmother

Abstract

World literature is the sum total of world’s national literature and the circulation of works into the wider world beyond their country of origin. The term world literature is first used by a German writer and statesman John Wolfgang Goethe. He used the concept of welt literature in several of his essays in the early decades of the nineteenth century to describe the international circulation and reception of literary works in Europe including works of non-western origin. Many Indian writers have contributed to global literature. Namita Gokhale is one of the best Indian women writers who have contributed a lot to global literature. She has authored fourteen books including eight books of fiction and several works of non-fiction. Her works explore the Indian tradition, culture and history. The main themes of her writings include musings on literature, contemporary literary practices, the place of women in Indian society and the world at large as well a myth and its bearings in the modern world. This present paper focuses on Namita Gokhale’s novel Gods, Graves and Grandmother. It is a ironic fable about street life in Delhi and it is adapted into a musical play. Gods, Graves and Grandmother is notable on two counts. First its structure of a modern fable held aloft by the gauziest of irony. And second, it’s searching scan of life in the downwardly mobile class of the Indian metropolises migrants who by emotional and pecuniary manipulation get rich quick, breaching the stronghold of the bourgeois division as a sporty venture.