The emergence of ‘post-truth’ has dramatically affected the contemporary socio-political discourses. The blurring of the distinctions between fact and fiction has become ostensible owing to the proliferation of social media and the pivotal role played by cyberspaces in creating volatile identities. The erosion of objectivity and the creation of a Baudrillardian ‘hyperreality’ have destabilized the position of truth irrevocably. The meteoric rise of far-right populist governments across the world with their jingoistic, xenophobic and parochial brand of politics, the erasure of subjective autonomy and invasion of privacy have pushed the world to the brink of moral anarchy, devoid of ethical values and veracity. Salman Rushdie’s latest work Quichotte (2019) is a postmodern rendering of Miguel De Cervantes’ picaresque novel Don Quixote. This paper attempts to critically analyse the novel vis-à-vis the ‘post-truth condition’. The evolution of the concept of truth is traced through the ideas of various philosophers such as Michel Foucault, Alain Badiou, Jean Baudrillard and other philosophers in order to ascertain the origin and theoretical implications of ‘post-truth’. Rushdie has foregrounded the contemporary socio-political issues like the impending catastrophic consequences of climate change, the prevalent opioid crisis and the precarious position of immigrants who are often victims of racist violence. He has characteristically employed magic realism and narrative pyrotechnics in the novel. The various intertextual references, allusions to popular culture, and autobiographical traces in Quichotteare also to be explored.

In A Passage North, Anuk Arudpragasam invades the consciousness of the protagonist to reveal the subliminal enmeshed spaces of the personal and the political. The distance between the traumatic events of the Sri Lankan civil war and the alienated individual who has apparently remained aloof, is obliterated through the refracted memories that have embedded the subject in the matrix of his country’s political history. The individual memory thus coalesces into the fabric of collective memory as the narrative unfolds. The concatenation of the traumatic realities and the sequestered psyche, untethers the individual from its ensconced private sphere and situates it within the macrocosmic and pervasive sociopolitical structure. The transmutation of subjectivity is attuned to the affective sites of collective trauma. The dichotomy of proximity and distance elucidated by the apprehensive reflections of the survivor is symptomatic of the subterranean intensities that elude corporeal presence and agency. The memories of the individual become resonant with the affective (un)lived experiences of traumatic violence, that deconstruct the tension of presence/absence, and consequently reconfigure the preconceived notions of subjectivity. The theoretical framework of this paper would foreground Michael Rothberg’s conceptualization of the implicated subject, to limn the trajectory of identities who are indirectly implicated in traumatic legacies. This paper argues that the trauma of the genocidal war and its aftermath is transcribed into affective memories, that bear the potential to reconstitute identity by recognizing and transcending the state of implication.

In the modern world today, when some people apply logic and reasoning on certain things, other people are still dominated by the age-old practice of superstitious beliefs and it sometimes becomes difficult to accept the principles and works carried out by them. These contradictions often lead to clashes between them. Amitav Ghosh’s Balaramin the Circle of Reason becomes obsessed with scientific reasoning after readingLife of Louis Pasteur and Practical Phrenology. The development of science and technology is taking place at such a fast pace but he starts carrying out all types of irrational activities like campaign for cleanliness of underwear in the name of scientific reasoning due to which his family faces many unwanted incidents; and his own actions leadto his doom. The existence of such contrasting characters in the society makes us ponder upon the reason behind it, and question the roles of education and experience in eradicating the ills of the society.

The territory of the home is not only regarded in terms of physical space but also in terms of human affection and influence. The status of women within the social structure of their families and/or communities is paralleled as well as informed by their position in the physical structure of their houses and homes. An Indian woman is yet to seek an identity as a human being with equal status in the family in which she is born and in the family to which she is given in marriage. This research attempts to make a study of Manju Kapur’s novel Home to reveal many issues deeply rooted within a family and explore the dynamics of relationships that prevail in an Indian home. Nisha, the protagonist in the novel, tries to subvert age-old traditional norms and values of her home, which is symbolic of Indian society in microcosm, that threatens to subvert her existence as an individual. Manju Kapur’s women contest and defend their domestic territories because they are contesting not only for power, but for their self-esteem, identity and individuality.  The home obviously is a gendered living space of an everyday life, and that young Indian women are not accepting traditional roles conferred by ‘home’ onto them passively; instead, they seem to be (re)traditionaliszing their strategies of housework and childcare responsibilities.  Through this paper we wish to highlight that change in the traditional roles played by women in homes reproduces dynamics of politics of home thereby enhancing dynamics of poetics of home. The study of politics and poetics of home further analyses how the relationship between women and men as well as ideas about masculinity and femininity are shaped by the intersection of tradition and modernity. The study explores a dialogue between tradition and modernity with an aim to project yearning for autonomy and separate identity. Kapur poignantly shows the evolution of an Indian woman in the midst of the repressive patriarchal structure of an Indian home.