Fragmented Selves and Broken Homes: A Comparative Study of Existential Alienation in Nayi Kahani and Western Postmodern Fiction

Abstract

The 20th century saw the rise of the existential alienation as a major theme of fiction that transformed Indian and Western literature. The Nayi Kahani movement in post-independence India highlighted the emotional and psychological concerns of the urban middle class, emphasizing the complexities of relationships, feelings of isolation, and identity struggles. In the same way, Western postmodern fiction was concerned with the themes of absurdity, divided consciousness, consumerism, and emotional detachment as expressions of alienation. The aim of this paper is to make a comparative analysis of selected works of Mohan Rakesh, Nirmal Verma and Rajendra Yadav with selected postmodern works of western writers like Samuel Beckett and Don DeLillo to explore the representation of existential alienation in the different socio-cultural context.

The study posits that alienation has been represented in both literary traditions as fragmented, and broken homes, but that the nature of alienation is vastly different in terms of its ideological and cultural base. Alienation frequently occurs in Western postmodern fiction as a result of capitalist modernity, technological growth and the breakdown of stable systems of meaning. Characters find absurdity, paranoia, and emotional emptiness in very broken storyworlds (McHale, 1987). By contrast, the alienation described in Nayi Kahani is an lived social reality of post-Independence India, especially the tensions arising from the process of urbanization, aspirations of the middle class, evolving gender roles and familial disintegration. Implicit in Nayi Kahani is a sense of existential anxiety, of failed communication, and of emotional isolation in domestic spaces, for the protagonists of Nayi Kahani often struggle with these themes through silence and failed communication (King, 2001).

This paper, by comparing Nayi Kahani with the works of other writers, argues that Nayi Kahani cannot simply be understood as an Indian postmodern version of fragmentation. Instead, it is a unique kind of existential realism based on the Indian socio-cultural experiences. While postmodern fiction in the West, in the tradition of postmodernism, seeks experimentation and ontological uncertainty, Nayi Kahani has a firm emotional and psychological realism with a strong emphasis on lived human suffering. The research also delves into the implications of urban loneliness and broken identities as a metaphor for wider disruptions in contemporary society. The loss of traditional family systems in both traditions is a result of individuals' inability to create a meaningful emotional bond in an ever evolving social landscape (Mishra, 2016).

In conclusion the research makes a contribution to the comparative literary research by situating Nayi Kahani in the global debate on existential literature and also highlighting its Indian specific aspects. It concentrates on the shift of existential issues into narratives that were 'socially conscious' and 'sensitized' in Hindi fiction, and explores the emotional intricacies of the post-Independence life through these stories. Indian and western depiction of alienation are compared and the universal nature of modern alienation is highlighted and at the same time the paper illustrates the significance of cultural particularity in literary expression.