Moments of Truth and Lyrical Musings on Goa's Traumatic Process of Decolonization: A Reading of Surya and Monsoon by Vimala Devi

• Main Author: Festino, Cielo G.
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2024
• Subjects: Surya; Monsoon; colonial; postcolonial trauma; pastoral; subaltern
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/kk/vol1/iss38/28; https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/kk/article/1931/viewcontent/KK_2038_2C_202022_2028_20Forum_20Kritika_20on_20Goa_20Before_20India_20Late_Colonial_20Goan_20Society_20and_20Culture_20__20Festino.pdf
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

The aim of this paper is to analyze in counterpoint a selection of short stories from Monsoon and poems from Surya, both collections written by Vimala Devi, in light of theories concerning the intersection of trauma, narrative, and the postcolonial. This approach permits an understanding of effects produced by colonialism such as dispossession, forced migration, diaspora, segregation, racism, and political violence (Craps and Buelens 3). My analysis is carried out from a culture-bound perspective (3), which considers each case of colonial and postcolonial trauma not only as having its own singularities, but also as producing effects on the colonized cultures at both a personal (Caruth) and collective level (Rothberg). Also, we consider some of the singularities of the colonial situation in Goa (Santos). For the contrastive analysis between poems and short stories, in terms of the condition of the Goan elite and subaltern (Fernandes, “Recovering”; Citizenship), we consider Devi ́s rendition of the pastoral (Alpers) as well as her use of some elements of Portuguese Neo-Realism (Lourenço; Gama). The article is divided into the following sections: “The End of an Era,” about the trauma caused by the end of Portuguese presence in Goa; “Some Other Kind of Living,” about the way in which Goans had to adapt to the new circumstances; “What Went Wrong?” on the condition of the Goan subalterns; and the last section, “Devi ́s Answer to Trauma,” about Devi ́s way of dealing with the painful divisions at the heart of Goan society.