Colonial Remnants and the Commoditization of Desire in Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy and Bapsi Sidhwa's Cracking India

Abstract

Colonial remnants are objects, locations, or institutions that are left behind upon the departure of a colonizing presence. Both Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy and Bapsi Sidhwa's Cracking India are layered works that contain a multitude of conflicts, be they on a grander national/ethnic level or on a personalized, individual level. This paper will focus on the ways in which the characters of the respective novels interact with these colonial remnants, and enlighten us to how we can account for the effects of these remnants beyond the physical presence of the military, cultural, and socio-economic force that created them. These interactions complicate the aftershock of the colonizing force's departure, as colonial remnants are turned into sites of resistance as well as a reification of hegemonic norms, or as omens of underlying ethnic tensions that are bound to fulminate.