Tracing Trans-corporeality in Indian River Poetics: A Comparative Study of A.K. Ramanujan’s ‘A River’ and Keki N. Daruwalla’s ‘The Ghaghra in Spate’
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31305/rrijm.2026.v11.n02.026Keywords:
Blue Humanities, Hydro-Poetics, Porosity, Riverine Agency, Trans-corporealityAbstract
This paper examines the role of Indian rivers in Indian poetry from the burgeoning field of Blue Humanities, belonging to the crossroads between Environmental Humanities and Oceanic Studies, that engages with human-water relationships. The poems analysed in this paper are A.K. Ramanujan’s ‘A River’ and Keki N. Daruwalla’s ‘The Ghaghra in Spate’ that animates the fluidity and flow of water that seep into land and the lives of people, resisting the rigid boundaries that humans have drawn for it, thereby according to it, the nature of ‘trans- corporeality’, a term coined by Stacy Alaimo. Building on Steve Mentz’s claim of shifting focus from “largely saltwater” and oceanic discourses to “varied analyses of planetary water” including other water bodies like ponds, estuaries and rivers, this paper reflects on the blue humanities discourse on rivers in the Indian scenario by documenting ecological violence, challenging anthropocentric arrogance and preserving hydro-centric memory.
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