Inherited Painscapes : A Literary Exploration of Manreet Sodhi Someshwar’s Lahore

Abstract

Manreet Sodhi Someshwar's novel "Lahore" (2007) brings the painscape of Partition literature live and throbbing in the minds of readers. The novel has weaved the social history along with the trauma faced by the common man in a close knitted manner. An intimate glimpse into the psychological cartography of loss and displacement provides deep meditations towards the narratives of 1947 and its immediate aftermath, Someshwar by providing Lahore as the setting of the novel suggests how cities live on the collective unconscious plane of displaced communities. The title of the novel suggests the ways in which the cartography gets transformed into emotional territory, carrying the weight of cultural memory across generations. The present paper examines Someshwar's distinctive approach to document inherited trauma and the reconstruction of literary imagination of lost homelands. The novel structures different narratives to reveal the damaging impact of colonialism and political manipulations had on the common individuals.