Tracing the Aspects of Postmillennial Indian Fiction: A Study of Laburnum for My Head by Temsula Ao

Abstract

The experience of the tribes can never be labelled under one umbrella. It varies between every region and country. G.N. Devy in his Introduction to Indigenity: Culture and Representation states that tribes are "recognized as "Aborigines" in Australia, as Maori in New Zealand, as "First Nations" in Canada, as "Indigenous" in the United States, as "Janajatis" in India…as "Adivasis" in the terminology of Asian Activists" (XI). The names and terms alone not vary but each tribe as mentioned by the anthropologists has unique practices, culture and belief. For all these tribes, oral literature is the mother of all forms of literature. However, in the modern era, the survival of tribes is possible only with their written expression which is mandatory to sustain with the mainstream literature. This article aims to trace the text Laburnum for my Head as a postmillennial Indian fiction that presents the transformation of tribal literature from oral to written form addressing their contemporary issues. The form and content of the tribal literature has varied according to the context of the modern era. These issues addressed by Temsula Ao also covers the subaltern aspects like the role of tribal women and the portrayal of tribes as Naxals in the North East India. This text by various means serves as an appropriate example for a postmillennial Indian fiction.