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Reading Parijat and B P Koirala
This article suggests a feminist reading of borders and nation in investigating the poetics of transborder humanism scattered in the popular genre of Nepali fiction and poetry. While border-crossing is predominantly associated with suffering and despair as well as hope and relief, it may also allude to opportunism and betrayal. My argument is that borders are not only corporeal and political, but also introspective and personal. I reflect on the works of Parijat and B P Koirala whose lives criss-crossed the Nepal–India border on more than one level. I argue that the conundrum of their political and personal engagements might have triggered a new poetic discourse on an individual’s relationship with society, state and the world. This genre of writing speaks to an earlier South Asian discourse dating back to Tagore but more recently, revisited in its psychoanalytic interpretations by Ashis Nandy which interpret borders and nationalism more flexibly to offer an alternative that is different from its more mainstream, Westphalian theorisations.
The author would like to thank several colleagues and friends for their generous feedback on earlier drafts of this article, including Smadar Lavie for introducing her to the anthropological movement among the women of colour, Michael Hutt for feedback on her reading of Nepali literature, and two anonymous reviewers of this journal for detailed comments and meaningful suggestions. Part of the work for this article was funded by the South Asian University’s Institute of South Asian Studies through a research grant on “The Poetic Imagining(s) of South Asia.”
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