ENVIRONMENTAL DISQUIETUDE IN SELECTED SHORT STORIES OF ASSAMESE WRITER SAURABH KUMAR CHALIHA

Abstract [English]

With the introduction of a new theory termed ecocriticism, environmental concerns in literature are a hot topic these days. Environmental risk has become a more prominent issue in recent years in environmental literature because of its connections to climate change. This paper attempts to study the ecological concerns in the short stories of Saurabh Kumar Chaliha. This paper focuses on the environmental issues raised by Chaliha. He is known as the writer who captures the urban life with all its tall buildings, narrow lanes, filthy roads, overflowing drains, noises and pollution. But at the background of such stories there lies solicitude for the environment degradation. Noise pollution, draught, deforestation etc. are some of the environmental issues which occupy certain place in Chaliha's stories. This concern for environmental degradation is associated by the author with the materialistic concern of the Assamese middle class. In the proposed study, three short stories of Chaliha are selected-Awaj; Golam and Khorang- are selected to examine how the characters suffer at the hand of the depleted environment. Chaliha writes about the scenarios and characters facing environmental issues where their identities are threatened owing to human greed and ignorance. The study of the chosen stories will be done through close reading, textual analysis and citations. Here, information from both primary and secondary sources is incorporated. While secondary sources are obtained from journals, periodicals, and reference books, primary sources are the texts of the chosen nonfictional and fictional works as well as the author interviews.