Loss, Longing, and Desire: The Poetics of Nostalgia in Qurratulain Hyder’s "My Temples, Too"

Abstract

“Nostalgia,” writes Svetlana Boym, often emerges in times of “historical upheavals” or when the “rhythms of life” are suddenly “accelerated.” One can well understand that such nostalgic outbreaks are the results of the experience change. One such moment was that of the Partition of India in 1947. This paper focuses on this moment as it is depicted in Qurratulain Hyder’s novel, My Temples, Too. Hyder’s novel, that centers around the experience of Partition, is haunted by a palpable sense of loss, of rupture, and an acute longing for the places and spaces of the past that its characters witness as eroding. Following scholars like Boym, Linda Hutcheon, De Brigard, Gaston Bachelard, Edward Casey, and others, this paper first prepare the ground of its argument by showing how memory and nostalgia are often deeply rooted in everyday things, objects, and places of habitation, investing them with a sense of belonging. Thereafter, it situates Hyder’s novel in its immediate context and explores its poetics of loss, longing, and nostalgia.