Paper short abstract:

This paper examines Rabindranath Tagore's autobiographical writings with a focus on nostalgia, probing the contention that nostalgia is a privileged sentiment. Under what conditions does nostalgia arise? How to link it to the dominant temporal imaginaries of colonial and postcolonial South Asia?

Paper long abstract:

The proposed paper is outwardly beside the point of the panel: no emancipatory self-articulation in terms of gender or class is to be expected from autobiographical writings by Rabindranath Tagore, exponent of the cultural elite in colonial Bengal and himself the apex of literary fame. However, after looking at the role of nostalgia in his "Jiban smrti", "Chelebela" and other similar writings, I will argue that nostalgia is unevenly distibuted in autobiographical literature, and in many ways bound to social and cultural privileges. In further broadening the lens, the paper will speculate on how nostalgia in autobiographies is linked to dominant temporal imaginaries of South Asia, thus furnishing various synapses with the more contemporary life narratives the panel seeks to address.