Dissident Self-Writing in Malayalam: Reading Autobiographical Dissonance as Protest

Abstract

My paper attempts to study the autobiographical ‘slips’ of Nalini Jameela’s Njan Laingikathozhilali (Trans. Autobiography of a Sex Worker) through the conceptual framework of war-machine proposed by Deleuze and Guattari. My paper focuses on the role of colonial modernity in establishing the genre of autobiographical writing in Kerala and reads how Nalini Jameela’s work significantly alters the genre by subverting the dominant notions of ideal woman, cheap woman and autobiographical language. Colonial modernity had a significant role in establishing stabilised characteristics to gender categories and accordingly an ideal woman is supposed to be subservient, family-centric and should function in society-approved manner for the progress of her nuclear family. Nalini Jameela’s work questions these suppositions. I explore the following questions in my paper - What was the impact of colonial modernity in establishing autobiography as a genre in Kerala? By challenging hegemonic modes of ‘telling’, how does the work establish a conflicted political subjectivity ? Does Nalini Jameela’s autobiography subvert the established understandings of veshya(prostitute)? How does the work de-consecrate the ‘respectability’ notions of angelic domestic woman?