wk . yx Harel Me ‘ = . further brutality in the tora of th sled to furl tural deplet 86 ie tee ae fore al distort ynsand cultural depletion Withy tots aa ator anized hist: oe a Pe f ince pende nt India rep the hrstory o . epresentation o ; The shadow Lines as Repre fe History ne Discuss gas. l a fi werers to new worlds have xt Let seadrscover’ : ae to other, worlds on worlds have shown, op maps FO a me world, each hath one, and ts one Let us possess ome! and ne o Jonne’s poem enc apsulate the crux of These oft quoted lines from | I vencapsilat a Although places ‘exist’ for some people Bay Shadow Lines. ¢ Ghosh’s novel The both are inv 1’ by others, entions; and this act of inventing entails vd’ by others, ee of worlds, but also the history of those worlds, These tbe in concurrence with those available in the records, but that, in no way, can diminish the veracity of these histories, Intimately connected with the attempts of historiography . the exercisin, ach mnemonic effort Is an attempt at historicizing and amateur historian. The narrator in The Shadow Lines states, “People like my grandfather who have no home but in memory, learn to be skilled in the art of recollection”. So is Tridib and Ila. This idea, Fred Weinstein observes as a shift in the novel's concerns vis-a-vis history and claims that unlike the earlier generation novelists, who did not like history or historians, the contemporary novelists have come to appreciate history. Several among, them, however, seek to claim history for their own. The list is endless, starting from Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong’o and continuing with Carlos Fuentes, Allan Sealy, Maxine Hong, Kingston et al. All the characters in The Shadow Lines appear to have an infinite relation with history. Tridib pursues a Ph.D. in Archaeology, Thamma has lived through the Partition, and the narrator's visit to London is prompted by the need to collect materials from the India Office Library’s colonial archives for a Ph.D. thesis on 19th Century textile trade between England and India. The opening of The Shadow Lines, appears to be an attempt at historiography, as does the background of wars against which the narrator unfolds his story and that of others The narrator refers to the newspapers in the archives regarding the gens on wh mai ea ang te pid I and He oitectively ae es nenetream history is constructed. On the other oa estrangement from his be: rewilderment as a child during the riots, 7 gement from his best friend Montu, a Muslim and the death of Tridib, which form the “real world” of ordi “ive” hi Though not available in the recorded chroni pe eer ae Uda The Ree Gan faa these events are not fabrications : our imaginations efers to is the history which is recorded on'Y are ‘IMAg Ne not only the cre: histories may or may NO! of memory. In a way, & each recollecting individual is an There are Ws : on eae ee in the novel where the thoughts, regarding the ones eee a F le the narrator g0es on a mnemonic journey visiting the : fe people which figure in Tridib’s past. In this regard, the narrator