UERJ - Literature V

Professor: Davi Pinho

Student: Ligia Lopes Pereira Pinho
3RD Journal Entry - Class discussion of “On a Cold Day”

December 1st

In this class, Professor Davi Pinho and the group debated about a short story called “On a
Cold Day”. Researching about Postcolonialism theory what I could understand is that
Postcolonialism is an umbrella term which we use to describe a set of theory and practices
which seek to explore the legacy of colonialism in the present day. And, much of this
attends to the political and economic legacies of colonialism. I also learned that the term
diaspora is widely used in Postcolonial studies. I wish I could read more about it when I
have the chance.

In post-colonial studies when we mention diaspora literature or diasporic authors what we

tend to think about the works produced by those authors who live in were the former
colonial centers of Nations that were part of the colonizing process who lived there.
However, living in these former colonial centers works with some kind of insights about
their native countries. If I am not mistaken the short story debated could fit into this
diasporic literature, written by an Indian-Canadian writer who immigrated to Canada in the
sixties. In class, we saw that the short story raises questions about the problem of identity,
the problem of the otherness, and the perception of being the other in the city not being able
to fit in.

The post-colonial writers are going to question identity from a point of view of a diaspora
writing, in other words, the migrant writer. The short story “On a Cold Day” is an example
both of the continuation of tension between individual and collective, society and its
subalterns.

The first section of the short story presents the weather serving as a focal point for the
construction of the narrative. It is interesting to think about the use of “especially cold”. It
is a well-known fact that one of the most difficult things to deal with when living in another
place is the weather, mainly when one goes to a place that has extreme temperatures, a
person that has never seen snow or face harsh winters would never fully understand the
importance of the hot summer. The weather becomes one more obstacle to overcome, the
body itself has to get used to the cold as if Nature itself became an enemy to be defeated.

The apartment scene exemplifies the sense of (un)belonging and dislocation of the
character. The character Asima acts as if there was a lack of identifications with the objects
that surround her. As if, she did not belong to her own house and as if, she did not have a
place in society. This inability of connecting to even the objects in her own house is what
starts in Asima a state of melancholy, as consequence she kills herself.

Such deed starts in other the other two characters of the story Mr. Abdul Jalal and Devika
Badhan a process of identification among them. Even though Mr. Abdul and Devika do not
have the same background, they recognized themselves in one another.

The character Devika seems to be representing accurately the diasporic condition of some
people. She presented to the reader as in between two identities: Debbie Barton and Devika
Badhan. When we meet her for the first time, she seems to be incorporated in this society,
she is one of the people in the mass of the city, and she translated herself into Debbie
Barton. However, a split happens when she sees the body in the street, she sees herself in
the body of Asima. She goes through a process of identification, she finds herself, and she
reassesses her own position in that society through Asima’s body. Although Debbie tries to
fit in that society, Asima’s body makes her realize her position in that society, she is part of
the other never able to fully mingle or fit in completely. She may take a new name, wear
high heels but she is like the body of Asima, invisible, taking little space, trying not to
disturb the mass by being different. By trying to incorporate herself in this society, Debika
conforms rather than being accepted.

The encounter between Debika and Jalal is also important to understand the idea of
recognition. As I could understand, the moment they sit down to talk is the moment they
stop being invisible. Although coming from different backgrounds they share this “being
the other” condition, they too, as Asima, are not able to mingle, only to conform.
At the end of the class, I could realize the importance of a writer like Himani Bannerji to
literature. It takes courage to use literature to question the position of the colonizer. The
artistic manifestation as a form to reconnect the colonized to its roots at the same admitting
that he or she has inside a part of the colonizer. The diasporic writer will probably always
questions his own identity find himself/herself between worlds. I truly believe that such
impossibility of single identification is what makes them uniquely able to bring such
amazing experiencing of reading as the one in “On a Cold Day”.
REFERENCES

Bannerji, Himani. On a cold day. In: Sullivan, Rosemary (Ed.). Stories by Canadian
Women. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Quayso, Ato. The british academy https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/what-is-

postcolonial-literature/ accessed on dec. 8th