Krishanu Adhikari is a happy man. The 27-year-old PhD scholar in the Department of English, School of Humanities of University of Hyderabad (UoH), has been selected to present his research paper on ‘Indian Campus and the Problematics of Caste: A Study of Select Indian Campus Novels in English’ at the South Asian Literary Association (SALA) this year. Talking about his paper being selected Krishanu says, “I am very excited about this opportunity. SALA is mostly centred upon the exploration of South-Asian ideas related to society, literature and culture. My work on Indian campus novels in English is in close proximity to the areas covered by them.”
Originally from Kolkata, Krishanu wants to become a professor. He has completed his M.A. from Pondicherry University, and his M.Phil from English and Foreign Languages University. “It was after completing my M.Phil, that I developed interest towards the Indian campus novels in English. However, I was always fascinated with English even as a child. My study includes the works of Andre Beteille, Derek Bok, Jacques Derrida, the education commission reports and the writings of Ambedkar, in order to address the complex dynamics of the social responsibilities of Indian universities,” he says.
In his research papers, Krishanu has tried to study how novels reveal deeper problems of Indian caste system. “This paper would attempt to study Srividya Natarajan’s No Onions Nor Garlic (2006) and M. K. Naik’s Corridors of Knowledge (2008), so as to probe how these two novels manifest two different discursive traces of approaches, concerning the deep rooted problematics of Indian Caste system in two different Indian university campuses,” he says.
Explaining further Krishanu says, “Campus Fiction as a distinct subgenre of fiction rose into prominence in the West during 1950s. In a similar vein, Indian academia has also contributed to the ‘palimpsestic’ growth of a similar kind of fiction, written in English on Indian campuses, since 1950s, which has remained unheeded in the existing body of Indian English Fiction.”
