• Dr. Mousumi Chakraborty

Trauma refers to the pain and misery of seeing the worst that people can do to each other. A traumatic experience has a detrimental effect on an individual’s physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual well-being. Trauma disrupts the mind, jeopardizes emotional stability and threatens an individual’s growth. Trauma is a psychological injury caused by the violent experience and victimisation, such as sexual harassment, mistreatment, severe neglect, deprivation, witnessing or being a victim of domestic abuse, terrorism, or natural disasters. Trauma is an injury that affects the body rather than the mind, but later the meaning changed from physical injury to a psychological one. The memory of trauma is ―preserved with an astonishing freshness and retained their full affective emphasis over a long period of time‖. Violence against women is a tradition of the age-old practice. Women were commonly used as domestic servants and sex slaves. Indian women were considered as nothing and they were like birds in a cage who neither had the freedom nor their identity. Women who choose to commit suicide by jumping into wells, burning or letting their male members slaughter them were honourably remembered as dead or martyred by families. Women were considered to be physically weak and were therefore restricted to the house’s four walls. Trauma causes a silent fear that divides or destroys identity. Through various literary and historical sources, trauma theory seeks to explain the multiple ways in which traumatic events are demonstrated, revealed and repressed. In her novel Pinjar, Amrita Pritam depicts the gendered perspective of the trauma and sufferings during Partition. The novel focusses on the journey of individuals from innocence to experience. The novel vividly depicts the anguish and despair of women who are victims of circumstances. Pinjar depicts the violence between the two communities. Pinjar shows this partition triggered off violence, bloodshed and displacement of people from their homes. This partition also portraits women were the worst sufferers and were victimized in different ways. Women’s pain during Partition and the resulting scars on their lives were utterly ignored.

Trauma, Memory, Partition, Gender, Suffering

"PINJAR: A STORY OF TRAUMATIZED ANXIETY AND SUFFERING OF VOICELESS WOMEN DURING PARTITION", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.8, Issue 1, page no.55-57, January-2021, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2101350.pdf

"PINJAR: A STORY OF TRAUMATIZED ANXIETY AND SUFFERING OF VOICELESS WOMEN DURING PARTITION", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.8, Issue 1, page no. pp55-57, January-2021, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2101350.pdf