• Dr. Indrani Datta (Chaudhuri)

Many critics and scholars view Abanindranath Tagore’s works, even his writings for children, as the representations of the nationalist art of colonial India that was created to counter the homogenous, linguistically unitary, monolithic Western nation-state. This article explores the ‘heteroglossia’ beneath the apparently seamless monolithic idea of the nation-state in Abanindranath’s seminal work Khirer Putul in which the voiceless is given voice and the fabula is taken from folk art (lok Shilpa) and not the Sanskritised mainstream. The novel, meant for the education of children, betrays a palimpsest ideologue founded not merely on the essence of Hinduism but more firmly upon folk-cultures and folklores f various communities, regions and provinces. The text, I argue, has the potential to cut across caste and class that became vigorously entwined with the idea of the Bharat Ma as the embodiment of the nation. I read into the text a kind of cultural ‘hybridity’ that not only interrogates the virtual homogeneity of the nationalist nation-state but engages with the ‘real’ community called India. Here, the dukhini ma and the banar son remain as central as the prince and princesses of the fables and allegories of the country.

Abanindranath Tagore, Khirer Putul (Condensed Milk Doll), Children’s Literature, Prof. Debashish Banerji, ‘Alternate Nation’, Hybridity, Heteroglossia, Bengali novel for children.

"The ‘Alternate Nation’ in Abanindranath Tagore’s Khirer Putul", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.8, Issue 5, page no.a374-a383, May-2021, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2105045.pdf

"The ‘Alternate Nation’ in Abanindranath Tagore’s Khirer Putul", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.8, Issue 5, page no. ppa374-a383, May-2021, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2105045.pdf