The paper examines the intricate balance within ecological systems, focusing on the interaction between human activities and natural environments. It highlights indigenous communities as guardians of invaluable knowledge and traditions, despite often facing marginalisation. Using Rob Nixon's concept of ‘slow violence’ in ecocriticism, the paper explores the gradual and imperceptible environmental degradation and injustice occurring over extended periods. Through a socio-ecological analysis of the Netflix India series Kaala Paani, set in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the paper reveals the subtle yet profound impacts of environmental degradation on inhabitants’ lives. It delves into indigenous practices such as environmental conservation, sustainable resource management, and biodiversity preservation, emphasising the importance of recognizing their contributions to the ecological landscape amidst ongoing environmental challenges.

Horkheimer and Adorno, in their book Dialectic of Enlightenment discuss the “Cultural industry” and how art is produced keeping in mind the consumer’s taste and acceptability to incur maximum profit. Using this concept in mainstream Hindi cinema, where the recurring themes are either patriotism, casteism, social hierarchy, love interests, or environmental concern, we notice how these movies are made for the audience to numb their thinking capacity or help them derive pleasure. In this paper, I am going to focus on commercially misogynist Bollywood spy films and how the East follows the tradition laid down by the West, which produced films like Mission Impossible or the James Bond series. Females in such misogynist films are either presented as mothers, seductresses, or as objects of love interest. I shall study the depiction of female characters in such films from a feminist perspective (keeping in mind what Mulvey discusses in her essay “Visual Pleasures and Narrative Cinema” as voyeuristic scopophilia and fetishism) using psychoanalysis and Frankfurt school theories. Through this paper, I shall explore the dichotomy of how females try to act as predators (to prey upon male spectators and lure them to the movie hall) but eventually end up being preyed by the system (as they are the object of desire and are subjected to the male gaze). In all these roles that a female plays, she does it only to be a part of this phallocentric society and help the audience obtain their promised pleasure. I shall also be dwelling upon the animal instincts in such women and how they are assigned qualities of wild beasts that often make them look like natural predators.

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the indie narrative-cooking video game Venba, developed by Visai Games. Set in 1980s Canada, the game explores themes of immigrant identity, familial bonds, and culinary heritage, focusing on a Tamil diasporic family. Players of the game take the guise of the titular protagonist, Venba, who endeavours to preserve her Tamil heritage by restoring her family's cherished cookbook. However, the cookbook is damaged in the move from India to Canada, and it is up to the players to engage in culinary puzzles to decipher and reconstruct recipes. Drawing from scholarly perspectives on cookbooks as cultural artefacts, this study examines the significance of culinary traditions in cultural preservation amidst migration. I suggest here that cookbooks like that of Venba’s serve as repositories for preserving cultural practices and collective memories, offering invaluable insights into the gastronomic traditions of ethnic communities. Venba employs culinary gameplay mechanics to invite players into the rich tapestry of Tamil cuisine and cultural mores, fostering cross-cultural understanding. The narrative architecture of the game underscores the transformative potential of food as an enduring medium for expression, connection, and cultural continuity amidst the vicissitudes of change. Ultimately, Venba emerges as a catalyst for introspection, encouraging players to embark on journeys of self-discovery and cultural appreciation while underscoring the imperative of embracing one's heritage with unwavering pride and authenticity.

Social exclusion is a practice that is evident in human societies across ages. It had many aspects and facets based on the social, religious, political, economic and cultural parameters which were followed in the societies. With modernisation (in the sense of scientific inventions became a part of everyday life), the concept of social exclusion got more organized in human societies. Notable social psychologist Susan Tufts Fiske lays out the framework of the practice called social exclusion among five core motives which are found among people which is called the BUC[K]ET theory. This article will discuss these core motives and will investigate how they are imprinted in the socio-cultural behaviours of human beings through select twentieth-century Bengali literary texts. The article will be interdisciplinary and qualitative in nature.

In contemporary culture, increasing body weight or body becoming out of shape has become an alarming concern among people irrespective of age and gender. Having a body without the ideal body proportions or having a protruding belly or non-conforming body parts makes people vulnerable in public. The norms regarding body weight affect women more than men as the punitive mechanisms for having a fat body become harsher for the former. This paper focuses on the stigmatization of fat women in two Indian movies titled Dum Laga Ke Haisha (2015) and O.P.160/18 Kakshi: Amminippilla (2019) to analyze how fat shaming experiences traumatize and subjugate women with non-conforming bodies. By analyzing the experiences and trauma undergone by the fat women in these movies, the present study aims to explore how the stigma of fatness makes women vulnerable in the public and private spaces in Indian culture and marginalizes them from mainstream society.

Aidan Tynan's work ventures beyond traditional approaches to explore the multifaceted symbolism of deserts and wastelands in Western literature and philosophy. The book explores cross-disciplinary domains such as psychology, psychoanalysis, modern literature, myths and philosophy. It takes readers on an unconventional journey exploring deserts and wastelands. While the book is not strictly an ecocritical work, it shares similarities with ecocriticism that seeks to overcome biases in traditional approaches. Tynan challenges the trends in ecocriticism and the perception of deserts as mere physical landscapes, presenting them as rich metaphors for existential contemplation and enlightenment. He examines the desert's portrayal in Western literary and philosophical traditions, drawing parallels with the works of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and postmodern thinkers like Deleuze and Guattari. He explores how writers from various eras, including T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, and William S. Burroughs, employ the desert motif to criticise the modern society. Tynan emphasises the transformative power of art in reimagining our planet and confronting existential and environmental crises. Tynan's narrative structure integrates themes of existentialism, ecology, aesthetics and cultural identity, inviting readers to explore the desert's rich symbolism from diverse viewpoints. Ultimately, the book offers a thought-provoking journey into the depths of human experience, challenging readers to reconsider their perceptions of deserts and wastelands.

At the end of Donald Trump’s presidentship, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) which was published almost 70 years back suddenly became one of the best-selling novels in the U.S. One could postulate that Trump’s various repressive racial policies, totalitarian mindset, shared cultural insecurity of the Americans and Orwell’s broad minacious dystopian vision were the reason behind this hasty popularity. This is the process, I think, by which a book becomes canon by rediscovering its significance in every new ‘turn’ of history. Dorothy M. Figueira’s Aryans, Jews, Brahmins: Theorizing Authority through Myths of Identity although was first published in 2002, the book is in similar fashion more relevant at present than ever before especially in the context of India. Why? I would provide an answer to this statement at the end of my discussion.

This book brings a continuous evolution and preservation of refugee community identities, transformation of cultural values and Politicization of linguistic nationalism in Assam and Tripura in postcolonial India. By using primary resources such as central and state government archives, official records, census data, extensive field survey, along with contemporary literature author aims to portray the resistance of refugees for collective community identity and official recognition as a citizen of India. Author tried to question the categorization of refugees' as a fragmented cultural and ethnic identities and present a biased and discriminatory politics of state towards Bengali refugees' in Assam and Tripura during refugee rehabilitation programme. She also highlighted interlinkage of refugee issue also with the identity politics, dispute on boundary demarcations, land resource management and allocation along with preservation of tribal ethnicity and collective community identity values.

The book for review is comprised of eight chapters. Each reverberates around the existence of the Rajbanshi community with their own history, socio-cultural behaviour, and moreover, folktales and folksongs – an oral literature associated with them. As the book is titled the “Rajbanshi Folk Tales and Folk Songs”, the focus is much on that subject matter only rather than on the history of the Rajbanshi community. But unless one gets acquainted with the history of the Rajbanshi community and its own separate socio-cultural identity, one cannot understand the essence of these folk tales and songs associated with this community. So, the author has wisely included a few chapters related to history, location, identity, and language of the Rajbanshi community at the end section of the book.

In Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, Donna J. Haraway addresses deeply situated feminist explorations and varied epistemologies and ecologies. It contains figurative criticism of the current environmental crises that forms the emergency of the Anthropocene. Haraway traverses alternative ways of knowing how the subject’s experiences of the past, present, future, gender, culture, race all dissolve into each other and need continuous interrogations to arrive at the evolving notions of subjecthood and environment. The book investigates thematerial semiotics, political histories of different surfaces, mythologies, species, and stories and forces us to establish contact with other existents in search of harmonious ways of survival. In our age when global politics and global capital are operating by destruction and distortion of natural resources, the book emerges as an inevitable counter by product of staying with the trouble.