The haunting of historical memory: marking colonial trauma in tales of athiranippadam

Manifestations of memory of a place are oftentimes rooted in the culture of the space the memory originates from and the identity of the place it becomes part of. Even though there are various ways in which these manifestations occur, in the context of Indian narratives, reproductions of cultural myths hold their power over the places of memory, where a collective memory of a myth is rewritten according to the kind of memory the place has. The myth also later takes on a Gothic nature in reinterpretation of it. This paper will study how the myth of Yakshi, a female figure in Indian mythology often portrayed as the diabolical feminine, is reproduced by a place of memory. It will analyze the translated novel Tales of Athiranippadam, initially written in Malayalam by S.K.Pottekkatt, to understand how sites witnessing female trauma significantly impact the literature written about them. The cultural, historical, and emotional memories of a place relating to the colonial period, taking a material form and intertwining with the Gothic and local mythology, are among the primary ideas this article will examine. The symbolic nature of the Yakshi and its interplay with the history of Indian women, its real-world implications, etc., will also be studied. The article will also address how the phenomenon of Gothic haunting lends hands to criticizing history and written narratives.