Microhistory, Cultural Memory and Indus Valley Civilization in Vasant Davé’s Trade Winds to Meluhha

Abstract This article seeks to examine the complex historical ellipses associated with the Bronze Age civilization on the extended Indus-Saraswati river basins and how cultural memory can be employed as a potential tool to unravel unexplored dimensions of an ancient civilization like Indus – minor narratives of which do not find room in dominant discourses on Ancient Indian History. Insufficient archaeological findings coupled with hitherto unmapped Indus scripts have prompted fiction writers to reconstruct the missing links germane to the historical becomings of Indus Valley Civilization and as result of which, historical obscurities get manifold imaginative possibilities that in turn provoke Historians to think afresh. In this context, Vasant Dave’s Trade Winds to Meluhha revisits historical trajectories of the Indus Valley Civilization through a series of experimentations with cultural memory so that microhistories get resurfaced by adding new dimensions to the existing beliefs in macrohistory. This article employs new historicist perspectives to study historical documents and literary fiction together, intending to bring up minor voices and grey areas that are not included in the fact-ridden historical accounts of Indus Valley. In short, this article aims at fusing cultural memory with new historical perspectives to explore the literary recreation of Indus Valley civilization.