INDIGENEITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN ANITA RAU BADAMI’S TAMARIND MEM AND ROHINTON MISTRY’S SUCH A LONG JOURNEY

literature by many writers. Rohinton Mistry and Anita Rau Badami’s approach to indigeneity and environment is an interesting one. Indian ethos and environmental concerns as delineated in their works are, indeed worth-studying. Badami, a contemporary writer of Indian diaspora, places her typical characters in the typical Indian social and cultural set up. Various themes and issues related to indigenous Indian life have been sketched in her debut novel Tamarind Mem (1996). The novel subtly hints at the close human relationship with nature and more-than-human world and other environmental issues. Being set up in Bombay (now Mumbai), Mistry’s Such a Long Journey (1991) centres around the urban atmosphere of a typical Indian metropolitan city with the hardships of marginalized people, poverty, rapid urbanisation and its associated degradation and pollution of the environment. Mistry’s approach to the then politics, corruption and caste discrimination in India is realistic and often harsh. His depiction of the urban environment which includes extended nature, is noteworthy and invites fresh study. The paper attempts to explore the indigenous and environmental consciousness in Tamarind Mem and Such a Long Journey. Through close textual analysis the paper, thus, tries to study indigeneity and environmental awareness as presented in these two novels.