The Malarial Body in Western Bio-Medicine and Indigenous Medicine: A Reading of Dis-ease Narratives in Ashoke Mukhopadhaya's A Ballad of Remittent Fever

Abstract Ashoke Mukhopadhyay’s A Ballad of Remittent Fever (2018), originally written in Bengali as Abiram Jawarer Rupkotha, portrays the Ghosal family in the fictional Indian village of Beliaghata, chronicling four generations of doctors. These medical practitioners embody the idea of medical modernity introduced by the colonizers, having been educated in Western medical science. The narrative presents a contrast between this Western bio-medicine and the indigenous Ayurvedic practices represented by Madhumadhabi, a family member who becomes an Ayurvedic doctor. This paper examines the representation of the malarial body in the novel and investigates how the author fictionalizes the narratives of dis-ease caused by malaria. Furthermore, it explores the debate between the epistemologies of Eastern and Western medicine, analysing how each conceptualizes the human body during illness, particularly in the context of malaria. Keywords: malarial body, dis-ease, medicine, modernity, Ayurveda, bio-medicine