Cultural heritage a way to the past: exploring the cultural heritage in Anita Nair’s novel <i>The Better Man</i>

Heritage, traditional values, and related cultural practices – tools to assess ancestral lifestyles- are quintessential touchstones for human well-being. Heritage might be in the form of cultural symbols such as buildings, monuments, artifacts, language, and landscapes, which represent the ideology and behaviour of preceding generations. A community’s inheritance, which is passed across generations may lose its grandeur and value, because of modern concepts. Presently, efforts are being made to conserve heritage symbols for preservation of endangered cultures and values, otherwise these will be reduced to collective memory. Kerala has diverse cultural symbols and heritage sites, mostly in the northern part of the state. While the UNESCO, ICOMOS, and archaeologists engaged in the conservation of heritage, literary narratives also play a key role in this context. In Anita Nair’s novel, The Better Man, she explores heritage objects and allied cultural practices. This study examines how Nair presents the heritage symbols, cultural practices, and their related memories through the character of Mukundan.