Greying Spaces and the Haunting Womb: Aging, Subjectivity, and Material Convoy in Ira Raja’s “The Womb” and “Sunstroke”

Abstract Grey Areas: An Anthology of Indian Fiction on Ageing by Ira Raja emerges as a potential site in the history of literary gerontology at which to explore the beyond-the-human experiences of aging bodies that are normatively conceived as peripheral, obsolete, and pathological through the utilitarian lenses of society. This article focuses on one of the material possessions that older adults possess to analyze its affective dimensions through close readings of the text. To explore the concepts through the fictional medium, the discussion will specifically examine two short stories from the anthology: “Sunstroke” (1977) by Changanti Tulasi and “The Womb” (1988) by Chaman Nahal. To substantiate the arguments, the article refers to critical perspectives from sociology, such as the notion of the material convoy and critical theories such as posthuman affect and material engagement theory to analyze how matter problematizes the binary between the animate and inanimate. We conclude by providing key findings on how a material convoy triggers complex entanglement between memory, affect, and materiality, thus evolving as a nonanimate entity that turns into a metaphorical extension of older adults’ subjectivity.