“Days of Parting”: A Testimony to Trauma

Abstract

Focusing on the rendition of the pathetic human conditions as is reflected in Indian English literature, this paper aims to study the ‘Kashmir Holocaust.’ Through the lens of trauma theory, this paper studies the personal essay by Arvind Gigoo, titled “Days of Parting,” taken from the collection of memoirs, A Long Dream of Home. Using theoretical perspectives proposed in Dori Laub’s “Truth and Testimony – The Process and the Struggle,” in which he discusses three distinct levels of ‘witnessing,’ the paper will explore the relevance of memory, witness, and testimony intertwined in this memoir, concluding that trauma never ends for a survivor. The ideas of Ana Douglass and Thomas A. Vogler on witness and memory are also used in the paper to understand the effect of trauma on Kashmiris.