Conflict between Tradition and Modernity in Samrat Upadhyay's Arresting God in Kathmandu

Abstract

Samrat Upadhyay's Arresting God in Kathmandu (2001) presents modern Nepali agents on the one hand who are capable of acting on their own resist the repressive cultural, political and social orders on the other hand the old generations want the tradition to be preserved and want to protect it. This collection of short stories is full of subjects resisting the repressive social, cultural and political values. The agency is within the subjects of the society. This research paper is done under the theoretical light of Dilip Parameshwor Gaonkar's alternative modernities, Charles Taylor's making of the modern identity, Peter Wagner's concepts of modernity, Dipesh Chakrabarty and Arjun Appadurai's theories on modernity. The selected stories for this research paper are "Deepak Misra's Secretary", "The Cooking Poet", "The Limping Bride" and "This World". Different characters in the stories act in their own way. Kanti, Jaya, Giri, Moti, Rukmini, Bandana, Deepak and Jill are the main characters. They stop performing social, political and cultural values instead they resist against those values. Thus, the tension between modern subjects; the people who are self-dependent and their resistance against the socio-political and cultural values and the traditional subjects who want new generations to act according to established norms and values is depicted in the selected four stories from the short stories collection, Arresting God in Kathmandu. Keywords: Modernity, Resistance, Self-dependent, Agency, Social, Political, Cultural Values