VIGNETTE OF ECO-NOSTALGIA IN AKKINENI KUTUMBARAO’S SOFTLY DIES A LAKE

Abstract

Softly Dies a Lake written by Akkineni Kutumbarao in Telugu as Kolleti Jadalu and translated to English by Vasanth Kannabiran is a revisit to, a recollection of and a nostalgia on the lake Kolleru in Andhra Pradesh. Hit by the aquaculture industry boosted by the Blue Revolution, fast booming industrialism, unsupervised governance of few authorities, uneven monsoon patterns combined with diversion of river waters and the greed of the humankind, Kolleru, a once sprawling body of freshwater in India, is currently reduced to its mere capacities. The splendour of the lake is at present remembered only through the recollection of memories by its natives, who lament over its degenerated state and hope to revive it back to its finery. This emotion, found common among the natives of a land devastated by climate change and ecological issues, called eco-nostalgia is a relatively new study in anthropology and discusses how it is encountered, experienced and reacted to. Though not studied much in literature, literature can prove to be an excellent medium at studying eco-nostalgia in human subjects as it is the characters and their experiences with the land and society that steer head the plot. Apropos this, this paper studies the depiction of eco-nostalgia in an environment seriously damaged and threatened by climate change using the four propositions of eco-nostalgia propounded by Angé and Berliner in Softly Dies a Lake; the practical possibility to study eco-nostalgia from literature based on true events and;