| Summary: | The present article examines trauma in the multicultural context of India
based on an interdisciplinary and comparative study drawing on theories from
psychology, neuroscience, genetics, comparative literature, arts and cultural studies.
The focus is on various forms of trauma – psychological, physical, individual,
collective – and the way they shape distinct worldviews, problematic identities and
conflictual selves rooted in the dialectic union of tradition and modernity that
characterizes South Asian cultures in varied degrees. It is argued that these traumas
get integrated into the self through a series of negotiations, emotional reverberations
and transactions, yet constantly carry within them the potential of implosion/
explosion in certain situations; they lead to creative and critical subversions of social
norms, to the deconstruction of language and the everyday, the emergence of new
discourses, as well as to processes of restructuring the self (and psyche) through
dialogical interactions with the world. These interactions between the self, being and
the world develop according to two significant dimensions, namely genetic and
epigenetic factors, which points to the fact that trauma has a transgenerational
transmission and manifests in varied degrees and forms in different contexts of
development. This paper illustrates such experiences of trauma and their impact on
the human psyche by comparatively analyzing (con)texts and selves from the Indian
culture and the world.
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