How Literature Shaped Me?

"The guardians of our memory (the writers, the artistes, the scribes, the journalists, the painters, the singers, the dancers and the musicians) – they are dropping dead from the sky. The death is of course metaphorical, it’s the death of their ability to question because they are on a conditioned diet of obedience, obedience to the Great Nationalism."

From The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy

Introduction

To ask how literature has shaped me is to ask how a sculptor shapes clay; it is a process of tearing down, remolding, and defining a form out of formlessness. Looking back at my intellectual journey, speaking as Rajdeep Bavaliya, I realize that for a long time, I was fed on the "conditioned diet of obedience" that Arundhati Roy so fiercely critiques. My early life was marked by an uncritical acceptance of the world as it was presented to me—a world of binaries, unquestioned nationalistic pride, and rigid cultural dogmas. The word "literature" itself was foreign to my consciousness. Yet, through a series of serendipitous academic choices and profound textual encounters, literature became the very lens through which I perceive reality. It did not merely offer me an escape; it provided an epistemological rupture, shattering my preconceived notions about religion, politics, gender, and society. This essay traces my metamorphosis from a passive consumer of societal norms to a critical thinker, exploring how encountering the written word taught me the vital, subversive art of questioning.

1. The Linguistic and Cultural Awakening: From Provincial Naivety to Critical Consciousness

My initial encounters with stories were devoid of critical engagement. They were mere pastimes, entirely detached from the socio-political realities they represented.

1.1. The Gujarati Medium Roots and the Illusion of the Ordinary

Having completed my schooling entirely in a Gujarati-medium environment, my early exposure to narratives was localized. Texts like Gila no Chakdo, Vismay, and Jumo Bhisti were a part of my curriculum, yet they left no immediate, lasting intellectual impression on my teenage mind. They were simply stories told during free periods. Even the school library felt like a neglected storeroom rather than a sanctuary of knowledge. It was not until a teacher lent me some Gujarati novels that the gateway cracked open. Reading Kundanika Kapadia's Saat Pagla Aakashma (Seven Steps in the Sky) became my first true epiphany. The text struck a nerve, giving voice and articulation to the vague contradictions and questions regarding societal structures that had been silently brewing in my mind.

1.2. The Diverging Road: Choosing the Humanities

My trajectory changed drastically when my aspirations in the science stream faltered. Choosing to enroll in a B.A. program with English as my main subject was initially a pragmatic decision to prepare for government exams. I was entirely oblivious to the vast, turbulent ocean of "English Literature" I was stepping into. Yet, as Robert Frost penned in The Road Not Taken, taking the "one less traveled by" made all the difference. By the final semester of my bachelor's degree, the gravitational pull of literary studies had captured me, setting the stage for a postgraduate journey that would systematically dismantle my worldview.

2. How Literature Made Me an Atheist

One of the most profound, irreversible, and challenging transformations I have undergone is my transition from a passive inheritor of cultural religion to a convinced atheist—a metamorphosis entirely catalyzed by literature.

In my early reading days, my curiosity led me to consume almost every available Gujarati book on the character and life of Krishna. These texts initially deepened my culturally ingrained spirituality. However, the more time I spent with global literature and literary theory, the more restless and doubtful I became. The true turning point was my encounter with the theater of the absurd, specifically Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, which acted as an intellectual "Brahmastra." Watching Vladimir and Estragon wait endlessly for a savior who never arrives forced me to confront the harrowing possibility of a godless universe.

This doubt crystallized into certainty when I engaged with the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Albert Camus. Camus's The Stranger, with its chilling opening—"Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know"—and his essay The Myth of Sisyphus shattered my need for divine comfort. I realized that the universe is inherently devoid of objective meaning. Literature plunged me into the depths of nihilism, teaching me that the grand narratives of religion are human constructs designed to mask the absurdity of existence. It turned me into a relentless questioner of authority, both celestial and terrestrial. By embracing this atheistic and absurdist philosophy, I learned that while life has no pre-ordained divine purpose, we bear the ultimate responsibility to construct our own meaning. It did not make me hollow; rather, it planted the seeds of existential hope and profound personal accountability.

3. Shattering Ideological Blindness: Politics, Caste, and Power

Literature is inherently political, and studying it forced me to confront my own deeply ingrained prejudices and nationalistic conditioning.

3.1. Confronting Caste and the Subaltern Reality

For a long time, my understanding of oppression was limited. It was the Hindi translation of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things that violently introduced me to the realities of caste, class, and social inequality. Later, reading Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure and Meena Kandasamy’s poem One-Eyed allowed me to witness the devils of caste and religious subjugation. Engaging with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's essay "Can the Subaltern Speak?" and watching films like Article 15 completely dismantled my privileged blindness to the marginalization that forms the bedrock of our society.

3.2. Deconstructing Propaganda and State Apparatus

Perhaps the most jarring shift occurred in my political alignment. Previously, I harbored highly conventional, unexamined views: I believed the farmer protests in Punjab and Haryana were wrong, I criticized South Indians for resisting Hindi imposition, and I naïvely equated the unchecked growth of multinational companies with the holistic development of India.

Reading George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm, combined with Louis Althusser’s concept of "interpellation" (the illusion of choice under state apparatuses), functioned as an ideological antidote. I began to view the functioning of governments through an Orwellian lens, recognizing how the masses are manipulated. I learned to read the minds of oppressors. Frantz Fanon taught me why Gandhian non-violence would not suffice in the brutal reality of French colonies, while cinematic experiences like The Reluctant Fundamentalist exposed the predatory nature of global capitalism. Literature fundamentally rewired my political consciousness, teaching me to stand in solidarity with those who suffer rather than those who hold power.

4. Expanding the Horizon: Gender, Ecology, and Empathy

Literature does not merely tear down; it builds bridges to experiences entirely alien to one's own, expanding the boundaries of human empathy.

4.1. Queering the Discourse

My early understanding of gender was strictly binary, shaped by the utopian, sanitized worlds of childhood television shows. However, delving into literary theory and encountering texts like Virginia Woolf’s Orlando radically expanded my thoughts on queer theory. Literature revealed that gender is a construct, making me profoundly more empathetic toward the queer community and reinforcing my belief that the fight for feminism is still desperately needed.

4.2. Ecocriticism and the Anthropocene

Similarly, the concept of nature as an entity deserving of rights was absent from my mind. I held the romanticized, anthropocentric belief that humans had dominion over the earth. Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island and the broader study of ecocriticism dismantled this. I learned how nature, much like the subaltern, is deliberately feminized and marginalized to justify its relentless capitalist exploitation.

Conclusion

Ultimately, literature has been my greatest teacher, my harshest critic, and my most faithful companion. It taught me the art of deconstruction—echoing Jacques Derrida’s assertion that language itself is fraught with absences and insufficiencies. Far from making me an emotionless cynic, literature has gifted me with emotional intelligence. Through the agony of Kafka's Gregor Samsa or the atonement of Ishiguro's Masuji Ono, it prepared me for the practical, often dark realities of human nature.

Returning to Arundhati Roy’s powerful assertion, literature rescued me from the "conditioned diet of obedience." It endowed me with the historical sense necessary to view contemporary events critically and the courage to accept a meaningless universe while still fighting for justice within it. As Julian Barnes noted, we owe a duty to the past—the one thing we cannot change. Literature is that living past. By forcing me to engage with the marginalized, the absurd, and the oppressed, literature has ensured that the choices I make today are rooted in empathy, critical inquiry, and an unwavering commitment to truth.