Psychological Depression: A Scrutiny of the Select Short Stories in Githa Hariharan's The Art of Dying and Other Short Stories

Indo-Anglican Literature is one of the new voices in which India speaks to the world and Githa Hariharan is one of the distinguished writers who communicates to the world in her native tongue. Indian short story is deep rooted in our Indian tradition. It became popular because of its brevity in length and unity in impression. Githa Hariharan was born in 1954 in Coimbatore, India, in a Tamil Brahmin family from South India. Her distinguished writings cover genres like novels and short stories. Some of her famous writings are The Thousand Faces of Night (1992), The Ghost of Vasu Master (1994) and When Dreams Travel (1999). A collection of highly acclaimed short stories, The Art of Dying and Other Short Stories was published in 1993. The Art of Dying and Other Short Stories is a collection of twenty short stories composed of somber tales of depression. Here, the writer has delved into the meaning of death, the consciousness of loss and the memories that accentuate this feeling. The short stories selected for analysis are ‘Love Poem’ and ‘Revati’. In ‘Love Poem’, the psychological depression faced by a lecturer and a poet critic named Dr. Sharma and his student are analyzed. In the next short story titled ‘Revati’, the psychological depression faced by the protagonist named Revati and her unnamed second husband are described.