Reading Eco-spirituality, Indigenous truths and Self-affirmation in Smitha Sehgal’s Brown God’s Child*

Indian English literature with it's well-established identity and evolved aesthetics seems to have garnered well-deserved attention from the most distinguished littérateurs and critics globally. As a matter of fact, the creative-critical field has re-invented itself in recent decades following a persistent battle against the hierarchies of power, while jealously guarding its local colour and retaining its foundation in the land's socio-cultural ethos. Despite being seen as a contested territory for its complex affiliation with the language of the colonial masters,the Indian writings in English have emerged as a potent field for enabling its practitioners to regain their sense of the self by entering into meaningful interactions with fields such as history,philosophy,spirituality,feminism and ecopsychology.From the times of having ‘ambivalent' attitude towards the politics and ideologies of imperialism, colonialism and capitalism to the point, where these writers, equipped with post-colonial stance and globalectical imagination are asserting their indigenous identity and eloquently transcribing their Indian experience with a renewed commitment to Indian thought, with due emphasis on it's pluralistic, multilingual, syncretic and eco-spiritual philosophy, it can be stated that Indian English literature's contribution to world literatures in English is quite definitive and tangible.These works,by maintaining an equilibrium between the anglophone and the native writing traditions, have secured a distinctive place in the literary ecosystem of India, existing alongside literatures being written in Indian languages.Indubitably, these writings have come to acquire deeper implications, for showing a sustained engagement with post colonial subjectivities, politics,cultural milieu as well as histories of the subaltern.In its post-modern, post-colonial avatar, Indian English Literature refuses to be reduced to a monolithic identity and is, characterized by a sense of unity in conveying unequivocal reflections on fragmented identities, intertextual relations, blurring of gender/caste/class/race/ethnicity based boundaries, inexhaustible thematic and stylistic variety and conscious attempts to be heterogeneous, equitable, conscientious and faithful to native traditions and humanistic impulses.The present paper situates contemporary Indian English poet, Smitha Sehgal's second poetry anthology, Brown God's Child, into the larger tradition of Indian Writings in English, probing intricately into the ideas of eco-spirituality, indigenous truths and self-affirmation in order to explore the possibility of a decolonized and critically self-aware literary sensibility .