Dimensions of Defamiliarization in Amit Chaudhuri's Afternoon Raag

Abstract

Amit Chaudhuri is a versatile writer and a recipient of various prestigious awards. Chaudhuri does not write about a great event, hero, heroics, or history in his works. Rather, he presents the familiar, quotidian reality of our daily, mundane life in a way that they become strange and interesting. He does this through the magic of his words. Chaudhuri perceives magic in the ordinary and considers it as an eternal thing. So, he is a realist who defamiliarizes the familiar through his poetic and charismatic language. The concept of defamiliarization emerged from Russian Formalism and proved more effective as a literary concept. Russian Formalists held the view that all literature is defamiliarized. Defamiliarization is basically a process, where, literary techniques and devices refresh our perceptions of the usual, commonplace things. In Amit Chaudhuri's novels, all such literary techniques and tropes have been employed that renews our perceptions of the ordinary, familiar things and defamiliarize it. This research paper will present how Chaudhuri has defamiliarized the familiar, in his novel,