Published Online:June 2026
Product Name:The IUP Journal of English Studies
Product Type:Article
Product Code:IJES050626
DOI:10.71329/IUPJES/2026.21.2.58-64
Author Name:Swati Patil and Sukanya Saha
Availability:YES
Subject/Domain:Arts and Humanities
Download Format:PDF
Pages:58-64
Trauma, an unprepossessing phenomenon, would require exploring and understanding the pathology of the wounded and listening to the story voiced by the psyche. Early propagators of psychoanalysis and the trauma theory have always embarked on language and narrative to churn out the developments of the wounded mind. For the inhabitants of Kashmir, trauma is a set entity enveloping generations with such magnitude that it remains with the traumatized and passes on to the next generation to create a mitosis of traumatic symptoms. This paper addresses the trauma environment in Kashmir and the consequent insidious trauma mirrored in the characters of Nitasha Kaul’s Future Tense. The novel is an embankment between the fictional characters in Future Tense and the actual incidents that had haunted the people of Kashmir for many years. Focus has also been laid on the psychological and physiological aspects of trauma and its corresponding neurosis by drawing a congruence between the psychoanalysis theories and the narrative of Future Tense.
The Kashmir conflict is a highly complex territorial dispute, involving India, Pakistan, and China, and is characterized by border skirmishes, insurgencies, alleged sexual violence, mass murders, displacements, crossfire exposure, rape, torture, forced labor, blatant human rights violations, kidnappings, and disappearances.