Vibrant Refuse, Spectral Returns: Material Agency and Haunting in Krishan Chander’s “Kachra Baba”

Abstract

This paper aims at exploring the binary between human and matter. The purpose is to unpack the agency of nonliving matter especially the plastic waste. While anthropocentric world-view projects waste as a discard and thus unnecessary commodity to be taken rid of, the research will show how the plastic is a vibrant matter (a term used by Jane Bennett) that has a unique agency to change the fate of humans thus subverting the boundaries of human vs. non-human. To support this argument, a critical analysis of Krishan Chander’s “Kachra Baba” is done through the critical insights of “material ecocriticism” (the work of Serpil Oppermann and Serenella Iovino on "storied matter"), “vibrant materiality” by Jane Bennett, “trans-corporeality” by Stacy Alaimo, the theory of haunting and the concept of “ghostly matters” by Avery Gordon. This integrated approach will foreground how “Kachra Baba” challenges the anthropocentric narratives of power and agency and foregrounds the generative and disruptive vitality of waste within the complex surroundings of Postcolonial ecologies. The research will add to the discourses of nonhuman subject matters, showcasing how they possess agency in their own way and in turn shape human identities in the context of environmental and social inequalities.