(PARUSHNI) A GODDESS OF HOPE WITH A HALF HANDFUL OF GRAINS IN TARRAR’S SORROWS OF SARASVATI: THE LOST RIVER

Abstract

The present study explores the struggle of an individual sustaining life and traditions while  resisting approaching decay caused due to environmental change and rerouting of the rivers in the backdrop of Indus valley culture as depicted in Sorrows of Sarasvati: The Lost River (Awan, 2023). The study highlights the resilience of the Parushni, the female protagonist, fighting against natural calamities; deforestation, climate change and low water resources, a source that nurtures every living organism including human. The text is replete with all the customs, traditions and practices of the Indus valley civilization through the charismatic Paroushni, being a mirror to the human needs, advancement and survival altogether while bridging the past and present through the lens applied by the researcher. Belal’s Model of Human Needs (2024), a critique of Maslow’s Concept of Hierarchy of Needs (1943) is employed as theoretical framework to highlight that the human needs are in the form of clusters and interrelated, with varied chances of many things occurring side by side or maybe the last happening in the first place. An individual female protagonist’s will to save the people of her community from the calamities is also at the last stage of  fulfillment in the varied psychologically stages of human needs presented earlier while showing her creativity and responsibility at the same level. The study concludes that Lost Sarasvati is mourning over the plight of residents of Ghagra and serves as a threat to the existence of mankind in that particular region, emphasizing the role of an individual desperate for the basic physiological need, water, for the survival and yet achieving all other stages along with it. It also demands to preserve natural resources along with proving the fact the human needs are arbitrary and interrelated rather than hierarchical as depicted in the novel