Social Marginalisation and Retreatist Subculture: A Study of Jeet Thayil’s Narcopolis

Abstract

In the current scenario, our society is degenerating into the clutches of various crimes such as drug culture, cruel sexual assaults, and debauchery. Substantially, people from the lower economic strata, especially the marginalised and the socially discriminated sects of our society, are both causative agents and victims of ruthless crimes. Cultural hegemony, being the root cause of social discrimination and marginalisation, has curtailed the aspirations and progress of the lower strata of society. People who feel rejected and marginalised by biased and inhuman
societal norms are the ones who involve themselves in the retreatist subculture and later become the mediators of delinquency. The retreatist subculture denotes the formation of a distinct subculture centred on drug and alcohol use by the people who feel both rejected by the mainstream society and other subcultures. In order to finance their drug use, retreatists may turn to petty theft, shoplifting, prostitution and conning. Jeet Thayil’s Narcopolis, the microcosm of T.S Eliot’s “The Waste Land” (1922), examines the deterioration of Bombay under the siege of narcotics. Thayil’s personal experience as a drug addict has aided him in presenting the authentic portrayal of people victimised by drugs and their ill effects. Various narrative voices 
from Narcopolis are marginalised individuals who have faced enormous social pressures that ultimately lead to moral degradation enwrapped in drug addiction. This research paper aims to explore the impact of social discrimination and marginalisation in Jeet Thayil’s Narcopolis in propagating the retreatist subculture.