MUSIC AND CULTURAL ETHOS IN THE SELECTED WORKS OF VIKRAM SETH, NAMITHA DEVIDAYAL, NEELUM GOUR, MEERA SHIVSHANKAR; A THEMATICAL STUDY

Abstract

This study examines the representation of music as a cultural archive in four contemporary novels: An Equal Music by Vikram Seth, The Music Room by Namita Devidayal, Requiem in Raga Janki by Neelum Saran Gour, and Raagamalika by Meera Shivakumar. The paper argues that music in these texts functions not merely as aesthetic background but as a powerful cultural metaphor that shapes identity, memory, and emotional experience. The research talks about the various genres of music like Indian and western. Vikram Seth’s An Equal Music reflects the ethos of late twentieth-century, European urban alienation and artistic individualism. This story blends love and identity. Namitha Devidayals’s The Music Room foregrounds the hierarchical and devotional dimensions of the Indian guru–shishya tradition. Namitha herself was a disciple of Kishori Amonkar who is a famous Hindustani singer. In Requiem in Raga Janki by Neelum Gour, music becomes a repository of partition memory, mourning, and cultural rupture. Neelum Gour portrays the biography of the real life Hindustani classical singer Janki Bai Illahabadi’s tragic music journey, whereas Meera Shivashankar’s Raagamalika explores Carnatic music as a site of gendered negotiation between tradition and modernity. It’s an anthology of 18 short stories based on 18 carnatic ragas. Through a comparative cultural analysis, the study demonstrates that music operates as a transnational language that preserves collective memory, articulates trauma, and negotiates subjectivity across diverse cultural contexts. By situating these texts within frameworks of cultural materialism, memory studies, and postcolonial theory, the paper highlights how musical aesthetics intersect with power, history, and identity formation. Ultimately, the research proposes that contemporary fiction reimagines music as a living cultural ethos that bridges personal emotion and collective history