Teen Victimisation, Survival, and the Formation of Identity in Paro Anand’s The Other: Stories of Difference

Paro Anand’s The Other: Stories of Difference(2018) underscores the present-day predicamentand challenges that impinge onthe lives of Indian teenagers, a theme that is approached cautiously by the author for the benefit of her youngadult readers. The narratives, however, are daring in the sense that they focus sharplyon the hidden or suppressed, and under-represented, crises faced by youngsters, underliningthe urgency of addressing these issues ina society that is still largely ignorantor apathetic. Yet, the literary representation of social malaise, psychological trauma, emotional wretchedness, and physical harmin textsintended primarilyfor young readers is never an easy task as there is a riskof such textsbecoming overtly didactic in theirdesire to inform and educate. Whether Anand steers clear of this trap –for the stories need to work as stories –is one of the concerns of this essay. Another task of the writer is to depictteenagers as not entirely independent of adults and yet also as not bereft of agency. The essay examinesthe stories in the collection in relation to the identity formation of the young adult characters, who have to grasp as well as grapple with the complexities –along the axes of gender, class, caste, and disability –ofwhat it means to begrowing up in India