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In today’s industrialized world, the degradation of the environment is a major concern, recognized to have severe impacts on the planet and its inhabitants. The current environmental changes are attributed to anthropogenic activities, making human beings the discernible factors behind the current climate crisis. Human perceptions related to exceptionalism and exemptionalism are at the core of hubris, triggering the proclivity to exploit the more-than-human world. The unrelenting exploitative measures of human beings toward nonhuman entities have injured and damaged the Earth irrevocably, jeopardizing the planet’s biodiversity and ecological balance. The Earth is often conceptualized as ‘Mother Earth’ for its sustaining abilities and nurturing qualities. The concept of ‘Mother Earth’ encompasses the interrelated lives of human and nonhuman beings and the Indigenous traditions that eulogize human-nonhuman interrelations (Shiva, 2020). The present corporate culture is disrupting the interrelationship between humans and nonhumans, widening the chasm between the two, thereby, disturbing the balance of Mother Earth. This can be viewed as a deprivation of Mother Earth’s rights since her well-being is dependent on the stable relationship between all the species she sustains and nurtures (Shiva, 2020). In connection with the preceding discussion, the present chapter seeks to critically analyze the novel, Softly Dies a Lake originally written in Telugu by Akkineni Kutumbarao (2014), and later translated by Vasanth Kannabiran into English (2020). The author through his eco-memoir records the slow dying of the largest freshwater lake in India, Kolleru, located in the state of Andhra Pradesh owing to the mercenary practices of humans. Kutumbarao characterizes the lake as the living figure of a mother who nurtures multiple species in the region. The dying of the lake signifies the loss of the mother who sustains the balance in the ecosystem. The chapter, therefore, endeavours to show how the exploitive measures deprive Mother Earth, here identified with Kolleru, of her well-being and rights. Also, it attempts to show how the dying of Lake Kolleru degrades the livelihood of those people thriving on her, triggering mourning for the ecological loss. Finally, the chapter will interrogate the possibility of recovery from eco-mourning by striking a balance between the human and nonhuman world in the region surrounding Lake Kolleru.

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Mourning the Loss of Mother Earth: Examining Human-Water Interrelationships in Akkineni Kutumbarao’s Softly Dies a Lake

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年

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  • Somasree Sarkar

摘要

In today’s industrialized world, the degradation of the environment is a major concern, recognized to have severe impacts on the planet and its inhabitants. The current environmental changes are attributed to anthropogenic activities, making human beings the discernible factors behind the current climate crisis. Human perceptions related to exceptionalism and exemptionalism are at the core of hubris, triggering the proclivity to exploit the more-than-human world. The unrelenting exploitative measures of human beings toward nonhuman entities have injured and damaged the Earth irrevocably, jeopardizing the planet’s biodiversity and ecological balance. The Earth is often conceptualized as ‘Mother Earth’ for its sustaining abilities and nurturing qualities. The concept of ‘Mother Earth’ encompasses the interrelated lives of human and nonhuman beings and the Indigenous traditions that eulogize human-nonhuman interrelations (Shiva, 2020). The present corporate culture is disrupting the interrelationship between humans and nonhumans, widening the chasm between the two, thereby, disturbing the balance of Mother Earth. This can be viewed as a deprivation of Mother Earth’s rights since her well-being is dependent on the stable relationship between all the species she sustains and nurtures (Shiva, 2020). In connection with the preceding discussion, the present chapter seeks to critically analyze the novel, Softly Dies a Lake originally written in Telugu by Akkineni Kutumbarao (2014), and later translated by Vasanth Kannabiran into English (2020). The author through his eco-memoir records the slow dying of the largest freshwater lake in India, Kolleru, located in the state of Andhra Pradesh owing to the mercenary practices of humans. Kutumbarao characterizes the lake as the living figure of a mother who nurtures multiple species in the region. The dying of the lake signifies the loss of the mother who sustains the balance in the ecosystem. The chapter, therefore, endeavours to show how the exploitive measures deprive Mother Earth, here identified with Kolleru, of her well-being and rights. Also, it attempts to show how the dying of Lake Kolleru degrades the livelihood of those people thriving on her, triggering mourning for the ecological loss. Finally, the chapter will interrogate the possibility of recovery from eco-mourning by striking a balance between the human and nonhuman world in the region surrounding Lake Kolleru.