Translating Urban/Translating Ritual: An Ethnographic Study of Dev Uthan Ekadashi

Muskan Dhandhi; Suman Sigroha

doi:10.18778/2083-2931.15.08

Authors

Muskan Dhandhi UPES, Dehradun, Uttarakhand
Suman Sigroha Indian Institute of Technology Mandi https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3122-881X

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-2931.15.08

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Keywords:

translation, urban space, Gurugram, Dev Uthan Ekadashi, India, ritual

Abstract

Gurugram—a city located near Delhi, in the state of Haryana—is an important contributor to the country’s information technology, finance, and banking sectors. Geographically, it offers a rich amalgamation of the urban and the rural; while the urban is an eclectic mix of regions and religions, the rural is still rooted in folkloric traditions. One such tradition is Dev Uthan Ekadashi: celebrated around ten days after Diwali, it marks the awakening of Lord Vishnu from his four-month long sleep, which symbolises a fresh beginning to the Hindu wedding season. To mark the occasion, this cosmopolitan city’s Haryanvi Hindu women gather to create illustrations, sing folksongs, and perform several rituals.

In this paper we examine Gurugram as a site of translation by analysing data collected through two sessions of ethnographic fieldwork, conducted in November 2021 and November 2022. We investigate the relationship between the ritual and the space, both of which, we argue, undergo translation; furthermore, we posit that the women performing the ritual become cultural agents within a postcolonial space. Thus, our study establishes Gurugram as a translational city, demonstrating resistance where the folkloric tradition is kept alive through cultural meanings shaped by language interaction.

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Author Biographies

Muskan Dhandhi, UPES, Dehradun, Uttarakhand

Muskan Dhandhi is Assistant Professor at UPES, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India. She holds a PhD in Literature from Indian Institute of Technology Mandi. She was awarded the Charles Wallace India Trust Research Grant 2023 and Shastri Indo Canadian MITACS Globalink Research Award. Her forthcoming papers and book chapters will be published by Routledge, Bloomsbury, University of Liverpool Press, Peter Lang. She also worked as a Research Associate in an oral history project funded by IMPRESS–ICSSR. Her research interests include translation studies, folklore, cultural studies, and digital humanities.

Suman Sigroha, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi

Suman Sigroha, PhD, is Associate Professor at Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, India. With her training in the fields of literary studies and psychology, she engages with texts through psycho-social concepts and deals with intersections of art, history, and fiction. She has published in various journals, such as International Research in Children’s Literature, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, Kritika Kultura, and with international publishing houses like SAGE, Routledge (Taylor and Francis), University of Amsterdam Press and Lever Press (University of Michigan Press). She has contributed to and co-edited Translational Research and Applied Psychology in India (SAGE, 2019) and co-authored a monograph titled Narratives for Young Readers on West Asia: War, Trauma and Resilience (Routledge, 2025).

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