Illness as Resistance: A Comparative Study of Monikuntala Bhattacharya’s Sandhya and Anuradha Sarma Pujari’s Jalasabi

This paper examines how illness is constructed as a site of resistance in Monikuntala Bhattacharya’s Sandhya and Anuradha Sarma Pujari’s Jalasabi. While Sandhya is dominated by the bio-psychological agony of AIDS and its attendant stigma, Jalasabi foregrounds the biomedical realities of chronic illness and the loneliness of old age. Drawing on narrative theory, feminist literary criticism, and global illness narratives, the study demonstrates how both novels use illness to critique social norms and assert agency, albeit through different narrative and thematic strategies. Through their depiction of illness not merely as a biomedical condition but a deeply social and emotional experience, these works reflect on the ways in which the female body becomes both a site of suffering and subversion.