Gunj Work |best| — Index Of A Death In The

In Deshpande’s oeuvre, domestic spaces often become sites of both comfort and entrapment. “Index of a Death in the Gunj” (the “Gunj” referring to a mining colony) centers on a married woman whose death is announced in the opening line, yet the story denies the reader any dramatic climax. Instead, Deshpande reconstructs the mundane, daily acts of neglect, control, and humiliation that precede a fatal end. The “index” suggests a formal record, yet the narrative questions: Who keeps the index? Whose deaths matter?

Long hours in unventilated spice or grain markets. index of a death in the gunj work

| Database | Search Strategy | |----------|----------------| | (free) | "Gunj" AND "death index" ; filter by India, 1800–1950 | | Findmypast (paid) | "Gunj work" OR "Ganj work" ; British India records | | DSAL (Digital South Asia Library) | "mortality register" Ganj | | Google Books / HathiTrust | "death in the gunj" (with quotes) ; OCR may misread "Gunj" as "Gang" | | Internet Archive | Search “Weekly Return of Births and Deaths” + any variant of Gunj (Gunje, Ganj, Gunge) | In Deshpande’s oeuvre, domestic spaces often become sites