ISSN 0976-0814
Labyrinth
The Bi-annual Literary Journal of Postmodernism
Vol.1 - No.1 March 2010
Editor
Lata Mishra
PG Dept. of English Studies & Research
Govt. KRG (Autonomous) PG College,
Gwalior, MP
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Editorial...
As this century progressed, readings of literature were increasingly
influenced by Modernism, Postmodernism, and Poststructuralist theories.
Postmodernism privileges internal subjectivity over objective social comment.
It rejects many of the cultural certainties on which our life has been structured
over the last few centuries. Postmodern authors are interested in re-writing the
past not from a single perspective, but from a multitude of possible
perspectives. Their novels assert that there are only truths in the plural and
never one Truth. These writers suggest that the re-writing of the past is a
positive interpretation and expression of not only the past, but also the present
and the future. Presently, several postmodern theories exist, but at the core of
each of these theories is the basic concept that what was once only understood
within the context of reductionism is now beginning to be understood within
the context of interrelatedness- an understanding that things are much more
diverse, fluid, illusionary and contested, including the reality of the world itself
than originally thought.
Historiographic metafiction is a new postmodern literary term used
for the novels that are intensely self-reflexive and at the same time also "lay
claim to historical events and personages". It blurs the line between fiction and
history. Such metafiction refutes the claim that only history knows the truth.
Historical closure seems to be an impossibility. In fact it treats both history and
metafiction as discourses, human constructs and signifying systems. Attempt
to define the term "Postmodernism" in itself could be considered violation of its
premise- that no definite terms, boundaries or absolute truths exist. Truth is
considered a relative term by Postmodernists and they leave it up to each
individual to determine for himself.
DISCLAIMER: Articles and views published in this journal DO NOT necessarily reflect the views or
policies of the Editorial Board.
© COPYRIGHT: Reproduction of the contents of Labyrinth in whole or in part without the prior
permission of the Editor is prohibited.
All disputes concerning the journal are subject to Gwalior Jurisdiction.
A great cultural change towards postmodernism has put aside the
notion that identity is found within an individual. As a result, contemporary
novels clearly and inevitably maintain that identity is formed and revealed
through individual's relation to others and how he narrates his own self.
Postmodernism puts the purity of genres as well as the sense of a single, fixed
coherent identity into question. Edward Said asserts, "Gone are the binary
oppositions, new alignments now provoke and challenge the fundamentally
static notion of identity." A question here arises that can identity be assessed
without the backdrop of one's society and culture. Postmodernism as the other
theories like modernism, existentialism, Marxism, and other such isms has
sailed to us overseas from the West. It is selectively adopted and adapted by
writers outside the mainstream of the West. The last two decades of the 20th
century and turn of the millennium saw the advent of postmodernism in India,
the transformation from a traditional to postmodern culture has been marked
by ambiguity and confusion in many facets of society. Before questioning the
relevance of postmodernism in India there arises the need to study various
aspects of it and then query whether we have freedom to accept or reject it.
India is a plural name, as here all cultures have all been involved in one
and another. Cultures in India can interact, transgress, and transform each
other in a much more complex manner than the traditional binary oppositions
can allow. Hybridity and heterogenity have been its characteristics since ages.
Though contradictory on most stages, it bears a common essence and
miscellany by means of shared interdependence, a coherent fragmented ethos.
This explains the title of the journal, Labyrinth. It aims to provide space to all the
scholars worldwide to analyze critically Postmodern literature that began from
1980.
The inaugural issue brings to its readers serious research papers
accompanied with poems and short stories that attempt to capture the
postmodern angst. This journal also calls upon the scholars to investigate the
ways that Indian authors have incorporated postmodernist literary techniques
in their writings. In a way, Postmodernism is not new to us as Indian Katha
tradition has always been polyphonic, multivalent, cyclic and surrealistic in
form. Only difference being that in India it had been associated with moral
significance. Critical responses on this issue are most welcome as it shall help
shape the future ones.
... Lata Mishra
Table of Contents
Smile for Sale: A Study of Relational Truths
in Shashi Tharoor's The Five -Dollar Smile
- 07
- Amrendra K Sharma
The Fluid and the Fixed: Subject in Lacan
and Delueze
- Bilal A. Shah
Image as Meaning: A Study of the Select
Poems of Vikram Seth
- L Judith Sophia
Debating Multiculturalism: A Study of the
Fictional Narratives of Jhumpa Lahiri and
Sudha Murthy
- Dhishna Pannikot
In Search of a 'Balming Climate': A Feminist
Reading of Kamala Das's Select Poems
- KS Anish Kumar
Changing Trends in Translation Studies
- T Sai Chandra Mouli
Immortality through Nature in Temsula Ao's
Laburnum for My Head
- A J Sebastian Sdb
What about our own roots?: Problematising
Education and Philosophy in R.K.Narayan's
The English Teacher
- Arun Kr. Mukhopadhyay
I don't know nothing about teaching students
who use double negatives: The Big Grammar
Use Questions for Teachers in Writing
- Abha Gupta
A Dissect on the Imagery of Women in Amitav Ghosh’s
The Glass Palace and The Hungry Tide
- N. Jaishree
Quest of Modern Man: From Angst to Love
- Devasree Chakravarti, G.A. Ghanshyam
Ruskin's Practical Criticism: A Modernist's Approach
- Krishna Singh
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's The Householder:
A Comic Vignette of Indian Society
- M. Meena Devi, Bhaskaran Gavarappan
A Study of Globalisation, Nationalism and Subalterns
(Women) in the Novels of Amitav Ghosh
- Anju Bala Agrawal
- 13
- 25
- 33
- 40
- 49
- 57
- 64
- 81
- 89
- 96
- 104
- 119
- 126
7
Suffering Precedes Spiritual Enlightenment:
A Study of R. K. Narayan's The English Teacher
- Amandeep Rana
Dimensions of self-imposed sufferings during the
freedom struggle. A Critical Study of Chandramoni
Narayanaswamy's Novel The Karans Of Penang
- P C K Prem
Colonial Child - Caught in the Cross Fire of
Cultural Conflict
- Lakshmi Sistla
Womanism in Ngugi's Devil on The Cross and
Nwapa's One is Enough
- S.S.V.N. Sakuntala
Whose Tradition and Whose Individual Talent:
A Paradigm of Indian English Novels
- Binod Mishra
Interview with Sunil Sharma
- Jaydeep Sarangi
Short Stories
The Wounds of A Sister - Albert Russo
The Sinner - P. Raja
Poetry
- 136
- 144
- 159
- 167
- 173
- 180
- 191
- 196
Shanta Acharya - Hunger
- 199
Sukrita P Kumar-High and Low, Ambers in the Pacific
- 200
Arbind Kumar Choudhary - Love, Nature
- 201
Aju Mukhopadhyay- At the river bank, The Train
- 39, 201
Farzana Quader- Dear Neruda
- 202
Prof. Pashupati Jha - Civilization: A Progress Report
- 203
P. Raja - Oh, To be a Poet, Lessons in Love
- 48, 172
Hemang A Desai Dusk, An Old House, Dream...Web
-166, 204
Book Reviews
Acceptance, Rejection, Compromise: Three One Act Play
(Trilogy) by Pranab Kumar Majumder - K. V. Dominic
- 205
The Treatment of The Themes of Mortality in The Poetry of
the Bronte Sisters by Yana Rowland - Rajni Singh
- 208
Explorations in Indian English Drama by T. Sai Chandra Mouli
and M. Sarat Babu - Ram Sharma
- 210
List of Contributors
- 213
Smile for Sale:
A Study of Relational Truths in
Shashi Tharoor's The Five-Dollar Smile
Amrendra K Sharma
Manju Roy
Wallace Stevens finds 'thirteen ways of looking at a
blackbird.' Likewise, someone may discover one hundred and
thirteen ways of looking at a truth. Or maybe there are just as many
truths and not 'the truth'. In fact, the multiplicity of truth, in a
subtle way, reminds us of a 'correspondence theory of truth.' This
theory states that truth is related to a fact - a view that was
advocated by Russell and Moore early in the 20th century. However,
according to some perceptive researchers (working in
Metaphysics Research Lab, CSLI, Stanford University ) “this
label is usually applied much more broadly to any view explicitly
embracing the idea that truth consists in a relation to reality, i.e.,
that truth is a relational property involving a characteristic relation
(to be specified) to some portion of reality (to be specified).”
This article would try to explore the relational (or
corresponding) nature of truth in Shashi Tharoor's story titled The
Five-Dollar Smile through the following:
1) People's perception of the marginalised other (here
represented by Joseph Kumaran)
2) Joseph's desire for assimilation with the 'others', and
through it, his attempt to forge an identity, and the 'others''
response to it
3) The other boys' attitude to the 'five-dollar smile' poster
4) The other face of NGOs
Here it may sound apt to explain the process of 'othering.'
Kayyal defines it as “a process in which society creates a 'we' and a
'they,' resulting in the majority dominating over the minority.” It is
the majority that thrives and their ideas and opinions are passed
from one generation to the next. At times, it is also viewed as having
opposite or radically different ideas. As different people are
brought up in different atmosphere, they grow up with different
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
philosophies of life. To illustrate, someone may be against death
penalty as they lost a loved one by it. On the other hand, a mother
whose daughter was murdered would want the murderer to be
killed.
Shashi Tharoor, who has successfully fulfilled a number of
responsibilities as a United Nations Under Secretary General for
Communications and Public Information and also as a writer, is
used to encounter different shades of the same truth or many
truths corresponding to various situations or persons. In The
Five-Dollar Smile, he has wonderfully tried to present the different
faces of truth by granting Joseph a somewhat central position in
the story. Joseph's situation is not any more or less deserving of
sympathy than that of any other child in the orphanage. In spite of
being one of the underdogs because of his young age, he has
developed his own survival strategies. He uses such strategy when
he braces the bigger boys to stay at the dining table early enough to
get his fair share of the 'papadams'. Even when he was with his
father, adversity was always by his side, as reported by Sister
Celine. Perhaps this is the reason why Joseph is quick to accept the
orphanage and makes the best of his situation, instead of crying
and complaining, except when he is deprived of his 'papadams'.
The children at the orphanage, therefore, are not really 'others' to
him but an extension of his own self. The reminders of adversity
the orphanage presents to him are not entirely new to him. Or, if
they are, possibly the extremity of his problems is only a little less
in relation to his earlier life in the forests. This analysis questions
the sameness of our response to children like Joseph, which is that
of pity. There is no doubt that such children deserve sympathy but
there are also some characteristics of theirs that are worthy of
admiration. In this case, these admirable characteristics are
Joseph's sensibility and his determination to survive.
It takes a foreigner to trigger off the desire to be one of the
'others' in Joseph's mind. Ironically, the photographer himself
does not impress the boy. But the response his photograph elicits
from some American couples instills a hope in him, a wish to go
over to the other side of the sea and join 'them.' What begins as a
correspondence routine gradually becomes something Joseph
finds himself looking forward to. “Frequently, he would hold it (the
letter he got as a reply) up to his face, smothering his face in it,
smelling America.” (21) Though Tharoor has not really dwelt on it,
it is apparent from the hints Joseph dropped in his letters, of his
wish to go to the USA himself. In fact, its inhabitants and the life
9
there become a source of fascination for the boy. Whatever little of
America he receives in the letters - the colour of the notepaper, the
lingering perfume, the neatness of the lady's handwriting - all
become features that Joseph learns to associate with America and
they lead to his attraction towards the 'other' country. All these are
symbols of the luxury he has never experienced. He is ready to
sever all ties with all that have been his 'own' because all that he has
are his poverty and squalor- things not at all difficult to give up.
That is why he has no qualms about the 'othering' of himself. In
fact, if we take into account Joseph's point of view, his leaving for
America does not symbolize a trading of his identity on his part, for
another one – rather it represents, on a deeper level, a trade off of
his own identity with others. For him, it is an endeavour, and an
opportunity …..to create an identity for himself. “He had things. He
was somebody. With a passport, a suitcase, a ticket, he was not just
a little brown face in a crowd around the gruel bowl; he was Master
Joseph Kumaran, and he was going somewhere.” (24) It is this
excitement of discovering his new self that restrains him from
reciprocating appropriately to Sister Celine's sentimental farewell.
Strangely, the picture of Kumaran (clicked by the
photographer), which generates worldwide response, does no
good in affirming a sense of identity for Joseph. Instead, he
disowns and dismisses it without any second thoughts. The only
purpose it serves is to remind him of the unfortunate day when he
was forced to relinquish his share of the 'papadams'. On a closer
look, we find there is an inherent logic to Joseph's rejection of the
photograph. It is in this rejection that we can detect the first trace of
his ambitions and aspirations, a greater instance of which is later
seen in his urge to see America. The photograph of his, which is
used for a worldwide appeal, is a painful reminder of his
marginalized status, something he is aware of but not proud of. It is
not something he would like to be recognized by but would rather
be rid of at the first opportunity, as he attempts to do when he gets
ready to go abroad.
Like all other mortals, his sense of identity, too, comes
from what he has, not from what he has not. “He was given a little
suitcase for his clothes, and he swelled with pride at the tangible
evidence of his possessions.” (24) At a young age, Joseph has
subconsciously learnt the wisdom of the sages, that the greatest
chasm in the cosmos is that between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots'.
At this auspicious moment in his life, Joseph feels he is about to
cross that divide, both literally (since he is to go to another country)
and metaphorically.
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
Sadly though, as Joseph is about to discover, the 'other'
world is not about to welcome him with open arms. Their arms,
and their brows, seem to be crossed, in arrogance, at first glance
and in self-defense, on taking a second look. They can look at
Joseph's 'appealing' photograph and sympathise with him. The
feeling of compassion it arouses in them reassures them that they
still have a conscience. Maybe some of them would even cough up
the required five dollars, appeasing their conscience even further.
But if Joseph wants to come over and join them, it makes them feel
threatened, as Joseph Kumaran is not the only one suffering from
an identity crisis. With the all-encompassing wave of
consumerism, each country has been turning its citizens into
consumers. Everything from a car to a car shampoo promises to
define its users. Even a newspaper, a part of the media that swears
it exerts the great power it has with greater responsibility, claims it
is a 'class apart'. Once again, we come back to the tussle between
'the haves' and 'the have-nots.' For the haves, it is significant that
people on the other side continue to be where they are. It is a part of
their survival instincts, an attempt at self-preservation. “A cat is a
cat because it is not a dog”. Likewise, the rich are the rich because
they are not the poor.
Joseph feels this hostility right from the start. Ironically,
the airhostess, who is supposed to represent hospitality, is the first
one to mark Joseph as a misfit and gets impatient with him. This
impatience then passes on to the other passengers on board, which
he feels in their disapproving stares. It makes him feel skeptical of
his reception in America and he starts doubting if his 'temporary
parents' would recognize him. It dawns on him that it takes more
than a passport and a suitcase to forge the kind of identity one
wants to. His being suspended in mid air (on the plane) reflects the
situation. He has left his old world for a new one that won't allow
him entry. “He did not know why he felt suffused with loneliness
more intense, more bewildering in its sadness than he had ever
experienced in the gruel crowds of HELP. He was alone, lost
somewhere between a crumpled magazine clipping and the glossy
brightness of a colour photograph.” (26)
Since the story is centred on the photograph, it would be
interesting to analyse the response of the other children to it. As
mentioned earlier, Joseph's plight is not unique. All the children in
HELP share similar fate. Sister Eva's threat to Joseph, of replacing
him “with another little dark-skinned boy from the orphanage”
(25), on his US visit, has a ground in reality. This explains why the
other children's reaction to the photograph is different from the
'others', from those belonging to privileged classes. The “MAKE
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THIS CHILD SMILE AGAIN” poster in the HELP office invites a
jocular response (not a compassionate one) from the other boys.
Even if they borrowed the perception of the others and started
viewing the poster with feeling, it might probably lead to self-pity,
which, the boys know, would do them no good. While the others
would receive the photograph with sympathy, the victims
themselves would do so with empathy. The latter is always more
difficult to handle.
Just as Joseph's situation in the story has no singularity
(as confirmed by the scribe himself), the NGO in the story, HELP,
bears a semblance to many other such organizations across the
country. The years following liberalization witnessed a marked
mushrooming of NGOs in our country. The timing is crucial as that
was the occasion when India played the all-embracing host to
numerous multi-national companies. These companies, in turn,
were the eager beavers who wanted to put their name to a cause, in
order to get the approving nod of the skeptical, newfound
consumers. They did not have to go too far to look. In a country like
India, all they had to do was to ask for one cause and they would get
three. They went about ticking their pick and duly attaching their
flashy tags onto them. Altruism was up for sale. The trend picked
up and at present, India has about two million NGOs.
But with this increase, there was acceleration in numbers
that followed. It was that of the watchdogs who monitored the
working of these voluntary organizations. Gradually, the process
of the doling out of funds also became more stringent. Several
NGOs had a hard time trying to stay afloat. It seems cruel that
Joseph should be compelled to forego his favourite dish for the
photograph to be clicked. But when this fact is seen in the light of
the above-mentioned reasons, this 'cruelty' on their part becomes
more understandable. It makes clear why it was so important to
them that one of 'their' children, someone who was being looked
after by HELP, should get the attention of all generous hearts. As it
turned out “Joseph Kumaran's five -dollar smile was actually
netting HELP fifteen dollars a month.” (20) We might feel that not
letting Joseph take complete possession of the gifts he gets from
USA is harsh and unfair. But how fair is it to keep the other
children deprived of the same toys? Joseph Kumaran might be the
focal point of the story, but he can't be made the centre of HELP, not
without wronging all the other children in the orphanage.
It may be an interesting exercise to point out the writer's
perception of life and world and to see if that can also be stretched
to his story, The Five-Dollar Smile. On occasions, Tharoor has
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
been found expressing his views in the following ways:
I believe the future of the world lies in states like ours
(India) that promotes the co-existence of people of
different languages, ethnic backgrounds and so on.
The Fluid And The Fixed:
(Sivaram Sriknadath's interview with Shashi Tharoor)
In India there is an exception to every rule, the opposite to
every truth, and that opposite could also be the truth. In
India there are probably as many truths as there are
Indians. Everything is a question of perspective. (Christian
Pfister's interview with Shashi Tharoor)
To conclude, we can say with a great degree of certainty
that 'everything is a question of perspective.' It does not need to be
stressed how, in today's world, we need tolerance to be the order of
the day. If only we learn to borrow the other person's shoes every
once in a while and try fitting our own feet into them, we would
learn to be less judgmental. In the process, both 'we' and 'they'
would be spared of the negativity and bitterness intolerance
breeds. Instead of fighting with one another, therefore, we should
consider others' point of view sympathetically before jumping to a
hurriedly drawn conclusion.
WORKS CITED
Kayyal. 'Can there be a world without othering?' Online.http://
www.learntoanswer.com/class/discussion/printthread.php?t=2
99&pp=40. Accessed on 22 October 2008.

Metaphysics Research Lab, CSLI, Stanford University.
'Correspondence Theory of Truth.' Online.http://
plato.stanford.edu/entries /truth-correspondence . Accessed on
26 Oct, 08.

Pfister, Christian. 'There are many ways of reaching for the
stars.' Online. http://www.shashitharoor.com/articles
/about/creditsuisse 0102.html. Accessed on 23 Oct '08.

Srikandath, Sivaram. 'Back to roots.' Online. http://www.
shashitharoor.com/articles/about/roots.html. Accessed on 23
October 2008.

Stevens, Wallace. 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.'
Online. http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/stevens-.
Accessed on 20 August 2008.

Tharoor, Shashi. 1990. The Five -Dollar Smile. New Delhi:
Penguin Books.

The authors are indebted to Ms Ankita Anand working for NCPRI
(National Campaign for People's Right to Information) for her valuable
suggestions in developing this paper.
Subject In Lacan And Deleuze
Bilal A Shah
Abstract:
The paper proposes a threefold comparison and contrast between the
Lacanian and the Deleuzian views on the subject. First, I argue that
both Lacan and Deleuze problematize the Liberal Humanist Cartesian
notion of an autonomous, transcendental subject that the Humanists so
valued and took for granted. Second, Lacan highlights and focuses the
lack in the constitution of the subject while Deleuze`s focus is on the
productive desire. Finally, Deleuze's project in Anti-Oedipus is to attain
the production of desiring-machine through scrambling and
demolishing Lacan's Oedipal triangulation of Daddy-mommy-me.
One of the most intriguing questions haunting the literary
theory in the wake of poststructuralism is that of identity and the
definition of subjectivity. Poststructuralist thinkers as various as
Roland Barthes, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, and Jacques
Derrida argued, not so long ago, that the autonomous subject of the
humanist tradition, a subject capable of knowing both the world
and itself, was a utopian dream of the European Enlightenment.
Humanism believed in what is now called the “transcendental
subject”, the long standing belief that “individual (the subject) is
antecedent to, or transcends, the forces of society, experience and
language” (Barry 18). This view of human subjectivity was severely
questioned and revised in many different ways in a period that
recognized the existence of an unconscious mind, the opacity of
language, and the role of discursive practices in the dissemination
of social power.
This revision of the idea of subjectivity has had important
reverberations for the conception of knowledge generally and the
notion of history in particular. If subjectivity is conceived of as
something unstable, groundless, fluid and changing rather than
stable, transcendental, fixed and constant, then human knowledge
can no longer be viewed as something fixed and permanent.
Instead of regarding knowledge as an edifice to which positivistic
scholarship could continue to contribute so that the scope of its
14
15
insights might continue to expand and evolve according to
generally accepted universal principles, we live in an age that
questions the very basis on which that structure was erected. It is
these doubts about the traditional premises on which the
knowledge-producing activities of the humanist disciplines were
once based that have provided the justification for varied
interpretation of human subjectivity.
In this paper, I propose to compare and contrast the
Lacanian view of subject with the Deleuzian subject. The contrast
and comparison is aimed at three levels: first, I argue that both
Lacan and Deleuze problematize the Cartesian notion of an
autonomous, transcendental subject that was at the centre of
humanist tradition. Second, Lacan highlights and focuses the lack
in the constitution of the subject while Deleuze`s focus is on the
productive desire. Finally, Deleuze's project in Anti-Oedipus is to
attain the production of desiring-machine through scrambling and
demolishing Lacan's Oedipal triangulation of Daddy-mommy-me.
(Mis)Treating Cartesian Transcendental Subject
Bruce Fink (43) proposes that Descartes employs the
graph of two overlapping circles to illustrate his idea of the subject,
in the midst of the cogito. Being and thinking coincide temporarily
when the Cartesian subject asserts to himself, “cognito, ergo,
sum”, that “I am thinking” (Figure- 1).
thinking
being
Figure. 1
Jacques Lacan, to the humanist's surprise, turns “Descartes'
subject inside out, employing everything the cogito is not” (Fink
45). Unlike Descartes', Lacanian notion of the subject is essentially
split, alienated and subject to the locus of an impossible identity.
For Lacan it is “true that the philosopher`s cognito is at the centre
of the mirage that renders modern man so sure of being himself
even in his uncertainties about himself” (Ecrits,167). However this
essentialist fantasy, reducing subjectivity to the conscious ego,
cannot sustain itself any more: “the myth of the unity of
personality, the myth of synthesis… all these types of organization
of the objective field constantly reveal cracks, tears and rents,
negation of the facts and misrecognition of the most immediate
experience” (Lacan, III 8). This “misrecognition” was first
discovered by Sigmund Freud in this theory of the unconscious as
the main cause determining human personality and it is precisely
this discovery that Lacan hails as more radical than Copernican
and the Darwinian discoveries in that they both left intact the belief
in identity between human subject and conscious ego( Ecrits,
296). The Lacanian subject is devoid of any given essence. If there
is any essence it is precisely “the lack of essence” (Chaitin 196).
Figure 2 shows the possible schema of the Lacanian subject (Fink
44).
either I
am
thinking
or I am
NOT
Figure. 2
The left side is the ego, the false self while the right side is
the unconscious. The splitting of the I into ego (false self) and
unconscious is termed “split subject,” ”divided subject,” or
“barred subject”, all represented by the same symbol, the barred S
(symbolized by an S marked by a slash—a character unfortunately
untypeable). S for “subject,” / for “barred”: the subject as barred by
language, as alienated within the other) (Fink 41).
Lacan
considers that the ego or "I" self is only an illusion, a product of the
unconscious itself and that “ego thinking is mere conscious
rationalization” (Fink 44). In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the
unconscious is the ground of all being. The ego is constructed like
an onion: “peeling off layer after layer of identification in search of
the substantial kernel of one's personality, one ends up with a void,
with the original lack” (Nobus 175). Instead of identifying with the
ego, the subject learns to desire as the Other and hence identifies
with the Other. Lacan further proposes that “the subject is nothing
here but a split between two forms of otherness—the ego as other
and the unconscious as the Other's discourse,” (qtd. In Fink 46).
Thus the subject is split between “an ineluctably false sense of self
and the automatic functioning of language (the signifying chain) in
the unconscious” (Fink 45). The advent of the split subject marks
a corresponding division of the Other into lacking Other ( A ) and
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
object a. Through this, one realizes that there is no longer the idea
of a Whole subject or Other but that of a lacking and barred one.
Deleuze also problematizes Cartesian idea of subjectivity
and proposes his own conception of the subject. For Decartes, as
Fink notes ,the thinking subject mapped out the material world
through the axis in rectilinear fashion and the ego (at the
intersection of the diagonals of a surrounding square) conquers
the world through the order and process of the Quincunx (see
Figure 3) (41).
EGO
Figure. 3
Whereas, for Deleuze, “there is no ego at the center... but a
series of singularities in the disjunctive network, or intensive
states in the conjunctive tissue, and a transpositional subject
moving full circle” (Deleuze and Guattari 88). The idea that
“humans stand as triumphant subjects among inert objects no
longer holds” (Deleuze xiv) since the difference between organic
and inorganic materials is no longer determined by a wall but only
by a way of a vector. The ideal of mastery couldn't persist if the
imbrication of subject and object becomes the norm. Once the
nostalgia for a substantial, core self fades away, the choreography
between the subject and the object dazzles us with its infinite
enfolding and unfolding. Without the ego-grounded assumptions,
a subject gains reciprocity from the world through operating in a
rhizomatic system of heterogeneously becoming relationships that
breeds cross-fertilization. Moreover, Deleuze argues that there is
nothing but desire---the flow and break of desire that escapes
coding. He even claims that “the only subject is desire itself on the
body without organs” (Deleuze and Guattari 72).
Lack and Desire
Like Plato, Lacan argues that desire is constituted as a
lack. “Lack and desire are coextensive for Lacan. The child
devotes considerable effort to filling up the whole of the mother's
lack, her whole space of desire” (Fink 54). He endeavors to seek
out the boundaries of the Other's lack and fills it with himself. The
attempt of totally super-imposing the mother's lack and the child's
is shown in Figure 4 as described by Fink, where their desires
Other
Subject
Figure. 4
completely coincide. Thus, “man's desire is the Other's desire”
and “man learns to desire as an Other” (54).
However, the unity of mother-child relationship is challenged by
the appearance of the third term, the Name-of-the-Father, which
results in the expulsion of the subject from the other. The father's
castration threats result in the break away of the child from the
mOther. And since the castration is linguistically rather than
physically done, language protects the child from a potentially
dangerous dichotomous relationship with the mother through the
substitution of a name for the mother's desire
Lacan symbolizes the Name-of-the-Father as S ( S ), which
is usually read “'the signifier of the lack in the Other' but, as lack
and desire are coextensive, can also be read 'the signifier of the
Other's desire'” (Fink 58). In this sense, “the subject is caused by
the Other's desire” (Fink 50). Therefore, for Lacan, lack is
considered as primary for the germination of the subject; in
Seminar XI, alienation and separation are “linked to the two fold
lack and they install the subject in a never ending pulsating process
of appearing and disappearing” (Nobus 180).
On the one hand, in Lacan's concept of Alienation, the child,
through giving up himself to the Other, gains the opportunity to
enter the zone of language and becomes a subject 'of language' or 'in
language.' The child, through alienation within language,
disappears beneath or behind the signifier, S. The substitution of
a signifier, S, for the barred subject, ( A ), inaugurates the
vicissitudes of the transient subject( Fink 49) The signifier:
functions as a signifier only to reduce the subject
into being no more than a signifier, to petrify the
subject in the same movement in which it calls the
subject to function, to speak, as subject
(Colette203).
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
The Subject is alienated once he is spoken by language and
becomes a function of language. It is language that preexists and
determines subjectivity. Therefore, “the process of alienation
conducts the subject toward the signifying chain of the Other”
(Nobus 180). The subject appears not as a static subject, but as a
fleeting irruption or pulsation, expressing itself through the
endless chains of signifiers. The signifier substitutes for the
subject who has now vanished beneath or behind the signifier.
Thus, the subject transforms from a register of imaginary fusions
with the world and with others (The Imaginary) into language (the
Symbolic).
The vel of alienation can clearly illustrate the inevitable
loss of the subject in the end. The logic of the vel of alienation is
that:
Whatever the choice operating may be, has as its
consequence a neither one, nor the other. The
choice, then, is a matter of knowing whether one
wishes to preserve one of the parts, the other
disappearing in any case (Colette 211).
If one chooses being, the subject will disappear and fall into
non-meaning. Contrarily, if one chooses meaning, the meaning
will survive “only deprived of that part of non-meaning that is,
strictly speaking, that which constitutes in the realization of the
subject, the unconscious” (Lacan, The Four 211); that is, the result
of choosing meaning will be the Other eclipsed by the
disappearance of being. Thus, the choice is provided, but
predetermined. Whatever you choose, you will lose the most
precious part, your being (subject) irrevocably. The initiation of
the subject into the symbolic order, represented by the-Name-ofthe-Father, inescapably severs him from the primal unity with the
mOther. As Zizek notes:
By means of the word, the subject finally finds
itself, comes to itself… in the Word, the subject
directly attains itself, posits itself as such. The
price for it, however, is the irretrievable loss of the
subject`s self identity; the verbal sign that stands
for the subject, that is, in which the subject posits
itself as self-identical, bears the mark of an
irreducible dissonance; it never 'fits' the subject.
(Zizek 43)
The failure of its own symbolic self-representation is the
19
condition of possibility for the emergence of the subject of the
signifier, for representation in general. Therefore in Lacanian
subject the notion of fixed identity is not possible, “identity is
possible as a failed one; it remains desirable exactly because it is
essentially impossible” (Stavrakakis 29).
Desire in Deleuze, unlike Lacan, is a positive concept ad is
understood as a primary active force rather than a reactive
response to unfulfilled need. Desire is productive in the sense that
it produces real connections, investments and intensive states
within and between bodies. In this sense “desire produces reality”
(Deleuze , Nomad 30). This basic difference in the point of
departure sets the Deleuzian theory of desire apart from the whole
tradition of thought surrounding desire, from Plato through Hegel
to Lacan. Desire in Deleuze attains a constructivist sense in that
desire always requires a machine or assemblage. “Desire is
present in a given assemblage in the same way that, in a musical
work, the principle of composition is present in the silence as
much as in the audible sounds”(Patton 70). Thus “lack refers o a
positivity of desire and not desire to a positivity of lack” (Deleuze
and Parnet 91).
In Deleuze and Guattari`s initial outline of their theory at
the beginning of Anti-Oedipus, desire is treated as a process of
production. What desire produces, in the first instance, is a
machine or circuit of libidinal energy which they call a desiremachine (Patton 71). First, Desire as desiring-machine represents
not a static entity but a process, the production of production.
Second, “desire as desiring-machine has no subject and no object”
(Hardt) and is completely invested in the process of desiring
production. So Deleuze believes in the power of the positive desire
and proposes that “the three errors concerning desire are called
lack, law, and signifier” (Deleuze and Guattari 111).
Since desiring-machines only emphasize on the
production of production, there is no object of desire and thus no
lacking Subject and Other as in the framework of Lacan and Freud.
Deleuze suggests that “from the moment lack is reintroduced into
desire, all of desiring–production is crushed, reduced to being no
more than the production of fantasy” (Deleuze and Guattari 111).
He criticizes the concept of the lack and tries to situate the desiringmachine as the dynamo.
Ever since desire is welded to the law, the circle of
prohibition and transgression, taboo and incest operate its eternal
repression. Deleuze considers that “the sign of desire is never a
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
sign of the law, it is a sign of strength (puissance)” (Deleuze and
Guattari 112). It signals the incessant flows and breaks among
partial objects and different machines.
According to Deleuze:
An organ-machine is plugged into an energysource-machine: the one produces a flow that the
other interrupts. The breast is a machine that
produces milk, and the mouth a machine coupled
to it. The mouth of the anorexic wavers between
several functions: its possessor is uncertain as to
whether it is an eating-machine, an anal machine, a
talking-machine, or a breathing-machine (asthma
attacks). (Deleuze and Guattari 111)
The flows and breaks among the different machines weave
a dynamic matrix, within which the myth of a lacking subject is
replaced by the productive interaction among partial objects and
different machines. Even the nursing child is “already caught up in
an immediate desiring-production where the parents play the role
of partial objects” (Deleuze and Guattari 100). For the infant,
there is no longer the whole image of daddy and mommy, but the
partial images that connect and disconnect with his organs.
Furthermore, “the sign of desire is never signifying, it exists
in the thousands of productive breaks-flows that never allow
themselves to be signified within the unary stroke of castration”
(Deleuze and Guattari 111). Deleuze, in Anti-Oedipus, tries to
subvert the concept of the Oedipus Complex, which puts
everything, including desire, under the sway of the Phallus. This
will be discussed in details later.
Within the framework of Deleuze, the advent of the subject
is instated not before desiring-machine but only after as an effect or
residue of production. The radical demolition of subjectivity is
operated through his three syntheses: the connective synthesis of
production (desiring-machine), the disjunctive synthesis of
recording (Body-without-Organs), and the conjunctive synthesis of
consumption-consummation (subjectivity). According to Deleuze,
Body-without-Organs serves as a surface for recording the entire
process of production of desire. It is a cosmic egg, traversed by
“bands of intensity, potentials, thresholds, and gradients”
(Deleuze and Guattari 09). Body-without-Organs represents the
force of anti-production (repulsion) while desiring-machine
symbolizes the force of production (attraction), connecting and
disconnecting partial-objects. And the interplay of the forces of
production and anti-production gives birth to a wide range of
forms of subjectivity. The following quotation capsules the
germination of the subject within the framework of Deleuze's three
syntheses---desiring-machine, Body-without-Organs, and the
subject:
It is a strange subject, however, with no fixed
identity, wandering about over the body without
organs, but always remaining peripheral to the
desiring –machines, being defined by the share of
the product it takes for itself, garnering here, there,
and everywhere a reward in the form of a becoming
or an avatar, being born of the states that it
consumes and being reborn with each new state.
(Deleuze and Guattari 16)
It's not a theater of representation but a factory of desire
that allows the multiplicity of subjectivity to be born and reborn.
Thus, the map that records the complex relationship between the
Cartesian thinking subject and the world that he creates is
redrawn. For Lacan, “the unconscious is the discourse of the
Other;” (Lacan, Ecrits 16) therefore, it is language, Unconscious,
or the lacking Other that give birth to and situate the subject. For
Deleuze, it is desiring-production and Body-without-organs that
engenders the subject.
Oedipus Complex
The Oedipus Complex is just as important for Lacan as it is
for Freud, if not more so. The difference is that Lacan maps that
complex on the acquisition of language, which he sees as
analogous. The process of moving through this complex is the way
of recognizing the need t obey the social strictures and to follow a
closed differential system of language in which one understands
“self” in relation to “others”. For Lacan, the Oedipus Complex
impels the passage from the imaginary order to the symbolic order
and represents the paradigmatic triangular structure.
The
passage is marked by three 'times' of the Oedipus complex. The
first time of the Oedipus complex is characterized by “the
imaginary triangle of mother, child, and phallus” (Evans 128). The
triangle represents that a purely dual relationship between the
mother and the child never exists and that there is always the third
term, the phallus. The child finds out that both he and the mother
are marked by a lack. Thus, he seeks to completely satisfy the
mother's desire, the imaginary phallus. The second time of the
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
Oedipus complex is characterized by “the intervention of the
imaginary father” (Evans 128). The father exerts the operation of
privation through denying mother's access to the phallic object and
forbidding the child's access to the mother. The third time of the
Oedipus complex is indicated by the intervention of the real father.
The child (subject) is castrated by the real father since the father's
phallus thwarts any hope of his attempt to be the phallus for the
mother. Thus, the subject is initiated into the symbolic order and
falls from the imaginary fusion with the world and with others.
The Oedipal triangulation of Daddy-mommy-me is omnipresent
and “Oedipus has as its formula 3+1, the one of the transcendent
phallus without which the terms considered would not take the
form of a triangle” (Deleuze and Guattari 73). The triangle of
Daddy-mommy-me is anchored by the phallus as the third term.
In Anti-Oedipus, in contrast to Freudian and Lacanian
interpretation of Oedipus Complex, Deleuze and Guattari deny any
“primal lack” or yearning for a pre-oedipal, instinctual desire for
unity. The Oedipus complex, they maintain, does not involve the
resolution of problems created by pre-existing, instinctive desires;
it is first and foremost the territorialization of desire, the
differentiated “desiring production” that is the essence of human
reality. The various “desiring machines” that make up the
unconscious are first organized by the parents, by society an then
“resolved”, that is further territorialized into a social body, a
corporal form of representation. As such for Deleuze , “there is no
Oedipal triangle: Oedipus is always open in an open social field.
Oedipus opens to the four winds, to the four corners of the social
field (not even 3+1, but 4+n)” (Deleuze and Guattari 96). The
phallus as the detached complete object is replaced by detachable
partial objects. The breaks and flows of desire among partial
objects and different machines crack open the structure of
triangle. Deleuze proposes the possibility of the schizoanalysis,
which aims to schizophrenize the domain of the unconscious in
order to “shatter the iron collars of Oedipus and rediscover
everywhere the force of desiring-production” (Deleuze and
Guattari 53).
One is impelled to learn from the experience of the
psychotic how to subvert the Oedipal yoke and kindles the politics
of desire,
The anti-oedipal forces--the schizzes-flows-forces
that escape coding, scramble the codes, and flee in
all direction: orphan (no daddy-mommy-me),
atheists (no belief), and nomads (no habits, no
territories) (Deleuze and Guattari xxi).
The unconscious is no longer conditioned by the eternal
triangle of daddy-mommy-me. It is freed from the Oedipus
complex and initiated into the zone of desire, where the distinction
between subject and object is crashed and the only survivor are
desiring-machines traversing on body-without-organs in a
nomadic way.
Therefore, Deleuze asserts that the desiring-production
shouldn't give way to a simple representation since it is a factory of
desire rather than a theater of representation. The productive
unconscious should never make way for an “unconscious that
knows only how to express itself-express itself in myth, in tragedy,
in dream” (Deleuze and Guattari 54).
To sum it up, both Lacan and Deleuze contribute
important perspectives for criticizing the traditional concept of the
transcendental subject and for rethinking and reconceptualizing
subjectivity. Lacan claims that “the subject is split from its real
being and forever tossed between eventually contradicting
signifiers coming from the Other” (Nobus 179) while Deleuze's
subject is the nomadic subject which exists temporarily in an ever
shifting array of potentials as desiring machines distribute flows
across the body without organs. Moreover, though both of them
consider that desire lacks an object and is conceived of as an
incessant movement, Lacan argues that the subject is constituted
through lack because “one can only desire what one does not have,”
(Nobus 6) while Deleuze tends to focus on the power of productive
desire. Furthermore, Deleuze employs the schizophrenic desire to
subvert the Oedipal triangulation, whose operation on the subject
is as if “a tablecloth were being folded, as if its 4(+n) corners were
reduced to 3 (+1), to designate the transcendent factor performing
the operation” (Deleuze and Guattari 101). Through an incessant
process of territorialization, deterrtorialization, and reterritorialization, Deleuze aims to set free the production, reproduction
and anti-production of desire.
WORKS CITED
Barry, Peter. Begining Theory. Manchester & NY: Manchester
University Press, 2007.
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Chaitin, G. Rhetoric and Culture in Lacan. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996.
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Deleuze, G and Parnet, C. Dialogues. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson
and Barbara Habberjam. London: Athlone Press, 1987.
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Deleuze, G. & Guattari,F. Anti-oedipus: Capitalism and
Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
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Deleuze, G. "Nomad thought." The New Nietzsche:
Contemporary Styles of Interpretation. Ed. David B. Allison.
Trans. David B. Allison. MA: MIT Press, 1977.
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—. The Folds: Leibniz and the Baroque. Trans. Tom Conley.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
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Evans, Dylan. An Introductry Dictionary of Lacanian
Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge, 1996.
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Fink, Bruce. The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and
Jouissance. Princeton, New York: Princeton University Press,
1996.
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Hardt, Michael. Reading Notes on Deleuze and Guattari
Capitalism & Schizophrenia. 10 January 2009
<http://www.duke.edu/~hardt/ Deleuze&Guattari.html>.
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Lacan, Jacques. Ecrits,A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan.
London: Tavistock Publications, 1977.
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—. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis. Trans.
Alan Sheridan. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991.
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—. The Seminar. Book III. The Psychoses, 1955-6. Ed. JacquesAlain Miller. Trans. Dennis Porter. London: Routledge, 1992.
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Nobus, Dany, ed. Key Concepts of Lacanian Psychoanalysis.
New York: Other Press, 1999.
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Patton, Paul. Deleuze and the Political. London and New York:
Routledge, 2000.
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Soler, Colette. "The Subject and the Other." Reading Seminar XI:
Lacan's Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Ed.
Richard Feldstein, Bruce Fink and Maire Jaanus. Ithaca, NY:
SUNY Press, 1995.

Image as Meaning:
A Study of the
Select Poems of Vikram Seth
L. Judith Sophia
“Image,” one of the most common terms used in criticism
significantly contributes to the meaning of the text. The meaning of
a particular text differs from one reader to the other depending on
the mental pictures evolved by the readers based on their previous
experiences. Vikram Seth (1952), one of the contemporary Indian
English poets, a novelist, travel writer, children's writer, biographer and memoirist employs different patterns of images in his
poems in the collection, Beastly Tales from Here and There
(1992). This paper attempts to identify the poet as a “bricoleur”
who has borrowed from texts of different heritages to illuminate
the readers and to study the different patterns of images employed
which appeal to the sense perception of the readers. The poems
chosen for analysis are, 'The Crocodile and the Monkey,' 'The
Louse and the Mosquito' and 'The Hare and the Tortoise' from The
Collected Poems (1995).
Derrida, a poststructuralist, borrows from the French
Anthropologist, Claude Levi-Strauss the term “bricolage.” It is not
a new device or invention but a discourse of method which affirms
that it utilizes those instruments which already exist. In his book,
The Savage Mind, Strauss emphasizes the mytho-poetical nature
of “bricolage” (17). To the poststructuralists, a text is a system of
signs. Text in literary studies refers to the poem, plays and novels.
Some of the theories offered by poststructuralists seem to be very
difficult to digest and apply to the texts and they make the readers
feel “how difficult it is to read a book” (Jackson 15). In the
postmodern scenario, text and discourse are used as synonymous.
Discourse occupies a larger semantic space than the text. In
Derrida's words, “If one calls bricolage the necessity of borrowing
one's concepts from the text of a heritage which is more or less
coherent or ruined, it must be said that every discourse is
bricoleur”(202). To Strauss the engineer differs from the bricoleur
and “in this sense” says Derrida “the engineer is a myth” (202).
With brilliant audacity Frye, in his Anatomy of Criticism,
identifies myth with literature, and asserts myth is a “structural
organizing principle of literary form” (341). “Myth” as Frye
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
perceives, “is the imitation of actions near or the conceivable limits
of desire” (136). Myth as an “organizing principle of literary form”
or an integrative force arises from the depth of mankind's collective
psyche. Therefore, myths are collective and communal. Myth
critics view that “mythology encompasses more than grade school
stories about the Greek and Roman deities or clever fables
invented for the amusement of children” (Guerin 159). In his
attempt to define myth, Allan W. Watts says, “Myth is to be defined
as a complex of stories—some no doubt fact, and some fantasy –
which, for various reasons, human beings regard as
demonstrations of the inner meaning of the universe and of human
life” (qtd. in Guerin 160). People of all culture have their own myths
reflected in their legend, folklore, and ideology and they are shaped
by their cultural environment in which they grow (Guerin 160).
As myths are reflected in folklore and legends, a fable
becomes naturally a part of myths. The Penguin Dictionary of
Literary Terms and Literary Theory defines fable as “a short
narrative in prose or verse which points a moral” and their
characters are “Non- human creatures or inanimate things”
(Cuddon 300). Fables also can be described as didactic literature
for their purpose is to impart a lesson or value. Animals are their
protagonists and anthropomorphic characteristics are given to
them. Vikram Seth rewrites and reinterprets fables as enlightened
discourses in his Beastly Tales. In the light of the usage of the term
'bricolage' it is appropriate to call Seth a 'bricoleur' for his
utilization of the existing age old fables of the World. While
explaining the genesis of the collection of “ten animal fables in
rhymed couplets” Seth writes in “Author's Forewords,”
Because it was very hot in my house one day and I
could not concentrate on my work, I decided to
write a summer story involving mangoes and a
river. By the time I had finished writing “The
Crocodile and the Monkey”… another story and
other animals had begun stirring in my mind. And
so it went on until all ten of these beastly tales were
born-- or re-born. (xxxii)
He also acknowledges the sources of these ten story-poems
as “the first two come from India, the next two from China, the next
two from Greece, and the next two from the Ukraine. The final two
came directly to me from the Land of Gup” (xxxii).
Critics like Wimsatt W. explains what the King's blood
contains:
That the royal blood contains
Remedies for aches and pains—
Ginger, honey, sugar, spice,
Cardamom, and all things nice. (55 - 58)
27
The kinesthetic images are revealed through the arrival of a
mosquito: “One day a mosquito flew / Through the window” (17,
18); its “parabolic leap, / Landed not too far from Creep [louse]”
(27, 28); detecting the danger the mosquito has “hidden in the
canopy” (93) and in the end its leaving away as “the mosquito flew”
(96).
The louse occupies the King's bed as its “ancestral home”
(2) for “three decades” (4) and with his kin it enjoys an undisturbed
and delightful life at the expense of the King's blood. This
undisturbed delight is disturbed by the new entrant, the mosquito.
This arrival brings all change including the tragic end of the louse
clan.
In 'The Hare and the Tortoise', the “laughter,” “babble,”
“humming,” and “giggling” of the hare and her friends, the
“muttering” of the tortoise and the “idle boast” of the hare
constitute the auditory images. The tactile image is formed as the
tortoise “Daily counted all his toes” (26), in the proud words of the
hare: “I would thrash you anywhere-- / Marsh or mountain, hill or
dale, / Field or forest, rain or hail!” (84- 86); as hare is “wearing her
silk nightie, kept on staring at a mirror” (103), “satin shorts” (137)
of the hare, and is got diverted by “a field of Mushrooms” (156)
whereas the tortoise slowly and steadily wins “crossing line and the
tape” (194), and in the end of the race receives “the gold cup” (181).
Ironically the deceptive world is ready to adorn the hare with a
golden cup filled with “Gorgeous rubies” (231), and “front page in
all the papers” (238), a book, a travel magazine have allotted space
to highlight this defeat as a heroic one. This brings income to the
hare and she has invested it in “a manor house” (251). The smell of
“sauerkraut” (8), (chopped pickled cabbage), and the delicious
mushroom treat which diverted the hare not only kindle the
appetite of the readers but also contribute to olfactory images of
the poem. The hare used to “eat her eggs and sauerkraut” (8) and
when it reminds the readers of the mushroom treat:
(This last mushroom, I suspect,
Has a cerebral effect.
Every time I eat one, I
Feel I'm floating in the sky.)
How delicious! What a treat! (159- 163)
the secretion of the digestive hormones is induced. These
situations constitute gustatory images.
The kinesthetic image, race is the central metaphor of the
poem. The poet describes the movement of the tortoise as follows:
But the tortoise plodded on
Like a small automaton,
Muttering, as he held his pace:
'I have got to win this race.' (133- 136)
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
On the contrary, the tortoise begins “Leaving all her friends
astounded / At her rocket-fuelled pace” (151), soon it changes its
direction on seeing “a field of mushrooms” (156) and moves
“towards the wood” (167) to “go exploring” (170). In the meanwhile
“the tortoise plodded on …. Very steady, very slow -- / And he saw
the finish line” (175, 178, 179) and in the end won the race. The
tortoise teaches the lesson:
that sure and slow
Is the only way to go—
That you can't rise to top
With a skip, a jump, a hop—
That you've got to hatch your eggs,
That you've to count your legs,
That you've got to do your duty,
Not depend on verve and beauty. (207- 214)
Whereas the hare's race ends up in “a feature with the
news: / 'All the World Lost for a Snooze'” (241- 242) and a story “of
her three hour expedition / To the wood – called 'Mushroom
Mission'” (248).
In his essay, 'A Retrospect' Ezra Pound writes, “An 'Image'
is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an
instant of time” (59). This “intellectual emotional complex” cannot
be experienced or understood in “an instant of time.” It takes a long
way to trace back the similar pattern if not the same. Every poet
has his /her own unique formation of images. In Northrop Frye's
view, as expressed in his essay “The Archetypes of Literature,”
these images are bound “into an archetypal symbol of literature”
(426). In his mission he has identified few identical image
patterns. To him, “One essential principle of archetypal criticism is
that the individual and the universal forms of an image are
identical” (432). The archetypal critics have identified “the questmyth” as the central myth of literature.
This quest-myth exists in the chosen poems. In the poem,
'The Crocodile and Monkey', monkey undertakes this quest. This
quest begins from a world of innocence where the monkey is totally
unaware of the intention of the crocodiles even then the crocodile
suggests his wife's conspiracy through selective words:
When she takes you by the paw
Something at your heart will gnaw.
When you gaze into her eyes
You will enter Paradise. (85- 88)
The poor innocent monkey fails to understand their tricks
and plans to go with the crocodile. In the mid way of their journey
the crocodile reveals their vile intention to eat the monkey's heart
and asks the monkey:
29
Which would you prefer—to drown
In the Ganga or to be
Gutted by my wife and me?
I will let you choose your end. (122- 125)
The monkey attempts to stop the crocodile as it “slowly
started sinking” (127) by asking it to wait. It tries to change the
adverse situation with a powerful poetic discourse:
Death by drowning, death by slaughter
--Death by land or death by water—
I'd face either with a smile
For your sake, O crocodile! (129- 132)
And it decides to con the crocodiles and announces:
If you had not rushed me so,
I'd have found the time to go
To the hollow where I keep
Heart and liver when I sleep
……………………………………………
Why did you not speak before?
I'd have fetched them from the shore.'
(139-142, 147, 148)
In their attempt to con the monkey the crocodiles lose the
sweet and pleasant friendship of the monkey and its gift, the ripe
and rare mangoes. In this quest the realization comes in the middle
and the monkey rises to the occasion and weaves a story and cons
the crocodile. This paves way for its journey back home and
answers to the crocodile's call: “I'm not such a double-dunce”
(171). In the end, after gaining knowledge, the monkey escapes
leaving the crocodile to learn how to overcome fate by wisdom.
In the second poem, 'The Louse and the Mosquito', Seth
presents Creep, the louse “Lived in her ancestral house” (2). The
lice live in group occupying the place of safety for a long time. It
reveals,
They had dwelt here as of right
For three decades, and each night
She and her enormous brood
Drank the King's blood for their food. (3-6)
They silently and happily “Nipped and sipped and drank
the blood” (10) of the King and “pursued their gentle lives / -- Lives
of undisturbed delight” (14, 15). They do not undertake any
physical journey but their peace is disturbed when “a mosquito
flew/ Through the window” (17, 18) and demanded little space.
Mosquito's plea: “Let me sleep here for one night / And I'll catch the
morning flight” (35, 36) melts “the tender hearted Creep” (39) who
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
overcoming by compassion accommodates the mosquito. The
quest-myth prevails with the journey of the alien, the mosquito.
This mosquito doesn't undertake the quest with any purpose but it
dislikes the domination of the louse. It behaves like an anti-hero
who brings destruction to the louse community. The “fiery sting” of
the mosquito leads the King to pass the command: “Search the
bed/ Find and strike the creature dead!”(89, 90). Causing
annihilation, “the mosquito flew' / Looking out for further prey, /
Humming mildly on the way” (96- 98).
In the poem, 'The Hare and the Tortoise', both the
characters undertake the quest to win the race. The “hot and
heady” (3) hare loses as it boasts its talents and sleeps in the
middle of the journey. Its overconfidence and pride defeat it in the
end. The “slow and steady” (4) tortoise remains as a “Major in
accountancy” (41) and eventually, achieves the end. Though the
writer takes license to twist the original end with a modern flavour
the tortoise excels the hare by its earnest attempt and regular, slow
and steady pace.
“Water” image has the symbolic meaning of “the mystery of
creation; birth-death –resurrection; purification and redemption;
fertility and growth” (Guerin 161). The poem, 'The Crocodile and
the Monkey' consists of this image having the symbolic meaning of
“birth-death-resurrection.” When the monkey realizes that he has
been swindled it has to undergo a state of dilemma. There in the
river it receives an intuitive idea of resurrection and regains life.
The river image thus plays its symbolic role of the “transitional
phase of the life cycle” (Guerin 161).
The poem, 'The Louse and the Mosquito' lacks the explicit
water image whereas it has the image of “blood.” The louse and
clan enjoy drinking the blood of the King. This signifies their
“violent passion” for someone else's life that ends in “disorder”
(Guerin 161).
Some of the colour images highlighted by the archetypal
critics are used in these poems. The locale in the first poem, 'The
Crocodile and the Monkey' is “Ganga's greenest isle” (1) and the
crocodile appears in “greeny brown” (3). In positive context the
green colour symbolizes “growth, hope, and fertility” (Guerin 161)
as indicated in the case of the locale. In the negative context, green
is associated with “death and Decay” (Guerin 161) as the crocodile
exposes its vile and deadly nature in the end. Drinking the King's
blood the lice grow “plump and smooth and white” (16). It is not
used in its positive aspect but in the negative sense and it denotes
“death” and “terror” (Guerin 161) as they sip and drink the King's
31
blood which in the long run may cause the death of the king. On the
contrary they are founded and killed. The blood here brings death
to the lice. Number image is used when the tortoise counted its toes
and his grand sons as: “one, two, three” (32). This indicates the
integrated and meticulous nature of the tortoise.
In the poem 'The Crocodile and the Monkey', the
crocodiles signify the role of “the trickster” (Guerin 164) as the
female crocodile reveals:
But I now desire to eat,
As an anniversary treat,
Something sweeter still than fruit,
Sugar-cane or sugar-root:
I must eat that monkey's heart. (47- 51)
Instead of showing gratitude for the sweet and rare
mangoes, the crocodile asks the heart of the monkey to taste it.
This shows the vile nature of the crocodiles.
Tree in archetypal criticism symbolizes “life of the cosmos:
its consistence, growth, proliferation, generative and regenerative
processes” (Guerin 165). The monkey asks the crocodile to:
Eat, my friend, and take your wife
Nectar from the tree of life—
Mangoes ripe and mangoes rare,
Mangoes, mangoes everywhere. (73-76)
The metaphor “tree of life” is used for the mango tree to
indicate life. The fruits strengthen their friendship to some extend
though the crocodiles misused it. Vice is defeated in the end and
the monkey gains life and continues to live.
“The gold cup” in the poem, 'The Hare and the Tortoise'
stands for the ultimate aim of one's life. The race is an image that
symbolizes the life journey. At the outset, the poem suggests the
way to achieve the goal in life. If anyone determines to focus the goal
after fixing it without heeding to any other diverting ideas that
person will reach the end.
Though Seth is better known as the author of the novels, A
Suitable Boy and An Equal Music, his verse-fables, Beastly Tales
reveal that he is quite at ease with writing them for children. This
delightful collection of story- poems proves to be a modern classic
and reinterprets the age old Fables across the world and shows his
astonishing versatility. Bruce King identifies Seth as “a very
different young poet with a sense of humour, parody and a
hedonistic enjoyment of life” (44). This is quite true and he sets
apart as he retells the fables decorated with images not only to give
pleasure and to teach moral but also make it relevant to the present
context. Vivid imagery and humour make these poems extremely
32
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
readable and constitute the meaning of the poems. This collection
leads to various interpretations if poststructural theories are
applied and it is a fine example of 'bricolage.'
WORKS CITED
Abrams, M. H, A Glossary of Literary Terms. Australia: Heinle.
7th ed.1999. Rpt. Singapore: Thomson Asia Pvt. Ltd., 2003.

Cuddon, J. A, ed, The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and
Literary Theory. 4th ed. London: Penguin Books, 1999.

Derrida, Jacques, “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of
the Human Sciences.” ModernLiterary Theory: A Reader. Eds.
Philip Rice and Patricia Waugh. 4th ed. London: Arnold
Publishers, 2002. 195 – 210.

Frye, Northrop, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton:
Princeton UP, 1971.

---. “The Archetypes of Literature.” 20th Century Literary
Criticism. Ed. David Lodge. London: Longman Group Ltd., 1972.
422 - 433.

Guerin, Wilfred. L, et al. eds. A Handbook of Critical Approaches
to Literature. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1979.

Jackson, Leonard, The Poverty of Structuralism: Literature and
Structuralist Theory. London: Longman,1991.

King, Bruce, Modern Indian Poetry in English. Oxford: Oxford
UP, 1987. Revised ed. 2001. Levi-Strauss, Claude. The Savage
Mind. London: George Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1966.

Pound, Ezra, “A Retrospect.” 20th Century Literary Criticism. Ed.
David Lodge. London: Longman Group Ltd., 1972. 58- 68.

Seth, Vikram, Beastly Tales from Here and There (1992). The
Collected Poems. New Delhi: Penguin Books India Ltd., 1995.
xxxii, 279-289,304-312.

Wimsatt, William K, JR. and Cleanth Brooks ,Literary Criticism:
A Short History. Rpt. New Delhi: Surjeet Publications, 2007.

Debating Multiculturalism:
A Study of the Fictional Narratives of
Jhumpa Lahiri and Sudha Murthy
Dhishna Pannikot
Multiculturalism is a topic that has relevance in the postmodern narratives. When world itself becomes a global village,
multiculturalism bridge the borders between different cultures
and make cultures permeable to humanity. Multiculturalism
enables people across the cultural borders to taste unfamiliar
cultures. Many writers have explored the possibilities of
presenting different cultures through their narratives. Most
noteworthy among the contemporary writers are Jhumpa Lahiri
and Padma Shri Sudha Kulkarni Murthy.
Jhumpa Lahiri (1967-) the renown contemporary novelist
and short story writer presents varied themes through her works.
She presents stories on love, death, varied human relationships
and thereby creates a fictionalized world full of energy and vitality.
Lahiri as a short story teller could be seen as in her best in the
collection of stories The Interpreter of Maladies and in the
Unaccustomed Earth which had won her an established position
in English literary circle which had won her many remarkable
awards for her contributions.
Padma Shri Sudha Kulkarni Murthy (1950-) a benevolent
social worker born in Shiggaon, Karnataka, is popular through the
Infosys Foundation which was jointly developed with her husband
Narayan Murthy. She has written a collection of short stories,
fiction and non-fictions. Her most popular work is the Dollar Sose
(Dollar daughter-in-law), wrote in Kannada and translated to
English as Dollar Bahu.
Her other popular works are Mahashweta (in Kannada
and English), Wise and Otherwise, Dollar Bahu (English), Paridhi
(Kannada) Gently Falls the Bakula, The Magic Drum and other
Favorite Stories, How I Taught My Grandmother to Read and
other Stories, The Old Man And His God and .
Jhumpa Lahiri, the London born writer shows in herself
elements of a multicultural upbringing. She was brought up in
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
London and had most of her life in Rhode Island and had her
studies in Boston University. At present she lives with her family in
Brooklyn, New York where she carefully spins her career as a
contemporary writer in English. Her popular works are The
Namesake, The Interpreter of Maladies and Unaccustomed
Earth.
Dollar Bahu, Sudha Murthy's most popular work has
touched many important aspects of the NRI life. The novel, set in
multicultural background, provides conflicting approaches
towards life. The problems of relocation and dislocation have been
the connecting link of the protagonist Gouramma's life.
Jumpa Lahiri, through her Unaccustomed Earth presents
diverse issues that a non-residential Indian has to face abroad. She
presents diverse issues that Indians face in the west, through the
presentation of the changes that take place in the linguistic level, in
the mannerisms, Indian ways of living, child of America concept,
the change in the accents, alienation, sexual politics, colonial
elements, feeling of homecoming, the need to cling on to tradition
and the mental torture of being an Indian in her narrative. Though
Jhumpa Lahiri's works present the conflicting human
relationships, they are bound intricately with some element of
Indianess. Indian and the Western culture could be seen as coming
to terms with each other through Lahiri's narratives. The
complicated Indian nature and culture is presented with all its
vitality through Lahiri's narration in the Indian as well as western
context.
The West could be seen as presented with a sense of
sentimentality by Lahiri. This could be evidently seen in the
epilogue to her short stories Unaccustomed Earth that she had
quoted from Nathaniel Hawthorne, from The Custom House thus:
Human nature will not flourish, any more than a
potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a
series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My
children have had other birthplaces, and so far as
their fortunes may be within my control, shall
strike their roots into unaccustomed earth. (1)
Affinity to western culture and life style that most of the
non-residential Indians have in their psyche is evident in these
words. On the other hand, Sudha Murthy's concept of 'dollar bahu',
that is quiet prevalent in the postmodern Indian social context,
cuts across the borders of the 'Indian ideal bahu' in her narrative.
The 'Indianess' of Vinuta is brought in contrast with the 'dollar
35
bahu' Jamuna. Another important aspect touched in the work is
the difference between reality and imagination. Reality is presented
through the quest of Indianness in distant pastures and
imagination is presented with the greenness of the US. Life attains
all its vigour and colour through the dollar which often is presented
as the life sustainer of the millions of people who migrated from
India and other countries. The imaginary homeland is brought in
contrast with the real and orthodox Indian world by Sudha
Murthy.
In her portrayal of the life of the major characters, Sudha
had tried her best to present the life of the characters from the
female point of view. Jhumpa Lahiri to a larger extend abides this
propaganda in her Unaccustomed Earth and other stories where
female protagonists including the authors first person narrative
voice, Ruma, Boudi, Sudha, Sang, Hema and Chitra present the
blend of India and the west through their experiences. In Dollar
Bahu most of the female characters are presented just as a 'vision'
in the eyes of Gouri in order to provide examples of how life is and
need to be. In the end of the novel, one could see that Gouriamma
gets transformed from her idealist views of a Dollar seeker to that
of an Indianised woman, one who values the Indian way of living.
Sudha Murthy's novel, Dollar Bahu can be considered as
an experimental novel that sets the stage to present the life of the
NRI men and women. Sudha consciously or unconsciously
constructs the platform for Third World feminism through her
work. It is an ideological stand defined by Neeru Tandon in her
Feminism: A Paradigm Shift which means “an awareness of
women's oppression and exploitation within the family, at work
and in society, and conscious action by women and men to change
the situation.”(27) Through her novel, she does not give evidence of
a male dominated/patriarchal setup, it leaves enough space for
female domination in a social set up which again add to the feeling
of insecurity for the other related women in the family. The
condition of 'Indian bahu' in Vinuta gets bitter when Jamuna, 'the
dollar bahu' enters into the household of Gouriamma which gives
way to prosperity through her proposed travel with Chandru to US.
The usual household set up, which could be seen anywhere
in the middle class/lower middle class Indian family and the
sudden intervention of prosperity in the form of proposed NRI life
could be seen as the major backdrop through which the double
colonized minds of the Indian daughter-in-laws, by their Indian
mother-in-laws is brought to the forefront effectively. Through this
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
presentation, Sudha might have intended to bring to the general
attention of the readers about the need to decolonize one's own
mind, which is the major reason for the conflicts between the 'bahu'
and the 'mother-in-law' that often lead to disaster.
The novel ends effectively with a change in the mentality of
Gouriamma through which she comes to know that India is better
than US through her multi-cultural experiences and Indian bahu's
living in India are better than the practical life of the Indian bahu's
settled in US.
The novel presents a dramatic narrative style where the
reader could deduce on the possible conclusions, as the writer is
providing immense clues on what would come ahead in the
narration. Even though the plot seems simple and the characters
more gullible towards the circumstances, what is inherent in the
narrative is the positioning of women as powerless and eventually
powerful. Power factor works well in the novel. It also provides
multitudes of examples of the successful women in the US who had
to suffer different types of trauma in their early life. Lahiri's
Unaccustomed Earth also presents similar familial issues that are
carefully sorted out by her Indian characters. Failed marriage
relationships and multicultural life style are presented with more
vigour by Lahiri and Sudha. In the 'dollar bahu' Gouramma's
solitary US life help her to experience the real conflicts that an
'ideal' Indian women had to face in a Western setup were the
Indians themselves get transformed to the Western life style.
Sudha Murty, is able to present through her women
characters and their husbands the technological life of Indian
immigrants, both legal and illegal. The potential 'skippers', who
with the help of multinational companies seeks their fortune and
immigrate to US, voluntarily absorb the mannerisms and life style
of the west. Lahiri's Pranab Kaku in the Unaccustomed Earth and
other stories is a best example of the presentation of the changes
that occur in men. The apeing of European life style and manners
could be seen in Lahiri's characters. It is best reflected in A Choice
of Accommodation where the protagonist Amit mentions about his
parents: His parents, unlike most other Bengalis in
Massachusetts, had always been dismissive, even critical, of India,
never homesick or sentimental. His mother had short hair and
wore trousers putting on saris only for special occasions. His
father kept liquor cabinet and liked a gin and tonic before his
meals. They both came from wealthy families, had both summered
in hill stations and attended boarding schools in India themselves.
37
The relative affluence of America never impressed them; in many
ways they had lived more privileged lives in India, but they left the
country and had not looked back. (98) Women are presented by
Lahiri as more sensitive towards the changing scenario.
Sudha's women are presented mostly as willing to accept
any change in their lifestyle. A good example of the feminine version
of woman is presented through the character of Vinuta who accept
and submits to her mother-in-laws ideologies. This character is a
contrast to Surabhi who apes the western lifestyle and to Jamuna,
who really absorbs in the US ways of living. Three phases of
transition in the Indian women are presented by the writer with all
the vitality.
Sudha's NRI women are mostly presented as a string to
meet both ends. Their family life and social life are presented
purely as dependent on the dollar. Her authorial voice could be
seen as exclaiming through the voice of Vinuta, who prays in Dollar
Bahu: “let a day come when forty five dollars are equal to one
rupee.” (137) This mode of narration could be seen as viewing the
world from a new perspective.
Social snobbery of the Indian women was presented
effectively by Sudha. It could be evident from the selection of outfits
to the display of their dressings in social gatherings. This is evident
from the feelings of Gouramma in Dollar Bahu that: “since these
women never got an opportunity to wear Indian clothes they
probably wanted to show off to each other.” (104) The 'Indian' ways
of living are presented by Lahiri in a purely westernized context,
through the repetition of the word 'Indian' throughout her stories.
'Indian' ways of cooking, style of eating etcetera are presented
mainly from the Bengali point of view.
Sudha Murthy vividly presents the mental distancing of
Indians in US through the disinterest that was shown by them in
each other's affairs. Women were not bothered about the welfare of
other women. Indian marital rules and regulations could be seen in
the narrative as often floating astray in the American air.
Gouramma was a silent 'spectator' of the disintegrated life of
Indians. Her inquisitiveness on the changing life style was
presented through her queries regarding the life of the people
whom she had seen around, which was hushed by her son
Chandru or her daughter Jamuna who often reminded her in
Dollar Bahu “do not ask any personal questions.” (106) Personal
was often personal and never political in the Western setup which
was different from the Indian ways of living were people are
38
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
bothered more about their neighbour's well being.
Sudha to a larger extend presents through the protagonist
Gouramma the Indian ways of living. This is evidently seen when
she forbids Chandru to work in the kitchen. She says in Dollar
Bahu: “Chandru, please don't work in the kitchen. Don't you
remember? Your father and Girish never come into the kitchen.”
(103) This comment idealized certain patriarchal notions that
prevailed in the Indian culture. She advises Chandru not to do any
household jobs in her presence when she was in US. Jamuna on
the other hand is presented as a modern woman in the US who
believes in sharing equal family responsibilities between men and
women in household chores. This could be seen in her response in
Dollar Bahu: “Don't pamper him, Amma…everybody has to share
in the house work here.” (103) Jamuna could be seen in this novel
as easily adjusting and aping the western life style through which
often she forgets about her Indian identity.
Jamuna is the mirror to reflect the non-residential Indian
life in an effective manner. Sudha Murthy presents through
Jamuna, the converted nature of Indians who often forget their
values and reach the extent of duping their family, even in the gifts
that they present. Most of the foreign items that are available in
India are bought from India and are presented to their family as if
brought from America. Extreme duping could be seen through
instances where used dress materials that are often discarded by
Jamuna are sent to her in-laws family mentioning them to be
brought afresh.
The most notable aspect that could be seen in Jhumpa
Lahiri and Sudha Murthy is that both these writers presentation of
'Indian' lifestyle and reflection of Indian culture are realistic. But
the narration on the whole could be considered as a partial account
on the culture of India. The two writers had given their notions of
Indianness from the select location of their narratives in India
including Bengal, Calcutta and Karnataka, which the authors
personally know. Their narratives cannot homogenize the culture
of India, a nation with diverse language, beliefs, traditions and
manners of people through the description of a limited
representation of people and places. Hence both these narratives
are fractional attempts to present India before the western
countries.
India that these writers present through their narrative is
not the whole but a partial reflection of the iceberg. National
identities do not blend together in a single plot but multiple ethnic
identities debate in order to attain a significant place. Hence these
narratives could be named as multicultural narratives where each
nation attains its own significance within the limited plot in which
the story is set.
WORKS CITED
Atkinson, David. et al. Cultural Geography. A Critical
Dictionary of Key Concepts. Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2007.
l
Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. New
Delhi: Sage Publication, 2000.
l
Bennett, Tony. Culture: A Reformer's Science. London: Sage
Publications, 1998.
l
Crisp, Jane. Kay Ferres & Gillan Swanson. Deciphering Culture:
Ordinary Curiosities and Subjective Narratives. London:
Routledge, 2000.
l
Edgar, Andrew and Peter Sedgwick. Key Concepts in Cultural
Theory. London: Routledge, 2004.
l
Jung, Anees. When a Place becomes a Person. New Delhi: Vikas
Publishing House Pvt. Ltd, 1977.
l
Kuiper, Kathleen. Ed. Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of
Literature. Massachusetts: Meriam – Websters Inc, 1995.
l
Lahiri, Jhumpa. Unaccustomed Earth. 2008. UP: Random
House Publishers, 2009.
l
Murthy, Kulkarni Sudha. Dollar Bahu. 2005. New Delhi:
Penguin Books, 2007.
l
Tandon, Neeru. Feminism: A Paradigm Shift. New Delhi:
Atlantic Publishers, 2008.
l
At the river bank -
Aju Mukhopadhyay
and quiet flows the river
without a ripple or shiver
trees stand windless
not even a whiff in space
no leaf shakes, no sound;
fishes are sleeping
sweating fishermen around
have lost all zeal
in the act of rowing
their boats stand still
the water shines like a mirror
naked boy looks at his figure;
the world without a name
halts at the bank of the river
no one knows when it came
none, if it was already there.
41
40
In Search of A Balming Climate:
A Feminist Reading of
Kamala Das's Select Poems
K.S. Anish Kumar
The postmodern creative environment has paved the
way for the need to deconstruct power – oriented roles and this in
turn led to rethinking of the socially constructed and
“historically conditioned” roles. In the mean time questioning the
so-called “accepted norms”, that has been marginalizing 'the
other', has become an inevitable creative process. To Linda
Hutcheon
postmodernism “denaturalized
the traditional
historical separation of the private and the public – and the
personal and the political” (142) In fact binary oppositions that
are maintained by the dominant forces stood as stumbling
blocks for the sustainable development of humanity. Politicizing
personal desires is one of the major tenets of contemporary
writings and hence women writers explicitly
portray their
sufferings and the violence that are exercised on them and their
resultant impact.
The literary texts authored by male writers treat women
as “mute – objects” in which women
are
submissive,
domesticated creatures who lack the essential 'selves'. Like
fundamentalists male writers often declare 'holy mantras' of
controlled way of living for women through their images of women.
Critics are not exceptions to this mindset as Atwood opines in her
book Second Words that a text by a woman writer is criticized in
terms of her sex. Further traditional notions, try to annihilate
both the text and the author by creating 'an imaginary unneeded
link' between the author and the events in the text. It is
remarkable to note that the craftsmanship of such criticism
attempts to exclude the female writer from the literacy scenario. In
contrast to this texts by males are always praised for their
perception and presentation. Unlike the female protoganists of
women novelists, and poets the male writer takes the role of the
representative of the society and advocates rules and regulations
for the womenfolk through their personae or characters.
The present era, being an era of women writers, questions
the hierarchical power structure and exposes imperialistic
mindset of men. They stubbornly articulate the need to politicize
the personal to present the actual condition of women. It is worthy
to note that writing itself is a kind of liberation for writing has been
a male domain for a long time.
The postmodern feminist environment constantly brings
to light how the so called “personal” is cruel and lacks a heart. The
major task before a women writer of today is to create a viable
environment. In order to attain this one's should realize one's own
self. As a part of realization they expose the victimized condition of
women. They make their readers realize how women are
domesticated and historically silenced and they also ventilate
their unheard aspirations through their 'true' portrayal of
characters.
The conflict between expectation and reality is one of the
major preoccupations in women writings as in most of the poems
of Kamala Das. In fact she stands apart from other Indian.
English writers like Toru Dutt and Sarojini Naidu, due to her
perception. Dutt and Sarojini Naidu's poetry presents the
brighter side of India and the whole writings of Kamala Das,
present the other side of India like most of the poems of Jayanta
Mehapatra. Her women - centric presentation goes beyond the
limitations of an Indian writer and brings universal acclaim to
her, as most of issues of women she deals with are universal. In
one of her interviews she rightly said “Almost every women was
a victim and had to submit to tortures mental and physical” (Iqbal
Karur, 163). Her words aptly present the phallo – centric typical
Indian situation which pushes females to the periphery. She
said once that she needed to disturb the unjust society which
lacks humanity and she also made her cause clear to her
readers and presented her vision.
I wanted to make women of my generation that if
men could do something wrong they could do
itself too. I wanted them to realize they were
equal. I wanted to remove gender difference.
(Iqbal Karur, 167).
Kamala Das maintains organic unity in her writings for
the whole body of her writings she concentrates on the issues of
women . In her poetry collections namely Summer in Calcutta
(1965), The Descendants (1965), My Story (her autobiography)
and her only novel The Alphabet of Lust she deals with the
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
victimized condition of women and makes them realize their
position and revolt against the male dominant world. A.K.
Dwivedi in his book Kamala Das and Her Poetry rightly
observes :
Her poetry and prose reflect her restlessness
as a sensitive
women moving in the male
dominated society and in them she appears as a
champion of women's cause. (. . . ) she has
therefore more to say about the pathos of a
women emerging from a passive role to the point
of discovering and her individual liberty and
identity (20-21).
In fact her creative world (inclusive of the works she has
produced in Malayalam under the name Madavikutty. She was
bestowed
with Sahitya Akademi award for her short story
collection in Malayalam Tanuppu) presents her not only as a
poet but also as a rebel and social activist. (One should not
forget her direct entry into politics
thinking to change
disadvantaged women of the state but her attempt miserably
failed).
Unlike her other dimensions her popular dimension as
a poet reveals her true personality as she rightly observed once
that the raw material for a poet is his/her true personality. In
her autobiography she says “I loved writing more – than I loved
them (Parents)”. To her writing is not just a career but a
soothing exercise for it helps her to get rid of her private problems
but her staunch utterances and startling images invited heart
– breaking criticisms too. One should remember most of the
criticisms leveled against her affected her a little but in turn made
her protest against vehemently. For instance in her poem 'An
Introduction' she clearly presents how the male – centered Indian
domain will react when a women becomes a writer.
The poem starts with the introduction of Kamala Das as
a poet who knows “The names of those in power” and also
introduces her nationality, colour and linguistic capabilities
when the line starts.
“Don't write in English, they said
English is not your mother tongue”. (26)
The poem takes a different direction where the poet
not only responds but also reacts to the instructors. She says:
The language
I speak Becomes mine
43
(.....)
It voices my joys, my longings, my
Hopes and it is useful to me as
cawing Is to crows or roaring to the lions,
it Is human speech, the speech of the mind
that is Here and not there, a mind that sees and
hears
and Is aware. (The Old Playhouse, 26).
It is worthy to note that the poet is compelled to live up
to the social expectations that are created by patriarchy. When a
women ignores her “womanliness”, the instructions become
warnings. “Be girl Be wife” they said. “Be embroiderer. Be cook”.
In fact she is expected to “fit in” in the domestic realms and
directed to take up the roles that are prescribed by the
dominators. Kamala Das refuses to “fit in” for to “fit in” one has to
sacrifice one's own self. Fitting in also means accepting the roles
of a traditional wife. It is remarkable that by refusing to “fit in”
Kamala Das goes beyond the position of victim” i.e., she moves
beyond the clutches that victimize her.
Kamala Das, like the women writers of today, tries to
redefine the roles of ladies in the male–dominated environment.
She mainly focuses on how the male-oriented universe threatens
the survival of women folk . She is much concerned about the
physical violence exercised in the domestic, male-confined space.
'The Freaks' is a highly expressive poem which brings to light how
sexual love remain as “skin communicated things”. The process of
love making leads to distrust for it never satisfies the hungers that
emerge from within. The description of the male is highly
suggestive his cheeks are “sun-stained”, his mouth is ugly and
looks like a “dark cavern”, for when she visualizes her partner,
readers create a mental picture of him that makes the reader
identify with her.
The persona in this poem is trapped in the power oriented
institution called marriage where the female is vulnerable to
domestic violence. The report of FWCW Platform for action rightly
presents various types of violence against women and treats
domestic violence as the major huddle for the emancipation of
women. To FWCW
Violence against women is an obstacle to the
achievement of the objectives of equality,
development and peace, Violence against women
44
45
Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
both violates and impairs or nullifies the
enjoyment by women of their human rights and
fundamental freedom. (1)
Kamala Das visualizes sexual violence that happens in the
domestic environment. She says when he places his hand on her
knee as an invitation to sex the mind wanders away. In fact she
becomes a prey to “skins lazy hungers” and the heart remains as an
“empty cistern”. Her partner's action makes her a freak. In fact the
expectation of male and female collides with each other where
males always take the lead and expect women to be submissive.
They never understand that “love making” always involves the
mind, and Margaret Thatcher rightly remarked:
Women cannot love men. They may pity them, Fear
them, Adore them. Loath them. Mock them. Envy
them. But love? Impossible. Men are singularly
unlovable creatures. (Quoted in Surviving Men, 79)
The poem 'The Freaks' explicitly presents the idea how an
imbalanced society tries to create 'freaks'. The death of her dreams
and expectations of a fairy tale-hero not only haunts her psyche but
also wounds her and hence she continues her search for love.
Her search for a passionate love never becomes a reality for
the endangered vicious circles of male dominant set up pulls her
back to ancient times. In her well-known poem 'The Stone Age' the
persona encounters with her husband-“an ancient settler of the
mind”. The title of the poem is highly suggestive for the malepartner belongs to the stone age capable of converting her into “a
bird of stone' – “a granite dove”. It is worthy to note that she is
reduced to a lifeless object. Like Atwood she reduces him to the
level of an insect – an old fat spider. (Atwood reduces the male to
the level of a dangerous vermin). The feminist note in the poem is
not only expressive but also poignant and sharp. The process of
reducing the male to the level of an inhuman creature marks the
radical feminist outlook in the poem . The disappointed psyche not
only ridicules him but also reduces him as an old fat spider. His
cruel nature compels her to knock at another door to satisfy her
innermost essential female self. The physical union is described in
subtle words which clearly brings out his action.
Ask me, everybody, ask me
What he sees in me, ask me why he is called a lion
A libertine, ask me the flavour of his
Mouth, ask me why his hand sways like a hooded snake
Before it clasps my pubis. Ask me why
like a great tree, felled, he slumps against my breasts,
And sleeps.
(The Old Play house, 51)
Kamala Das ridicules actions of the male without ignoring
his brutal qualities. The powerful diction and the resultant visual
picture startles the reader for all his actions are related to animals.
In the sexual union as expressed in most of her poems remains as
an act of violence which includes miseries. Shobha De in her book
Surviving Men openly remarks about the psyche of men during
sex.
Men tend to confuse love and sex. They operate on
a far more instinctual level than women, in this
area What they mistake for love isn't even lust, it is
an uncontrollable urge to get into that particular
woman's pants. (89)
In other words in the name of sex men entrap women and
exercise power on them, often she becomes a prey to males'
physical hungers.
To come out of the entrapped situation Kamala Das often
dreams of the pleasant past - the days she spent at her
grandmother's house. She says “There is a house now for away
where once/I received love” (32). K.R. Ramachandran Nair in his
book. The Poetry of Kamala Das rightly observes, “The past, for
her, is symbolized by her grandmother, Nalapat house and the
experiences and associations”. (43)
Kamala Das enjoys the reminiscences of her childhood
days whenever she is unable to cope up with the harsh reality and
sometimes she becomes jubilant with a mythical union with Lord
Krishna. She attempts to build up an eternal relationship with
Lord Krishna by treating her as Radha and Mira Bai. To her love is
not only spiritual but also psychological for he is her own symbol of
'idealized phallus'. In her autobiography too she presents the
presence of Krishna in her.
You are my Krishna, I whispered kissing his eyes shut.
He laughed.
I felt that I was a virgin in his hands. The sea was our
witness. How many times I turned to it and whispered,
Oh, sea,
I am at last love. I have found my Krishna.
(Quoted in Naikar, 49)
In one of her poems also she presents her love for Krishna
which is mind-blowing. She assumes him as a burning candle.
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
Everything in me
Is melting, even the hardness at the core
O Krishna, I am melting, melting
Nothing remains but
you (. . . . )
The love for Krishna is emotional, psychological and
spiritual but not physical like the sexual experience she encounters
with her life-partner. This alternative is temporal in nature but
highly comforting and provides her solace and freedom.
Sometimes she enters into seascape to heal her wounds, but the
existence of harsh reality reminds her of her own domestic
environment. Hence, the conflict between illusion and reality
affects the body of her poetry in which she visualizes her as a
vulnerable victim of the social reality. The same domestic life
demands “sacrifice' only from her and used to treat her as “the
other”. This situation compels her to leave him for living with him
will be living in the cocoon. She says in her poem 'I Shall Some Day':
I shall some day leave, leave the cocoon
You built around me with morning tea,
Love-words flung from door ways and of course
Your tired lust. I shall some day take
wings, fly around, as often petals,
Do when free in air . . . . (The Old Playhouse, 48)
The 'cocoon' implies the male-defined establish-ments
which trap women. Her quest to liberate herself from the domestic
space demands her to sacrifice her true self and to worship the
potentials of man. To P.K.J. Kurup these lines “emerge from the
private humiliations and sufferings of the anguished tortured
psyche of the feminine self “ (138) It is significant to note that to
Kamala Das love will not emerge from complete sub-ordination but
from mutual sharing and caring. The Indian condition which never
allows females to share their emotions openly for the Indian
tradition itself is not a dynamic one but a static one. This static
tradition prescribes static rules for domestic life where marriage
becomes “a game of cruelty” to Kamala Das and hence leaving 'the
cocoons' may lead to an independent way of life. Her move to come
out of male defined domestic environment underlines the idea that
realizing one's own condition is an act of liberation. It has to be
reiterated that the revolutionary attitude of Kamala Das comes to
light through their poem. Her poetry offers energy to the female
victims to come out of their victim positions and to become non-
47
victims. In fact, what she expected was a balming climate in life
where no 'cocoons' will be there and she need not pretend to be a
happy wife but trust and mutual will find a players. She says in her
autobiography My Story “I needed two strong arms thrown
around my shoulders and a soft voice in my ear”.
Kamala Das's poetry explicitly sketches the cruel takes of
male-dominant society which often convert females into “mute
symbols” and compels them to pretend to be happy. Her poems
display the need to come out of “vacant ecstasies” that result from
“skin communicated things”. Kamala Das also seems to have
affected by the present day issues which threatens human
existence in all possible ways. As a socially committed writer she
goes beyond the limited perception of a woman writer because of
her universal outlook but still her major concern in women and
children.
I am unhappy for the human beings who get
Slaughtered, bombed, We have reached an
unhappy stage in life, all of us (...) Who has got the
right to be happy now knowing that right around
the corner this new gulf of terrorism is flourishinga gulf which will attract our children. They will not
have any other religion. They will gravitate towards
terrorism. Because it means power although short
lived. (Kaur, 64)
It is worthy to note that exercise of power is always the
opposite of exercise of love. Kamala Das's writings invites readers
to rethink beyond the accepted norms. The so called “accepted
norms” are partial in nature for they always try to marginalize the
weaker sections or 'the other'. Her poetry revolts against the
unjust society and urges the need to create a meaningful way of life.
She being an active radical feminist and a social activist, the whole
body of her writings and the personae in her poems re-iterate the
need to create 'a blaming climate' which heals the wounds of
inhumanity inflicted on women and this will transform the earth
into a promising place worth living.
WORKS CITED
Atwood, Margaret, Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian
Literature. Toronto House of Anansi Press Limited, 1972.
l
Atwood, Margaret, Second words: Selected Critical Prose.
Toronto: House of Anansi Press Limited, 1982.
l
Das, Kamala, The Old Playhouse and Other Poems. Hyderabad:
l
48
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
Orient Longman Limited, 1973.
De, Shobha, Surviving Men: The Smart Women's Guide to
Staying on Top. New Delhi: Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 1997.

Dwivedi. A.N, Kamala Das and Her Poetry. New Delhi: Atlantic
Publishers & Distributors, 2006. (Reprint)

Hutcheon, Linda, The Politics of Postmodernism. London:
Routledge, 1999.

Kaur, Iqbal., Perspectives on Kamala Das's Poetry. New Delhi:
Intellectual Publishing House, 1995.

Hawkes, David: Ideology . London: Routledge 1996.

Kulshestha, Chirantan (Ed), Contemporary Indian English
Verse: An Evaluation . New Delhi: Arnold-Heinmann,
Publishers, 1980.

Kurup, P.K.J., Contemporary Indian Poetry in English. New
Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 1996.

Naikar, Basavaraj (Ed), Indian English Literature. Vol: IV, New
Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 2003.

Nair, K.R. Ramachandran, The Poetry of Kamala Das. New
Delhi: Reliance Publishing House, New Delhi, 1993.

http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/Beijing/platform/
violence.htm.

P. Raja
OH, TO BE A POET!
You do not know
what it is to write a poem!
At first
a bell rings in your head
to start the work.
Then it is
a matter of meditation.
All your senses
are forced to fly
swift and soft
towards the target.
And when your eyes open
you see nothing around
but only the vision
you had when
your eyes were closed.
A pleasant experience.
You are all alone
in the midst of everything
and everyone.
But you are somebody
amidst nobody.
And when your poem flows
onto paper
as your pen gives shape
to your thought
you feel different,
haloed,
pedastalled and
honoured.
Changing Trends in
Translation Studies
TS Chandra Mouli
Translation is an integral part of human life. Verbal
communication connects people, non verbal communication plays
an equally significant role in cementing and reinforcing interpersonal relationships. It is translation of the said and unsaid that
makes it possible to bring people and their cultures together. In
fact, translation or transcreation is a very important aspect of
comparative literature.
“Translation as a sub-text of the original text is
comparatively a modern concept. Maybe it is the
later requirement of straight jacketed faithfulness
to the original which had a debilitating effect. In
Indian tradition it never used to be so as the
transference of text from one language into another
was more of the nature of adaptation, retelling and
redoing which went on over a period of time.” [Gopi
Chand Narang, 2005].
Serious practitioners and lovers of translation are exposed
to countless theories and counter theories of translation.
Unequivocally it is accepted as inspiring, as creative as the original
writing in the source language (S.L.). In this context terms like
source language(S.L.), source text(S.T.), target language(T.L.) and
target text(T.T) assume significance.
Early theories of translation focused attention on literal
translation only. Shift in focus generated diverse theories
subsequently. It is often said if a translation is beautiful it is not
faithful and if it is faithful it cannot be beautiful. One wonders
whether male chauvinism influenced such an idea. A close scrutiny
of the history of translation and the methodology followed reveals
that the emphasis was more on retaining loyalty to the source
language(S.L.) and the source text(S.T.). No attention was paid to
the target reader(T.R). The translator took delight in exhibiting his
extraordinary comprehension and communication skills
(linguistically). The aesthetic value of S.L text was given greater
50
Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
importance. Faithful translation generally tends to be rigid and
uncompro-mising. Semantic translation is more flexible in giving a
little freedom to the translator in employing his intuition.
Badly/inaccurately written passages should be
corrected in communicative translation.”
(Newmark).
A discerning reader appreciates communicative
translation rather than semantic translation, which is generally
perceived inferior to the original. “Viewed in the hierarchical
context of high and low, primary and secondary, the larger and
wide-spread hierarchy/creativity //non-creativity/ is reinforced
implying that while text is creative, translation is non-creative.
[Gopi Chand Narang, 2005].
The Sahitya Akademi President feels that the word
'creative' is euphuistic. The marginalization is certainly a construct
and it needs to be looked into, since a good translation certainly is
not possible without creative involvement.
It is further observed that it is not possible to evaluate
creativity through fossilized constructs.
Creativity is a product of love, it comes from your
soul, your innerself. It is not in the thing being
done, it is in your attitude towards things and how
you approach a work. Any attainment where one
has bestowed one's love and care is always positive
and this sort of positivity is always creative…
Creativity is not in a particular work per se, it's in
your attitude towards work… Whatever one does, if
one does it lovingly, if one does it joyfully, if one's
act of doing it not purely economical , then it is
creative. Those who make translation a love affair
achieve creativity. [Gopi Chand Narang, 2005].
A translator and translation activity have acquired due
respect in recent times. Post colonial theories concern themselves
thoroughly with cultural transference. Cultural implications have a
wider spectrum encompassing lexical content, syntax, ideologies
and ways of life. Here the translator's role assumes greater
significance as he prioritizes his concerns and evolves suitable
strategies.
Homi K. Bhabha, in his interview states that psycho
analysis connected to the issue of identity suggests that all forms of
identification are partial and ambivalent. He states:
51
All subjects are constituted in a liminal wrong.
Ambi-valence is thus very important in my
understanding of social processes and social
relations. Similarly, semiotics, the theory and
understanding signs, suggests that a particular sign
has a set of meanings, based on a systemic location
and a discursive use of that sign. Every sign gains its
meaning in a particular language system. Words
have to be read in given social context. Thus, for me,
semiotics suggested that you could not ascribe
universal values to literary texts. You had to
understand the burden of interpretation and the
burden of representation on those specific texts.
[Sachidananda Mohanty, The Hindu, 3-7-2005].
Homi Bhabha further affirms that an attempt at making
new connections, articulating new meanings always takes the risk
of being not immediately comprehensible to readers.
Translation is a creative activity offering gratification to the
person who renders it and the audience. Translators often felt that
they should be treated as interpreters. This inclination
overshadowed the earlier concept invisibility of the translator. If
the translator happens to be a creative writer the resultant product
can be termed excessive translation. Excessive translation tends
to foreignise/ exoticise ie use of source language [S.L] terms in the
target language text [T.T], to a level that is now acceptable.
Target language [T.L] terms can be enlightening to a reader
in reflecting source culture in a meaningful way. Globalization
influenced tremendously in rendering the texts more exotic.In this
context, these translations contribute a great deal in a better and
correct understanding of the source culture.
1. Globalization has greatly affected our lives and culture.
2. It has equally influenced a translator's life and work.
3. Translation has acquired greater significance in
bridging cultures.
4. Unfamiliarity as regards people and their culture have
been replaced emphatically by the concept of
familiarity.
5. The practice of foreignising or exoticising has
undergone a great deal of transformation.
Globalization has come to mean rendering source text
[S.T] global in understanding or application. Here, application
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
refers to the teaching and learning about different cultures. A
translator takes advantage of the present context in extending
greater exposure to unknown cultures and languages. This
counters the earlier practice of glorifying dominant cultures. More
so studies dedicated to analyzing western languages and cultures.
Globalization also offered a touchstone to test the
competence of the translator and the audience. This concept is a
significant aspect of translation. As is well known translation
studies attempt tying divergent cultures together leading to fusion
of boundaries. In the context of globalization a translator has some
options:
a)
Adopting the foreign word without any explanation;
b) Adopting the foreign word with extensive explanation;
c) Rewriting the text to make it lucid to the target language
audience.
A translator has to make a choice to make :
1. the text understood quite easily
2. to render the text more exotic and more foreign.
3. to retain proximity to source culture.
4. enabling the target language audience get better
understanding of source culture.
Internet has become a household name and a part of and
parcel of our daily activities. Distances are shrinking, cultures are
coming closer, differences are diminishing, fusions are flowering.
Though globalization has a better connotation in commercial
parlance, its existence and efficacy cannot be dismissed light
heartedly. Search engines on the internet provide a lot more
information in a jiffy than what more could be collected through
years of carefully conducted search of useful material in libraries
across the land.
Literary translation in a global context deserves special
mention. A translator can be defined here, as an expert in intercultural communication in an internationalized context. When
machine translation and allied activities have come to dominate
literary translation is not given due regard. Dominant cultures
have always enjoyed glorification .But in the changed context less
known cultures and languages demand more attention,
exploration and exposure. It is here translation studies assumes
greater significance.
English, enjoying an undisputed global status, beckons
bewitchingly the bemused translators to render service in the
53
cause of their own less known language and culture. A translator
with bicultural awareness , bilingual capability is supposed to play
a more serious role .In the prevailing situation language, literary or
otherwise is viewed as a means of communication. In the
proliferation of commercial vistas and ensuing opportunities a
translator's role has to be accorded due recognition.
Globalization decreases foreignness. A text can not become
more foreign or less familiar. In the present context more foreign
elements sneak into target text and thus offer more of the source
text to the audience. More elements of source culture are preserved
in the target text. Hence, transfer of culture is more authentic.
A careful study of translations in the last three decades
offer some brilliant insights. In earlier versions a translator
strained to domesticate the text to the target audiences(he made it
closer to the comprehension of target audience). Subsequently , we
notice translators striking a balancing brilliantly between
foreignizing and domesticating a rendered text. In the context of
globalization more elements and culture specifics of the source
language are preserved in the translated text, giving foot notes and
detailed explanation where necessary.
M. Sridhar and Alladi Uma have translated Avval Kalma
(written by Yakoob in Telugu) into English retaining the title as it is.
In this poem the poet talks about the peculiar predicament of a
Muslim in Andhra Pradesh. His yearning for acceptability and
recognition as a fellow human being is brilliantly depicted. The
translators retained the title deliberately and a number of culture
specific words.
You may not believe me.
but nobody gives expression to our suffering…
Festivals for us only mean rice with pickle,
biryani, talavs, pulavs, sheer khurmas are for you….
Wonder of wonders—the language we know is not ours,
I believe the language which is supposed to be ours
we do not know.
The poet feels sorry that he is neither accepted by the
muslim community or by the others. For speaking Telugu he is
looked down upon and humiliated by his own people.
A curious dilemma whether to laugh or to cry.
When all said and done our dreams are Telugu,
our tears are Telugu.
Whether we ask for food when hungry,
whether we cry out in distress,
54
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
the expression of our feelings is Telugu.
When we were asked to perform namaz
we were dazed not knowing what to do.
We were startled listening to the azas,
We could only look for the ragas in the sound of the suras.
When we were asked to pray in the language we didn't know
we even lost the pleasure of praying.
You may not believe me,
but nobody gives expression to our suffering.
[Avval Kalma : M. Sridhar, A. Uma]
Words like Oyamma, abbu, abbajaan, haveli, nawab,
muslim, sahib, turaka, ammijaan, pappa, chaar deewar,
khilwat, pardah, Bismillah hir Rehamaan, Allah ho Akbar, jihad,
biryani, pulavs, talavs, sheer kurmas, shervaanis, laddhaf are
retained in the English version. Terms referring to the castes like
laddaf, doodekula, kasabu, pinjaari, dhobis, dhobans, hajjams
,mehters, also are retained to reflect the native tint of the text in
S.L. The translators have chosen to give a detailed glossary at the
end of the poem.
Perhaps, it is aimed at making the rendered text target
audience friendly.
No language can exist unless it is steeped in the context of
culture and no culture can exist which does not have at its centre
the structure of natural language.
It is pertinent to recall how Susan Bassnett (1980)
highlights the importance of cultural component in translation.
According to her language is 'the heart within the body of culture.'
Dalits have written moving poems expressing their anguish
and misery. Sikhamani's poem Maa Baappa reveals how a dalit
woman toils for a living. Quite often in Indian context a dalit person
is socially ill-treated and physically abused. In the case of a lady
sexual exploitation adds fuel to the consuming flames of economic
and social exploitation. The poem mentioned above has been
translated as Baappa by T.S. Chandra Mouli and B.B. Sarojini.
Except a hamlet, villageless…
except a caste nameless…
except hard labour, pleasureless…
story of my Baappa, will you listen?
Baappa is not an ordinary one…
like a tall papaya tree,
like a river that never looks back,
like a slender casurina tree
that challenges the sky
a very tall lady she was!
………………………..
What a lovely blackness!
Blackness of clusters of rose apples,
blackness of a slice of tilled black cotton soil field,
blackness of black lotus blooming in abundance
in the irrigation channel.
………………………………….
Apparently black in complexion only,
but my Baappa's tenderness was
white as the flowers of watermelon,
soft as silk cotton,
soothing as chilled gruel.
…………………………..
I regret why my Baappa
who could shred coir in coconut shop
keeping the fruit on her thigh,
was not born at KaramcheDu!*
I wonder why my Baappa
who kept guard along riverbank
with a lantern in hand
and some chilly powder in her chengu**
whenever there were clashes with the village
was not born at Tsunduru !***
Unlike other times,
my Baappa's presence is
all the more needed now!
[Baappa :T.S. Chandramouli & B.B. Sarojini]
In the above translation only a few words like-*Chengu,
place names like **Karamche Du and ***Tsunduru have been
retained. Explication was appended to the poem.
Translators interested and involved in translating Telugu
poetry into English have ignored social stratifications and
temporal ideological differences. It is heartening to note that a
majority of them are not dalits nor do they belong to minority
Muslim sections. What obtains in a speech community can be
extended to other speech communities as well in India. Through
such selfless service rendered by self-effacing translators,
realization dawns that the strife and struggle of the down trodden
is not restricted to one region or religion, but is pan-Indian.
Translations do awaken hibernating conscience of fellow
countrymen and spur them to undertake remedial measure
sincerely. Wherever people are oppressed resistance develops
56
resulting in revolt, regeneration of life and reconstruction of a
social order. Translations carry cultures across the frontiers
convincingly and conveniently, forging bonds of fraternity and
bridging chasms in comprehension of man's destined role in this
universe. Solutions are offered, problems are solved and inner
spirit of man is purged through translations and cultural
transference.
WORKS CITED
Amrit Mehta & Lakshmi H: Translating Alien Cultures, ed.
Hyderabad, CIEFL,2000

Basnett, Susan and Trivedi, Harsh: Post-Colonial Translation.
London, Routledge,. 1999.

Catford, J.C.: A Linguistic Theory of Translation. ,Delhi ,Oxford
University Press.1965

Chandra Mouli, T.S.: kritya.in (Jan.2006)

Lakshmi, H.,: Problem of Translation: A study of Literary &
Technical Texts. Hyderabad: Book Links Corporation,1993

Mohan Prasad V.: This Tense Time(Modern Telugu Poetry).
Vijayawada, New Directions. 1981

Prabhakar Rao, S.S, : Post Independence Poetry. Calcutta:
Writers' Workshop, 1993.

Prakasam, V.,: Stylistics of Poetry. Hyderabad: Omkar
Publications,1996.

Pramod, Talgeri: Inter Cultural Hermeneutics and Literary
Translation' – Literary Translation (ed)Gupta, R.S. Delhi:
Creative Books,1999

Seshendra Sarma, G.: In Defence of Poetry and People.
Hyderabad , Jyotsna Publications, 1999.

Singh, A.K. (ed) : Translation, Its Theory & Practice, New Delhi:
Creative Books, 1996

Sridhar. M, Alladi Uma et.al.: Arc of Unrest, Hyderabad,
Madhyamam,. 2000

57
Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
Immortality through Nature in
Temsula Ao's Laburnum for My Head
A.J. Sebastian sdb
Padma Shree Temsula Ao, poet and fictionist from
Northeast India, in her latest collection of short stories entitled
Laburnum for My Head, examines various aspects of human
condition in interpersonal relationships. In the title story of the
collection, she examines how Lentina's longing to be buried beside
a laburnum tree with its buttery yellow blossoms, instead of a
headstone, is fulfilled. Her longing to be buried in the lap of nature
draws attention to our innate desire to be immortalised through
nature.
It is a traditional practice in Christian graveyards, to erect
“headstones” known also as memorial stones, gravestones or
tombstones, made of granite, marble or other materials. These are
erected vertically above the ground to keep the sacred memory of
the departed soul. They also symbolize wealth and prominence
of a person in society. Such stones are marked with epitaphs in
praise of the deceased or quotations from religious texts, such as
"requiescant in pace." William Shakespeare's inscription reads:
Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear,
To dig the dust enclosèd here.
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And cursed be he that moves my bones
(“Headstone.” http://www.answers.com).
Such traditional style of cemetery known as monumental
cemetery, are being replaced by lawn cemetery; and in recent
times by natural cemetery or eco-cemetery or green cemetery. In
the natural cemetery an area is set aside for natural burials among
eco-conscious people to become part of the natural environment.
This is with the idea of one decaying into nature to be one with her.
Hence, in natural cemeteries there is no conventional grave
markings such as headstones, instead, a tree or a bush is planted
to commemorate the faithful departed. (“Cemetery.” http://en.
wikipedia.org).
Plants are used to mark rites of passage both in human and
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
in the annual cycle. Blooming shrubs and trees are planted as they
live longer, and remind one of the deceased. Planting favourite
plants of a deceased person at his/her grave becomes an
unforgettable reminder of that person when it blooms, leading to
nostalgic memories for many generations. Besides, planting a
living memory is a continual healing process as well as a symbolic
of eternal life. The `Indian Laburnum` is one of the most
widespread and popular trees of India. Most of the tree's names
suggest the meaning of something that is `stick-like`. The reason
behind such a name is probably because its pods look like sticks. It
is considered one of the loveliest flowering trees of India, with its
baggy flowers rich in streaming gold. The pods of the tree appear in
abundance in the months of March and May.
(“Indian Laburnum.” www.indianetzone.com)
Lentina's love for plants and flowers, instead of a
headstone at her grave is her ecofeminist way of becoming part of
nature. The fictionist, draws attention to “green thinking,” (Bate
xvii) which is most relevant today in the context of alarming global
warming and depletion of nature's bounty. Human civilization has
always been in the business of altering the land, whether through
deforestation or urbanization or mining or enclosure or even the
artificial reimposition of 'nature' through landscaping”(171).
When the Indian laburnum bush blossoms every May in
the new cemetery, the onlookers observe it with great surprise,
considering it to be accidental. But the story of the flowering tree
brings to focus how Lentina planned to be buried with a laburnum
tree for her head. The story shows how “nature has a way of
upstaging even the hardest rock and granite edifices fabricated
by man” (Ao 1). Every year the community members come together
to clean around the headstones in the village graveyard. They
notice the spectacular Laburnum bush instead of the headstone at
the corner of the graveyard, reminding them of Lentina who “had
admired these yellow flowers for what she thought was their
femininity….The way laburnum flowers hung their
heads
earthward appealed to her because she attributed humility to the
gesture” (2).
The story begins when Lentina decided to grow a few
laburnum trees in the corners of her compound. Though she got a
few saplings and planted them, the gardener pulled them off while
weeding. Some of the other saplings were eaten by stray cows.
Remaining few that sprouted were killed when DDT was sprayed. It
was a devastating experience for Lentina to encounter such strange
59
circumstances in which all the laburnum saplings died. She took it
as a bad omen, however, whenever she saw the blossomed
laburnum elsewhere, she began to develop an urge to have them
closer to her home. It became such an obsession that “her husband
and children were convinced that she was developing an unhealthy
fetish for laburnum and began to talk openly about this in close
family gatherings” (3). She was deeply hurt when they showed their
indifference to nature's beauty which she always dreamed of. And
her dream of having a full grown laburnum tree in her garden,
continue to remain an obsession.
Meanwhile, her husband developed a strange disease and
died in his sleep. Being a prominent citizen of the village, he was
given a solemn funeral. But, when it was time for the final rites, she
surprised everyone by accompanying the mortal remains to the
grave, breaking all traditions. As though, led by some inner
impulse, she followed the male members to the gravesite. No one
could stop Lentina from her strange behaviour. After the rites were
over, she stayed on in the midst of the headstones in the graveyard.
Her musings were on man's attempt to defy death by erecting stone
monuments, as though trying to bring the dead back to life.
Experiencing an epiphany in her life, she “decided that she did not
want any such attempt at immortality when her time came, and at
that thought she experienced an epiphanic sensation: why not have
a laburnum tree planted on her grave, one which would live on over
her remains instead of a silly headstone?” (4). The epiphanic
experience she had is similar to that of Stephen's consciousness in
Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Stephen's
behaviour gives insight into the development of a literary genius. In
his aesthetic quest to be an artist, he abandons everything that he
held dear - his family, religion and culture. Similarly Lentina, does
away with all social norms, to grow a laburnum in her quest for
immortality. It is her ecophilosophy that runs as a central motif in
the story, drawing our attention to the moral relation between man
and nature.
Her idea of immortality through nature made her so excited
with a new revelation. But, the question remained, who could be
her confidant in executing her “deep-seated longing forthe yellow
wonders” (5). She thought of her old driver Mapu, being a widower,
could be best suited to guard her secret. The following day she took
him for a ride to the graveyard and confided her desire to have a
laburnum at her head than a headstone. Her frequent visit to her
husband's grave side was never seen with suspicion, though her
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
intention was different. She wanted to chalk out a place where she
would be buried, without attracting objections from any one.
“Lentina marched to the extreme corners of the ground, as if
looking for a lost treasure”(5). Mapu found her strange as her folks
had said that she was going out of her mind. But she articulated
clearly: “This is my spot, I want to be buried here when my time
comes” (6). He tried to remonstrate with her saying that her place
was already earmarked beside her husband. But she was
determined to break the tradition, instructing Mapu to remain
silent about it.
That night went sleepless as Lentina made her plans how
to get the plot ready with a laburnum tree grow up where she
would be buried. Meanwhile, Mapu made arrangement with his
son-in-law to reserve a most insignificant plot for her in the
cemetery, concealing her identity in the application form.
Suddenly and idea flashed across her mind to search for a plot of
land adjacent to the cemetery. As she pondered over the plan,
providentially, a certain Khalong, son of her husband's friend came
to pay his respects learning about her husband's sudden demise.
He began to say that he was going through a bad financial situation
and wanted to sell his land adjoining the cemetery. Lentina
surprised him when she desired to purchase the land. On his part,
he felt quite embarrassed as she planned to buy such an unsuitable
land. She spoke to a stunned Khalong,
let me assure you that it is not merely out of my
concern for you that I am doing this. I have a selfish
motive. For quite some time now I have been
looking for a suitable plot where I want to be
buried…I do not wish to be buried among the
ridiculous stone monuments of the big cemetery. I
need a place where there will be nothing but
beautiful trees over my grave (9).
She also made him promise that he wouldn't disclose her
plan to anyone. The transaction was made the following day when
Lentina became the owner of that plot. Her sons came to know only
when a fence was being constructed around the plot. They showed
their displeasure for having been kept in the dark with her crazy
plans and threatened to walk out of her home. They felt insulted for
having done everything trusting only her servants. She was quick
in giving a fitting response, blurting out how her two daughters-inlaw had a bitter altercation over the funeral expenses of her
husband. Both of them questioned why money ought to be wasted
61
on a grandiose headstone for the old man merely to keep up
pretensions. She spoke out in disgust:
Why are you all worked up about such a trivial
matter? After all, I have not spent anyone else's
money…you need not worry about any headstone
for me. I want none(11).
As the news of Lentina's plan became public, it was
inevitable that the Town Committee would make an issue about the
ownership of her plot to be used for her grave. On her part, she had
already prepared the documents required, with the assistance of a
nephew who worked in the District Court. In the document she
stated that the plot would be donated to the Town Committee and
would be managed according to her terms and conditions:
The new plot of land could be dedicated as the new
cemetery and would be available to all on fulfilling
the condition that only flowering trees and not
headstones would be erected on the gravesites.
Lentina, as the Donor, should be the first to choose
a plot for herself. Plots would be designated by
Numbers only and records of names… would be
maintained in the Committee Register (12).
The expert committee team approved of the plan, though
the Chairman tried to make some excuses. When the legal transfer
of the plot was done in the presence of her family members, she
pointed out the corner of the plot for her tomb. Accompanied by
her faithful servant, Lentina frequently visited the plot. One day
she got the gardener to plant laburnum saplings. Within a few
days, she became too weak and ill to visit her plot. Instead, she
began to reminisce how the plot came into her possession very
mysteriously and longed to be buried there, where laburnum tree
would blossom. When she became too ill and bedridden, her sons
began visiting her seeking advice on business matters, which had
never ever happened before. There began to take place a strange
emotional healing in the family. When Lentina suddenly made
some recovery, Mapu observed one of the laburnum trees quickly
wither, but another survived which produced few yellow blossoms.
He was eager to bring the news to Lentina, but refrained from it lest
it might cause sudden excitement in her.
He was both happy and afraid: happy because the
long-cherished desire of his mistress to see a
laburnum bloom had been fulfilled; afraid,
because he instinctively knew that as soon as
Lentina laid eyes on the blossoms next May, she
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
would conclude that the right moment to leaved
arrived... she would
let everything slide and
simply bow out of life, with a contented sigh (16).
Mapu was convinced that the force of nature had brought
about a small miracle for the old woman and wished that by
following summer the tree would grow bigger, full of bloom. By
new year, Lentina was very weak and fagged out. She used to be
taken by a vehicle to visit her plot twice a week when it became
warmer. By the following May, she wanted to visit her plot quite
frequently being agitated over her dream and refused to eat when
the trips were stopped. But the doctor was adamant that she had to
stop all movements. When she got news that her laburnum had not
flowered, while the other trees were in bloom, she was on the brink
of despair. Then, one day, Mapu suddenly found the tree in full
blossom with buttery-yellow flowers. He ran with joy to inform his
mistress of the miraculous event. He stopped abruptly in front of
the house to rehearse how to present the news cautiously, to avoid
her getting over-excited. When he knocked to enter, he could hear a
sharp command, “come in, I've been waiting for you… I know what
you are going to tell me; I felt it in my bones” (18).
Entering her room, Mapu found her and the maid dressed
as though for a big occasion. She asked for her walking stick and
made off for the graveyard, springing with rapid paces. Then
suddenly became very sombre in mood and admired the flowers
for a long time. She ordered him to be driven up to the highest point
in the park from where she could see the whole town. There they
sat and shared tea and biscuits. Returning home that day, Lentina
busied herself tidying her room all by herself, not letting the maid
assist her. When it was done she asked for early dinner and retired
to bed. The following morning, when the maid called her out for the
usual bed tea, there was no response. Approaching her bedside,
finding her mistress sleeping soundly, she went about drawing the
curtains. On close observation she found her mistress very stiff
with a pale face. Alarmed by the sight, she called all the family
members, who surrounded her. Only Mapu remained outside,
near a post, crying his heart out. Soon the house physician arrived
and declared that Lentina was no more.
It was the end of an ordinary woman who cherished her
dream of having a laburnum for her head, instead of the customary
practice of erecting headstones. Her dream came true and the
entire graveyard was filled no more with headstones, but blooming
laburnum, hibiscus, gardenia, bottle-brush, camellia, and
oleander at the various seasons of the year.
Lentina's story is a call to establish closer links with the
natural world as Bill McKibben rightly bemoans:
We have changed the atmosphere, and thus we are
changing the weather. By changing the weather, we
make every spot on earth manmade and artificial.
We have deprived nature of its independence, and
that is fatal to its meaning. Nature's independence
is its meaning; without it there is nothing but us
(McKibben 54).
Lentina's predicament is truly that of an ecophilosopher,
turning back to the lap of nature after death. The yearly flowering of
laburnum is indicative of resurgence and new life. It is a sign of
hope in the existence of life. Life is not ended but it is a passage to
eternity. This mystery of life and death, flowering and withering in
nature, gives great significance to Lentina's yearning to be
commemorated every year when her laburnum blooms. In the
story the protagonist makes her dream of immortality come true
through Laburnum blossoms, representing transience of life.
WORKS CITED
Ao, Temsula. Laburnum for My Head. New Delhi: Penguin,
2009.
l
Bate, Jonathan. From 'Red' to 'Green'. The Green Studies
Reader. Laurence Coupe. Ed. Reprint. London and New
York: Routledge, 2004.
l
“Headstone.” http://www.answers.com/topic /headstone
l
“Indian Laburnum.”www.indianetzone.com/4/
the_indian_laburnum.htm
l
McKibben, Bill. The End of Nature. London: Penguin,
1990.
l
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
What about our own roots?
Problematising Education and Philosophy in
R.K. Narayan's The English Teacher
Arun Kumar Mukhopadhyay
The very concepts of alienation and 'rootlessness', the loss of one's own
cultural moorings, can justifiably be claimed to be characteristic, more
or less, of any realist fiction writer of a nation that inscribes an
experience of colonisation leading to a distinctive cultural
marginalisation. In the case of R.K. Narayan, who is essentially a writer
of the 'individual', the idea of 'roots' is, interestingly, not confined to the
search of his characters only. Instead, it is also seen to form a major part
of his writerly self. It is pertinent to note that Narayan once said to Ved
Mehta that having roots in family and religion are the essential qualities
of being a good writer. Thus the protagonist's search for roots in this
novel, far from being an overt manifestation of a nativist attempt at
constructing an Indian view of life in a society of bi-cultural hybridity,
becomes technically a strategy of resistance, a strategy of postcolonial
reverse-narrative.
Narayan's The English Teacher (1945) is the story of
Krishnan, the protagonist whose search for his cultural roots takes
him along a process of evolution to forge independently a
philosophy to assimilate his emotional, intellectual and spiritual
ties with his country or society. In fact, the writer's treatment of
education and philosophy in this novel actually forms a derivative
part of an abiding quest of the protagonist for the truth of his
identity in his native cultural roots. In course of the novel,
Krishnan, the English teacher of Albert Mission College in Malgudi,
where he was once a student, finally resigns his post in favour of an
option for teaching in a nursery school of an indigenous model.
What is significant is that, such an evolution in him being initiated
primarily though by his ingrained antipathy for the system of
English Education in colonised India, is necessitated in the
ultimate reckoning, by some sort of spiritual enrichment gained
after a strenuous meditation and psychic communion with the
spirit of his dead wife. Maturity in Krishnan can be traced in terms
of his tension between his conventional modes of existence and the
ideal sort of a harmonious existence, sensed in his quest for the
65
inexorable law of life, or truth. As the novel begins, Krishnan is
shown as an established 'English Teacher'who is dissatisfied with
the very system of teaching the youngsters for his own livelihood.
Intellectually, Krishnan is quite aware of the discrepancy between
his aspiration and achievement, and naturally the resultant
experience is a vague work-weariness in him that spills over the
very opening pages of the novel:
The urge had been upon me for some days past to
take myself at hand. What was wrong with me? I
could not say, some sort of vague disaffection, a
self-rebellion I might call it. The feeling … always
leaving behind a sense of something missing.
(Narayan, Teacher 5)
The very beginning of the novel sets the tempo of a search in
Krishnan - a predicament faced by any sensitive individual who
seeks to problematise the question of identity of the 'marginal' in a
colonial society. The ironic recounting of his daily life by Krishnan
himself highlights the need for some inspiration that his soul
aspires for:
I took stock of my daily life. I got up at eight every
day, read for the fiftieth time Milton, Carlyle and
Shakespeare, [...]so that they might mug up
Shakespeare and Milton and secure high marks
and save adverse remarks from my chiefs at the
end of the year[…]. I was constantly nagged by the
feeling that I was doing the wrong work.( Narayan,
Teacher 5)
In the use of the very expression 'to mug up Shakespeare
and Milton’(Notes-1), Narayan perhaps attacks through Krishnan
the very credo of colonialist education which seeks to iconise the
Western literature and history at the cost of marginalising the
entire gamut of literature and history of the colonised 'others'. 'To
mug up Shakespeare and Milton' and reproduce the same
verbatim on the examination-script - have been set as criteria for a
brilliant result. Narayan seems to be critical about the faulty
evaluation system of the Western education that fails to take into
account the intelligence and originality of the learners. The 'workweariness' in Krishnan, further aggravated by a 'perpetual selfcriticism' as Krishnan himself admits, comes to the fore once again
when the Principal summons all the English teachers to his room
one day to convey to them his sense of shock after he has noticed a
student spelling 'Honours' without 'u'. He describes such an
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
experience of his as a blot on the ennobling efforts of the colonisers
to preserve the importance and purity of the English language.
Krishnan can see a sense of pride and supremacy in the role of
Brown as a self-appointed custodian to the Indians learning
English:
Brown's thirty years in India had not been ill-spent
if they had opened the eyes of the Indians to the
need for speaking and writing correct English. The
responsibility of the English department was
indeed very great.( Narayan, Teacher 6)
To Krishnan, all this seems to be a fiasco, projecting an
attempt to catch and garner the chaff instead of the grains (which
alone should be preserved with proper care). His indignation at the
supposed gravity of the offence (ie, dropping, 'u' from the word
'Honours') bursts out in his interaction with Mr. Gajapathy,
Assistant Professor and Krishnan's senior in office. Gajapathy
considers such a mistake as 'disgraceful' and Krishnan can not
help blurting out: "Mr. Gajapathy, there are blacker sins in this
world than a dropped vowel'. Krishnan's stand is however
unequivocal: the Western colonisers have done a sacrilegious
onslaught on the Indian culture and tradition; therefore any
mistake on the part of the natives in learning a foreign language is
not anything to be ashamed of. Moreover, Krishnan's approach to
the problem is unbiased: acquisition of any language by any foreign
learner entails some stumbling blocks to every one, irrespective of
the rank and status of the learner -- coloniser or colonised. What
happens to the poor fellow who dropps 'u' from 'Honours', may
apply as well to Mr. Brown who even after spending thirty years in
India, will fail to translate into any one of the two hundred regional
languages a simple expression like 'The cat chases the
rat'(Narayan, Teacher 6). In the character of Krishnan, readers
notice Narayan's exposition of the postcolonial urge to ignore the
exaltation of the West, a trend well set since the publication of
Macaulay's historical 'Minute' (Notes-2). Such an urge is
characteristic of India's social condition of the Colonial period
when the introduction of English Education led to the
fragmentation of the traditional models of Education. It is relevant
to discuss here briefly the introduction of Western Education visà-vis the conventional modes of education in Colonised India. The
incompatibility between the two ideals of education had a deep
sociological repurcussion in so far as it led to a distinctive cultural
amnesia in the colonised people. The direct patronage of the
67
Britishers began to establish, slowly and steadily, a new form of
cultural elitism in Colonial India. Gauri Viswanathan in The
Beginnings of English Literary Study in British India, has
asserted that the spread of English education led to Britain's
ideological control over the people of India - 'maintaining control of
the natives under the guise of a liberal education' (Oxford Literary
Review, 9, 1987,p-17). In her The Masks of Conquest (1989),
Viswanathan further observes that Britain's English Education
Policy shrewdly furthered the Colonial interests through the
controlling tactics of imperial textuality: "A discipline that was
originally intended in India primarily to convey the mechanics of
language was thus transformed into an instrument for ensuring
industriousness, efficiency, trustworthiness, and compliance in
native subjects" (p.93).
However, Krishnan's repudiation for the standardised,
mechanical system of English teaching once again comes to the
surface as he broods over the probable reaction of his students to
his own poem on nature composed on his new experience of getting
up early for an outing. Reading a poem should be, ideally speaking,
an experience in itself. But teaching poetry in the class room often
proves to be a debacle in the absence of an acceptable
methodology. The annotator's desperate efforts to convey a
meaning, the teacher's doubly desperate efforts to wrest a meaning
from the annotator and the poet - all transform the poetry class into
a gruesome experience that the students have to withstand with
'grim tolerance'. Through Krishnan's meticulous choice of words,
Narayan throws into focus the failure of the Westernised system of
education during the colonial period in igniting vision or creative
imagination in the mind of learners, since the system could neither
enable the learners to assimilate an appropriated culture nor
make the Western culture compatible with the indigenous
traditions. Krishnan's experience broadly corresponds to
Narayan's critical attitude (Notes-3) to the existing system of
Education. The spirit of search in Krishnan does not however die
out after its initial outburst as discussed in the beginning of this
chapter. One day as he is making roll-calls, one of his students
requests him to defer the roll-call to the last few minutes of the clas,
as the process of noting attendance takes most of the learning
hours. The teacher refuses to do so with a showman's insolence
and thus manages to silence the murmur with a threat to mark all
of them absent. Later on, these thoughts crossing over Krishnan's
mind goad him on to a remorseful self-analysis which has been
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
suppressed by his overbearing consciousness of being an English
teacher:
...who was I that they should obey my command?
What tie was there between mine and them? Did I
absorb their personalities as did the old masters
and merge them in mine? (Narayan, Teacher 12)
Krishnan has the clarity of outlook to take stock of his
'being' in the network of the colonial system of education in India:
I was merely a man who had mugged earlier than
they the Verity edition of Lear and guided them
through the mazes of Elizabethan English. I did not
do it out of love for them or for Shakespeare but
only out of love for myself.( Narayan, Teacher 12)
Such a clean confession shows Krishnan's disillusionment
with the Western model of education which obstructs conformity
between earning and learning. Notwithstanding the lack of
personal motivation for teaching in the existing set up, Krishnan
bears his cross, but is baffled further by the discovery of an
incompatibility between the craze for learning literature on the one
hand, and the lack of requisite accomplishments on the other. With
a characteristic touch of irony, Narayan underscores this vain
colonial mentality in the form of a conversation between Krishnan
and one of his pupils Ramaswamy. Inspite of his inability to
perceive the meaning of a poem, Ramaswamy writes two pages on
it in his note-book.
Krishnan: Does this poem make no sense as far as you
are concerned?
"No sir..."
"Then why do you write so much about it?"
"I do not know, Sir. (Narayan, Teacher 14)
Krishnan expresses his doubts also about the
educationists's insistence on the subtleties and niceties of English
grammar which instead of encouraging, practically impedes the
progress of the learners in the colonised society. He mentions his
feelings in one of his classes on composition where he is set at
correcting the grammatical errors made by his pupils:
I spent the rest of the period giving a general
analysis of the mistakes I had encountered in this
batch of composition …the traps that the English
Language sets for for foreigners.(Narayan, Teacher
15)
But inspite of a deep-seated unrest in his profession,
69
Krishnan's happy family life with his wife Susila and daughter
Leela is suddenly disrupted when his wife dies premature and,
interestingly, the circumstances in which Susila falls ill and dies of
typhoid, have a striking resemblance to Narayan's personal
experiences as recorded in his autobiography My Days (Notes-4).
However, such an unforeseen catastrophe in personal life hurls
Krishnan into an abysmal depth of despair and gloom. Here at this
stage of Krishnan's life, as a critic Ian Mackean observes, the
element of unpredictability (that has begun encroaching upon
Krishnan's life ever since he had moved out of his cloistered
existence in the college hostel in order to live with his family in
Malgudi) delivers its severest blow and life almost comes to a stand
still for Krishnan. But true to the mettle of Narayan's heroes,
Krishnan also shows the power of adapting himself to the changed
circumstances. Right from his disastrous experiences in life,
Krishnan is shown to have acquired a feeling of reality (or 'truth' in
a broader sense) in his ordeals of life in the new set of experiences.
Narayan records Krishnan's thoughts in the cremation ground
with a superb rhetorical touch:
Flames appear over the wall .... It leaves a curiously
dull pain at heart. There are no more surprises and
shocks in life... Nothing else will worry or interest
me in life hereafter.(Narayan, Teacher 96)
Now, the new responsibility thrust upon him - to keep
himself going with an equal care for the little girl to the exclusion of
any outside help - makes Krishnan now all set to play the role: 'God
has given me some novel situation in life. I shall live it alone, face
the problems alone...'(Narayan, Teacher 97). Krishnan's maturity
after Susila's death comes at an astonishing pace. Profound shocks
and sorrows in his personal life serve to sublimate his being to a
state of a detached stoicism: "condolences, words of courage,
lamentations, or assurances were all the same. I had become sort
of professional receptacle of condolence and sympathy"( Narayan,
Teacher 98). The phrase 'like a receptacle of sorrow and pain'
reveals the significance of Krishnan's realisation that has moorings
in the rudimentary tenets of Hindu Philosophy. A perfectly stoic
man, Sthitapragya (Notes-5)., remains unperturbed by any blow of
sorrow or misfortune. According to The Gita, a balanced
individual indifferent to pain and pleasure has the potentiality for
an ideal existence. Krishnan's mental state to some extent (at least
a semblance to such an existence), corresponds to the therapeutic
ethics of Hindu religion and philosophy. The rest of the story, so far
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
as Krishnan's action is concerned, is with a fair measure of justice,
an exemplification of Karmayoga (Notes-6) or the doctrine of 'activity
in detachment' as propounded in The Gita. In this connection, Ian
Mackean has described Krishnan's experience at as an odyssey
away from the 'academic world' to the 'Law of Life’(Notes-7).
Death of his wife restores to Krishnan's life the 'reality' that
has been so far perceived through the filters of academic
perspectives offered by literature or rationalism in a cloistered life.
The sterility of Krishnan's literary approach to life is re-inforced a
number of times in his confessions that he has been reading Milton,
Carlyle and Shakespeare for 'the fiftieth time'. Later on, his effort in
lucubration to record his impression of the angelic entity of his wife
turns out to be a mere copy of a poem by Wordsworth. Again, his
venture to read a book on Plato too, is abandoned at the very first
attempt. Krishnan's search for balance in the matrix of the timetested Indian philosophical convictions is otherwise the reaction to
the futility of academic disciplines in countering the basic issues of
life and death and thereby providing men with a wholly workable
set of values. In one of his attacks on literature as a mere academic
discipline in the Westernized world, Krishnan says much later in
the novel to his pupils: 'Don't worry so much about these things they are trash, we are obliged to go through and pretend we like
them, but all the time the problem of living and dying is crushing
us'(Narayan, Teacher 149).
But this self-adjustment, however complete in itself as the
inner pattern, fails to match yet the outer order - Krishnan's
vocation of teaching English in a colonised environment. If Indian
tradition and spiritualism restore balance to Krishnan the man, it
is the lack of the same roots in his professional life that fails to
motivate Krishnan the teacher. The prevalent system of English
education in India appears to be a fiasco and as artificial as a
forcible imposition of one culture on another without a scope of
osmosis between the two. The resultant reaction is one of lethargy
and lack of interest. The aggravation of these tendencies can not be
fully subscribed to Krishnan's personal trauma; instead, right
from the beginning of his career the development of the teacher in
Krishnan follows a uni-linear progression. One day, as Krishna is
preparing to leave for home, he is saddled with an extra-class on
language. He implores his senior Mr. Gajapathy to spare him that
trouble on the ground of his lack of interest in language teaching.
His feelings bear out a clean note of confession: '... as a student I
had found language torture, and as a teacher I still found it a
71
torture'(Narayan, Teacher 104).
In fact, any performance when denied the supply of some
natural and original sustenance, reverts to a drab and dull
discharge of formalities. The same thing happens in Krishnan's
case also: '... it seemed to me all the same whether they listened or
made a noise or whether they understood what I said or felt baffled,
or even whether they heard it at all or not. My business was to sit in
that chair and keep my tongue active - that I did. My mind itself
could only vaguely comprehend what was being read...'(Narayan,
Teacher 104). Right at this juncture of life, where social identity no
longer receives adequate spiritual support from within, Krishnan
receives a catalytic connection--a letter from an expert in automatic
writing telling Krishnan of a possibility of communication with the
spirit of his dead wife. Proximity with this man and regular sittings
with him initiate Krishnan into the mystic peace of the world of the
dead and Krishnan's new knowledge serves as the passport for an
entry into a new world of communication. Gradually, Krishnan
learns in a process of meditation a power of spiritual perception so
as to receive messages from his deceased wife. This spiritual
communion enriches Krishna's life and sensibility so as to make
him discover and sift the abiding from the meritricious in personal
as well as in professional life. Here at this stage of life Krishnan's
experiences of a different ideal of education is occasioned by none
other than Leela, his daughter.
Leela's growing interest in her new school incidentally
brings the headmaster of her school in contact with Krishnan to
whom this experience adds a new dimension to his search for
identity as a teacher. Such an achievement (i.e, the expected
dimension) seems to be realised (as Krishnan feels after meeting
the headmaster and later visiting Leela's school) only after a
departure from the mechanised and institutionalised world of
adult education into some primeval, pure and simple experience
that is not yet disrupted by any system of the adult society. The
eccentric and visionary headmaster and the children in general of
Leela's school bring a Midas touch to the Krishnan's self as a
teacher. A visit to Leela's school at the behest of the headmaster
unravels to Krishnan an epitome of a created universe of pure,
unmixed joy. Glittering alphabets on partitioning screens between
class rooms, models and paintings of men, trees, animals, skies,
rivers with every conceivable playthings made by the headmaster,
such as, the see-saws, swings, sand-heaps and ladders - all like the
circus party in Dickens's Hard Times, (Notes-8) stand for the
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
phantasmagoria of such spontaneity and vitality that encourage
life. However the catalyst in the transformation of Krishnan's
realisation is none other than the crazy, visionary headmaster who
points out: 'these are the class rooms[...]. For us elders to
learn'(Narayan, Teacher 124).
The headmaster, a champion of the ideal of childhood, has
devoted his life to this nursery school since he received the
prediction of death (which however proves false). This futility of
prediction by a mystic in the headmaster's life bears an ironic
closeness to Krishnan's journey from predictability to
unpredictability in Krishnan's experience of Susila's death which
thwarted the doctor's assurance of recovery, 'No complications. A
perfect typhoid run.' Ian Mackean stresses thus the role of
unpredictability in Krishnan's life: 'The scientifically-based
prediction of life is thwarted by death and the mystical prediction
of death is thwarted by in life' (par 14). To Krishnan, this
headmaster acts as the curtain raiser to the law of unpredictability
and the primeval simplicity, spontaneity and natural energy in the
world of children which is untarnished by the deadening, stifling
educational system with its dogmas and principles. The protective
measure to save such 'angels', the 'real gods on earth', is according
to the headmaster, the "Leave-Alone System" as in practice at this
school. Such a system in his view does justice not only to the
children with versatile potentiality, but also to the elders, who can
shake off the stigma of inhibition , the constrains of the adult
world:
The Leave-Alone System, …will make them
wholesome human beings, and also help us, those
who work along them, to work off the curse of
adulthood. (Narayan, Teacher 148)
The headmaster finds his roots, metaphorically speaking,
in the children's world as ideal kind of living: 'when I watch them, I
get a glimpse of some purpose in existence and creation'(Narayan,
Teacher 125). After an initial misgiving, Krishnan finally comes to
believe in his ideals and views. Though Krishnan is finally seen to
leave his college-job and resort to a more genuine and authentic
life-style as a teacher of Leela's primary school, such a radical
decision to renounce the stifling, mechanised world of adulteducation is duly preceded by mental preparation coming in the
wake of his growing perception of his own tradition and native
culture. However, this is the turning point in Krishnan's life. The
emerging reality is spelt out in an unequivocal manner as a
73
revelation:'I had a feeling that I was, about to make a profound
contact in life'(Narayan, Teacher 125). Later Leela and her friends
in the school unravel to Krishnan a pure, sacrosanct world of
spontaneity and naturalness. Their instinctive energy is not stifled,
nor inhibited by the moribund educational system or canons of
upstart morality of the world of the grown-ups. The headmaster of
Leela's school, Krishnan's pathfinder, holds the view that 'children
have a simplicity to which all human conduct must be
reduced'(Narayan, Teacher 140). The headmaster is against such
a modern education that consigns 'angels' to a strangling system of
data-consumption. He thinks that the glorious state of childhood
has been tarnished by our educational systems and his feelings are
expressed in unequivocal terms :
Most of us forget that grand period...a most
balanced and joyous condition of life [...]....for the
future of mankind we should retain the original
vision...( Narayan, Teacher 147-48)
Krishnan's view of the children's world as a countermeasure against 'the curse of adulthood' finally matures after his
wife's message, and this comes to be more intensified through the
influence of the headmaster who forsakes his quarrelsome wife
and children to seek his new janma in his school. The
headmaster's views regarding modern education in the colonial
India emphasise the problematic of cultural usurpation by the
British leading to a distinctive cultural amnesia in the colonised
and the resultant moral bankruptcy:
Multiply your expenses and look to the
Government for support, and sell your soul to the
Government for grant. This is the history of our
education movement....The main business of an
educational institution is to shape the mind and
character... ( Narayan, Teacher 135)
This goal of education as set by the imperialist policymakers evokes bitter feelings in Krishnan. With a mounting
distaste for the academic bias of modern education that is divorced
from 'truth', Krishnan (rather his creator Narayan himself) pines
for a cultural historiography instead of a mere historicisation of
some inane chronicles and literary achievements of a foreign
culture:
Why do they make so much of the history of
literature? They have to make a history of every
damned thing on earth - as if literature could not
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
survive without some fool compiling a bogus
history... I will tell the boys what is sense and what
is non-sense...they are being fed on literary garbage
and that we are all the paid servants of the garbage
department. (Narayan, Teacher 150 )
The innate urge in Krishnan to re-establish and reformulate the native culture is enkindled at the offer of the
headmaster: 'I want you to take charge of my school and see that it
does not go to ruin'(Narayan, Teacher 161). Krishnan's initial
hesitation at the proposal makes the headmaster ask: 'But do you
think you are happy in your work'? It is noticeable that Krishnan's
immediate reaction to this question of job-satisfaction is one of
helpless cynicism: -- 'But who cares for happiness in work? One
works for the money...' (Narayan, Teacher 161).
However, he gets over this form of cynicism regarding
routine activities and finally we notice in Krishnan an urge for selfdevelopment. The headmaster's destiny acts as a sort of revelation
to Krishnan who had for all these months been pursuing selfdevelopment as a 'perpetual excitement ever promising some new
riches in the realm of experience and understanding even with an
awareness in sensibilities'(Narayan, English Teacher, 168).. At this
stage, a chance visit of Krishnan's mother has a salvaging effect on
his sensibility which has been groping for an avenue for selffulfilment: 'it seemed to restore for a moment one's sense of
security, the solid factors of life, and its warmth and interests'
(Narayan, Teacher 172). After a couple of weeks, she leaves taking
with her the grand daughter who by now blooms with the warmth
of a mother's touch. One week- end, Krishnan pays a visit to his
ancestral house and finds Leela in 'splendid health', perfectly
accommodated to the delightful company of cousins and above all,
the presiding affection of her grand parents. Krishnan comes back
and remains preoccupied in his lonely house with the illuminating
reflections on the inevitability of loneliness and separation as the
'law of life'.The last chapter of the novel projects the last phase of
Krishnan's journey on his quest for roots (to the exclusion of
everything else); for the set of values and way of life, sanctioned by
native culture and spiritual tradition. The very opening lines set the
tempo of a Titanic will to cut across all barriers to reach the
fountain-head of inspiration:
My mind was made up. I was in search of a
harmonious existence and everything that
disturbed that harmony was to be rigorously
75
excluded, even my college work. (Narayan,
Teacher 178)
Depressed with the dissemination of colonial education
and culture, he resolves to resign from his college. Krishnan's
grudge against the cultural imperialism of the British
educationists is evident in the following lines:
I could no longer stuff Shakespeare and
Elizabethan metre and Romantic poetry for the
hundredth time into the young minds and feed
them on the dead mutton of literary analysis and
theories and histories, while what they needed was
education in the fullest use of the mind. (Narayan,
Teacher 178)
Notably, the expression 'education in the fullest use of the
mind' highlights one of the basic concepts of Indian thoughts and
philosophy that all cognitive disciplines, including education,
must be basically directed to the development of the mind. Viewed
in this perspective, English Education in pre-independence India
only indulges in the appropriation of a cultural sycophancy by the
natives:
This education has reduced us to a nation of
morons; we were strangers to our own culture and
camp followers of another culture, feeding on
leavings and garbage. (Narayan, Teacher 178)
Through Krishnan's agonised perception (of being
'strangers to our own culture and camp followers of another
culture'), Narayan perhaps attacks a major sociological trend, a
growing tendency for cultural sycophancy in the intelligentia of
India in the colonial period. The colonised middle class with
orientations in English began to look upon the coloniser's language
as a model of cultural elitism. This subsequently led to the
development of the Babu class. The emergence of this Babu class
had its repurcussions and Meenakshi Mukherjee has shown in her
book The Perishable Empire how this new form of social elitism
served to dismantle the regional language and gradually
substantiate the rival claims of the English language. However,
with an acute sense of incompatibility between his inner self and
his social entity as a teacher, Krishnan feels depressed with dull
methods of teaching. It seems that development of true literary
sensibility is almost impossible in a borrowed language. Thus even
Shakespeare and Keats have been reduced to the level of
mechanical examinations and critical notes:
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
What fool would be insensible to Shakespeare's
sonnets or the 'Ode to the West Wind' or, 'A thing
of beauty is a joy for ever'? [...]. But what about
examinations and critical notes? Didn't these
largely take the place of literature? (Narayan,
Teacher 178)
Krishnan's painful reflections remind one of the immortal
lines written by Tagore on the character of education in the colonial
period: "We rob the child of his earth to teach him geography; of
language to teach him grammar... ." (Notes-9) Ian Mackean's essay
with a thoughtful title ("What about our own roots?") is justifiably
summed up with a classification of roots that Krishnan's self
quests for: “It could apply to all of us as adults alienated from our
roots in childhood; to modern Indians alienated form their native
cultural roots; and to humanity as a whole in that, we have become
rational human beings alienated from our roots in the
unknown”(par 32.)
With the unflinching zeal of a visionary or an idealist,
Krishnan now hands over his resignation letter to Mr. Brown with a
precise but straightforward confession:
Sir, what I am doing in the college hardly seems to
me work. It does not please my innermost self [...]. I
can afford to do what seems to me work, something
which satisfies my innermost aspirations.
(Narayan, Teacher 179-80)
Renunciation of a life dominated by the Western cultural
influence and withdrawal from the adult world in search of an
inner peace bring Krishnan into a realm of experience where this
human mind becomes ultimately 'clean and bare and a mere
chamber of fragrance'(Narayan, Teacher,184). The novel comes to
an end with an apocalyptic vision The moments of ecstasy
amalgamates past, present and future all in one and Krishnan
imagines himself to be waking up to find Susila by his side and he
has a sublime realisation: '...where the boundaries of personality
suddenly dissolve into a moment of immutable joy - a moment for
which one feels grateful to Life and Death'(Narayan, Teacher 184).
The surrealistic note with which the novel comes to an end does not
appear artistically convincing to a critic like Srinivasa Iyenger. He
wonders: 'Is Krishna dreaming? Is it any more than an apocalyptic
vision of Krishna's psychic ecstasy? Even so, isn't this a
resurrection greater than life!'(Iyenger 370 )
In defence of Narayan, one can consider K. Chellappan's
view of Indianness as 'a mode of perception'. He finds Narayan's
vision and art embedded in the basic awareness of an Indian view
of life in which illusion and reality, the mundane and the spiritual,
the cosmic and the human, the tragic and the comic easily
exchange places and what matters, is only 'a change in the mode of
perception'. When the doors of perception are cleansed, life
becomes immense and holy. In such a case, Narayan's factual
narrative of a subdued life suddenly explodes into disorder which
is the beginning of order and reveals depths of reality unknown and
unexpected. So, in Narayan, there is an Indian rendition of 'the
ambivalence at the heart of reality' in terms of a fusion / confusion
of values, earthly and spiritual...' (Chellappan 52).
In fact, Indian English fiction fits into that form of writing
where the writer attempts for an ideal fictional historiography of a
nation threatened by the cultural imperialism of colonial powers.
Judged in this perspective, Narayan's The English Teacher is an
attempt, in the person of the protagonist, to construct a kind of
self-image through the discourse of drawing sustenance from
indigenous roots that re-defines the intrinsic cultural,
philosophical and social values. In this novel Narayan transmutes,
as Meena Sodhi has pointed out, life's experiences through the
mode of aesthetic self-distancing in the persona of Krishnan. In
conclusion, it might be said in this connection that Krishnan's
quest is a metaphorical passage of an Indian whose sensibility
drives him through the ordeals of the hybridisation of culture to
the assurance of his native cultural roots and traditional values
that explores the true import of education and philosophy. Such a
culture with its original network of values and convictions,
strengthened by the 'timeless history' of India, offer materials for
Krishnan's 'proper synthesis of life'. Krishnan's search for 'roots',
realised in terms of his own tradition, practically endorses the
opinion of Elleke Boehmer: "Tellingly, it is the same transition and
cultural change of heart - a move from dependency to self-reliance
and greater wholeness - that India as a nation will also make"
(Boehmer 176).
NOTES
1.
Narayan writes in his essay "My Educational Outlook": "Educational
theories have become progressively high-sounding, sophisticated and
jargon-ridden (like many other subjects aspiring to the status of a
science), but in practice the process of learning remains primitive. In the
field of education, the educator and the educatee seemed to be arrayed in
opposite camps, each planning how best to overwhelm the other"(106).
Narayan is equally dismissive of the examination/ evaluation system. In
78
2.
3.
4.
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
the same essay he recollects his discussion with a teacher of political
science who had a progressive outlook on evaluation system. When he
expressed surprise at the prevalent system of 'hiding the questions till the
last moment' from the students, Narayan with characteristic irony
explained, "We believe in mugging up ; on an average 200 pages per
subject, and fifteen subjects in a year. One who can demonstrate that he
can recollect three thousand pages in the examination hall will be
considered a first-class student in our country, although he need not
understand a word of what he reads, or remember a syllable of what he
has read after the examination. The whole aim of our education is to strain
the faculty of our memory"(p.109). Emphasis added.
The following is an extract from MACAULAY's MINUTE ON INDIAN
EDUCATION, 2nd February, 1835 that exalted English language with a
comparative inferiorisation of other native languages like Sanskrit amd
Arabic:
All parties seem to be agreed on one point, that the dialects commonly
spoken among the natives of this part of India, contain neither literary
nor scientific information, and are, moreover, so poor and rude that,
until they are enriched from some other quarter, it will not be easy to
translate any valuable work into them. It seems to be admitted on all
sides, that the intellectual improvement of those classes of the people
who have the means of pursuing higher studies can at present be
effected only by means of some language not vernacular amongst
them.
What then shall that language be? One-half of the Committee
maintain that it should be the English. The other half strongly
recommend the Arabic and Sanscrit. The whole question seems to
me to be, which language is the best worth knowing?
I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or Arabic.--But I have done
what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read
translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have
conversed both here and at home with men distinguished by their
proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the
Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. I
have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf
of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of
India and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western literature
is, indeed, fully admitted by those members of the Committee who
support the Oriental plan of education. (par 1-3). Emphasis added.
Narayan writes in "My Educational Outlook" : "If a classification is called
for I may be labelled 'anti-educational'. I am not averse to enlightenment,
but I feel convinced that the entire organisation, system, outlook and aims
of education are hopelessly wrong from beginning to end; from primary
first year to Ph.D., it is just a continuation of an original mistake"(p.106).
In his autobiography My Days, Narayan writes: "The English Teacher is
autobiographical in content, very little part of it being fiction. The English
teacher of this novel, Krishan , is a fictional character in the fictional city of
Malgudi; but he goes through the same experiences I had gone through
and he calls his wife Susila, and the child is Leela instead of Hema" (134-
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
35).
The concept of Sthitapragya is explained in The Gita by Lord Krishna:
Prajahati jada Kaman sarvan Partha manoggatan
Atmanyebatmna tushta sthItaprajnostadochyate
(Oh Partha! when Jiva forgoes desires arising out of illusions and
the mind thus purified, receives satiety in the soul itself, it can be
called sthitapragya.) Bhagavadgita , II-55.
The Gita, explains the concept of 'Niskama karma':
Tasmadsakta satatang karjang karma samachara
Asakta hacharan karma paramapnoti purusha
(He who works always without any attachment, deserves the
attainment of the Supreme Knowledge.) Bhagavadgita. XI -19
Ian Mackean in his article on Krishnan's journey in The English Teacher
describes the change in Krishnan's perception (that has a close parallel to
Narayan's) after the failure of predictions regarding the recovery of Susila:
Now he is discovering how ordinary people encounter the big issues
of life and death, not as seen through the perspective of literature or
philosophy, and not in a way that would imply that some profound
universal conclusions could be drawn, but as they actually experience
it in everyday life. And Narayan himself, in sofar as we can identify
him with the character of Krishnan, is writing at the level of those
ordinary people. He does not adopt the position of a novelist
presenting the reader with fictitious characters which he has created,
and which are under his control, as for example Charles Dickens
does, but in the guise of Krishnan he places himself firmly among the
ordinary people, and breaks down the boundaries between real life
outside his novel and the life within the novel. Just as Krishnan faces
life without illusions, so Narayan seems to create his novel without
the usual illusions of the novelist, such as pre-planned plot and
fictitious characters. (par 16-17 ).
See, The Norton Critical Edition of Dickens's Hard Times. Dickens's
treatment of Sleary's circus party in the novel stands for the world of
fancy, of pristine joy that encourages life. In the novel the circus party
technically parodies the fetters of fact that the theories of Adam Mill and
Bentham delivered on English life/education in the Victorian Age.
In the essay entitled "A Poet's School," Tagore has emphasized the
necessity of an 'empathetic sense of interconnectedness with the
surrounding world'.The following extract seeks to validate the poet's idea:
We have come to this world to accept it, not merely to know it. We
may become powerful by knowledge, but we attain fullness by
sympathy. The highest education is that which does not merely give
us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence. But
we find that this education of sympathy is not only systematically
ignored in schools, but it is severely repressed. From our very
childhood habits are formed and knowledge is imparted in such a
manner that our life is weaned away from nature and our mind and
the world are set in opposition from the beginning of our days. Thus
the greatest of educations for which we came prepared is neglected,
and we are made to lose our world to find a bagful of information
instead. We rob the child of his earth to teach him geography, of
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language to teach him grammar. His hunger is for the Epic, but he is
supplied with chronicles of facts and dates...Child-nature protests
against such calamity with all its power of suffering, subdued at last
into silence by punishment.(116-17).
From Personality, 1917. Emphasis added
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Boehmer, Elleke. Colonial and Postcolonial Literature. New
York: OUP,1995.
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Chellappan, K. "Indianness as a Mode of Perception". Anthology
of Recent Criticism on R.K. Narayan. New Delhi: Penchraft,
2000.
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Dickens,Charles. Hard Times: Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Ford,
George and Sylvere Manod. New York: Norton and
Company,1990.
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Halsall, Paul. Thomas Babington Macaulay on On Indian
Education, July 1998.17Oct.2007<http:// www.fordham.edu
/halsall/mod/1833macaulay-india.html>
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Iyenger, Srinivas. Indian Writing in English. New York: Asian
publishing House, 1973. 358-85.
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Mackean, Ian."What about our own roots? Krishnan's journey in
R.K.Narayan's The English Teacher". 13.10.2007.
<http://www.literature-studyonline.com /essays/narayan.html>.
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Mehta, Ved. "Profiles: The Train Had Just Arrived at Malgudi
Station". The New Yorker , September 15, 1962.
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Mukherjee, Meenakshi. The Perishable Empire: Essays on
Indian Writing in English. New Delhi: OUP Paperback, 2002.
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Narayan, R.K. "English in India: The Process of Transmutation".
Aspects of Indian Writing in English. Ed. M.K. Naik. New Delhi:
Macmillan India Limited, 1979.19-23.
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.......... My Days: A Memoir. Mysore: Indian Thought
publications, Indian Reprint, 1995.
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.......... "My Educational Outlook".A WRITER'S NIGHTMARE:
Selected Essays (1958-1988), Penguin Books,1988.
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........... The English Teacher. 1945. Mysore: Indian Thought
Publications, 1989.
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O'Connell, Kathleen M. "Rabindranath Tagore on education". 17
Oct.2007 <http://www.infed.org /thinkers/tagore.htm >
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Sodhi, Meena. "R.K.Narayan: His Life into Art". R.K. Narayan: An
Anthology of Recent Criticism . Ed. C. N. Srinath. Delhi:
Penchraft, 2000.
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Srimad Bhagvadgita: Eds. Jagadishwarananda, Swami and
Swami Jagadananda. Kolkata: Udbodhan Karjalaya,2007.
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Viswanathan, Gauri. Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and
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I don't know nothing about teaching
students who use double negatives:
The Big Grammar Use Questions
for Teachers
Abha Gupta
Abstract:
Language is central to literacy and
reading/writing skills. The primary focus of
this article is on instructional strategies that
teachers can use in the classroom when they
encounter repeated patterns of grammatical
inconsistencies, specifically double negatives
and subject verb agreement issues in
students' writing that diverge from the norms.
Instructional approaches are provided to
address the issue of linguistic divergence.
For many teachers it is an endless process of 'correcting
mistakes' with no long term sustained effects in students' writing.
Common instances in the classroom include recurring syntactic
corrections of sentences using double negatives or pronominal
subjects, such as, I don't know nothing or Them girls made noise.
Use of multiple negation (it ain't no cat), negative inversion (don't
nobody know), mismatch of subject-verb agreement (she don't go
there), and dropping third-singular /–s/ inflection are common in
students' formal writing samples. Majority of these students are
proficient language users who can code-switch from formal to
informal writing styles if they are explicitly taught the skill in
classrooms.
Additionally, with the growing numbers of students who
bring linguistically diverse needs in our schools, teachers
encounter challenges when it comes to students' written language
skills on a daily basis. In addition to linguistic diversity, students
differ in other traits such as age, background experiences and
knowledge, and level of educational attainment. Teachers face
educational issues related to identity, language, and culture
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students. These factors contribute to a range of levels of difficulty
in learning to read and write among students.
Reports on educational achievement of children in United
States constantly indicate that reading achievement for
linguistically diverse learners, particularly ESL / ELL or speakers
of divergent English, is well below the national norms. Language is
central to literacy and reading/writing skills. The primary focus of
this article is on instructional strategies that teachers can use in
the classroom when they encounter repeated patterns of
grammatical inconsistencies, specifically double negatives and
subject verb agreement issues in students' writing that diverge
from the norms.
In United States, majority of the states mandated
standards for learning include specific writing and grammar traits.
For instance, in Virginia, the Board of Education has taken
important steps to raise the expectations for all students in schools
by adopting new Standards of Learning (SOL) in English. The
teaching of these skills should be the shared responsibility of
teachers of all disciplines. The SOLs for English address the
linguistic elements mentioned above as evident in the Writing
Component for grade 4 and 7 below:
Figure I: Standards of Learning for 4th Grade
Writing Strand in Virginia
Standard 4.8
Strand: Writing
Grade Level 4
The student will edit writing for correct grammar, capitalization,
spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure.
a) Use subject-verb agreement.
b) Include prepositional phrases.
c) Eliminate double negatives.
d) Use noun-pronoun agreement.
e) Use commas in series, dates, and addresses.
f) Incorporate adjectives and adverbs.
g) Use the articles a, an, and the correctly.
h) Use correct spelling for frequently used words, including
common homophones.
th
Figure II: Standards of Learning for 7 Grade
Writing Strand in Virginia
Standard 7.9 Strand: Writing
Grade Level 7
The student will edit writing for correct grammar, capitalization,
punctuation, spelling, sentence structure, and paragraphing.
a) Use a variety of graphic organizers, including sentence
diagrams, to analyze and improve sentence formation and
paragraph structure.
b) Demonstrate understanding of sentence formation by
identifying the eight parts of speech and their functions in
sentences.
c) Choose pronouns to agree with antecedents.
d) Use subject-verb agreement with intervening phrases and
clauses.
e) Edit for verb tense consistency.
Source: http://www.doe.virginia.gov/go/Sols/home.shtml
Retrieved October, 2009
Addressing language variation in reading instruction in
order to reduce the gap between what children speak and what they
are expected to read, as well as how they are assessed in literacy for
high stake testing becomes pivotal to many of our local schools
with high percentages of linguistically diverse speakers.
Instruction must incorporate evidence-based practices based on
current research findings in their curricula. Wheeler and Swords
cite several studies that have effectively used code-switching as
instructional tools to address issues of language use. Knowledge
about language is crucial in helping teachers do a better job of
teaching initial reading as well (Snow, et. al.).
As teachers, we recognize the diversity and we also
recognize that one size does not fit all in learning environments in
schools. Working with linguistically diverse students is not simply
the job of English / Language Arts / Reading teacher alone but all
teachers. Language development doesn't stop when students leave
English / Language Arts classroom. Teachers must recognize that
a focus on language-no matter what subject they are teaching, is
crucial. Throughout the school day, language plays an important
role, in every class, every subject matter. Teachers play a critical
role in supporting language development. They need to help
children learn and use aspects of language associated with the
academic discourse of the various school subjects (Fillmore and
Snow). Simultaneously, one must remember to always keep the
focus on content of the communicative act rather than the form.
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Students must be encouraged to talk, and the linguistic dialect that
they choose to use must be respected. By correcting them at every
instance, there is a danger of silencing students.
The language form issues must be addressed in the
appropriate context. Because language patterns influence the
overall message of any text, teachers who focus on the grammatical
aspects, might also benefit from taking into account the
importance of selecting literature that uses informal language and
diverse linguistic features. By using literature, educators create a
context in which use of specific language is authentic and
acceptable. Teachers must demonstrate an appropriate context for
variety of language use rather than judging it as right or wrong.
Choice of using formal or informal language, just like choice of
clothing is used as per the situation demands.
Children, like adults are effective code-switchers when it
comes to oral language. They can shift usage of language depending
on the situation and context. The focus here is on the writing
component. In order to make competent and successful student
writers, they must be shown with explicit instruction, the
conventional forms of written language, so they can succeed in
society.
Principles to keep in mind while working with students on
language use:
1. The response must address content rather than form.
Responding to the learner's intended meaning rather than how
the student has phrased it, is critical. It sends a message that the
purpose of writing is communication, and that the meaning and
intent of the author is more important than how it is phrased
(Gupta). Immediate feedback based on the situation and content
of the message rather than the form is most effective. First, a
teacher must respond to the intent and the strengths of the
written piece and then go about discussing rephrasing and editing
issues.
2. Instruction must be provided within context.
This can be then followed up by providing an acceptable context
for bringing attention to rephrasing it. In the writing process,
editing / proof-reading phase provides an appropriate and
acceptable context when discussion about linguistic features
related to grammar and punctuation must be addressed.
Literature, that uses many different forms of language styles
could be shared with students to provide context. Sometimes the
context requires verbatim language, as in a quote, poetry/song,
specific speech act to show social structure and relevance.
3. The best feedback is immediate and relevant to the task.
The teacher response must focus and stay on the current task.
4. Students and their language must be treated respectfully.
Because of diversity in the classroom, a teacher may feel
overwhelmed by the range of various instructional needs of
students. However, there are some basic instructional activities
that can be geared to address the common needs amongst
students with particular linguistic issue. Collect information on
the students' writing skills: Begin by finding out consistent
patterns of linguistic features that occur in students' writing
samples. When the occurrence of double negatives or subject
verb agreement is a recurring issue in some students' writing, a
focused, small group instruction targeting the specific learning
objective can be done, using any one of the following three
strategies.
Strategy One:
Explicit direct instruction
It is always a good idea to begin with direct instruction of
the concept one intends the students to learn. Often times, explicit
teaching of language structures and uses is the most effective way
to help learners. Students who learn from explicit teaching of the
concept benefit from this type of instruction. The first step is to
teach what the concept is, second, demonstration of the concept
with the use of examples and third, independent practice time.
Step 1: Define the Concept. Define what double-negatives are
to the students. Double negative means when two negatives are
used within the same sentence. Sometimes, two negatives are
used in the same sentence with the intention to be emphatic,
however, in formal grammar, they are considered
ungrammatical as they tend to cancel each other and create a
positive. To express a negative idea, use one negative word.
Step 2: examples / model / demonstrate. The following list
(Table-1) contains some common words that are regarded as
no
not
none
nobody
nowhere
nothing
neither
no one
TABLE-1
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negative. By using them once in a sentence, we demonstrate that
something is negative. Using two negative words within a
sentence is considered unconventional usage.
Example: The sentence below contains two negative words.
They are underlined.
She doesn't know nothing.
The corrected version of the sentence would be:
She doesn't know anything.
Now let's look at some more sentences with double negatives.
Step 3: Independent Practice.
Have students underline the negative words in each of these
sentences below:
l
He don't belong to no group.
l
I don't want no drink.
l
My cousin was in the swim team last year but he won't swim
no more.
l
We looked for my cat but we didn't find it nowhere near the
yard where it used to be.
l
The worker didn't do nothing at work.
l
They didn't know no one at the party.
l
She never went nowhere for a whole week.
l
It is preferable to use sentence constructions from the
students' writing samples (with the students' names deleted for
whole group instruction).
Next, have students write the conventional version of the
sentence in the right column of a practice sheet.
TABLE-II : PRACTICE SHEET
DOUBLE NEGATIVE
He don't belong to no group.
I don't want no drink.
My cousin was in the swim team
last year but he won't swim no
more
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CONVENTIONAL VERSION
Strategy Two:
Color Code
Teachers can have students use a specific colored
highlighter to mark all the double negatives and another marker to
mark all phrases where they are not sure of the subject-verb
agreement. Self monitoring and identifying linguistic elements in
one's writing that do not conform to conventional form, provides
student ownership in the learning process. At the same time, since
the process is self-generated, it provides deeper understanding of
the concepts. There is sustainability in the correct usage. There is a
higher likelihood of transference of the new skill to other contexts
and situation.
For instructional purpose, one can allow use of yellow
marker to highlight instances of double-negatives and use pink
marker to highlight instances of subject-verb disagreements.
Teachers can add other linguistic issues involving writing
inconsistencies to the table below.
Strategy Three:
Group mini lesson-Error Analysis
Similar to Daily Oral Language practice, a mini lesson that
takes no more than 5 minutes can be used for whole class
instruction. This activity is designed to teach grammar and other
mechanics of writing. Based on students' work, pull out three
sentences that include double negatives. Display the sentences
using an overhead or projector using a computer. Make a note, to
remove student's name from the display sample. Encourage
students to comment on how the sentences can be rephrased with
reference to the specific skill, keeping the focus of the discussion
on the skill being taught. After the discussion, have the group
examine their writing for similar items and revise them. This will
reinforce the intended grammar skill.
Thrust of teaching remains success for all students.
Literacy skills in English infuse all subject areas. There should be
concerted effort by all subject teachers to relate required English
SOLs to other core subjects, including math, science, history and
social science.
Language is a vital developmental domain
throughout the years of schooling, whatever the child's linguistic,
cultural, or social background without minimizing the importance
of students' home language. Teachers can design the classroom
language environment to optimize learning and to avoid linguistic
obstacles to content area learning. It is recommended that we as
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teachers become familiar with the language issues that affect
students in our classrooms, in order to prepare successful
students and citizens.
WORKS CITED
Fillmore, L.W. and, C.E. Snow. “What teachers need to know
about language.” ERIC, Special Report (2000).

Gupta, Abha. “What's up wif Ebonics, Y'all.” Reading Online,
www.readingonline.org (1999).

Snow, C.E., Burns. M.S., and P. Griffin (Eds.). Preventing
reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National
Academy Press.1998.

Wheeler, R. S. and R. Swords. Code-Switching: Teaching
Standard English in Urban Classrooms. NCTE. 2006.

Further Web-based resources
Strategies to teach conventions of English
http://www.readingonline.org/articles/gupta/
ebonics.html#useful

Double-negatives practice link
http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/english/
englishB4.htm

A Dissect on The Imagery of Women
In Amitav Ghosh's
“The Glass Palace” and “The Hungry Tide”
N. Jaishree
Amitav Ghosh is a humanist who through his novels has
raised his powerful voice against all kinds of tyranny and
oppression. He disapproves of domination of man by man at all
levels–political, military and economic. Ghosh is a social anthropologist, and therefore it is not surprising that he brings to his
writing an exactitude of construction and a clarity of language and
style .
Feminism encompasses certain central dilemmas in
modern experience. Its internal disagreements are part of its
continuing power, which involve people in discussion far beyond
the movement itself. Most feministic thought grapples unavoidably
with some aspect of the “equality-difference” problem. The
question is, do women want to be treated as equal as men or do
they see biology as establishing a difference that will always
require a strong recognition and that might ultimately define quiet
separate possibilities inside 'the humans'. Equality theory tends to
de-emphasize the body to place faith in each individual's capacity
to develop a self not ultimately circumscribed by a collective law of
gender. But difference theory tends to emphasize the body and the
unconscious, where the body's psychic meaning develops off.
Amitav Ghosh portrays his women sensitively and in fact
they are the leading spirits in his fiction. They are distinct
portrayals of a cultural construction. Cultural constructs also
helps to juxtapose feminine positions and feministic
interpretations can emerge even through absence and negation. He
never presents his women as overt radical feminists nor as the
stereotypical images of Sita and Savitri. The Glass Palace is an
extraordinary achievement, a spectacular work of Amitav Ghosh.
The novel is a sincere and sustained effort to present a historical
document through a series of characters, time and space, i.e., three
interconnected parts of the British Empire : Burma, with its
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widening rifts and undercurrents of discontent, Malaya, with its
sprawling plantation, and India amid growing opposition to
British rule. Through the intertwining stories of Rajkumar, an
Indian and Dolly, the attendant girl of the Burmese queen
Supayalat, the history of the twentieth century is unfolded across
the three generations with an unerring narrative skill.
An important incident that occurs early in the novel sets
the tone of the women characters. Rajkumar, and eleven old
urchin, works as a helper for Ma Cho. Through creaks in the
wooden walls, he views Ma Cho at nights and learns about female
anatomy and sex. He even gets his first physical sensations
through her. But Ma Cho resists herself, “abruptly, she pushed
him away, with a yelp of disgust. What am I doing with this boy, this
child, this half-wit kaala? Elbowing him aside, she clambered up
her ladder and vanished into her room.(57The Glass Palace.)The
situation is saved by the strength and sanity of the woman. This
seems to be regular pattern, in Ghosh, where woman stands as a
preserver of culture and spiritual essence.
The English force Burmese King Thebaw and queen
Supayalat to exile. Dolly a nine-year old girl looking after the
younger princess is transported along with the. Gradually from a
child she grows into an attractive young girl. She attains mental
and physical maturity. Sawant, the local servant is her natural
choice. However, they are caught by the first princess, who, herself
in need of a man, snatches him away. Dolly is hurt, emotionally
confused and by a psychologically transference identifies herself
with the first princess and says she is waiting for the baby's arrival.
But Uma, her friend coaxes her to marry Rajkumar.
Dolly nurses Dinu perceiving her role as a mother more
important than that of a wife. But the suffering changed her
attitude and she feels, “ I couldn't go back to the life I'd led
before.(239). A feeling of emptiness spreads. But she gracefully
accepts the inevitability of pain and suffering. A visit to the
Buddhist nunnery reveals her strong desire for renunciation,
which in the present circumstances she cannot as she is deeply
committed to her responsibilities. She proves her indomitable
spirit and strength of convictions in ultimately entering the
monastery and withdrawing from the world. Dolly is the spirit of
endurance and acceptance. Her very weakness is her source of
strength.. She stands for courage, honour, hope, compassion and
sacrifice. Her tenacity of spirit lifts other characters. There is the
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feeling that the traditional emphasis on feminine virtues such as
obedience is not the same as subservience; humility is not the same
as masochism; and patience is not the same as impotence. The
distinction is the first category presupposes agency and the second
destroys it, so that obedience differs from subservience form being
a case of intentional passivity as opposed to mere passivity.
Women possessing the first category of qualities are to be treated
as persons and agents.
Meenakshi Mukerjee says, “social conformity has always
been more obligatory for a woman than a man, and generally a
woman's identity tends to be defined by herself as well as by others,
in terms of relationship with men – as a daughter, as a wife, and as
a mother”(98). Dolly shows that woman can fulfill herself in a
loving and harmonious relationship with others. What governs her
is act of giving, going out of oneself, a deep concern for the other,
which is the point of profound significance.
Uma Dey, the Madame collector, is attractive, charming,
lively and self-possessed. She becomes and elegant hostess, a mere
adjunct to the collector. She is a “role-filler”. She starts to re-assess
the entire meaning of her life being jolted out of her unquestioning
acceptance : “She began to sob, covering her face with her hands.
The wifely virtues she could offer him he had no use for: Cambridge
had taught him to want more: to make sure that nothing was held
in abeyance, to bargain for a woman's soul with the coin of
kindness and patience. The thought of this terrified her. This was
subjection beyond decency, beyond her imagining”(153). “If a man
treats his wife as if only he could know what is best even for her,
then it is a case of external constraint and power. Uma wishes not
to be flattened into a role, invariably stripped of all individualizing
traits of a sentient being. She wills for a companionship base don
understanding and love, and for autonomy for self. But she is
denied the requisite space. She finds it difficult to cope with this
atmosphere of 'constrained enactment'. She gives up the legacy of
humiliation and dependence and grows into a confident individual
fighting for peace and non-violence.
Queen Supayalat with her mask like face and mauve lips is
no ordinary woman. Though accustomed to authority, she suffers
captivity and humiliation over freedom and goes on to live along
with her daughters to twenty years of exile, for love of her
ineffectual and scholarly husband.
The women in the novel try to seek different levels of
liberation. Each negotiates with her milieu to arrive at justifiable
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resolutions and each attempt is an accomplishment in itself.
The Hungry Tide is Amitav Ghosh's latest novel located in
Bhatir Desh – the Tide country in the Sundarbans. Ghosh creates
asustainable ecology where human life is as changeable as the
ebb(Bhata) and flood(jowar) of water. The novel is situated in an
immense archipelago of Bengal. The novel weaves together past
and present, childhood and adulthood through the agency of
memory. The most dominant concern of the novel is the human
survival as it battles with extreme forces of nature.
The novel presents women's distinct experience through
the characters of Nilima and Kusum on one hand and Piyali Roy
and Moyna Mondal on the other hand. All the options between
motherhood and manless life style are portrayed. Nilima, Kusum,
represent yester years whereas Piya and Moyna belong to current
tide.
Kusum, a tribal woman music” in Nirmal's words,
exercises a captivating grip on the narration. She felt as an outsider
on main land. Tide country's nostalgic past called her back, and
she foes to Morichjhapi with her son Fokir joining the refugees of
Bangladesh, who become the cause of her life. This concept of self
as potentially unified with a place and an aspiration for psychic
unity with the needy becomes her hub of freedom. This self
assertion leads Kusum to the tide country and makes her stretch a
helping hand to refugees and tribal. She asks for Nilima's help to
safeguard her people through her “Union”. Nilima refuses, as she
could not go against the government. The equivocal voices of these
refugees allow for the deconstruction of historical and ideological
categories. Kusum reveals that women neither are naturally
submissive not uncomplaining, nor incapable of protest at the
strictures of the society.Kusum, as Ghosh says, entered “the
blood” of Nirmal and Horen – the former an elite and educated and
the latter an illiterate. Horen wished to marry and provide security
to Kusum, but she never felt the need. She had chosen Horen at the
last hour of her life as a tribute to his life-long concern. Women like
her are capable of turning social norms top suit themselves.
Kusum instigates the radical spirit kin Nirmal, in his old age. He
breaks away with his armchair past and joins her, developing an
ideological intimacy. Nirmal and kusum try to carry forward the
cultural legitimacy of Daniel Hamilton's Utopian society.Ecofeminism also echoes beyond the lines. It re-imagines what non
human world in the elimination iof institutionalized oppression
based on gender, class, race and sexual preference, and what may
93
aid in changing woman, but at the same time, reshapes the culture
with the help of her male counterparts.
Nilima Mashima of Lusibari belonged to an aristocratic
family with a good educational background. The reforms of
William Bentick and Raj Ram Mohan Roy fior the cause of woman,
the spread of English higher education and the western
individualistic ideal prepared the ground for women to play active
roles outside their limited family circle. The empowering elite
section was in the process of converting the traditional past to
modernity that percolated as a new sensibility about women's
duties and responsibilities. This historical perspective though
ambivalent in the context of colonial women's modernity, proved
useful at times. Nilima at a point says, “I am not capable of dealing
with the whole world's problems. For me the challenge of making a
few little things a little better in one small place is enough. That
place for me is Lusibari.”(387)Unlike her idealistic dreamy
husband, she remains within possible and practicable, limits. In
the process she is stern and strict. Yet she reveals her deep love,
though suffering immense pain at his incongruous behaviour.
Piyali Roy belongs to the present generation. She is a
Cetologist researching marine mammals, a rare profession for
women. She comes to Sundarbans to study the Orcaella
brevirostiris or the Irrawady dolphin. Her tenacious spirit to
explore the penetrating secrets if nature extends her stay in India.
Despite changes in the norms and variations in taste acquired
with the impact of western culture, she remains essentially Indian
in sensibility.
Modernity provides the new women a reformulated society
based on a discourse of science. She is aware of her vulnerable
conditions as a scientist. The massive storm brings death and
erases her long held notions. It also reveals the concern of Fokir.
Fokir, the illiterate simple untrained fishrerman saves her with his
basic instincts/ He recites the legend of Bonbibi, a mythical tiger
goddess of the tide country which is translated by Kanai for Piya.
“Tilting back his head, began to chant and suddenly the language
and the music were all around her, flowing like a river, and all of it
made sense; she understood it all. Although the sound of the voice
was Fokir's, the meaning was Kanai's, and in the depths of her
heart she knew she would always be torn between the one and the
other”(360). She is torn between the poetry of Fokir's un-spoilt life
and the attraction of Kanai's prosaic lifestyle.
Piya stumbles upon her life's work and acquires a taste for
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high ambition by researching the mammals. The difference
between her and Nilima come to the fore in their definition of home.
To Piya who defines her life through her career, home is where the
Oracella are. Nilima, in spite of all her social work, remains a
traditional lady when she says, “home is where I can brew a pot of
good tea.”(400). Piya's ceaseless quest for a credible meaning ends
up in Sundabans.
Moyna Mondal and d Piyali Roy represent two different
social spectrums. Moyna's life is a struggle. As a tribal, possessing
basic things and living life with dignity itself is problematic. In
addition she is a woman with soaring aspirations, unlikely for a
tribal woman. She stands in the novel, as a woman with selfrespect. These women, Nilima and Kusum, Piya and Moyna shared
a commonality of experience. It was their desire for continuous
reaffirmation that made them strong. They never loose their faith
in the essential grandeur of their existence.
An ideal society needs the co-operative work of dreamers,
historians of culture, scientists, social workers and economists. It
needs visionaries to imagine and construct a new socio-economic
system, a new cultural consciousness and also practical thinkers
and implementers who would support the relation of mutuality,
rather than competitive power.
Ghosh's fiction portrays two images of women: women as a
life-giver, sustainer and continuer of the race as against women in
search of an identity. In the tradition of RajaRao and others he
creates woman with an imaginative grace. The image of perfect but
very human beauty lies in the figures of Dolly and Nilima.These
are women who have lived a life of fulfillment and achieved dignity
through their actions. They imparted stability to society and gave
civilization itself continuity.
In continuity of the tradition developed by Tagore,
Narayan, Sahgal, Ghosh develops wopmen who are strong, can
express themselves, do things, travel, come to their own decisions
and live independently. They are out of the purposive control of
men. They pursued ideas, which they as individuals valued. They
are symbol of growth, progress and forward movement. In
characters like Uma Dey and Kusum we find a fusion of
psychological and sociological trauma. In them is a continuous
discussion of values and relationships. They are strong women for
whom sex, though important, plays a small part and on their own
terms. It results more as a culmination to a relationship, as of
Uma's with Rajkumar, and Kusum's with Horen. The divide
between these strategic images was finessed when women face rise
to interesting cross-class alliances by seeking ways to make men
conform to their standards, as reflected in Uma's outrage at
Rajkumar's adultery, thus showing there can be a mutually
exclusive co- existence of equality and difference.
Ghosh's major women characters get rid of their
dependency needs, reveal their identity breaking the pattern of
sexuality and sensuality and take their place as whole human
beings freely and equally along with men's.
WORKS CITED
Ghosh Amitav, The Glass Palace. India :Harper Collins, 2000
Ghosh Amitav , The Hungry Tide. New Delhi : Ravi Dayal, 2004
l
Khair, Tabish (ed) The Novels of Amitav Ghosh
l
Krishnasamy, Shantha. The Woman in Indian Fiction in English
l
Tiwari, Shubha. Amitav Ghosh – A Critical Study. New Delhi :
Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2003.
l
Bhat, Yashoda & Yamuna Raja Rao. (eds) The Image of Woman in
Indian Literature. New Delhi : B.R. Publishing Corporation 1993.
l
Dr. P. Shailaja & Manoja. Equality and Difference : A Reading of
Amitav Ghosh's Women.Poetcrit 2007.
l
l
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97
Quest Of Modern Man:
From Angst To Love
Devasree Chakravarti
G.A. Ghanshyam
“Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.”
- Bertrand Russell
Contemporary fiction is replete with stories revolving
around the theme of anguish tormenting the soul of modern man. A
victim of his times, modern man is represented as an individual
torn and fragmented, oscillating between the pulls of tradition and
modernity, caught up in the conflict of cultures, allegiances and
identity crisis. The existential angst of modern man victimizes him
to the level of insanity, rage and alienation.
Salman Rushdie, a name to reckon with in contemporary
Indian English Fiction has represented this angst of modern man
in all his novels. In his fictional narrative, the modern man finds a
voice to express his dilemma of existence amidst a society that has
evolved into a global one but in the process has lost on the local.
Man has been able to transcend the boundaries of nations, space
and matter but has hardly any knowledge of his own 'self'. Gripped
by fear, ignorance and anger, man after breaking down the barriers
around him has constructed new ones within him. Wandering
aimlessly, through pain, loss, betrayal and anger, he is on an
eternal voyage of self discovery.
A true representative of his age, Rushdie portrays the quest
of modern man from angst to calm, from ignorance to knowledge,
from anger and hatred to peace and love. In each of his novels
Rushdie depicts the individual's struggle with his self and his
gradual transformation through the healing power of love and
acceptance. The present paper taking into consideration four
select novels of Rushdie analyzing the crucial link between self
realization and the healing touch of love and relations that enables
the individual to transcend the bounds of inner barriers of crisis
and identify one's true self.
An eloquent spokesperson of multiculturalism and
hybridity, Rushdie equates love with a happy mélange of
differences:
I wanted to cling to the image of love as the blending
of spirits, as mélange, as the triumph of the
impure, mongrel, conjoining best of us over what
there is in us of the solitary, the isolated, the
austere, the dogmatic, the pure; of love as
democracy, as the victory of the no-man-is-anisland, two's-company Many over the clean, mean
apartheiding Ones. (MLS 289)
The Moor's Last Sigh (MLS), written at a time when he was
forced into hiding after the world famous 'Rushdie affair', reveals
the novelist's intense desire to be heard. In the character of Moraes
or the Moor, Rushdie depicts his own need for self expression.
The novel an ode to the lost multicultural world of ancient
Moorish Spain before the crusade is a symbol of contemporary
India and its loss of multiculturalism and secular spirit. Love is a
strong emotion that not only binds two individuals together but
taken in its comprehensiveness can also encompass the entire
humanity. Rushdie laments the loss of this love at the personal as
well as at the national level.
The Moor's mother Aurora da Gama and his father
Abraham Zogoiby “. . . fell in pepper love, up there on the Malabar
Gold.” (MLS 90). But their passionate love did not sustain the
strain of betrayal and deceit.
Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we
don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of
blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of
illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of
witherings, of tarnishings. - Anais Nin
The passionate love of Aurora and Abraham that heralded
the advent of later events in the narrative succumbed to the anxiety
innate to Aurora's character and duplicity in Abraham's. The angst
of modern man amidst the transitoriness of life and times is best
depicted in the character of Aurora. She is confused and alienated
in her anguish that characterized post-independent India. In her
attempt to comprehend and represent life with all its authenticity
and complexity, she chooses the expressionistic technique in her
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paintings, to the “fantastic” (MLS 174). Her filial relationship with
her son, the Moor is the basis of her affirmation to life and even her
preoccupation with the portrayal of the mélange of
multiculturalism and the modern world with its dissolution of
borders finds its expression through the portrayal of her Moor in
her famous Moor paintings. Betrayal of her motherly love finally
seals her destiny and she dies in defiance of everything that
dictates the hatred and denial of love, silently forgiving her son as a
last gesture of compassion.
The Moor who betrays his mother's love and trust for the
love of a woman, Uma finds his nemesis in her persona. Inheriting
the anxiety born out of abandonment and loss of relations, Moor or
Moraes suffers from the anger of the ignorant. He blames his
mother for her rejection and though aware of the diabolical nature
of Uma who tried to kill him, yearns for her love.
We can live without religion and meditation, but
we cannot survive without human affection.
- H.H. the Dalai Lama
Moraes, alone in his exile staggers through life without any
sense of self, struggling with an inner crisis of chaos, rage and
confusion. It is only when his father reconnects with him and
brings reconciliation with the memory of his dead mother that he is
able to form a stable sense of direction in life. “There had been a
reconciliation, an explanation accepted, a son gathered to his
father's bosom. A broken bond renewed.” (MLS 322). His quest to
trace the lost painting of his mother is symbolical of his desire to
re-link with life, love and relations through an exploration and
realization of his true self. Though his quest possibly ends on a
tragic note yet it does not fail in its purpose of transcendence from
the alienation of his angst to the affirmation in love as Aoi, his
companion in captivity says, “Defeated love is still a treasure, and
those who choose lovelessness have won no victory at all.'” (MLS
425). His possible death by the ruins of the real Alhambra
resonates with the central theme of the novel as well as the desire of
every man, “. . . that most profound of our needs, to our need for
flowing together, for putting an end to frontiers, for the dropping of
the boundaries of the self.” (MLS 433).
In the love of Ormus Cama and Vina Apsara, Rushdie
delves into the anguish of modern man in life as well as in love. If
acceptance of love had led Moraes to a voyage of self discovery then
it had transformed the two protagonists of The Ground Beneath
her Feet (GBF) from the moment they laid eyes upon each other.
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The fragmented characters of Ormus and Vina find solace and
completeness in the other. Vina's relationship with the Merchant
family also settles her disquieted spirit but also breaks it apart
later with its own disintegration. The betrayal of relationships that
had marred her life from the start unsettles her for life and even her
love for Ormus fails to heal her fragmented psyche.
In their passionate relationship, one cannot live
without the other, but, to make matters worse, they
cannot really live with each other: their selves are
simultaneously drawn to each other and
continuously forced apart. (Hensen 133)
It is the lack of a nurturing parental love in both their lives
that shatters them. Umeed, the secret third angle in the tale is also
transformed by their love. Desperately in love with Vina, he awaits
his turn to bask in her love. All the three characters in the novel:
Ormus, Vina and Umeed are driven by the force of their love. The
course that their life takes is in a huge way decreed upon by the
influence of their love and relations. Ormus goes abroad in search
for his Vina while Umeed decides to leave in order to prove himself
worthy of her. If lack of filial love had thrown out the former two far
from their nest, abundance of love made the latter claustrophobic
of the city of his parent's love and a reminder of final disintegration
and death.
Ormus and Vina's love finds its expression through their
music that unites the whole humanity into crowds of love,
transcending barriers of race and colour. Their love however is not
stable enough to withstand the instability of their characters. Vina
dies unexpectedly as broken as she always was; disenchanted and
alone while Ormus delusional as ever is obsessed with the thought
of her resurrection, dies long before the bullet finally hits him
dead. It is Umeed alone who is strong enough to shoulder the
responsibility of love, though stolen it might be. He yearns for
Vina's acceptance of his love instead of the left over bits she offers
to him at her own sweet disposal. Love binds these three
characters together but it is not able to help them transcend the
depths of their anguish. Umeed fails to follow when Vina at last
accepts his love fully, and her death seals off any possible chances
of their relationship attaining its wholeness.
Rushdie seems to say through his story that its not higher
love as Veena and Ormus call their love to be that gives meaning
and completeness to life but it's the ordinary human love with all its
responsibilities and commitment that helps modern man
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transcend his anxieties, frustration, alienation and fragmentation.
Umeed proves to be second time lucky in finding love and his
relationship with Mira Celano and her little daughter Tara. The
relationship finally endows his life and identity with completeness
and security.
Here's ordinary human love beneath my feet. Fall
away, if you must, contemptuous earth; melt,
rocks, and shiver, stones. I'll stand my ground,
right here. This I've discovered and worked for and
earned. This is mine. (GBF 575)
Man grappling with the complexities of modern life, yearns
for freedom; freedom to choose, freedom to decide, freedom to
one's own individuality; to carve out a space of one's own amidst
all. “But love is what we want, not freedom” (GBF 53). The self is
not complete without relationships; family ties, friends, love.
Love is the sign of humanity as well as our character; it
bestows harmony and tranquility to our inner being.
When we feel love and kindness toward others, it
not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but
it helps us also to develop inner happiness and
peace. - H.H. the Dalai Lama
The positive aspect of love is evident in its selfless action
and sacrifice. Only when love is selfless and non-possessive can it
set the soul free from the meshes of inner conflict and confusion.
But when it succumbs to the depths of negativity it gives rise to the
wrath of the furies that scorches the soul in the fires of Hell.
dhyayato visayan pumsah
sangas tesupajayate
sangat sanjayate kamah
kamat krodho bhijayate
(The man dwelling on sense-objects develops
attachment for them; from attachment springs up
desire, and from desire (unfulfilled) ensues anger.)
(Goyandka 2.62)
Malik Solanka is a man fleeing his past. His obsessive
possession of his creation, Little Brain and her eventual rejection
of him as she becomes commercialized unleashes in him the
demon of Fury (F). His attachment to his doll obliterates all his
other relationships into the shadows. Reminiscent of his
tormented past, the dolls are in fact his only relations in whom he
had found comfort and companionship in his childhood, “. . . the
only family he could bring himself to trust.” (F 223).
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A victim of child abuse at the hands of his step father, Malik
abandons one relation for another. The love of his wife, son and
friends fail to fill the void in his soul and he is unable to reciprocate
their love fully.
If you aren't good at loving yourself, you will have a
difficult time loving anyone, since you'll resent the
time and energy you give another person that you
aren't even giving to yourself.
- Barbara De Angelis
His tortured and fragmented psyche is unable to relate to
any relationship and he flees from his family to live in the vicious
clutches of his inner fury that is gradually pulling him down
towards complete degeneration, even to the point wherein he
contemplates killing his own family. His intense angst gives him
frequent loss of memory and violent behavioural outburst. The
arrival of Mila Milo in his life helps re-channelize his fury from its
destructive course towards creation but is hardly the stable anchor
that could quench its hunger into calmness. It is true love in the
form of Neela Mahendra that proves to be the saving grace, which
saves him from drowning.
. . . this bond felt like strength . . . Neela was
optimism's justification . . . if Mila Milo had
unlocked the floodgate, Neela Mahendra was the
flood. In Neela's arms Solanka felt himself begin to
change, felt the inner demons he feared so much
growing weaker by the day . . . Pack your bags,
Furies, he thought, you no longer reside at this
address . . . Neela's love was the philosopher's
stone that made possible the transmuting alchemy.
Rage grew out of despair: but Neela was hope
fulfilled. (F 205-06).
Neela's ultimate act of selfless sacrifice; dying to save the
life of Malik and her crew is the true sign of love in which Russell
truly glimpses the divine. Her lesson of affirming to love and
relations transforms Malik to confront his past demons and
transcend the existential dilemmas that haunted his inner being.
Sacrificing her own life for him and her crew she teaches him to
love and live life; to value relationships, “The earth moves. The
earth goes round the sun.” (F 255). Malik's act of affirmation
towards life is evident in his attempts to re-connect with his son
Asmaan. “. . . conjuring up all his lost love and hurling it high into
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the sky . . .” (F 259), Malik trying to catch the attention of his son
shouts, “Look at me, Asmaan! I'm bouncing very well! I'm bouncing
higher and higher!” (F 259). His leap into the air is his leap from
alienation to affirmation and assimilation.
When love dies, it leaves only ruins around. Death of love,
of humanity has pushed the whole world to the brink of
destruction twice; another time, and it won't survive. When love is
betrayed and innocence is led astray; love transforms into hatred
and Paradise turns into Hell. Another novel from the pen of the
artist lamenting the loss of a multicultural world, Shalimar the
Clown (STC), portrays the personal story of love, innocence and
betrayal that bleeds into the public outrage of Kashmiriyat and
brotherhood. The novel is a plea by Rushdie for love and relations
to be given a chance, “The family was eternal and would not, must
not change . . .” (STC 220).
Love defines the way of life in Kashmir, transcending
divisions of religion and race. Love triumphs in their way of life as
is evident in the marriage of a Muslim boy Shalimar with a Hindu
girl, Boonyi. Betrayal of love for the sake of an illusory freedom
mars the lives of the two protagonists as well as the people of their
village and the entire region. Love betrayed turns into anger and
revenge.
All that remained between them [Boonyi and
Shalimar], perhaps, was hatred, but this yearning
hatred-at-a-distance was surely also one of love's
many faces, yes, its ugliest face. (STC 263)
Shalimar's oath of vengeance after Boonyi's betrayal runs
its due course on the sidewalks of violence and death. Taking
refuge in the extremist group he awaits his time to kill Boonyi and
later traverses the globe to extract his revenge from the wrong doer,
Maxmilian Ophuls. But the presence of their daughter India foils
his attempts because India is the living reminder of their
relationship.
India grows up in ignorance of her true identity, neglected
and unloved by her foster mother. Timely intervention of her father
and his love saves her from ruin yet it is not able to render her
psyche its wholeness that was lost in the labyrinth of lies and
deceit.
Murder of her father unveils the secrets of her life thereby
reconnecting her with a very important missing part of her self. Her
connection with her dead mother ultimately completes her identity
as Kashmira, who symbolizes the inextinguishable life force that
defeats the forces of darkness and hatred by its steely resolve and
resilient demeanour. Her acceptance of Yuvraj's love and her final
triumph over Shalimar is a celebration of love and acceptance over
hatred and denial; of finally rewarding the quest of modern man in
the transcendence over angst and uncertainties towards a
realization of one's true identity; in a victory of humanity. “There
was no India. There was only Kashmira, and Shalimar the clown.”
(STC 398).
In The Moor's Last Sigh, the bond of filial love gives a
meaning and sense of purpose. In The Ground Beneath Her Feet
higher love transcends even death but it is ordinary human love
that sustains life and helps man to assimilate and accept, which is
again reflected in the triumph of love in Fury and Shalimar the
Clown. Infact the quest of modern man to know the self is
incomplete without a sing of love. It is in humanity that the self truly
realises itself.
“Venus significat humanitatem. It is love that is the
sign of our humanity.” (GBF 414).
WORKS CITED
Rushdie, Salman. The Moor's Last Sigh (MLS). London: Vintage,
2006. All parenthetical references of the text will be to this edition.
l
Hensen, Michael & Mike Petry. Searching for a Self:
Postmodernist Theories of Identity and the Novels of Salman
Rushdie.
l
Rushdie, Salman.e: New Critical Insights. Vol. II. ed. Rajeshwar
Mittapalli & Joel Kuortti. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers &
Distributors, 2003.126-141.
l
Rushdie, Salman. The Ground Beneath Her Feet (GBF). London:
Vintage, 2000. All parenthetical references of the text are to this
edition.
l
Goyandka, Jayadayal. Srimad Bhagavadgita As It Is.
Gorakhpur: Gita Press, 1984.
l
Rushdie, Salman. Fury (F). New York: Random House, 2001. All
parenthetical page references of the text are to this edition.
l
Rushdie, Salman. Shalimar the Clown (STC). London: Jonathan
Cape, 2005. All parenthetical references of the text are to this
edition.
l
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104
Ruskin's Practical Criticism:
A Modernist's Approach
Krishna Singh
John Ruskin's literary criticism has two broad sections—
Theoretical criticism and Practical criticism. His theoretical
criticism discusses his thoughts on art and morality, aesthetics,
imagination, nature and landscape and pathetic fallacy. Practical
criticism deals with Ruskin's critical approaches and techniques;
his treatment of individual authors and their literary works. The
present paper endeavours to analyse his critical approaches and
techniques and project clearly the image of Ruskin as a literary
critic. This is felt necessary in view of the fact that his other roles
such as an art critic or a social reformer have completely obscured
this important aspect of his work.
Ruskin is more concerned with the Practical Criticism with
textual approach. He not only criticized texts and authors but also
taught us how to criticise them. In his theoretical pronouncements
he may be inconsistent, contradictory and unsystematic but in his
textual approach to literature, he pioneered the way for the NewCritics of the 20th century. Practical questions are scattered
throughout his bulky writings but this does not demean its real
significance. An honest criticism concentrates on the real validity
of a work not on its deformed structure. The questions, which
baffle practical criticism, get place in Ruskin as, how to read
literature? Why this is good, that is bad? What is the appeal of a
literary piece? How it responds to the readers? How it
communicates poet's ideas, emotions and impressions to the
readers? Why this is valuable or non-valuable? How permanent
criterion of excellence to be decided? How and why to evaluate a
work of art? etc.
“Wit, learning, un-invidiousness and impartiality and
thoughtful soul” (Ruskin: MPIII: 41) are the basic qualifications,
according to Ruskin, for a critic. He is able to differentiate the
varied experiences, comprehends, “a sensibility to color” and “a
sensibility to form”(Ruskin: MPII:201). Truth, in him is the
standard of all excellence, “This material truth is indeed a perfect
test of the relative rank” and here “truth and beauty, knowledge
and imagination, invariable are associated.” For Ruskin, a critic
should have, “a through practical knowledge of art, and on broad
general views of what is true and right, without reference to what
has been done at one time or another, or in one school or
another”(Ibid:203). It has analogous tone as New- Practical
criticism and Russian Formalism have centering on the
“literariness”(Newton:21) and poetic virtues of a “text” discarding
historicism and impressionism. Blind adherence to past
standards is the, “only refuse and resource of personal
endeavouring to be critics without being artist”(Ruskin: MPII:205).
If an individual talent is entirely original and authentic in
his feeling and aim, he himself becomes the master of that specie.
He can't tell you whether a thing is right or not, but can tell you
whether it is like something else or not. False critics are unable to
distinguish “which is really exalted and valuable” and “idea of real
ends”(Ibid:206) with its negatives. An artist may be directed by
tradition, but with greatest artists tradition also modifies. T.S.
Eliot in The Tradition and Individual Talent has vented the same
dynamic concept of tradition and individual talent. The primary
concern of a real critic is to:
Go to nature in all singleness of heart, and walk
with her laboriously and trustingly. Having no
other thoughts but how best to penetrate her
meaning and remember her instruction, rejecting
nothing, selecting nothing and scorning nothing,
believing all things to be right and good, and
rejoicing always in the truth. (Ibid:210)
The remark is the keynote in Ruskin's entire criticism. It
needs wider analysis, in tone and approach. It heralded the way for
modern practical criticism. It directs the reader to go and evaluate
a piece of literature, in singleness of heart, no other thoughts, e.g.
historical situation, race, milieu, moment, authorial intentions,
personal idiosyncrasies, prejudices and affinity with the writer etc.
But as to make assessment more valid comparison and analysis be
tools in the hands of a critic. Our whole concern should be “how
best to penetrate the meaning”, understand “literariness” and
“poetic values” of the given text. Simultaneously, the instruction(s)
it communicates should be borne in mind. He endeavours to widen
the understanding and appreciation, delivering judgements of bad
or good are not his concerns but he tries to illuminate the real
virtues of that piece. He is truthful to the text discarding none but
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taking everything as requisite of evaluation. Whether the
expression possesses “relative fidelity to the given facts”(Ibid:200)
or not becomes touchstone in Ruskin's criticism. Ruskin in this
enterprise was far ahead of time. He shows wonderful fertility in
the application of his critical principles. “Shallowness of thought
insures not its variety, nor rapidity of production its
originality”(Ibid: 211). Ruskin, like modern criticism, is inclined
towards increasing precision, subtlety and professionalism. His
criticism directs the reader to the text at every point, and whether
the reader agrees with the critic's interpretation or not, he has at
least to read the text with greatest care. The procedure of the
modern close critic has been well-defined by F.R.Leavis:
The critic's aim is, first, to realize as sensitively and
completely as possible this or that which claims his
attention, and a certain valuing is implicit in the
realizing. As he matures in experience of the new
thing he asks, explicitly and implicitly, 'Where does
this come from? How does it stands in relation to
…? How relatively important does it seem?' …the
business of literary critic is to attain a peculiar
completeness of response and to observe a
peculiarly strict relevance in developing his
response into commentary, he must be on his
guard against abstracting improperly from what is
in front of him and against any immature or
irrelevant generalizing of it or from it. His first
concern is to enter into possession of the given
poem (let us say) in its concrete fullness, and his
constant concern is never to loose his
completeness of possession, but rather to increase
it. In making value judgements (and judgements as
to significance) implicitly or explicitly, he does so
out of that completeness of possession and with
that fullness of response. He does not ask, 'How
does this accord with these specifications of
goodness in poetry?' he aims to make fully
conscious and articulate the immense sense of
value that 'places' the poem. (Leavis: 66)
It has close resemblance with the procedure of Ruskin. In
the first lecture of Sesame and Lilies Ruskin's critical
announcements and approaches are evident. If, Wasil Worsfold
comments, “Platonic test of truth, or harmony with general sense
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of mankind, and the Aristotelian test of symmetry or recognition of
the principle of external beauty” (Worsfold: 228) serve two central
tests of evaluation, Ruskin had applied both in conjunction.SThese
two tests, which have been so often separated for purposes of
criticism, are really to be referred to as one and the same standard
of authority. In other words, that 'technical excellence' and 'ability
to please mankind' are one and the same thing. The process by
which a work becomes a masterpiece, according to Worsfold is
this: “The community recognizes the merit of artist's work, the
critics analyse it, and they apply the result of their analysis to the
examination of subsequent productions”(Ibid: 228).Worsfold
considers “appreciation of mankind” the single standard that
determines the practice of masters of past, present and will of
future. In the appreciation of mankind the body of thought which,
under the name of morality, expresses the experience of the race in
general, and of community in particular, always becomes a
commanding element. Morality, therefore, in this sense can't be
separated from artistic excellence. The formal criticism, applied
by the French critics in the 17th century was based upon the
mistaken belief that the work of the artist could be dissociated
from the general sense of mankind and the progress of humanity.
John Ruskin, from a due appreciation of the truth ('general sense
of mankind') and a due acknowledgment of restriction ('necessity
of giving immediate pleasure to a human being possessed of that
information which may be expected from him as a man') “makes
morality…that is harmony with the general sense of mankind in its
most clear and permanent manifestation” (Ibid: 231). In the
Lectures on Art he writes:
All right human song is, similarly, the finished
expression, by art, of the joy or grief of noble
persons, for right causes. And accurately in
proportion to the rightness of the cause, and purity
of emotions, is the possibility of fine art… And with
absolute precision, from highest to the lowest, the
fineness of possible art is an index of the moral
purity and majesty of the emotion it expresses…
And that is so in all the arts, so that with
mathematical precision, subject to no error
exception, the art of a nation, so far as it exists, is
an exponent of its ethical state. (Ruskin: Works: III:
67)
Further, when he is seeking for a 'definition of art wide
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enough to include all its varieties of aim', he vigorously writes:
I do not say, therefore, that the art is greatest which
gives most pleasure, because perhaps there is
some art whose end is to teach and not to please. I
do not say that the art is greatest which teaches us
most, because perhaps there is some art whose
end is to please and not to teach. I do not say that
the art is greatest which imitates best, because
perhaps there is some art whose end is to create
not to imitate. But I say that the art is greatest
which conveys to the spectator, by any means,
whatsoever, the greatest number of the greatest
ideas, and I call an idea great in proportion as it is
received by a higher faculty of mind, and as it more
fully occupies, and in occupying, exercises and
exalts, the faculty by which it is received. If this,
then, be the definition of great art, which of a great
artist naturally follows. He is the greatest artist
who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the
greatest number of the greatest ideas. (Ruskin:
MPI: 9)
And so Ruskin's criticism is an attempt to decide the value
of the products of arts purely by reference to this test—the test of
harmony with the sense of mankind as contained in the moral
decisions of a given society. Thus the implied antithesis between
artistic excellence and morality, which is contained in the theory of
'Art for Art's sake', disappears, when the nature of the authority,
which pronounces judgement upon works of art, is analysed.
I.A.Richards maintains the same analogy, even illustrates that
value (morality) can't be isolated from artistic excellence, “…the
healthiest mind is that capable of securing the greatest amount of
value” (Richards: 25).
Well equipped with care, wit, learning and thoughtful soul
which, according to Ruskin, are tools of critic; one should try
directly and immediately to penetrate the meaning of its author,
comparing and analyzing with other works of excellence. When
harnessed with these tools he finds his appraisal of a work more
clear and sound. In the process of evaluation, first we should enter
into author's meaning, not ours, second enter into author's hearts
(passions or sentiments):
First, by a true desire to be taught by them, and to
enter into their thoughts. To enter into theirs,
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observe, not to find your own expressed by
them…Very ready we are to say of a book, “How
good this is …that's exactly what I think.” But the
right feeling is, “How strange that is… You go to the
author to get at his meaning, not to find yours,
judge it afterwards, if you think yourself qualified
to do so, but ascertain it first. (Ruskin: MPIII: 3940)
If the author is worth anything, we fail to get his meaning
all at once because his expression is in a hidden way and in
parables, in order that he may be sure we want it. His thought and
meaning are the “same with the physical type of wisdom,
gold,”(Ibid: 40)—as the electric forces of the earth do not carry
whatever there is of gold within it at once to mountain tops so that
kings and people might know that all the gold they could get was
there, and without any trouble of digging, or anxiety, or chance, or
waste of time. But it compels “you might dig painfully to find any”
(Ibid: 40) and it is just the same with men's best wisdom. When we
face a good book, we must ask ourselves whether we are inclined to
work as an Australian miner would. Are our pickaxes and shovels
(tools) in good order and are we in good trim ourselves, our sleeves
well up to the elbow, and breath good and our temper? And
keeping the figure a little longer, even at the cost of tiresomeness,
for it is thoroughly useful one:
The metal you are in search of being the author's
mind or meaning, his words are as the rock which
you have to crush and smelt in order to get at it.
And your pickaxes are your own care, wit and
learning, your smelting furnace is your own
thoughtful soul. Do not hope to get at any good
author's meaning without those tools and that fire,
often you will need sharpest, finest chiseling, and
patientest fusing before you can gather one grain
of the metal. (Ibid: 40-41)
Then we must “get into the habit of looking intensely at
words and assuring…of their meaning syllable by syllable…nay
letter by letter,” simultaneously, “let the accent of words be
watched, by all means, but let their meaning be watched more
closely still, and fewer will do the work. A few words well chosen
and well distinguished, will do work that a thousand can't” (Ibid:
41-42). The “masked -words” which everybody uses but hardly
anyone understands. These are of foreign descent. These words
are “unjust stewards of all man's ideas, whatever fancy or favourite
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instinct a man must cherish, he gives to his favourite masked
words to take care of him, the word at last come to have an infinite
power over him, you can not get at him but by its ministry” (Ibid:
42). We can better understand these masked words (e.g. Greek,
Latin, French etc) by creating the proper context of their
development. Hermeneutics maintains the analogous ideology to
understand the meaning of masked words: “The basic problem
that hermeneutics confronts is that while the words of a text
written in the past, such as Bible, remain constant, the context that
produced those words no longer exists…the purpose of
hermeneutics was to reconstruct the original context so that the
words of the text could be properly understood” (Newton: 103).
Ruskin while analyzing Milton's Lycidas, confronts the
same problem. He is well versed in languages, so succeeds to
create proper context. Though it takes, he argues, a whole life to
learn any language perfectly, but we can easily ascertain the
meaning through which the English word has passed, and those,
which in a good writer's work it, must still bear (Ruskin cites
Lycidas for it). We should “never let a word escape…that looks
suspicious” (Ruskin: MPIII: 44). A learned (in Ruskin's word
“educated”) person knows the peerage of words—knows the words
of true descent and ancient blood at a glance, from words of
modern canaille, remembers all their ancestry, their
intermarriages, distant relationship, and the extant to which they
were admitted, and offices they held, among the national nobleness
of words at anytime, and in any country. This “real accuracy” of
words makes man “educated” or lack “illiterate”(Ibid:41). An
educated, learned man, whatever language knows, knows
precisely, whatever words he pronounces, pronounces rightly,
above all is, he is learned in the peerage of words. Whereas an
“illiterate” uses many languages, but lacks precision. Like Ruskin,
Frye considers not only structural design but also proper
contextual conditions to be reconstructed in mental landscape
while criticizing a literary piece:
We need to know much more than we do about the
structural principles of literature, about myth and
metaphor, conventions and genres, before we can
distinguish with any authority a real from an
imaginary line of influence, an illuminating from an
imaginary line of influence, an illuminating from a
misleading analogy, a poet's original source from
his lost resource. (Frye: 441)
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Ruskin sets-forth the example from Milton's Lycidas to
apply the technique, he has voiced, and I shall also juxtapose the
techniques of Ruskin and Dr. Johnson while dealing with this
particular poem. It would be better to quote those relevant lines
first:
Last come and last did go,
The pilot of the Galilean lake:
Two massy keys he bore of metals twain
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain)
He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake,
“How well could I have spar'd for thee, young swain,
Anow of such as for their bellies' sake,
Creep and intrude and climb into the fold !
Of other care they little reckoning make
Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast
And shove away the worthy bidden guest.
Blind mouths! That scarce themselves know how to hold
A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught else the least
That to the faithful herdman's art belongs!
What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;
And when they list, their lean and flashy songs
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw;
The hungry sheep look up and are not fed,
But swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;
Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw
Daily devours apace, and nothing said. (Lines 108-129)
Ruskin immediately dives into the meanings of its words
and creates proper context of the words, how Milton has used;
Milton, a great scholar and writer, though possessing poeticlicence does not play tricks with them, “Great men do not play
stage tricks with the doctrines of life and death, only little do that”
(Ruskin: SL: 45). The meanings of the words and context are in
harmonious conjunction. First, it is not singular to find Milton
assigning to St. Peter, not only his full Episcopal function, but the
very types of it which protestants usually refuse most
passionately? His “mitred” locks, Milton was no Bishop lover, the
power of keys claimed by the bishops of Rome, and is it
acknowledged here by Milton only in a poetic licence, for the sake
of its picturesqueness, that he may get the gleam of the golden keys
to help his fact? Milton means what he says, and means it with his
might too—is going to put the whole strength of his spirit presently
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
into the saying of it. For though not a lover of false bishops, he was a
lover of true ones, and the Lake pilot is here, in his thoughts the
type and head of true Episcopal power. For Milton reads that text,
“I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven” quite
honestly. Puritan though he be, he would not blot it, out of the book
because there have been bad bishops, nay in “order to understand
him we must understand that verse first.” (Ibid:46) It is a solemn,
universal assertion, deeply to be kept in mind by all sects. This
insistence on the power of the true episcopate is to make us feel
more weightily what is to be charged against the false claimants of
power and rank in the body of the clergy, they who, “for their
bellies's sake, creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold.”
Milton, finds Ruskin, doesn't use these three words to fill
up his verse but they are requisite, (“Creep” and “intrude” and
“climb”), no other words would or could serve the turn, and not
more could be added. For they exhaustively comprehend the three
classes, correspondent to the three characters, of man who
dishonestly seek ecclesiastical power. First those who “creep” into
the fold, who don't care for office, nor name, but for secret
influence, and do all things occultly and cunningly, consenting to
any servility of office or conduct, so only that they may intimately
discern, and unawares direct, the minds of man. Then those who
“intrude” themselves into the fold—who by natural insolence of
heart, and stout eloquence of tongue and fearlessly perseverant
self-assertion, obtain hearing and authority with the common
crowd. Lastly, those who “climb”—who by labour and learning
both stout and sound, but selfishly exerted in the cause of their
own ambition, gain high dignities and authorities, and become
“lords over the heritage” though not “ensamples to the flock”.
Ruskin, in his analysis of the poem proceeds on:
“Of other care they little reckoning make,
Than how to scramble at the shearers' Feast
Blind mouths.”
This, he finds, “a very strange expression, a broken
metaphor, one might think, careless and unscholarly. But its
audacity and pithiness compels us to look at the phrases and
remember them. Those two monosyllables express the precisely
accurate contraries of right character, in the two great offices of the
church—those of bishop and pastor. A “Bishop” means a person
who sees and a “Pastor” means one who feeds” (Ibid: 47). The most
unbishoply character a man can have is instead of feeding, to want
to be fed—to be a mouth. While we take these two paradoxes
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together, we have “blind mouth” nearly all the evil in the church
have arisen from bishops desiring power more than light. Their
office is not to rule, its kings' office, the bishops' office is to oversee
the flock, to number it sheep by sheep, to be ready always to give
full account of it. But bishops fail to oversee them and, “the hungry
sheep look up, and are not fed, besides what the grim wolf, with
privy paw” (bishops knowing nothing about it), “daily devours
space, and nothing said?”
But it was St. Paul and Milton's idea of bishops not of
Ruskin. Ruskin is only explaining the meaning, borne in the mind
of Milton, his (Ruskin's) notion is not intruding here. He is not
concerned with the right or wrong, nor putting his meaning into
Milton's words. He moves forward, “But swoln with wind, and the
rank must they draw”. This is to meet the vulgar answer that, “If the
poor are not looked after in their bodies, they are in their soul, they
have spiritual food”. And Milton says, “they have no such thing as
spiritual food they are only swollen with wind. It is not a “coarse or
obscure type, but literally accurate” (Ibid: 48). The word “spirit” is
only a contraction of the Latin word “breath” and an indistinct
translation of the Greek word for “wind”. The same word is used in
writing. “The wind bloweth where it listeth”, and in writing “so is
everyone that is born of the spirit”, born of breath, that is, for it
means the breath of God, in soul and body. Words “inspiration”
and “expire” provide the true sense. Now, there are two kinds of
breath with which the flock may be filled, God's breath, and man's;
the breath of God is health, and life, and peace to them, as the air of
heaven is to the flocks on the hills, but man's breath which he calls
spiritual is disease and contagion to them, as the fog of the fan.
They are not inwardly with it; they are puffed up by it, as a dead
body by the vapours of its own decomposition. This is literally true
of all false religious teaching, the first, and the last, and fatalest sign
of it is that “puffing up”. Converted children, who reach their
parents, converted convicts, who teach honest men, converted
dunces, who having lived in cretinous stupefaction of their lives,
suddenly awaking to the fact of there being a God, fancy themselves
therefore His Peculiar people and messengers, sectarian of every
species, small and great, Catholic and Protestant, of high church or
low, in so far as they think themselves exclusively in the right and
others wrong, and pre-eminently, in every sect, those who hold that
man can be saved by thinking rightly instead of doing rightly, by
word instead of act, and wish instead of work, these are the true fog
children-clouds, these without water, bodies these, of putrescent
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
vapour and skin, without blood or flesh, blows bagpipes for the
friends to pipe with—corrupt and corrupting—“Swoln with wind,
and the rank mist they draw.”
Finally, Ruskin presents a comparative study of the
notions regarding the 'power of the keys' of Milton and Dante. Their
interpretations make the sense more clear. Dante is
Weaker in thought, he supposes both the keys to be
of the gate of heaven, one is of Gold, the other of
Silver, they are given by St. Peter to the sentinel
angel, and it is not easy to determine the meaning
either of the substances of three steps of the gate or
of the two keys. But Milton makes one, of gold, the
key of heaven, the other, of iron, the key of prison,
in which the wicked teachers are to be bound who
“have taken away the key of knowledge, yet entered
not in themselves. (Ibid:49)
Thus Ruskin makes “reading” of the poem by close
examination of words, syllables, accent, metaphors, similes,
paradoxes and creating simultaneously the proper textual
situation and transporting himself into, context of unfamiliar,
“masked-words”, “putting himself always in the author's place,
annihilating his own personality and seeking to enter into his” so as
to be able assuredly to say, “Thus Milton thought “not” thus I
thought in mis-reading Milton”(Ibid: 50). This is the first phase of
the process of evaluation that gradually we come to attach less
weight to our own- “Thus I thought”. Ruskin perceived that our
thought was a matter of no serious importance because they are
not perhaps the clearest and wisest that could be arrived at them
upon- in fact, that unless we are a very “Singular” person, we can't
be said to have any “thought” at all, that
We have no materials for them, in any serious
matters—no right to “think” but only to try to learn
more of the fact. Nay most probably all your life
(unless, as I said, you are a singular person) you
will have no legitimate right to an opinion on any
business except that instantly under your hand.
(Ibid: 50)
On certain things we have a single opinion as roguery and
lying are objectionable, and are instantly to be flogged out of the
way, whenever discovered etc. for the rest, respecting religions,
governments, sciences, arts,
You will find, that on the whole, you can know
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NOTHING. Judge nothing, that the best you can do,
even though you may be a well educated person, is
to be silent, and strive to be wiser everyday, and to
understand a little more of the thoughts of others.
With the greater man, you can't fathom their
meaning. (Ibid:51)
But we can perceive the real purposes and teachings of
great artists:
A very little honest study of them will enable you to
perceive that what you took for your own
“judgement” was mere chance prejudice, and
drifted, helpless, entangled weed of castaway
thought, nay, you will see that most men's minds
are indeed little better than rough heath
wilderness, neglected and stubborn, partly barren.
The first thing you have to do for them, and
yourself, is eagerly and scornfully to set fire to this,
burn all the jungle into wholesome ash heaps, and
then plow and sow. All the true literary work before
you, for life, must begin with obedience to that
order. “Break up your fallow ground, and sow not
among thorns.( Ibid: 52)
Our personal prejudices, biases, idiosyncrasies, likings
and dislikings, impressions etc mar the assessment because, if we
have not surrendered ourselves before “order”, “tradition or
external authority” for discipline, it remains, as Eliot calls,
“irregular, chaotic and fragmentary.”(Handy & Max: 39) We should
cultivate a sense of “disinterestedness” discarding “personal
fallacy” and “historical fallacy” to make a real estimate or work of
art “as in it really is”(Arnold: 91). Arnold recommends these traits
for better appraisal, getting direction from great masters of art.
Dr. Johnson uses negative criticism while judging Lycidas
in his Life of Milton. He makes, the shortcomings the weapons of
his criticism and finds there,
...the diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and
the numbers unpleasing…there is no nature, for
there is no truth, there is no art, for there is nothing
new. Its form is that of a pastoral, easy, vulgar, and
therefore, disgusting whatever images it can
supply, are long exhausted and its inherent
improbability always forces dissatisfaction on the
mind…it is not be considered as the effusion of the
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real passion. (Daiches: 242-243)
In the process of evaluation Ruskin advocated and
practiced the method: first, enter into the meaning of the words
and thoughts; second, the higher advance to enter “into their
hearts. As you go to them first for clear sight, so you must stay with
them that you may share at last their just and mighty passion”
(Ruskin:SLI:52). Passion or sensation makes, this is the only
thing, ennobling difference between one man and another, between
one animal and another, because one feels more than another. And
this faculty draws a distinction between one artist with another. All
human creatures, even animals, are possessing this faculty but in
different degrees. “Want of sensation” makes man “Vulgar” and
“simple and innocent vulgarity is merely an untrained and
undeveloped bluntness of body and mind” (Ibid: 53). Vulgar,
precisely in proportion as they are incapable of sympathy, of quick
understanding, in accurate term, Ruskin calls, they lack “tact” or
“touch-faculty of body and soul,” (Ibid: 53) that tact which the
Mimosa has in trees, which the pure women have above all
creatures, fineness and fullness of sensation, beyond reason, the
guide and sanctifier of reason itself. Reason, which is the God given
passion of humanity alone recognizes and determines of humanity
what is true and what God has made good.
The critical reader has to put himself as nearly as possible
where the artist stands. With his mind's eye see it as it was first
made. Then immediately,” feel with them”(Ibid: 53) converting and
transporting to that place where artist stands. Our “appreciation
involves an active reconstruction of all that the artist has done, and
times it must turn into a positive reconstruction of his own in
which he begins to go his separate way”(43). But this
reconstruction is not possible without “pains”. As the “true
knowledge is disciplined and tested knowledge, not the first
thought that comes” (Ruskin:MPIII :53). It (true passion) is not a
“spontaneous overflow of powerful passions” but passions
“recollected in tranquility.” This is not, as Coleridge argues, “fancy”
but of the nature of “imagination.” The prima facie is modified,
reconstructed, compounded, and reshaped to give it artistic
discipline. What the artist has been able to construct, the critic
must be able to reconstruct. The passions or sensations that come
first are, “Vain, the false, the treacherous, if you yield to them they
will lead you wildly and far in vain pursuit, in hollow enthusiasm,
till you have not true purpose and no true passion left. Not that any
feeling possible to humanity is in itself wrong, but only when
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undisciplined”(Ibid: 53). It becomes noble when gets force and
justice, and wrong when weak, unordered, unshaped and
sporadic, and felt for paltry cause. In great and pure society as well
as in great art “no vain or vulgar person “ (Ruskin:SLI:53) can
enter.
Thus Ruskin recommends “wit, learning and thoughtful
soul” –the tools of a critic; comparison and analysis supplement
them. Well-possessed of these tools, the foremost task of a critic is
to, directly penetrate the author's, not his, meaning, whether it is in
tune with critic's ideas or not, less concerns, annihilating his own
personality and assimilating himself into the author's place where
he stands, watching and putting himself more intimately at the
view point of the author, examining the subject, the treatment, the
technique, the spirit expressed, paradoxes, above all the
“literariness” going in “single mind” to the text, “rejecting nothing,
selecting nothing, and scorning nothing, believing all things to be
right and good”, then immediately endeavouring “how best to
penetrate the meaning and instruction.” All the other
idiosyncrasies such as historicism, impressionism, eclecticism etc
be discarded and consider a given text as a dead piece. Ruskin's
inclination, at every point is, as Practical Criticism of 20thcentury
has manipulating, to concentrate primarily on the given text. It
hardly matters whether the literature belongs to past or present. If
it belongs to the past, each fresh effort to understand it must be
made, like hermeneutics by creating the proper context. In the very
next phase, after entering into author's “thoughts and meaning”,
higher advance be made to “enter into their hearts” mighty
passions or sensations be analysed. We should “feel with them and
must be like them”. As Ben Johnson remarked: “To judge of poets
is only the faculty of poets”. To understand a poet we have to
transport ourselves and recreate the ground originally covered by
the artist, to put ourselves in the place where the artist stands and
reconstruct the character of a man by a sympathetic study of his
work. In both, the creative and critical, the process of
reconstruction takes place but in different manner. The creative
artist reconstructs the subjects of external world around him, or in
some internal life experience; but critic finds his subject in other
men's books—in the world of literature. Ruskin adheres that “true
passion is disciplined and tested passion”— it is not the passion
that comes first. It is an organized, modified, recollected,
compounded and coloured by the imagination of the artist—
explicative and close reading is must. If we have got the author's
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meaning and implication borne in literary piece, simultaneously
grasping his sensations and impressions we can let loose our point
of view. Though it may contradict author's point of view. But the
assessment, if follows the process of evaluation advocated by
Ruskin, will bear better results and widen the understanding,
which is the true aim and function of criticism.
Notes:
The present paper is based on one of the chapters of my Doctoral thesis
entitled “Ruskin as a Literary Critic”.
The Complete Works of Ruskin Edited by E.T. Cook and Alexander
Weddernburn in 39 Volumes, London, George Allen, 1903-1912, have
been extensively used in this study, referred to as Works; though his works
in separate editions have also been consulted and referred to occasionally.
WORKS CITED
Daiches, David. Critical Approaches to Literature. London/New
York: Longman, 1985.

Das, B. & Mohanty, J.M. Eds. Literary Criticism. Calcutta, 1985.

Fry, Northrop. “Literature as Context: Milton's Lycidas (1959)”
20th Century Literary Criticism. Ed. David Lodge. London:
Macmillan,1977.

Handy, William J & Westbrook, Max. Eds. Twentieth Century
Criticism. Macmillan: 1974.

Leavis, F.R. “Literary Criticism and Philosophy, a Reply”
Scrutiny. Vol. VI, No.1, 1937.

Newton, K.M. Ed. Twentieth Century Literary Theory. London:
Macmillan, 1988.

Richards, I.A. The Principles of Literary Criticism. New Delhi:
Universal Book Stall: 1999 (Reprint).

Ruskin, John. Works. Vol. 3. Ed. E.T.Cook and Alexander
Weddernburn. London: George Allen, 1903-1912.

---. Modern Painters. Vol. I, Boston, n.d.

---. Modern Painters. Vol. II, Boston, n.d.

---. Modern Painters. Vol. III, Boston, n.d.

---. Sesame and Lilies. Lecture I, Boston, n.d.

Scott-James, R.A. The Making of Literature. London: Secker and
Warburg, 1956.

Worsfold, Wasil. Principles of Literary Criticism. London:
Routledge, 1979.

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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's
The Householder :
A Comic Vignette of Indian Society
G. Baskaran
M. Meena Devi
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is essentially a European writer who
has lived in India and who has given to her experience of life and
society in India an artistic expression. Her novel The Householder
has more fun than philosophy, more satirical and comic spirit than
social documentation of the problems of lower middle-class
individuals. She concentrates on exploring the householder's
economic, educational, familial and social predicaments in a
middle-class urban social setting in Delhi, and creates in the
process, an excellent, entertaining social comedy.
Jhabvala's art of fiction pursues the path of the comic and
evolves the form of a social comedy of manners. She excels in
presenting incongruities of human character and situations.
These incongruities have social, familial and cultural implications
and consequently they become the source of the comic. She is
thoroughly familiar with the life and manners of her adopted
country and shows uncommon insight into the typical traits of
Indians, particularly the urban upper and middle classes as they
keep on undulating between tradition and modernity.
The Householder is a sensitively portrayed social comedy
of a lower middle-class Hindi teacher, Prem reflecting not merely
his monetary and familial problems, but also his complexes, his
sense of failure and frustration and his minor fulfilment. Prem is a
little afraid of his students, incapable of enforcing discipline in
class, and unable to assert himself anywhere except in his house.
He visits Mr. Khanna's house determined to ask for a raise in his
salary and since he is gripped by fear, suggests a raise in Mr. Sohan
Lal's salary instead. Prem tells Mr. Khanna:
'How can he support so many people on Rs. 175
per month?' He took another step forward and
said in a voice passionate with conviction and pity,
'Poverty and want are terrible things. In the
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
Panchatantra it is written “It is better to be dead
than poor.”' (12)
'Poverty and want are terrible things' – this statement
unlocks the heart of The Householder. It explains not only the
major problems of Prem as a husband, as a father, as a teacher, but
it is also central to the social milieu so realistically and skilfully
portrayed in the novel. In the first chapter his main problem is his
low salary, 175 rupees per month. This problem almost haunts
him. He tries to make a representation to the house-owner, Mr.
Seigal, by making him aware of his growing expenses but all in
vain. Prem is too nervous to ask directly and therefore asks his
wife, Indu and his old mother to carry out this mission. In fact, this
reduction in rent is one of his obsessions. The novel ends on the
same pessimistic economic exchange of views between Raj and
Prem. Raj says that landlords must be checked from profiteering.
This is not merely Prem's or Raj's obsession; it is a tangible
economic reality of lower middle-class individuals in India.
Clearly to a European or an Indian in upper-class, even the
mention of rent would imply crudity and lack of good manners.
But this is the stuff of the Indian lower middle class in our urban
societies and Jhabvala catches the colour and the rhythm of their
life with an exquisite sense of fidelity.
In building a novel around Prem's experiences, Jhabvala,
in an interview with Agarwal, demonstrates her awareness “that
what is ludicrous on the surface may be tragic underneath.” The
comic side of Prem's story is chiefly contained in his creator's deft
exposition of his early immaturity. Shy and uncertain of himself,
the very youthful Prem displays an amusing pompousness. He
takes himself very seriously indeed – is he not, after all, a Professor
of Hindi, the son of a distinguished College Principal, an employer
(even if it be only of a single servant boy), the married head of a
household, and even a prospective father? But he is taken
seriously by no one. The companionship of two people, an excollege friend named Raj and a colleague of Prem's named Sohan
Lal who he esteems to be the 'householders' of some years' standing
yields Prem some chequered consolation for his disappointment
in life, and in himself.
Life often seems too much to cope with alone and
inexperienced Prem seeks guidance from those who have travelled
further than he has in 'the round of life', and he attempts to emulate
one or other of these persons, creating comedy for the readers and
disillusionment for himself. Occasionally he resorts to the
121
memory of his late father's example and strives to model himself on
this paternal pattern: “'Strive and strive and strive again!' exhorted
himself, with a show of bravery; and turned promptly to the wrong
person for advice and encouragement”. (38) This wrong person is
Sohan Lal, 'wrong' as a guide to worldly success because his lack of
means proclaims him incompetent and a failure in life, doomed to
be subservient to such worldly 'successful' persons as Mr. Khanna
and Mr. Chaddha.
The theme of marital dissonance finds prominence in
Jhabvala's fiction. Vasant A. Shahane in his book Ruth Prawer
Jhabvala states: “Indian husbands and their Indian wives seem to
fall apart in a purely Indian familial and social situation. This
conflict sometimes arises out of a dash of wills, personalities,
temperaments and also values.” (28) The dash of wills and
personalities is dramatically portrayed in The Householder in the
encounter between Prem and Indu who are married only to
discover that their life patterns are more contradictory than
complementary. He tries to assert his position as the dominant
husband, not allowing her to go to her mother's house, saying, “I
have forbidden you”. She retorts, “who are you to forbid me?”
This conflict between a growing sense of individualism and the
orthodox tradition of a man-ridden Indian society is genuinely
representative of the post-second war phase of Indian society.
While Prem strives to establish himself in the linked roles
of husband, breadwinner and householder, Indu finds some
difficulty in accommodating her individual, lively outlook to the
requirements of her role as married woman and housewife. Indian
tradition lays down time-honoured rules for a wife's conduct and
Indu finds that there exist certain ideals according to which her
husband and her mother-in-law expect her to behave. Indu and
Prem are little more than children, innocents doing their best to
conduct themselves according to the traditional 'rules' governing
the adult world to which marriage has brought them.
Unfortunately, their good intentions often place them in comical
opposition to each other. Prem's plan to assert himself in the role
of authoritative husband collides with Indu's intention to prove
herself a model housewife.
He would have been quite pleased if his food had
been slightly delayed, but Indu was very prompt
with it […] She kept bringing him more hot
chapattis […] (49-50)
When she is annoyed with Prem, Indu might serve his food
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
to him with a defiant little slam, but will still prepare it with care
and serve it to him herself. Returning home rather late to find the
house dark and silent and Indu asleep, he reflects, “It was not right
for a wife to go to sleep before she had served her husband however
late he might come. He considered for a moment whether to wake
her up and tell her so.” (46) These incidents are typical of the
misunderstandings which punctuate the early months of their
married life. A good deal of comedy arises out of the efforts of Indu
and Prem to fit themselves into the traditional roles of housewife
and householder. Prem, who has idealistic concepts regarding the
nature of girls, is confounded by Indu's practicality and feminine
directness:
'It is not nice to talk like that', he reproved her.
'What did I say? Only what is true'. He would have
explained to her that it is not always right for a girl
to say what is true: but what use was explaining? A
girl should understand these things by herself.
(23-24)
Both Prem and Indu have been brought up in a tradition
that taboos open displays of love between husband and wife,
resulting in their mutual reluctance to admit, even in private, their
affection for and need of each other. The conflicts thus created are
both comic and touching. Prem, while writing a letter to Indu,
instead of telling her that he misses her, writes about the weather
and the current price of mangoes and again expresses his love for
her. But the letter is never dispatched and he burns it as he is
ashamed of the thought that his mother may read it. On a long busride to Mehrauli to attend a wedding,
They did not talk all the way, for they would have
felt it to be indelicate to have a conversation
together in public. They were also careful to sit far
enough apart never to come into contact with one
another, however much the bus rattled and shook
them. (130)
Prem's marital relations with Indu are delicately and
sensitively portrayed by Jhabvala. At one stage Prem feels that he
is married to a woman who was not only quite different from what
he had wished and hoped for, but who also opposed him in his
wishes. This apparent marital dissonance later dissolves into
experiences of real affection and love. After Indu's departure for
her home, Prem really feels drawn to her psychically and
emotionally.
123
In this novel The House Holder we have a typical sample of
Indian domestic comedy in the conflicts between the mother-inlaw, and the daughter-in-law, the one with overt accusations, the
other with silent hostility or at the most, obliquely expressed wrath
of which the servant boy is the proxy recipient. The character of
Prem's mother adds substantially to the comedy of the novel. A
middle-aged widow, she directs towards her only son a smothering
maternal affection. Her ceaseless reflections on Indu's alleged lack
of looks and education, and supposed inadequacies as a housewife
create a rather strained atmosphere in the small flat during her
visit. Her mother's presence and her solitude for him make even
private conversation between husband and wife impossible in the
tiny flat. Prem is naturally annoyed by these and he realizes that he
wants to be looked after not by his mother but by Indu, and he
wants to look after her. In responsibly coming to terms with what
is tragic underneath the circumstances of his life, Prem advances
to maturity: “He knew that whatever it might cost him, he had to
hold on to his job. He had to do everything, accept everything, for
the sake of holding on to his job.” (124) His decision to protect
Indu from the knowledge that insecurity would forever threaten
them gives him greater dignity than all his anxious self-assertion in
the early days of their marriage. He reconciles himself with his
present position in life and finds happiness.
Sohan Lal is the only character in The Householder who is
not a source of comedy. Sensitive and despondent as a result of
the discouraging life he leads, Sohan Lal's remarks convey deepreaching criticism, not only of the Indian system of early arranged
marriage which has deprived him of freedom to live the spiritual
life to which his temperament calls him, but of the Hindu view of
life of which such marriage is a part:
Who would not turn to God and take pleasure only
in thinking about Him, if he could? […] Here in our
India […] it is so that while we are still children and
know nothing of what we want, they take us and tie
us up with a wife and children […] So […] when we
are old enough to know what the world is and God
is, then it is too late, for we have a burden on our
back which we cannot shake off for the rest of our
days. (97)
Early marriage has deprived this thoughtful, sensitive young man
of all joy and of any purpose in life beyond that of deferring
endlessly, for security's sake, to Mr. Khanna and his wife.
124
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
The Seigals are comfortably off, and thoroughly enjoy their
nightly card-parties. Prem would like to be comfortably off
himself, but does not admire the Seigals' way of living. Despite his
innate politeness and respect for others, Prem instinctively
disapproves of the Seigals. Their good humour cannot, in his eyes,
excuse their self-indulgent indolence. He did not think that such
ease was conducive to a really noble life.
Khanna, though outwardly a dedicated educationist is in
reality a practical businessman who exploits the poorer teachers in
his pay and expels no student since he could not bear to refund the
fees. Mr. Khanna's greed and indifference to the problems of Prem
and Sohan Lal exposes his pretensions to culture and sensitivity.
Through this Jhabvala brings out the difference between the upper
and the middle class Indian families.
Another peculiarly Indian situation is the attraction that
the symbols of spiritual life and ideals have for the individual
harassed by the struggles of existence. His concern for them is at
once escapist and genuine. Meena Belliappa, in her article “A
Study of Jhabvala's Fiction”, brings forth this thus:
This characteristically Indian attitude is rendered
absurd in the discrepancy between Prem's
momentary God-intoxication and the consequent
ascetic aspirations, and the inevitable return, the
next instant, to the physical reality of a young wife
and mundane anxieties about rent and job. (75)
Jhabvala's satiric exposition of Raj's unprepossessing
personality is part of the analysis undertaken in the novel as a
whole of the cramping effects of Indian social convention upon the
young and hopeful. Once a carefree young student, Raj now
dismisses young men who have not yet found an occupation as
mere 'loafers'. He is much better off than Prem, but thinks much of
the price of a bus-ride, ignores the appeals of beggars, and lets
Prem pay for his tea. Prem's encounters with a group of Western
'spiritual seekers' in Delhi not only contribute a good deal to the
comedy of the novel but also expose Raj's increasing materialism.
Hans, Prem's German friend, is attracted to India in
various ways. He is up against Maya, the illusion, and the concrete,
the worldly realities of India simultaneously. He is greatly
influenced by India's spiritual richness and declares
enthusiastically, “How I love your India”. (30) Hans and Kitty both
desire to recruit Prem to join the band of the seekers after the spirit
and invite him to live with them. Hans confesses that he realizes
'God-consciousness'. Prem is astonished by the behaviour of these
westerners and their interest in Indian philosophy, spirituality and
yoga, because he is of the general view that the west is highly
materialistic.
Jhabvala is pre-eminently a novelist of domestic life, its
joys and sorrows, its harmony and friction, its fulfillment and
frustration. Since she is concerned with a money-civilization in its
domestic setting, she seeks to present the material reality which is
significant in the metaphysic of her art. She is much preoccupied
with portraying the predicament of individuals in their
relationship to the family, to the social group, in a way which
demonstrates her Indianness. She views the game of human
affairs in an Indian family from a point of view which is both
objective and unsentimental.
Jhabvala's knowledge and
awareness of the Indian character, the Indian family, the Indian
society and the Indian sensibility assume great significance.
WORKS CITED
Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer. The Householder, London: Penguin
Books, 1980.
l
Agarwal, R. “An Interview with Ruth Prawer Jhabvala”. Quest:
91, 1974. p.34.
l
Shahane, A. Vasant. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Delhi: ArnoldHeinemann Publishers (India) Private Ltd., 1983.
l
Belliappa, Meena.
“A Study of Jhabvala's Fiction”. The
Banasthali Patrika No.12 (Special issue on Indo-English
Literature, January 1969) p. 75.
l
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
A Study of Globalisation,
Nationalism and Subalterns (Women)
in the Novels of Amitav Ghosh
Dr. Anju Bala Agrawal
Globalization of literature and man has added new
dimensions to interpretation of culture, location, relocation, exile,
reinstatement of identity and their narration. Indian writers with a
re-ignited interest in their native culture retain the thematic and
political connection with the national background and also
establish fresh links with the Euro-American metropolis. When we
discuss globalization and nationalism, we need to reexamine the
site and subjectivity of the migrant woman-the newness desired
and imagined by her and the globalised forces that produce those
desires, simultaneously deny those desires and that newness. The
paper presents Amitav Ghosh's critique of nationalism and
globalization in his novels where we also find a need to rethink the
relation between the desire for a home and belonging and the
desire for capital that often drives migration. In his novels, through
the experiences of poor and middle class female migrants, Ghosh
makes visible the physical and psychic violence done to those who
are minor to hegemonic languages of the nation and of
globalization-by their class, gender, race or ethnicity.
In The Circle of Reason, Ghosh offers a grim exploration of
the oppression of migrancy where reason and capital become
metonymic and circulating forces in the world. He focuses on a
motley group of migrants drawn from various parts of India on an
imaginary island. The novel marks the search for meaningfulness
of those whose lives are displaced by globalization and whose very
bodies bear the violent marks of this passage. In the chapter
“Becalmed”, we get a powerful and revelatory vision of
Globalisation. Here we get a sense of the different lives, motives
and aspirations of the passengers of the rickety boat Mariamma
which is taking them to al-Ghazira as migrant labourers. They are
all headed for al-Ghazira, a prosperous sea-port of trade. In the
boat, we find Alu, the protagonist who is evading an incompetent
127
Indian police apparatus and an absurd charge over a ridiculously
escalated petty conflict between his scientific uncle Balaram and
the traditional, corrupt, village landlord Bhudeb Roy; Zindi, a
'madam' who runs a house of prostitution in al-Ghazira after she
was banished from her matrimonial home on account of her
barrenness; Karthamma and Kulfi who have been picked up by
Zindi to be prostitutes there; Rakesh, an ex-traveling salesman of
Ayurvedic laxatives which he could never sell; Professor Samuel
who propounds theories about queues; and others.
The condition of migrant women who are travelling by
Mariamma is the most illustrative of migrancy's paradox of
opportunity and oppression, betterment and loss. The
conscientious and moralizing Professor Samuel sees the Indian
women who are going to al-Ghazira to be prostitutes in Zindi's
house as enslaved and exploited: “She's a madam . . . if she wasn't,
why would she be herding these poor prisoners in the cabin? I tell
you, she's going to sell them into slavery in al-Ghazira.
Something like that. Or worse.”( The Circle of Reason:173) On the
other hand, Zindi's perspective is different. She not only sees
herself as being of help to the women, but she also insists that the
relations between them are not of 'business' but of 'family':
And, as for women, why, when I get to India I don't
have to do anything. These women find me and
come running. Take me, Zindi- no, me, Zindi-didi –
don't take her, she's got lice. They go on like that.
But I don't take them all. I take only the good girls –
clean polite, hardworking. That's why I have to go
to India myself to look ... the whole of al-Ghazira
knows that Zindi's girls are reliable and
hardworking ... and so I get a little extra, too, not
much. It's not a business; it's my family, my aila,
my own house, and I look after them, all the boys
and girls, and no one's unhappy and they all love
me.”(CR,181)
Zindi and Samuel's conversation expresses the situation of
the migrant women as commodity (“I take only the good girls”,
“she's going to sell them”), a labourer (“Zindi's girls are
hardworking and reliable”), a daughter (“my family ... I look after
them”), as a “prisoner”, and a “slave”. Actually at Mariamma,
migrant women are both enslaved as well as “free”. They are
speaking agents and abject subjects. To quote, “they don't look like
prisoners ... They seemed quite happy to come onto the boat.
(CR, 173)
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
The question of national identity has been raised by the
narrator in one of the incident related to Karthamma (one of
Zindi's migrant workers). Karthamma is pregnant. Her labour has
started and she should deliver the baby there on the boat but she
refuses to give birth to a child. She speaks saying things in her
language which is translated later on by Professor Samuel:
She says she won't deliver without signing the right
forms. That's what she says. She'll keep it in for as
long as she has to . . . She says that she knows that
the child won't be given a house or a car or anything
at all if she doesn't sign the forms. It'll be sent back
to India, she says, and she would rather kill it than
allow that to happen; kill it right now with a bottle
while its still in her womb. ( CR,177)
Here, the mention of forms is a metaphor. The 'forms' can
be seen as conferring legitimacy upon what she recognizes to be her
illegitimate child. The sign image of 'forms' is here saturated with
multiple, imbricated and perhaps contradictory meanings. This
sign carries the burden of representing the different discursive
networks of desire and social imaginaries that The Circle of
Reason traces out. Thus the fellow travellers give their own
explanations regarding Karthamma's desire for forms. The image
of the form carries the condensation of all of Karthamma's desires,
wishes, hopes, disappointments and pain but what the forms
really represent for Karthamma is mysterious and unknowable,
beyond the literal sense. If we take her desire for a house and a car
and everything else for her child literally, we may interpret it as a
general desire for material comfort for her unborn child and the
forms as the instrumental means to go about attaining it.
Figuratively, forms are marked by a desire for 'home': home as a
place of comfort, as a sense of rootedness and belonging, as a
future time of a secure life. For Karthamma, 'home' is not just the
domestic space of a house, but also to a community (national or
otherwise) in which one has a place.
Her fixation on the forms whose names she doesn't even
know demonstrates the extent of power that those disempowered
imagine as held by bureaucracy and the law. The forms indicate
not only a bureaucratized, regulated experience of life and
Karthamma's faith in it, but also hold out the promises of a middle
class life-style in a capitalist nation state. Karthamma imagines a
new life for her child. It is her condition of migrancy that enables
her to imagine a newness she is alienated from, for her child. Here,
129
I would like to quote a few lines from Appadurai's essay
“Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy”:
(Today) many persons on the globe live in such
imagined worlds (and not just in imagined
communities) and thus are able to contest and
sometimes even subvert the imagined world of the
official mind and of the enterepreneurial mentality
that surround them.” (Appadurai:329)
Through the experience of the gendered subaltern migrant,
Ghosh adds new dimension to the concept of globalization. In the
Circle of Reason, Ghosh follows up Appadurai's proposition to
theorize “certain fundamental disjunctures between economy, culture
and politics.” (Appadurai:328) He explicates the political limits of
the subjective imagination construed as an agent, especially when
the subject is female, sub-proletarian, and outside a familial, but
inside a patriarchal structure. Karthamma's imaginative wish for
those material goods which she has never used is not only
disproportionate in relation to her means and lifestyle, but it is
also disjunct from the horizon of expectation attached to her
structural position in the global economy. In Karthamma's
condition we witness the ruthless dislocation of “interests,
motives (desires), and power(of knowledge),”(Spivak:280) that
Spivak suggests is endemic to the dynamic economic situation of
globalized capitalism. The narrativization of Karthamma's labour
illustrates, as Spivak has pointed out that global capitalism
involves,
“the increasing subtraction of the working class in
the Periphery from the realization of surplus value
and thus from “humanistic” training in
consumerism . . . In their (female of the urban
subproletariat) case, the denial and withholding of
consumerism and the structure of exploitation is
compounded by patriarchal social relations . . .
The woman is doubly in shadow.”(Spivak:280)
Thus in The Circle of Reason, the circle becomes a
metaphor for the historical circulation of capital first through
colonialism and then through the neo-colonialism of globalization,
reveals and criticizes the structural failure of the promises of both
nationalism and globalization for the sub-proletarian migrant
woman-rendered minor by her gender, race and class.
The Shadow Lines focuses on the lives of two generations
of migrant women-the grandmother and Ila – through which
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different kinds of promises of nationality and migration rendered
common by globalization are belied. The Shadow Lines is the
story of an unnamed narrator's family in Calcutta and Dhaka, and
their connection with an English family in London. The spanning
period of the story is nineteen thirties to the present. The
relationship between the narrator's grandmother and her
animosity towards the daughter of her sister's son emblematizes
the conflict between nationalism and a migrant cosmopolitanism.
The narrator's grandmother is called Tha'mma in the family. She
grows up in the tumultuous days of the Indian freedom struggle in
Dhaka and is fiercely nationalist. She reveals to the narrator that
she had once dreamed of joining the Bengali revolutionaries who
struggled to overthrow the mantle of colonial oppression. Having
grown up in Dhaka and living in Burma where her husband works,
she migrates to Calcutta in the thirties when he suddenly dies. She
starts teaching in a school and single-handedly raises her children.
She is fervently patriotic and has embraced the anti-colonial
nationalism in whose revolutionary activities she could not directly
participate because she was a woman.
Ila is the privileged daughter of a diplomat and attempts to
articulate a cosmopolitanism. She has grown up in different parts
of the world. She visits India in the summer holidays but she
decides to study and live in England. The reason behind this
decision is that Ila can't tolerate Indian patriarchal oppression. An
incident clears this notion. There is a confrontation between Ila
and her cousin Robi at a discotheque in Calcutta. Robi denies Ila to
dance with any man but she defiantly begins to dance on the dance
floor with a stranger. Robi hits the stranger and drags Ila out of the
disco, saying that “girls don't behave like that here . . . its our
culture”(The Shadow Lines:87). Ila, furious and crying, shouts at
the narrator, “Do you see why I've chosen to live in London? Do you
see? It's only because I want to be free . . . Free in your bloody
culture and free of all of you.”(SL,87)
The grandmother also desires freedom from British
subjection but she doesn't like Ila's desire of freedom. “Its not
freedom she wants . . . she wants to be left alone to do what she
pleases; that's all any whore would want. She'll find it easily enough
over there; that's what those laces have to offer. But that is not what
it means to be free.”(SL, 88) In fact, the grandmother's notion of
freedom as liberty from colonial subjection refuses Ila's notion of
personal freedom, but for both, the source of freedom is either the
nation or a migrant, metropolitan cosmopolitanism.
131
The grandmother's desire for a national community free
from British subjection culminates in the failure of the middle
class life she had envisioned for herself because of the partition of
1947. She is separated from her family and home in Dhaka and
displaced to Calcutta through the partition brought by the
postcolonial freedom she had fervently hoped for. Tha'mma has
“no home but in memory”. She wanted a middle class life in which
she would thrive believing in the unity of nationhood and territory,
of self-respect and nation power but history had denied to provide
this thing and for which she could never forgive history. For
Tha'mma, her alienation from her place of birth Dhaka by
partition, the internal religions and regional conflicts between
“Muslim or Hindu, Bengali or Punjabi” that fracture the fabric of
her free country and finally, the communal violence that claimed
her nephew Tridib's life in Dhaka, all embody the failure of the
dream of freedom. Tha'mma's vision of freedom from British
subjection also included a vision of national identity-citizenship
that articulated a homeliness and sense of belonging. Communal
hostility after partition fails to realize the promise of national
citizenship and unity. The partition, not only separates Tha'mma
from her family and her childhood home, but its legacy of violence
fails to replace that loss with national unity and belonging.
Ghosh insists on the need to critique the myths of both
nationalism and globalization. In The Shadow Lines, nationalism
is challenged not only through the subjectivity of Tha'mma whose
unrealized ideals of national citizenship and belonging are belied,
but also through the testimony of riot violence. The borders of
India and Pakistan become sites of violence-violence that shreds
communities, bloodies a common historical memory and
displaces whole population as refugees. It suggests that communal
violence can also make visible the connections between and the
continuity of social relations and communities that nation states
seeks to efface.
Although Ghosh's women characters are central to his
narrative for the most part they bear the burden of articulating
certain position such as those of militant nationalism,
cosmopolitanism etc. In The Glass Palace, women act as
independent entities, growing and developing according to their
own inclinations and finding social acceptance, defining their own
space, determining their own lives, fighting their own follies,
enjoying the fruits of victory and never fearing to taste the
bitterness of defeat. Most of the women characters are shown as
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
determining the major decisions of their own lives. Besides it, they
are invested with national consciousness. Uma is a woman of
substance. After her husband's sudden and tragic death, she
travels abroad. She is quite the equal of many respectable and
cultured Western women in similar circumstances. She does not
like to spend time in leisured ease. She later joins Indian
Nationalistic Movement and is part of the intelligentsia of the
subcontinent in a peculiarly displaced way. She is imbued in a
culture that gives her what Said terms an almost “aggressive sense of
nation, home, community and belonging” and she is, like most of
Ghosh's other protagonists, “a citizen of the world.” (Said:12) Uma
Dey who leads the conservative, sheltered life of an early twentieth
century Bengali lady has no difficulty in adjusting to life in America
and Europe. In fact, Ghosh's women have a cosmopolitan outlook,
so essential in this era of globalization. Most of the characters are
able to move from one country to another without much trauma.
The diasporic condition of many people of Indian origin is seen in
the life of Dolly, who “suffers from a sense of imaginary homeland in
India.”(Kadam:25) Dolly feels that Burma she has left behind is lost
to her forever. Though at the deportment of the royal family to
India, she was free, but this freedom is not welcome to her. In the
erstwhile kingdom, she was a slave but in her heart of heart she is
not happy by the displacement from her native roots and her
discomfort with her own changed identity is clear when she
vehemently declares to Uma that she could now never return
home:
If I went out Burma now I would be a foreigner-they
would call me a kalaa like they do Indians – a
trespasser, an outsider from across the sea. I'd find
that very hard I think. I'd never be able tom rid
myself of the idea that I would have to leave again
one day, just I had to leave before. You would
understand if you knew what it was like when we
left.(The Glass Palace:113)
In fact, Dolly is unable to identify herself totally with India.
As a colonized subject, she suffers from a sense of unreal and
imaginary homeland. Later, Uma and Dolly narrowly escapes
being killed in riot-hit Rangoon. Dolly's final mission in Burma
brings her life full circle from her beginnings as a slave girl behind
the palace walls of Mandalay to her voluntary submission to the
cloistered life in the nunnery where she quietly passes away.
Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide challenges the
133
distancing and objectifying force of emerging categories like global
and world literature. The material aspects of globalization may
lead to a neglect of, on the one hand, the abiding importance of that
which is less mobile, local or national and, on the other hand, the
ways in which globalization is worked out through symbolic and
literary representation, in addition to demographic flows and
economic exchanges. The plot of the novel The Hungry Tide has
three major threads, stylistically combining scientific observation,
ethnography, historiography and romance. First, there is Piyali
Roy a young NRI cetologist (one who studies of whales, dolphins
and related mammals) who comes to Sundarbans to search the
endangered species. She meets Kanai Dutt, a multilingual
interpreter from New Delhi who is also traveling to Sunderbans.
Kanai's journey also leads to the second plotline. Kanai's aunt
Nilima has lived in one of the islands for years; she sends for him
after the discovery of a diary belonging to her long-dead husband
Nirmal, a Marxist schoolteacher whose withdrawal from political
activism had brought them to settle in a Sundarbans village. As
Kanai reads the diary, its narrative of past events, hopes and
disappointments (held together as much by the inexorable flow of
historical time as by Nirmal's constant evocation of lines from
Rilke's Duino Elegies), is interwoven with other stories. These
include Kanai's own memories of a visit he paid his uncle and aunt
as a child, his present experiences as a guest at Nilima's hospital.
The third plotline concerns a local fisherman named Fokir, who
although unable to communicate with Piya, helps her find some of
the river dolphins (Orcaella) she is searching. The time Fokir and
Piya spend together on a small boat searching for river dolphins
does not lead to a consummation of their emotionally wrought
relationship, unless consummation comes in the form of a dying
Fokir breathing heavily down Piya's neck as they sit tied together by
a sari to the trunk of a tree as the eye of the storm passes. Although
almost all her equipment and notes were lost in the cyclone, Piya
kept her GPS monitor which recorded their movements when
“Fokir took the boat into every little creek and gully where he'd ever seen a
dolphin. That one map represents decades of work and volumes of
knowledge.”(The Hungry Tide:328)
Ghosh raises the question of national identity for
subalterns through the Morichjhapi incident described in Nirmal's
diary. In 1978 a group of refugees fled from the Dandakaranya
camp in Madhya Pradesh and came to the island of Morichjhapi in
the Sundarbans with the intention of settling there. They cleared
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
the land for agriculture, and began to fish and farm. But their
presence there alarmed the Left Front ministry, who saw it as the
first of a possibly endless series of encroachments on protected
forest land, and the settlers were evicted in a brutal display of state
power in May, 1979. Many, like the girl Kusum in Ghosh's novel,
Kanai's childhood playmate who becomes the repository of
Nirmal's idealist hopes, were killed. Nirmal, who stays with the
settlers during those final hours, is later discovered wandering in
the port town of Canning; he is shattered by the event and never
recovers. Kusum is the most inspiring character for she voices the
innate tragic bewilderment of human civilization-the eternal tangle
between progress and poverty; fauna and food; conservation and
sustenance. On hearing the policeman's announcements that the
island had to be saved for its trees, that it belonged to a project to
save tigers, Kusum ruminates: “Who are these people, I wondered,
who love animals so much that they are willing to kill us for
them?”(HT, 262)
Here, the spirit of globalization has been presented from a
new angle. It is different from his previous novels. The book
presents the power of translation that the writer has presented. globalisation has had an enormous impact on translators' lives and
work. Ghosh seems to suggest that translation is not a purely
linguistic affair it is not a question of venturing into a foreign and
alien language and extracting or recovering meaning back to a local
or native tongue but a pervasive condition of transformation in
modernity hence Nirmal and Rilke's sense that our country is
already translated and the whole tide country seems to be speaking
in Rilke's voice in an eternal present tense. The Hungry Tide makes
translation a process of making contemporary or coeval.
The Circle of Reason and The Shadow Lines, both make
visible the violence of nationalism and globalization through the
representations of their material and psychological abjection on
women's bodies and women's lives. The novels show the failures of
nationalism and globalization in the lives of those who are minor in
their gender, class and ethnicity.In The Glass Palace, he describes
the experience of people taught in the moment of the breaking of
nations and their relatively easy sliding into alien cultures even as
their fissured identities trigger off. In The Hungry Tide, Ghosh
routes the debate of eco-environmental and cultural issues
through the intrusion of the West into the East. He seems to be
worried that the local instead of being global has been substituted
by a growing tendency of the local being abolished, suppressed or
135
sidelined to make way for the global.
To sum up, Amitav Ghosh's novels claim a unique position
in the postcolonial literature as they explore and sometimes
uncritically celebrate the hybridity of postcolonial nationality and
migration. Ghosh instead points to the transnationality of
community and memory through the critique of the gendered
violence effected minor bodies and minor lives by the structure and
politics of both nationalism and globalization. Ghosh's novels have
reverberated the forms of violence that nationality and
globalization present in the home, in domestic spaces and in
private lives. He has also focused on dislocation, perplexity,
commotion and disorganization faced by the subalterns in the
process of nationalism and globalization.
WORKS CITED
Amitav Ghosh, The Circle of Reason, New York: Viking, 1986.
Subsequent references to the text are from this edition and have
been indicated by page numbers in parentheses. Hereafter
referred as CR.
l
Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of
Globalization, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
l
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Can Subalterns Speak?” Marxism
and the Interpretation of Culture, eds. Cary Nelson and Lawrence
Grossberg, Urbana University of Illinois Press, 1988.
l
Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines, New York: Penguin, 1988.
Subsequent references to the text are from this edition and have
been indicated by page numbers in parentheses. Hereafter
referred as SL
l
Said Edward, The World, the text and the Critic, New York:
Vintage, 1991,
l
Kadam, Mansing G. 'Amitav Ghosh's The Glass Palace: A PostColonial Novel', Indian Writing in English, Binod Mishra and
Sanjay Kumar, (eds.) New Delhi: Atlantic, 2006.
l
Amitav, Ghosh, The Glass Palace,New Delhi: Ravi Dayal and
Permanent Black, 2000.
l
Amitav, Ghosh, The Hungry Tide, New Delhi: Harper Collins
Publishers, 2004. Subsequent references to the text are from
this edition and have been indicated by page numbers in
parentheses. Hereafter referred as HT.
l
136
137
Suffering Precedes Spiritual Enlightenment:
A Study of R. K. Narayan's
The English Teacher
Amandeep Rana
The world is not an earthly paradise with all happiness and
pleasures. Suffering also constitutes a major part of life on earth. It
is a necessary part of our routine life. Happiness and suffering are
punctuation marks in the line of life-span. One aspect cannot be
realized well without the taste of the other. To understand and
experience light, we need to experience darkness. In order to
evaluate beauty, we need contacts with ugliness. Similarly, to
experience happiness in life, we need to encounter suffering and
misery. It is perhaps for this reason that God allows suffering to us
or we create it for ourselves for a better understanding and
experience of spiritual enlightenment. All of us have sorrows in our
lives, but all have our share of pleasure and happiness also. It is
human nature that we cry over our miseries and suffering and
hardly harp on our happiness and pleasant experiences. We
simply feel sad when things go wrong for us or away from us, but
we take it quite natural when something good or joyous happens in
our favour.
R. K. Narayan's novel The English Teacher is a study not
only of the intense suffering that Krishna and Susila experience in
their lives, but also explains Krishna's spiritual development
which comes only after intense suffering. The novel “portrays the
anguish of the husband after the untimely death of his wife, and his
experience of the spirit world in his quest for contact with her”
(Sahai 35). Susila dies due to illness at the end of the third chapter,
and subsequent part of the book deals with the responsibilities
that Krishna has to shoulder as the father of a little girl, Leela. The
second half of the novel details the spiritual enlightenment which
he achieves by overpowering all his suffering and by developing his
mind and heart through practice. Sita Kapadia describes his
development in: “An absence of worldly wisdom, a pervasive
listlessness, as well as an emptiness, seems to hover over his life,
even when he is seemingly happily married. It is only after his wife's
death, when he is intuitively drawn to the life of spiritual living, that
he finds fulfillment in non-attachment, sacrifice, and service,
maturing thus far beyond his earlier self-absorption” (70).
The story of the novel begins with the very harmonious
married life of Krishna, an English teacher and Susila, his wife. But
after her sudden illness and subsequent death, life becomes
jejune, insipid and almost impossible for Krishna. He cannot bear
the separation of his beloved wife, and a vacuity occupies his mind.
It is quite natural that “the teacher feels stunned and benumbed to
witness the premature and tragic death of his beloved wife. . . . the
loss of the essential harmony in his life, turns the bereaved
husband philosophical” (Dnyate 72). His responsibility as a father,
however, strengthens his mind as he forgets all his sorrows in the
company of his daughter. The situation in which the child and the
father are caught, is really very pathetic. In this connection,
William Walsh points out: “The child, whose personality is a tiny,
brilliant mirror of her mother's, keeps the mother's presence from
fading away, while increasing the painful sense of her absence”
(Walsh 56). Gradually, he attunes himself with life. His life,
however, takes a turn when he receives a letter from a village
peasant. The letter bears his address, but he finds that the sender
neither really knows him personally nor does he know his address.
The letter carries a very strange message from his wife:
This is a message for Krishna from his wife Susila
who recently passed over.... She has been seeking
all these months some means of expressing herself
to her husband, but the opportunity has occurred
only to-day, when she found the present gentleman
a very suitable medium of expression. Through
him she is happy to communicate. She wants her
husband to know that she is quite happy in another
region, and wants him also to eradicate the grief in
his mind. We are nearer each other than you
understand. And I'm always watching him and the
child.... (106)
The wording in the letter puzzles Krishna. He is unable to
meet the situation and, at once, decides to visit the sender with the
boy who brought the letter. Finally, he meets the person who has
developed the art of talking to the spirits of dead people. He is in a
position to ask questions from the spirits and write down their
replies on a sheet of paper. No other person, however, can listen to
the spirits when they communicate. One can only read whatever he
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writes on the paper as a reply. This man gets the name and address
of Krishna through a vision though the former is completely
unknown to the latter. Thus begins a friendship between the two
characters. Later, the man also helps Krishna in practicing and
perfecting the art of communication with the spirits.
This new experience fills a new thrill in Krishna's life and
he almost forgets all his suffering: “The horror of his experience of
his wife's physical death was transformed into a kind of spiritual
elation when he was told by his wife that she existed in a finer and
more refined state of pure spiritual existence” (Goyal 1983, 13). In
a couple of occult sittings, Krishna realizes that the spirit, he
communicates with, is really that of his wife. He confirms it by
asking various private questions which only Susila could reply.
Rohit Mehta asserts: “The communication between the Living and
the Departed can be so meaningful that by talking things over they
can both be free from their psychological complexes . . . (80). The
episode of communication with the help of the man begins to occur
every week. This is the point where from the journey of Krishna's
spiritual enlightenment begins, leading him to “the unique
experience of mystical ecstasy at the end of the novel” (Sahai 40). In
a number of communications, Susila's spirit acquaints him with
several facts that he is unaware of or careless of. This is the
beginning of his development as “an individual believing in and
afraid of death into one who accepts death as a part of life to live
like a selfless ascetic” (Ramana 61). Gradually, there occurs a great
change in his life and behaviour and it seems to him that a new
spirit, a new inspiration has developed within him: “Nowadays I
went about my work with a light heart. I felt as if a dead load had
been lifted. The day seemed full of possibilities of surprise and joy.
. . . The sense of futility was leaving me. I attended to my work
earnestly” (120).
It is out of sorrow and suffering that man becomes
interested in philosophical matters and begins his spiritual quest.
This may not happen universally, but in most cases it does. After a
few sittings dealing with the recollection of previous life, there
begins the spiritual training of Krishna. Both, the man and the
spirit of Susila, begin to enlighten his mind and soul by lecturing
him on various spiritual truths. At this point of the novel, it seems
that the only motive of such communication is to train Krishna's
mind in such a way so that he may rise above all levels of suffering.
Susila's spirit enlightens him by presenting him various thoughts:
“Between thought and fulfillment there is no interval. Thought is
139
fulfillment, motion and everything. That is the main difference
between our physical state and yours. In your state a thought to be
realized must always be followed by effort directed towards
conquering obstructions and inertia – that is the nature of the
material world. But in our condition no such obstruction exists”
(131-132).
In due course of time, another turn comes in his life. He
misses three or four sittings with the peasant, the medium of his
communication with Susila. The man, in fact, leaves the place for
some urgent reasons with no definite clue of his return. This gives a
shock to Krishna. He himself tries to establish a psychic
communication with his wife by sitting alone at the same place, but
fails. He repeats his words to call Susila but in vain. His failure
results in trauma. He realizes that he is talking to himself: “I felt
ridiculous talking to myself thus. My words fell on a deep silence
and died without a response – the faintest would have made me
happy, but it was not there” (149). He feels desolate and the
thoughts of uselessness of existence without Susila or even without
a communication with her, again begin to haunt him. It causes
immense spiritual suffering to him. True, we suffer when we fail to
fulfill our desires. This is also equally true that we suffer terribly
when we lose all what we achieve with our efforts. Krishna's all
desires of communicating with his wife do not materialize, the
outcome of which is severe spiritual suffering. His passion to hear
more and more from the spirit of his wife by transcending the
obstacles justify his suffering. His suffering at this point of his life
is beyond words. It seems to him that no ray of life is left for him:
“For the first time in months, I felt desolate. The awful
irresponsiveness of Death overwhelmed me again. It unnerved me.
All the old moods returned now” (149). The hopelessness of the
reunion and the resultant frustration lead him to contemplate
suicide. The life seems useless to him and there seems no scope of
a blissful and joyful future. His “playing with Leela may look
unbecoming for his profession. But beneath the insane behaviour
seems to be concealed his spiritual maturity of understanding the
world of innocence” (Dnyate 113). It appears to him that suicide or
death is the only alternative to end this ordeal. His contemplation
about committing suicide is a clear symptom and result of the
spiritual suffering he experiences at this moment of his life. He
finds himself at the position when there is no other option left for
him. In this regard, Wyatt's comment is worth notice: “That
'illusion' or that false reality, deceives us, most especially when it
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takes on such forms as the 'illusion' of Love, of Suffering or Death.
Unyielding emotions necessarily follow such experiences. And
because of the impact they produce in our lives and impress in our
minds we tend to see them as truly real” (60).
The only little consolation that comes to him from spiritual
communication also ends and, he craves for death and subsequent
reunion with his wife: “This is also my end. Oh, God, send me to
those flames at once” (151). He, however, lacks the courage to
commit suicide and we see him caught between his desire of
reunion with his wife and his worries about the future of his
daughter. The life now seems a burden to him. He himself
ruminates: “Thus days followed, bleak, dreary, and unhappy days,
with a load on the mind” (151). With the next sitting, there begins
the actual spiritual training of Krishna. The man sends a letter to
Krishna. The lines in the letter are a clear indication of future state
of Krishna. The letter states: “Anyway my purpose in writing you
to-day is not to trouble you with my affairs, but a different one. I
have a feeling that we might attempt an experiment while we are out
of each other's reach. I want to see if we can manage a sitting – a sort
of absentia business” (151-152). Krishna follows the instructions
and both of them manage to concentrate to communicate without
sitting together. Two days later, Krishna gets his replies from
Susila through a letter from the man. The letter shows that the
spirit of Susila is quite able to recognize his disturbed mental state.
She warns him against his mental position though her real
intention behind the warning is to purify his mind and soul, and to
train him in receiving all sort of suffering with complete
indifference:
The most important thing I wish to warn you about
is not to allow your mind to be disturbed by
anything. For some days now you have allowed
your mind to become gloomy and unsettled. You
are not keeping very strong either. You must keep
yourself in better frame. . . . You must keep your
body and mind in perfect condition, before you
aspire to become sensitive and respective; I have
learnt a great deal after coming here; believe me if it
is peace of mind you want, you cannot have it better
than from us. . . . (152-153)
During one such spiritual communication, Susila tells
Krishna to practise the same at home alone at night. Krishna tries
his level best, but his mind fails to receive any response from the
141
other side, perhaps because of the lack of concentration or because
of his suffering mind. Once again, the result is sheer frustration
and misery: “The little peace and joy I had seemed to grasp
suddenly once again receded, and I became hopelessly miserable.
It was as if a person lost in an abyss found a ladder, and the ladder
crumbled” (156). Susila finds that his mind is not yet purified and
is unable to receive any thought from the spirits. Krishna again
manages to arrange a sitting with the man's help. In this sitting,
Susila makes him aware of his problems in communication: “At
the last sitting I gave you advice about psychic development. Since
then, I have been observing the struggle going on within you and
your utter helplessness. To receive impressions from our side, the
mind must be calm and unruffled. In your case, I find that thoughts
of me produce just the opposite effect” (156). The training goes on
and as the months roll on, Krishna develops the art of
communication with the spirit of Susila and the “communication
between the husband and the wife takes place directly without the
need of a medium. The boundaries of their personalities dissolve
resulting in a harmony of souls . . .” (Hariprasanna 53). Thus, her
spirit ultimately succeeds in raising Krishna above all his poignant
sorrows of life. The result is remarkable improvement in his
sensibilities and the growth of real cheerfulness by leaving all vague
perceptions behind. When we develop our minds and acquire
wisdom through study, meditation and careful thoughts, we begin
to see the things as they really are. We begin to realize the truth of
suffering and impermanence of life. Thus, by overcoming craving,
we can attain happiness and enlightenment. Ramana also confirms
this: “As a result of his traumatic experiences and
parapsychological experiments, he is able to adopt a totally 'new'
and different attitude towards life” (113). This not only enables
him to forget all his sorrows and sufferings, but also leads him to
self-development – an enlightenment, which comes only after
undergoing suffering at various levels. By and by, he realizes the
real truth of life:
“There is no escape from loneliness and separation
. . . “I told myself often. “Wife, child, brothers,
parents, friends. . . . We come together only to go
apart again. It is one continuous movement. They
move away from us as we move away from them.
The law of life can't be avoided. The law comes into
operation the moment we detach ourselves from
our mother's womb. All struggle and misery in life
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is due to our attempts to arrest this law or get away
from it or in allowing ourselves to be hurt by it. The
fact must be recognized. (177)
The practice of meditation brings about a very
considerable change in Krishna and “most significantly, the
sanyasi seems to have discovered the root cause of human misery
and the basic truth of human existence” (Dnyate 136). He realizes
that “our bodies are subject to birth, and we cannot keep them
permanent for ever. They must pass away and die out”
Abhedananda 1996, 7). He reaches that stage of life where one
seeks to live in spiritual bliss – a stage where there are no
constraints of time and space, and where, all what means, is the
self-satisfaction through service to mankind. Jainism emphasizes
that when the soul is freed from the bondage of Karma and has
transcended the possibility of rebirth, it attains deliverance. A
person who has attained deliverance is called Siddha, a perfected
Soul. When a person gives up all the desires or cravings in his
waking mind and when his self is turned inward and satisfied
within itself, at that time he is said to be stable of mind. This stage
is called Sthithaprajna. The Gita teaches:
Prajahati yada kaman, sarvan partha mano-gatan,
Atmany evatmana tustah, sthita-prajnas tadocyate
(2.55).
Krishna also achieves the stage where one realizes one's
real existence and seeks the satisfaction of innermost aspirations.
He thinks: “My mind was made up. I was in search of a harmonious
existence and everything that disturbed that harmony was to be
rigorously excluded, even my college work” (178). Inspired by such
thoughts, he resigns from his job as an English teacher. He
confesses that the job of a teacher does not satisfy his inner life. He
begins to feel a deep joy and contentment in the company of little
children. The novel ends with the hints of his subsequent life-style
– everyday he will spend in the company of little school children
and every night, he will experience the presence of his wife in his
room and a union of the two: “The boundaries of our personalities
suddenly dissolved. It was a moment of rare, immutable joy – a
moment for which one feels grateful to Life and Death” (184). It is a
state of perfect happiness where the shadow of suffering is not
allowed to come. In this way, Krishna reaches a state of mind that is
free from Sukha-Dukha and Kamana: “Never does he think of
renouncing the world or family in the spirit of a sanyasi. He
continues to retain his familial attachments and obligations. What
he needs most, seeks and finds in considerable measure, in an
ungrudging attitude of acceptance of both pain and pleasure,
freedom from excessive attachment, and serenity of mind”
(Hariprasanna 114).
To sum up, Krishna's intense suffering leads him to
undergo para-psychological experiences which ultimately enable
him to establish a communication with the spirit of his dead wife.
The whole process, thus, begins as a result of his suffering and
ends in his spiritual enlightenment.
WORKS CITED
Abhedananda, Swami. Life Beyond Death: A Critical Study of
Spiritualism. 2nd ed. Calcutta: Ramakrishna Vedanta Math, 1996.
Print.
l
Dnyate, Ramesh. The Novels of R. K. Narayan: A Typological
Study of Characters. New Delhi: Prestige, 2000. Print.
l
Goyal, S. Bhagwat. “Thematic Patterns in the Early Novels of R. K.
Narayan.” R. K. Narayan: A Critical Spectrum. Shalabh: Meerut,
1983. 1-24. Print.
l
Hariprasanna, A. The World of Malgudi: A Study of R. K.
Narayan's Novels. New Delhi: Prestige, 1994. Print.
l
Kapadia, Sita. “The Intriguing Voice in R. K. Narayan.” R. K.
Narayan: Critical Perspectives. Ed. A. L. McLeod. New Delhi:
Sterling, 1994. 66-75. Print.
l
Mehta, Rohit. The Journey into Death. Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1987. Print.
l
Narayan, R. K. The English Teacher. Madras: Indian Thought
Publications, 2004. Print.
l
Ramana, P. S. Message in Design: A Study of R. K. Narayan's
Fiction. New Delhi: Harman, 1993. Print.
l
Sahai, Dipika. “Marital Bliss, Desolation and Mystic Ecstasy in
The English Teacher.” Cyber Literature 15&16.1&2(2005): 3543. Print.
l
Walsh, William. R. K. Narayan: A Critical Appreciation. New
Delhi: Allied, 1995. Print.
l
Wyatt, Hyacinth Cynthia. “The Woman in R. K. Narayan's Novels:
Myth, Tradition and Social Reality.” Journal of Literature and
Aesthetics 2.2(2002): 57-61. Print.
l
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144
Dimensions of self-imposed sufferings
during the freedom struggle
A Critical Study of
Chandramoni Narayanaswamy's Novel
THE KARANS OF PENANG
P C K Prem
Chandramoni Narayanaswamy is a well known poet, a fiction
writer and a translator. She is an author of over 30 books in
English including novels, anthologies of poems, stories and
translations of many classics from Hindi and Oriya. After
retiring from the IAS, she served as Chairperson, Orissa
Administrative Tribunal.
The Karans of Penang apparently appears a sensitive love
story but deep down it is an engrossing tale of people who suffered
during the freedom struggle and this lofty backdrop affords
characteristic distinction to the entire pattern of story telling. It
looks an emotional love tale of Sarala and Balaram caught up in the
mystery of life. Unfortunately, the identities are bafflingly
concealed from each other till the end and it appears as a selfdefined destiny which determines future. They are individuals of
strong will, indomitable ethical values and are not only rigid but
are also difficult to convince. Each stays inside self-made cocoon of
principles, thoughts and feelings and this insulation from the
outside impact is tormenting and soul-stifling. An anxiety to
adhere to the traditional value system makes them prominently
identifiable. The ingrained cultural standards keep the major
protagonists stick to the roots and family traditions because they
had seen not very healthy influence of British on the lives and
culture of India. If one goes back to historical background, one
finds sufficient ground for this attitude to life and living. The White
men were ruling the nation and so they were more eager to
disseminate whatever was alien to the culture and history of Indian
and to a great extent, were triumphant in driving the vulnerable
elite of the country to a value-system which had no respect for
Indian cultural heritage. But there were still people who were
averse to such concerted attempts and continued to adhere to
Hindu ways of life. Obviously love for foreign language and culture
provided transitory aura of prestige and respectability but slowly
this silently hurt the delicate sensibilities linked to the love of the
country.
The novelist, though not quite direct yet she makes it
evident that the elite which loved aliens' ways of life gradually felt
the injuries to the inner Indian and ancient culture. To the
awakened it was implicit that the English men wanted to colonize
the country for a long time to come despite the defiant voices
making immense noise around with a definite agenda to get the
country freed from the clutches of slavery. Another prominent
aspect of this tale is the background that takes the reader back to
the pre-independence period. It is heart-rending historical
perspective to the story that inspires the reader to go into the real
meaning of the story.
Once, a grand family of genuine stature in the society with
an authentic voice in the affairs of the government, the Karans of
Penang with queer twists in fortunes, land up in tremendous
hardships not only physical but financial, ultimately resulting in
disgrace and fall in esteem in the eyes of the British Government. It
was not a simple fall; it was also not vilification and humiliation
that could be attributed to the mortifying actions of the family but it
was a patriotic fervour for the country which had become the major
cause of sufferings. Obviously, an emotional tale bordering on a
tragic end beneath, it is a grand story of an inherent struggle where
true Indians under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi were
engaged in a violently peaceful battle so that the English are thrown
out. In this great effort there is concealed but bitter struggle
between two cultural thought currents. The elites and those in the
service of the colonial rule in love with English ways of life and
culture, found it quite inconvenient to side with the patriots raising
voices against the ruthless British Rule but inwardly they had
begun to evince interest in the self-rule and were silently coming
closer to the patriotic Indians.
The story line is simple and it opens at Quilon, a little town
in the north of Trivandrum. The nature has a role to play in
shaping the lives of people living along the coast of Kerala. Sarala, a
lecturer, is introduced while ruminating pensively over the
mysterious gift and the oblique threats she had received. It is
through Sarala that the reader is acquainted with the background,
the vexing experiences and enormous sufferings of the people in a
microscopic narrative while at times informing of the tribulations
and travail of people of India in a foreign yoke. The strange man
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
had threatened to revisit Sarala. This had made her afraid of the
undesirable impact around and certainly she understood that
society would not approve of the non-existing relations even if she
dared to explain. The slowly changing mores of the society were
quite visible during that period. The last decade of the twentieth
century had witnessed tremendous transformation in value
system.
Free economy and liberalization exposed people to not
only dogged materialistic concept of life but it also brought
flexibility in man-woman relationship. When even the civil code
was under threat from various quarters for its old orthodox
undertones and even it was being actively thought to revise a few
sections of Indian Penal Code, particularly the section dealing with
gay tendencies nay culture. It was also a time when living-in
relationship was expanding its horizons as more men and women
experienced difficulties in managing properly arranged marriages
and share the responsibilities, a married life entailed. The
openings of new avenues of careers, the fast imbibing of ultramodern outlook about civilization and curious adjustments in
cultural life were rapidly undergoing radical transformation where
liberal approach to physical relations was getting a kind of tacit
approval. These thoughts had been giving troubles to Sarala who
still adhered to the old value system and age old traditions.
Against the backdrop of familial and societal obligations to be
discharged, Sarala had surveyed the implications of an invisible
encounter when she had been fascinated by a blue georgette sari
while its exorbitant price had discouraged; and at last she had
decided on a cotton sari on the occasion of birthday. On return
from the college, Raman an attendant had told that a man wanted
to meet. Dumbstruck, she felt insulted even as stranger while
handing over the gift of blue georgette sari had assured that he
meant no affront. Sarala had refused angrily but the man had
disappeared without the packet that could cause moral dilemma,
social probing and mental tensions. Respectable women if court
controversy, proves fatal she had thought. Fears mounted for a
docile and tradition-bound girl and so she had decided to write to
parents.
Long back, her ancestors proudly called Karans of Penang,
were rich and prominent people and lived in luxurious life-style in
a huge bungalow at Alleppey. During British Empire,
Krishnaswamy Iyer, Sarala's great grand father had migrated to
Penang in search of an employment and secured a prestigious job
147
in a British Company. His loyalty, hard work and competence
greatly pleased the white masters and consequently with an
effective voice, son Shankaran under the guidance of an English
tutor steadily inculcated white man's habits, life styles and
linguistic nuances. Shankaran had soon left a permanent
impression among the whites which was an implicit objective of
Krishnaswamy who wanted Shankaran to be an ICS, but who was
finally appointed in the British Colonial Service. He had now
changed to K S Karan. Fortunes favoured and KS Karan was a
mighty wealthy man In Alleppey. As expected, he preferred to live
midst British and Anglo-Indians and began to live in European
style, discarding Hindu customs and traditions. He was more
interested in festivals akin to Christianity than Hindu religion and
the breach widened to a frightening proportion. During those
trying times many Indians were engaged in a furious and violent
battle and at times, in peaceful struggle to attain freedom but
certain privileged sections of the society particularly the elites had
sided with the British thus delaying a prompt termination of a long
drawn out struggle started in the mid nineteenth century. Karan
could not avoid passion for colonial culture and love for a language
that did not belong to the soil. Shankaran was not an exception
during the English Rule. The imitated way of life changed so much
that wife Leela was called Lily and daughter Susheela had turned to
Susy. The Indian names were forgotten or buried deep along with
culture and ethical value system.
No doubt, Shankaran tried hard to impart suitable
education to the children yet destiny designed differently.
Circumstances proved otherwise when hopes and aspirations
diminished as the years rolled on. Krishna just eighteen, with the
great support of English friends was admitted to the prestigious
Veterinary College in Punjab and it proved a turning point as it was
here that the spirit of nationalism took deep roots. It is noticed
here that to secure consent and praise of the British was a matter of
prestige in the corridors of power. Shankaran's status and civil
authority remained enviable. In fact, Indians who loved English
life-styles and admired English man's language and culture were
quite influential. Such characteristics not only ensured a social
status but were symbols of authority in the hierarchy of the
government apparatus if imbibed properly. Krishna's amiable
nature was endearing and amenable. The extrovert, jovial and
open-hearted Punjabis impressed Krishna and –
'Above all that was the time when Swadeshi and
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partriotism had united youth all over the country
more strongly than ties of blood….Krishna had
always felt vaguely uncomfortable over his father's
idolatry of the British….Manchester House which
was the pride of his father's heart was oppressive to
his growing spirit.' [Page 16]
During those years Swadeshi movement gathered
momentum that disturbed adolescent Krishna who now felt stifled,
distraught and uncomfortable at the sickening idolization of the
Englishmen. Krishna's father was loyal to the colonial rule and
never approved of the ways of the Krishna. The oppressive rule was
a cause of growing distance and bitterness between them. In hostel,
the idea of freedom got a new lease and Krishna was filled with
feelings of nationalism. Great men like Gandhi, Nehru, Subhash
and Bhagat Singh stirred and inspired and this motivated Krishna
to truly and devotedly participate in nationalist movement by
actively associating with freedom fighters.
Without giving direct reference to history and historical
events, the novelist probably wants to throw light on those vaguely
known aspects of people's life. It is a fact that the atrocities and
injustice of the British rule had enormous affect on the personal
and social life of Indians. Many could not muster up courage to face
hardships and succumbed to pressures of sufferings and scarcity,
hunger and exploitation. But without doubt, a spirit of patriotism
buried alive within was waiting for the right time to hit back the
perpetrators. It was also the collective conscience of the people that
carried the lamp of freedom burning with the implicit support of
freedom fighters. The author appears to underline and recognize
the contribution of those unknown and insignificant persons who
had worked hard in the background so that we all live a free life in
free India. The author seems to emphasize that it is not essential to
be a part of history to become important; it is enough if one stays
behind unknown and works vigorously and seriously for the
nation. A meeting of May, 1943 to pay homage to the martyrs
proved a milestone while Quit India Movement added fuel to the
fire. Needless to say that patriotic fervour defied all restraints.
Naturally, this infuriated the British government and consequently
in the ensuing police raids, Krishna was taken to a police station
along with others where they were tortured and beaten up; and
after some time were deserted outside the hostel. Krishna stood at
the defining moments of life. The future looked doubtful when the
principal, an Englishman refused entry to the college. Other
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victims had managed to go home but it was difficult for Krishna to
travel a long distance to Alleppey without money. Realizing the
financial constraints, the students raised funds. A great gesture it
was when friends also arranged for a vaidya who not only treated
the wounds but fed students for two days facilitating a long journey
back home.
On the train, Krishna recalled happy times; and paternal
treatment of the vaidya stimulated nostalgic emotions and the love
of the people infused moral strength. .Krishna had taken active
part in activities against the English regime and this had hurt
deeply the British-love of Karan. Visualizing the antagonism and
wrath of Karan, Krishna doubted his wisdom to go back to
Alleppey. The intensity of thoughts vastly disturbed and it was
increasingly hard for Krishna to confront Karan as thoughts of
suicide occurred. But destiny had decided differently. At this
moment, an incident had come to the mind where a rejected son
could not withstand ill treatment, had left the house and later on
had become a Christian and there had begun notable changes in
life. It was not a simple tale but Jayaram, a friend and a follower of
RSS, had thus helped him to live a meaningful life in times of
extreme crisis. Before moving for ever, he wanted to meet Susy, ma
and dad. Thoughts continued to agitate but he was unambiguous of
father's disowning for explicit brazenness towards the
Englishmen. In indecision and predicament, he spent the night at
the jetty and next day left the seaside. In the meantime, informed
about Krishna, Karan was furious and felt humiliated whereas
Krishna could not gather courage to face Karan. But Krishna's
absence had a disastrous affect on grief stricken Lily who was
almost bedridden. Karan was completely blank and broken down
unable to decide but when a bearer intimated that a man had
sneaked into. Karan to utter horror had found Krishna with a bony
skeleton, crumpled up and emaciated. Krishna's frail body and
wretched condition made Karan forget past. Fatherly care and
attention to Krishna's wounds required affection and compassion.
Karan's piercing sense of understanding had begun to analyze the
horrific and vile behaviour of British government. With a sense of
penitence, he had realized that Krishna's scars, sores and wounds
needed immense care, love and warmth and this incident had
transformed the entire life of Karans of Penang. Karan's
resentment and antipathy against the British mounted and he was
disillusioned with the barbarian behaviour of Englishmen to
Krishna; and generally towards the Indians.
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'All his anger and bitterness was directed at the
British whom he had served loyally and loved
sincerely. They had repaid him by nearly killing his
son. What had he done after all to deserve it? He
had not robbed, injured or murdered anyone.
Listening to speeches was not a crime. They were
merciless barbarians and he had been a fool to
worship them.' [Page 22-23]
Now with growing sense of hatred for the white men, he
decided to sell off the Manchester House and was determined to
quit Alleppey, settle down in Madras and live like a true Indian.
Karan now took a drastic step by disposing off property. The
impact of Swedeshi movement is quite visible when Karan decides
–
'…to take with him only their clothes, linen and
cooking vessels. The ornate furniture, carpets,
breakfast and dinner service sets now of no use to
him, were all sold before they set out for Madras.'
[Page 23]
In Madras, entirely disenchanted with the foreign rule
Karan decided to join Congress and serve the country as he was
totally thrilled and attracted by the non-violent methods of Gandhi.
Like a true patriot, he dedicated life to the nation in its struggle for
freedom like others who were disillusioned with the Englishmen
and had remained unwavering in the fight against the tyranny and
hegemony of the British regime. Initial hesitation disappeared
when people welcomed Karan warmly –
'When Gandhi ji has taught us not to hate anyone,
not even the British, can we hate other Indians,
however misguided they might have been?' [Page
24]
Poignant yet sweet memories created painful melancholic
moments for Sarala who had visited past in a few minutes as she
looked at the mysterious gift with a naughty warning. Sarala had
envisioned sporadically agonizing events of past. Now Karan had
taken a house in Mylapore near Madras, settled down and had
begun to live like an Indian, she remembered. People admired
Karan's courage to serve motherland after severing ties with the
white men who had decorated Karan with authority, power and
glory. But Karan had understood the evil designs of the English
who wanted to stay on and govern and to this end; they had divided
Indians in various groups nursing individual interests. Such were
the terrific manipulations of the British. Karan was a force to
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reckon with but when he found Krishna was the victim of
unwarranted atrocities, he was disappointed. Like many Indians
who had come to know about the sinister designs and
conspiratorial double speak of the English men, Karan had also
joined the Congress party engaged in a fierce ideological battle with
the British along with other groups of freedom fighters who were
generally secret and violent under the able leadership of Bose,
Bhagat Singh and others, Sarala had thought again. The pattern of
parallel thought streams is evident and the novelist is successful in
describing the psychological and intellectual conditioning of
Indians facing inhuman treatment at the hands of English men.
Karan was least worried when pension was withdrawn but
he managed to scrape a meager livelihood from the rubber and
cardamom estates. He was anxious to provide good education to
children but Krishna's future appeared uncertain. A true Indian
rarely ignores or disparages conventions which strengthen belief in
family, society and culture. Even if in miserable conditions, he
knows obligations to family. He, in hour of crises knows to
safeguard self-esteem and ego. Karan as a true Indian had an
inkling of hardships he was likely to face on the decision to quit the
job and serve the country. It was an unwanted but nostalgic journey
to past and Sarala while sitting alone was vividly recollecting each
event connected with the family. She had recalled clearly men,
places and circumstances associated with the great Karan family
now living in extreme pecuniary hardship.
Despite Lily's objections, Krishna had joined Congress to
which Karan had readily agreed. He was thoroughly averse to
serving the British government engaged relentlessly in exploiting
Indians for partisan ends and who ruled by adopting the menacing
policy of divide and rule. To be in Congress, meant colossal
sufferings and police atrocities; and invariably a jail tern on a
ridiculous ploy. But true patriots had to undergo physical tortures
so that the nation might live. These exalted sentiments of Indians
before forty seven, are made vivid by the adroit pen of the novelist
without exaggeration or pessimistic maudlin approach.
Jayaram, an activist of RSS, helped Krishna join RSS when
Krishna was absolutely convinced of its social, philanthropic and
nationalistic objectives. This brought a definite and visible change
in Krishna. Karan had stood solidly behind and nothing could
impede the way. Krishna's life had meaning with a noble objective.
It was now the end of Second World War and Labour Party had
come to power in England. It had raised aspirations of the people;
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and on the other hand Congress with a fixed reformatory agenda,
wanted to bring about agrarian reforms once it captured power.
Karan, a well intentioned and wise man had understood that only
Congress could achieve freedom for India. In the mean time, he
was able to find a suitable match for Susy in Sukumar. After
marriage, Sukumar shifted to Madras and began practicing in the
High Court. Thus not for a day, he forgot responsibilities towards
the family.
It was a new dawn in the life of Krishna. Karan was the
fittest man to occupy a position of strength and clout in the
Congress government but as a selfless soldier of the party, he
refused vehemently any status or powerful seat. But destiny had
written a different role. Unfortunately, Gandhi was assassinated
soon after the Independence and in the light of tragedy, Karan
asked Krishna to severe ties with RSS, alleged to have been
instrumental in killing Gandhi. The fate took an ugly twist and
once again differences arose between the son-father duos. Krishna
refused to agree to father's wishes, left the house to brave fresh
ordeals that challenged existence. As a true Indian, he adhered to
cultural values and preferred to live a simple life earning livelihood
on tuition. Living in the same city was an excruciating experience
but Karan never asked Krishna to return. Questions of self respect
and ego interfered and normal relations had suffered. In truth, for
Karan and Krishna, it appears the freedom of the country was
important and each had a definite marked path. It was an
ideological rift. A staunch admirer and follower of Gandhi, Karan
could never imagine that an organization which had worked
assiduously for attainment of Independence could be at the back of
an alleged conspiracy to kill father of the Nation. Karan wanted
Krishna to severe allegiance to RS to which Krishna never agreed
and the differences had cropped up again.
The intensity in conflict had not lessened. Disappointed,
Karan sold the house at Mylapore and shifted to his estate at
Vayanad. Krishna's rigorous single-minded efforts ultimately
helped earning a livelihood. Efforts of Susy and Sukumar to bring
about reconciliation had failed. To earn livelihood by tuitions had
raised the confidence level and here Krishna met Lakshmi, an
orphan who had suffered long and lived a miserable life. Feelings
of loneliness, callousness of Karan and innate sentiments of
sympathy encouraged Krishna to marry Lakshmi. This marriage
sealed the fate of a foreseeable reunion with Karan. Blessings had
made married life cheerful but happiness was short lived. While
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delivering a still born baby she died, swallowing up Krishna in
gloom and he was now a thoroughly disillusioned man. Now he
had a job. As a stenographer in the office of PMG, Krishna found
the work satisfying. Soon after, another tragedy overtook when
Krishna's mother died. Susy urged him to share tragic moments of
sufferings with lonely father but Krishna in anger and madness
held Karan guilty for mother's death. Because of Karan's adamant
attitude and tough posture, Krishna never wanted to go back even
when he had heard about the ailing mother.The causes of apathy
and obdurate attitude are not difficult to probe. Both lived
principled life and loved not only the country but espoused certain
values.
Krishna considered RSS a social and charitable
organization devoted to serve suffering Indians. Till now he had
seen Indians groveling under scarcity, hunger, lack of shelter, non
existent health-facilities, water shortages and corruption; and on
the strong ethical bases he never thought it wise to discard RSS.
Karan, as a staunch follower of Gandhi owing allegiance to the
ruling party could not reconcile and held RSS responsible for the
assassination of Gandhi. Such diametrically opposed stands made
the break more wide and deep. Each stood the ground steadfastly
till circumstances compelled to revise opinions. When wife died,
Karan was absolutely broken and emotionally traumatized.
Krishna was also a mellowed man after the death of Lakshmi.
Intensity of anguish brought a change and now they were
reconciled. The union was a touching scene amidst words of
remorse and repentance. When Karan recuperated he tried to
prevail upon Krishna to remarry –
'When he was somewhat recovered in body and
spirit, Karan urged Krishna to marry which he
refused gently but firmly. He told his father that
happiness was not for him in this life and was
better to lead a quiet uneventful life without inviting
further misery.' [Page 39]
After living under one roof for five years, Krishna finally
agreed to marry and so in the year 1963, Sarala was born. Sarala
unwillingly looked back and desolately in extreme misery recalled
each word, incident and person vividly. Fortunes of a great family
lay in ruins. The decade of Sarala's birth was momentous from the
political and historical perspective. Sino-Indian War and the
debacle, the Kamaraj Plan, the death of Nehru, the coming of
Shastri and death, the rise of Indira Gandhi and the birth of
Syndicate, the beginning of political polarization and
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fragmentation and these great events had their share of
contribution to the making of future and Sarala was not an
exception. And Sarala knew past was in ruins, heritage had almost
been lost or was reduced to debris and the culture knew only of the
wounds unhealed. But somehow she remained attached to what
was on the death bed. A few knocks at the door had brought Sarala
back to the present after a torturing journey to past. Karans of
Penang, once rich and powerful were unable to carry the great
heritage and the thought had vastly disturbed Sarala living under
pecuniary strain. Serving away from home, at Quilon, Sarala had
been worried about the strange landing of a gift –a blue georgette
sari- and the young man was no where to be seen. To add to the
confusion and desperation, he had told he would reappear. The
strange behaviour of the man had compelled the girls to think over
and analyze the repercussions. It was not only personal prestige
and honour that was important even the reputation of heritage of
the old family was also at stake. Sarala could not afford to
undermine the good name of the family. After consulting Molly, she
had decided to share the dilemma with parents.
Till now, it was necessary to detail the events in order to
have an in depth peep into the tale. Such is the background of the
main characters of the novel; and perhaps the novelist wanted to
make the reader conscious of the tragic but eventful past of the
main characters. Sarala was born in times of crisis when relations
were waiting for a kind of stability in the light of death of Krishna's
first wife and the grievous event of a still-born baby. Krishna
worked hard and tried to keep the cultural heritage alive. In the
tragic background, the family struggled to eke out a living. It is
probably in late eighties and early nineties that the story picks up.
It is left to the imagination of the reader to delve deep into this
aspect. As Sarala is occupied with the thoughts of the gift, she after
a talk with Molly decides to visit parents at Haripad. Her parents,
in order to escape from the imagined disgrace ask her to resign and
take up some other job at Haripad. Krishna finds out a job and she
decides to resign from the previous school. The new job is quite
comfortable and as a devoted teacher, she wins words of praise
from all. Here she gets tuition at Subhaiya's house, a rich person,
through the mediation of the principal, Mrs. Mary Mathews of the
school. She begins to teach at the palatial house and the new
employers are quite sympathetic and loving. The rich Subhaiyas
live with daughters and a son who works elsewhere but visits
parents occasionally. Often during leisure, picnic or play time, the
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girls talk affectionately and adorably of their elder brother who
loves them deeply and carries the heritage of the family gracefully.
Here relations are shown in true Indian spirit. Warmth for
each other makes a happy home; the author seems to convey the
message. Surprisingly, he confronts Sarala but never discloses
identity till the issue of marriage crops up. Till now the suspense is
maintained and the curiosity as to the identity is built up strongly.
Balaram, at last reveals identity and Sarla is extremely upset and
shocked and no one could imagine that Sarala could refuse to
marry a rich, handsome and very well behaved man. Sarala never
considered Bala a very decent man and always had doubts about
his character –
'Your past, despicable conduct, you eaves-dropped
when I was talking to my friend in the shop. You
purchased the sari I could not afford and had the
cheek to present it to me…and take advantage of
my poverty.' [Page 71]
Bala tried to convince Sarala but it was difficult. However,
after persuasion acquiescing in parents' wishes, she agreed, To
Molly she had confided, 'I would not have bothered so much about
his past if he had been open about it….It is his total air of innocence
which vexes me and makes me recoil from him '[Page 83] It appears
that Sarala was never mentally prepared to marry Balaram. The
situation did not change even after marriage and Sarala was
unyielding and did not allow Balaram a space to breathe in a
harmonious married life. They were strong individuals and stood
by principles even if unreasonable. Bala had observed in anger
'Because I am old enough to look beyond self and
think of others, you will be a wife t me only in name.
I shall not touch your body again or of any other
woman for that matter because I am not the
debauch you suspect me to be.' [Page 85]
However, Bala must be given credit for utmost restraint he
observed and never for a moment thought to intrude into the area
of woman's privacy. They were worried about the respective
families and so had decided to stick to the principled stand without
letting anybody know and had thought better to sleep in different
rooms. The next two years proved quite congenial to the married
life and each tried to understand each other properly with a kind of
'frictionless coexistence'.
It was slow but certain dispelling of doubts and perhaps
they thought of coming together but something kept them separate
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despite the indiscernible feelings of love and warmth for each
other. During this period, Susy had a heart attack and Krishna had
to go immediately. Susy's was struggling with a sense of guilt and
wanted to tell Krishna but something restrained. She had recalled
the days when she was in the hospital and a nurse who attended to
her developed an intimacy which led the women to share some
secrets. When the nurse was told about Krishna and the death of
Lakshmi after the birth of a still born child, she could not control
as she was on the death bed after an operation for appendicitis.
She told Susy that Lukshmi did not give birth to a still born child
but it was very alive and she had done the mischief. Later on
circumstances took a strange turn and the child was sent to an
orphanage. Sukumar was also very upset but nothing could be
done now. Still it was thought to bring back the child from the
orphanage. But the child could not be traced. After lot of
persuasion, the superintendent agreed. The identity was verified
but the superintendent told them that the child had been adopted
by a rich couple long back. And there ended the search. Thus in a
strange twist of events, the truth is out and Krishna's lost son is
none other than Balaram. Ultimately, Susy in the presence of
Sukumar, took courage to reveal the truth to Krishna who was
engulfed by 'deadly silence and a stony look'. The horrifying
episode had totally shattered Krishna. After recovering, he had
said –
'…But I didn't stir. I felt God had always been
unkind to me and this had to happen. I sinned
against God, sinned against my child, sinned
against Lakshmi. Her sould must be restless even
now. Where can I wash away my sins?' [Page 106]
Now every thing known, it was awfully difficult for the old
couples to come out of the truth. It was sin and sin deep. It created
tremendous amount of guilt and tensions. She never wanted to
marry Bala but they had forced Sarala to marry her brother. When
the truth was revealed, Bala and Sarala closeted quietly and
deliberated on the issue at length without losing mental balance
and in wisdom they concluded that none was responsible and that
they were ethically right. Before the elders, when Sarala told to
return, Bala told, '…let us carry on as before – a married couple
before society and brother and sister within the house.'
It was decided to keep the secret forever as buried.
Balaram also expressed the desire to adopt a child and name him
Shankar to which everyone agreed and '…so goes on the saga of the
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Karans of Penang.' Obviously, the story after the birth of Sarala in
1963, appears simple but if one tries to find the real meaning one
immediately understands that the deep rooted love for culture,
heritage and value system keeps the families intact even after the
terrible changes that were slowly transforming the society to a
great extent with the assault of ultra modern social ethos. The
tremendous influence of science and technology and globalization
of market economy in fact altered the foundations of living.
Relationships are now interpreted from a utilitarian point of view
whether personal, social or political. May appear utopian in
concept now but the treatment given to the characters deserves
notice. Balaram attitude to life and woman shows grace but it is
also not encouraging. Sarala carries the burden of heritage and
value system remarkably well and the author to a large extent
appears successful but at times adherence to ethics makes Sarala
not only a bit theoretical but unreasonable and the individuality
develops cracks.
The author is simple and straight. It is truly an Indian
English with Indian sensibilities. As the novelist is rooted in Indian
soil, there is nothing that boasts of an alien tinge. It appears Indian
English has grown and matured and it is time one shakes off
colonial hang over and uses languages whether regional or national
in a true Indian spirit embodying Indian heritage and culture. To
think otherwise is a fallacy. Without being satirical, as a novelist
she speaks genuinely of true moral qualities in a man like Angus
Wilson. Chandramoni Narayanaswamy is deeply influenced by
Mahatma Gandhi and Gandhi's words do find mention with
sanctity attached to it. Not very wide in scope, the story restricts its
movement to a few southern States with a passing reference to
Punjab. That way it has regional sweep. The idea of nationalism
does expand horizons of tale to encompass Indians' worries about
freedom struggle but primarily it is confined to the South Indian
region. It vividly describes the mind and heart of the British and
exposes English man's hypocrisy disgustingly. In theme one is
reminds of Anand Math of Bankim Chandra. Like Mallikarjun and
TV Reddy, she also loves to tell tales of people of a particular region
and indirectly at times touches upon national issues. Regional
depiction by authors is not new and it introduces to the reader life
styles of other states. At another level, its spirit, humanism,
depiction of human relations, bonds of family ties, nationalism,
love for traditions and culture exhibit pure 'Indianness' and this
makes its reading quite enriching and meaningful. It is good to be
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region-specific but the thematic anxieties and the movements of
the protagonists, at times, must break narrow boundaries of areas
and touch the universal to make it acceptable to all.
As observed else where, I would again emphasize that this
singular attempt strengthens the belief that Indian English novel is
growing and going to stay as more and more Indian English
authors are entering this creative arena of fiction. Perhaps, yes
perhaps, one day some discerning critic will analysis and evaluate
unknown or least known Indian English novelists who with
meager means, try to give vent to creative urges in a language no
more foreign but very much Indian. While it is good to write about
famous and widely published authors, it is also the duty of genuine
critic to come forward and go into creative areas which are still
unmeasured.
WORKS CITED
Narayanaswamy, Chandramoni: The Karans of Penang, HarAnand, Publications Pvt. Ltd. E-49/3, Okhla Industrial Area,
Phase-II, New Delhi.
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Colonial Child-Caught in the
Cross Fire of Cultural Conflict
Lakshmi Sistla
In most postcolonial countries cross-cultural interactions
have made childhood the battleground of cultures. When
autobiographies of the people born during these times are read it
becomes evident that the conflict caused much disturbance. Ashis
Nandy states that, “The autobiographies of Rabindranath Tagore
and M. K. Gandhi provide excellent accounts of childhood as an
area of adult experimentation in social change in midnineteenth-century India. Both exemplify how the authors as
children bore the brunt of conflicts precipitated by colonial
politics, Westernized education and exogenous institutions.”
(Nandy p. 66) This does not mean that the pre-colonial child had
no conflicts to face or was relatively happier; tales reveal cruel
stepmothers, parents, uncles, and aunts who gave the child all
sorts of unhappy times. At the same time the homogeneity existing
in social life and a common ground on which society and family
met formed the foundation of identity which was relatively
happier. Colonial identities were fashioned completely against a
cultural 'other' who instilled ideas of native cultures being savage.
Through exposure to this prejudice the child has lost contact with
a traditional society and his identity is constantly under attack.
The recurrence of the image of child in colonial and postcolonial
writings reflects the colonizer using the child as the site for
imposing his authority. Through the system of education and by
constant reference to the native as a child, the colonizer ensured
that the native-child had to be disciplined, had to be corrected and
civilized because the native was a 'savage'. The native was the child
and the colonizer was the parent; the colonizer replaced the feudal
mai-baap (mother-father) for the teeming millions in the country.
Where the adult is the ideal, colonizer became the ideal and a
perfect human being and the child occupied the less desirable
imperfect state hence he became the colonized. Edward Said
popularized the terms filiation and affiliation, affiliation conjures
up the image of the imperial culture as a parent, who is linked with
the colonized child in a filiative relationship. This led to the
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archetypal superior authoritative parent-like colonizer and the
inferior, submissive, servile and child-like position of the
colonized. The child became a site for colonial control through
education. Nihal Fernando observes that, “Here it might be
relevant to point out that one of the main charges levelled by early
twentieth-century Hindu nationalists against 'English education'
was that this education tended to fracture the cohesiveness of
traditional domestic life and to set up barriers between the
generations and the sexes. Mahatma Gandhi, for instance, in a talk
given in 1917, argued that the system of 'English education' had
'raised a wall of separation between us and our families' so that 'we
do not and cannot transmit what we learn at schools and colleges
to our mothers'. And went on to point out that 'this horrible
phenomenon is not found in England'” (Fernando p. 75-85)
In Seven Summers (1960) subtitled The Story of an
Indian Childhood, by Mulk Raj Anand the young boy Krishna
recalls his first memories of his family as a five-year-old. He is
sensitive to the changes taking place around him. The boy Krishna
has the advantage of growing up in an atmosphere of care and of
protective parents who belong to the upper middle class. His
mother is a traditional but intelligent woman and the father- loving,
sometimes tough, a sceptic, who is attracted to the foreign ways.
The family's life in the cantonment affects the children as much as
it affects the father who constantly lives under the fear of
displeasing the master and this tension causes friction in the
family.
Krishna's brother Harish's marriage is a reflection of the
changes taking place in the joint family in colonial India. The
parents choose a bride Draupadi for their son- a girl who dislikes
the idea of living in the joint family. Coming from a young, new
bride it shocks the parents. Krishna's impression of this situation
is interesting:
Draupadi, however, was born not only after the
Sat-yug, the Age of truth, but long after the Tretayug, in the Kali-yug, the Iron Age, when the ferungis
held sway. It is true that she had not been taught to
read or write. Nor did she know anything of
European life. But she used Pears soap to wash her
hands, eau-de-cologne to scent herself with, and
she parted her hair like English women on the
side…. She wanted to be married to a Babu.
(Anand: p. 74)
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Where sandalwood and turmeric are the items used
traditionally by women Draupadi prefers using soap and cologne.
To be like a Babu meant to be as anglicized as possible. Mimicry
and comprador loyalty, (babus) are a part of the colonial and
imperial legacy which did not spare the families. Krishna's mother
on the other hand is typically Indian in that she respects her duty
towards the parents and as a daughter-in-law, she respects the
mother-in-law, however unfair she may be and her status improves
once a son is born to her. His father and mother have vastly
different opinions on how to deal with the contemporary situation.
His father lives under the constant threat of being thought disloyal
and a traitor by the sahibs whereas the mother firmly believes that
the Indians do not need the Britishers. She does not approve of
British occupation of India. She worships all gods, Hindu gods,
Jesus and Prophet Mohammed. She believes that the god behind
all of them is one and the same while his father feels that his wife is
mad to worship so many gods. The boy Krishna is sensitive to this
difference of opinion between his parents and he feels more
sympathetic towards his mother. His father's life changes with the
growing tensions between the sahibs and the people resulting in
tension at home. The loving affection of the superstitious,
sentimental, uneducated over worked mother stands in sharp
contrast to the cynical father in the impressions that the young
child Krishna's mind receives.
Attending his maternal uncle's wedding gives Krishna an
occasion to meet his maternal grandparents and travel to rural
India. The landscape on the way evokes a love for it in the young
child's heart and in later years whenever he thinks of Punjab,
Krishna thinks of those vivid colours of his childhood. The
traditional way of greeting the elders is to touch their feet in respect
and to obtain their blessings. Observances, salutations and
respect towards elders are what members of the family convey to
the child on ceremonial and informal occasions. The grandfather
becomes a friend instantly and the simple affection of the villagers
appeals to Krishna. The grandfather is a patriot and asks his
family to fight against the ferungis (Britishers). This joint family
and the affectionate way in which the sons address the father
impress Krishna. His uncle sings melodious songs of the famous
lovers of Punjab Hir and Ranjah and:
So resonant and catching were its rhythms that it
seemed to my child's mind, nurtured hitherto on
respect for the angrezi git-mit of the cantonment
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and contempt for the crude Punjabi spoken by the
townsfolk, that I had been sinning gravely in not
worshiping every word my mother said. (Anand: p.
238)
Krishna realizes that he and his brothers take more after
their father than their mother. While the father represents the
town, the British and a man interested in pleasing the rulers, the
mother represents the village and Indianness. His mother becomes
the trope for the motherland which is seemingly superstitious and
steeped in ceremonies, religiosity; but her thinking is truly
universal in her love of freedom and rejection of slavery- she is
thereby patriotic. Her worship of many gods carries the message to
her children that India is multicultural, multi religious, secular
and diverse but unified at the same time. Krishna's attitude to his
mother and motherland changes from the trip they make to the
village which helps him in finding his roots and identity. The
affection he receives there makes him a new being. He is among the
lucky few who enjoy a happy childhood.
The other significant incidents in his life are the indigenous
drama performance called 'Ras' where the stories of Hindu gods
and goddesses are enacted conveying Hindu weltanschauung
(world view). His other major trip is to see the coronation of George
V. He is promised this to make up for the disastrous start at school
and to inspire him towards 'Vilayat and Sahibdom'. He enjoys
regimental music, dress, acrobatics, grandeur and all popular
English tunes:
Compared with my own people, however, my
parents, the sepoys, the bandsmen, the followers,
the banias in the bazaar and the shopkeepers in the
town, the Angrezi Sahibs seemed so remote and
romantic that I soon wanted to be like
them…Possessed by this sense of otherness, I had
come one day and asked my mother to get me 'one
of the topees which the Sahibs wore'…I built up an
idea of Englishness in the light of which all the
details of my home life seemed a sordid drudgery,
an interval of lustreless, 'natu' existence, relieved
only by the few rays of the exotic which entered our
home. (Anand p. 109-110)
'I could see a great many English children with
their ayahs being taken there in phaeton, but then I
had always been taught to regard them as superior
163
little Sahibs, whom one should not touch'…
Naturally the white city became to me a sublime
abode of gods, in which only the great white Sahibs
and their chosen retainers were allowed. (Anand p.
112)
It is a fascinating experience for him to see the splendour
and glory of British ceremonial functions. The music, dress and
behaviour make an indelible impression upon the boys mind
attracting him to this quality of life.
The trauma of growing up in colonial India is brought out
clearly in the following lines:
But in the vast prison of India of those days,
especially in 'the prison of the armed camp,' as my
father used to call the cantonment, both the utter
happiness and the extreme misery of childhood
alternated with a peculiar sordidness, ensuing
from a local snobbery, encouraged by the
toughness which one had to acquire in order to
survive among the hardened sepoys, all struggling
to guard their skins against a court-martial and
hourly seeking to ingratiate themselves in the
favour of the inflexible, inscrutable, superior white
Sahibs. (Anand p. 246)
Krishna grows up with the impression of British
superiority and subservient position of Indians. Though these
experiences are sordid, he recalls some happy memories of the
cantonment and concludes that as the happiest part of his life:
Thus, when I think of the armed camps of Miarmir
and Nowshera, I recall the enchantment of army
adventures not only in the heart of my own dreams
and fantasies but in the broad outer world. And
certain moments, which are usually called the
high-lights, make these days glow till the first
playgrounds of my childhood seem the happiest
part of my life, because perhaps it is the most
innocent and sensitive. (Anand p. 259)
His mother and his maternal family stand for his identity in
Indianness. The father and life at the cantonment mean attraction
to things British. He suffers because his father is afraid to
displease the angrezi sarkar and this creates tension at home and
his mother does not share this view. Other incidents like bombing
and kidnapping of high-ranking officials multiply the trauma of
growing up during a period of strife in the life of every Indian. The
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
stabilizing influences of the security of home and a relatively
supportive economic status help him by-pass the troubled times.
In the novel the road is used as a powerful symbol which
divides the barracks from the bungalows. The child is fascinated
by this road and wonders where it comes from and where it goes.
This road holds the key to the introduction of the child to the magic
and mystery of the widening world. Krishna wants to go to a local
hockey match in Captain Owen's gig but his father asks him to
come with his brother. Krishna places himself at a strategic point
so that Captain Owen takes him on the gig. The two things that are
amazingly clear at this stage are Krishna's resourcefulness and
attraction towards the white man:
And all the boys of the regiment whispered to each
other to see me thus arrive at the match in glory. My
triumph was complete when at the end of the
match I was given a bottle of lemonade to drink all
by myself. (Anand p. 46)
Status of an individual depended on being seen as an equal
by the British or at least in their company. Krishna observes the
inequality in status of Indians and the white man in terms of dress.
When Krishna sees the grandly dressed Karnel's son, he wants to
become like him:
Instead, I was to learn that the splendours of life
were only for the Sahibs in Lal Kurti, the English
part of the cantonment and degradation for those
in the native regiments. (Anand p. 144-145)
The white nurse in the hospital adds to his attraction towards
foreign lands:
...I remembered most the phrase about vilayat. It
became a keynote to the history of my later life. For
as I grew up from the impetuosity of my childhood
to school and college and the wide open world I
looked westwards, not only in the sense in which
one looks from the contingencies of familiar,
awkward and frustrating circumstances at the
'blessed Isles', but I tried naively to emulate Europe
through an exaggerated respect for hats, top boots,
hockey sticks, cricket bats, shorts, trousers, push
bikes, cigarettes, books, revolvers, and such other
gifts of the West which are the true heroes of
modern India. (Anand p.71)
Judith Walsh says: “For a student to become a sahib was a
165
project which united dress, language, education, and
employment.” (Walsh p. 36) Anand wrote thus to Tom Brown in
1941: “Imperialism destroyed the basis of the old village life and
mechanically imposed a superstructure from the top. It sapped the
whole foundation of the self-sufficient feudal village, but
substituted another kind of feudalism in its place. It destroyed the
ancient forms, but left the festering sores of an age long decay
beneath the surface without making any serious attempt to heal the
sick body, except treating it with patent medicines. It broke up and
changed India, but refused to renew it.” (Niven p. 56-63) Anand
knew what the British had done and so though Krishna is highly
influenced by the British ultimately he realizes the happenings at
home and in the society.
Seven Summers also presents the harsh side of British
education. The first day of school proves to be a harrowing
experience for Krishna. Krishna attends class on the first day only
to witness the brutality of the masters towards pupils as use of
cane; physical punishment is the order of the day. Since
memorizing is the method of instruction- learning is only
superficial and not in any way helpful to children. Krishna's
comment about this kind of education is:
And because cramming with swaying heads was a
surface operation, there was nothing of the
subsequent verses in the layers of his mind which
could be evoked through the racking of his brain.
(Anand p. 100)
School for Krishna proves to be a 'bad' place because his
mother sends them late to school for which they are punished. The
master punishes the boys in a unique way by making the boy who
answers correctly beat other boys. School and learning is made to
be not a pleasurable but a painful experience for the child.
About Seven Summers Niven says: “Nevertheless, the
formative years of his life were spent in northern India, and these
are the years recalled by Krishna, the fictionalized version of
Anand himself, in Seven Summers, … It is important to emphasize
that this is a recollection. Anand makes no pretence that he is not
an adult looking back on his early life across a gulf of many years.”
(Niven p. 20-45)
Children who grew up during the colonial times had a
fractured identity because of the conflict between home and the
world. They learnt to cope with the exposure to an alien culture and
forge a stronger identity with resilience. Children confronting such
166
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
conflicts blossom with difficulty or there is a risk of them withering
away. Yet the instinct to survive, strong family bonds, roots in their
culture provides the necessary support system to overcome the
conflicts. These support systems shield them from the cross fire of
cultural conflict.
WORKS CITED
Anand Mulk Raj. Seven Summers: The Story of an Indian
Childhood. Bombay: Kutub-Popular, 1960.

Ashcroft Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. Key Concepts in
Postcolonial Studies. London: Routledge, 2004.

Bharat Meenakshi. The Ultimate Colony: The Child in
Postcolonial Fiction. New Delhi: Allied Publishers Pvt Ltd, 2003.

Fernando Nihal. “Between Cultures; Narayan's Malgudi in Swami
and Friends and The Bachelor of Arts”. A Sense of Place in the
New Literatures in English. ed., Peggy Nightingale New York:
University of Queensland Press, 1986.

Nandy Ashis. Traditions, Tyranny and Utopias: Essays in the
Politics of Awareness. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Niven Alastair. The Yoke of Pity: A Study of the Fictioanl Writings
of Mulk Raj Anand. New Delhi: Gulab Vazirani, 1978.

Walsh E Judith. Growing up in British India: Indian
Autobiographers on Childhood and Education under the Raj. New
York: Holmes and Meir Publishers, Ltd, 1983. 87. Questia online
library.

Translated from Gujarati by Hemang A. Desai
Piyush Thakker's
Dusk
With the fall of dusk
The wintry sighs of rocks
Have engulfed the sky
In no time will the sky be
chocker with
Shadows of these rocks
Rocks will get the sky
Light the shadow
Body sleep
Heart pining
Just as
Gods got the man
Piyush Thakker's
An old House
There are
Walls
A loft
A lamp-niche
A god
A goddess
A bird nest
Day and night
Eventide
Pitch dark
And light
That's an old house, right.
Womanism in
NGugi's Devil on The Cross
and Nwapa's One is Enough
SSVN Sakuntala
“The socially conscious writer does not set to
work in a vacuum, but urges his society from
what it is towards what it might be.” (Cook. 3)
African writers such as Achebe Soyinka, Armah,
Gordimer, Nwapa, Ngugi and were such socially conscious writers
who with the motto of art for life's sake. They presented the
corroding influence of colonialism and euro centrism and their
influence on African cultural values in the post colonial context.
One of the thrust areas of post colonial literature is feminist
studies. A comparison and contrast status of the western and the
colonized women appears to be quite interesting.
The status of women in the pre-colonial African societies
appears to be better than that of in the post-colonial independent
African countries. The traditional African societies provided
earmarked rights and duties for both men and women. Women
enjoyed the liberty of growing minor crops retail trading at the
market and sharing the economic resources with men. (and
walking out of an unhappy marriage). Consequently, they were
duly respected in their households and in society. Polygamy and
wife beating were prevalent but were not protested by women as
they had the liberty of walking out of unhappy marriage.
On the other hand the western educationists were of the
opinion that “in African societies women have a position like that of
a domestic animal.” (Sircar. 18) .In the guise of colonization the
European rulers promised to transform the status of the
suppressed classes, women in particular. Consequently women
did cross the threshold, got educated and became active
participants in all walks of life. But they had to face double
colonization: they were dominated and exploited both physically
and commercially. The respect and dignity they enjoyed in the
traditional society drove them to ponder whether education and
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
westernization are a boon or a curse (bane). Initially women were
disappointed and disheartened with the social change and their
suppressed role in it. Subsequently realization dawned upon
them that a novel protest against exploitation is the only way out for
them to survive in the hegemonic post-colonial society. Such
realization and consciousness of their abilities goaded them
towards a new concept – womanizm, which is different form
feminism. Womanizm is defined as having or expressing a belief in
or respect for women and their talents and abilities beyond the
boundaries of race and class. These women are not feminists who
fight for equality but womanists who aim at asserting their
independence and self-respect. In the process they had to stray
from normal gender roles like wife and mother to pursue
individual interests.
Literature too, emulating the social and contemporary life
focused male characters in the role of protagonists and female
characters were marginalized. This trend continued upto 1980's
till the concept of gender consciousness came into limelight. As a
result a new literature emerged in the last decades of the 20th
century focusing on the African women in the age of transition. Be it
East or West Africa, writers, both male and female, adopted the
concept of womanism and presented the new, independent, selfreliant heroines who no longer remain the victims of male
hegemony but protest against their servitude. This paper is a
modest attempt to analyze the concept of womanism presented by
the Nigerian woman writer Flora Nwapa in “One is Enough.” and
Kenyan male writer Ngugi Wa Thiongo in “Devil on the Cross.”
Though the time gap between the novels is more than a decade the
point of view seems to be similar, contemporary and worth
probing. In goading the marginalized groups of his society the
women, the workers and the peasants, Ngugi seems to “awaken
them to a serious appraisal of their predicament and propel them
into combined action to right the situation.” (Cook and
Okerimpke. 121-122)
Both the novels present the situational whirlpool in which
the heroines are caught and find a way out for their problems.
Ngugi's heroine turned hero is introduced as a typist and secretary
in a construction company in Nairobi. In the opening page itself
Ngugi says “came let us reason together ……..about Jacinta
Wariinga before you pass judgment on our children.” (Ngugi. 9)
.Early in life, she was sold by her uncle to a rich old man and
conceives. The old man abandons her with the words “How could
169
you possibly have conceived so soon if I were the only man who
went with you?” (Ngugi. 146) .She is blamed for the dishonesty of a
man, attempts to commit suicide but is saved. She delivers a baby,
leaves her with her parents and continues her studies. Ngugi
explains Wariinga's dream in life: “Her ambition was to study
electrical, mechanical or civil engineering.” (Ngugi. 140), which is
shattered and she ends up pursuing a secretarial course and joins
the construction company as a typist.
Ngugi informs her present position, on a Friday morning,
she was dismissed from the job for rejecting her boss' sensual
proposal and was abandoned the same evening by her lover for
being her boss' mistress. The following day her refusal to quit the
room results in being kicked out by the henchmen appointed by
the landlord. Within two days “insistent self-doubt and crushing
self-pity.” (Ngugi. 12) combined with the burden of her life become
her companions. Had she accepted the proposal of her Boss she
would have remained the apple of the eye of her Boss and lover too.
A disheartened Wariinga once again thinks of taking solace with
her parents.On her way to her parents at Ilmorog she accidentally
attends a Devil's Feast. It is an eye opener for her where she meets a
trade union leader who presents her a gun and a student who turns
out to be her lover. The Devils Feast exposes the exploitation of the
marginalized by the imperialists and changes her course of life.
In the next chapter Ngugi moves two years in time and
introduces a transformed, self-reliant wariinga who joins a
polytechnic course to fulfill her dream of becoming a mechanical
engineer. “ The Wariinga of today has decided to be self-reliant all
the time, to plunge into the middle of the arena of life's struggles in
order to discover her real strength and to realize her true
humanity.” (Ngugi. 216) .Simultaneously she attends Karate
classes and works in a garage as a mechanic. She retaliates
violently against any comment or abuse of her sex. Through the
character of wariinga Ngugi seems to suggest the concept of
womanism which is nothing but the process of realizing one's
strength and abilities to reach the goal in life. She exhibits the
qualities of die hard womanism.
On the other hand her female psyche responds to
Gatuiria's love and proposal for marriage. Destiny once again
seems to test the will power and self-reliance of wariinga in the
form of Gatuiria's father. She is shocked to meet his father - also
father of her own child who requests her to be his mistress. Her
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
verbal reply “I shall save many other people, whose lives will not be
ruined by words of honey and perfume.” (Ngugi. 253), followed by
the act of shooting down the old man with the gun exhibit her selfconfidence. On her way out she shoots two other businessmen
whom she saw in the Devil's Feast. Her lover remains paralyzed
unable to decide the future plan of action. For Ngugi the old man's
death is a “retribution for the social evil he epitomizes.” (Cook and
Okenimpke 138). In his “Homecoming” he states “Violence in
order to change an intolerable, unjust social order is not savagery:
it purifies man.” (Ngugi. 28-29) At the same time one is reminded of
Wariinga's future. Ngugi ends the novel with the words “ - - - she
knew with all her heart that the hardest struggles of her life's
journey lay ahead.” (Ngugi.254). Her courage, resilience and selfreliance are the appreciable qualities adaptable by girls and
women to face life's challenges.
The heroine of Flora Nwapa's 'one is Enough' is also a
victim of male hegemony in the Nigerian society of the nineties.
Amaka as a young girl exhibits independence, courage and
resilence. Her ambition in life is “ a home she could call her own, a
man she would love and cherish, and children to crown the
marriage.” (Nwapa. 1). Dejected by three men she decides “……if
she did not marry …, she would excel in other things.” (Nwapa.11).
At that juncture she meets an executive officer in a ministry and
marries him. As the identity and existence of a woman in African
society is associated with motherhood Amaka faces bitter
experiences in her marital home. Her infertility drives her husband
to have children with another woman. A heartbroken Amaka
leaves her husband thinking “the erroneous belief that without a
husband a woman was nothing must be disproved.” (Nwapa.24). A
typical African woman, her mother protects her and says “I told
you …. To leave him ……..we are never barren in our family.”
(Nwapa. 32).
Amaka leaves for Lagos and within a year and becomes an
entrepreneur with her diligence and diplomacy. She practices
what her mother taught her by tempting a catholic priest. She
repays her bride price to her husband, divorces him and broods “
was this the man the husband with whom she had lived for six
years.” (Nwapa.119). She begets the priests children – twin boys
with the view that the priest would never claim his children, as it
would be a mortal sir on his part”. She wanted a man, just a man
and she wanted to be independent of this man.” (Nwapa.100). She
wants to be both mother and father to her children. It is this
171
concept of new woman which makes her refuse the priest's
proposal of marriage. She says “I don't want to be a wife any
more,……., there is something in that word which does not suit
me…….. I said farewell to husbands the first day I came to Lagos .”
(Nwapa.127). Thus Amaka remains an epitome of new woman by
discarding and rejecting the conventional role of wife. Just as a
man seduces a woman so also she seduces the priest to prove her
fertility. To continue her life's struggle she chooses to remain single
by playing the role of a mother and a father.
Ngugi's heroine Wariinga and Nwapa's heroine Amaka
belong to two different decades, yet they exhibit the qualities of new
womanism. Both are victims of the African patriarchal hegemony.
Both resist the existing social order and remain archetypes of new
womanhood. Their resilence, courage and the strength to oppose
suppression are the qualities of new womanhood. They prefer to
stray from the normal gender roles and choose the path of selfdiscovery. Though they are aware of the problems ahead their
decision to remain self-reliant and independent marks the
beginning of womanism. However Wariinga and Amaka differ in
means though their end is the same. A thrice disheartened
Wariinga chooses violence and brutal killing of her seducer
whereas Amaka proves her ability by being diligent and
diplomatic. She even expresses the fact “she was going to play her
cards well. It was the first time in her life that she had planned the
total annihilation of a man, using all that her mother taught her.”
(Nwapa.74)Just as a man seduces a girl and discards her so also
Amaka uses a man and discards him. It appears to be a threat to
the patriarchal hegemony as woman decide to be independent.
Both Wariinga and Amaka are fortunate to be rescued and
cared by their parents at a very crucial time of their lives. Both
seem to have fulfilled their ambition in life. Both remain new type
of heroines by not being a lover, a wife or a mistress. In the words of
Trevor James “ Wariinga never develops as a character : she is a
type that Ngugi hopes to create….” (James.58). Devil on the cross
written in 1982 and one is enough written is 1995 seem to portray
the ongoing struggle of the marginalized in the post colonial
societies of east and west Africa .The protagonists of both novels
seem to pose the question that do they remain mere fictitious
characters or their creators will ever be able to visualize and
achieve the utopian society where women have an independent
existence devoid of male hegemony.
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
WORKS CITED
Ngugi Wa Thiong : Devil on the Cross, London, Heinemann, 1982.
Nwapa Flora : One is Enough, Africa World Press, 1995.

Ngugi: Home coming; Essays on African and Carrribbean
Literature, Culture and Politics, London, Heinemann, 1972.

Cook, David : African Literature, A Critical View, Longman
Group Ltd. London, 1997.

Nancy J. Hafkin and Edna G. Bay : Eds Women in Africa: Univ.
press, 1976.

Sircar Roopali: The Twice Colonized : Women in African
Literature, 1995.

Cook David and Okenimpke, Michael: Nagugi Wa AThiong'o : An
Exploration of His Writings, London, Heinemann, 1983.

James, Trevor: English Literature from the Third World,
Longman Group Ltd; York press, 1986.


Raja Purshottam
LESSONS IN LOVE
Most often,
in all these years
I felt your fingers
round my throat.
I know
like the oldies of my home
you are in my shadow.
Many a time
you suffocated me
and drove me
into caring arms.
Every time I got off too easily
from your clutches,
I began to take a liking for you,
for you made my heart powerless though
you didn't dare to stop its ticking.
Every time you tortured me
I gladly learnt my lessons
Didn't those long lessons in pain
teach me what love is?
Whose Tradition
and Whose Individual Talent?
A Paradigm of Indian English Novels
Binod Mishra
Indian novel in English right from its beginning has not
only come a long way but has reached its pinnacle carving a niche
in the English speaking world. Starting with Rajmohan's Wife
(1864) by Bankim Chandra, the Indian English novel has
produced many masterpieces and the three founding fathers
namely, Mulk Raj Anand, R.K.Narayan and Raja Rao with their
literary corpus made the literary world realize the potential that
Indian soil had. This triumvirate of Indian English novels brought
in their works a blend of Indian themes having an Indian landscape
though bristling with the energy to compete with the form and
content of novel that their English masters had prescribed. The
readers of today might find the writings of these masters as
abstract and rather lacking in the felicity of expression apart from
their handling of themes yet come to a realization that everything is
not well with all that sells.
The present paper endeavours to analyze the award
winning novels of today with the major novels of olden days as
regards their form and content. An attempt will also be made to
explore the elements that differentiate and distinguish the novels of
today from that of olden days.
A work of art establishes its worth initially by the response
it gets from its readers. In a globalized world of today, where money
has become one of the most important criteria, the number of
copies sold, the various languages the work is translated into and
also the celluloid that experiments with, lend an edge over other
things. Thus to consider any work of art aesthetic, authentic and
immortal tends to become debatable at times. Any work that
provides immediate pleasure does not qualify for providing literal
satisfaction and happiness. In this connection, we as readers are to
be reminded of what T.S. Eliot says about poetry in particular and
literature in general. The veteran critic necessitates the role of
tradition in making a work of art permanent. He has rightly said;
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It
cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must
obtain it by great labour. It involves in the first
place the historical sense, which we may call nearly
indispensable to anyone who would continue to be
a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year; and the
historical sense involves a perception, not only of
the past ness of the past, but of its presence; the
historical sense compels a man to write not merely
with hi sown generation in his bones but with a
feeling that the whole of literature of Europe from
Homer and within it the whole of the literature of
his own country has a simultaneous existence and
composes a simultaneous order. This historical
sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of
the temporal and of the timeless as well as the
temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal
together, is what makes a writer traditional.
(Eliot:49)
But today the word 'tradition' is considered negatively and
also lacking in innovation. A writer who brings in new forms and
provides more fictitious plots and characterization in their works
are often read more and invite favourable response. It is time that
we took a serious note of the role of literature in shaping the mind
set of upcoming generations.
A deeper analysis of major Indian English reveals some
very startling truths. Though the seeds sown by three musketeers
of Indian English novels grew, and blossomed in due course of
time, it generated a surge of popularity in 1990s. Mulk Raj Anand,
who wrote a good number of novels, was considered a writer of
socio-political and period novels. It ir remarkable to note that
Anand's Untouchable was translated into several languages and
his later works also aimed at reforming Indian society rooted in
various dogmas. Anand, a great humanitarian wrote with a
purpose and raised the sagging spirit of crushed humanity by
providing them a weapon to fight their cause and establish their
identity. Anand not only soothed the bruises of oppressed but he
also instilled in them hope and harmony. The following lines of
Anand are a reminder of his unshaken faith in the potential of
man:
I believe in men. They have a great vitality, in spite
of humiliations they have suffered. I do not believe
175
that there is a soul distinct from the body. The soul
is the body and the body is the soul and together
they make a man. Mysticism is the approach of the
dying man.(Anand:248)
Likewise, Raja Rao's novels too, helped in the spread of
Gandhian philosophy and nationalistic consciousness. His
masterpiece, Kanthapura is an all time novel that describes the
transformation to happen in the years to come. It not only
deconstructs the hierarchical mindset of people but also throws
light on the three folded conflicts of caste, slavery and power
structure rooted in India of those days. The novel is not without
social overtones; rather it provides a commingling of fact and
fiction. An Indian village becomes so influenced by the ideas of
Gandhian ideals propagated by Moorthy, who is considered 'small
mountain' and who co-ordinates a panchayat in the village to
crush the evil forces unleashed by the British government.
Moorthy pays heavily and is sent to jail and the entire village is
devastated and deserted by the end of the novel. But the novel
becomes successful in generating the nationalistic feeling though
also deriding narrow dividing lines of caste and religion.
Meenakshi mukherjee's observation about Kanthapura is a quite
glaring:
This mythicising of facts serves a two fold
purpose in Kanthapura. Its narrator is an old
illiterate woman, and mingling of myth and fact
would be her natural manner of observation and
reflection. Thus, it is a device of characterization.
Secondly; Raja Rao adheres to the Indian classical
tradition by idealizing or mythicising the central
character. (Mukherjee: 141)
R.K. Narayan's novels also focus on the change that a
particular even fictional locale of Malgudi witnesses much in
parallel to what India is undergoing. An experimenter of Indian
English, Narayan packed his novels with everyday Indian
middleclass characters we find around. His novels present Indian
myth, beliefs and renderings of sacred texts with little bit of
superstitions involved in average Indian minds. He scores an edge
over his contemporaries because of his candid language and
treatment of Indian ethos devoid of any political grudge. Narayan
also introduces in his work women empowerment and shows that
they can create marvels if given a chance and also emphasize that
they are not the objects of gratification alone rather they need to be
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given an equal treatment. Narayan's masterpiece The Guide
became an all time popular because it presents an India where not
only men and women want their choices to be respected rather it
also underlines the fact that this world is a karmabhoomi where we
have to harvest the crops that are sown with evil seeds.
Narayan made clear the common man's Indian belief that
there is always life after death and the guiding principle that man's
karma in this material world paves his way to the doors of his
spiritual salvation. Every man has his obligations, which issue
forth right from his childhood to his family life and to his social
responsibility. The Guide very subtly delineates the Indian faith
that despite an individual soaked in sins; a single act of his
realization can transform him and generate in him the divine
powers. The growing saintliness in Raju becomes evident when he
resolves;
If by avoiding food I should help the trees bloom,
and the grass grow, why not do it thoroughly?' For
the first time he was making an earnest effort, for
the first time he was learning the thrill of full
application, outside money and love for the first
time he was doing a thing he was not personally
interested.(Narayan:213)
But if we look at the majority of recent award winning
novels, we come to an observation that these novels conform less to
the expectations of an authentic work. There is no dearth of Indian
novelists who draw our attention to this fact. The Indian readers in
particular and the world in general look both in awe and
admiration at the marvels of young Indian English novelists of new
generation. These writers greatly ensured to establish their
reputation not only with their linguistic ability but also through
innovative content bringing in contradiction at times. The award of
Man Booker Prizes to Arundhati Roy in 1997, Kiran Desia in 2006
and the latest to Aravinda Adiga in 2008 has enabled serious
readers and critics to go miles in order to find the literary clay and
artistic sun that baked the substance which, these authors wanted
to serve to the world at large.
Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things, a novel revolves
round the story of Kerala where the conflict between the high and
the low cast enacts and writes the tragedy of individuals simply on
the grounds of vengeance emanating from frustrated love and
burnt desires. Written brilliantly in a language totally of
Arundhati's own, the novel is not devoid of the loss of childhood,
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loss of individual choices and various violations the novelist
considers, were the privilege of high cast people. An attempt has
also been made to show the outside world the barbaric and
uncalled for behavior of Indian police. Though the novel became
successful because of the novelist's felicity of language use yet it
seems to have failed as an instrument to educate and entertain the
society. Many instances in the novel show the hollowness and
indiscreet human relationship.
Only that once again they broke the Love Laws.
That lay down who should be loved. And how. And
how much.(Roy:328)
The extreme form on violence perpetrated on Velutha also
shows the vengeance that enables humans to show their inhuman
face and that too in the police station, meant for maintaining law
and order:
His skull was fractured in three places. His nose
and both his cheekbones were smashed, leaving
his face pulpy, undefined. The blow to his mouth
had split open his upper lip and broken six teeth,
three of which were embedded on his lower lip,
hideously inverting his beautiful smile. Four of his
ribs were splintered; one had pierced his left lung,
which was made him bleed from his mouth.(Roy:
310)
Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss too seems to ape the
line of popularity by delineating the sensations of everyday Indian
life focusing on the drudgery of common man and his
incapabilities of competing in a multi-lingual and multi-cultural
world. The insurgency problem in Kalimpong and Darjeeling has
been in the background and that affects the love of innocent Sai
and unscrupulous Gyan. Moreover, the loss of labour and loss of
integrity in the name of ethnicity has been blown beyond repairs.
The foreign educated judge, treats his family members
indifferently and is unable to understand the predicament of the
local people torn between the pulsating dreams and morbid
reality. Biju, is beguiled at the hands of his own countrymen in
America and his home coming is not devoid of despair. The
insurgents in the novel seem to burn and boil in their demand for a
separate state that could be their own, divided on the basis of
language and other vested interests.. They are least bothered about
how it affects the life of poor individuals like the cook and hi son,
Biju. The novelist records:
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
They wanted their own country, or at least their
own state, in which to manage their own affairs.
Here, where India blurred into Bhutan and
Sikkim, and the army did pull–ups and push-ups,
maintaining their tanks with khaki paint in case
the Chinese grew hungry for more territory than
Tibet, it had always been messy map. (Desai:9)
Arvind Adiga's The White Tiger too suffers miserably on
account of providing a succor to aspiring entrepreneurs who want
to secure their earth and sky by the skin of their teeth. Adiga
addresses the Chinese premier and shows him the various ills and
foibles India suffers from. He seems hell bent to expose the bad
patches of his nation revered outside world as one that offers unity
in diversity. Adiga may secure an objective truth by winning a
Booker, but he seems to suffer from a subjective fallacy. A writer's
voice is not only representative but also reformative. It seems more
of a fictional device to allow the protagonist to kill his oppressive
master simply to become a successful entrepreneur in the guise of
a culprit. This seems less to inspire and more to disgust the
younger generation ready to prove their mettle. India may have
certain lapses yet it doesn't seem to de-motivate people from taking
a holy dip in the holy Ganges flowing incessantly since ages. What
Adiga says about the Ganges is half truth
I urge you not to dip in the Ganga unless you want
your mouth full of faeces, straw, soggy parts of
human bodies, buffalo carrion, and seven different
kinds of industrial acids. (Adiga:15)
Adiga seems to anger the Indian masses when in one of the letters
to the Chinese premiere, he belittles his country saying:
Apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in
every respect, except that you don't have
entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no
drinking water , electricity, sewage system, public
transport, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy,
or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs.
Thousands and thousands of them. Especially in
the field of technology. And these entrepreneurs ------- our entrepreneurs----- have set up all these
outsourcing companies that virtually run America
now. (Adiga:4)
Ours is a country where religious rites and ceremonies
have an upper hand over many things. A writer's responsibility is
also to show the attractions and the wonders that it has offered to
the outside world. The ever beautiful Taj Mahal, the ever inspiring
Ramayana & The Mahabharata and the ever educating Vedas and
Upanishads, the ever inquiring Indian philosophy and the ever
lasting Indian warmth, sensibility and ever accommodating Indian
culture also needs to be a part of a writer's manifesto which is
found in the works of the three wise and widely acknowledged
Indian English novelists who had seen and sizzled in preindependent and post-independent India. Their significance in the
world of Indian Writing in English still appears indisputable,
unparalleled and unshaken because their works always remind us
of what Robert Frost said in one of his poems:
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less travelled by
And that has made all the difference.
(The Road Not Taken)
Thus it becomes clear that the earlier generation of Indian
novelists had certain issues and challenges to answer. As
compared, the breed of present day novelists seem to be influenced
by the dazzle of prizes where they can compromise with the
legacies of their native countries' tradition just for come words of
applause and memento. It has become imperative for the future
writers and practitioners of art and literature to carve a balance
between their countries' rich tradition and variegated creative
sparks. This requires the measures suggested by T.S Eliot again,
who very pertinently offered: “The progress of an artist is a
continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.”
(Eliot:53)
WORKS CITED
Eliot, T.S. “Tradition And Individual Talent”. The Sacred Wood.
New Delhi: B.I. Publications.1982.
l
Anand, M.R. The Private Life of An Indian Prince. New Delhi:
Arnold Heinnemann. 1953.
l
Mukherjee, Meenakshi. The Twice Born Fiction. 2nd ed. New
Delhi:Arnold Heinnemann.1974.
l
Narayan, R.K. The Guide. Mysore: Indian Thought
Publications.1958 .
l
Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. New Delhi: Penguin
Books. 1997.
l
Desai, Kiran. The Inheritance of Loss. Viking: Penguin Books
India. 2006.
l
Adiga, Aravinda. The White Tiger. New Delhi: HarperCollins
Publishers India, a joint venture with India Today. Fifth
Impression. 2008.
l
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181
An Interview with
SUNIL SHARMA
Jaydeep Sarangi
Sunil Sharma is a trend-setter in new fiction in India
and a perceptive bilingual critic. His short stories have
already appeared in New Woman (Mumbai), Indian
Literature (of Sahitya Akademy, New Delhi), Indian
Literary Panorama (Mumbai), Contemporary Vibes
(Chandigarh), Seva Bharati Journal of English Studies
(Medinipur) and Indian Journal of Post-colonial
Literatures (Kerala). Besides that, he is a freelance
journalist in English. His areas of strength are
Marxism, Literary Theory and Cultural Studies. His
book on the Philosophy of the Novel—A Marxist Critique
is already published. Minotaur—dealing with
dominant ideologies and socio-political realities of the
20th century is also recently published from Jaipur
(India). The novel has been favourably received and
reviewed in India and abroad. Frank Joussen, the
noted German poet and scholar, comments, “…if
fiction wishes to regain its former importance in
today's discourse make sure it is politically poignant
and artistically brilliant as this astounding debut novel
by Sunil Sharma.” Shaleen Singh, the Editor of
Creative Saplings calls Sunil Sharma as “a great story
teller with lots of promise.” He is currently the Viceprincipal and Head of the Department, English, Model
College—an A-grade college affiliated to the University
of Mumbai, Mumbai—MIDC, Dombivli (East) in District
Thane, state of Maharashtra.
JAYDEEP: How do you want to be introduced to the reading
world?
SUNIL: An extremely ordinary guy--- middle-class, suburban and
small-town, not much to look at and heavily out-of-shape; a
Bellowian character on a curious search for meaning and personal
connectivity in an indifferent universe, often feeling terribly lonely
in crowds; an odd man out in an increasingly commercialized
culture where bonds are disappearing fast, like rupees/dollars in
the recessionary economy. He is a guy who is grounded and often
kind, with an extraordinary interest in life, and its deeper aesthetic
reflections in historical categories like art, painting, philosophy,
theory and literature. These are the various substantial material
modes of cognizing the surrounding world.
Sunil tries to make sense of life through art. And, most of
the time, he is successful. Life, to this 51-year-old, obese bloke,
speaks through great art. The last spiritual enclave left for sensitive
minds, in an extremely reified world.
At a more mundane level, I teach in a suburban college of
Mumbai; freelance and do creative stuff. At my avuncular age, I still
continue to produce beautiful objects for contemplation,
surrounded by spiritual ugliness, is itself pretty surprising. Most
of us become emotionally dead in our early fifties! Nothing
surprises them or inspires them. They just think of the afterlife
and a possible date with a kind light, at the end of the dark tunnel!
Somehow, nature and God---two important reference
points for the New Age guys---have been kind to me. This prolific
production---this engagement with ideas in sensuous form---is a
compensation given to artists by nature. It makes me survive the
grim realities of my social condition via the fruitful employment of
aesthetic faculty. It is like finding poetry in a soulless red-light
district!! The way great Sarat Babu did or Baudelaire in the
underbelly of a grim Paris.
I think all of us carry a bit of Van Gogh and Kafka in us---the
modern/post-modern artist. A bit of sadness and morbidity and
melancholia that get transmuted into great art. It is a constant
marker of the sterile age! Early Eliot! Or, like a typical Chekov
character with a finer sensibility who is caught in a cruel dross
world. His Ward Number Six is a good illustration of this mental
state where these sensibilities become a great burden on your
sensitive soul. The sad fact is that all the ideals have deserted us.
Expressing this mood through art gives lot of cathartic relief and
fulfillment. Reading them also does the same function. Art, to me,
gives inner balance and a sense of organic completeness, things
that otherwise are missing in the real world of commerce and
brutal competition.
It is like a pointing signboard on a long hard journey.It does
not mean I live in a vacuum or a bubble. I daily battle different
existential odds but tend to find mental refuge in art and literature,
as a survival strategy. It is not an escape from realities of life but a
conscious seeking/ cultivation of the Beautiful and the Sublime in
the works of the great writers, poets, dramatists, painters and
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musicians. It is like making your castles on the beach that give you
creative joy and delight, although next day, you may not find them
there, washed away by the sea. These two symbols of transience
(castles) and eternity (sea) exemplify the efforts of an artist---big or
small---against the powers of an unforgiving Time. Great art---like
Homer's, for example---stands out in this march of relentless time,
giving you a sense of history and enduring finer values dear to every
age---like democracy and equality. Great art enriches you
spiritually and emotionally, making you whole again. That is art as
a therapy for me!
In this conception of art, you may find echoes of George
Lucas and Frankfurt School of Marxism. For me, I repeat, classical
and contemporary serious, non-commercial, avant-garde art
resonates with nobility and beauty and sublimity and finally,
restores a sense of wholeness. This is one of the advantages of great
art. It firms you up and empowers you via its analysis and positive
historical sense of robustness and optimism, even in the face of
darkness of spirit. It is a kind of dialogue with the brilliant masters
of the world. It gives you strength of character and hope. It shows
that things never remain same and change for better. They evolve.
Spartacus by Howard Fast and Shakespeare, Balzac and Shelly
talk of the same evolutionary world. It resists status quo at every
level.
JAYDEEP: Hello!! Good morning! Tell me about your
childhood and parentage….
SUNIL: Middle-class background; happy childhood; parents, both
teachers in Ghaziabad, near Delhi. The most beautiful part of my
life spent in the innocent 70s and 80s, when India was young,
dreamy and still ideal.
Father was a great scholar and fine human being and a
writer who could not publish much; mother, a drawing teacher. Pa
was/is a solid influence. Maa is still a fighter and a person who can
smile away all her blues---typical powerful female prototype of
Portia or Linda Loman, I guess.
JAYDEEP: Who were the authors you read in childhood?
SUNIL: Dickens , Hardy, the Metaphysical poets, Browning and
the Romantics; Gorky, Tolstoy, Chekov, Turgenev and Dostoevsky
among the Russian masters; Flaubert and Maupassant, and
Hemingway. Premchand, Nirala, Mahasweta Devi, Ismat Chugtai,
Qartullin Haider, Manto and Amrita Pritam, among others, are my
guiding stars in life.
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JAYDEEP: How did your early reading shape you as a
writer?
SUNIL: Writing initially for me was a pathway to exotic lands and a
vicarious pleasure. Victorian England? OK. Go to Dickens or
Hardy and you will get transported to a different realm. Stage
coaches and inns and all that. With Cervantes, you fight the
windmills. With Scot, you relive the old England of knights and
tournaments. With Homer, you are with the gods!
This capacity of art to open magic casements on the distant
past and lands is really remarkable. It enriches your plain
imagination as a reader in this collaborative process. It uplifts you
from the mundane into the sublime and leaves you drenched in
ecstasy or, jouissance in the Barthian sense of the term. It is your
West Wind uplifting you from the thorns of life and giving you a
sense of direction and courage and solidarity.
These writers are the summits of world literature and
embody the best humanistic values of every national culture. They
talk of finer values like justice, equality, freedom and brotherhood--the “transcendental ideas” (post-structurlist critics, please
excuse) --- that have shaped up the world in last five centuries or
more. I inherited the same vision from these great writers. Their
writings are a protest against the general and prevailing
inhumanity of the world and an eternal human desire for a more
humane earth where everybody is treated as equal. Very few
writers can now equal them. Current Lit. scene is very effete and
disappointing! You are left with no giants now---only the arrogant
pygmies and manipulators!
Art has become a commodity that fetches you millions and
fame but those early humanistic concerns are missing from this
status-quoist art!
The great era of art, after the 80s, is over---at least, for some
time!
JAYDEEP: Your schooling? College?
SUNIL: Vernacular. Typical Victorian system carried forward
from the colonial times to produce clerks for the new elites.
Dickens makes fun of it in Nicolas Nickleby. The disconnect with
reality is still there. The literary giants told me about life more than
the textbooks!
An ordinary resume. Not much to talk about. A system that
purely promotes rote and conformism; not the creative or lateral
thinking. It stifles your curiosity and individuality and innate
creativity.
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It needs to be radically revamped.
JAYDEEP: Your friends……
SUNIL: Folks like you who do not believe in pursuing only the
celebs only but are receptive to new voices and take pains to
explain them to the wider world. It is a great literary and critical
service to the body of literature now emerging…
JAYDEEP: How about your family?
SUNIL: My wife is my anchor and support; my elder son is my
Columbus, the young daughter is a gentle admirer. Then, a few
friends and very few relatives who find some merit in my ordinary
career.
JAYDEEP: Your English is so strong that a reader forgets
your linguistic identity as English the Second Language….
How did it happen?
SUNIL: Only a Freud can psychoanalyze the springs of linguistic
wealth! Conrad is my favourite who learnt English at 19 or so and
mastered the Queen's English that few natives could write!
Nabokov did that.
Kazuo Ishiguro and Michael Ondaatje-- are two other
recent examples. Raj writes back! Ishiguro is one of the most
celebrated contemporary fiction authors in the English speaking
world, having received four Man Booker Prize nominations,
including winning the 1989 prize for his novel The Remains of the
Day.
At a more personal level, it comes naturally. Having
internalized the syntax and the intricate idiom and grammar of felt
immediacies and the foreign colonial language now Indianised by
us, the crystallized form and the immediacy get dialectically
articulated in my works. Objective co-relative? Yes. Of course, lot
of hard work goes into these small pieces. Beyond this, I have no
idea about the achieved clarity, spontaneity and cadence of my
English. It all comes in torrents, those images and startling words,
fresh from their morning sleep, tender in your hands---bouncing
and hyper… It all comes down to feeling the ribbed, multi-layered
words and rendering them in all their crystalline purity, hardness
and malleability. Most writers have been doing this task only.
Pound, for example. Or, Mallarme, Vallery or much earlier,
Browning and Donne.
JAYDEEP: Your debut novel has a strong historical sense.
What is the reason for it?
SUNIL: Grounding in Marxist texts and praxis has provided the
much-needed clarity, I guess. They helped in making sense of the
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real world from a scientific, philosophic and historical
perspective. It helps a lot, the illumination. The dark contours
suddenly get luminous and even back-lit.
Marxism is nothing but history on the move from lower
stages to higher stages of evolution. The novel is strictly written
from that historial and dialectical materialist point-of-view only;
the beauty is: it is nowhere apparent. The entire philosophy has
been artistically transmuted into sensuous images and fastmoving narrative. I like novels written in the first-person narrative
style and the narrators often exhibit human failings.
JAYDEEP: What's about your University education and
research?
SUNIL: Research was on Marxist aesthetics. That helped a lot in
sorting out and straitening things out in life. Again not much to talk
about, thank you!
JAYDEEP: How did Marxist model help you as a writer?
SUNIL: By making me understand the evolution of society and
culture from a historical, humanistic and liberal perspective on
life and reality. It equipped me with an artistic vision that is
progressive and positive, not fractured, depressive, nihilistic and
anti-historical as is the case with the 20th-century artistic vision of
life, history and humankind.
JAYDEEP: What are the major matrix of your short fiction?
SUNIL: Loss of humanistic values; increasing consumerism in
urban centers; increasing commodification of relations; the naked
dance of power and big money, casteism and communalism. The
hardships of rural India and slums are things that dominate my
artistic consciousness—kind of Baudlerian vision of the Parisian
life.
JAYDEEP: Do you write flash fiction?
SUNIL: Yes. It is very exciting! As a freelance journalist, I know
words should be used economically. Flash fiction is for the reader
in a hurry.
JAYDEEP: Can you mention some of your representative
short stories published?
SUNIL: Modern Pilgrimage; Eating out with the Kumars; Farewell
to Dad; The Twins; The Butterflies; The gourmand Meals and
many others that give the real India to the alert readers in English.
JAYDEEP: How about your debut novel?
SUNIL: Very ambitious. The 20th-century is the backdrop. It
examines all the major ideologies of the last century.
JAYDEEP: What is the source of your inspiration for a
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mammoth novel like The Minotaur?
SUNIL: Socio-political and economic realities of the last century. It
is a political novel that deals with the history of major political and
economic ideas. It deals with major political ideologies that have
moved millions of people, world-wide.
JAYDEEP: “The Minotaur has competent narrative force to
demolish the existing literary boundaries and re-define
post-modern fiction in India and its concerns.”…Do you
agree with this remark made by myself in a review?
SUNIL: Yes. It is a novel that challenges many conventions and
successfully demolishes them. The setting is not India but an
island in South Pacific. The names are all exotic, so is the locale. It
was a great challenge creating spatial-temporal distance from your
immediate environment with the help of an empowered literary
imagination. It is a cross-cultural and literary dialogue also. It
shows you can easily write about global issues from a global
perspective. It is making intellectual commentary on the century
that was the most turbulent and epochal. Two World wars,
Spanish civil war, rise of communism, fascism and
totalitarianism, of terrorism, of dismantling of communism. The
toppling of dictatorships and resurgence of nationalism,
fundamentalism and sectarianism. A century in deep rotation, in
crucible, in flux; exposing the fault lines of liberal capitalism.
There is deep crisis of liberal philosophy. Humanism is practically
dead and anti-rational and anti-liberal forces are on the rise again.
It is a scary scenario for every right-thinking person and
intellectual. The Minotaur raises all these issues---for a nation,
collective and conscience. It is moral critique on the bankruptcy of
the 20th century that started with a bang and ended with a
whimper!
JAYDEEP: K V Dominic, the editor of IJPCL, comments on
your novel as “…a telling comment on dictators and
totalitarian regimes.” …Do you agree with this observation?
SUNIL: Yeah. It about a social construct called power and its
abuse by men who started as noble but ended up as the massmurderers! It is about these hollow dictators who thrived in last
century in Latin America, the Philippines, Africa and South Asia
and the Arab world. Marquez has exposed them so brilliantly!
It is about Socialism as a political theory and its abuse in
Russia and the other third-world nations. In a way, it is a universal
story going back to Roman times through the figure of Caesar, the
hero. It is a study of power as a discourse and its effects on a
collective and conscience! It is an out and out political novel. It is
187
also philosophical---Iris Murdoch kind of thing or William Golding
or Camus kind of preoccupations with the nature of world and
epitomologies.
The notable thing about it is that these tough strands
beautifully mesh together in the narrative and seamlessly flow in a
fast manner, like a fast-flowing river. It is not heavy read!
The Minotaur is a profound engagement with the history
and philosophy of ideas of the last century, in highly polemical way,
without making that very obvious to the reader. There can be no
innocent reading of this intellectual novel, though. You have to take
positions here. The art has to become militant again and provide
radical illumination to the recipient's dulled consciousness. It is
like Gorky or Mann revisited. Complacencies are being challenged
by this novel that nobody was interested in publishing for more
than seven years. That goes for talent scouting. Finally, it got
published from a small press, recommended by a young critic. One
thing I am sure. It is going to be one of the landmarks of this
century.
JAYDEEP: The aim of creative process ,to me, is to put the
age in right perspective by challenging the dominant master
narratives or the prevailing political ideologies as the
popular view-points of the ruling elites and creatively. What
is the basic structure of The Minotaur?
SUNIL: Exactly. My novel examines the rise of political power,
democracy and absolute dictatorship, in the name of socialism
across the centuries in history of the world and asserts that the
people power is the last arbiter in any political system that finally
counts. It is a critique of socialistic orthodoxies, Stalinism and
third-world despotism. It is a searing critique of all those powerful
power discourses of the past that talk of justice and equality of
human beings but later come to deny the revolutionary effects of
those very master narratives to the people down below. It moves up
and down between past, present and future and employs many
literary symbols productively.
JAYDEEP: I rate the novel as the 'dynamite' in the reading
world!... What do you think of it?
SUNIL: I agree. It is going to change the existing norms of unidirectional and simple-linear narrative. It is multi-disciplinary and
cerebral. It reverses some of the literary norms of story-telling also.
It reads like a thriller also. So the norms have been bent. But it is
eminently readable.
JAYDEEP: What is your next novel?
SUNIL: About middle-class Indian in search of real India of billion
people, going back to 5,000-year-old heritage. It is going to be
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monumental work on our pluralistic nation and its heritage.
JAYDEEP: What is your opinion about the literary editors
and academic canon formation in India?
SUNIL: Most of the literary editors are young and extremely
talented college teachers and doing a fine job of spreading the
word. They could never get the opportunities to enter the hallowed
gates of the metropolitan universities here and elsewhere. Yet, they
are very devoted and hard-working folks. I hold them in high
regards. The University dons are lazy, arrogant and a new
aristocracy that won't allow outsiders at all, merit be damned!
Camps flourish everywhere. Aijaj Ahmad has strongly denounced
their parasitic relationship with the West. Should I say more?
JAYDEEP: Are you satisfied with the so-called literary
canon in India?
SUNIL: Not at all. It is university-driven, crony culture. It is
snobbish, mostly elitist, and very arrogant. Most of the
canonization is, as I just claimed, a pale effect of the Anglo-Saxon
and French axis only. It does not recognize new voices originating
in the country. It is a different kind of apartheid here. A new
colonialism. Teachers from colleges do not stand any chance here
in this bogus academic system. Bookers and the West decide about
the major writers here. It is very parochial and stifling process.
JAYDEEP: Do you write critical works/essays?
SUNIL: Occasionally. On Theory and Marxist aesthetics.
JAYDEEP: Who are the important critics of Indian Writing in
English? Why do you call them as significant?
SUNIL: Jaydeep Sarangi is a major young voice, documenting the
emerging trends of this substantial body of writing by young
middle-class English-educated Indians. These critics chart out the
unknown. They are the Ulysses of our times, finding new
destinations and talents from new unknown places. Other older
voices are already exhausted or dead. Many young college teachers
are doing a good job. We need such more fresh and unbiased
voices in Indian English criticism. Still, we need fresh perspectives
that are highly original and insightful. A lot, I am afraid, needs to be
done in this dynamic field. But I am optimistic. A New wave is upon
us soon.
JAYDEEP: How about your short story collection?
Sunil: It is being brought out from the USA by a fellow American
writer and editor. Next year, it will come out.
189
JAYDEEP: What make India English short story a neglected
genre?
SUNIL: There is no space for it in mass media. It has shrunk. No
literary journals for it, either. Successful writers lobby for awards
but do not give back or mentor or publish little magazines.
Then writing in a foreign language need a bit of naturalness
and spoantenity that are sorely missing from new middle-class
writing. English comes across jaded, boring, stifled and dead in
these writings. Craft needs to be practiced more carefully. The
dialectics of form and content needs to be done more artistically
and conscientiously by the writers.
JAYDEEP: What is there in the future of Indian English short
story?
SUNIL: For attention-deficit times, it is the only viable literary form
for communicating the micro world-vision for micro community of
readers.
JAYDEEP: Do you read Tagore's short stories in translation?
SUNIL: Yes. At one point, Tagore has deeply influenced me—as he
has done the rest of the thinking India. His metaphysical bent is an
offshoot of Kabir who is my favourite saint-poet. His 'Kabuliwalla'
still brings tears in my eyes! Tagore is a great writer who brings
genuine human pathos in textual discourse.
In this context, I would like to mention Prof. K V Dominic's
fascinating critical book on Tagore's short stories titled as “Pathos
in the Short Stories of Rbindranath Tagore” published through
Sarup and Sons, New Delhi.
JAYDEEP: What according to you, is a good short story in
contemporary time?
SUNIL: Like a fast ad that should catch you from your scruff of
neck and deliver the message in your solar plexus!
JAYDEEP: What is your immediate wish?
SUNIL: To be read and critically dissected by the readers and
young critics alike. Thanks for such a lively perceptive interview!
JAYDEEP: I am honoured! Wishes for all delightful things of
our life in future!!!
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SHORT STORIES
APPENDIX
EPILOGUE (from “The Minotaur”):
The ghosts appeared abruptly at midnight and easily
blended with the surrounding shadowy background. Stealthy
and fast movements had earned the popular nickname for them.
In fact Ghosts were highly-motivated insurgents who struck out
swiftly at government targets and then simply evaporated in
thin air, leaving no trace. Their secret lairs in high mountains
commanded a panoramic view of the battered and blacked-out
capital. Now, at this unearthly hour, these fierce men in dirty
and faded fatigues took up positions at strategic entry points to
the bleak city. The cloudy and freezing December night looked
sinister. A harsh shrieking wind had kept blowing from the
surrounding mountains for last many days. An unusually wet
spell had kept the residents indoors for previous one week. Even
otherwise there was not much work. Capital had slowly become
deserted. People just fled their homes and migrated to safer
South. Fear and desolation prevailed. Bombed-out buildings
dotted the skyline, smoke still billowing from the smoldering
ruins. A stinking hell-hole for hoards of foreign reporters staying
in the Hilton City—the only 5-star surviving hotel-- for last many
days. The run-down, rotten old capital was in the grip of severe
winter and raging civil war. Death was stalking every corner.
Nothing was safe any more. Anaconda was burning. Ghosts
were there that night for their decisive contribution to a coming
carnage.
A winter of discontent had descended rapidly as divine
curse on hapless Anaconda—capital of New Land— now being
torn apart continuously by the invading forces of the exiled
warlord and dissident former general Oscar Wee-Wee. His
guerrillas were moving fast towards the barricaded capital
through previous fortnight, burning and killing people in their
unstoppable victory march. December 25 was the chosen date to
smash their way into the palace of Constantine Caesar—the
hated Leader of this communist third- world nation convulsed by
great civil war for last one year-- an unstable political condition
common to these parts of volatile Latin America.
THE WOUNDS OF A SISTER
Albert Russo
from his Eur-African novel And there was David-Kanza which will
appear in his own French version as Exiles Africains - Et il y eut
David-Kanza Ginkgo Editeur, Paris, March 2010
During our stay in Riccione, on the Adriatic coast of Italy,
Massimo and his sister Liliana paid us a visit; they were my
husband's first cousins. He had the litheness and the nobility of a
Gregory Peck, and eyes that pierced through you to the soul,
whereas she, a head shorter than him, could have seemed quite
pretty if she didn't frown so much. It was only later that I
understood why such a woman, still young, bore the wrinkled
mask of a lady in her forties.
Unlike their parents, Massimo and Liliana had
miraculously escaped from the concentration camp. Upon their
return, they found their home in Pisa, luckily, untouched and
unoccupied. Massimo had resumed his medical studies at the
city's reknown university and became a pediatrician with a
reputation of efficiency and of great benevolence, whilst Liliana, a
degree in hand, taught junior highschool, taking care, at the same
time, of the household. She doted on her brother, like a mother
hen. There was between them the tacit understanding that they
should never speak of the horrors they had suffered during the
war, and especially not of the loss of their beloved parents.
What had brought the young people to the Adriatic coast
was not to have, like most holidaymakers, a good time at the sea,
but to meet with their cousin. Considering Sandro like a family
elder, they needed to hear his opinion on a serious and urgent
matter which disturbed them profoundly.
At university, Massimo had met a young girl with whom he
had fallen passionately in love. She in turn reciprocated with the
same intensity, to the point where they reached the conclusion
that, once they had both accomplished their studies, they would
marry.
They had known each other for three years, but Massimo
had always concealed their relationship to his sister, for Eva, that
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was her name, was Austrian. But once she got back home, with her
degree, and to Massimo's distress, the young woman wrote him a
long letter, telling him that she had thought over their situation and
that, despite her strong feelings for him, she believed that the
inhuman treatment he and his people had been subjected to during
the war, would sooner or later resurface and that he would hold
her, even if only subconsciously, responsible in part for that
collective tragedy, and that therefore, it would be better if he forgot
her.
Distraught, Massimo telephoned her several times, and
seeing that she wasn't changing her mind, took the train for Linz,
where she lived. But even that visit didn't deter her. They were
both heartbroken and cried in each other's arms. He rode back to
Italy, alone, and wearing sunglasses, even in the shade, to hide the
redness of his eyes.
After that sad and bitter experience, the young doctor had a
few flings, but didn't want to hear about getting married, ever again.
And he didn't hear from Eva thereafter.
The years went by, then, one day, by a stroke of fate, the two
crossed each other's path in Florence, where Massimo had to
attend a medical congress. Their encounter was electrifying. Eva
had just divorced from her Viennese husband, but had conceived
no children with him. This time the two lovers swore never to part
again, but the young woman requested that he have a bit more
patience, just a couple of months, until she could settle her affairs
in Austria and rejoin him for good.
Came thus for Massimo the most crucial and difficult
moment he had to confront: revealing to his sister his intention to
get married. The latter received the news with shock and dismay,
rekindling the accursed events of the past, like the explosion of a
dormant volcano, and she actually became physically ill. It is thus
with such a heavy burden, which they now both had to share, that
brother and sister had asked to consult with their cousin.
They spent three days in Riccione, staying in a hotel near
the pensione, and because of them, our vacation took another turn.
Whether we were at the beach, as early as 9.30 in the morning,
eating lunch or dinner, having a drink on the terrace of a café breakfast was the only time that belonged to us entirely -, or even
before retiring in one of our bedrooms, till late in the night, the only
subject that would be discussed revolved around Massimo, his
Austrian fiancée and the unbearable pain the situation inflicted on
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Liliana, opening old wounds she had vowed to bury in the marshes
of her mind; the wretched girl had become an insomniac and she
could hardly keep her eyes open, they hurt so much and got
relentlessly moist, she had to wipe them every other minute or so.
She also had to hold the armrests with a firm grip, lest she broke
into new tears. The muscles of her neck wrought like those
frightening creepers of the Cambodian jungle that looked as if they
enclosed the remains of human limbs, and her veins stood out so
tensely that I was afraid they would spill over and burst at the
slightest movement.
So as to avoid the inquisitive looks of strangers, especially
since Liliana's shrill voice inevitably drew stares, the four of us
would sidle into Massimo's room, whilst I'd send the children off to
have some fun, for the poor dears were constrained to take part in
this family drama whenever we went out with them.
I begrudged Massimo and his sister to spell out their
problems in front of my daughters and Daviko, exposing them to
events which reflected, with such sadness and such crudeness, the
darkest side of the human soul, events they could never have
imagined, since, growing up in Africa, they were spared the details
of the war, even during their history classes. It was one thing to
read that millions of people had lost their lives during the two
world conflicts, and another to face relatives who had suffered the
consequences in the flesh, with all their sordid descriptions.
People just didn't want to hear about them, and even in Europe, the
victims of the Holocaust who had escaped death, did all they could
to close their book of horrors.
Within the walls of our room, Liliana became hysterical
and hurled daggers at her brother, repeating in a long-drawn wail,
like that of a wounded animal, so that the echo of her lament
reverberated deep into your marrow:
“What he intends to do is nothing less than blasphemous, it
is unacceptable! Why did our parents die, and with them millions
of our folk? So that this massacre - the largest and most horrific
mankind has ever experienced - be so quickly forgotten, erased
from memory? Pushed under the carpet, like dust? And on top of it
all, the father of that Boche (dirty Fritz) was a nazi officer. He wants
to marry a nazi!!!”
“Eva isn't a Boche, she's Austrian!” retorted her brother, in
a broken voice.
“Oh, a fat lot of a difference it makes!” she snapped,
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brushing him off with another nerve-wracking tirade no one dared
interrupt. “And if that wasn't enough, she bears the same name as
Hitler's whore; wasn't the monster born in Austria? Champion of
the Aryan race, Ha! The tragic farce! Remember how small he
was, and how disgusting he appeared, dressed like a clown, with
hair the color of mud? Beautiful, tall and blond! Let me laugh! Even
the ugliest among the Jews was better looking than him.”
Then she would turn toward Sandro and reiterate her
question: “Would you accept that one of your brothers marry the
daughter of a nazi torturer? You see, it is as if they killed my
parents a second time, with the difference that the crime this time
would be committed by their own son.”
Massimo was perspiring, eyes downcast, shivers running
up and down his spine. He let her blather, so tangled up that she
was in her frantic verbiage, during five, ten minutes, then,
incapable of standing it any longer, he too began to holler:
“Stop it, stop it, will you! Haven't we both lived through the
same hell in Bergen Belsen? I loved our parents as much as you
did and the image of their pleading stares will burn my heart until
my lasting days, so don't play the righter of wrongs with me, ok!”
He was now out of breath, sweating profusely, and before
she could resume her accusations, he stretched out his arm,
determined to have the upper hand. Picking up strength, he
addressed her this time with a more conciliatory tone:
“Do try to understand, Eva has always loathed the nazi
regime, and she doesn't want anything to do anymore with the
people who were involved with it, be they simple acquaintances,
former friends of her parents, or even her own family. And ... most
important of all, we want to get married, start a family, and live, live
normally, like millions of couples. Is there any sin to that?”
“And he has the nerve to speak of sin!” Liliana bellowed,
looking at me, the stranger, the Rhodesian Anglican! In her blind
fury she forgot where I had come from, and, calling upon me as a
witness, she said: “She will bear his children, what will their faith
be? Christian, atheistic? They might as well be bastards.”
I didn't know where to put myself, and poor Sandro felt
doubly insulted, wasn't he taken to task? for he never demanded
that I relinquish my faith to become Jewish, and what's more, he let
me educate the girls in a Catholic school. Then too, what could be
said of Daviko who was a half-caste?
195
“That's not how we intend it to be!” countered Massimo,
raising his voice again so that he could be heard by all of us. “Eva
wishes to convert to Judaism, she's the one who proposed it, not I,
and she insists upon the fact that our future children should learn
both Hebrew and the Torah, even if they go to a lay school.
Actually, she is against them frequenting a Christian institution,
for she refuses that they be indoctrinated by some zealous priests
or by Sisters. I have not suggested any of this to her.”
“So here we go again,” exclaimed Liliana, “reverting back to
the abominable Sippenschaft which the Boche have concocted so
that they could hunt down the 'Jewish vermin'! This time though it
is the other way round, for even those Jews who had converted to
the Christian faith were caught in their grip - like Sister Edith
Stein, whom the Church will probably want to sanctify one day -,
the nazis traced suspects several generations back to search for a
Jewish ancestor. An eighth of the so-called poisoned blood was
enough to send you to a concentration camp.”
These conversations were weighing on me to such a point
that, in order to avoid them, I pretended I was having a splitting
headache.
The day of the cousins' departure was a huge relief for the
whole family, in spite of the fact that Sandro's long and
compassionate interventions had no positive effect on their
predicament, and that brother and sister returned to Pisa, both
exhausted and still at loggerheads with each other. I felt sad for
them, for I could empathise with Liliana, for whom her brother's
announced marriage had revived terrible memories, and yet, I also
understood Massimo's only too human desire to settle down with
the woman he loved, much as he was torn between the two. Destiny
sometimes can be so ironical you would think it is a farce, only that
in this case it pulled a family, or what was left of it, apart, with
tragic consequences.
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THE SINNER
P. Raja
Reverend Father Antonisamy paused, wiping the sweat
from his face with his hanky. He adjusted his cassock as his entire
body was swathed in sweat. It was the hottest summer evening and
there was an unexpected power failure. The heat was nearly
unbearable, but the sweating mass in the St. Francis of Assisi
Church at Kurusukuppam eagerly awaited his sermon to continue.
He caved in his lower lip and covering it with his upper one, blew
out air and redirected it inside his cassock.
“Let me proceed,” he said, “Now that I have come to the end
of the sermon there is no need to stop at this juncture…And so
Jesus is a symbol…a symbol of peace and love. He is the image of
the invisible God, the first born of all creation; for in him all things
were created…all things were created through him and for him. He
is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Let the word
of Christ dwell in you richly, teach and admonish one another in all
wisdom, and sing songs and hymns with thankfulness in your
hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything
in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father
through him…Amen.”
“Amen”, chorused the gathering inside the church and
knelt down to pray. Father Antonisamy raised both his hands
towards heaven and recited a prayer. As he sang a line from the
Lord's prayer and paused, the gathering chorused by repeating
that line. It went on like this, line after line, and finally came to a
halt with the all powerful word 'Amen'.
The nearby sea as if desirous of answering their prayer
blew a chill cool wind inside the church and it was a real relief to
everyone of them. “That's the result of mass prayer,” said Father
Antonisamy.
The congregation moved towards Father Antonisamy to
receive his blessings. As one after the other genuflected before him
he too blessed them by drawing a cross on their forehead with his
right thumb. There was no visible queue but every one of them
waited for their turn.
A young man dressed differently from the rest of the
Kurusukuppam villagers, who mostly depended on the sea for a
living, gave way to the rest as if he wanted to meet the priest at the
end of the blessing session.
197
Dressed in half white full sleeved shirt tucked in a khaki
coloured trouser the young man looked trim like a military official.
His dark hair cut close to his skull only added to it. When he found
no one around he genuflected before the priest and closed his eyes.
Father Antonisamy smiled and his eyes twinkled. His
immaculate white cassock sat glued to his profusely sweating
body. He crossed the forehead of the young man and hurried out of
the church for a whiff of fresh air. The Youngman followed him.
The priest stood in the shade of a huge neem tree. He pulled
out his hanky from the side pocket of his cassock and wiped his
face hard. His clean shaven face glowed. He saw the young man
walk towards him. As the latter brought both his hands together
and saluted the former in the traditional way, the priest nodded his
head acknowledging the respect shown to him.
“Do you remember me, Father?” the young man asked.
Father Antonisamy observed him at close quarters and
said, “You are the last in the list of those who received my blessings
for the day”.
“That's right, father! But apart from that…Can you
recognize me?” The young man grinned and looked around him
anxiously.
The priest concentrated on the facial features of the young
man. He then said softly, “Why do you want to play hide and seek
with me? Why don't you come out?”
“Six years ago you got me seat in St. Joseph's college to
study Physics. I am now a post graduate and I have a job in Delhi,”
said the young man.
“Oh, I see!” said the priest and smiled. “And what are you
in Delhi?”
“I am a scientist, Father,” he answered and beamed a
smile.
“A scientist! Good…That's good. This is something I can
feel proud of…I am really proud of you, my son,” said Father
Antonisamy, before he asked, “What is the nature of your job?”
The Youngman looked around him anxiously. “Are we
alone, Father?”
Father Antonisamy looked at him silently for one full
minute then said, “I think so”.
“Fine. That's the first rule. You hear from me and then you
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forget all that I say. When I finish telling you I cease to exist for you. I
think I have made myself clear to you.”
“I understand”.
“Our key word is: Secrecy.” He took a couple of forward
steps and positioned himself in such a manner that his lips could
easily touch the priest's right ear. He then whispered, “Father! By
the grace of Jesus, our Lord, I hold an enviable position in the
Defence Force.”
“Excellent…excellent…I am really proud of you,” said the
priest. He then added, “Certainly it is by the grace of Jesus, our
turning point in life”.
“Yes, Father! I work as a designer”.
“Designer! What do you design?”
“I design weapons, Father. I heard my superiors say that I
am very good at it. By the grace of Jesus, I design two to three
weapons a year.”
“Weapons! You mean killer machines?” queried the priest.
“Yes, Father! We redesign so that the old ones will go out of
use. By the grace of our Lord Our new machines work faster than
their seniors.”
Father Antonisamy could almost see the image of the young
man beginning to crumble.
“By the grace of our Lord Jesus, I make a lot of…”
“Stop it,” the priest said brusquely. “It is hardly worth
mentioning”. He then raised both his hands towards heaven and
his lips mumbled: “By the grace of our Lord let peace prevail on
this earth and let the lamb and the lion eat together”.
Father Antonisamy's arms dropped and he edged his way
to the door of the church again and plodded his way to the cross,
and knelt down. He joined both his hands in prayer. His head bent
down, he prayed as if he were making a confession before a parish
priest for the sin he had committed six years ago.
Tears threatened to trickle out of his eyes.
POETRY
Shanta Acharya
HUNGER
The gecko's progress across the ceiling –
scaly limbs defying gravity,
eyes fixed on its prize hypnotised –
Is matched by the speckled moth's nervous
dance on the fluorescent light-bar.
I watch mesmerised waiting for a taxi
to take me to the Siddhi Vinayak Temple.
The wild life programme on television
hones in on a cheetah chasing a gazelle,
the cheetah swiftly walks away with its kill.
The neighbour's dog lunges towards me barking
as I walk past the entrance to a decrepit car.
Dark, sunken, hungry eyes peer at me
behind the closed, tinted window screens
each time the taxi stops at traffic lights;
Time enough for mother and child to gesture
for alms, palms rising in unending salaams.
I hand out ten rupees, in an instant the car gets
mobbed with myriad hungry eyes.
Across the road a life sized poster sells dreams,
an actor gazes fondly into the eyes of his beloved
their lips barely touching as they clasp each other.
Near the temple an emaciated devotee
crawls across the tarmac penitent for his sins –
a caterpillar crossing from leaf to leaf
declaring eternal hunger for His love and mercy.
I join the evening queue for darshan,
my hands laden with flowers, earthen lamps, offerings.
It is Divine hunger, this Creation…
I overhear a conversation about Darwin and evolution,
the meaning of life and religion, Higgs boson,
in answer to the question: “What is maya, illusion?”
Dr. Shanta Acharya is an internationally published poet. Educated at Oxford and
Harvard, she is the author of nine books. Her doctoral study, The Influence of
Indian Thought on Ralph Waldo Emerson, was published by The Edwin Mellen
Press, USA, in 2001. Her five books of poetry are Dreams That Spell The Light (Arc
Publications, UK; 2009 ), Shringara (Shoestring Press, UK; 2006), Looking In,
Looking Out (Headland Publications, UK; 2005), Numbering Our Days' Illusions
(Rockingham Press, UK; 1995) and Not This, Not That (Rupa & Co, India; 1994).
200
Sukrita Paul Kumar
High and Low
Ambers in the Pacific
Once again
That language
of silence
of dumbness
Bridges weighed
Under…
…………
On your chest lies Pele
the formidable
Goddess of volcano
The flow of her red hair
Trapped in the cracks of
Molten lava
Ambers in the coastal sun
Between the moon
And the sun
Like the earth
I am yet again
between
rising and setting
…………………
Big wholesome moon
This month at dawn
looking the sun
In the eye
Defiant
……………………..
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Aloha
Be not in slumber
Says Papa the male god
Raising his neck from the
treacherous oceanic depths
From island to island
Hawaiians dance hula
Their simmering hearts
Tuning to Laka's call
Whistling in the breeze
Islands of desire
Fed on sacred food
Islands with white shores
Combating tiger waves
Islands held in Kumulipo
The Creation chant
In multiple rainbows
That Hina climbed
To reach the moon
When the moon is full
They see her
In the tides that rise
Sukrita Paul Kumar, born and brought up in Kenya, lives in Delhi at present,
writing poetry, researching and teaching literature. An Honorary Fellow of
International Writing Programme, University of Iowa (USA), Cambridge Seminars
and a former Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, she was also
an invited poet in residence at Hong Kong Baptist University. A recipient of many
international fellowships, grants and residencies, she has lectured and read poems
in many universities in India and abroad. She is the Guest Editor of Crossing Over,
a special issue of “Manoa”, the Journal from the University of Hawaii, USA. She is
the chief editor of the book on Cultural Diversity in India (Macmillan India).
Arbind Kumar Chaudhary
LOVE
NATURE
Sexual spire
Of the squire
Is the call of nature
On this sepulchre
Like the score
Of the scripture
In disguise of padre
Of the parterre
For the hare
Of his figure.
To capture
The caricature
Of the white sepulchre
Enraptures the fanfare
Of the esquire
For the feature
Of the father –figure
Fide et amore
On this juncture
In disguise of genre
Of the floriculture
That is the core
Of the chancre
Of chef d'oeuvre .
Arbind Kumar Choudhary, founding father of two international literary
associations: IAPEN & IHAI, edits two international literary Journals entitled
KOHINOOR (ISSN:0973-6395) & AYUSH (ISSN:0974-8075, Haiku). His love
poems are translated into Portuguese by Teresinka Pereira, President of the IWAA,
America. Presently he is heading the Dept. of English at R.C. College, Majuli, Assam.
Aju Mukhopadhyay
The Train
Carrying me in its womb since I was a toddler
across the autumn fields with stubbles
where rats snakes jackals fireflies and toads
with insects sought their food through fogs,
athwart the dens of teeming terrorists and battle fields
alongside the silent sea or moonlit spring fair
with greeneries, flowery beauties and maids fair
the train always ran puffing smoke in the air
in its monotonous gait
penetrating the night's secret;
a teenager stared through the hole of her hut
and two old lads, relapsing to their boyhood fads
looked curiously at my trainone of them was my friend.
Speeding fast, smokeless, the giant dream train
of the present age, often a sightcarries me still through the night
incessantly toward a dawn bright.
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Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
Farzana Quader
Pashupati Jha
Dear Neruda
Dear Neruda,
You have felt and loved
Felt with passion
Loved with tenderness
Made pearls of teardrops
Poetry of blood drops
Dear Friend in Time
Dear Friend in alien Space
Answer a plea of mine !
Will you?
Will you not?
Dear Friend
Answer a plea of mine!
Tell me why?
Tell me why and wherefore?
Tell me dear Friend, tell me
Tell me
In a phrase
a sentence
a word
a sign
Tell me why?
Answer this plea of mine!
Tell me why?
Why do unbred tears make the eyes ache?
Tell me why?
Why do unopened wounds shed drops of bloods
Tell me why?
Why do unborn feelings make the heart ache?
Dear Friend in Time
Dear Friend in alien Space
Answer this plea of mine.
For
Dear Neruda
I have felt nothing
loved nothing
I can connect Nothing with Nothing
Except
The laughter of the Perverse Text
For
Civilization: A Progress Report
The Sahib combs his dyed scalp
and, stuffing his coat with
cell-phone and credit cards,
wheels away in a new Zen
to his office and young assistant.
The Memsahib in silken grace
follows soon, to shop
the latest in fashion, to arrest
her fading youth and charm.
The Baba is already
in the gym, exercising
his muscles to lure
a few more conquests
to boast of, among his friends.
And the Baby is in the arms
of her next boy-friend, behind
the bush of her college lawn
putting Elephanta Caves to flame.
Only the young maid remains
waiting behind, to suffer the drunk
virility of the Sahib and his son
when, late at night, they return.
Next morning, with more stitches
to her blouse, she mops everything
away, except her misfortune.
And somewhere, in the distance
Christ bleeds again, and again.
'The Moving Finger writes
and having writ moves on.'
Farzana Quader is the Editorial Manager, ELT at Oxford University Press, New
Delhi.
Pashupati Jha is Professor of English at Dept. of Humanities, Indian
Institute of Technology, Roorkee. He is also Chairman of Indian
Association for English Studies since January, 2006.
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Hemang A Desai
Rajendra Patel's
The Dream of Immortal Web
Even blazing torches
Are ridden with
Cobwebs now
And the fretful dark
Under the furious flame
Has fleshed out with age
Turning soft with soft earth
The kodiyun has melted away
Not a blade of grass
Grows in vegetable beds.
Fed up of
The same old light
Suicidal moths
Keep an arm's length from flame.
Wandering in the dream of immortal web
They suck black juice of dark
Taking it for light
Flustered flametorch
Has decides to go off
Every single vein of arm
And the whole expanse of nail
Urge it to burn for
Yet another night
The dazzling morning sun
Reason with the torch
“Things always happen without rhyme or reason”
Thus
The industrious spider keeps weaving
The blaze of torch diminishing
The moth fluttering afar
Dashes in to save the torch
Eyes of the moth
Wings of the moth
Light of the moth
Illumines the torch
Again and again.
Glossary: kodiyun: a tiny earthen bowl carrying the oil and the wick of a lamp.
Hemang Desai is Head of English Dept. at N.V.Patel College of Pure & Applied
Sciences, Vallabh Vidyanagar, Gujarat, India
BOOK REVIEW
Acceptance, Rejection, Compromise: Three One Act Play
(Trilogy) by Pronab Kumar Majumder. Kolkata: Bridge-inMaking Publication, 2009. 82 pp. Rs. 120. Soft cover.
K. V. Dominic
Pronab Kumar Majumder is a widely published and
anthologized Indian English poet settled in Kolkata. He retired as a
Special Secretary to the Government of West Bengal in 2001. He has
been editing the international literary journal Bridge-in-Making since
1991. Majumder has published seven collections of poems in Bengali
and twelve in English. Acceptance, Rejection, Compromise: Three
One Act Play (Trilogy) is his maiden attempt at one act play.
This trilogy is written with a didactic purpose. As the title
suggests each play imparts a noble value to the reader. For a
successful life, for individuals as well as couples, these values of
acceptance, rejection and compromise are essential. In this modern,
materialistic world, there is little time for loving, caring or keeping a
warm relationship, especially between husband and wife or between
parents and children. The neglect or absence of love between husband
and wife is the theme of this trilogy. In the struggle for existence,
connubial bliss disappears, and gloom and darkness sneak the
bedroom. Negligence, as we find in the plays, is never deliberate but
circumstantial. Majumder here deals with the lives of metropolis.
Both husband and wife have to earn to make ends meet. As
government opportunities are less, they seek private employment,
particularly in multinational firms. They have to dance to the tune of
their employer and their survival in the firm depends on their
performance. Moreover, the global recession and depression make
their jobs insecure and they work every moment with the Sword of
Damocles over their head.
“Acceptance” tells the discordant married life of Sumit and
Sushmita. Sumit is a college lecturer working in a suburban college.
Sushmita is a business postgraduate working for a multinational
company in the metropolis. It is four years since they married but only
once they had a short trip away. After their marriage they lived first in a
small apartment. The busy and overwork in the company made
Sushmita restless and she could not bear the addition of Sumit's
mother in the house. She was yearning for privacy and love from
Sumit. The mother was sent to Sumit's brother's house.
Sumit took a larger apartment and a servant girl named
Laxmi came to help them. The mother came back to their house and
Sumit was happy that Sushmita finally accepted their mother.
Sushmita often came late in the house after the busy schedule in the
206
Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
office. Exhausted she would dine and sleep neglecting her duty as a
wife. Sumit also failed to serve his duties as a husband. Arka,
Sushmita's boss, took advantage of the situation and seduced her
under the pretext of saving her from the termination from the
company. She was repentant of the sin, but appeared happy to her
husband and mother. Perfidious Arka, called Sushmita to his cabin
after a few days and gave the termination letter. Sushmita, beaten and
exhausted, was accepted warmly by Sumit and their mother. Sumit
consoled her telling that she would get employment soon in some
other company. They decided to shift to a smaller apartment. On the
suggestion of Sushmita, they went on a tour to a sea-side resort. In the
guesthouse, after their mother slept, Sushmita confessed to Sumit of
her sin. She told him: “I am a sinner dear, I am pregnant. Yes, I am
pregnant not by you. In our long years of marriage, we didn't have a
child. I wanted it. I don't blame you. I blame myself for getting it by
some other. Would you accept the child?” Sumit was spellbound. He
could not believe it. He murmured, “Pregnant, pregnant you are. I
failed, you got it done.” Sushmita implored him to accept them: “Yes, I
am, that is the reality O dear. That is the reality. Please accept me,
accept my child. Both of us appeal to your magnanimity.” The play
ended, assuming that Sumit accepted her and her child.
“Rejection” tells the story of Dr. Pritam Basu and his wife,
Shreya. They live with their father Prof. Somen Basu. Pritam is a very
busy doctor who has devoted his life for the patients. Often he comes
very late to his house. Shreya aged thirty, works in a multinational
software company. She is the Project Manager. Pritam and Shreya
have no child—in fact they find no time to give birth to a child. Pritam's
neglect of his wife irritates her and he feels guilty of it. He tries his best
but cannot be truthful to his duty as a husband. His father also advises
him several times to find time to spend some moments with her.
Pritam fails miserably.
Ashok Srivastava, the Senior Vice President of Shreya's
company, was a very loving and caring officer to his staff. He invited
Shreya one day for a visit to his house. His wife, very beautiful and
young woman, was a handicapped and in crutches. They welcomed
Shreya and drank tea with her. When Shreya reached home late in the
evening Pritam was there and he taunted her with bitter remarks.
Their father interfered in the conversation and the ice was broken.
Ashok got transfer order to go to Bangalore. It was a shock to all
employees, particularly to Shreya. Shreya was asked for a tea in
Ashok's house. He was alone there. His wife and daughter had already
shifted to a house in Bangalore. Shreya became very emotional and
wanted to have a memento of love from Ashok. But Ashok controlled
his emotion and said, “My good girl, you are too good. I have accepted
you. Love, if really it is, knows no “Rejection.” True love accepts, never
rejects, even in a crisis. Stay fine, we shall have better time to be with. I
leave my heart and thought for you.” Shreya wanted to give a farewell
207
dinner on the rooftop of her house. Ashok was willing. The farewell
party at the rooftop was attended by all the colleagues of Shreya's
office. But all were discontent as Pritam was not present. Dr. Pritam
came very late for the party, only when others were leaving. He was
very apologetic. Pritam and Shreya were alone in their bedroom. He
explained again why he had been late. He asked her to forgive him. She
replied that his negligence amounted to silent rejection, which she
could not bear. Hence she decided to reject him, not physically, but
mentally. “Some day you may feel the pain of being rejected. For me
also it is painful to reject,” she cried. The play ended.
In “Compromise” we learn the disharmonious lives of
Kaushik Basu, a marketing manager of a multinational company and
his wife, Shweta, a journalist. The problem arises due to the busy
schedule of their life. Kaushik goes to his office at 9 am and returns at
8 pm. Shweta goes to her office at 4 pm and returns at midnight. They
have no child and live with Kaushik's mother. Kaushik suspects
Shanka, another journalist in Shweta's office who drops her at house
everyday. Shanka is single and handsome. Kaushik often taunts
Shanka when he is found in his house taking tea with Shweta. In fact
the relation between Shweta and Shanka has not gone beyond the limit
of friendship. Kaushik's mother's words also add to his suspicion.
The C. E. O. of Kaushik's office has noted that Kaushik is not
smart at his work and there is some problem worrying him. He calls
Kaushik to his cabin and enquires it. The C. E. O. advises him to
consult a psychologist. Kaushik meets the psychologist named Kurnal
Sen Gupta. Gupta studies the case and wants a consultation with Mrs.
Kaushik. She also appears before the psychologist another day. The
psychologist learns matters from her and requests both the husband
and the wife to meet him another day. They come to him accordingly
and Gupta teaches them the necessity of compromise in their lives.
Gupta told them, “I would suggest Mr. Basu to make
acceptance of whatever happened making you suspicious, distrustful.
And I would suggest Mrs. Basu to reject repetition of what you
considered not should have been done. That will bring great
COMPROMISE.” He asked them to meet him a year after. Accordingly
they visited him a year after with their new-born child. They had had a
very happy compromising life and had time to give birth to a child.
Before parting Gupta told them, “. . . And that is life, always something
we accept, something we reject and strike a compromise to live a life.
Acceptance, Rejection, Compromise are the wheels on which life move
on.” The play ended.
208
Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
Yana Rowland, The Treatment of the Themes of Mortality in
the Poetry of the Bronte Sisters. Plovdiv: Plovdiv University Press,
2006, pp.iii +357, ISBN-10:954-423-326-8 and ISBN-13: 978-954-423326-4
Rajni Singh
Assistant Professor of English,
Indian School of Mines University, Dhanbad, India.
In this deftly constructed and clearly argued study, Yana
Rowland highlights the theme of death as a gradually emerging
chief philosophical discourse in English poetry of the late 18th-19th
centuries in general and the theme of death in the poetry of Bronte
sisters in particular. The study is carried out in the light of the
modern European Ontophilosophy and existential ethics as
represented by Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques
Derrida, and Mikhail Bakhtin, and to some extent Hans- George
Gadamer.
The book commences with a brief representation of the
concept of death as propounded by Martin Heidegger, Levinas,
Derrida and Bakhtin, and the concept is alternatively termed as
Dialogism, or the faith in Otherness. It is through these reflections
Rowland examines Emily Bronte's interpretation of the
phenomenon of mutability.
Part I is a survey of critical sources on Bronte sisters'
poetry. The purpose of the survey is to put together the studies
conducted on the Brontes at one place, and to assert the need and
significance of the present study.
The first section of Part II briefly examines the thematic
field, mortality, as interpreted in literature, especially by the
graveyard poets, Thomas Gray, William Blake, William
Wordsworth, S.T. Coleridge, Lord Byron, P.B. Shelley, John Keats
and Alfred Tennyson.
Section II of Part II concentrates on the poetry of Anne
Bronte and the treatment of death in her poems. The idea of
appropriating of authenticating one's own death lurks in the
philosophy of early Anne Bronte. Death as an opportunity for
subaltern self-cognition and a medium for the liberation of the
spirit appears in her later poems. Rowland argues that the poet
manoeurves the fear of death towards the Sublime when focusing
on the grandeur of Christ's miraculous life, rather than on a
preoccupation with the sublime in Natural phenomena. The writer
finds this as a reason for the abundance of hymns in Anne's poetry.
Like Anne Bronte, Charlottee Bronte's treatment of death
209
is not focused on the motif of spiritual salvation through the image
of Christ. Her early poems demonstrate Mutability as Nature's
driving force while in her later poems she explores the theme of
Orphan hood. Rowland discovers the two images that emerge and
evolve in the death poems of Charlottee Bronte: the Survivor (the
Self) and the Ghost (the Dead Other).
In section III, Rowland analyses the image of death that
subsumes the poetic corpus of Emily Bronte. To her, some of the
Gondal poems of Emily Bronte are a reflection of human fate as
dependent on Nature's cyclical progress (based on the idea of
transitorinesss). The paraphernalia of death is contained in
certain objects/ phenomenon of nature that recur in Emily Bronte's
poetry. The writer also investigates the way the poet establishes
philosophical links between Nature's fragmentarity and man's
fragmented existence. Aligned with this aspect, some of her poems
are centered on the motif of separation from the body in Emily
Bronte.
After examining the three poets individually on account of
the mortality theme, Rowland adopts the comparative approach of
study to draw parallels between them. She finds the 'Other' as a
common link between Angria and Gondal, and this 'Other' is
assumed as a dead beloved, or parent or friend. Another affinity
drawn between the Bronte sisters' theme of death reflects in their
belief of endless care and love for the 'Other', and the emotional
turmoil in the absence of this 'Other'. Bakhtin's concept of
'Otherness' is specifically taken into account to emphasize the
notion of Being as Co- Being in the poetry of the Bronte sisters.
In her conclusion, Rowland suggests the possibilities of
further research in related areas, for instance, the images of death
and the female beloved in later Romantic and Victorian poetry, the
theme of orphanhood in the poetic works of the Bronte sisters,
and the evolution of the themes of mortality in later Victorian and
early 20th century poetry.
Overall The Treatment of the Themes of Mortality in the
Poetry of the Bronte Sisters extends our understanding of their
poetry in terms of the subject. The book is very readable and
suggests a fresh dimension of the poetry of the Brontes,
particularly when credits have been mainly given to them as
novelists. The strengths of the book to the Bronteists, and to the
scholars of English literature in general are the detailed analysis of
the subject which is studied in the light of the theories and the
similarities and dissimilarities which Rowland establishes
between the three sisters in their treatment.
210
Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
Explorations in Indian English Drama : By T. Sai Chandra
Mouli and M. Sarat Babu , Authors Press , New Delhi , 2009, Rs
675, pp267, ISBN 978-81-7273 -490-9
Dr. Ram Sharma
Sr. Lecturer in English ,
J.V College, Baraut, Baghpat, U.P.
Indian English drama has been nurtured and enriched by
such stalwarts as R.N. Tagore, Aurobindo, Nissim Ezekiel, Mohan
Rakesh, Girish Karnad, Vijay Tendulkar, Asif Currimbhoy ,G.V
Desai , Badal Sarkar , Dharamvir Bharti and others .But inspite of
that, much criticism and literature is not available on this popular
branch of literature.
T.Sai Chandra Mouli and M. Sarat Babu have worked hard
to fill this gap by compiling this seminal anthology. In the preface to
this anthology they observe, “Drama is integral to Indian literature
and culture. Traditional theatre played a vital role in integrating
and harmonizing divergent strands of our social fabric based on
race , sub-cultures, languages and regions .New interpretations of
old, known tales and relating them to contemporary life are not an
alien practice. '' [p.5]
This anthology contains twenty three papers in all and
covers one hundred years of Indian English drama. The first paper
of this anthology entitled ` Human Concerns and Relationships in
Rayappa Pattar`s Sangya –Balya :Betrayal`is written by Kh.
Kunjo Singh. In this paper he explores the role of elemental
passion in interpersonal and human relations. In this play
translated by one of the famous creative writers and critics of India
Dr. Basavraj Naikar, ``Human concerns and human relations
form the backbone of the theme of the play .The play very nicely
shows the natural human relations between husband and wife and
also among the members of the family``[p.4].This paper is well
written and presents the in- depth study of the play from the
perspective of human concerns and relations.
Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore has written the famous
play Muktadhara in 1922 .The next paper entitled `Symbolism
and Freedom in Tagore`s play Muktadhara ` written by P.G.
Javalgi. focuses on symbolism fused with mysticism, lyricism and
religion in the play. ``Perhaps no other play of Tagore expresses
his political conviction with such directness and force.The
211
play,though written in prose , contains many songs and poetic
passages.Tagore the poet , expresses his poetic attitude to life in
his prosaic work Muktadhara.” [p.36]
Habib Tanveer, a noted theatre personality departed
recently and Vinay Kumar Pandey pays tributes to him in
`Tanvir`s Charan Das Chor`. In this paper the critic presents the
principles of Charan Das, a thief , who sticks adamantly to his
principles despite many temptations. The famous critic Dr.
Basavaraj Naikar in his paper 'Satirical Vision in Silence ! The
Court is in Session' opines: ``The play is very important in the
Indian context as it holds a mirror to the changing values of the
Indian society. Vijay Tendulkar , who is a keen observer of life
around him , has captured the spirit of time very sensitively in the
play. The play shows how in the later part of the twentieth century
Indian society women are liberated psychologically through
education`` [p. 57]
Sumitra Chakravarty compares the theme of death and life
motifs in the plays of Vijay Tendulkar and Badal Sarkar in her
paper` The Interplay of Death and Life Motifs in the plays of
Tendulkar and Badal Sarkar.'
G.A.Ghanshyam and T.A. Khan in
'Tendulkar`s
Kanyadaan : A Saga of Dichotomy` and 'Intertextual Interaction
between Text, History and Society in Ghasiram Kotwal` offer
critical opinions on the plays of celeberated Marathi dramatist
Vijay Tendulkar.
Girish Karnad is a significant contributor to current Indian
English Drama and most of the articles of this anthology cover his
major plays. U.N.Kurrey and Susan Udai trace cultural values in
Girish Karnad`s play Tughlaq in their scholarly paper` Quest for
cultural values in Girish Karnad`s Tughlaq`.K.S. Anish Kumar
explores Indian and feminine sensibility is his paper` Passion for
Perfection : A Case of Girish Karnad`s Hayavadana.' Krishna
Singh highlights marginalized characters in two of Girish
Karnad`s play Naga Mandala and Tale Danda in his paper`
'Marginalised characters in Girish Karnad`s Naga Mandala and
Tale Danda`. Gulshan Das and T.A .Khan's 'Intertextuality and
myths in Girish Karnad`s `The Fire and the Rain` is quite
interesting.
Smita Mohanty analyses Girish Karnad`s play Bali in her
paper `Karnad`s Bali : The Sacrifice [2004]' and states, “it is an
ethical thesis on the existential dilemma of individuals in their
socio-cultural matrix` [p.126]. Sudhir K. Arora dwells on colonial
212
213
Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
theme in his scholarly paper `The Tiger and the Colonial Cage : A
Peep into Girish Karnad`s The Dreams of Tipu Sultan`. G.S Jha
explores 'Karnad`s Quest for Alternatives'. V.Madhavi familiarizes
us with Marathi dramatist G.P. Deshpande's play A Man in Dark
Times in her innovative paper 'The Red Turned Black.`
One impressive aspect of current Indian English drama is
translations of plays of other languages into English. S. John Peter
Joseph examines Basavaraj Naikar's
translation of M. M.
Kalburgi`s original play in his paper 'From static to dynamic : A
Critical Study of M.M. Kalburgi`s Fall of Kalyana.' T.S. Chandra
Mouli views this play differently in his paper entitled` A Treatise
on Good Governance: Fall of Kalyana`.
Basavaraj Naikar is the pioneer in 'transporting' the
playwrights from other languages into English. In his paper` The
Tragic Dilemma of Larins Sahib `, he critically evaluates
Gurucharan Das`s play Larin Sahib.
P.Naga Suseela and P. Gopi Chand explore Mahesh
Dattani's contribution in 'Dattani`s Tara : A Twinkling Star in the
Post-Colonial Indian Drama`. S. Kanakaraj, A. Mohan Kumar, J.
Samuel Kirubabahar and M. Devi Chandra offer their view on the
dramatist from the perspective of gendered politics in their paper
'Psyche of Tempered Individuals in a World of Gendered Politics ; A
Study of Mahesh Dattani`s Select Plays`. A. Madhavi Lata probes
into visible and invisible themes of Dattani in 'Unmasking the
Realities of Dwarfed Maturity and Neutral Maturity.` D. Suganya
studies disintegrating relationships within the family as presented
by the playwright in `Exploring the Masked World of Gays : An
Analysis of Select Plays of Mahesh Dattani`.
This anthology is seminal because this has covered almost
all the major current Indian English dramatists and explores rare
themes in them. T.S. Chandra Mouli and M. Sarat Babu have done
commendable work. Although there are some typos here and there
and its price seemingly a bit high, this anthology is a must read for
every lover of English literature. I do hope that many more
scholarly anthologies will flow from the mighty pens of these two
celebrated critics.
CONTRIBUTORS
?
Dr Amrendra K Sharma is an Asst. Professor of Linguistics,
Dhofar University, Salalah, Oman and has been teaching
English Language & Literature for the last 30 years. He
specializes in Linguistics and ELT but has published research
articles in IWE and American literature. He is connected to two
international journals in different editorial capacity.
?
Dr Manju Roy is Senior Lecturer in English, C M College
Darbhanga- Bihar with a number of research articles in various
journals of repute.
?
Bilal A. Shah is a Research Scholar in the Department of
Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology
Kharagpur, WB, INDIA.
?
L Judith Sophia is an Assistant professor of English, Scott
Christian College, Nagercoil, TN, INDIA. She has several papers
published in reputed journals and anthologies.
?
Dhishna Pannikot is Lecturer in Department of English,
University of Calicut, Kerala, INDIA. She has published several
articles in reputed journals.
KS Anish Kumar a poet-critic and a translator is Assistant
?
Professor at Bharathidasan University College, Perumbalur,
TN, INDIA. Apart from having published several articles in
reputed journals and anthologies, his recently published book
of poems in Tamil has received wide critical acclaim. He is
currently editing a critical volume on Commonwealth Literature
with Dr Chandra Mouli.
T Sai Chandra Mouli, a poet, translator and critic is a former
?
Associate Professor (English), Railway College, Secunderabad,
AP, INDIA . He has so far published 6 Vols. of Literary Criticism
on Indian Writing in English; 2 more Vols. are in press. Dr
Mouli's areas of interest include Indian Writings in English,
Translation Studies, Linguistics and Comparative Studies.
A J Sebastian Sdb is Associate Professor, Department of
?
English, Nagaland University, Kohima Nagaland and has to his
credit several articles in reputed journals.
?
Arun Kumar Mukhopadhyay is an Assistant Teacher at K. M.
Institution Bankura, WB, INDIA. He has published several
articles in reputed journals.
?
Abha Gupta is an Associate Professor, Darden College of
Education (Old Dominion University), Department of Teaching
214
Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
and Learning, 5115 Hampton Blvd., Norfolk, VA 23529
?
Jaishree N. is Lecturer in English, Sri Eshwar College of
Engineering, Kinathukadavu, Coimbatore.
?
Devasree Chakravarti is Research Scholar, Guru Ghasidas
Central University, Bilaspur (C.G.) India.
?
G.A. Ghanshyam is Assistant Professor at Govt. M.L. Shukla
College, Seepat, Bilaspur (C.G.) He has several papers
published in International and National Journals and Edited
Books. He has edited two books. He is also Editor-in-Chief of
online journal “Journal of Teaching English Literature and
Research”, Cultural Secretary of The Association for English
Studies of India (AESI), Convener of Literature SIG, ELTAI,
Executive Member-ELTAI and Co-ordinator of ELTAI, Bilaspur
Chapter.
?
Krishna Singh is Asst. Professor at Govt. PG College, Shahdol,
MP. She has published several research paper in journals and
anthologies and is pursuing her D. Litt.
?
M. Meena Devi is Assistant Professor at Research Centre in
English, VHNSN College, Virudhunagar, TN.
?
G. Baskaran is Associate Professor at Research Centre in
English, VHNSN College, Virudhunagar, TN.
?
Anju Bala Agrawal is Reader in the Deptt. Of English, R.C.A.
Girls' P.G. College, Mathura. She submitted her thesis of D. Litt
on “Nature and Man in Wordsworth and Seamus Heaney”.
Besides many published articles she has authored “William
Wordsworth: A Collection of Critical Essays” and edited “Post
Independence Indian Writing in English” in two volumes.
?
Amandeep Rana is Lecturer, P. G. Department of English, JC
DAV College Dasuya. Distt. Hoshiarpur, Punjab.
?
PCK Prem (IAS, Retd.) An academician-turned-bureaucrat, a
bilingual novelist, short story writer, poet and critic based in
Palampur, Kangra, HP.
?
Laxmi Sistla is an Assistant Professor of English at Govt.
College Visakhapatnam, AP.
?
SSVN Sakuntala is Associate Professor, Department of
English, Dr. L.B. PG College Visakhapatnam, AP
?
Binod Mishra Assistant Professor, Dept. of Humanities &
Social Sciences, IIT Roorkee (UK) has published several articles
in reputed journals and edited several anthologies.
?
Jaydeep Sarangi, Poet-academic, is Head of the Department of
English, Seva Bharati Mahavidyalaya (Vidyasagar University),
W. B. (India) and the author of a number of significant
215
publications (including 21 books) on postcolonial issues,
Indian Writing in English, Australian Literature and Linguistics
and ELT in reputed journals/magazines in India and abroad. He
has been awarded with “Sahitya Gaurav 2009”. He edits Seva
Bharati Journal of English Studies.
Albert Russo who has published worldwide over 65 books of
?
poetry, fiction and photography, in English and in French, his
two mother-tongues, is the recipient of many awards, such as
The American Society of Writers Fiction Award, The British
Diversity Short Story Award, several New York Poetry Forum
Awards, Amelia Prose and Poetry awards and the Prix Colette,
among others. His work has been translated into a dozen
languages, including German, Italian, Spanish, Greek, Turkish,
Bengali and Polish, and broadcast by the World Service of the
BBC, publishing on the five continents, in 22 countries. He has
also garnered several prizes for his photography books, Indie
Excellence awards, among others. He was also a member of the
1996 jury for the prestigious Neustadt International Prize for
Literature which often leads to the Nobel Prize of Literature.
?
P. Raja an author and freelancer is Associate Professor at
Tagore Govt. Arts College, Pondicherry. He has to his credit
several collections of short stories, essays and poems.
?
Aju Mukhopadhyay is a bilingual poet, essayist and fiction
writer, Pondicherry.
Labyrinth | Vol.1 No.1 (March-2010)
216
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