luminaire - Garden City College

Transcription

ISSN: 2249 2542
LUMINAIRE
A Refereed Journal of the Department of Languages
Vol 3|Issue 1|March 2013
(Special Issue)
Bangalore – 560 049, Karnataka
A permanent affiliated Institution of Bangalore University,
Approved by AICTE, New Delhi, Government of India
Re-accredited by NAAC with 'A' Grade & An 9001:2008 & ISO 14001:2004 Certified Instituion
LUMINAIRE
A Refereed Journal of the Department of Languages
(Special Issue)
Chief Editor
Dr. Payel Dutta Chowdhury
Issue Editor
Nasreen Ghani
Phone: 080 66487600 / 66487651 Fax: 080 66487667
Email: [email protected]
First Impression: 2013
© Department of Languages, Garden City College, Bangalore
Luminaire, a Refereed Journal of the Department of Languages
(Special Issue)
ISSN: 2249 2542
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the copyright owners.
DISCLAIMER
The authors are solely responsible for the contents of the papers compiled in this volume. The
publishers or editors do not take any responsibility for the same in any manner. Errors, if any, are
purely unintentional and readers are requested to communicate such errors to the editors or
publishers to avoid discrepancies in future.
Published by: Garden City College, Bangalore - 49.
Phone: 080-66487600
Website: www.gardencitycollege.edu
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EDITORIAL BOARD
Patron in Chief & Publisher
Dr. Joseph V.G.
Honorary Consul of Republic of Maldives in India
& Chairman – Garden City Group of Institutions
Editorial Board Patrons
Prof. Jose Varghese
Advisor – Garden City College
Principal
Garden City College
Vice Principal
Garden City College
Chief Editor
Course Coordinator – Languages
Issue Editor
Nasreen Ghani
Reader, Department of Languages
BOARD OF REFEREES
Dr. Anuradha Roy
Associate Professor
Seshadripuram College, Bangalore
Dr. K. Ganesh
Associate Professor
Madras Christian College, Chennai
Dr. Apara Tiwari
Professor & Head
Govt. Shyam Sunder Agarwal College,
Jabalpur
Dr. P. Sartaj Khan
Associate Professor
Al-Ameen Arts, Science & Commerce
College, Bangalore
Dr. Arvind Nawale
Head – Department of English
Shivaji Mahavidyalaya, Latur
Dr. Sajal Kumar Bhattacharya
Associate Professor
Ramkrihna Mission Residential College
(Autonomous), Narendrapur
Dr. G.E. Vijay Kumar
Professor
SJM College of Arts, science & Commerce,
Chitradurga
Dr. Sujata Rana
Associate Professor
Deenbandhu Chhoturam University of
Science and Technology, Sonepat
Dr. Jayanta Kar Sharma
Reader
Govt. Women’s College, Sambalpur
Dr. Sarojini Sudha
Associate Professor
NSS College, Ottappalam
From the Editor's Desk:
Luminaire, a refereed journal of the department of Languages, prioritizes critical as well as creative discourses on various
facets of literature and language. Our primary focus has always been on highlighting the different perspectives of the
literary and linguistic domain from the creative eye of readers and scholars.
The present volume consists of selected papers of ENGCONF2012 and is intended to focus on contemporary
discourses of literature in a global perspective. The papers presented during the 2-day International Conference on
“Recent Trends in Literature: A Global Perspective” on 27th and 28th January 2012 were aimed at exploring different
strategies adopted by writers in grappling with issues which are the primary concerns of contemporary times. The papers
presented on a variety of sub-themes – Changing Perspectives in IWE, Resistance Literature, Diasporic Studies, Adivasi
and Aboriginal Writings, to name a few – focused on the role and contribution of contemporary literature in the reformation of modern sensibility. The papers were also an attempt to critique matters related to culture, nationality,
ethnicity, language, class and gender and were intended to explore the multiple implications of globalization and its
impact on the contemporary world.
This special issue intends to take ENGCONF2012 a step further by enabling thought-provoking discussions based on
the reading of a few selected scholarly papers presented during the conference. This volume comprising of 29 researchoriented papers offers a critical appraisal of some of the outstanding works of contemporary writers and gives a varied
and analytical interpretation of their works. It marks a significant contribution to academic research on contemporary
issues in literature from a global perspective.
Dr. N. Usha, in her paper “Futuristic Clarity and Vision in Kalaathetha Vyakthulu (Women Ahead)” discusses the binary
oppositions and the womanist approach presented in the narrative. The paper focuses on the novel as a mature
psychological perspective of contemporary culture. Dr. Kavita S. Kusugal’s paper “From Regionality to Universality”
focuses on the importance of translated works in a globalized world and the role of a translator in diminishing gaps
between cultures.
Dr. Rama Naga Hanuman Alapati in his paper “Man vs. Aliens: A Study of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five”
studies certain observations by aliens into human life which offer some interesting insights. The paper highlights how the
novel sets a different tone by bringing in several questions without really providing a solution in tune with the structure of
the novel. Greeshma Peethambaran’s paper “Sidewise in Time: Salman Rushdie’s Ground Beneath Her Feet as
Uchronia” attempts to critically explore the novel’s theoretical underpinnings and its magic of fusing the mythic and the
mundane, the surreal and the authentic, into a seamless alt-hist composition. Dr. Jyoti Patil in her paper “Multicultural
Sensibility in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Fiction” endeavors to delineate all the multicultural traits in Jhumpa Lahiri’s fictions and to
assess them in the light of diasporic experience. Harish M.G.’s paper “Post 9/11 world of xenophobia, distrust,
suspicion and hostility: Mohsin Hamid’s “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” in perspective” portrays the new existential
incoherence, its suspicion, blurring of old boundaries and penetration of the remotest societies on earth caused by
capitalism and technology, exposing the human self to unprecedented risks and temptations. Nasreen Ghani’s paper
“Stream of Consciousness in Virginia Woolf ’s Novels” focuses on the use of the technique of stream of consciousness
in Woolf ’s novels as realistic representation of the life experiences of her characters.
Madhav Radhakisan Yeshwant in his paper “Dalit Community in Dalit Autobiographies” focuses on the community
life of the Dalits as projected in a few autobiographies which highlight the life styles of these people as different from the
mainstream assumptions of them. Dr. Jayanta Kar Sharma’s paper “Dalit Discourse in Literature” focuses on Dalit
literature as the symbol of Dalit identity and questions the mainstream literary theories and explores the neglected
aspects of Dalit life.
Samuel Rufus in his paper “From Melting Pot to Ethnic Stew: An Analysis of the Fluidity of Ethnic Identity in
Langston Hughes’ ‘Theme for English B’” seek to address the problem of fluidity in ethnic identity experienced by the
black immigrants in the process of being “Americanised” into the mainstream culture. Abirami V.’s paper “Ecofeministic Approach in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple” reflects on the concept of eco-feminism in Walker’s novel
where she places human beings and environment on the same moral plane and also links environmental exploitation to
racial oppression.
Swetha Antony in her paper “Margins and Beyond: A Survey of Women’s Voices in Indian English Poetry Today”
attempts to understand how writing becomes a different yet effective way of voicing the self. Dr. Deepali Rajshekhar
Patil’s paper “Challenging Patriarchy: The Role of New Women in Tendulkar’s Selected Plays” focuses on the female
protagonists of Tendulkar’s plays who exhibit the boldness to subvert the social hegemonies and transcend the thresholds
of patriarchy. Manisha Bhagwanrao Kale’s paper “Crusade to Emancipation: Women in Contemporary Indian English
Novels” throws light on the voyage of Indian women from crusade to emancipation.
Dr. Babita Das (Deka)’s paper “A Postcolonial Reading of Shobhaa De’s Novels” intends to posit Shobha De’s novels in
the postcolonial context. The paper brings to light the embodiment of the spirit of postcolonial literature that concretizes
the adventures of powerful, emancipated new women. Rijuta Komal Das’s paper “Sifting through the Facades” explores
the different structures of departure, looking into the various levels of urban masks that have gone in the making of the city
and the subjectivity of the self that wraps around these places trying to make sense of the national ethos which consciously
and unconsciously affect the individual desire for authenticity as well as belonging.
M. S. Vinutha in her paper “Status of Women as Represented in Indian English Literature” attempts to trace the roots of
gender discrimination and explore the ways in which women are exploited. It also projects the status of women in the maledominated society and also how they are empowered or disempowered. Dr. P. Suneetha’s paper “The Politics of Identity
the Novelistic Art of Philip Roth” probes Roth’s insights into the main themes of politics and identity, especially as defined
by racial or ethnic affiliation, and the possibilities available for self-definition and transformation within modern American
history and culture. Raju M.S. & Snehaprabha Desai’s paper “Resistance through Literatures: Cultural Studies with
reference to Inter-Literariness and Globalization” attempt to address the need for cultural perspective to come to terms
with the contested nature of globalization through analyses of collective resistance. The paper critically analyzes the
complexity of the effects of globalization in the multilingual and multicultural situation of the subcontinent. Dr. P. Sartaj
Khan’s paper “Communicative Value of Silence in Resistance Literature” examines the communicative value and
retaliatory effect of silence in contrast to the rebuttal and highhanded communication of the oppressors. The paper also
brings forth a psycho-analysis of silence vis-à-vis verbal communication highlighting its effect on the oppressor’s verbose.
Dr. B.V. Rama Prasad in his paper “Resistance to Patriarchy in Selected Short Stories of Vaidehi” traces two kinds of
reactions in general to patriarchy and tries to examine the kind of response against patriarchy in Vaidehi’s short stories.
Bidyut Bhusan Jena’s paper “Translating T.S. Eliot into Odia: A Critical Study of Gyanendra Verma’s translation Of The
Waste Land” undertakes a critical study of Verma’s translation vis-à-vis Eliot’s poem. T. Avinash in his paper
“Constructing the Discourse of Displacement and Ambiguities: Interrogating Post 1990 Kannada Narratives” attempts to
examine various concerns narrated in recent narratives in Kannada which portray the socio-cultural-economic
displacements of contemporary societies. Averi Saha in her paper “Pacali: It’s Nature, Role and Translation” aim at
explaining the nature and role of ‘pacali-s’, ‘brathakatha-s’ and ‘calisa-s’. The paper tries to examine the important role of
these vernacular poems even though they can hardly be considered as mainstream texts and also bring out the problems of
translating these texts. Dr. Preeti Jain in her paper “Re-locating Gandhi between History and Hagiography” attempts to
bring forth how certain perspectives on Gandhi in IWE and in general as well has changed over time which has led to the
myth of the Mahatma being restaged but with more rational outlook. B. Suvarna Bai in her paper “Impact of Changing
Perspectives on Indian Authors’ Writing Styles” attempts to analyze the changing perspectives in IWE by focusing on new
adaptations of writing styles which differ from individual to individual.
Dr. Pradnya D Deshmukh-(Kale) in her paper “Transnationalism, Liminality: Diasporic Experience in Bapsi Sidhwa and
Chitra Banerjee” seeks to address the South Asian American literature in general and Indian immigrant women’s writing in
particular and traces the novels of Sidhwa and Banerjee to explore contemporary histories – western, sub-continental and
contemporary societies that are in state of transition. C.G. Shyamala in her paper “Shifting Patterns in Diaspora: A
Diachronic Study of the Selected Novels of Anita Desai” delves into the issues that individuals confront in adopted
countries. The paper traces the movement of Desai’s characters from poignant nostalgia through identity crisis and the
acute sense of homelessness to the ultimate assimilation in the foreign soil. Dr. T.R. Shashipriya in her paper “Bharati
Mukherjee – A Diasporic Writer” traces the split in the diasporic subject expressed in the sense of being here and elsewhere,
of being at home and abroad. The paper traces how Mukherjee’s characters fail to cope with the tumult of the values and
emotions that haunt them in transit between places, roles and cultures.
I am sure the deep insights of the above scholarly papers would definitely benefit students, teachers and research scholars
of English literature and language. I place on record my gratitude to all the members on the board of referees for their
valuable suggestions and Ms. Nasreen Ghani, the Issue Editor and her team for their tireless efforts.
I wish all the readers a happy thought-provoking reading journey…..
Best regards
Chief Editor - Luminaire
C O N T E N T S
Futuristic Clarity and Vision in Kalaatheetha Vyakthulu
Dr.N.Usha
1-4
Man Vs. Aliens: A Study of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five
Dr. Rama Naga Hanuman Alapati
5 - 11
Resistance through the Literatures: Cultural Studies with
reference to Inter-literariness and Globalization
Snehaprabha N. Desai & Raju M.S.
Sifting through the Facades: Memory and Identity in the
City Narrative of City of Djinns and Maximum
City: Bombay Lost and Found
Rijuta Komal Das
12 - 16
17 - 20
Dalit Community in Dalit Autobiographies
Madhav Radhakisan Yeshwant
21 - 24
Silence and it’s Communicative Value in Resistance Literature
Dr. P. Sartaj Khan
25 - 29
The Metaphor of the Caged Bird and the Myth of the Melting
Pot: The Fluidity of Ethnic Identity in Dunbar’s “Sympathy” and
Langston Hughes’ “Theme for English B”: A Comparative Study
Samuel Rufus. S
Margins and Beyond: A Survey of Women’s Voices in
Contemporary Indian English Poetry
Swetha Antony
30 - 35
36 - 44
Dalit Discourse in Literature
45 - 53
Pacali-s: Nature, Role and Translation
Averi Saha
54 - 58
Sidewise in Time: Salman Rushdie’s Ground Beneath
Her Feet as Uchronia
Greeshma Peethambaran
59 - 62
Multicultural Sensibility in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Fiction
Dr. Jyoti Patil
63 - 66
A Postcolonial Reading of Shobhaa De’s Novels
Dr. Babita Das (Deka)
67 - 71
Status of Women as Represented in Indian English Literature
M.S. Vinutha
72 - 78
Challenging Patriarchy:The Role of New Women in Tendulkar’s
Selected Plays
Dr. Deepali Rajshekhar Patil
79 - 82
Transnationalism, Liminality: Diasporic Experience in Bapsi
Sidhwa and Chitra Banerjee
Dr. Pradnya D Deshmukh-(Kale)
C O N T E N T S
The Politics of Identity the Novelistic Art of Philip Roth
Dr. P. Suneetha
83 - 88
89 - 95
Impact of Changing Perspectives on Indian Authors’ Writing Styles 96 - 98
B. Suvarna Bai
Post 9/11 world of xenophobia, distrust, suspicion and hostility:
Mohsin Hamid’s “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” in perspective
Harish M.G.
Bharati Mukherjee – A Diasporic Writer
Dr. T.R. Shashipriya
99 - 104
105 - 110
Translating T.S. Eliot Into Odia: A Critical Study Of Gyanendra
Verma’s translation Of The Waste Land
Bidyut Bhusan Jena
111 - 116
Shifting Patterns in Diaspora: A Diachronic Study of the Selected
Novels of Anita Desai
C.G. Shyamala
117 - 122
From Regionality to Universality
Dr. Kavita S. Kusugal
Constructing the Discourse of Displaceplacement and
Ambiguities: Interrogating Post 1990 Kannada Narratives
T. Avinash
123 - 126
127 - 129
Ecofeministic Approach in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple
Abirami V.
130 - 131
Re-locating Gandhi between History and Hagiography
Dr. Preeti Jain
132 - 135
Crusade to Emancipation: Women in Contemporary Indian
English Novels
Manisha Bhagwanrao Kale
136 - 140
Resistance to Patriarchy in Selected Short Stories of Vaidehi
Dr. B.V.Rama Prasad
141 - 143
Stream of Consciousness in Virginia Woolf ’s Novels
Nasreen Ghani
144 - 146
FUTURISTIC CLARITY AND VISION IN
KALAATHEETHA VYAKTHULU
Dr. N. Usha
Rushdie suggests that writers open the universe to imagine, think and feel a little more, protesting against the
limitations of experience. Literature bears the mark of the writer as much as the earthen vessel bears the marks
of the potter. Today translation has emerged as a key concept for elucidating contemporary debates between
hegemonic global cultures and Indian literature and culture. Good writing will flourish in Indian Basha
literatures when native readers, teachers and students read native writers. If regional literature is not cherished
by its audience, not given the space in which such writing can flower, then it will have a natural demise and with
it will perish the collective imagination of the people. In this context, Telugu language and literature is under a
serious threat of oblivion in the contemporary time due to globalization and the demand for Indian language
and literature.
The British introduced novel as a genre in India and the first novel in Bengali and in Indian English was written
by Bengalis who had close proximity with the British. In The Twice born Fiction, Meenakshi Mukherjee views
that the development of the Indian novel can be divided into three stages: Historical Romance, Social and
political realism and Psychological novels showing an introspective concern with the individual. In Bengali,
Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam, the development of novel followed this pattern
simultaneously. My research paper concentrates on the first Telugu gynotext Kaalatheeta Vyakthulu written
by Dr.P.Sridevi, a female medical practitioner in 1957 to develop perspectives on the emotional and social
forces that shaped the emergent Telugu middle class in post independent decade of the twentieth century. It
was serialized in Telugu Swatanthra, a weekly magazine edited by Gora Sastri and published in Hyderabad for
21 weeks from 7th September 1957 to 25th January 1958. Significantly Kasiyatracharitra(1831), was the first
Telugu prose text written by Yenugula Veeraswamayya, head translator in the Supreme Court of Madras and a
close friend of C.P.Brown. The first Telugu novel Sri Rangaraja Charithramu was written by Narahari Gopala
Krishnamachetty(1832-1888), a revenue official of the Madras government in 1872. He was a telugu
translator to the government and translated Manual of Hindu law(1858), Kurnool Manual(1887) and coedited Crescent, a journal on Hindu culture. In the foreword, he mentioned that he wrote this “naveena
prabandhamu” in response to Lord Mayo’s offer of a prize for a novel depicting native life. In her introduction
to Early Novels in India, Meenakshi Mukherjee states that various prizes announced by the British
administrators for Indian language narratives also emphasized the mimetic element. Sri Rangaraja
Charithramu(1872) is a historical romance set 400 years ago in time based on Sri Rangaraju, an adventurous
Vijayanagara prince, who saves a beautiful damsel in distress Sonabai, the disguised princess Ranganayika.
The novel instructs and pleases its readers with a critical denigration of caste, superstition and prostitution. It
was duly notified in the Government’s Fort St.George Gazette as the “first attempt ever made in this part of
India at novel writing in Telugu Prose”. Some critics argue that Kandukuri Veeresalingam Pantulu’s novel
Rajasekhara Charitramu(1878) influenced by Oliver Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield, serialized in the journal
Viveka Chandrika and published in 1880, is an ideal novel which signifies the social realism in contemporary
Telugu culture.
Women characters had great importance in early Telugu fiction such as Sonabayi, Rukmini, Satyavathi, Hema
Latha, Ahalya Bai, Ekaveera and Hima Bindu. In fact Veeresalingam’s second novel Satyavathi
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Charitramu(1883), serialized in a woman’s journal Satihitabodhini, depicts an educated woman Satyavathi and
her struggle for empowerment in a large orthodox joint family. Inspired by the Brahmo Samaj movement in
Bengal, Veeresalingam along with Raghupathi Venkataratnam Naidu organized and addressed public
meetings against social evils and superstition. He stressed on women’s education, widow remarriage and
emancipation which had a major impact on the Telugu society in early twentieth century.
In the second half of the twentieth century Telugu literature, women were inconspicuous in contemporary
social and literary movements but women writers appeared in prose, particularly novels. The earliest group of
women writers who focussed on women, identity and their place in the family and society were Bhandaru
Acchamamba, Kanuparthi Varalakshmamma, P.Sridevi, Malathi Chandur, Achanta Sharada Devi, Tenneti
Hema Latha, Vasireddy Sita Devi, and Ranganayakamma. Telugu Literature was influenced by western trends
and ideologies such as realism, symbolism, impressionism and literary theories such as psychology, Marxism
and feminism. In “Professions for Women,” Virginia Woolf shows the internal conflict modern women
battled fiercely within their everyday lives. Woolf tells a story of a figurative “Angel in the House”, which is a
stereotypical woman who was passive and powerless, meek, charming, graceful, sympathetic, self-sacrificing,
pious, and above all—pure and her efforts to break free from this stereotypical template. Woolf felt that for
women to show men their true potential, they must wander beyond what society expects them to be and
become an individual. Woolf then speaks of the empty rooms that women were able to possess, “though not
without great labour and effort to pay the rent.” She challenges women to “decorate” and “furnish” the room
with their accomplishments and beliefs and were they to “share” it, to do so with caution and to an extent. She
affirms this to explain that when one has achieved so much independently, not to let a man come to take one’s
achievement away. Post independent Telugu literature reflected these complexities of emerging middle class
and reconfiguration of the traditional structures in newly formed Andhra Pradesh. Due to spread of English
language, higher education and print technology, contemporary culture was influenced by Western trends and
ideologies such as realism, marxism, feminism and psycho-analytic criticism. Similarly like Woolf, Sridevi is
considered pre-eminent among those women writers who wrote from a feminist perspective.
Dr.P.Sridevi (1929-1961) belongs to the first wave of womanists in Telugu fiction who wrote the first Telugu
feminist fiction, Kalaatheetha Vyakthulu in 1958 with mature psychological perspective of the contemporary
culture. Her pioneering Telugu narrative translated in English as “Women Ahead,” is a mirror to the emergent
Telugu middle class women after Independence. Set in Vishakapatnam, the narrative focuses on two women
protagonists, Indira and Kalyani. Indira is a twenty two year old independent steno in the Indian Railways, who
financially supports her father Ananda Rao, a happy-go-lucky man, who is dismissed from government
service on charges of bribery. She is portrayed as a strong-willed and cunning young woman, determined to
make her way in the society. They rent a building and sublease the first floor to Prakasam, a self-obsessed and
weak medico of Vizag medical college. Indira also takes a paying guest Kalyani who pursues graduation in
Andhra University. Kalyani is portrayed a good-natured, beautiful but naive young lady. Indira flirts with
Prakasam and thinks that he can be molded into a husband of her own. But when he is attracted to Kalyani,
Indira unscrupulously drives her to adversity. Recovering from the death of her father and deserted by
Prakasam and Indira, Kalyani loses faith in humanity and her life becomes, “a lamp in a deserted house”(82).
She discontinues her education and struggles to survive independently by tutoring kids at home and learns
typing and shorthand to equip herself for a secure job. She stays with her classmate Vasundhara and her aunt
for the time being but when the aunt speaks ill of her, she moves away. She boldly moves into a room of her
own and rejects the ‘kindness’ of her friends Vasundhara, Krishna Murthy and Dr.Chakravarthy and but
regains her spirit with their encouragement. Heartbroken with their previous experiences in life, Kalyani and
Dr.Chakravarthy develop respect and love for each other. On their way to Tirumala for their wedding, the
doctor is injured in a car accident but Kalyani nurses him and sprouts hopes for a happy life ahead.
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Indira serves as a direct contrast to Kalyani. Never having experienced financial or social security as a child,
Indira desires it above all things. Nearly everything she does is with the intention of driving away her loneliness
and securing a stable position for herself. She manipulates Prakasam to marry her but when she understands
that he is spineless and a puppet in his uncle Seshavatharam’s hands who cannot demand him for his rightful
property, she rejects him: “Should I win you by fighting with your uncle? In case I win, all through the life, I
should be guarding you and protecting you. Where’s the end to this?”(129-30). She advances her interests
tirelessly and flirts with Prakasam’s friend Krishna Murthy, a rich and bold spendthrift who struggles to
complete his graduation between March and September. He is portrayed as an epicurean who is above middle
class morality. He is enthralled by the manipulation of Indira and her father. When he confronts her about
deserting Kalyani, she valiantly tries to tell her father’s bohemian life with a prostitute and bribery and jail
episode, in the form of Vikramaditya-Bethala tale and reestablishes her identity in a patriarchal society:
If you live like a worm, all will snuff you out with their feet. Those living as per rules will be trodden. The girl’s
seen it with her own eyes. So the girl’s aim is to live conveniently without worrying about anything. Those
efforts are considered strange by people like you. (167)
Marginalised socially, she becomes a victim of her past and gives expression to her darker side. While life
plagued her as a ghost, she stands up to combat it: “I do everything with eyes open. That’s the difference
between me and others. I don’t do anything crying.”(169) Krishna Murthy admires her for her fortitude and
futuristic clarity and is awakened of his duties and values. He proposes her and they also get married along with
Dr.Chakravarthy and Kalyani.
Although Indira is a merciless social climber, hates her father and deserts kalyani, yet it is she who brings
Kalyani to her senses about Prakasam and indirectly pushes her to stand on her own feet. Prakasam becomes a
spineless parasite who marries a 13 year old girl for a fat dowry. The author compares and contrasts arranged
marriage/love marriage and marriage/compatibility play an important role in this text. When her colleague
Vaidehi takes shelter in Indira’s house to ward off an unsuitable alliance, Indira advises her, “Don’t be afraid.
Nobody will cut off your head. If you’re afraid, they’ll threaten you. If you turn against them, they’ll shut their
mouths.”(126) Vaidehi ridicules the dowry system in Andhra Pradesh where girls are put up for sale like cattle
in a fair and Indira asserts: “It’s true. But where is the alternative? If not this animal, another Nandikesa. The
problems of our generation are new. No one can solve them or can even understand them. Somehow or the
other we should push ahead.”(127) The educated middle class wants a definite change in the society and in the
institution of marriage. Sreedevi’s female characters are determined to carve out an identity for themselves in
the society with clarity and vision for the future, but her male characters are not heroes in the true sense and an
element of serious tragedy pervades the text suspended between the comic and the heroic. The author has
symbolically carved Indira and Kalyani into timeless/immortal characters as suggested in the title
“Kalatheetha Vyakthulu” which mean “Immortal people” and concludes the narrative with the newly married
couple Krishna Murthy and Indira’s mature talk about their future:
I’ll accompany you to any place you wish me to go along but at no stage, I can ignore my individuality. If you
can understand this and learn to respect my needs and allow me to conduct myself as I like- you can be happyand make me happy. Otherwise, it’ll be hell for both of us. We haven’t got close just for looking into each
other’s eyes. We’ve come close to make life meaningful and look up to a single goal. Don’t think that while my
father went into a certain jail, I’ve walked into another type of jail.(198)
Dr.Sridevi became a popular writer with her immortal character Indira. At a time when men were depicted as
romantic heroes and women without a voice or identity in contemporary literature, she intended to inspire
readers to look inward at their shortcomings and imbalances in the social structure and produced a literary
treasure. The novel is a critique of the Telugu society as a whole where the author instructs and pleases the
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audience through moral reformism. In her foreword to “Telugu Women Writers - 1950-1975”, Nidadhavolu
Malathi says:
Contrary to the popular belief that women's writing suffered for want of a 'room of her own' and/or lack of
economic resources, Telugu female writers wrote and published their fiction with extraordinary success.
Sitting quietly in their kitchens or on the back porch, they rose to a level where they could dictate their
terms.(vii)
She asserts that women’s writing helped to maximize the circulation for Telugu magazines and the writers to
attain a celebrity status. The novel is organized around a natural cycle and Indira progresses through the stages
of the cycle. The events and stages in Indira and Kalyani’s lives can be represented in Darwinian terms:
organism, environment, struggle, adaptation, fertility, survival, resistance. Sreedevi envisaged the individual as
subject to establishment and extinction. Charles Darwin theorized that animals compete for survival and that
those species which develop traits that improve the chance of survival, through mutation, for instance, are
most likely to survive. This concept is best known as "survival of the fittest," a phrase developed by Herbert
Spencer. The incredible protagonist Indira boldly crosses the borders of patriarchal society with futuristic
clarity to choose and mould a “husband” of her own in Krishna Murthy. Kalyani candidly struggles for
survival and education and works out her destiny through Chakravarthy with vision and fortitude. This novel
ranks amongst five great Modern Telugu fiction (like Pancha Kavyas) along with Chivaraku Migiledhi,
Asamardhuni Jeevitha Yaatra, Alpajeevi, and Athadu-Aame. Dr.Sree Devi inspired a second wave of
womanist writers in Telugu literature to raise a bold voice in the Telugu literary firmament.
Notes:
Gopalakrishnama, Naraharisetty. Sri Rangaraja Charithra. Madras: Vyavahara Tarangini Press,1872.
Malathi, Nidadhavolu. Telugu Women Writers - 1950-1975. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
First Edition 2008.
Mukherjee, Meenakshi. The Twice Born Fiction: Themes and Techniques of the Indian Novel in English,
New Delhi: Arnold Heinemann (India), 1971.
________. Early Novels in India. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2002.
Sridevi,P. Kalatheetha Vyakthulu.Vijayawada.Emesco Books, 1958.
_______. Women Ahead.tr by M.V.Chalapathi Rao. Kuppam: Dravidian University, 2008.
Veeresalingam, Kandhukuri. Rajasekhara Charitra. Hyderabad: Ravindra Publishing
House,1987.
Woolf, Virginia. The Collected Essays of Virginia Woolf. London: Benediction Press, 2011.
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MAN VS. ALIENS: A STUDY OF KURT VONNEGUT’S
SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE
Dr. Rama Naga Hanuman Alapati
The firebombing of Dresden, Germany, by Allied forces in 1945 where thousands of civilians were killed,
burned to death, or asphyxiated forms the basis of Slaughterhouse-Five, published in 1969. Jerome
Klinkowitz opines of the novel that, "[It] perfectly caught America's transformative mood that its story and
structure became best-selling metaphors for the new age" (22). It took 20 years for Vonnegut to bring himself
to write about the experience of War in Slaughterhouse-Five which was published at the height of the
Vietnam War, racial unrest and cultural and social upheaval in America. Part of Vonnegut's project was to
write an antidote to the war narratives which often makes war look like an adventure worth having thereby
decrowning the heroism in wars.
The main concern of Vonnegut’s novels is to attack a set of beliefs that men surrender themselves to, thereby,
causing misery to themselves. The significance man attaches to artificial constructs like race, nationality, even
national dogma, forces man to snap the common thread that links all people. For a broader readership who felt
conventional fiction was inadequate to express the way in which the common man’s life had been disrupted by
radical social changes of the postwar era, Vonnegut wrote novels structured in more pertinently
contemporary terms, bereft of such unifying devices as conclusive characterization or chronologically
organized plots. As a counterculture hero of the turbulent 1960’s and a best-selling author among readers of
popular fiction (in the three decades after), Kurt Vonnegut is at once more traditional and more complicated
than his enthusiasts might like to believe.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1922 - 2007) was born to a descendant of a prominent German-American family. His
father was an architect and his mother was a noted beauty. Both spoke German fluently but declined to teach
Kurt the language in light of widespread anti-German sentiment following World War I. In 1943 Vonnegut
enlisted himself in the U.S. Army and took part in the Battle of the Bulge, Belgium, where he was captured by
the Germans as a Prisoner of War (POW). Though he has German roots, he was forced to work at a factory in
the city of Dresden. On February 13, 1945, when Dresden was firebombed, Vonnegut and the other POWs
survived because they were in a meat locker of a slaughterhouse. The scene of senseless misery and mass
destruction at Dresden played a key role in Vonnegut's development of pacifist views and his experiences as a
soldier had a profound impact on his writings which reflect the helpless human condition through which he
emphasizes the role of chance in human actions. All of his fourteen novels are filled with topsy-turvy,
carnivalesque images and races of his own invention.
Vonnegut’s war experiences make him reject all forms of ideology which claim absolute truth. Living in an
insensitive social milieu, consequent to the war, he describes himself as a "total pessimist," asserting that
hu¬mankind is inherently self-destructive and everything ends only with death (Seymour, 147). Despite his
ravaging war experience, Vonnegut always tempers his commentary with compassion for his characters,
suggesting that human's ability to love may partially compensate for the destructive tendencies we find in the
people at large. In Vonnegut's novels the characters are described variously, like ‘comic, pathetic pieces,
juggled about by some inexplicable faith, like puppets’ (Ranly, 494), In this regard Weales opines that ‘they
[characters] answer summons from some source they do not recognize, carry out the task they do not
understand to end in the darkness they do not want to think about’ (237-238).
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As World War II ended, the people of the world saw some of the most terrifying effects that science could
have. For the first time in history, possibly since Ancient Greece, the value of science was being questioned.
People were not so sure anymore that science was always such a good thing, and Vonnegut is one of the
leading questioners. Nuwer’s article “Kurt Vonnegut and WW II” shows the views of Vonnegut on
technology, "I am the enemy of all technological progress that threatens mankind" (39). A humanist at heart,
he repeatedly demonstrates the human aptitude for cruelty, and shows how technology magnifies this
cruelty beyond control. Vonnegut is not content to excuse the bombing of Dresden or Vietnam. He told his
sons "they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of
enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee", and they should not work for "companies that make
massacre machinery" (Slaughterhouse Five, 18). This statement illustrates Vonnegut's views on the potential
evil impact that can be brought on by the union of man and machine.
Kurt Vonnegut's philosophy is that as human beings we are left with no choice but to simply accept the preordered life finds its best expression in Slaughterhouse Five. Vonnegut's views on death, war, technology and
human nature were all affected by his experience in Dresden and these themes become evident in this novel
too. Describing the ‘Dresden factor’ in Vonnegut’s life, Klinkowitz says,
the matter of Dresden furnished the world picture for Player Piano, the psychological barrier for The Sirens
of Titan, the backdrop for Mothers Night, the informing principle for Cat’s Cradle, the climax for God Bless
You Mr Rosewater and finally the essence of Slaughterhouse Five. (16)
David Goldman opines of the Dresden factor in Vonnegut’s life as, "Rarely has a single incident so dominated
the work of a writer" (ix). Peter Reed opines that, "If the war becomes a general metaphor for Vonnegut's
vision of human condition, Dresden becomes the symbol, the quintessence" (186). What made the Dresden
bombing even more dreadful to Vonnegut was that as a prisoner, he was ironically protected from the bombs
and fire by a slaughterhouse. The bombing was done by the planes and “he was a perpetrator, observer and
target, all at the same time” (ix). The little dream Vonnegut took with him to war was not founded on the
rubble of insanity, absurdity, and irrationality that he experienced in World War II but on order, stability, and
justice.
Slaughterhouse Five, as a final product of Vonnegut’s twenty years of hardship, becomes his most famous and
widely studied work. Its style puts the reader in a thought-experiment where the novel can no longer be
perceived as a fictional work, but as an imaginary space where contradicting notions exist. This structure very
much resembles Vonnegut’s description of the Tralfamadorian novels:
The Tralfamadorians allow [Billy] to look at some of their novels […] he can see that the novels consist of
clumps of symbols with stars in between. Billy is told that the clumps function something like telegrams, with
each clump a message about a situation or scene. But the clumps are not read sequentially as the chapters are in
an earthling novel of the ordinary sort. They are read simultaneously. [...] ‘There is no beginning, no middle, no
end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many
marvelous moments seen all at one time.’ (Slaughterhouse Five, 72)
The massacre at Dresden with which Slaughterhouse-Five primarily deals with is a fine example for Vonnegut
to demonstrate how war dehumanizes and degrades man. The total annihilation of Dresden typically reveal’s
man’s unlimited capacity for cruelty. The inhuman violence perpetrated on the people of Dresden is a grim
reminder about the senselessness of war.
The novel begins with Billy serving as an American soldier in World War II. After being captured by the
Germans, Billy is assigned to work as hard labour in Dresden. Most of the American POW like Billy are young,
poorly trained, and completely demoralized. In fact British colonel, who has been in prison for four years, is
appalled by their youth¬fulness. "My God, my God," he says. "It's the Children's Crusade" (11) - thus
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providing the book with its subtitle, The Children’s Crusade. The terrible destruction of Dresden is, as
Vonnegut sees is, an example of the way the inhuman enemy forces treat their POWs. Speaking about the
Dresden memories in the novel, the character of Vonnegut says:
I think of how useless the Dresden part of my memory has been, and yet how tempting Dresden has been to
write about. (Slaughterhouse-Five, 2)
At the end of the war, Billy returns to his hometown of Ilium, New York, where he settles down and becomes
an optometrist. Billy Pilgrim has a unique ability to become "unstuck in time", which means that he can
uncontrollably drift from one part of his life to another "and the trips aren't necessarily fun," (17). The
whole novel is organized on this particular movement of drifting as Billy moves in time and space. It consists
of numerous sections and paragraphs strung together in a diachronical order selected from random
experiences. The whole narrative is in past tense, and it is difficult to identify where exactly the author begins to
intervene and the authorial intervention begins. This aspect of the book is identical to the Tralfamadorians
books.
There isn't any particular relationship between all the messages, except that the author has chosen them
carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep.
There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our
books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time. (Slaughterhouse-Five, 64)
Tralfamadorians are aliens, who are "two feet high, and green, and shaped like plumber’s friends" topped by "a
little hand with a green eye in its palm," (19) – and how they can see in four dimensions, enabling them to look
at all time all at once, with death and the future holding no fear for them bring to earth a totally different
perspective in viewing those on earth, and demystifying the beliefs of the earth presenting his unusual world
view. The Tralfamadorians advise Billy not worry about the bad times and focus instead upon the good times
which is a theory very much in keeping with the prayer displayed upon Billy's office wall and on the locket
around Montana Wildhacks' neck,
God grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom
always to tell the difference. (Slaughterhouse-Five, 153)
The alien point of view is that if one cannot change the past, present or future then one is free to simply exist
and this, the novel seems to suggest, is perhaps the most beneficial interpretation of freewill.
Vonnegut's satire sweeps widely, touching on a number of subjects like education, religion, science,
advertising, and so on. The Tralfamadorian in the novel says:
If I hadn't spent so much time studying Earthlings … I wouldn't have any idea what was meant by "free will."
I've visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only
on Earth is there any talk of free will. (Slaughterhouse-Five, 62)
The central target in the novel is the institution of war. However, one might think of war as something great
and mighty one cannot be insensitive to the brutality and stupidity of this human construct. The artistry of the
novelist lies in letting the readers view the man-made institutions that dominate human affairs from the point
of view of the Tralfamadorian, the aliens. These points of view that he makes the reader develop makes one
view the futility of human constructs objectively.
By viewing contempo¬rary life on Earth from a distant time or planet, or in the context of wide ranges of
time and space, or through the eyes of an alien observer, Vonnegut can create at least the impression of a
detached perspective on the human lot. However, given the fact that human beings tend not to view their
af¬fairs with such remorse and that the outsider's perspective may seem to many idiosyncratic, thereby
making the resultant portrayal appear preposterous, incongruous, and irrational.
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7
War provides the ultimate measure of man's folly, his inhumanity, his inability to match means and ends and
his incapacity to maintain an ordered control over his destiny: Madness, neurosis and eccentricity characterize
both the irrationality of such human social behavior and how society tends to view deviant but perhaps more
rational and moral individual acts. They also serve to indicate the human con¬sequences of living in a universe
and a society which men find so cryptic, purposeless and frequently adverse. Vonnegut affirms that he feels
saddened when he looks at the damned human race. Thus in Billy Pilgrim we find a compassionate man, who
meditates a good deal on the life and teachings of Jesus, an epitome of love. Partly as a result of what he has
learned on Tralfamadore, Billy is to some extent reconciled to life as it is lived on Earth. But Vonnegut who
fails at any reconciliation expresses his terrible outrage in the novel. Addressing his editor, Seymour Lawrence
within the novel, the character of Vonnegut says: "Sam there's the book. It is so short and jumbled and jangled,
Sam, be¬cause there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre." (14)
Billy learns from Tralfamadorians, the aliens that all moments in life – happy or unhappy exist simultaneously
and that it is therefore best to think only of pleasant things: “Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the
good ones” (85) This perspec¬tive permits Tralfamadorians to view death as merely another moment in life
and thereby attach no meaning to it. Further in what the Tralfamadorians teach Billy that there is no cosmic
purpose to the universe; that all actions are predetermined and knowledge of the future does not enable one to
change destiny; and that free will is only an earthling illusion.
The philosophy of Tralfamadore on time and death, as Billy explains it, is an escape from the concept of linear
time, just as their – the aliens –novels are an escape from linear narration:
The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is
still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present,
future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just
the way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the
moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on earth
that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.
(Slaughterhouse-Five, 19-20)
The Tralfamadorians, then, avoid the "duty-dance with death" by ignoring death as finality. Their little formula
"so it goes," said ritualistically throughout the novel whenever any death, no matter how trivial, is mentioned,
is from the Duman point of view, the height of fatalism. The most important function of "so it goes,"
however, is its imparting a cyclical quality to the novel both in form and context highlighting the carnival
concept of death as the two sides of a coin.
Tralfamadore is another mental construct, that goes beyond the question of true or false. As Eliot Rosewater
says to the psychiatrists in the novel: "I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful
new lies or people just aren't going to want to go on living" (87-88). The statement is certainly a clue to the
meaning of Tralfamadore. Since it comes right after the statement that Rosewater and Billy found life
meaningless, partly because of what they had seen in the war: "so they were trying to re-invent themselves and
their universe" (88). The Tralfamadorian concept of time, with the suggestion of cyclical return embodied in
Billy's time travels, reflects the fact that timelessness is a product of the irrational, the unconscious, the
imagination itself.
When both love and lies prove futile as viable responses to the absurd human condition, all that remains-other
than suicide is resignation. True wisdom, Vonnegut implies in Slaughterhouse-Five, lies in recognizing the
things man can¬not change. In the novel Vonnegut also suggests that it would be nice to possess the courage
to change the things we can. Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change, were "the past, the present, and
the future" (52). The main idea emerging from Slaughterhouse-Five seems to be that the proper response to
life is one of resigned acceptance.
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In allowing instances of death to trail off into oblivion with “So it goes,” Vonnegut conveys to the readers that
death, the ultimate sacrifice in war, can be a rather indifferent matter. Allowing no moment of silence to the
victims in his novel, Vonnegut is hasty to move the reader right along to the rest of the story. The phrase "So it
goes" recurs one hundred and six times in the novel: it appears every time somebody dies in the novel, and
sustains the circular quality of the book. It enables the book, and thus Vonnegut's narration, to go on,
When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in the
particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear
that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is 'So
it goes' (Slaughterhouse-Five, 27)
Critic Thomas F. Marvin indicates that such a usage of this terse sentence forces the reader to interrupt:
While it is true that the novel adopts the Tralfamadorian custom of saying “so it goes” every time a death
occurs, this relentless repetition shows that the fatalistic attitude behind the saying is ridiculous. Eventually
readers must rebel and insist that no, it did not have to go that way. Something could and should have been
done to make things turn out differently. Death is inevitable, but some deaths are preventable… (128)
When Billy discusses the problems about ‘wars’ (Slaughterhouse Five, 83) with the Tralfamadorians, they tell
him that everything is structured the way it is and that trying to prevent war on Earth is stupid. “I suppose that
the idea of preventing war on Earth is stupid” (84). This means that there always will be wars on Earth, that we,
people, are "designed" that way. There might be people striving for eternal peace, but those people must be
very naive and probably do not know the inherent nature of humankind. We know that wars are bad and we
would like to stop them, but we are ‘stuck in amber.’ God Almighty had to be the one who put us into the
amber, who had created us the way we are.
There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the
people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. (Slaughterhouse-Five,
164)
The aliens go on to explain that all moments in time happen at once. Therefore, nothing can be done to change
the past or future, because there really is no past or future. If someone is dead, they are just technically in bad
shape at that particular moment. By the same token, they are quite alive in another. In Lundquist’s Kurt
Vonnegut, at the conclusion of the novel, Vonnegut reflects on what his captors, the Tralfamadorians, had
said,
If what Billy Pilgrim learned from the Tralfamadorians is true, that we will all live forever, no matter how dead
we may sometimes seem to be, I am not overjoyed. Still—if I am going to spend eternity visiting this
moment and that, I'm grateful that so may of those moments are nice. (52)
Billy shares a past trauma with Vonnegut; bearing witness to an unbelievable and needless loss of human life
and lives in question of the purpose of mankind, which has such a great and often employed capacity for
pain. The success of Billy's rebellion has very much to do with the inactivity it condones for its followers. He
does not order drastic government restructuring or change of lifestyle but offers merely a new way to easily
digest our inevitable evils and cruelty; that is, by ignoring them.
The novel concludes with Vonnegut himself describing among other things the latest absurdities surrounding
his life and times highlighting the carnival element of futility and meaninglessness of the events influencing
him as an individual and the world at large: casualty lists in Vietnam, the death of his father, the assassination
of Robert Kennedy, the execution of Kindly Edgar Derby, and the end of World War II. Though Vonnegut
sees Dresden firebombing in the context of the unpopular war that overshadowed almost all other issues in
the 1960’s, he is still able to smile through his tears and provide an affirmation of life. Vonnegut highlights this
LUMINAIRE
9
obvious contradiction by having Billy Pilgrim learn that one can find peace and happiness only through
fantasy or senility.
The novel is disjointed and unconventional. Its structure reflects this important idea: there is nothing you can
say to adequately explain a massacre. In the words of Reed,
[the] novel concerns itself not just with Dresden or the war, but with a much broader depiction of a human
condition which these events emblematic. (181)
Robert Scholes sums up the theme of Slaughterhouse Five in the New York Times Book Review thus:
Be kind. Don't hurt. Death is coming for all of us anyway, and it is better to be Lot's wife looking back through
salty eyes than the Deity that destroyed those cities of the plain in order to save them. ... Slaughterhouse Five is
an extraordinary success. It is a book we need to read, and to reread. (204)
Vonnegut took more than twenty years to ponder his survival of Dresden, before he could liberate himself
from the guilt of survival by expressing the experience in Slaughterhouse Five. In one sense the novel is the
result of his effort to reinvent himself and his universe. Literary critic Klinkowitz says, “with Slaughterhouse
Five Vonnegut was able to deal directly with his war time nightmare” (84). His extraordinary closeness to the
subject matter and the themes he project account for the unrestrained and serious tone in revealing how the
experience damages his spirit. His attempt to establish the historical validity of the subject matter poses the
problem of narrative distance, but it also gives the novel a foundation to the war factor in his novels. The
apocalyptic imagination reinforces the reality of Dresden in Slaughterhouse Five. Vonnegut’s juggling of Billy
Pilgrim’s imaginary adventures with a dispassionate account of his personal experiences at Dresden is a way of
balancing his efforts to maintain an objective view of the atrocity and his need to convey his closeness to it.
In the end, Billy is judged as an insane and as he speaks at a public appearance, he is killed by an assassin, hired
to revenge Roland Weary's death. In spite of the tragedy of his life, there are three positive notes in Billy's
existence. Before his death, he does try to teach others about Trafalmadorian philosophy, which he believes is
beneficial; unfortunately, he is judged to be insane by most who hear him speak. Through his time travels,
however, he knows that someday in the future the truthfulness of his stories will be accepted. Billy also travels
back to Dresden and is happy to see that it has been rebuilt and has become prosperous. It allows him to end
his traumatic war memories on a more positive note.
Notes:
Giannone, Richard. Vonnegut: A Preface to his Novels. Port Washington, NY/ London: Kennikat Press,
1977.
Goldsmith, David. Kurt Vonnegut: Fantasist of Fire and Ice. Bowling Green: Bowling Green Press,1972.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgement: Book II Analytic of the Sublime. E307 Photocopy.
Klinkowitz, Jerome, and John Somer. The Vonnegut Statement. New York, New York: Dell Publishing Co.,
Inc., 1973.
Levine, George. "Realism Reconsidered." Essentials of the Theory of Fiction. Ed. Michael J. Hoffman and
Patrick Murphy. Durham: Duke UP, 1996.
Lundquist, James. Kurt Vonnegut. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co, 1977.
Mustazza, Leonard. Forever Pursuing Genesis: The Myth of Eden in the Novels of Kurt Vonnegut. London
and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1990.
Nuwer, Richard. "Kurt Vonnegut and WWII". Contemporary Literary Critism. vol.60. Detroit: Gale
Research Co., 1990.
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Ranly, Ernest W., "What are people for?" in Contemporary Literary Criticism. ed. Carolyn Riley and Barbara
Harte. Detroit MI: Gale Research Company, 1974. vol.2, pp 453-4,
Reed, Peter J. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. USA: Warner Paperback Library, 1974.
Scholes, Robert. Fabulation and Metafiction. Urbana, Chicago, London: University of Illinois Press, 1979.
Vanderwerken, Joseph. "Slaughterhouse Five." Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction. vol.5.
Washington: Beacham Press,1996.
Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse Five. New York: Dell Viking Press, 1969.
Weales, Gerald. "To Be And Not to Be". Contemporary Literary Criticism. ed. Carolyn Riley. Detroit MI:
Gale Research Company, 1973, vol.1, 327-328.
Zelenka, Petr. New Religion of Kurt Vonnegut. Praha: H&H, 1992.
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11
RESISTANCE THROUGH THE LITERATURES:
CULTURAL STUDIES WITH REFERENCE TO INTERLITERARINESS AND GLOBALIZATION
Snehaprabha N. Desai & Raju M.S.
The present world has had undergone massive transformations from the time sea routes are discovered to
America, Asia and Africa, followed by the hegemonic march of colonialism and the painful process of
decolonization. Similarly our thinking and thoughts have passed through the Western project of modernity
and enlightenment, postmodern and postcolonial discourses. Arguing against the adherents of globalization,
Fredric Jameson discounts the merit of such a process by saying that people have been trading with each other
from Neolithic times and commodities have been moving from one part of the world to the other from time
immemorial; there is nothing new in the process but what is damning is that it perpetuates Western hegemony
in disguise as a logical prop for late capitalism. Globalism and globalization are the Darwinian manifesto of
the survival of the fittest; the strong nations will survive ‘naturally’, for it is in their destiny to survive, whereas
weak nations will inevitably be weeded out because of their unsatisfactory performance as nation-states.
How does culture relate to globalization of markets and economics? Or how do the trends in the money
market affect literature and language? These issues have surged to prominence in the current socio-economic
and political scenario. Literature has always been subjected to socio-political and economic pressures. The
most recent phenomenon has been the emergence of the powerful post-colonial discourse writing back to the
entire and asserting its own identity and cultural and national individuality. Literature of Post-colonial times
reflected the increased flow of people from one country to the other – mostly to the land of colonizer and
dealt with consequent issues like immigration, hybridity, loss of identity, multiculturalism and disappearance
of rigid national identities. Globalization hastened this process and resulted in the merging of cultural
practices and increased marketing of culture through the influx of Macdonald’s and Pizza Huts in all
metropolitan cities and through the celebration of special days like Valentine’s day, father’s day etc. The visible
impact of globalization can be found in the metropolises across the world which have suddenly become
cosmopolitan and multicultural. This is ‘neocolonialism’ making itself felt not through violent political
strategies, but by slowly and quietly confiscating the market as well as culture. The one major difference is that
unlike colonialism, this process is decentered. “It is in this context of globalized cultural regimes of new forms
of domination and exploitation of multiple displacements and cultural alignments that new approached to
culture and literature and new forms of writing and cultural practices emerge” (Nayar ).
Beyond the economic and political debates, it is presumed that globalization is a challenge to cultures, in
particular, to marginalized communities and their identities. In such a scenario where the local and the global
seem to overlap, the discursive articulation of the difference of identities and social and cultural practices
become more crucial. In the context of the tribes of Northeast India, it is feared that globalization may bring
in large-scale commodification of their cultures and would erase their unique identities that are so far
consolidated mostly on the premise of ethnic difference. Look at identity politics in the Northeast India in the
wake of globalization that contributes to the changes in its formation, reformation and deformation.
Although globalization de-historicizes identities, it cannot certainly erase an identity totally except creating
hybrid identities. Today, identities are under a period of rapid evolution in matters of rights, articulations and
solidarity movements and so on in our country.
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With globalization English has acquired increased importance as a common lingua franca for the global
community. Prof. Micheal Zoolan of the University of Birmingham remarks: Political and economic power
and a facilitative technology are what cause a language to ‘go international’ and even begin to have a global
status. On all those counts, English has repeatedly turned out to be the language in the right place at the right
time English mediated products naturally gained priority over non-English-mediated products. Writing in
English and getting published by British publishers gave the writer an advantage over those writing in regional
languages or being published locally. The Diaspora writing from the west thus assumes greater importance in
the context of globalization. The major English writers of most of the underdeveloped nations live in the
west. It is a case of the metropolis extracting not just culture, but even the producers of culture. Many Indian
English novelists like Raja Rao, Kamala Markandaya, Anita Desai, Bharati Mukherjee, Salman Rushdie,
Amitav Ghosh, Rohinton Mistry, Vikram Seth etc. reside in the west. Even those who live in India like Sasi
Tharoor and Arun Joshi are products of different cultures, residing in one, educated in another, moving from
one country to another, partaking of different cultures, presenting what Will Kymlicka calls a “multicultural
citizenship” in a globalized world ( Nayar). These writers are cosmopolitan in outlook and even celebrate in
their writings, the fluid condition of the hybrid, possessing multiple identities and transcending national
barriers.
Valorizing of the in-between state of the diaspora is a common feature in the writings of critics like Homi
Bhabha and novelists like Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Hanif Kurishi etc. migrants to the First World
belonging to less privileged classes (forced migrant labor) or Afro-Asian women who seldom enjoy the multicultural status of the educated elite are hardly visible in their writings. Globalization has given rise to
inequalities among writers within the metropolis projecting nonresident Indian writers over those writing
from home. Quality is no longer the criterion by which literature is judged, but the money and hype it
generates. Arundhati Roy’s God of small things and Vikram Seth’s A suitable Boy won world wide acclaim
because of the money and hype they received.
Influenced by deconstruction, post structuralism, and other text-based literary theories, critics initially sought
to draw attention to postcolonial literature as resistance. Thus, the authors of The Empire Writes Back argued
against the cultural hegemony of the canon of English literature, against employing Eurocentric standards of
judgment [by which] the center has sought to claim those works and writers of which it approves as British.
Instead, they proposed a distinction between English and ‘english’, the latter signifying the resistant thrust of
the energies uncovered by the political tension between the idea of a normative code and a variety of regional
usages. On this account, postcolonial literary texts are resistant to the extent that they succeed in subverting
the normative codes of European canonical traditions.
In novels like, Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines and Salman Rushdi’s Shame, to name just a few, we see the
authors foregrounding the problems involved in bringing together the high and low within a national
framework. The postcolonial novel differs, therefore, in some significant ways from the classic bourgeois
realist novel of European pedigree. Furthermore, the treatment of everyday reality is mediated by various
ideological and political factors. For this reason, the search for authenticity in representation --if by
authenticity we mean a self-same identity-- is doomed to failure.
As Ranajit Guha argued in his programmatic essay on Indian historiography, and as the early work of the
Subaltern Studies Collective showed, mainstream historiography tended to represent the process of
decolonization as an elite achievement. In response to this, the project of the Subaltern Studies group was to
recuperate the history of subaltern struggles against colonial and class exploitation.
So far the positive as well as negative effects of ‘globalization’ are being discussed in all walks of life in India.
Lois Parkinson Zamora commented critically on the effects of globalization on not only literature and culture
but also on teaching profession in Latin America. To some extent, similar effects are visible in Indian literature
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and culture. The term ‘globalization’ is used by Lois Parkinson Zamora to refer to the ‘changes in cultural
conditions worldwide’ during the past ten to twenty years and she has sorted out following three
characteristics of this ‘complex of transcultural operations’: The presence of new information and
communication technologies, the emergence of new global markets; the unprecedented mobility of people
and levels of (im)migration, with their accompanying cultural displacement(s).
This discussion leads us directly to comparative cultural questions. Titles of works such as comparative
politics, comparative mathematics, comparative physiology, etc., show--historically--how anthropologists,
economists, ecologists, and several others become cultural comparatists who weigh cultural differences. All
such terms signify current ‘spatial realignments.’ Some of them do not have equivalents in our regional
languages. Here the term ‘Anglocalization’ is termed to trace the effects of global English, globalization and
localization in the Indian context. The reference to the ‘death’ of comparative literature is with regard to Susan
Bassnett's 1993 book, Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction, where she writes "Today, comparative
literature in one sense is dead", and to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's 2003 book, Death of a Discipline, two
eminent scholars of comparative literature who speak from the ‘center’ (Europe and the US), when
comparative literature in India -- a ‘periphery’ -- is in its initial stages of development as an independent
discipline, intellectually and institutionally.
But, at present, a select few ‘Indians’ (the nomenclature of Hindustan by European colonizers/invaders),
including NRIs may have the borrowed voice in a ‘mediated conversation between global-local-languages’.
But an average ‘subaltern’ Bharatiya (Bharat for India, Bharatiya for its ‘native’) is silenced by the breath-taking
transformations and widening gap between the rich and the poor. The fear of the death of languages,
literatures, and cultures is very much a concern to many. As a result, there is a nativist resistance to the ‘tsunami’
of globalization in booklets published and speeches in India but that do not succeed in inspiring a true
resistant literary movement.
Here the position is that of a postcolonial comparatists and culturalists and thus notion of ‘Anglocalization’
signifies the salient features of the next phase of literary acculturation in postcolonial India. During the preindependence period, sociologists used to describe a process of "Sanskritization" (named after the classical
language of India, Sanskrit) during the British and Portuguese colonialisms. In fact, this was the elitist
nomenclature by the Orientalists for manipulating consent of the upper caste comprador class intelligentsia.
Today ‘Anglocalization’ points out both the positive and negative effects. The Rebirth of Comparative
Literature in Anglocalization complex process dominated by the use of ‘global’ English at ‘call centers,’
increasing global interculturalism, and the local resistance to the special economic zones, as well as the elitist
cultural centers. This shows how we have to adopt a global comparative perspective to interpret both the alien
and indigenous cultural cum literary events. For example, the electronic media of the global village hyped the
appearance of Kiran Desai in Indian saree to receive the Booker Prize for her novel ‘The Inheritance of Loss’
in which she depicts the loss of cultural heritage and is suggestive of several transformations in Indian society;
Meena Prabhu, the British-Indian NRI elite writer of Mazen London (My London), contested the election for
president of the local All India Marathi, and V.S. Naipaul, the British-Caribbean writer of Indian roots was
knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.; a Marathi play Vastraharan was performed in the U.S., etc. Under such
circumstances of interliterariness and interculturalism, neither a text nor an author can be studied in isolation
without a global context. Comparatively static semiotics of our literary culture is being revolutionized by
global forces in respect of four major aspects of language, mind, and politics as discussed by Noam Chomsky
and these four aspects are the notions of internalism, nativism, universalism, and constructivism (on this, see
McGillivray ). To use the metaphor from the Mahabharata (globalized by Peter Brooks' dramatization in
England) our traditionally fractioned literati are being revitalized today by the Anglocalization of the ‘cultural
capital’ into two divisions: the SEZ: Special Economic Zone, where the digital spaces of Drona and Arjuna
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select few internationalized writers, especially from the traditional custodians of culture and media powers of
the priestly class, which was always patronized by the ruling class and the local colonized space of orality and
print media occupied by the majority-Eklavyas. Such subalterns who considered the British rule in India a
blessing, now find globalization a boom. To the other extreme, the peasant class of the marshal race is
marginalized to commit suicide. The poor has little space in the cultural capital acquired in the process of
anglocalization. How far are literary studies aware of such crucial transformations? Are we ready to accept the
challenge of this metamorphosis or merger of comparative literature either into "area studies" (Spivak),
comparative literature as "translation studies" (Apter), or into "comparative cultural studies" (Tötösy de
Zepetnek)? Are we equipped with innovative conceptual tools to study the rich and complex intertextuality
created by the tsunamis of global interliterariness? Our print capitalism is not yet totally been displaced by
communicative capitalism of the electronic global village. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek's comparative cultural
studies can be applied with certain modifications in the Indian context (see Patil, "The New Indian
Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies"). It is a more relevant comparative cultural study to link the
processes of the journey of the literary awards and interculturalness from the centers of literary culture to its
peripheries. For example, Kiran Desai's Booker Award winner, The Inheritance of Loss (2006), is a product
of international interculturalism and interliterariness. On the contrary, Namdev Kambale's Raghavwel (The
Dawn of Time) in Marathi, the Sahitya Akademi's Delhi awardee, is the product of contemporary Hindu
culture conditioned by imagination and local cultural conflicts. Both are published in the same decade, but
there is a great difference in degrees of acculturation, techniques, and the awareness of the international
forces of globalization. However, the similarities lie in their basic caste/culture conditioning and
"carnivalization" of culture. Desai belongs to the elite class of Eurasians and Kambale to the subaltern
caste/class of dalit ‘Mang’ (name of one lower caste) community. Hence, Desai's novel is a postmodernist
product of a rich international cultural carnivalization and the latter's modernist text that displays more local
politics of culture, and caste.
The fear of the death of languages and cultures reigns supreme. This has created an opportunity to revive
comparative literature. Economic liberation, and privatization, localization and global English caused the
processes of identity transformation in English-speaking countries which are differently affected by the
colonial and postcolonial experiences. The special economic zones of the privileged few and the rest of India
with increasing population of the poor, resulted in, generic hybridism exhibiting crucial transformations in a
formerly static society unevenly modernized on the colonial background.
That generic hybridization is exhibited in SMS, graffiti, internet epistolary forms, and in innumerable
adaptations from English texts into Indian languages today. India is considered to be a ‘linguistic giant,’ having
1600 mother-tongues reducible to about 200 languages; but it seems to be badly affected by the globalization
that encourages only English as the medium of schools and universities.
Notes:
Achilles, Jochen and Carmen Birkle. (ed.) (Trans) Formations of Cultural Identity in the English-Speaking
World. Heidelberg. Universitatsverlag C. Winter, 1998.
Apter, Emily. The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2006.
Ashcroft,Bill. Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in PostColonial Literatures . London and New York. Routledge. 1989.
Bassnett,Susan. Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction. Oxford, Blackwell. 1973.
Bourdieu, Pierre. Acts of Resistance. Oxford, Polity Press. 1998.
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15
Brennan, Timothy. The National Longing for Form. Nation and Narration. Ed. Homi K. Bhabha. London
and New York: Routledge, 1990.
Cable, Vincent. The Diminished Nation-State: A Study in the Loss of Economic Power. Daedalus,NA.1995.
Duncombe, Stephen. Cultural Resistance Reader. London, Verso. 2002.
Frenz, Horst and Newton P. Stallknecht (ed.). Comparative Literature:Method and Perspective. Southern
Illinois University Press. Carbondale, IL. 1961.
Ghosh, Amitav. The Shadow Lines. New Delhi, Ravi Dayal. 1988.
Guha, Ranajit. On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India. Subaltern Studies Vol 1. Writings
on South Asian History and Society. Ed. Ranajit Guha. Delhi: Oxford UP, 1989: 1-8. 8 vols.
Harlow, Barbara. Resistance Literature. Methuen.New York, 1987.
Ho, Elaine Yee Lin. Timothy Mo. Contemporary World Writers. Manchester and New York, Manchester UP.
2000.
David Harvey. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford, Oxford University Press. 2005.
Jameson, Fredric and Masao Miyoshi, (ed). The Cultures of Globalization. Durham. Duke University Press.
1998.
Kymlicka, Will. Multicultural citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights NY, Oxford UP. 1995.
Maya.D. Globalization and Indian English Writing. Indian Ruminations.2011. ISSN:2249-2062.
Nayar, Pramod.K . “Postcolonialism Now” Litterit 35 1&2:2009.
Parry, Benita. Problems in Current Theories of Colonial Discourse. Oxford Literary Review 9.1-2 .1987.
Parthasarathy.D. Shifting Fields of Legitimacy: Globalization and Resistance in a Historical Perspective, .pub.
in Christoph Eberhard & Nidhi Gupta (eds) , Legal Pluralism in India, Special Issue of the Indian Socio-Legal
Journal, Vol. XXXI. 2010. Patil, Anand. Western Influence on Marati Drama. Panaji-Goa. Rajhauns
Vitaran.1993.
Prasad, Madhav. On the Question of a Theory of (Third World)) Literature. Social Text 31/32. 1992.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. Death of a Discipline. New York. Columbia UP. 2003.
Tötösy de Zepetnek, Steven. Comparative Literature: Theory, Practice, Application. Amsterdam,
Rodopi.1993.
Adetayo Alabi. Special issue, The Global South. 1.2 (2007).
Toolam Michael: Recentering Enligh: New English and Global. English Today. NA.1997.
Werbner, Prina. Vernacular Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Cultue and Society.NA. 2006.
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SIFTING THROUGH THE FACADES: MEMORY
AND IDENTITY IN THE CITY NARRATIVES OF
CITY OF DJINNS AND MAXIMUM CITY: BOMBAY
LOST AND FOUND
Rijuta Komal Das
The cities at the first glance seemed to be covered by a thin veneer of the colonial past. The Gateway of India,
the Lutyens buildings – they all form the welcome banner to the sprawling metropolis of Mumbai and Delhi.
And moving through the architecture studded around the city the writers delve deep into the mines of stories
spawned by them in a bid to find their origins. This paper will explore the authors bid to find a relation of the
self in the context of their environmental other – to chart a city memoir through the lens of the narrator;
primarily working with the texts of William Dalrymple’s The City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi and Suketu
Mehta’s Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found.
A city’s essence is derived from the confrontation of the tangible with the intangible, of the people and the
structures that they come in contact with. The constant state of building and rebuilding diffuses energy
around the cityscape mutated with the histories of the ages that it has stood witness to. The authors have come
to this place to tour these structures in order to give due recognition to these diverse energies. The genre of the
travel memoir is transmuted into the city memoir where the authors build up the narrative in order to get to the
bottom of the identity of the city. This complex reconstruction of the self is done through a visual
acknowledgement of the structures around them. In engaging them, they interpret and in doing so seek to find
that one identity underneath the many diachronic layers that it has stood witness to. William Dalrymple digs
around the city of Delhi as an outsider determined to get to the origins of the cities. Suketu Mehta on the other
hand comes back to find the changed exterior of the city of his childhood and is now determined to find his
own place in it. Both of them leave at the end of their pilgrimage with the promise to return having become a
little wiser to the heart of the city.
The city culture is unique in the sense that it is an assembled self. There have been a number of forces, a
number of facades that have gone in the making of the spirit of the place. In City of Djinns Dalrymple
confronts lost civilizations that haunt the road of the city in the time frame of a year. He notes the seven
different times that Delhi has been lost and reconstructed – the others now no more than a hazy memory
remembered by those who lived during the changes and are now lost relics along with their architectural
counterparts. The glory of the past days is latticed in these monuments as well crumbling amnesia with
enough mystery to beckon to those willing to see.
The visual challenge is important in the assemblage of the city for to see is to acknowledge. The City of Djinns
is infused with the memory of degradation. The people do not see the past around them. Busy with the
humdrum of the daily life they forget the city’s various civilizations that have come and gone in order to make
the current structures that they reside in.
Dalrymple’s path to the discovery is that of the observer and a faithful chronicler. He desires to know the
different faces of Delhi and capture the change that each has bought and contributed to the modern city state.
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He talks of crumbling Ajmeri Gate, the former glory of Moonlight Bazaar of whom the travels used to talk of
with mystique in their voice, of Safdarjung which lies deserted. There is no recognition of these buildings or
the past that haunts it.
Dalrymple’s Delhi is an unmistakable chart of its ruin. From 1947 to the Lutyens to Aurengzeb’s seize of
power to the Delhi Sultanate building the city over the seven temples of Delhi there has been a biography
raised on ruins. Change entails the fall of the previous order so that the new order can be established. In a
growing state of urbanism the past is being increasingly overlooked by people continuously looking towards
the future as described so proudly by one of the characters of the book. The consciousness of the developing
country comes from an achievement of the present and not from the past reconstruction. However one does
not realize the importance of that past in the identity of the city today. The concept of consecrated ground
comes into the mind. Delhi stands on the grounds of infinite histories and legends and because of that it has
got the identity that it has today. That is essential to the quest for recognition in Dalrymple. He wants to know
the basis of the legend that Delhi is today. Dalrymple notes the constancy of the people’s memory stretching
back to the seminal moment of Partition of 1947 when the city changed hands and the old culture was
forgotten in the face of the rebuilding nation state.
The Delhis of the past are contrasted to the Delhi of the present. Early on he comments on the appearance of
Delhi,
Delhi, it seemed at first, was full of riches and horrors: it was a labyrinth, a city of palaces, an open gutter,
filtered light through a filigree lattice, a landscape of domes, an anarchy, a press of people, a choke of fumes, a
whiff of spices. [Dalrymple, 12]
The juxtaposition of the old and new shows off the multi-dimensional nature of the city where places “set in
different ages” come together in a matter-of-fact nostalgia of declined fortunes of the earthly paradise into a
melancholy slum. While the New Delhi is the symbol of British Imperialism Old Delhi is the dying vestige of
the once glorious Mughal culture. To repair this one must delve deep into this separating chasm, to recognize
that “everything is old and falling down” in order that the truth may be ascertained. Through the architecture
of the city, Dalrymple notes down the stories that they have to tell – of the mehfils, the bloody wars of
succession, the flagrant excesses, the invasions and finally of seeking the new heaven – to find the stretch of
continuity in one’s memory and communicate to others the story of their past. There is no compulsion for
change or of revolution but of recognition – to give the past it’s due.
While The City of Djinns tries to historically account the “origins of the story” of the city, Maximum City:
Bombay Lost and Found on the other hand charts the narrator’s personal connection to the city. Suketu
Mehta gives the detailed list of the different possible ways that the city came into being. The historical aspect
of the city finds no connection to him; rather he is concerned with the psychological and the political nature
of its being. He states that “there are many Bombays…I just wanted to find mine”. This city memoir is vested
with the narrator’s nostalgia of the past and he wishes to bridge the gap through telling the stories that have
occurred in his absence. Suketu Mehta moves from prominent landmarks of the city to gather stories relating
to the incidents that have happened there. In journalistic vein he faithfully renders the stories that he is told
sprinkling it with his own comments. While Dalrymple observed, Mehta submerges himself in the
experiences of the people he finds. Through the personal he seeks to chart the current history of the city and
in doing so find the connection lost to him through his many years of living abroad.
Mehta uses - as Dalrymple does - the trope of the book. Both of them have come to these two metropolises to
seek and strive to find if “underneath the superficial aspects of apparent change the old tide-lines remain”.
The pretext of the text gives them the privileged position – of being privy to intimate secrets of the city and
the people and becoming both the narrator who speaks as well as the focalizer who sees and gives perspective
on the unfolding events.
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The events of Maximum City are founded on the exosomatic energy of man that breathes meaning into the
architecture of the city. Suketu Mehta juxtaposes the locations of the Jogeswari slums and Malabar Hills.
Though both are separated by the gaps not just of geography but also of ideology they are nonetheless united
in the common participation of “dhandha”. The English translation of transaction does not do justice to the
wealth of meaning contained in this word. The city’s ethos is based on this financial concept which forms the
basis of its political counterpart “powertoni” or the agonistic nature of power. The life of the city reflects the
nature of moving from a place of being exploited to a place where you can do the exploiting. The Jogeswari
slums signifies the less than humble origins, a house on the Malabar Hills signifies the odds-defying rise and
affording a dinner at the Taj Hotel means that you have definitely arrived. And the rise to power does not
necessarily mean doing it the right way. And that is when we come to the pervading underworld of Mumbai.
Suketu Mehta writes,
Underworld is an expansive term and it has mystique power….it is over somehow suspended over this world
and can come down and strike anytime it chooses.
The underworld finds its place at the pinnacle of the game of the will to power. An integral part of the cultural
aliases sported by the city the underworld forms the bedrock of the menace and violence that tears the city
apart on every other occasion. The phenomenon is interesting because it is does not have a concrete
expression in the way that Nuremberg had for the Nazis and yet the identity of Mumbai is incomplete without
it. The apparent lack of structure speaks of the combustible disorder that it works in and how much does the
city depend upon the recognition of power.
This struggle is not one-dimensional. It comes in many shades. From communal to bureaucratic it is a crucial
element to understand the workings of the city. The same slums that are littered with the stories of rags-toriches are also the sites of extreme communal violence giving rise to the essential question of “who has the
right to live in Bombay?”
Another notorious element that forms the key aspect of forming the city’s reputation are the dark rooms of
Mira Road and Golpitha For it is also the city of desire. It is very interesting to note the essential financial
nature of these dealings. The pervasive aura of “dhandha” subsumes this particular alias. Narrating the life
and times of Sapphire and the ladies of the Golpitha houses the writer exposes the professional aspect of it.
Bartering of the body is just another way of earning money and getting ahead.
Finally we come to the most glamorous alias of Bombay that is Bollywood. For Bombay is also the city of
dreams where hopeful aspirants come to make their way up the ladder of success – become a superstar. The
city’s dream world feeds into the hope of the people drawing them into the net of promised fame. It is desire
of a different kind – the idealistic, optimistic one that is fed upon by the city.
The cities have inherited memories – some current, some ancient yet all of them come together to make the
ethos of the city. Both are indebted to the traveller who comes and weaves stories of their past and present in a
need to find the authentic nature beneath all these aliases. Mehta strips down the glitz and glamour of Bombay
and lays bare its transactory nature. From the Jogeswari men looking to rise to power to the Malabar Hills richfolk intent on getting more rich to the underworld and the police locked in a power struggle for supremacy – all
these dichotomies ultimately aim for the common goal of monetary advancement or its equivalent ruses.
The history so eloquently discovered by Dalrymple seems to be worlds apart from the cut throat nature of
Mehta’s novel. While one went on the quest for the origin of the city in order to pay homage to the change that
the city has undergone the other ultimately had to make peace with the flawed homeland that he had come
back to in his adulthood. The inheritance of Delhi isn’t described in terms of abstract ideas. Rather the author
intends to show them through architectural representation gleaning memories through from the
constructions built in the past. The structure excavated by the archaeologist Lal in the final chapters is a meta
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structure comprising of the various faces of Delhi ranging from the British to the Mughals to Tughlaks to the
Rajputs and finally to the legendary Indraprastha. This one monolith comes at the end of the book summing
up the narrator’s quest to find the djinns of the city - not to exorcise them but to pay his dues and accumulate
the knowledge of the source that had given the city of his fascination its founding ground.
The sacred and the profane mix together – the quest of origins as well as of the self come together to
represent the different viewpoints concerning the two cities – different not only in its ways of narration but
also in the way it fundamentally works. Contrary to the popular opinion these cities are not comprised of
“hollow fanfares announcing nothing”. Rather they are a repository of strong memories that one only has to
look in order to discern. In the end the cities triumph over the individual doubts in giving them what they were
searching – by allowing them to look into their spiritus mundi and discover beads of knowledge.
Memories suffused in the structures seeks to disturb, to question, to rant in anger, to accept in helplessness but
in doing so it – albeit ironically – brings a certain sense of peace when the city finally accepts the outsider into
its fold. In constructing the history the writers in a sense are creating a biography of the city – taking in its
many flaws and history as well as highlighting their crowning glories, their desires and hurts mixing human
energies into the tangible creations. Thus the cities stand as a testament to the ethos of the nation that is at
once immutable as well as transient. And learning they say is the step to understanding.
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DALIT COMMUNITY IN DALIT AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
Madhav Radhakisan Yeshwant
In the 20th century Dalit Community has emerged as a potential power in the democratic system. Though it is
one of the political societies from the East; it goes beyond Partha Chatterjee’s concept of ‘Community in the
East’. The Community life is reflected with the Dalit perspectives in their literature i.e. autobiography in which
the ‘self ’ does not stand for ‘I’ but for ‘we’. This literary form is handled by the Dalits first of all in
Maharashtra. In this situation I have tried to see Chatterjee’s concept of community, the instincts of the Dalit
community life which uplift it from the concept of mere political society in the context of the social structure
of Maharashtra and at the conclusion, the frame work against which the Dalit community has to struggle.
The common good is asserted by the Communitarians whereas Liberal individualists perpetuate
conservatism. The attachment for family and neighborhood is the limitation of the community and the lack of
social attachments is the limitation for an individual to break the conservatism for modern citizenship. New
political theories are emerging to govern the democratic principles among the masses in the 21st century. But
the traditional community life in the East offers participatory citizenship for well-functioning of democratic
codes. Partha Chatterjee comments,
‘‘In 21st century though the ruling elites advocate for modern individualism for creation of wealth and
breakdown of the traditional community life temporarily but the new political theory will have to study
community because capital rests in community.’’
In context of 20th century Maharashtra the two communities are worth to mention.
1.
The community of middle class peasants in the co-operative movement, and
2.
The Dalit community
The former has economic interest whereas the latter has the need for survival. It goes beyond Chatterjee’s idea
of community in the East. The Dalit community found in the autobiographies by Baby Kamble, Dr. Narendra
Jadhav and Sharankumar Limbale is not only the political society but their solidarity is the outcome of
different values.
Let us observe the social structure of Maharashtra to understand the Dalit community life. The Purushsukta
describes the varna system with the varnashramadharma. During the Vedic period, there were occupational
groups other than the varnas. They were considered as untouchables; following the ideas of pollution and
purity in respect of food, marriages and direct physical contacts with them. The relic of same structure is
present in the contemporary Maharashtra. The Brahmans have the religious hegemony. The neo-Kshatriyas
have control over economic and political powers. The Vaishya are in the process of sanskritization who are the
migrants from Gujarat. The Shudraatishudras are engaged with physical and mental labour for land and
industry. There are two cultural movements i.e. Sanskritazation and Dalitization in the contemporary society
of Maharashtra. The philosophy of Dalitbahujan believes in the principal of ‘unless the hand works; the
mouth cannot eat’ totally against the mainstream philosophy i.e. ‘You have the right to work; but not to the
fruits’. The rift is exhibited in the marriages, families and social relations. The post-puberty and widow
marriages and divorces are common in the Dalitbahujans which are now slowly gaining acceptance in the
upper castes under the concept of ‘Westernization’. Moreover marriage is a social contract to the
Dalitbahujans which can be resettled. And it is for the production of food, commodities and procreation than
the holy conjugal state. It has more realistic approach than the spiritual one. The Dalitbahujan women can
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21
participate in disputes and earning for livelihood along with their husbands which is different than the
Pativratadharma of the three Varnas. The social and family relationship is transparent to their children in the
Dalitbahujan community. Their home is a ‘social unit’ where any member can interfere and arbitrate in
irrespective of its gender and age. But the social and family relationships are more pious and authoritative to
the upper castes’ children. They are westernized to make life more comfortable whereas the Dalits believe in
human relations and needs. The latter is based on productive labour and egalitarian power away from material
gains. There is no place for individuality and personal property in their life. The same life of the Dalits is
expressed in the Dalit autobiographies that emerged in 1980s.
Generally, autobiographies deal with the development of ‘self ’ through various situations in the authors’ life.
But the Dalit autobiographies are discussing their community and the development of their ‘self ’ as a part of
the community. Their ‘self ’ does not stand for ‘I’ but for ‘we’. To prove the fact, look at the Marathi titles of the
autobiographies. ‘Jina Amucha’ is a Marathi title for Baby Kamble’s autobiography. It means ‘Our lives’. The
title gives us the sense of a group of people and their struggle for life. Dr. Narendra Jadhav’s autobiography
‘Outcaste: A Memoir’ is a translation of ‘Amcha Baap an Amhi’. It means ‘Our Father and We’. The pronouns
‘our’ and ‘we’ stand for all the children of the father including his wife. Sharankumar Limbale’s autobiography
‘Akkarmashi’ stands for the impure origin of a child. The word Akkarmashi includes all the children born to
Masamai; who was a keep of Hanamanta Limbale and Yeshwantrao Sidramappa, the heads of the villages’ i.e.
Baselgaon and Hanoor respectively. The out springs of a keep are grouped as akkarmashi; inferior to the
children of married couple in the regional context. Sharankumar Limbale depicts not only his life struggle but
the plight of all the eight womb mates in the autobiography.
The multiplicity of the social relationship between two persons is conditioned by gender and age rather than
the blood relations in the Dalitbahujan society. It means the Dalit community is affineally related to each other.
In her autobiography The Prisons We Broke Baby Kamble deals with her grandparents, her family and the
women around her. The people from Veergaon, Mangalwar Peth, Phaltan and Nimbure village are bonded
with various mutual relations. Though she has no maternal uncle; all the heads of Dalit families from
Veergaon, are treated as maternal uncles by her. The three generations in Dr. Narendra Jadhav’s autobiography
include the experiences of his parents as well as his child. It is Dr. Jadhav, who provides us the life experiences
of these persons. His editorial authenticity for the parents and his daughter is the outcome of his affinity
towards them. The three characters in ‘The Outcaste’ i.e. Santamai, Dada and Sharan are related to each other
apart from their blood lineage, is nothing than their affinity.
Alike the liberal individualists, the communitarians do not go for personal development by reserving the
opportunities to them only. But the communitarians have a limitation-the attachment of family and
neighborhood for this common good. The Dalit community overcomes this limitation. They share work
opportunities among the community members when it is required to be shared among the family and
neighborhood to prolong the survival. They do never think to uplift themselves at the cost solidarity. Baby
Kamble describes that her father, Pandharinath Kakade saved the community members from hunger. He, as a
contractor, bargained with a Gora sahib for dairy project at Pune. He shared these work opportunities with
his community in an epidemic. His ultimate aim was to serve food to the famine affected people in the
adversity. Even he mortgaged the gold necklace of his sister to get money till the bill sanctioned. Sharnkumar
Limbale has helped Dada to change the plates on the bus and filling radiator with water which gave them no
other monitory benefit than the favour of the driver and conductor.
When Damu was assigned a work by the Railway department at Thane; he shared the work with other workers
which could have survived him for some another days. Not only this, but its members share their working
capacities with the head without any condition. When it gets difficult to Damu to resettle at Kurla; Sonu and
Najuka worked at match box factory.
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The individual liberalism interests in economic progress of the individuals for the production of money
whereas Chatterjee says that the civic community creates credit mechanisms with equal as well as regular
contribution. The Dalit community gives priority to human values than the production of money. They
understand that it will not lead to progress like co-operative movements did in Maharashtra; but they could not
sustain the economic mechanisms at the cost of human values. Pandharinath Kakade tells his wife that mere
collection of money will not give happiness to his family but his children will be able to enjoy merits that he
would gain by doing well to others. Damu was assigned to dig 25 feet long pit by a Seth from Pydhunie. He
shared it among a few people. Without thinking of his margin, Damu bought liquor for the older, a few bottles
of toddy for the young and sweet jalebis for the women. Their contribution is not regular and equal, most of
the time it is depended on its availability and their satisfaction. After catching fishes from the river, all the
friends of Sharan contribute things like a vessel, oil, chili powder, onions and match box to prepare the recipe
of the fishes. In short, Dalit community gives priority to the solidarity and humanity than mere production of
money.
The communitarians provide autonomy as well as equal rights. But in the Dalit community, the autonomy
sticks to honesty in their work. They are not tempted by the situational opportunities. Damu was working in
the Railway Department at Victoria Terminus. A local train got fire while entering in the station. It was the duty
of his senior officer to check the problem and find a solution but he was flirting with a woman in a chawl next
to Sewri station. Damu put himself in a danger to extinguish the fire; even he protected the senior officer when
the authority enquired his whereabouts. It was his sincerity which saved the senior officer and the people from
some dangerous consequences. Even in Baby Kamble’s autobiography, the Dalit women were very honest
while selling the fire wood to Kaki. They used to detect every stick of firing wood so that not a bloodstain or
their hair should pollute the Brahmans’ kitchen. Sharankumar Limbale says that the security guards of Dalit
community, at Patil’s mansion, had always protected it. They never considered seeing the beautiful face of the
Patil’s sleeping wife.
Partha Chatterjee has argued that the Western Community includes callous impersonality which is in contrast
to the Eastern Community. Next to that we can say that the solidarity of the Dalit community is maintained by
transparent interpersonal relationship. They show the natural feeling for the next one. It includes respect and
sometimes abuses depended on the context. When Dr. Jadhav showed his mother the father’s photograph in
The Times of India along with an article on his Marathi autobiography; she denied to see and said that his
father was so dark and ugly. But it does not mean that she had hatred for his father; on the contrary, she was
always with him in each and every adversity of life. In her interview for an English magazine, ‘The Week’ she
said that he was dark but he was good man and never raised his hand to her. In short, the innocent relations
between them shades love in her opinions about him. Baby Kamble describes that if a newly married bride
forgot to chant, ‘The humble Mahar women fall at your feet master’, to a high caste passerby; her father-in-law
used to apologize for the incident on her behalf. But afterwards she was scolded by her in-laws, neighbours and
relatives. The scolding was so transparent that she understood it was out of fear to survive in society than her
humiliation. Sharnkumar Limbale describes such transparent relations between Chandamai and Santamai.
They openly affectionate towards each other and occasionally quarreled violently over the issue of cat and
chickens; but Chandamai became ready to leave the cat away.
The traditional concept of community in the East has aspects like resolve on disputes, tolerate differences and
adjustment; along with these the Dalit community undergoes self imposition of frugality for others’ sake. The
Dalit community has less economic flexibility due to rare opportunities for work. But they accept voluntarily
the frugal life for the sake of other members. In November 1932, a young scholar Rama from their community
came to Damu’s house at Mumbai. He was in need of a job and unfamiliar to the city manners. Damu’s mother
borrowed money so that she could cook at least once a day. In this adverse condition Damu purchased tie and
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shoes to give a dress rehearsal to Rama. Baby Kamble’s grandfather was butler for the English men and got
handsome salary. He used to send the money order of Rs. 10/- to his wife Sita at Veergaon. She did not expend
it lavishly; on the contrary she helped the fellows like Tulsa. She also shared the dried bhakaris along raw
onions with the needy. Santamai ate the bhakris made out of the flour of undigested jowar that was found in
the dung cakes. But she served the bhakris to Dada and Sharan which were made from the flour that she
collected as alms. Whenever Sharankumar started his journey to Sholapur, Santamai made special chapatis for
him. Santamai walked four miles to Chapalgaon to give a pair of ladies chappals to Sharan, which she found at
the Hanoor bus stand while sweeping the place. She did not keep the pair for herself, on the contrary offered it
to Sharan. Though Dada, a Muslim, had no blood relation to Sharan; gave his hard-earned money to him for
his sundry expenses at the college. In short, these are the evidences of volunteer frugality among the Dalit
community.
The members of the community in the East are equal for their rights and obligations. They treat each other
with equality for respect, trust and tolerance, except the dominance of age, gender, wealth and religious
superiority. But there is no exception for moral authority in the Dalit community. In ‘Outcaste: A Memoir’
Damu remains an unchallenged moral authority when he slapped the mystic healer and admonished Sonu and
his mother for the religious treatment of Sudha. In her autobiography, Baby Kamble describes that the
husband remains moral authority, when he beat his wife who tries to escape from her in-laws house. Her
brother and father would not mercy her and let her taken back to her in-laws house. Sharankumar Limbale had
to give money to Mayappa Kamble out of his scholarship. The latter had no money to go to Barshi. Here
Sharankumar is responsible for such expenses because he is a moral authority in this context.
The Dalit community keeps its rank high regarding the 21st century political theories of the community in the
East. But it has to come out from the frame work of Hindu religion and the caste system. The Hindu religious
concept of purity-pollution, God and superstitions increase their difficulties of life. The caste hierarchy
maintains the division among various Dalit castes, endogamous marriages and caste councils. The rationalism
is suspended in the absence of education. The lack of material gains make them to surrender to the power. But
the religious conversion and the firm belief in sheel, satwa and rightousness will definitely mark the Dalit
community as something beyond the concept of ‘Community in the East’.
Notes:
Dangle, Arjun. (ed.) The Poisoned Bread. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan Pvt. Ltd., 2009
Kamble, Baby. The Prisons We Broke. (translation of Jina Amucha) New Delhi: Orient Blackswan Pvt. Ltd.,
2008
Illaiah, Kancha. Why I Am Not a Hindu. Calcutta: Samya, 2007
Jadhav, Narendra. Outcaste: A Memoir. (Translation of Amacha Baap an Amhi). New Delhi: Penguin Books
India Pvt. Ltd., 2002
Chatterjee, Partha. Community in the East. Vol. 33, No.6, pp.277-282. Mumbai: E&P Weekly, Feb 7, 1998
Limbale, Sharankumar. The Outcaste. (translation of Akkarmashi) New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003
M.N., Srinivas. Caste in Modern India and Other Essays. Bombay: Media Promoters & Publishers Pvt. Ltd.,
2002.
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SILENCE AND IT’S COMMUNICATIVE VALUE IN
RESISTANCE LITERATURE
Dr. P. Sartaj Khan
The mode of communication—verbal or non-verbal, depends on the context and the communication
participants. All modes have their respective significance in the scheme of communication. One mode of
communication which appears to be non-functional in its form but yields high communicative value is
‘silence’. It is a tool of communication, a state of mind to achieve enlightenment and a means to convey the
non-conveyable message. In the event of avoiding vocal sounds, a good communicator uses silence as an
equilibrium provider to the communication process because, sometimes, sounds are as important in
communication as their absence is. It may not be wrong to say that communication process is equally divided
between sound and silence with their respective roles and significance.
Sound and silence are interdependent for their functional significance in our communication and behaviour.
All acts of sound are instituted in and interconnected with silence since we communicate with silence what we
cannot with words. Neither silence nor sound can communicate exclusively and independently. We cannot
speak all the time to convey the message. We should stop speaking i.e. observe silence (a pause) for some time
to know the reaction of the listener. Similarly, just being silent holds no meaning unless it is subsequent to
speech. With our predisposition more towards sounds (speech) and scant regard for silence (listening), we
prefer to keep ourselves amidst sounds and apprehend silence as having killing effect. Thomas Merton (1953)
analyzes human tendency that seeks self-exaltation through communication with some implications about
silence as: "it is not speaking that breaks our silence, but the anxiety to be heard. The words of a proud person
impose silence on all others so that they alone may be heard. The humble person speaks only in order to be
spoken to." As speakers we feel self-exalted and as listeners we perceive ourselves as being at the receiving end.
Listening with silence could be an intention to give attentive audience to the speaker or inability to speak in the
given circumstances. It could also be a mark of respect to the speaker with a positive opinion about and
confidence in him/her.When the crowd alert themselves in silence to listen to Brutus, it was out of respect for
the ‘honourable man.’ Contrary to it, sometimes, the fear of bad consequences of speaking pushes the
communicators into silence. The communicative intention of silence rests with the senders, unless they
disclose it.
The use of silence has been underlined in the Neo Realism and Resistance Literature, where the objective of
social realism against hegemony, imperialism, injustice, bias, subjugation and class/caste/gender
discrimination is vocally articulated. For its core functional perspective, Resistance Literature can be identified
as being empathic to the cause of the oppressed for their socio-economic-political emancipation. The writers
of Resistance Literature have been voicing their concern to bring to the fore the sufferings of the oppressed.
The role of silence as a communication tool has become an inherent factor of Resistance Literature. It is
portrayed in various forms as an articulation of resistance, acceptance, rejection, defiance etc. In Harold
Pinter’s Mountain Language when the mother of the prisoner was not allowed to speak the mountain
language and insisted upon to speak in English, she resists the diktat of the sergeant by observing silence. Her
silence was a demonstration of resistance. If a person keeps silent when the murder charge is levelled against
him, he is accepting the crime of murder. When the dalits or marginalized women are silent to the atrocities
hurled on them, it communicates the message of their helplessness to oppression. When one person is
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inquisitive to know about the other and the other person is disinclined to share the information, the
disinclination is demonstrated through silence. Amidst inquisitiveness and unwillingness, the sender denies
access to personal information through silence.
Choice Between Sound And Silence
Love for sounds is an innate characteristic of human being. Most of the time sounds i.e. verbal
communication is perceived by us as a sign of life and silence as seclusion. The fascination for speaking
disallows us to listen silently. We try to assert ourselves with our speech and feel listening with silence as
subordinate. Silence is usually viewed as a disarming liability that makes its practitioner subordinate to the
speaker. Our love for establishing ourselves in the society tilts our mental faculty towards speech i.e. sounds,
and creates aversion to silence. Kathryn Damiano (2003) says, “Verbalness is related to our society’s
understanding of power. Words are used to edify, persuade control and to compete with others." The
ambiguity about silence emerges when the senders cannot make the receivers comprehend it the way desire
and the latter understand it in their own ways. Speech does have advantage over silence. But it would be
prejudicial to say that silence does not have any communicative value. “For speech to have full meaning, it
must also have silence. Silence is half of speech; speech is half of silence. It is not pause. Neither is it an
interlude of anxiety glowing red and vicious. It is not a time of frantic groping for thoughts and words to
express thoughts”, Shirley Witt (1973). The idea is further strengthened by Max picard who says: “Silence
contains everything within itself. It is not waiting for anything; it is always wholly present in itself and it
completely fills out the space in which it appears” (Max Picard, p. 18).The present paper deals with the role of
silence in resistance literature with particular reference to Richard M. Rive’sshort story The Bench and Harold
Pinter’s play Mountain Language. There are several genres of Resistance Literature, where the suppressive
characters use silence as acommunication tool to demonstrate their resistance against the repressive
characters. Here is an example of Words—Silence encounter as depicted in The Bench (Gist of The Bench:
Karlie, the black man in leading role, on his way back from a public meeting sits on the bench meant for the
whites only. The story deals with a) treatment of the black man by the whites who terrorize him with abuses to
vacate the bench and 2) Karlie’s response to it chiefly through silence).
White woman: “you should stand and let the white woman sit” (There is silence. Karlie narrows the eyes and
grips the cigarette, collects strength to put on a brave face)
This is the first unconscious attempt of exhausted Karlie which has put him in an encountering position
against the abusive words of the white woman. Caught unaware, he chooses to keep silent. His persistent and
silent sitting on the bench found him in a new situation where he was indirectly challenging the white woman.
Silence has collected courage and conviction for him to fight the abuses and put up a brave face. For the white
woman his unresponsive silence was menacing, but for Karlie, it was an opportunity to regroup the ideas to
assert himself as a co-human being who has equal right to sit on the bench. Silence helped him rediscover new
courage to challenge the old social order. On the other hand, the white woman pretends to overpower his
silence with her rejuvenated words:
“Get off this seat”, “I said get off this bench, you swine”, “Get up, there are benches down there for you”.
The alliteration of words “get off/get up” is a symbolic expression of unexplainable surprise and anguish
about the speechless defence of Karlie, which was hitherto unknown to the whites:
“Karlie looked up and said nothing. He stared into a pair of sharp, Gray, cold eyes. He begins to express his
new born thoughts”.
Though he ‘said nothing’, the “nothing” demonstrates his invincible defence against her flaunty verbose. The
outrageous affront continues:
“Can’t you hear me speaking to you? You black swine”
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He realized the magic of silence paying the dividend.
“Slowly and deliberately Karlie puffed at the cigarette, encounters words with his silent composure of mind”
The agitation of ‘to be or not to be’ led to his ‘silent composure of mind’ which has put both of them on equal
terms of self-defense:
“They stared at each others’ eyes (he throws a silent challenge)”
By now, his silence has become a menacing weapon against the enemy. He has tightened his grip on silence to
command it to do his bidding.
“Karlie said nothing. To speak would be to break the spell, the supremacy he felt slowly gaining”.
He keeps silent throughout the line of abuses by many white people. When they fail to get any vocal response
from him, they realize the futility of verbal communication. So they resort to the step to physically lift and
throw him out. Nevertheless, it can be said that Karlie gained self-awareness and initiated the battle against the
white woman with the help of silence.
Silence Helps Conflict Management
Correctness of information and uncluttered communication is central to a strong inter-personal relationship.
Lack of it makes communication improper leading to suspicions, claims, counterclaims, nonaccommodativeness of others’ views, anger, etc. Consequently, communication falls into argument and
conflict. In that event, it requires of the communicators to resolve the differences, bring in unity of thought
and avoid confrontation and conflict. People who control their emotions and propagate reason have an edge
to resolve conflicts. For this purpose, “they must resort to superficially rational agreement to ignore and cover
up the emotional conflict between them”. (“Conflict Management,” IESE Business School Journal). To that
effect, Silence directs the emotions of the communicators to see reason in accommodating each other with
corresponding words. In one of the sections, the article focuses on how ‘mature and necessary silence’
restrains the communicators by providing them control over their disagreements and makes them say, ‘never
mind’/‘thank you’ in the face of conflict.
To avoid a conflict, it is essential to seek the balance of communication by providing equal space for speaking
and listening. If the speakers dominate the listeners without giving an opportunity to the latter to articulate
their views, it aggravates the conflict. The equal opportunity to the senders and the listeners disallows the
conversation to snowball into conflict. Stephen L. Talbott (1995) stresses on the management of conversation
with silence as central to it: “Silence is essential to the proper management of a conversation. Only when I am
silent can another contribute in a balancing way. Only when the whole group regularly punctuates its discourse
with silences, is there a chance for the conversation to be formed consciously as a communal work of art
instead of running on wildly under its own power”. In a conflict, silence paves the way for the disagreeing
parties to create a common ground for concurrence and provides conversation balance. It provides necessary
equilibrium to the conversation from becoming divergent between two disagreeing parties.
In Wole Soyinka’s poem, “Telephone Conversation” we see the conflict of pigmentation in the mind of the
white woman (the landlady) about the black man who seeks her house for rent. In the poem, the use of silence
replicates the conflict in the mind of the woman as a reaction to her innate dislike and prejudice for the
blacks.The unexpected voice of a black man (as a house seeker) on phone was something that she had not
expected of. The pigmentation of the caller had caught her unaware and her reaction is manifested in ‘silence’.
There are two instances of silence in the poem. In the first instance, ‘silence’ is the result of her unexpected
and unwelcomed chance to talk to a Black man. The second mentioning of “Silence for spectroscopic Flight
of fancy” prompts her to listen to him. In silence, she seems to come out of her prejudice about the blacks and
open a communication line at least to listen to the Black man. This helps him regroup his ideas against her
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prejudicial opinion about the blacks. Though silence does not serve the conflict resolution purpose as
mentioned above, at least, it created ‘intention (in her) to hear what the other person is saying’, which might
help her see reason in his words. The intention to hear is central to conflict resolution because most of the
conflicts end up inconclusive due to poor listening. Her silence prevents external argument (though the
internal argument in her persists) and helps the black man to plead his case. It may be hoped that the ‘mature
and necessary silence’ of the oppressors might bear fruit in future to make them listen to the oppressed.
Silence Navigates Negotiation Terms
On the sidelines of conflict, there is a need for negotiations in human relationship. Theorists immensely feel
that in communication, silence is not merely the absence of words but an intention to think, listen, understand
and accommodate the speakers. It takes the listeners to the origin and the end of speakers’ message. “In every
moment of time, man through silence can be with the origins of all things,” Picard, M. (1998). That silence is
an indication of acceptance and/or defiance of the speakers’ opinion depends on the negotiators’ strategy
and purpose of putting it to use. It is a potential whole that gives a win-win joy to both the negotiators. Even at
the loss of negotiation, the practitioners of silence have the advantage of making the winners ponder over
their silence.
The intention of the two parties in a negotiation will be to win it over the other. In the process, they start
divulging their contentions one after another to win the argument. They aim at a ‘win-win’ situation for each
other. But the negotiators face a difficult situation when they have to deal “with a tough situation, when given
news that is too good to be true, or when you just don't want to say anything stupid,” John Bradley Johnson. In
the conflict between truth and untruth the negotiators try to overshadow the negotiation with their
contention that runs against the good spirit of fruitful negotiation. While it is feared that the silence of one
empowers the other to dominate the negotiation, there is also an advantage that it directs the negotiation to a
logical conclusion with the much leverage of its practitioners. It helps the practitioners recuperate their ideas
and respond to their counterpart in a fitting way.
In Mountain Language, in the face of repression, the mountain people use pauses and silence to showcase
their defense and defiance. A young woman who is denied permission to meet her imprisoned husband
negotiates with the sergeant and officer. She silently examines the repressive context of a long wait from
morning till evening, dog’s bite, Jail official’s refusal to listen to mountain language and register a complaint,
the guard’s jabs on her, use ofsexy words, the limping body of her husband and denial of permission to meet
him. She was in ‘a tough situation’ to make a choice of negotiation.‘Through silence’ she endeavors to be ‘with
the origins of all things’. Being with the origin of the tough context, with a silent mind, she understands her
helplessness and recuperates the negotiating term to respond positively to the sexual overtures of the jail
official. Though silence alone was not the instrumental tool of negotiation, it did help her navigate through
negotiations.
Strategic Silence and Ambiguity
The ‘what’ and ‘why’ of silence is a stumbling block to the receiver. The ‘what’ of silence is the message in the
given context and the ‘why’ of silence is the reason the sender is silent for. These two dimensions are
ambiguous because the intended meaning and the self-formulated reasons to observe silence primarily rest
with the senders unless they intend to disclose them with all earnestness.“Silence is strategic when someone
has pressing reason to speak but does not”, Patricia Bizzell (2006). The senders practice strategic silence to
safeguard and defend themselves from victimization. The communicative silence gives leverage to the rivals to
push the senders in seclusion. On the positive side, silence could be inferred as ‘the person is tough enough to
ignore the rivals by not communicating with them and still possesses ability to discharge the duty’.The nature
of inference of the receiver concludes whether the sender is a friend or foe.
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Silence is not mere absence of words but lack of communicative intention based on specific reason best
known to the senders. Karlie demonstrates his toughness with the ‘pressing reason to speak’ and resist the
exploitation of the blacks through silence. His ‘strategic’ silence is to demonstrate self-defense and occupy the
bench as his human right. He wants to display his fearlessness and sit on the bench. The strategy helps him put
up a brave face albeit abuses. Consequent to it, the white woman cannot withstand his defensive silence, so she
goes in to call a white man to challenge Karlie’s strategic silence. It was ambiguous for the whites to
comprehend the silent resistance. So they vent out their vengeance in the possible foul language, though
ultimately, they throw him out of the bench with the help of police. Karlie has gained the courage to challenge
the subjugation with his silence. He does not view it as a defeat but the beginning of the fight against the
exploitation, which he realized through his silent communication. His silence was ambiguous for the whites
because it was a naïve experience for them to be in that sort of situation where, a hitherto slave dares to occupy
the place meant for them, in addition to demonstrating silent resistance.
Resistance—physical or mental, is usual in the regimes or societies where there is socio-economic exploitation
and denial of political opportunities. Social responsibility of literature has occupied the center stage of the
contemporary litterateurs’ minds. In this direction, In addition to the verbose form, they use the element of
SILENCE as an antagonizing tool to encounter the verbal onslaught of the oppressors. Silence is always
construed as a passive, ambiguous and non-communicative state of the communication process. Its potential
influences to disarm the vocal communicator, stage a protest, defy oppression and regroup the ideas to win
over the rambling communicator come for literary analysis. The paper examines the communicative value and
retaliatory effect of silence in contrast to the rebuttal and highhanded communication of the oppressors.
Notes:
Bizzell P. (2006). ‘Rhetorical Agendas’. Lawrence Earlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers, New Jersey.
Conflict Management, IESE Business School Journal, P.2.
Damiano K. (2003). ‘Some Thoughts on Silence’. www.quakerinfo.com
Johnson J.B. ‘Silence in Negotiations’. Ezine@rticles.
Max Picard, (1989). ‘The World of Silence’. Regnery Publishing
Merton T. (1953). ‘Japanese Preface to Thoughts in Solitude’. New York: New Directions.
Osborn L.R. (1973). Journal of American Indian Education. Volume 12, Number 2
Soyinka W. (1991).‘Telephone Conversation’. Prasararanga, Bangalore University.
Talbott S.L. (1995). ‘The Future Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our Midst’. O'Reilly &
Associates, California.
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THE METAPHOR OF THE CAGED BIRD AND THE
MYTH OF THE MELTING POT: THE FLUIDITY OF
ETHNIC IDENTITY IN DUNBAR’S “SYMPATHY”
AND LANGSTON HUGHES’ “THEME FOR ENGLISH
B”: A COMPARATIVE STUDY
Samuel Rufus. S
Paul Laurence Dunbar and Langston Hughes are two of the most preeminent and one of the most widely read
African American poets. Dunbar was born in Ohio, the son of slaves, and is considered a precursor to the
Harlem Renaissance. Dunbar was the only colored student in his school, much like his successor Langston
Hughes, who was the lone ‘colored’ student in his ‘white’ class. Both Dunbar and Hughes distinguished
themselves in their respective fields by their meritorious and scholarly performances. Another remarkable
coincidence in their careers was, if Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first African American poet to make his
living by writing, Langston Hughes, takes the credit for being the second African American to earn his living as
a writer. Both Dunbar and Hughes share a passion for music, and weaved the typically repetitive phrases of
blues, jazz and negro spirituals into their poetry.
Singing peons to the legacy of Dunbar, Julie Buckner et al aver that, “During the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries Paul Laurence Dunbar was the best-known black poet in the United States” (The Civil
Rights Reader 45). On the same superlative vein, Maurice O. Wallace testifies to the popularity of Hughes, and
as she beautifully puts it, Hughes was a cultural icon, “a man lionized and venerated as the black poet laureate
of the twentieth century” (Maurice 8).
Tony Gentry, commenting on Dunbar’s concern for the social upliftment of his people in his writings, Tony
Gentry says: “he proved himself as much a leader in the struggle for civil rights as he was in the arts” (Paul
Laurence Dunbar 140). And the same could be said of Hughes’s dedication towards social the upliftment of
the Black immigrants. As Aberjhani et al rightly suggest,
“throughout his artistic career, Hughes’s main concern, true to his beginnings as a product of the Harlem
Renaissance, was the uplift of his people. Using prose and poetry, he confronted racial stereotypes, protested
social conditions, and expanded African America’s image of itself. A “people’s poet” who sought to reeducate
both audience and artist, Hughes wrote the story of his people in the musical language of blues and jazz,
advocated the cultural nationalism of African-American poets, and lifted the theory of the black aesthetic into
reality (Encylopedia of the Harlem Renaissance 162).
First of all, on an analysis of the structural aspects of both the poems, “Sympathy” has 21 lines, on the
repetitive pattern similar to blues lyrics and the poems of the Harlem Renaissance, with an intricate and easyflowing rhyme scheme that makes the reader ‘sympathise’ with the sentiments of the poet. “Theme for
English B” consisting of 41 lines, while not observing the rules of metrical structure, and thereby tacitly
tuning the reader to ‘empathise’ with the harsh realities of Black existence in America, through the banality of
its lines.
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Both the poems have repetition of words or phrases for emphasis, but while Dunbar’s poem begins on a
personal note, and ends on the same vein with a passionate and resigned plea to Heaven, Hughes’ poem starts
off with the impassioned tone of the instructor, and ends with a self-assertive note of the narrator, reflective
of his racial pride, when he says, “This is [M]y page for English B” (Emphasis added).
Dunbar repeats the opening phrase ‘I know’ three six times, which gives the reader the implication that, the
poet knows very well the real reason why the bird acts the way it does. Commenting on Freud’s views on the
function of repetition in psychoanalysis and in life, Katharine Wallingford observes that, “He saw repetition
both as a terrible compulsion that drives many people to reenact painful experiences over and over again, and
also as a therapeutic “working-through” by means of which we can make sense of and come to terms with our
experience (54).
Ives Hendrick, commenting on this instinctual function of ‘freudian’ repetitive compulsion states that, “this
tendency to repetition compulsion of emotional ambivalence was not governed by the Pleasure Principle, but
was better to be understood as a fundamental tendency of all instincts to reproduce reactions to past traumatic
events by repetition (Facts and Theories of Psychoanalysis 105). Hence, Dunbar’s trauma of living the life of
a caged bird, longing for freedom, is evident in the incremental repetition of the phrases “I know”, “when”
and “but”.
Similarly, Hughes uses the personal pronoun “I” 22 times, which, coincidentally happens to be his age at the
time of the composition of this poem. The use of the first person singular, the “I” speaks volumes to the
existential self or the ego of the narrator, through which he has to strive to create meaning and purpose for
himself in the ‘white’ world. Matt Jarvis, in his valuable insights on psychodynamic psychology, observes that,
“Identity is the subjective experience of the existential self; in other words being an ‘I’, an individual. This
experience includes a perception of who we are, a sense of continuity with past and future and a sense of
connection to other individuals” (Psychodynamic Psychology 138).
Coming next to a comparison of the themes of both the poems, we find that, “Sympathy” is in the form of a
painful meditation of a 21-year-old poet, and most interestingly, the poem “Theme for English B” is also a
meditation of a 22-year-old young man from the South, enrolled at Columbia University. “Sympathy”
ruminates on the bird’s longing for freedom and liberty. The bird analogy helps the reader trace the speaker’s
voice through it, and thereby drives home the lament of the poet. As Mary Elizabeth et al rightly point out, “...
like the caged bird, he has done nothing to deserve his imprisonment but is a captive because of his owner’s
whim” (Painless Poetry 147), thus reflecting on his feelings of isolation and ‘singing in captivity’.
The narrator in “Theme for English B” also experiences a similar feeling of isolation and disconnection, but
here, the situation shifts from a slave’s point of view, to that of a student’s. It deals with a situation in which a
‘white’ class instructor gives an assignment to his class dominated by ‘white’ students. The narrator being the
lone ‘colored’ student in his ‘white’ class, with high probabilities of being a victim of racial profiling, ruminates
on his predicament as a student, and on his everyday experiences from going to school to living in Harlem.
Laurie F.Leach, while commenting on this poem says that “while not strictly autobiographical, [this poem]
may capture some of his feelings of disconnection and isolation” (Leach 17).
A comparison of the lines ‘I know what the caged bird feels, alas!’ from “Sympathy” and ‘I am twenty-two,
colored, born in Winston-Salem” in “Theme for English B” gives the observant reader a clue to the analogous
meaning hidden within both the personal narratives. While Dunbar uses the analogy of the caged bird to
express his angst and agony, Hughes is more direct in expressing his fears and frustrations. This lament of
Dunbar on the harsh realities of being in ‘captivity’, and the self-confession mode of Langston Hughes giving
out his racial status “colored”, in a white land, speaks volumes to the failure of the melting pot myth, an
ideology that was propagated by the whites for a melting of cultures. As Prentice Baptiste et al rightly point
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out, “The melting pot process was really a myth. A myth because not everyone melted, and, also because there
was never the intention for everyone to melt. Regardless of how you approach an analysis of the concept of
the melting pot, i.e., culturally, educationally, politically, sociologically, and psychologically it was a myth. It was
a myth yesterday, remains a myth today, and will continue as a myth tomorrow” (Developing the Multicultural
Process in Classroom Instruction 12).
In the second and third stanzas, the narrator lays emphasis on the word Harlem:
“Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me---we two---you, me, talk on this page.” (Hughes 247)
Harlem was an embodiment of the Black experience or Black consciousness, and as such, the narrator
symbolically suggests that he drew his inspiration for writing from the Harlem Renaissance. In other words,
Harlem became a point of reference through which the writer derived a sense of Black militancy, social change
and a wider social consciousness.
As Nathan Irvin Huggins, a leading scholar in the field of African-American studies in his profound study of
the Harlem Renaissance asserts, “For many, it [Harlem] represents a source of militancy, radical social change,
and black community culture. “Ghetto” and “Harlem” have become, to most, interchangeable words”
(Harlem Renaissance 4).
Now, it was probably this positive perception of Harlem as a paradigm for radical social change that gives the
narrator a blessed assurance, a reiteration towards his commitments, and a sense of self-esteem, when he says,
I guess being colored doesn't make me NOT like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor. (Hughes 248)
As Bell Hooks, who did a profound study on Black people and their Self-Esteem, observes, “Most discussions
of black people and self-esteem start by identifying racism as the sole culprit. Certainly the politics of race and
racism impinge on our capacity as black folk to create self-love rooted in healthy self-esteem, sometimes in an
absolute and brutal manner. Yet many of us create healthy self-esteem in a world where white supremacy and
racism remain the norm (Hooks 21).
The narrator then talks about the doctrine of assimilation effectively indoctrinated into the immigrants’
psyche,
You are white—
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That's American. (Hughes 248)
The words “That’s American” is a satiric attack on the farce of the melting pot theory. Langston Hughes
attests to the failure of the myth of the melting pot theory when he says,
“Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.” (Hughes 248)
‘You’ here may connote ‘white America’ which does not want to be a part of the ‘inferior’ immigrants. The
narrator unleashes a vehement verbal backlash on his instructor when he says that “Nor do I often want to be a
part of you.” These lines throw light on the fact that the melting pot theory has no substantiate reasons to rein
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in culturally divergent ethnic groups into mainstream American culture. In this regard, Faustine Childress
Jones-Wilson states that, “Since the turn of the twentieth century, the assimilationist ideal of American
society as a “melting pot” of ethnicities has been regarded as an inevitable and desirable societal goal... Noting
that African-Americans have not advanced socially and economically following the pattern established by
other American racial and ethnic groups, countervailing African-American intellectual traditions have
maintained that achieving racial and cultural democracy requires not racial amalgamation and assimilation but
group-affirming social action” (Encyclopaedia of African-American Education 381).
Thus, Langston Hughes tends to discredit the myth of the melting pot in favour of an ethnic stew, in which
there is compromise between integration and cultural distinctiveness. The ethnic stew pot takes the best of
both sides and creates a nation where immigrants are free to practice their own culture and also partake of the
other divergent cultures. It not only leads to an advocacy of a respect for the different cultural groups but
would also mean, an affirmation of the uniqueness of culturally divergent groups, exhibiting cultural
pluralism.
Christopher Thao Vang affirms to this worldview, when he says that,
Whether melting pot is an assimilationist metaphor or an Anglo-confirmity fantasy, at one point in the history
of this great nation, all people were expected to eventually dissolve themselves into the macro-culture, which
was presumed to be the culture of the dominant group. This idea is sometimes referred to as the unum model.
However, the melting pot ideology is no longer considered valid. Sociologists, scholars, and researchers now
consider the melting pot concept to be not only misleading, but also discriminatory in practice because it never
leveled the socio-cultural or racial playing fields in America... The melting pot concept has been replaced with
the idea of cultural pluralism, which holds that individuals can maintain their distinct cultural identities
without being dissolved into a larger identity (Vang 62).
Cultural pluralism encourages cultural groups to maintain their cultures and languages while embracing and
adopting differences. In other words, immigrants do not have to give up their cultural identities to be accepted
into the dominant culture. Cultural pluralism encourages the multicultural motto E Pluribus-Unum, meaning
we are ‘one out of many.’
Talking about Black educational levels, Michael Barone opines that, “Encouraged to think of themselves as
victims, prone to see themselves as separated from the larger white society, black youngsters, he argues, tend to
regard studying as “acting white” and show little curiosity about subjects they don’t already know about”
(Barone 87).
Thanks to Harlem, the narrator develops a sense of positive racial identity towards the end of the poem, and
ends his page for English B, with a note to his teacher,
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me—
although you're older---and white--and somewhat more free. (Hughes 248)
Here, the narrator ends on a note of hope that springs from Harlem and gives a strong and substantive base
for African-American people in the social, economic and educational fronts.
Faustine Childress Jones-Wilson vindicates this point and states that, “...historical cycles of racial and ethnic
identity development and redefinition by African-Americans are exemplified by African-American resistance
to slavery and involvement in political and cultural uplift activities culminating in the Harlem Renaissance, the
Universal Negro Improvement Association led by Marcus Garvey, the Nation of Islam, the Civil Rights
Movement, and the Black Power movement. Such movements have provided the masses of AfricanLUMINAIRE
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American people with alternative bases for developing a positive racial identity” (Encyclopedia of AfricanAmerican Education 381).
Thus, Langston Hughes’ poem is an impassioned plea for a destabilisation of the myth of the melting pot and
for radical social change through the ethnic stew of cultural pluralism, which offers a way out for minority,
culture-specific groups to live in peace and in harmony in the multicultural fabric of the United States.
In short, the melting pot theory is highly racist in its essence, and inefficacious in the modern multicultural
social fabric. In addition, the melting pot seeks to promote “Anglo conformity” and seeks to build a society
that primarily reflects the dominant culture. Commenting on this, Henry L. Tischler opines that, “From World
War II until the early 1960s, Anglo conformity was essentially an established ideal of the American way of life”
(Introduction to Sociology 234). To conclude in the words of Tom Sine, “As we welcome a new future of rich
diversity, the melting pot is experiencing a massive meltdown. It is being replaced by the imagery of what
some describe as a very rich ethnic stew in which growing numbers of immigrants choose to retain some of
their own culture, customs, values, and language (Ceasefire 93).
Notes:
Hughes, Langston. Selected Poems of Langston Hughes. London: Serpent’s Tail, 1959. Print. 247-8.
Aberjhani and Sandra L.West. Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. NY: Facts on File, Inc. 2003. Print.
Baptiste Jr. Prentice,H and Mira Lanier Baptiste. Developing the Multicultural Process in Classroom
Instruction: Competencies for Teachers. Lanham: University Press of America, Inc. 1979. Print.
Barone, Michael. The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again.Washington, DC. Regnery
Publishing, Inc. 2001. Print.
Davis, A.Richard. The Myth of Black Ethnicity: Monophylety, Diversity, and the Dilemma of Identity.
Greenwich: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1997. Print.
Farrakhan, Louis Minister. A Torchlight for America. Chicago: FCN Publishing Co.,1993. Print.
Hooks, Bell. Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem. New York: Atria Books, 2003.
Print.
Huggins, Nathan Irvin. Harlem Renaissance. New York: OUP, 2007. Print.
Jackson, L.Cynthia. African American Education: A Reference Handbook. California: ABC-CLIO, Inc. 2011.
Print.
Jones-Wilson, Faustine C., Charles A. Asbury et al. Encyclopedia of African-American Education. Westport:
Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. 1996. Print.
Kivisto, Peter and Thomas Faist. Citizenship: Discourse, Theory and Transnational Prospects. Malden:
Blackwell Publishing, 2007. Print.
Leach, F.Laurie. Langston Hughes: A Biography. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. 2004. Print.
Sine, Tom. Cease Fire: Searching for Sanity in America’s Culture Wars. Michigan: Wm.B.Eerdmans Publishing
Co., 1996. Print.
Tischler, L.Henry. Introduction to Sociology. Belmont: Wadsworth CENGAGE Learning, 2007. Print.
Vang, Christopher Thao. An Educational Psychology of Methods in Multicultural Education. New York:
Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2010. Print.
Veith, Gene Edward. Guide to Contemporary Culture. Leicester: Crossway Books, 1996.
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Print.
Wallace, O.Maurice. Langston Hughes: The Harlem Renaissance. Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish
Benchmark, 2008. Print.
Armstrong, Julie Buckner, and Amy Schmidt. The Civil Rights Reader: American Literature
from Jim Crow to Reconciliation. Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2009. Print.
Gentry, Tony. Paul Laurence Dunbar. New York: Chelsea House, 1989. Print.
Jarvis, Matt. Psychodynamic Psychology: Classical Theory and Contemporary Research.
Great Britain: Thomas Learning, 2004. Print.
Wallingford, Katharine. Robert Lowell's Language of the Self. USA: The University of North
Carolina Press, 1988. Print.
Hendrick, Ives. Facts and Theories of Psychoanalysis. London: Routledge, 1999. Print.
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MARGINS AND BEYOND: A SURVEY OF WOMEN’S
VOICES IN CONTEMPORARY INDIAN ENGLISH
POETRY
Swetha Antony
Indian English Poetry has seen desirable changes post independence triggered by factors such as
Globalization. It’s far reaching consequences has shifted the notions of language and identity and the ways of
articulations. The notion of Indianess change when notions of identity and existence find new horizons. It
was inevitable then that the tinge of pessimism that was part of the early Indian English Literature give way to
fresh approaches. Consequently, the Indian English Literary scene especially poetry has become experimental
with the changing times. In this regard, Sudeep Sen remarks in the essay “New Indian Poetry: The 1990s
Perspective”
The most striking features of the new generation of poets are their range of concerns and themes and their
use of language. They use English as an Indian as well as a global language, without the "peculiar hang-ups"
exhibited by many in the earlier generations…. Thankfully, the last traces of archaic forms of British English
have finally vanished. The new generation of poets is unafraid, motivated, clear sighted, and they use English
with a sense of ease. Their language, style, rhythms, and forms are inventive, original, and contemporary.(273)
This beginning of change was marked in the 1960’s by the entry of poets such as Nissim Ezekiel, Dom
Moraes, Jayanta Mahapatra and many more. They did revolutionize the terrain of Indian poetry in English;
however what is striking is the emergence of Women Poets. Beginning with Kamala Das, Indian English
Poetry became a horn of plenty with writers such as Eunice de Souza, Mamta Kalia, Tara Patel, Imtiaz
Dharkar, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Charmayne D’Souza, Melanie Silgardo, Sujata Bhatt, Gauri Deshpande,
Lakshmi Kannan, Temsula Aao, Meera Alexander, Meena Kandaswamy and many more. They brought to
their verses modernist and post modernist nuances, explicitly and expertly speaking about the changing
contours of language and identity. The margins began to shift and new realms to their existence came alive
through Poetry and the madness that it invokes. Poetry, with its exhortations of fluidity and open – endedness
becomes a new tool to voice out the ‘margins’. Creativity here is a merging of the public and the private and
something beyond that. They were a far cry from the poetry of the Toru Sisters and Sarojini Naidu which
according to Jenny Booth mimicked 19th century diction, sentiment and romanticized love.
Post 1960’s the Indian Women Poets writing in English stood out by highlighting their difference. Ironically
this was the reason why they were suppressed in the beginning. They found a way of articulation through this
hyphenated language which is as ambivalent as they are. At this juncture the thoughts of Luce Irigaray about a
genuine feminine language, emphazising difference comes up. She says in “The Sex which is not One”:
One must listen to her differently in order to hear an ‘ other meaning’ which is constantly in the process of
weaving itself, at the same time ceaselessly embracing words and yet casting them off to avoid becoming fixed,
immobilized. . . . Her statements are never identical to anything. Their distinguishing feature is contiguity
(Greene 87).
This fact shines through in the poetry of these poets. In addition to this, the impact of globalization and the
subsequent phenomenon of cosmopolitanism led to the creation of an identity which according to the
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cultural critic Kwame Anthony Appiah is “universality plus difference”. It is inevitable then, that this
celebration of differences is evident in the poetic output of these poets.
What characterized their verse is the opening up of possibilities not just in themes but in the way language was
handled. They brought in their innate selves enlightened by their location and cultures. It also saw a marked
shift in their concerns. The gap between the private and the public narrowed down slowly. Their poetry was
their take on life and they easily let them out through powerful, yet novel images, which was not visible in the
earlier writers. The emphasis of their poetry was difference focusing on themes such as relationships,
personality, and self exploration, political and social consciousness.
Interestingly, Post colonial feminism also emphasizes location and cultural difference among women. At this
juncture the concept of “Third World Difference” as pronounced by Chandra Talpade Mohanty is of much
relevance. Here the emphasis was on the debate concerning the homogenization or the universalism of the
experiences of women, the ‘Other’ women in opposition to the mainstream. She brought to the forefront the
need to stop generalizing a particular women’s experience. She says in her essay “Under Western Eyes:
Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses”:
An analysis of "sexual difference" in the form of a cross-culturally singular, monolithic notion of patriarchy
or male dominance leads to the construction of a similarly reductive and homogeneous notion of what I call
the “Third World Difference"—that stable, ahistorical something that apparently oppresses most if
not
all the women in these countries. And it is in the production of this "Third World Difference" that Western
feminisms appropriate and "colonize" the fundamental complexities and conflicts which characterize the
lives of women of different classes, religions, cultures, races and castes in these countries. It is in this process
of homogenization and systematization of the oppression of women in the third world that power is
exercised in much of recent Western feminist discourse, and this power needs to be defined and named. (335)
Difference is what their poetry hinges on. Ironically, even when all these poets are clubbed under Indian
Women poets it is not possible to homogenize the oeuvre of poetry by them under a single head.
The New Beginning
The Indian English Poetry scene was blessed with a stimulating voice when Kamala Das entered the scene.
She is one among the pioneers who drew a modernist and post – modernist terrain in Indian English Poetry.
With a poetic career spanning almost four decades, she inspired the women writers from the 1970’s to write
with a strong and confident voice. She is among the few writers who had continued to enrich the Modern
Indian English Poetry from the beginning in 1965 till her death in 2009. The boldness in her voice was a
positive start as she began the trend of setting off strong yet different voices. Nila Shah and Pramod K Nayar
says in the introduction of Modern Indian Poetry in English:Critical Studies that Kamala Das’s candour, daring
thematisation of taboo subjects, a celebration and exploration of the women’s identity are echoed in later
women poets like Tara Patel, Silgardo, Eunice de Souza, Sambrani, Charmayne D’ Souza, Imtiaz Dharker, and
Sujata Bhatt. This is echoed in Eunice de Souza’s introduction to Kamala Das in Nine Indian Women Poets: An
Anthology: Women writers owe a special debt to Kamala Das. She mapped out the terrain for post-colonial
women in social and linguistic terms. Whatever her vernacular oddities, she has spared us the colonial cringe.
She has also spared us what in some circles, nativist and expatriate, is still considered mandatory: the politically
correct ‘anguish’ of writing in English. (Souza 8)
With the path paved by Das, the presence of Women Writers began to be felt strongly in Indian English
Poetry. Their poems reverberate with themes such as the issues of being a woman, of identity being
constructed and the hollowness behind the ‘I’ and a name. What shines through is the fact that sometimes they
become the subject of their work in order to attain a sense of closure. They seem to dwell on the idea of a self
as divided or multiple located within and constructed through various discourses. They do not posit a unitary
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or essential self. A woman is not the same everywhere, but is determined by their particular situation. In short
their poems seem to be collages of images, memories, legends and traditions, an intricate dovetailing of
themes and forms. However, the predominant theme is an inherent conflict within her and she comes alive by
putting them into words. The words of Makarand Parnjape from the essay "Post-Independence Indian
English Literature: Towards a New Literary History” has to be highlighted at this point:
By its very definition, it is a hybrid. A sort of liaison literature, mediating between the contrary pulls of the
metropolis and the nation, between a cosmopolitan modernity and ethnic traditionalism. Before
Independence, nationalism was the dominant ideology, while after independence a sort of Internationalism
has replaced it. They desired to break free from the purist mode of modernism with its primacy to imagistic
precision and linguistic exactitude. The new poets sought greater emotional room, more opportunities for a
free play of thoughts and feelings. With greater self-assurance and lesser inhibitions, they went on to voice
their feelings. (1050)
Though this indicates the state of Indian English Poetry in general, it is of much relevance to Indian Women
Poets writing in English. They did voice out their feelings with self assertion like never before. They did
shatter the pre- conceived taboos and stereotyped notions. Their themes and concerns are many fold.
Identity: Performance in Language
The question of the use of a particular language - Indian English- is something that these writers take to heart.
The process of writing itself is a means of articulating a new language, a revived self. For instance, Kamala
Das was declaring the endless possibilities of Indian English when she declared in, “An Introduction”:
Why not leave
Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,
Every one of you? Why not let me speak in
Any language I like? The language I speak
Becomes mine, its distortions, its queerness
All mine, mine alone. It is half English, half
Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,
It is as human as I am human,. . . (Das 62)
The anxieties associated with the use of an alien language is also evident in the lines of Sujata Bhatt‘s “A
Different History”:
Which language
has not been the oppressor’s tongue?
Which language
truly meant to murder someone?
And how does it happen
that after the torture,
after the soul has been cropped
with a long scythe swooping out
of the conqueror’s face –
the unborn grandchildren
grow to love that strange language ( Souza 76)
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The critic Ranjana Ash says these lines also point to the anguish of immigrants when they start to lose their
first language.
Language as a performance is evident here which also reflects Judith Butler’s notion of gender as
performance. Writing becomes a different yet effective way of voicing the self. Identity a construct becomes a
performance through the process of writing. The use of language to stress one’s identity is evident here, as in
the words of Butler, “Identity is performatively constituted by the very “expressions” that are said to be its
results” (Butler 24-25). Kamala Das in her poetic manifesto “An Introduction” says about how a woman
becomes a construct, and how her identity becomes a performance or a role play:
Dress in sarees, be girl
Be wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook,
Be a quarreler with servants. Fit in. Oh,
Belong, cried the categorizers.
.......
Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or, better
Still, be Madhavikutty. It is time to
Choose a name, a role. ( Das 62 - 63)
Linked to this dialectics is the idea of the ‘Name’. A name of one’s own is tinged with the many roles that come
along with it. On the same note is Mamta Kalia’s poem “Anonymous”:
I no longer feel I’m Mamta Kalia
I’m Kamla
or Vimla
or Kanta or Shanta.
I cook, I wash,
I bear, I rear,
I nag, I wag,
I sulk, I sag. (Souza 26)
Women here are proper names with a set of significations attached to it. Name being a part of a language – a
sign system – inevitably points to arbitrariness and a performance that change with each signification. The
stereotypes molded for the Indian women are also questioned here with a scathing irony. This deliberate
construction of identity is an inevitable part of any women in India and this is highlighted by the words of
Chandra Talpade Mohanty:
The relationship between "Woman"—a cultural and ideological composite Other constructed through
diverse representational discourses (scientific, literary, juridical, linguistic, cinematic, etc.)—and
"women"—real, material subjects of
their collective histories—is one of the central questions the
practice of feminist scholarship seeks to address. This connection between women as historical subjects and
the re-presentation of Woman produced by hegemonic discourses is not a relation of direct identity, or a
relation of correspondence or simple
implication. It is an arbitrary relation set up by particular cultures.
(334)
Much beyond the Margins: Experiments in Verse
The relevance of the poetry of these writers lies beyond themes. They are innovators of form and structure.
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Their experimental poetry is akin to Julia Kristeva’s notion of the Semiotic a kind of language used by modern
and avant - garde writers. It is the rhythms or the polyphonic voices visible in poetry as against the linear
structures and codified representations of the symbolic. “Female sexuality is directly associated with poetic
productivity – with the psychosomatic drives which disrupt the tyranny of unitary meaning and logocentric
(and therefore Phallogocentric) discourse” (Selden 141). The central idea of her work “Revolution in Poetic
Language” is that the semiotic functions as a disruptive pressure on the symbolic and can be traced in the gaps
in language, the tendency to meaninglessness and laughter.
This is evident in the poetry of Rukmini Bhaya Nair. She brings to her poetry a background in linguistics,
fusing lexical rules and variations in unusual ways. In the poem "Genderole" we find a skillful rendering of
this:
Considerthefemalebodyyourmost
Basictextanddontforgetitsslokas
Whatpalmleafscandoforusitdoes
Therealgapsremainforwomentoclose.
She not only challenges the set patterns of writing but also the age old rigid rules of the society:
Sankarayouoldmisogynisttellme
WhatssocontemptibleaboutfleetingSplendour?
. . . Itmaybebeneathyoutopriseapartthisgimmick
Butrememberthethingawomanchangesbestishersex. (World Literature Today 275)
The absences of gaps between the words bring in a deliberate defamiliarisation. The images evoked are also
striking and unique. A poem by Meena Kandaswamy “Becoming a Brahmin”
is quite arresting by the same standard:
Algorithm for converting a Shudra into a Brahmin
Begin.
Step 1: Take a beautiful Shudra girl.
Step 2: Make her marry a Brahmin.
Step 3: Let her give birth to his female child.
Step 4: Let this child marry a Brahmin.
Step 5: Repeat steps 3-4 six times.
Step 6: Display the end product. It is a Brahmin.
End.
Algorithm advocated by Father of the Nation at Tirupur.
Documented by Periyar on 20.09.1947.
Algorithm for converting a Pariah into a Brahmin
Awaiting another Father of the Nation
to produce this algorithm.
(Inconvenience caused due to inadvertent delay
is sincerely regretted.)
It is a poignant and subtle experiment in verse but even more powerful is the theme of the poem.
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Another example would be Smita Agarwal’s poem, “The Word –worker”
My eyes lick them off the page;
I chew them, suck the juices,
Let the flavours seep in. I am
The dreamer; words, the cocoon
I knit. Fixed for ever in the
Slim gap between alphabets
I am the saboteur, the hit man.
Words scurry down dark lanes
Or brightly lit streets. I rip
Off masks, bequeath new skin,
Dragoon words into birthing
Faces never before born. (Souza 65)
Similarly a strange uneasiness is created by the images and metaphors in Imtiaz Dharker’s “Minority”:
There’s always that point where
the language flips
into an unfamiliar taste;
where words tumble over
a cunning tripwire on the tongue;
where the frame slips,
the reception of an image
not quite tuned, ghost- outlined,
that signals, in their midst,
an alien.
Everyone has the right
to infiltrate a piece of paper.
A page doesn’t fight back. (Souza 58)
Dovetailing of different worlds
Themes overlap in the poetry of these women writers. The self is often linked to the externalities like memory
and history. Shah and Nayar points it out in Modern Indian Poetry in English, Critical Studies: “ Indian Poetry
in English today explores the Self, the context of Self- Discovery( childhood , memory, history) the despair( of
love, relationships, the nation) and the madness of poeticisation itself.” Even though we are not the immediate
victims of the external incidents they leave a gap in our personal lives. This fact shines through in many of
their poems. For instance Charmayne D’Souza’s ,“God’s Will” says :
A strange legacy, that:
one holocaust,
thirty- five wars,
a few million tortutred and killed.
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41
Am I heir to all that?
Or did some crafty lawyer
put in a side- clause
I knew nothing about? (Souza 87)
The personal here gets dovetailed with the political, the private and the public often coalesce and co exist with
a certain sense of uneasiness. Nonetheless in articulating the inevitable links between the two, irony and
sarcasm does shine through as in Eunice De Souza’s poem “Catholic Mother”:
Francis X D’Souza
father of the year.
Here he is top left
the one smiling.
…….
Pillar of the Church
Says the parish priest
Lovely Catholic Family
says Mother Superior
The pillar’s wife
says nothing. (Souza 39)
The loud public image is contrasted with the real and often silenced private life whose witnesses are often
women.
When it comes to Imtiaz Dharker's poetry there is an ambivalence arising out of living in a situation tinged by
the Islamic and the Hindu tradition coupled with the dialectics of tradition and modernity. The short poem
"Exile" exemplifies this:
A parrot knifes
through the sky's bright skin,
a sting of green.
It takes so little
to make the mind bleed
into another country,
a past that you agreed
to leave behind. (World Literature Today 276)
She talks about the partition here. It is inevitable that we all become exiles lacing in and out of the cultures yet
living in it.
The self gets linked to the past too. There is a sense of loss of the past that is smelt in Meena Alexander’s poem
"After the First House,”
Father's father tore it down
heaped rosewood in pits
as if it were a burial
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bore bits of teak
and polished bronze
icons and ancient granary;
the rice grains clung
to each other
soldered in sorrow,
syllables on grandmother's tongue
as she knelt. (World Literature Today 274)
These lines are tinged with sadness. This is also seen in the poems of Kamala Das such as “My Grandmother’s
House”:
There is a house now far away where once
I received love . . . That woman died,
The house withdrew into silence, . . .
. . . I lived in such a house and
Was proud, and loved … I who have lost
My way and beg now at strangers’ doors to
Receive love, at least in small change? (Das 13)
For her, it was the time of completeness, as against the loss she feels now. For Temsula Ao it’s the collective
memory and myth that becomes the hinge of her poetry. She often dovetails the myths from Ao culture into
her verse. For instance, her poem “Stone- people from Lungterok” captures the myth of the Lungterok – the
six stones from which, is believed, the forefathers of Ao emerged onto the earth.
Stone – people,
The polygots,
Knowledgeable
In birds’ language
And animal discourse.
The students,
Who learned from ants
The art of carving
Heads of enemies
As trophies
Of war.
…………………………..
Stone – people,
Savage and sage
Who sprang out of LUNGTEROK
Was the birth adult when the stone broke?
Or are the Stone – people yet to come of age. ( Ngangom 2-3)
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43
Even though she invokes the myth here it gets subtly veined into the contemporary life in North East with the
hues of violence and insurgency which can be read between the lines.
The contribution to Indian English Poetry by Women Writers cannot be ignored. But one thing is for sure.
Writing, for them, is an effective way of voicing the self. However the ways of articulations are different for
each writer. As they try to communicate their self the expressions shifts along with their innate experiences.
The themes and styles of poetry is influenced to a great extend by their cultures. Hence a homogenization of
the whole oeuvre of the poetry of Indian Women Writers in English is not possible. But they did succeed in
voicing whatever they had to say and not just that their powerful tongue redrew the contours of the margins.
Notes:
Das, Kamala. Summer in Calcutta. New Delhi: Everest Press, 1965. Print.
Greene , Gayle. Ed. Making a Difference: Feminist Literary Criticism. London:New Accents, 1985.
Kandaswamy, Meena.“Becoming a Brahmin” . Web. 20Jun.2012.
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/becoming-a-brahmin/
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses” .Web. 25
Jan. 2012. <http://blog.lib.umn.edu/raim0007/RaeSpot/under%20wstrn%20eyes.pdf>
Ngangom, Robin Singh & Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih. Ed. Dancing Earth: An
Anthology of Poetry from North – East India. India : Penguin, 2009.
Paranjape, Makarand. "Post-Independence Indian English Literature: Towards a New Literary History."
Economic and Political Weekly. Vol. 33.No. 18 (May 2-8,1998): 1049-1056. Web. 4 Dec. 2011.
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/4406729 .>.
Selden, Raman, Peter Widdowson and Peter Brooker. Ed. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary
Theory. London: Prentice Hall Harvester Wheatsheaf,1997.
Sen, Sudeep. “New Indian Poetry: The 1990s Perspective”. World Literature Today: Indian Literatures: In the
Fifth Decade of Independence Vol. 68, No. 2 (Spring, 1994): 272-278. Web. 5 Dec.2011. <
http://www.jstor.org/stable/40150142.>.
---. “Recent Indian English Poetry”.World Literature Today. Vol. 74, No. 4 (Autumn, 2000): 783-787. Web. 5
Dec. 2011.<http://www.jstor.org/stable/40156088.>.
Shah, Nila, and Pramod K. Nayar. Modern Indian Poetry in English, Critical Studies. New Delhi: Creative
Books, 2000. Print.
Souza, Eunice De. Nine Indian Women Poets, an Anthology. Oxford University Press, USA, 2003. Print.
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DALIT DISCOURSE IN LITERATURE
Literature is an instrument of social influence and as such it has social responsibility. Social responsibility
describes a moral obligation of individuals to engage with their communities in ways that promote a more
respectful coexistence. Literature as a mode of discursive articulation always endeavours to give voice to the
marginal and this gives birth to the concept of Fourth World Literature. Marginalization is a process of
domination and subordination. All the movements of the marginalised and the literature produced by them
are mutually supportive as they reflect the fourth world discourse, the discourse of the internally colonised
people even in postcolonial countries. ‘The term Fourth world was introduced by George Manuel and M.
Posluns in Fourth World: An Indian Reality (1974) has acquired political significance in Noel Dyck’s
Indigenous Peoples and the Nation State: Fourth World Politics in Canada, Australia and Narway(1992). But
now the term has its wider perspectives by including Native Americans, Native Canadians, Aboriginals of
Australians, Maoris of New Zealand, Dalits and Tribals of India. The inclusion of Dalits and Adivasis into the
fold is an extension of the Fourth World identity because of their social, political, economic and cultural
binding factors. Another common factor is their outcome of subjugation by colonialism which destroyed
their cultural and traditional systems. ‘The Fourth World’ is being exploited in their respective countries in
different ways. Dalits and Adivasis in India are vulnerable in the name of caste.
Controversies about what constitutes Dalit literature is debated in the contemporary literary scenario. Each
discourse creates and valorises its own value system. These value systems are not eternal, immutable. They are
constructed. Any discourse is a way of thinking, writing and saying to put it simply so each discourse is a
version of constructed reality and not the version of reality. It is an undeniable fact that Dalit literary
movement has become an important discourse in the fields of social sciences and literature in post- Ambedkar
era. Here, the position of Ambedkar and Darrida is worth remembering. ‘Ambedkar and Derrida share
marginalized positions. Ambedkar was born in an untouchable Mahar family in Maharastra, India. Darrida
was born into an assimilated Jewish family in Algiers. If Ambedkar has experienced caste discrimination,
Darrida is the victim of Anti-Semitic atmosphere. The discrimination experienced by these people awakened
them to the problem of centrality and marginality with similar mature philosophical thought.’(Patteti,405)
Furthermore, authentic subaltern literature can be written by those who have suffered the marginalisation.
Only ash knows the experience of burning. It can be studied by all but created only by the subaltern class itself.
No longer in need of outside representation; the memorable characters of this literature have now found the
voice to express themselves. Dalit writers have learnt to assert their identity in a voice of their own. That is why
writers have taken to writing autobiographies, for they see it as the most potent weapon. Gayarti C. Spivak, in
her widely recognized essay Can the subaltern speak? states that it is impossible for the subaltern to speak
without appropriating the dominant language or mode of representation. She threw a challenge to the race
and class blondness of the western academy, asking can the subaltern speak (284). In the context of colonial
production, the subaltern has no history and can’t speak, the subaltern as female is more deeply in shadow
(Spivak-287) It is true in the case Velutha and Ammu in the novel “The God of small things”. They are
victimized for the sake of others and they have to carry the badge of humiliation and contempt all their life.
The subaltern try to speak but they are not able to have transactions between the speakers and the literature.
But here of course, the subaltern speak and write. M.F.Jilthe has rightly said ‘the voiceless found a voice here;
the wordless found a word here’. The voice of Dalits here is important in opening up new avenues for reading
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45
and interpreting texts. There is speaking and writing always and everywhere and even more where there is
resistance to exploitation and oppression.
This trend gradually culminated in the creation of Dalit literature in a formal way. The term ‘subaltern’ and
‘Dalit’ are used as synonyms in general by many scholars and theologians in their recent writings but Dalit is
the term much popularized in the Indian context by social activists of several Dalit movements of recent past.
Dalit literature has become a central point of the Indian literature and has encompassed a style and form that
possesses a distinct identity. Both terms indicate subjectivity - objectivity and superior - inferior differences
between people and their faiths, religions, traditions and so on. The term 'Dalit literature' was first used in
1958, at the first ever Dalit conference held in Bombay. However, as an identity marker, the term 'Dalit' came
into prominence in 1972, when a group of young Marathi writers-activists founded an organization called
Dalit panthers. The name expressed their feelings of kinship and solidarity with Black Panthers who were
engaged in a militant struggle for African - American rights in the U.S.A. The ideology of the Dalits is known
as Dalitism which is based on the concept developed by Babasaheb. Dalits were denied the dignity which a
normal human being deserves as being a part of human society in general. According to Babasaheb,
Dalithood is a kind of condition that characterizes the exploitation, suppression and marginalization of dalit
people by the social, economic, cultural and political domination of the upper castes’ brahmanical ideolog.
This started a new trend in dalit writing and inspired many Dalits to come forward with their literary works in
other Indian languages. Dalits being an integral part of the society, their issues need to be an integral part of
literary discourse. In the modern era; Dalit literature received its first impetus with the advent of leaders like
Mahatma Jyotiba Phule and Babasaheb Ambedkar in Maharashtra who brought forth the issues of Dalits
through their works and writings. The thought of Babasaheb remains a persistent source of inspiration of
struggle and emancipation in Dalit literacy imagination. Ambedkar is the symbol of consciousness. Dalit
literature was evolving in a dialogic structure towards this direction as a communication system of various
segments of the movement, the Dalit writes and Dalit intellectuals. Dalit writing is addressing the oppressed,
the untouchables, the victims and the oppressors. Prof. Gangadhar Pantawane, the editor of Asmitadarsh
defines Dalit as ‘Dalit is not a caste. He is a man exploited by the social and economic tradition of the country.
He does not believe in God, rebirth, soul, holy books, teaching separation, fate, and heaven because they have
made him a slave. He does believe in humanism. Dalit is a symbol of change and revolution.’ Dalit intellectuals
could not only think it deeply but could also translate the pain of downtroddenness into words. This is known
as Dalit literature. There are numerous themes about the origin of Dalit literature. Buddha (6th
B.C),Chokhamela (14th.AD) Mahatma Jyotiba Phule (1828-90) and Prof. S. M. Mate (1886-1957) are hailed as
its originator by various ideological groups. They deeply concerned about the plight of the untouchables. A
huge mass of literature created in the light of their teachings and vision. But it was Dr. B.R.Ambedkar, who
demolished the myth of divine origin of caste hierarchy. He inspired and initiated the creative minds of India
to enforce the socio-cultural sensibilities. The word Dalit becomes an explosive catchword for social, cultural
and political revolutionary movement launched by untouchable castes in such expression as Dalit literature
and Dalit movement.
Dalit literary movement thus has a long history which ideally unfolds the secret struggle against castiest
tradition. It goes back to the eleventh century, to the first Vachana poet Chennaiah who was a cobbler. In the
12th century the dalit poet Kalavve challenged the upper castes in his poems. ‘Dalit literature has functioned as
a second voice since 11th. Century.’( Kumar, 262) From the pioneering Swami Achhutanand Harihar, Hindi
has a long tradition of writers articulating the dalit conscious. On the issue of a separate culture of the Dalit
people; there was unanimity of opinions between Swami Achhutanand and Ambedkar. They engaged in a cooperative partnership in associations and agitations that took up the cause of the Dalits. However, the history
of Dalit literary movement is century old; yet in its formal form the movement sprouted out as an immediate
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effect of the historical movement called the Little Magazine movement which was a kind of seditious
expression against the establishment of the educated youth of those days. The youths gained motivation from
the black movement of North America. Their literature ‘Black Panther’ become the role model for them. The
protest against establishment of the Dalits gained the very first expression amidst Dalit literature. Although
started in an unorganized way, Dalit literary movement gained pace with the active support of Babasaheb
Ambedkar and Babasaheb is still esteemed as the pioneer of dalit literature. It is the reason and the pace of
twist that the Dalit literary movement showed its first root in Maharastra, the home state of Ambedkar’s
movement and his revolutionary ideals stirred into action for all the dalits of Maharastra. Dalit literature is the
expression of this consciousness. The Dalit Panther Movement in Maharastra, which created the term Dalit a
household name in every Indian region. Black American literature had immensely influenced the Dalit literary
movement in India. The term Dalit itself represents their struggle for humanity. It represents a political
identity which is the nucleus to the Dalit movement. This consciousness for the liberation of Dalits is very
much there in the Dalit literary movement. Most of the Dalit writers take endeavour to become a part of the
movement of Dalits in creative interests and established by writers like Namdeo Dhasal and Raja Dhale. The
Panther movement had borrowed its moral support from the writings of Baba Sahab Ambedkar. Ambedkar,
who was actively involved in the national politics of India and drafted the Constitution of independent India,
also highlighted the comparison between African Americans and the Dalits. As a graduate student at
Columbia University from 1913 to 1916, Ambedkar witnessed the growing consciousness among the Blacks
and their struggle to claim their identity and humanity against the white supremacist oppression. Such firsthand experience helped him develop a ‘frame work’ for the ‘issue of caste segregation back home’(Kapoor,
15).
Dalit consciousness today is a thoroughly modern critical concept in the mode of deconstruction. It is an
expression of denial, a theoretical tool that contributes to the destabilization of traditional notions of social
hierarchy and cultural authenticity. According to Omprakash Valmiki(2001) the Dalit chetna (consciousness)
is a elemental in opposing the cultural inheritance of the upper castes, the notion that culture is a hereditary
right for them and one that is denied to the Dalits. He suggests, Dalit chetna is deeply concerned with “who
am I ?” “what is my identity?” The strength of characters of Dalit authors come from these question. (PP.2829) Dalit consciousness forms an important, yet distinct part of Indian literature. It is always marked by revolt
and negativism. Dalit consciousness is not associated with a person. It belongs to the community. So, we can
find its creativity in every stage. The caste consciousness and confidence are much above the communalism
here. It has arisen from confidence, not from blindness. This literature has to shoulder an immense
responsibility. It is a purposive, revolutionary, transformational and liberatory literature. It is a literature of
commitment and hence has a powerful and pungent language of resistance. Anger, pathos and irony are three
largely used devices to recognize this as a literature of protest. Dalit literature is essentially a voice of rebellion
that opposes as well as exposes all forms of oppression and exploitation of the weak minority by the stronger
majority. It makes its presence felt in the literary galleries. The aggressive tone of the book Why I am not a
Hindu by Kancha Illiah is an illustration of the radical thoughts of some Dalit activists. Dalit literary
movement is not just a literal movement but it is the logo of social change and revolution where the primary
aim is the liberation of Dalits. The protest against the establishment of the Dalits gained the very first
expression amidst Dalit literature. Dalit literary movement not only concentrated on the political matters but
also centred on human beings. It is known that, man himself is society and society is nothing other than
human beings. Since human being is the centre of Dalit literature, political thinking has remained a part of it.
Therefore, Dalit literature has been called by the critics as the cultural record of Dalit life, the weapon of social
metamorphosis, and the work with authenticity and freshness of experience.
We see a theoretical shift in Dalit formulation of untouchability. Most often, the Dalit writing is discussed
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within the framework of post-colonial theory which ignores the internal colonisation experienced by the
indigenous people within post-colonial societies including India. Dalit writers are aware of the politics of
representation like their counterparts in other countries. Since the world conference on racism in Durban,
they have shown an ability to inter-link and make alliances with other oppressed groups like Africans,
Americans and organised themselves. It is quite similar to the literature of blacks in USA or Nigros in Africa.
Speaking Subalterns examines the literatures of two marginalized groups, African Americans in the United
States and Dalits in India. While African American women, children, and men negotiate their national
identities in USA, Dalits, the former untouchables, attempt to realize their national identities guaranteed by
the Indian Constitution. With the rise of marginal discourse, Dalits, Blacks and women have been
prominently discussed in literature and it is a real scene that Dalits in India and Blacks in America and
elsewhere have been the most exploited, subjugated and oppressed class. It is not difficult to recognize a
certain parallel between blacks in America and Dalits in India. Because of the atrocities heaped upon them,
they never feel welcome to the land they are living in. They have been subjected to certain kinds of ideologies
of the dominant groups—Brahmins in India and Whites in America, which pushed them to the margin and
labeled them as ‘Inferior Others'. Aston (2001) in his book, Dalit Literature and African American Literature:
Literature of Marginality explored how Dalit and African American writers have expressed their protest
against the established order of society through their writings. They found the society of both the countries
discriminating on the basis of caste, colour, race and religion. These writers propose a Utopian society that
values the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity in the colonial exploitation on the Blacks and the
Negroes by the dominant Whites. Like the condition of the Blacks in Africa, the American Negroes had to
undergo the same humiliating experience under the White oppression. Like the Black writers who are being
deprived of from availing equal citizenship in their own country, many of the Dalit writers feel that they have
no motherland.
The age old existence of oppression, despair, and suffering is common in the lives of marginalized classes
across countries and continents. The rights to live as human beings are denied to them. They have been
remained powerless and voiceless for many centuries. A close examination of marginalization, suffering,
violence and empowerment process reveals that Dalits in India and African-Americans in America have
suffered a similar fate over the years. They occupied the lowest strata in the society both in political and
economic structures. History bears a witness to the double-marginalization of these groups on account of
class, caste and race. We hear their voices of protest in their literatures focusing on the social, religious, casteist,
race and colour oppression in which the Dalits in India and Blacks in Africa and some parts of America eke
out their heavy burden of life. Their literature is indeed a creative excavation of their heritage. Influenced by
Afro-American struggle for liberation and equality in the white dominated America, Dalits in Maharashtra
united themselves to fight against the tyranny of caste/race. They started Dalit panthers movement in 1972
and decided to spread awareness among the Dalits about their dehumanised experience and the need to be
liberated from the shackles of untouchablity. Like Dalit writers in India, African-American writers have given
expression in their writings in the United States to protest against the established order of the society that
discriminates one man from another based on colour, race, and religion. The realities in Dalit’s life and those in
the life of Blacks in America is the same-poverty, ignorance, oppression and the ultimate alienation. America
always cherished the dream of liberty, equality and happiness for the white people but they were violated for
others. “The American dream remains elusive for American Blacks who preserved that dream under their
heavy swollen eyelids and held it tightly between their thick bleeding lips. Black literature is concerned with this
reality.” (Archana, 247) However, Dalits in India and their literature have some specific characteristics, which
are not found in black or Nigro literature. Blacks and Nigros have faced racial discrimination; they were not
untouchables like Dalits in India.
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Dalit autobiographies are recollections with a motive and are called as narratives of pain which carry certain
historical truth. They serve as moral source for Dalit movement. After centuries of silence, when the Dalit
writers felt the need to express themselves, they could turn inward and talk about their own experiences.
Autobiography thus became a fitting vehicle for this expression. All the autobiographies explicitly insist on the
decisive impact on their lives of the firm directive received from Baba Saheb. These writers are living outside
and mostly they revisit their villages in autobiographies where they spent their childhood sufferings; the cruel
experience of untouchability. Here, the self becomes the representative of all other Dalits who were crushed
down because of their Dalit identity. ‘Me-ism’gives way to ‘our-ism’ and superficial concerns about individual
subject usually gives way to the collective subjection of the group. The protagonist of the autobiography is of
course the writer himself but his personal experience, instead of being unique and individualistic,
encompasses the general condition of the whole Dalit community. S.P. Punalekar’s views are worth
mentioning here, ‘Dalit writers themselves are either victims or witness to social inequalities and violence.
Some have direct or indirect links with social, political and cultural organisations of Dalits. A few among them
are staunch social activists and use literature a vehicle to propagate their views on Dalit identity and the
prevailing social consciousness.’(1992,p243) It seems as if pain and suffering were as natural to them as to
breathe. Dalit women writings relatively of recent origin offering a powerful strain of suffering and protest
and adding a new dimension of gender discourse. Dalit women are marginalized in three fold on the basis of
caste, class and patriarchy. The plight of the women of these marginalized sections is all the more painful in
which they offer an instance of triple marginalization. They are downtrodden among the downtrodden and
Dalit of Dalits in Indian society. ‘The time has come for Dalit writers not only to lament their subjugation but
also to simultaneously celebrate with pride to the dauntless spirit of the Dalit women.’ (Archana, 245) Bama’s
Karukku (2000) was not merely the first Dalit autobiography but it has a specific identity having written by a
Dalit Christian women. It enjoys the unique recognition of seeing one of the first radical feminist discourse by
a Tamil Dalit women.
Dalit literature represents a powerful, emerging trend in the Indian literary sense and pose a major challenge to
the established notion of what constitutes literature and how we read it. Sharankumar Limbale’s Towards an
Aesthetic of Dalit Literature: History, Controversies and Considerations, the first critical work by an eminent
Dalit writer to apper in English, is a provocative and thoughtful account of the debates among Dalit writers on
how Dalit literature should be read. Since Dalit literature rejects the established standards of evaluating
literature. The traditional aesthetics talk about three basic principles of literature: satyam (truth), shivam
(goodness) and sundaram (beauty). These are appeared to be non-realistic in case of Dalit literature. On the
contrary; Dalit literature is based on reality for which man is considered above all even superior to God. Dalit
aesthetics reject Bharatmuni’s concept of nayaka as Dhirodat, Dhirlait, Dhir Prasant also reject Panditraj
Jagannath’s definition of poetry Vakyam rasatmakam Kavyam. Dalit literature rejects western concept of
theories like Freud’s psychoanalysis, Borthe’s structuralism or even Darrida’s deconstruction theories. It also
rejects Indian theories of Rasa and Dhwani.(Prasad & Gaijan,p-6) In 1969 Diwali issue of Marathawada Dr.
Wankhade Baburao Bagul rejected the mainstream literary tradition because it is based on varnas and
Varnashramas and depict dharma and Moksha; the salvation. Dalit literature invocates its social commitments.
The aim of Dalit literature is to expose the evils of caste system and injustice done to the lower caste by the
higher caste. Dalit literature represents the realistic view of life. Dalit literature alone could challenge the
Hinduism and Sanskritised Indian literature. Kancha Illaiah said, It was wrong to level Dalit literature as postmodern. According to him Dalit literature was really post-Hindu literature. It has the power to change the
social structure. As regards to the distinct purpose and poetics; Dalit literature has a wider relevance. Dalit
writing has a particular purpose and audience, that these have an important bearing on their literary aesthetic
decisions and therefore, their works should not be assessed by universal criteria.
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Dalit literature, today, has emerged as an independent literature with its own theory, aesthetics and philosophy.
Its aim is not to teach or preach. It derives its strength through the depiction of hard reality. So, the basis for
aesthetics of Dalit literature is pain, agony and torture. It has grown as a major body of literature from
expression of the experience of sufferings of the Dalits to contest the hegemonic cultural discourse and
expose its prejudices and to project an alternative aesthetics. Dalit literature is that it doesn’t believe in art for
art’s sake because its sole aim is to portray the harsh realities of the society. Literature and art to them are part
of life and not distinct from life. Therefore, their writing is a part of their struggle for survival for basic human
rights, against discrimination and exploitation. In a Dalit literature writing all the elements of narrative
writing- plot, character, dialogue etc. are subordinated to the central thought or idea. Instead of good stories it
is the idea which governs the characters and situations. ‘So for a Dalit writer, art is just a vehicle to express their
ideas. For him an art which is only beautiful but not useful is totally worthless.’(Rai, 44) Dalit writers use images
as well as words, which come from their own lived experiences. They feel that their vision and sensibilities
must be translated into art honestly. The agony of the poor and dispossessed finds powerful expression in
their writings through poignant and explosive words. Sometimes it is interspersed with abuse too. Another
significant aspect of Dalit literature is the deconstruction of the myths, which very basis is questioned by the
Dalit writers. The Dalits treat Ekalavya (The Mahabharata) and Shambooka( The Ramayana) as their heroes.
Dalit movement and literature are reciprocal in tackling the social evils of the society. This literature is closely
associated with the hopes and aspirations for liberation of Dalits. Protest is at the base of Dalit literature. It
deals with oppression, suppression, discrimination and exploitation derived from authentic experience, giving
a new direction to the society in this postmodern context. Dalit literature is written with the purpose of
conveying the anguish and suffering of the Dalits and demands an antidote for it. Dalit writers write what they
see, feel and think in the social environment. There is no dichotomy in their utterance and action.
The access to Dalit literature in different Indian languages is through its English translation thereby ensuring a
wider readership and acceptability and having empowered by English Dalits can take their place in the
globalized world. The English translation of Sharan kumar Limbale’s ‘Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit
litearature’(2004) provide great hope that this concept will not remain in critical limbo for long. It is bound to
become a part of the post-colonial critical repertoire and thus enrich the critical-analytical scenario of English
literature produced by Indians. In 2003, three Dalit autobiographies came out in English translation
Omprakash Valmiki’s Joothan: A Dalit’s life, Narendra Jadhav’s Outcaste: A memoir and Sharan Kumar
Limbale’s ‘Akkarmashi’: The outcaste. These works foreground the interface between authenticity as far as
Dalit life is concerned. The famous question, “Can the subaltern speak?” posed by Gayatri Chakravorty
Spivak with reference to the coloniser-colonised frame work has been answered by Dalit literature erotic’s in
the changed context of the caste-based socio-cultural and economic structure of Hindu society. Munsi
Premchand’s characters of Kafan(Sheoud) Ghisu and Madhav are not realistic because their characterisation
does not match with his notion of realism. In the 20th century when India was swept by renaissance and wave
of awakening, the Dalits also saw a new dawn. They became conscious of their inhuman living conditions. A
Dalit (Hira Dom) from the state of Bihar wrote a poem ‘Achhut Kee Shikayat’ (Complaint of an untouchable)
in local dialect Bhojpuri. It was published in 1914 AD in a leading magazine Saraswati. This poem is regarded
as the first Dalit poem in print written by a Dalit himself. The poem not only gave a picturesque idea of the
conditions of Dalits but also reflects the socio-economic and political situation of the country. Ramanika
Gupta(1996) edited three anthologies of essays, interviews, poems and stories in which Hindi Dalit writers
and critics debated the specific understanding and application of Dalit consciousness. The Odia Dalit poet
makes an effort to use images as well as words which comes from his own experience. His protest is not against
any individual or group but the society as a whole. He even goes further and declares war against all the
oppressive forces of the world to ‘smash the prison house, to be liberated from all red-tapisms around him and
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the world.’ It may be mentioned here that besides Bichitranand Nayak several Oriya Dalit poets have been
raising their voices against the various oppressive forces. Notable among them are: Basudev Sunani,
Kumaramani Tanti, Sanjay Bag, Anjubala Jena, Mohan Jena and many others. Apart from this, Telugu, Kannad
and Gujarati have a very reach history of Dalit literature. Since Ambedkar Jayanti in 1990, the works of
Ambedkar and other Dalit writers were translated in different languages which led to the growth of a Dalit
political identity. As Rajendra Yadav says, ‘there is a hope for both Dalit politics and Dalit literature. Both will
become mature over a period of time’.
Dalit literature is the literature produced by Dalit consciousness. Contemporary dalit literary movement is
reshaping the international literary scene in major way. The basic philosophy is that the true picture of a Dalit’s
pain and anguish can only be captured by a Dalit. . A white man cannot write Black literature, though he can
write wonderfully well about Black society. John Griffin, a white American sociologist, painted himself black,
lived in a black ghetto for two months, and then wrote a book which he claimed faithfully represented an
insider’s view of Black society in America. But the blacks asserted that despite this attempt at identifying with
them, He was unable to fully capture the story of the plight. The same is true for the Dalits in India. As
mentioned earlier,‘Only ash knows the experience of burning, which indicates that the Dalits know the
experience of burning i.e. in the fire of sorrows, sufferings, hatred, injustice, inequality and untouchability. It is
experience based. The anubhava (experience) takes precedence over anumana (speculations). Hence, only
dalit writers can express their experiences in an authentic manner but not others. That is why writers have
taken to writing autobiographies, for they see it as the most potent weapon. Therefore, unlike other fictional
writings, autobiographies have flourished most among the Dalits. The non-Dalit writers who write about
Dalits cannot come under the category of Dalit writers because they don’t represent the true Dalit
consciousness. Eleanor Zelliot has rightly said, ‘Those in the Dalit School would say: Only Dalit can write it
because only they have experienced the social as well as the economic problems of the lowest of castes. And
when educated and no longer poor, they not only remember their childhood, they also suffer from the idea of
pollution which remain strong in the Hindu mind and they identify with their village brothers and sisters when
they claim their full human rights,’(1992) It is interesting to note that Dalit literature or Dalit literary
movement cannot be viewed in isolation from the Dalit social movement. They reciprocate in tackling the
evils of the society. Dalit intellectuals stress that Dalit literature does not spread vengeance and hatred but it
promotes man’s greatness and his freedom for that reason it is a historic necessity. Further Dalit literature
envisages with identity formation and its assertion to regain the self confidence and self worth of the
marginalized sections of our society. The aspect of rebuilding society on values which promote honour and
dignity, justice and equality is the foremost agenda.
Dalit literary movement is autonomous and is no way related to Marxism. The aim of revolutionary literature
is economic equality and it is a casteless society for Dalit literature. For the emergence of Dalit literature,
revolutionary literature may have facilitated, but it is improper to say that both are the same. It has its
differences with janavadi (progressive) literature because janavadi literature gives stress on division of class
based on the economic inequality where as it gives importance on against both the capitalism and brahminism
in Hindu social order. Dalit writings foreground the essential truths about the downtrodden who have been
relegated to the periphery in social as well as literary arenas. Dalit literature has to instill a tone of immediacy,
intensity, violence and strong disapproval of casteism through strong language. Dalit literature wants to
stimulate the readers to transform the society. Dalit writers realised that words could create a change more
powerfully than weapons could. According to V.T. Rajshekar, the editor of Dalit Voice: ‘ It will not only save
the Dalits but India as well. Possibly, it may avert a Third World War. India can attain its real self and liberation
only with Dalitism.’ Dalitism corresponds to marginalisation and marginalisation denies basic human rights
and social justice. When the God of the masses denies them the basic human rights, they will obviously turn to
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51
other source for justice. Dalit literature is making its presence felt in the literary galleries. Dalit writers of the
day are giving a clarion call for a new value system that can keep humanity intact and integrated. The struggle
for human dignity and self-respect is the predominating subject in Dalit literature which the primary sources
of modernity. The human dignity could not be attained only through fulfillment of social and economic
equality. Citizenship is the pre-requisite in democracy for its functioning. It is negated due to its casteist nature
in case of Dalits.
The vibrancy, variety and ideological commitment to Ambedkarism are reflected in the Dalit writings. The
emergence and growth of Dalit movement and literature varies from region to region. Dalit literature has
become a central point of the Indian literature and has encompassed a style and form that possesses a distinct
identity. Now, Dalit writers are not only in a position to represent their own lives but with creation of a new
Dalit critical discourse, they are also in a position to assess the representation of their lives. The main objective
of this literature is to sensitise the society and break thousand years silence of literature. It is a globalized
phenomenon and therefore, one should not differentiate the social and economic globalization. Dalit writers,
thus, have created their own images in all the Indian languages including Urdu. ‘Dalit literature has its bright
future as it makes our society largely integrated and promotes cooperation and love. Its philosophy is to bring
the Dalits in equation with others which will only be possible if they fill themselves proud and confident. The
main aim this literature is to fight against the system and not against men. A new form expression and new
horizons of experiences are explored in the form of counter literary movements. Dalit literature has its roots
in all what is counter to the hegemonic, totalitarian and Unitarian. Dalit literature would tell us about the
cultural conflict of the society, economically and culturally deprived and disadvantaged group of people. So
this literature is revolutionary, didactic and doctrinaire. But as Arjun Dangle has rightly said in ‘Poisioned
Bread’ it wouldn’t play the role of a separatist but an integrationist. Dalit literature is the symbol of Dalit
identity. It is the literature more for life than for art. Dalit literature is a journey from mainstream literature to
marginal literature, from grand narrative to little narrative, from individual identity to group identity, from
ideal to real, from vertical literature to spiral literature, from self-justification to self-affirmation. It questions
the mainstream literary theories and explores the neglected aspects of life. The contribution of dalit literature
has been immense as it effectively threatened the brahminic hegemony from literature conscentised Dalit
masses for assertion, protest and mobilization. It should guide Dalit politics. It is truly a pan-Indian literature.
It can open-up a new globe for those who want to live with freedom and respect. Just as the Russian writers
helped the revolution by spreading Lenin’s revolutionary ideas, Dalit writers have spread Ambedkar’s
philosophy to the villages. Dr. M.N. Wankhede asserts that the pens of Dalit writers are ready as levers to lift
the people’s democracy out of the mud of anarchy. ‘ Dalit literature is a journey from mainstream literature to
marginal literature, from grand narrative to little narrative, from individual identity to group identity, from
ideal to real, from vertical literature to spiral literature, from self-justification to self-affirmation. This is the
celebration of difference.’ Rajendra Yadav is very apt in his remark that ‘the 21st. century will belong to Dalit
literature’. Thus, 21st century should not only be proud of the revolution of technologies; rather, it should win
over yesterday’s man made evils. Hence, Ambedkarism, and Dalitism through the Dalit literary discourse;
certainly establish a ‘Blue world’ under the ‘Blue sky’.
Notes:
Archana, J.V.R. ‘Dalit Literature vis-a-vis African-American literature: An overview’ Dalit movement and
literature, B.Krishnaiah (ed.). Prestige, New Delhi, 2011, PP. 241-251.
Aston, N.M.(Ed.) ‘ Literature of Marginality: Dalit Literature and African- American Literature’, Prestige
Books, New Delhi, 2001.
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Bagul, Baburao. “Mother” Poisoned Bread Ed. Arjun Dangle. Orient Longman, Bombay: 1992. pp.183-190.
Chatterjee, Debi. Dalits Right/ Human Rights, Rawat Publications, Jaipur, 2011.
Dasan, M. ‘Dalit Movement and Literature in the Post- Ambedkar Era: Emerging Issues and Challenges’ in
Dalit Movement and Literature: Emerging Issues and Challenges, B. Krishnaiah, Prestige Books
International, New Delhi, 2011, pp. 15-27.
Gupta. Ramanika (Ed), Dalit Chetna: Sahitya, Navalekhan Prakashan, Hajaribagh, 1996.
Ilaiah,Kancha, Why I am not Hindu, Calcutta, Samya Publication, 1996.
Kapoor, S.D. Dalits and African Americans: A Study in Comparison. New Delhi: Kalpaz
Publications, 2004.
Kumar, Y. Mani, “ Dalit Literature: ‘ The First Voice’ in Mainstream Literature.” Exploring Fourth World
Literatures: Tribals, Adivasis, Dalits, Vol.2, Raja Sekhar Patteti(Ed.), Prestige Books, New Delhi, 2011, pp.
260-266.
Limbale, Sharankumar. Towards an Aesthetic of Dalit Literature, Orient longman, 2004.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. 1987. New York: Vintage International, 2004.
____________. The Bluest Eye. New York: Plume, 1994.
Patteti, Raja.Sekhar. ‘Towards Understanding Academic Silence: Ambedkar and Critical Theory,’ Exploring
Fourth World Literatures: Tribals, Adivasis, Dalits, Vol.1, Raja Sekhar Patteti(Ed.), Prestige Books, New Delhi,
2011, pp. 403-414.
Punalekar, S.P. ‘The scope of Dalit literature’, Poisioned Bread (Ed.) of Arjun Dangle, Orient Longman, 1992.
Prasad,A & Gaijan,M.B.(Eds.), Dalit Literature: A Critical Exploration. Samp& Sons, New Delhi-2
Rai, Amod Kumar. ‘Dalit Literature: Origin, Nature, Definition and Scope’ Dalit Literature: challenges &
Potentialities, K. Singh, A.K.Rai & J.Yadav(Eds.) Creative Books, New Delhi,2009, pp,39-45.
Roy, Arundhati, The God of small things, New Delhi, India Ink,1997
Spivak,Gayatri Chakravorty. ‘Can the subaltern speak?’ Marxism and the Interpretation of culture.(Ed.) Cary
Nelson and Lowrence Grossberge, Urbana and Chicago University of Illinois Press,1988, pp.271-313.
Trivedi,D. Dalit aesthetics. Prasad,A & Gaijan,M.B.(Eds.), Dalit Literature: A Critical Exploration. Samp&
Sons, New Delhi-2
Thorat, Sukdeo. ‘ The Self-Relective Examination of the Fourth World.’ Exploring Fourth World Literatures:
Tribals, Adivasis, Dalits, Vol.1, Raja Sekhar Patteti(Ed.), Prestige Books, New Delhi, 2011, pp.26-33.
Valmiki. Omprakash, Dalit Sahitya ka soundara sastra, Radhakrishna Prakashan Delhi, 2001.
Zelliot, Eleanor, ‘Dalit Sahitya: The Historical Background’ An anthology of Dalit Literature, Mulkraj Anand
and E. Zelliot,(Eds.) Gyan Publication, New Delhi,1992, pp. 18-19.
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PACALI-S: NATURE, ROLE AND TRANSLATION
Averi Saha
Ever since I can remember, I have seen my grandmother reciting the pāc̃ ālī in a sing-song tune every Thursday
evening just after the Laksmi puja. It is even now, my mother as well as my mother-in-law does the same in
keeping with tradition. Therefore, pāc̃ ālī is a living Bengali tradition in the form of a slim volume of anecdotal
narratives, extolling divinities in the classical Hindu pantheon as well as those in the folk communities. It is
meant to be recited as the culminating ritual in a vedic ceremony or ‘puja’ to propitiate the concerned deity.
Among the devoutly religious, both educated and uneducated, rich or poor, both in urban and rural areas,
pāc̃ ālī-s have long replaced the classical scriptural texts and enjoy the acceptability of oracles. Though pāc̃ ālī-s
are not accepted within the literary canon, the impact that these texts have on the foundations of social
institutions even in modern times is worth exploring. Recent studies in literature have been dominated by
unorthodox, decentralisation of issues and texts. The peripheral is being constantly drawn towards the centre
and the pāc̃ ālī is just such a marginal, non-canonical text vying for attention.
Though popular in Bengal, pāc̃ ālī-s do have a pan-Indian presence too. They are also popular as kathā-s or
vrat-kathā-s and chālisā-s in various parts of the nation. But a discussion on the nature and role of
pāc̃ ālī-s cannot be restricted to their present day textual forms. They have a complex history. Pāc̃ ālī-s primarily
served the purposes of entertainment. It was a crude dramatisation of any significant episode from a sacred
text. There was one principal performer on stage who would mono-act and also recite, sing and dance. In due
course, more performers joined in and they would sing, recite and act on the stage alternately in the
accompaniment of drums, gongs, cymbals and anklet bells (ghungroos). With reference to the rich art of
story-telling prevalent in southern India, pāc̃ ālī-s can be understood as a cross between the villu-pattu and the
kathākālakshepa traditions. They are folk narratives that were meant for performance like the villu-pattu
and their theme varied from popular to epic, social to religious. Till the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
pāc̃ ālī-s were anonymous. But in the seventeenth century, pāc̃ ālī-s began to be composed by individual authors
with distinguished marks of their authorship. The themes were still derived from the sacred texts, but the text
bore the author's name with subtle and notable alterations in the source text to make them more
entertaining. Thematically, classical narratives still exercised a monopoly but gradually elements of folk life
began to creep in. In the mid nineteenth century, secular pāc̃ ālī-s were also composed on social issues like
widow-remarriage and prevention of Sati to generate awareness but they have fallen into oblivion as far as
their popularity is concerned. However, these secular pāc̃ ālī-s have brought-about a significant change in the
modern form of pāc̃ ālī-s i.e. they first introduced the propagandist motive in these texts.
Pāc̃ ālī-s serve as interesting study in the area of folk literature and theories. As they are extremely complex in
their origin, nature and role, it is worthwhile to ask if they are ‘folk’ texts at all. If folkloristic theories should
dictate social preferences, then they are not ‘folk’ at all. Traditionally, folklore is believed to originate in the oral
tradition. They should have been sung by members of a folk group since unrecorded time. True folklore
should be spontaneous in expression without any conscious effort whatsoever. William Thoms who coined
the term ‘folklore’ in 1846 enumerates everything from “manners, customs, observances, superstitions,
ballads, proverbs, etc.” (Thoms,1846) under the heading ‘folklore’ (William Thoms, using the name
Ambrose Merton wrote a letter to The Athenaeum in which he proposed the term ‘folklore’). William
Bascom, redefined it conveniently in 1953 and said that folklore is “a part of culture but not the whole of it...
All folklore is orally transmitted but not all that is orally transmitted is folklore.” (Bascom,1953). It includes
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only myths, legends, tales, proverbs, riddles, the texts of ballads and other songs, and other forms of lesser
importance, but not folk art, folk dance, folk music and so forth.
Thus, being in the oral tradition is deemed an important criterion for true folklore. Modern scholars like
Richard Mercer Dorson and Alan Dundes also admit this pre-qualification but Dundes also accepts the
problems of stressing on oral tradition in this age of printing and multimedia. Alan Dundes introduces
another more significant essential trait of true folklore and that is — spontaneity. Dundes states,
Self-consciously produced materials would be literary or popular
rather than folk …. Sometimes original folklore materials
are borrowed by individual writers …. The results should be
called ‘art based on folklore’.(Dundes,1990)
This “art based on folklore” is sometimes purposely presented or mistakenly believed to be folklore itself.
Richard M. Dorson is most famous for his attack on such distorted folk material. He coined the neologism
‘fakelore’ to demarcate such fake folklore. He explicitly defined fakelore as,
… the presentation of spurious and synthetic writings under the
claim that they are genuine folklore. These productions are
not collected in the field but are rewritten from earlier literary
or journalistic sources in an endless chain of regurgitation....
(Dorson,1976)
Dorson also drew a clear distinction "between properly documented oral folklore, collected directly in the
field from the tellers and singers of folksongs, and the rewritten saccharine versions of fakelore."5 Dorson
singled out the Paul Bunyan 'legends' and the treasuries of Ben Botkin as fakelores.
So, where do we place the pāc̃ ālī-s? Let us first discuss the text of the most popular of the pāc̃ ālī-s in Bengal,
the Laksm
̩ īr Pāc̃ ālī. Laksm
̩ īr Pāc̃ ālī is composed in the glory of goddess Laksmi. In Hindu mythology,
Laksmi is the goddess wealth and prosperity. In an agrarian society wealth is derived principally from
crops and crops are begotten from fertile land. Therefore, Laksmi is worshipped as the goddess of
vegetation, land and fertility. As the goddess of sustenance, Laksmi is the most revered goddess in Bengali
households and her pāc̃ ālī is the most popular of all such prevalent texts. Laksmi, as the consort of Visnu, is
also regarded as an embodiment of feminine virtues like modesty, patience, chastity and self-sacrifice. All
women in Bengali households, specially married women, are expected to mould themselves unto the image of
Laksmi, the archetypal figure of womanhood. It is, therefore, not difficult to understand that reverence to this
goddess serves multiple interests in favour of a caste-divided patriarchal society.
There are various versions of the Laksm
̩ īr Pāc̃ ālī and all the versions begin with the goddess conversing
with her Lord in their heavenly abode, Baikuntha. The twain present a picture of perfect marital bliss. This
picture assures a Laksmi-like blissful matrimony to the unaware readers, only if one is able to cast oneself in
the ideals of Laksmi. She is the supreme satī and patibratā, the ultimately virtuous and faithful. Whoever fails
to keep to these ideals is considered asatī or unchaste and alaksmī or inauspicious. All the Pāc̃ ālī-s operate on
this scale and accordingly dictate the norms to believing, devout women.
The text rolls into action as Nārad , the divine sage, appears with news of erring and suffering humanity from
the world below. He prays for a remedy to Laksmi, the universal mother.
O Mother, on earth there's no trace of happiness
Nations are being ruined by fraternal quarrels
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Diseases and ailments have stricken this age of kali
Everyone is bewailing this state of agony
Poverty has driven men to commit suicide
Or to migrate, wives and sons deserted.
(Translation mine from
Shyamlal,n.d. 4)
Now for the causes that Laksmi enlists for these sufferings. The universal mother, blames only the women for
the troubles of entire humanity. It is for the faithless and extrovert women that men, women and children are
suffering alike. The wrathful goddess pronounces:
It is sad to hear of human distress
But listen, it results from their own offence
...
Women talk and laugh in a voice so strident
They sleep unresponsive at twilight and sunset
Kindness, benignity, coyness they know not
They wander aimlessly without any consent.
(Translation mine from
Shyamlal,n.d. 4)
She further adds:
Fathers and mothers-in-law are seldom revered
Harsh and rude words for them are reserved
No respect is shown to husband's kin
Independence and separation are all they seek
...
Women sulk at guests, hospitality, service
Dine before their husbands and are remorseless,
She disrespects her husband, listens not to him
She has renounced the kitchen and all housekeeping. (Translation mine
from Shyamlal, n.d. 5)
Why this over-emphasis on the woman’s role of a house-keeper, a caregiver? For an answer to this, we need to
ascertain the age in which the text was written. The same volume by Shyamlal Bhattacharya from which the
above quotations are taken also preaches the principles of the Swadeshi Movenent through the pāc̃ ālī-s.
Latter in the text he writes:
Think of your country's state
And serve it by spinning the thread. (Translation mine from Shyamlal,
n.d.8 )
This proves two points. First, this text is composed in the early decades of the twentieth century when the
Swadeshi Movement rocked the nation. Second, pāc̃ ālī-s were already popular as convenient modes of
propaganda. Therefore, the highlighting of domestic duties were perhaps also done to serve the propagandist
motive. Documents from nineteenth and twentieth century Bengal have shed some light on what necessitated
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this propaganda. Ṡarat´kumārī Coudhurāni, a nineteenth century author, in her essay “Our Times
and Women of Our Times” published in the journal Bhārati O Bālak, observes about her own age that
men in her times had grown very dissatisfied with contemporary women. They complained that women had
grown lazy and luxurious and that they whiled away their time reading novels and knitting carpets. On account
of excessive rest, women developed multiple medical complications and had turned into a money-wasting
apparatus. All the hard-earned money was being spent on doctors, medicines and on servants and maids.
Children were losing their health and character on account of being reared by maids. So, it was the woman
who had brought misery upon their family and society.
This exactly echoes the account in the pāc̃ ālī-s! It may not be too erroneous to conclude that the pāc̃ ālī-s were
recomposed to carry the voice of patriarchy into the innermost recesses of the Bengali household. The
renaissance brought about by English enlightenment had touched all spheres of life, especially in the urban
areas. The erstwhile illiterate submissive Bengali maidens and housewives had begun to think independently.
Knowledge empowered them with a confidence hitherto unseen in Bengali women. Empowerment of
women inevitably loosens the hold of patriarchy. In a bid to restore order and thwart further infringement of
foreign values on native women, perhaps it became necessary to remould the pāc̃ ālī-s and exercise control
through religious dictates. More overt attempts at exercising control are also found in the texts. An anonymous
version of the pāc̃ ālī records:
Shoe-wearing, side-parting are too ominous
Rare is it to find women truly virtuous. (Translation mine)
What we find is while self-aware, non-conformist women are warned with dire consequences, female
helplessness, submission and coyness are glamourised and encouraged. As Simone de Beauvoir comments,
“for man, woman personifies his dream.” (Beauvoir, 1971) Gilbert and Gubar have also maintained that a
woman can only exist as “male defined masks and costumes” (Gilbert and Gubar,1979) and that is exactly
what the pāc̃ ālī-s are trying to do. The list of ‘do’s and ‘dont’s aim at psychologically conditioning women not
only as homemakers but also as compliant subordinates. Thus any form of female liberation is answered with
utter dissatisfaction. An earnest attempt is made in the pāc̃ ālī-s to reinforce the importance of humility,
modesty and coyness among the womenfolk. Modesty and coyness mark submission and are sly weapons
to suppress all rebellion.
Having stated the basic tenets of folkloristic theories and also the basic nature and role of the pāc̃ ālī-s, the
problem that returns to haunt us is can we call pāc̃ ālī-s to be folklores? Going by the definitions, we cannot.
pāc̃ ālī-s are commercially produced scripts for performance and hence do not have even a trickle of oral
tradition. Therefore, they are not spontaneous either. But the issue becomes problematised when we consider
that it is not the theoretician but the folk themselves who decide their lore. It often happens that a selfconsciously produced composite text is unconsciously accepted by a folk group and it gradually goes into the
folk tradition. In such cases fake lore becomes folklore! This is also the case with pāc̃ ālī-s. Though they are
synthetic or composite texts, they have been very naturally and willingly accepted by the folk of Bengal. We
have no other way but to concur with Prof. Dundes who has already wisely commented that such conscious
manipulation of texts is actually a part of the growing tendency among people to actively mould
their cultures, instead of simply being passively moulded by them.
Notes:
Bascom, William. "Folklore and Anthropology." Journal of American Folklore 66 (1953): 283.
Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Translated by H. M. Parshiey. New York: Knopf, 1971.
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Bhatt̩ ̩ācāryya, Śyām'lāl. Sri Sri Laks̩mīdebīr Bratakathā O Pāc̃ ālī. Kol'kātā: Ādarśa
Pustakālay, n.d.
Coudhurāni, Śarat'kumarī. “E Kāl O E Kāler Meye”. Bhāratī O Bālak. Jan.1891.
Bangadarpan̩. Ed. Pabitra Sar'kār.Vol.2. Kol'kātā: Third Millennium Committee, 2003.
Dorson, Richard Mercer. Folklore and Fake Lore. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976.
Dundes, Alan. Essays in Folklore Theory and Method. Chennai: Cre-A:,1990.
Gilbert, Sandra and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the
Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979
Merton, Ambrose. Letter. The Athenaeum 982 (1846): 62-63.
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SIDEWISE IN TIME: SALMAN RUSHDIE’S GROUND
BENEATH HER FEET AS UCHRONIA
Greeshma Peethambaran
What if the British did not leave India in 1947? What if the Mughals continued to rule the country even now?
When an imaginative writer is struck by questions of this sort, naturally the answer could be in the form of a
work of art. With a bibliographic list of over 3100 published creative works and the list still swelling, the
genre of Uchronia, simply stated, is the description or discussion of an historical "what if" with some
speculation about a different result as consequence. This may perhaps comprise the entire plotline of a novel,
(e.g., Robert Sobel's For Want of a Nail... or Peter G. Tsouras's Gettysburg: An Alternate History) or limited to its
sketchy background. Other names by which the form is known include alternative history, allohistory,
counterfactuals, if-worlds, uchronia and uchronie, parallel worlds and what-if stories. The most common
themes in alternate history are "What if the Nazis won World War II?" and "What If the Confederacy won the
Civil War?", but alternate Napoleons, Roman Empires, and Kennedys are also equally popular subjects.
The form takes its name, a neologism from the word utopia (Greek u-topos not-land), replacing topos with
chronos (time), from the title of Charles Renouvier’s 1876 novel Uchronie, an apocryphal sketch of the
development of European civilization not as it was, but as it might have been.
A difference often pointed out between Uchronia and Alternate History is that Uchronic times are not easily
defined, often distant or unspecified reminiscent of a constructed world. Paul Di Filippo, however, use the
two terms indiscriminately. Stories written of near futures may perhaps sound like alternate histories because
the dates mentioned have since passed by. Such stories may have been originally written as guesses of the
future or as warnings of an impending crisis. But the authors' intention in the case of such works is not the
creation of alternate history and so they cannot be called so. They are "retroactive alternate history" works,
and John Hackett's 1978 novel The Third World War: August 1985, is a case in point.
Alternate history fiction is also often confused with "secret history" or "hidden history" which reveals
something we know about the past as incorrect. The important point of difference between the two is that in a
secret history, the present is still the present, while in an allo-historical world, it probably would not.
More subtle is the "generic" historical novel, which may present a somewhat altered version of events,
typically one in which a fictional character is present at or active in some great event. Additionally, the author
of an historical novel might shift events around in time in order to heighten the drama of the story. Classic
examples of this type of novel are Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers and its sequels, in which four
dashing heroes play important roles in the history of 17th century France.
Also akin to alternate histories is "personal alternate history" or "micro alternate history", stories in which
fictional characters see how their lives might otherwise have occurred. Examples include Alan Brennert's
novel Time and Chance in which Richard and Rick, separated by time and chance discover the “road not
taken”. However, the alterations in these stories are usually limited to the lives of the authors' own fictional
creations and do not affect the external world. Consequently, they are generally not considered alternate
histories. An only exception in which such "reliving" does change history, is Ken Grim wood’s Replay, a
modern fantasy in which a fatal heart attack returns forty-three-year-old Jeff Winston to his eighteen-year-old
body in 1963, and, with his memory of the next twenty-five years intact and the freedom to change his actions,
he begins to live his life over again.
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There is also what is frequently called the "alternate world", "parallel world" or "secondary world" story. These
are tales in which historical cultures of our world are re-cast so that the author may manipulate the reader's
sense of familiarity. They may seem to use the trappings of alternate history, but these works are not set on
Earth at all and so, again, cannot be considered alternate history. Examples include the fantasies of Guy
Gavriel Kay.
Alternate history may appear in novels, short stories, scholarly essays, comic books, movies, television shows,
plays and elsewhere. But usual discussions of the genre limit discussion to alternative history in printed form.
The majority of alternate history is written as deliberate fiction characterized by psychically omniscient
narration. Jhumpa Lahiri comments:
Fiction is an act of willfulness, a deliberate effort to (p)reconceive, to (p)rearrange, to (p)reconstitute nothing
short of reality itself. Even among the most reluctant and doubtful of writers, this willfulness must emerge.
Being a writer means taking the leap from listening to saying, ‘Listen to me.’
As such, it is most often science fiction, though one can find examples in other genres, including horror,
mystery, historical non-fiction, historical fiction, children's and young-adult fiction, and "mainstream" fiction.
The term "alternative history" may also be used in non-fiction to describe a work which provides a different
interpretation (or "spin") of actual events than is commonly understood. This is not alternate history as
discussed here.
Beginning in Bombay in the fifties, moving to London in the sixties, and New York for the last quarter century,
Rushdie’s sixth novel The Ground Beneath Her Feet pulsates with a half-century of the high-octave world of
rock 'n' roll. Described by Toni Morrison as "a global novel", it is a literary variant of the Orpheus-Eurydice
Greek myth with rock music replacing Orpheus' lyre, provides alternate history to the entire 1950s-1990s, a
time-span of phenomenal rock music growth, as backdrop to its core concern of the love of two men Ormus
Cama and Umeed "Rai" Merchant, for the same woman, Vina Apsara, The minor characters of the story are
perhaps so interesting and important as the protagonists, as they provide the most vivid portraits of the
cultures and background that come into play in the story. The book sets itself within the wide frame of
Western and post-colonial culture, through the multilingualism of its characters, the mixture of East and West
and the great number of references to Greek mythology, European philosophy and contemporaries such as
Milan Kundera and stars of rock'n roll.
The Orpheus and Eurydice myth, the narrative arc of the novel, however makes lousy showbiz because it has
the unhappy ending of the failure of Orpheus's attempted rescue of his lover from Hades. He lives out the
remainder of his days disconsolate, and is ultimately torn to pieces by a group of maenads, the crazed female
devotees of the god Dionysius. In the novel however Rushdie contrives a happy ending of sorts without
straying too far from the narrative trajectory of the original Orpheus legend.
The character of Ormus Cama seems to be undeniably inspired by John Lennon, the world renowned
English musician and one of the founding members of The Beatles and Elvis Presley, the American singer
and cultural icon often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll", both of the twentieth century. While
Lennon appears in the book as a separate character, several of Ormus' traits (especially his love of making
bread at home) seem to be inspired from him. Ormus' death - by a close range small pistol shot just outside his
apartment, is also very similar to Lennon's. Even in their last words they are similar. Asked by a police officer if
he knew who he was on the way to the hospital, Lennon replied “yes”. Asked the same question, Ormus's last
words were "Yes. Yes, mother, I know". In his birth Ormus resembled Elvis who had a twin brother born
dead. Rushdie gives Ormus, Elvis’s physical traits too, particularly the erotic power of his pelvic gyrations.
Ormus Cama seems also to be loosely based on Freddie Mercury, a famous Parsi rock star. Ormus's Eurydice
(and lead singer) is Vina Apsara, the daughter of a Greek American woman and an Indian father who
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abandoned the family. What these two shares, besides amazing musical talent, is a decidedly twisted family life:
Ormus's twin brother died at birth and communicates to him from "the other side"; his older brothers, also
twins, are, respectively, brain-damaged and a serial killer. Vina, on the other hand, grew up in rural West
Virginia where she returned home one day to find her stepfather and sisters shot to death and her mother
hanging from a rafter in the barn. No wonder these two believe they were made for each other. The ground
shifts repeatedly beneath the reader's feet during the riff on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth.
Narrated by Rai Merchant, a childhood friend of both Vina and Ormus, The Ground Beneath Her Feet begins
with a terrible earthquake in 1989 that swallows Vina whole, then moves back in time to chronicle the tangled
histories of all the main characters and a host of minor ones. Rushdie's canvas is huge, stretching from India to
London, then to New York and beyond -- and there's plenty of room for him to punctuate this epic tale with
pointed commentary on his own situation: Muslim-born Rai, for example, remarks that "my parents gave me
the gift of irreligion, of growing up without bothering to ask people what gods they held dear.... You may
argue that the gift was a poisoned chalice, but even if so, that's a cup from which I'd happily drink again." (72)
If rock 'n' roll is America's gift to the whole world, then The Ground Beneath Her Feet is Salman Rushdie's gift
to America in return. His first novel to be set largely in the United States, it's a celebration of Americana, a
brilliant examination of what the world means to America, and what America means to the world. It is the
story of Vina Apsara, a famous and much-loved singer who becomes invisible to all human eye balls caught
up in a devastating earthquake, and that of Ormus Cama, the lover who finds, loses, seeks and again finds her,
over and over, throughout his own extraordinary life in music. The novel tells the story of a love that extends
across their entire lives, and even beyond death. Their epic romance stretches from the cosmopolitan Bombay
of the 1950s, through the vibrant London scene of the '60s, to the last quarter-century of intense, frenzied
and crucial New York life. Around these three, the uncertain world itself is beginning to tremble and break.
Cracks and tears have begun to appear in the fabric of the real. There are glimpses of abysses below the
surfaces of things. In the words of one of Ormus Cama's songs: “It shouldn't be this way”.
Though this is a book clearly set in a parallel universe, and the fact is completely incidental to the story, the
novel changes a few historical facts to make the story work better. It is in this sense that The Ground Beneath
Her Feet acquires the status of alternate history. The novel makes use of a number of historic distortions, or
several untrue historic "facts" in the setting of the novel. American president John F. Kennedy survives the
Dallas assassination but is shot alongside his brother Robert Kennedy later on. The Watergate scandal is
represented as a novel starring a fictional president Richard Nixon. Rushdie also deliberately mis-credits some
classic rock songs, such as The Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", which he credits to John
Lennon, or Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman" which he credits to The Kinks. The character named Jesse Garon
Parker represents Elvis Presley in every way, while The Who is presented under their original name The High
Numbers. In his description of the contribution of Vina's voice to the duet, he compares it to that of
Guinevere Garfunkel to Carly Simon's Bridge over Troubled Waters, where the names of the singers hint at
Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon.
Rushdie brings into the focus of the novel a few universal themes; the most notable of them are the
estrangement from India, “the goddess vs. property” conceptualization of women (486) and the dualistic
themes like doubles, twins, doppelgangers and mirror images. India represented in the novel is alternately
protagonist and antagonistic, sometimes driving away the main characters, but also sometimes reeling them
back in. Wherever they flee, India is a reality they will never escape. In this novel, Rushdie examines in some
depth the concept of detachment from the East i.e. "disorientation". Rushdie's novels in general are
noteworthy for the remarkable power women harness. This novel is no exception. Reminiscent of
Kawabata's "The House of Sleeping Beauties", the woman becomes "an empty receptacle, an arena of
discourse, and we can invent her in our own image, as once we invented god" (485). The male characters pour
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their entire selves into women like Vina or the Florentine enchantress, women whom they idolize. In this case,
Vina becomes that "empty receptacle" for Ormus' and Rai's hopes, failures, desires, passions, expectations,
shortcomings, disappointments, neuroses, etc., just as the sleeping beauties do for the old men in Kawabata's
story. In fact, it is not just Ormus and Rai who use Vina this way -- the entire world, captivated by her singing
and a typical candor in the press makes Vina its "empty receptacle". Even in death, she continues to function as
the tabula rasa for various therapists, religious gurus, theorists, philosophers, and pundits -- all of whom seek
both to derive greater meaning and profit from her untimely death.
The final chapters of the novel are densely populated with Vina lookalikes and impostors. Ormus is haunted
by his dead twin brother, Gayomart, who offers him visions of songs yet to be written and glimpses into
alternate realities that torment him to no end, ultimately driving him mad. Mirror imagery throughout the
story reinforces these dualistic themes.
In sum, this is the story of a very flawed, human love, something the narrative tells us explicitly. Ormus and
Vina hurt many people throughout the course of their stormy on-again-off-again courtship -- perhaps
themselves most of all. Rai is the only character who escapes the destructive triangle, emerging not only with
life and limb, but with a tamer and more humane version of Vina (Mira Celano). He achieves happiness with
Mira that he could not with Vina. While Vina shunned the notions of fidelity and marriage, Mira craves them.
And, perhaps most importantly, he does not have to share her body and soul with Ormus Cama.
The Ground Beneath Her Feet is Salman Rushdie's boldest imaginative act too, a re-imagining of our shaken,
mutating times, an account of the intimate, flawed encounter between the East and the West, a stunning "remake" of the myth of Orpheus, a novel of high (and low) comedy, high (and low) passions, high (and low)
culture. It is a classic tale of love, death and rock 'n' roll, the most ambitious and accomplished Rushdie novel,
sure to be hailed as his masterpiece in future, if not today.
Notes:
Brenner, Alan. Time and Chance New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2011.
Dozois, Gardner; Stanley Schmidt. Roads Not Taken: Tales of Alternate History. New York: Del Rey, 1998.
Grimwood, Ken. Replay. New York: Harper Collins, 1998.
Hackett, John .The Third World War: August 1985, London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1982.
Lahiri, Jhumpa. “Trading Stories: Notes from an Apprenticeship”. New Yorker, 6/11/2011.
McKnight, Edgar Vernon, Jr. Alternative History: The Development of a Literary Genre. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina, 1994.
Prucher, Jeff. Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction. London: Oxford University
Press, 2007.
Renouvier, Charles. Uchronie. Les Mesnuls: Nomade Store Europe, 1876, 1988 (rpt).
Robert Cowley (ed.), What If? Military historians imagine what might have been. Pan Books, 1999.
Rushdie, Salman. Ground Beneath Her Feet. New Delhi: Vintage, 2000.
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MULTICULTURAL SENSIBILITY IN JHUMPA
LAHIRI’S FICTION
Dr. Jyoti Patil
In the last two decades, Multiculturalism has moved from a contested term to a largely accepted set of
practices in many institutions including universities, other schools, corporations, the fashion industry, and
media conglomerates. Despite its growth there has been no agreement on what multiculturalism actually is,
how to enact it, or what to expect from it. For some feminists such as Angela Davis, multiculturalism has
become a tool for corporate diversity management, a way to ‘suppress conflict’ among a ‘racially, ethnically,
and culturally heterogeneous workforce.’ The term ‘Multiculturalism’ generally refers to a de facto state of
both cultural and ethnic diversity within the demographics of a particular social space. Over the past decade or
more many Indian writers
who were born in India and write in English includes Anita Desai, Amitav
Ghosh, Rohinton Mistry, Vikram Chandra, Bharati Mukherjee, and Anjana Appachana who are all first
generation immigrants writing in a multicultural context and evolving their own cultural identity and
sensibility, distinct and inextricably related to their cultural roots.
The emergence of second-generation writers of Indian origin in America, Canada and England etc. in recent
years has been a defining moment in literary circles in those lands as well as in India. This body of writers is
radically different from that of the first generation expatriate Indian writers in its attitude and relationship
with both, the country of their adoption and the country of their origin. This naturally calls for a different set
of criteria for their evaluation. Shaped by the values of the country of their birth, their thinking and their way
of life should itself to be at variance with those of their parents. Similarly their bond with India is
correspondingly thin and indirect. However their bi-cultural background would produce a relationship with
the two countries that is intriguing. Since this body of writing by American nationals of Indian origin set in a
multicultural context, is evolving its own cultural identity and sensibility, distinct and inextricably related to
their cultural roots, it also becomes necessary to look upon it as such without forcibly dragging it under the
rubric of Indian Writing in English. An American writer of Chinese or Japanese origin can not be examined
with the same canon and criteria as those that help us approach a Chitra Divakaruni, a Bipsi Sidhwa, a Jhumpa
Lahiri, a Kiran Desai and so on. Author Judith Caesar reasons that, “Americans can learn about themselves
and create a richer system of values as a result of encountering the other foreign customs and ways of thinking
of the Indian characters, sometimes without even fully realizing what they have come to understand or the
opportunity they have missed.” (Ceasar, 2003:82)
Jhumpa Lahiri, being a second generation immigrant sees India through an American eye by allowing
mainstream US culture to discover itself through its encounter with the new immigrants on its soil. Jhumpa
Lahiri’s nine stories in her collection, Interpreter of Maladies and her novel The Namesake, by and large, deal
with Indians settled abroad negotiating between two cultures with varying degrees of success, their attitudes,
their concerns and their life styles. Set in Bengal and Boston the stories concern themselves predominantly
with social preoccupations like cultural multiplicity, identity crisis, love-marriage, breakdown of marriage,
extra-marital affairs, old age, illness, poverty, and human relationships. She has shown extraordinary depth of
the cross-cultural experiences in her fiction. There is a greater appeal behind Lahiri's writing. This writer
allows mainstream U.S. culture to discover itself afresh through its encounter with the new immigrants on its
soil. Her recent contribution An Unaccustomed Earth a collection of eight short stories, Jhumpa Lahiri
continues to explore this theme, but this time with a focus on the lives of second generation immigrants who
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must navigate both the traditional values of their immigrant parents and the mainstream American values of
their peers.
The absorption of the stream of immigrants became, in itself, a prominent feature of America’s national
myth. The idea of ‘melting pot’ is a metaphor that implies that all the immigrant cultures are mixed and
amalgamated without state intervention. The melting pot implied that each individual immigrant and each
group of immigrants, assimilated into American society at their own space. Jhumpa Lahiri begins to pave a
new way of belonging to Asian America with one foot in the multicultural framework of the United States,
and another foot in the South Asian diaspora, the characters of Lahiri’s stories depicts new racial, ethnic, and
national communities. She says in Newsweek, March 6, 2006 issue:
When I first started writing I was not conscious that my subject was the Indian-American experience. What
drew me to my craft was the desire to force the two worlds I occupied to mingle on the page as I was not brave
enough, or mature enough, to allow in life. My first book was published in 1999, and around then, on the cusp
of a new century, the term ‘Indian-American’ has become part of this country's vocabulary. I've heard it so
often that these days, if asked about my background, I use the term myself, pleasantly surprised that I do not
have to explain further.
Jhumpa Lahiri skillfully deals with the intercultural miscommunications and emerges as a capable interpreter
of the emotional pain and suffering of her characters. This is the desired truth of the multicultural moment.
The dominant culture suddenly experiences the limits of its own confidence about what it knows or controls.
All the stories, in Interpreter of Maladies, deal with the modern problems of the so-called modern and
material world. In ‘A Temporary Matter’, and ‘Interpreter of Maladies’, we see a complex weaving of two
cultures and find that Lahiri still has strong ties with India, her homeland. The story of Shoba and Shukumar,
Indians living in America, deals with the dilemma of living a compromising life. The story reflects the
alienation and loneliness that the emigrants face in a foreign land. The marriage bond, which is still considered
sacrosanct in India, is gradually slithering down under the pressure of new needs under a different
background. Nevertheless, one needs another’s touch in an emotional crisis. They are trying to break the
umbilical cord with their homeland linguistically and physically, but at the psychological level they display their
Indianness. Cross-cultural outlook or attitude defines the contours of Lahiri’s concerns in most of her stories.
In these stories she juxtaposes the cultural differentia between Indian and American values and is often
oblique in appearing to look upon things from the two opposite angles conditioned by Indian and American
value structures. Typically therefore she chooses the institution of marriage as the site for her cross-cultural
discourse.
In the story, ‘Mrs. Sen's,’ we discover, in slow, poignant detail, the loneliness of a woman who knows that there
is only one Sen in the telephone book for her small East Coast town. She likes to buy fresh halibut for her fish
curry, but must wait for her busy husband to take her to the store because she herself cannot drive. Mrs. Sen is
babysitting a quiet, white American boy. Mrs. Sen explains to the puzzled boy that at home -- by which she
means Calcutta, not the room in which they are sitting -- if you raised your voice to express joy or grief, the
whole neighborhood would show up at the door in a gesture of genuine sharing. The boy is thoughtful about
this and replies that if Mrs. Sen were to scream, her neighbors "might complain that you were making too
much noise." (Lahiri, 1999:117)
Lahiri poignantly sketches the second generation’s varying comprehension of cultural roots as in ‘When Mr.
Pirzada Came to Dine’. In this story, she uses the perspective of a ten-year-old daughter of Indian immigrants
to underscore the psychological as well as the physical distance of the second generation from their parents’
land and culture. Lahiri stresses through the character of Lilia’s father the importance of understanding the
multiplicity with the larger cultural group of South Asian people, an aspect of her cultural heritage that Lilia
had not yet grasped, living in a predominantly white New England small town. The rest of the story is about
what Lilia must learn about her past and its estrangements, despite her distance from the country her parents
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left behind. Or perhaps couldn't leave behind at all. Lilia is a fine example of cultural dilemma, about which
Lahiri talks in almost all her stories.
In yet another of her stories, sexily entitled ‘Sexy,’ Lahiri spins an account of an affair between a Midwestern
white woman called Miranda and a married Indian man named Dev. We read: "Dev was Bengali, too. At first
Miranda thought it was a religion. But then he pointed it out to her, a place in India called Bengal, on a map
printed in an issue of The Economist."(Lahiri, 1999:84) Here, Lahiri speaks in the voice not of the immigrant,
but the one supposed to be less alien. In places like this, white Americans get to reveal, not without pathos,
their vulnerability because they are less equipped than the immigrant. They struggle to learn more about the
other who sometimes shares their bed. Lahiri in her fictional writing presents the Indian migrants who feel
dislocated in other countries and face cultural dilemmas.
Interpreter of Maladies ends with a short story that, told in the first-person, is a testimony of an Indian
immigrant who has spent 30 years in America. On the day of the narrator's arrival in the U.S., Nixon had
declared a national holiday because two Americans had landed on the moon. The new migrant finds lodging at
the house of an old woman, born in 1866, who keeps declaring with a fixed astonishment: "There's an
American flag on the moon, boy!”(Lahiri, 1999:179) But it is not allegiance to the U.S. flag that the immigrant
offers. Lahiri allows our elderly narrator to plant a different flag, one of memory and imagination, on the very
last page of her book: "I know that my achievement is quite ordinary. I am not the only man to seek his fortune
far away from home, and certainly I am not the first. Still there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have
traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, and each room in which I have slept. As ordinary
as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination."(Lahiri, 1999:198)
Lahiri’s novel The Namesake presents the story of the Ganguli family and its attempts to survive in a middle
class neighborhood of Boston. In fact, it is a story of human relationship with special reference to adjusting in
a foreign land. It is an immigrant tale which traces an East Indian, Bengali family’s conflicting attempts to
assimilate American ways. “After all, how does one survive in a strange land where life seems so tentative and
spare?” (Lahiri, 2003:06) “Gogol,” the name of his father’s favorite writer, goes on the birth certificate, and it
stays with him in his early school years. His parents give him a proper name, Nikhil, but it doesn’t really stick.
As he goes to college, Gogol wants to redefine himself on terms that he feels are his own rather than those that
come from his parents’ Bengali immigrant culture. In an amazing act of self-definition, which loses nothing by
the fact that it is in fact a common event, he abandons the name Gogol, and tries to become someone else. In
this review I won’t say anything further about what happens with Gogol’s attempt to rename (or find, identify)
himself which is a perfect example of multicultural milieu. Jhumpa Lahiri’s own experience as a writer echoes
Gogol’s. In her recent Charlie Rose interview, Lahiri revealed (no surprise to anyone who knows Bengali
names), that ‘Jhumpa’ is her pet name rather than her good name. Growing up in America, however, she has
chosen it as her official, public name. Asserting the name ‘Jhumpa’ in place of Nilanjana Sudeshna is at once a
misnaming and a refusal to be misnamed it is a powerful hybridizing speech act addressed to both her familialethnic community and to her American, actually global readership.
Lahiri, in this novel also presents that it is not only the Indian migrants who feels dislocated in other countries
and face cultural dilemmas, the immigrants from any culture feel the same in other dominant cultures. For
example, Graham, Moushumi’s fiancé, during his visit to Calcutta found the Bengali customs and culture
taxing and repressive as there were no drinks and he couldn’t even hold her hand on the street without
attracting snares. Hence he decided to break with Moushumi. Even Gogol and Sonia do not feel at home in
Calcutta where their parents find solace and comfort. Whereas Ashima feels sad, staring at the clouds as they
journey back to Boston, Gogol and Sonia feel relieved. Not only this, Lahiri also shows the power of the
cultural politics in the majority group of one culture. Whereas at Maxine’s house, among the Americans,
Gogol is made to feel ‘displaced’ by Pamela and then, in Gogol’s house at his father’s funeral ceremony Maxine
is made to feel alien and out of place among the Bengalis, and she is not able to understand why she was “being
excluded from the family’s plans to travel to Calcutta that summer to see their relatives and scatter Ashoke’s
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ashes in the Ganges” (Lahriri, 2003:288).
The eight stories narrated in ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ take on a journey of the world, right from Cambridge and
Seattle to India and Thailand. However, their basic essence is the same – family life. In this collection Jhumpa
Lahiri has tried to explore more about family, its relationships and the secrets that lie at its very base. The title
story of the novel revolves around Ruma, a young mother who comes to live in a new city. She is visited by her
father, who spends a considerable amount of time tending her garden. It’s only later that she comes to know
about the budding love affair that her father is hiding from her and the evidence of the affair comes from the
same garden.
In this collection there's a similar pattern of movement, but the reasons are more personal somehow—they're
reasons of family dynamics or death in the family or things like that. In this book she spends more time with
characters that are not immigrants themselves but rather the offspring of immigrants. She finds that
interesting because when you grow up the child of an immigrant you are always—or at least she was—very
conscious of what it means or might mean to be uprooted or to uproot yourself. One is conscious of that
without even having ever done it. She knew what her parents had gone through—not feeling rooted. One
thing that fascinates us about her previous stories is the way she views the marriages of people in her parents'
generation. . Her writing reveals that she “brings alive the multiple selves constructed so painstakingly to
make sense of the unknown world that is as much a land of opportunities as it is of conflicts and confusion.”
(Nayar, 2003:01)
We find that most of the first generation migrants facing cultural dilemma try their best to retain their cultural
identity and cultural practices in their beliefs, values, dressing up, eating menus and habits. These “beliefs,
traditions, customs, behaviors and values along with their possessions and belongings are carried by migrants
with them when they arrive in new places”(Lahiri:2008) observed John McLeod. Dixits, Mrs. and Mr. Sen,
Shukumar’s mother, Lilia’s parents, Mr. Pirzada, Mr. Das’s parents, Ashima and Ashoke try to stick to the
mannerism, values and beliefs of their own culture and any clash between their concept of home and their
beliefs baffles them. In most of the second generation people these emotional links and ties with the past in
most of the matters are loosened as we see in the life styles of Shukumar and Shoba, of Mr. and Mrs. Das, of
Sanjeev and Twinkle and of Nikhil (Gogol) and Moushumi. They are alienated from Indian art and culture.
They mainly go by American style in eating and living habits. Their marital relations get strained.
Thus, in her fiction Jhumpa Lahiri delicately explores the complexities inherent in the formation of multicultural identity for the second generation of immigrant families in the United States. She underscores the
unique situation of this generation of South Asian Americans, equally at home and homeless; they must
navigate the cultural borderlands between the United States and South Asia and consciously examine their
cultural inheritance.
Notes:
Ceasar, Judith. “Beyond Cultural Identity in Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine’”. North
Dakota Quarterly, 2003 Winter, 70 (1) :P.82 Print
Lahiri, Jhumpa. Interpreter of Maladies. New Delhi: Harper Collins Publishers India Pvt. Ltd. 1999. P.
117,84,179,198 Print
____________. The Namesake. New York: Houghton Miffin 2003 P. 06,288.Print
Nayar, Aruti ; ‘A Story Told with Sensitivity and Subtlety’ (A review) Sunday Tribune, Oct. 5, 2003, P.1 Print
McLeod, John; Beginning Post-Colonialism, New York: Manchester U P, 2000 Print
Lahiri, Jhumpa. Unaccustomed Earth. United States: Alfred A Knopf, Apl 2008 Print
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A POSTCOLONIAL READING OF SHOBHAA DE’S
NOVELS
Dr. Babita Das (Deka)
Postcolonial literature is an assertion cultural nationalism, of voices unheard so long, the voice of people who
were formerly underdogs. Thus, it is a literature of the formerly colonised segments, of the blacks, of the
women – rising in open rebellion. This rebellion is not merely a voice against the exploitation of the colonised,
it also questions the cultures, economically and individually, despite forced subjugation. It is a continuous
process of carving a free space for themselves, by the defiant groups, in the face of outward submission.
Colonialism is that brute force that created a consciousness which encouraged and nurtured submission,
domination and exploitation. Such characteristics, penetrating deeply into the native culture and literature of
that society, resulted in various forms of retardation, reaction and inferiorization which continue to plague
their damaging roles. In the fight against this oppression, independence is sought, and the culture which had
been nearly obliterated by the colonial rule is pursued. Finally, independence is gained. The larger power no
longer wields control – post colonialism takes place. However, post - independence, certain cultural and
intellectual traits of the ruling power tends to become so firmly embedded, it tends to be accepted as a
prevalent reality. The natives have gained independence; however, they have undergone change. Their culture
has changed and they need to figure out who they are. Hence, post colonialism entails destabilising colonial
ways of thinking – thus creating space for the marginalised groups to speak and produce alternatives to
dominant discourse.
In Indian English literature, post colonialism can be termed as the continual shaking off of the old imperialist
thought and ideas leading to the emergence of a new order – a new consciousness, a new realization and
celebration. With this new awareness, comes the concept of self – expression. The Indian English novel,
having had emerged out of the colonial ferment, was shaped by the colonial/ western language and genre.
Early Indian writers had “adopted” the European form as they assumed it had universal validity. Gradually,
they “adapted” the form to suit Indian themes and perceptions. In the latter half of the twentieth century, the
novelist coming to their own, started the process of systematic decolonization, wherein they “remade” the
form to suit their own specifications to communicate the vast variety and diversity of the contemporary
Indian culture. The postcolonial trait of the usage of language in depicting the Indian essence is evident in
Shobhaa De’s indulgence in “extraordinary linguistic inventiveness” in her very frank and open hearted
narratives. She has developed the use of the curious brand of English Esperanto – “Hinglish”. Her novels are
peppered with typical Bombayite hindi phrases and slangs to convey the lingo as used by the Indians in
contemporary society. Eg. “marriage-sharriage”, “lagaoing bhav”, “handi full of biryani and dekchi full of
raita”, “your chakkar with Akshay”, “Usko line me laga do”, “OK Boss, no bakwas”, etc.
Postcolonial India is marked by an awakening of the ‘self ’. Historically, men had dominated the role of
authors. Thus, a deep rooted gender bias became a part of our textual tradition. Earlier women writers had to
face much censure as they attempted to address issues related to women. Undaunted the new writers went on
to express themselves freely on a variety of themes. Today, despite orthodox readers and critics, women
writers have become more emphatic and forceful. Inspired by the Western Feminist Movement, Indian
women writers have articulated the needs, desires and struggle of women. They have broken free of the
colonial/patriarchal enclosure to discuss issues that were considered taboo till just a few years ago. The
women authors are finally obliterating the gender bias in writing. Shobhaa De personifies the dilemma that has
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dogged Indian women writers. Her debut novel, Socialite Evenings sent shock waves throughout India. De’s
works represent the ferociously militant phase of feminine sensibility in Indian English writing. Her novels
with their revolutionary themes concerning issues related to women have heralded a new conception in the
realm of traditional thinking – thus setting the trend to invite younger generation of writers to focus on the
changing status of modern Indian women. To fulfil its intent, this paper tends to shed light on the
embodiment of postcolonial spirit that concretizes the adventures of the emancipated new woman.
Feminine discourse compares woman’s culture to colonial culture, wherein she is exploited, abused and
silenced by the masculine power. Bound and fettered with the injunctions of colonial society, women were
depicted as archetypes of powerlessness. In an endeavour to undo the distorted image of women who cry for
freedom and equality which still goes unheard in the patriarchal world, Shobhaa De turns the pattern of maledominance in society upside down. Her women revel in an uninhibited universe where the male is pushed into
a corner. Her protagonists are presented as highly sensitive women with a capacity to question accepted social
codes and then attempt to achieve a role and pattern of life that fits their expectations. In order to achieve this,
they are willing to reject traditional role models and norms laid down by the patriarchal society. Thus, De’s
women are far more assertive, domineering and bold in comparison to their male counterparts. They are
rebellious modern Indian women who challenge the orthodoxy of sexual and social taboos. Karuna in
Socialite Evenings declines to dog the traditional path of etiquette and manners. Even as a child she is defiant
both at home and at school. That her marriage is a failure is a realization that she gives voice to:
“My marriage went sour because I’d married the wrong man for the wrong reasons at the wrong time. My
husband was not a villain. He was an average Indian husband – unexciting, uninspiring, untutored…..My
friends were stuck with similar husbands.”(Socialite Evenings1989, P.65)
In society, “marriage is the destiny traditionally” offered to women. It is believed to be the aim and goal of a
woman’s life. De’s women reject this mandate. Karuna refuses a ‘good life’ as it entails a loss of individuality.
After her divorce, she rejects the idea of marriage – rather, she prefers to create her own representation. She
prefers friendship to permanent subjugation. In her novels, De’s women refuse to become the ‘colony’ of
man. To Aparna, a divorcee in Snapshots, “husband” is an “awful” word, and rejects marriage. The institution
of marriage remains for De’s characters a convenience. Surekha and Reema have convenient marriages, where
they manage to keep their husbands happy, yet they are embroiled in their own affairs without any guilt. The
colonial rule of the husband is deactivated in Snapshots. “What Reema wanted, Reema got”. She enjoys an
illicit relation with her brother-in-law without any “guilt” whatsoever. Earlier on, Reema had conceived her
boyfriend, Raju’s child, during her school-going years. Then, she was the victim, he the victimizer. He was like
“a conqueror” who had looted her body. Soon Raju lost the battle; his body was found near a sewage dump.
Karuna’s rebellion takes the form of an affair with Krish, whom she dumps when she realizes that he is “an
unfunny, superficial, wreck of a man” (Socialite Evenings 1989, P 237). Her female protagonists, in the course
of breaking social traditions and conventions, establish sexual relations with other men, laying aside any
feelings of guilt. Shobhaa De presents a candid picture of metropolitan lifestyle through a modified or
transformed version of traditional values.
In the male dominated society, it is usually the male who abuse, shout and criticize. In Shobhaa De’s novels, her
women are the new women who fight back, resists and shouts back. “Speech is knowledge” and “knowledge is
power” – hence, women within the colonial structure is conveniently taught that silence is the golden path for
decent women. Re-constructing this colonial myth, De has made her protagonists vocal. For them, silence is
the symbol of oppression while, speech signifies self-expression and liberation – they even do not hesitate to
use the male sexual vocabulary. Her women revolt against the traditional image of Indian women in words and
in deeds, be it in business or the sexual spheres. In Sisters, Mikki declares to Ramankaka, her father’s confidant,
who suggests that she should consult him in all her business decisions:
“Thank you for your advice…..I appreciate and value your words. But I’d like you to hear a few of mine now. I
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can’t change my sex, unfortunately…….But can change just about everything else…..and I intend to…..This
is going to be my show and I intend running it on my terms.”(Sisters1992, P 30)
Her female characters have a strength of their own and inspite of the challenges and discontents that they
face, they remain uncrushed. Karuna’s attempt to establish her own identity in contemporary society is
fulfilled through creative writing. She walks out of a perfectly secure marriage due to lack of communication
with her husband and unfurls herself to activate the creative urge stifled within her. These women signify the
advent of the new women who are liberated and not subdued or submissive. They are ambitious, aggressive,
dynamic and bold.
The power equation is a fundamental issue explored by Shobhaa De in her novels.She observes:
“Eventually, every relationship is a power struggle either on an overt or subliminal level….Control over the
situation has been a male prerogative over the centuries. Women’s destinies have been determined largely in
that context alone…. It is time they were made aware of their own potential and power. Shakti needs to be
harnessed, directed and explored….. The very concept of the sexes locked in eternal battle is negative and
destructive…. The two connotations of Shakti – the destructive avatar is as potent as the creative one. It is in
maintaining the state of equilibrium between these two opposing forces that can lead to creative and dynamic
harmony…. Men will have to come to terms with women power.”(Shooting from The Hip S.De1996, P 111113)
In her novels, female characters participate actively in the game of power – to manipulate, transform and
create new traditions. This is best exemplified in Snapshots. Champabai, the prostitute provides an insight into
the power game:
“Never give yourself to any man for free. You know why? Men don’t value anything they get so easily. That’s
why we are here to satisfy their lust not for sex but for power. Power over women. Power over us – you and me.
If they buy your sex, pay for you, they feel like kings. Give it to them with love for nothing and they’ll kick you
in the gut.” (Snapshots1995, P43)
This claim concretizes women’s role in the power game, and reinforces that their power is rooted in their
sexuality. Balbir questions the six women: “Do you fuck because you enjoy fucking? Or is it power-play?”
(Snapshots, P162). Reema’s arrangement with her brother-in-law seems to be a power play, where “He has the
power. You don’t.” (Snapshots, P116)
Again, Swati wields a kind of colonial power - she always held “some kind of power” over her friends and
others – all she had to do was “snap (her) fingers and the rest of (them) would jump” (Snapshots, P181). Swati,
now a resident of London, is an example of the superior power of the coloniser. She treats her native friends
with an air of condescension. She had initiated the get together of the six friends – not for the sake of
friendship, but to add another notch in her career. For this, she manipulates her unsuspecting native friends.
However, her power over her friends is upstaged by the discovery of the “electronic bugs”. This colonial
power is decentralised and she is rendered powerless. In the novel, each female character desires power,
enjoys power and battles for power. Power conscious ambitious females are the product of postcolonial
culture.
Present day Indian society while still in the practice of the patriarchal, male-oriented mode, gives an illusion of
modern India where women have attained freedom; where the image of the new woman is admired by the
Indian males today. Ranjan in Second Thoughts is in awe of his female colleagues. He has a high admiration of
the “women he calls ‘fashionable’”. At a party Maya notices Ranjan animatedly talking to such a woman,
rushing around fetching things – an ashtray, a dinner plate – for her, while completely ignoring his wife. Maya
was surprised for she didn’t seem at all like “Ranjan’s kind of woman”. Ranjan tells Maya about the woman:
“These are all very respectable people. Highly qualified. My colleagues – you understand.”
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Yet he never had any appreciation for Maya’s talents. A Textile Designer, Maya had hinted at a career after
marriage at their first meeting, which he immediately vetoed. Where, on one hand, he expresses his admiration
and respect for the smart educated women in his office, he absolutely refuses his wife to get a job:
“A job? In Bombay? Maya, you don’t know what you are talking about…..People don’t waste time on
nobodies.”
Thus, reducing his wife to a “nobody” – a woman without identity except a traditional, submissive wife,
suppressing her dreams of a career, forever. Trapped and stifled within the confines of a marriage to a man
who is rigidly conservative and completely indifferent to her desires, Maya learns to survive. In colonial
society, women’s desire for economic independence is either ostracised or ignored completely. Man’s
insistence on economic control comes from his knowledge that it is the best way to keep women/slaves
powerless. According to Shobhaa De “Eventually everything boils down to money – that great leveller. There
can be no talk of independence for women, without economic self-sufficiency. An independent mind or a free
spirit is meaningless so long as the body and soul are being kept together by someone else.”(Shooting from the
Hip, P110) In Socialite Evenings, Karuna finds that when money started flowing in, she had the freedom to do
whatever she liked – this gave her absolute joy. She contemplates: “It wasn’t the money or success I was
looking forward to in my life at that point it was the freedom to do what I wanted.”(Socialite Evenings, P273).
De has endowed her female characters financial freedom. Aparna in Snapshots is a “corporate woman” who
can fend for herself. Swati and Rashmi lead a liberated life due to their economic independence; while Surekha
and Reema control the finances of their husbands by their cleverness. The “new” Indian women are “a breed
apart” – they enjoy economic independence and their attitude is characterised by seriousness:
“They carried the awesome weight of an MBA degree…on their padded shoulders. These no-nonsense
women who had ‘take me seriously’ written all over them. They even wore business suits to work and carried
burgundy-coloured briefcases…. They took their jobs with an earnestness that was almost terrifying in its
intensity……Workaholism for women had become very fashionable.” (Sultry Days, P119)
Despite the advocacy for economic independence, Shobhaa De does not approve of the mania for money.
Aasha Rani, in Starry Nights, lends voice to the novelist’s concern:
“Money, money, money. That’s all you think of. Well I’m fed up of being your money machine. I’ve done
enough for everybody….now I want to live for myself and enjoy my life.” (Starry Nights, P106)
Manu’s dikatats that govern patriarchal India are openly flouted by De. Not many writers have dared to bare
the postcolonial scenario. In Snapshots Surekha manages to keep her husband happy, yet insures a space of
her own. The woman is no longer a docile bed-partner and scrubbing maid. She manipulates to live lavishly by
controlling her husband’s sexual urge. Surekha pretends to be very concerned about her mother-in-law, but the
real truth behind this praiseworthy act is her homosexual interest in her friend, Dolly. De’s women are very
much Indian with a leaning towards western outlook and lifestyle.
One of the characteristic traits of postcolonial fiction is the quest for self-identity. This is evident in all the
novels of Shobhaa De. Her women characters forge ahead to establish their identity through their escapades
and sexcapades. Karuna’s initial modelling was her first step towards her quest to establish her own identity.
Starry Nights is the story of Aasha Rani’s struggle and survival in the sex-starved society. All De’s women
pursue their dream of carving their own niche in this world. Mikki in Sisters goes through a traumatic
experience – this gives her insight into her own self, as a woman and an individual. She metamorphosis from a
social butterfly to a mature woman.
Migration is yet another basic tenet of postcolonial fiction. In all her novels, De portrays her women as
moving to Bombay, the city where possibilities are immense and dreams are fulfilled. Thus, Karuna found
Bombay to be her city – she loved everything about it. In Starry Nights Viji, from Madras, is pushed into the
film world of Bombay, by her mother and is transformed into Aasha Rani. She later moves to New Zealand,
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however only to come back to her roots, seeking contentment. Maya in Second Thoughts is so enamoured of
Bombay that she marries Ranjan – as, marrying Ranjan would be like marrying Bombay. Amrita, in Strange
Obsession comes from Pune to Bombay to pursue her modelling career.
The postcolonial fiction of Shobhaa De is not an effort to reclaim the lost treasures of tradition, but to forge
ahead with the changed modes of society. Shobhaa De has transformed the traditional image of women and
opposed the move to relegate women’s experience and women’s body language to the second rank. Her novels
embody the spirit of postcolonial literature that concretizes the adventures of powerful emancipated new
women. In the Indian scenario of postcolonial literature, Shobhaa De enjoys the position of a pioneer among
women writers.
Notes:
De, Shobhaa. Socialite Evenings 1989. New Delhi: Penguin Books.
De, Shobhaa. Starry Nights 1992, New Delhi: Penguin Books.
De, Shobhaa. Sisters 1992, New Delhi: Penguin Books.
De, Shobhaa. Sultry Days 1994, New Delhi: Penguin Books.
De, Shobhaa. Snapshots 1995, New Delhi: Penguin Books.
De, Shobhaa. Strange Obsession 1992, New Delhi: Penguin Books
De, Shobhaa. Second Thoughts, 1996, New Delhi: Penguin Books.
De, Shobhaa. Shooting From the Hip, 1996, New Delhi: UBSPD
Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex, Translated and edited by H.M.Parshley, 1997, Vintage U.K. Random
House.
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STATUS OF WOMEN AS REPRESENTED IN INDIAN
ENGLISH LITERATURE
M.S. Vinutha
This paper encapsulates firstly, the origin of this discrimination and then navigates through the different
arenas in which the discrimination is manifested. Further, it encompasses the place of women in the Indian
English literature at the hands of two well known social activist writers Arundhati Roy and Mahasweta Devi
and another writer with social consciousness, Sara Abu Backer in their select works.
Origin of Gender discrimination
The word ‘gender’ sociologically refers to the way the society distinguishes men from women and assigns them
the social roles. The difference between sex and gender was introduced to deal with the general tendency to
attribute women’s subordination to their anatomy. For ages it was believed that the different roles,
characteristics and status accorded to men and women are determined by sex and also that they are natural and
hence unchangeable. So, gender is seen closely related to the behaviour and roles assigned to men and women
based on their sexual differences.
The gendering begins as soon as a child is born in the family. The birth of a son is celebrated, whereas the
birth of a daughter is unwelcome in most of the places. Sons are given a lot of love, importance, respect,
better facilities than daughters. Boys are encouraged to be tough and outgoing and the girls are encouraged to
be homebound and shy. These gender differences are created by the male dominated society for the
convenience of the men.
India has clearly displayed gender equality in the fields of education, employment and health. In our country,
it is a common fact that girls and women suffer from high mortality rates. The gender discrimination in the
country can be traced back from early history due to several religious and socio-economic practices which
have resulted in the wide gap between men and women in the society.
The origin of gender discrimination can be traced to the rules laid down by Manu in 200B.C: “by a young girl,
by a young woman, or even by an aged one, nothing must be done independently, even in her own house”. In
the childhood, the girl should be under the care of her father, in youth, her husband, and in old age, under the
care of her sons; a woman must never be independent”. It is also true that different customs that are centuries
old control women’s lives.
Kinds of discrimination
It can be observed that there are many infant deaths due to gender discrimination. Gender disparities in
nutrition also are evident from infancy to adulthood. Malnutrition among the young girls is so frequent that
the death among the young girls below age 5 is evidently frequent. Girl children are less breast-fed than the
boys. Nutritional deprivation for girls has a few major consequences on them. They never reach their full
growth potential and hence suffer from anemia which is in turn a risk factor in pregnancy. Further, these
problems may result in low birth weight infants and infant deaths also. Above all, the tradition also demands
that women eat last and least throughout their lives especially in rural areas. Women receive less health care
than men. Their social training to tolerate suffering and their reluctance to be medically treated by male
doctors are additional factors in their getting inadequate health care.
Another face of the discrimination is the domestic violence against women which was justified by 56% of
women according to the National family health survey released in 2002. Apart from common domestic
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violence, rape cases received more social attention. And also the upper caste people used mass rapes as a part
of their tactics to intimidate the lower class people. Though there is an increase in the reporting of rape cases,
not all the cases are reported. And out of those which are reported, not all the rapists are punished.
Further dowry deaths are also seriously reported. Though, there is dowry prohibition act, according to
NGOs, approximately over 7000 deaths each year in the country are from dowry related problems.
Another social problem faced by only women is Sati, the practice of burning widows on the funeral pyres of
their husbands.Though, this system was banned even before the independence of the country, there were not
much developments in the rural areas.Yet another mishap faced by women is ‘honour killings’. Human Rights
Organization estimated that up to 10% of all killings in the northern states of Punjab and Haryana were of
honour killings. Even to the present day, we can hear about honour killings here and there in the news papers.
Furthermore, there are several traditional practices which are harmful to women. The rituals like women being
walked on by a priest with nails in his shoes to cure their mental and physical illnesses are reported. Moreover,
it is tribal women who are mostly at the receiving end of atrocities. There was a case reported from Madhya
Pradesh where they were made to bathe in urine and engage in the practice of ‘agnipariksha’. In some remote
villages, many cases of women being accused and punished of witchcraft is another social tragedy women
have to undergo. When it comes to the lower caste people, there are cases where women are stripped naked
and paraded around in public to humiliate them who had not respected the upper caste.
Prostitution is another common problem. Many indigenous tribal women are forced into sexual exploitation.
Sexual harassment of women in the workplace is also a common problem reported and considered. Whether
it is a farm or an office, women of all sections of the society undergo this problem. For an instance, Banvari
Devi, a social worker in the rural western state of Rajasthan who prevented a child marriage in 1992, was gang
raped by 5 upper caste men to retaliate the action. And those men were acquitted after a 3-year trial. In India
such violence is not rare but only prosecutions of upper caste men for rape or abuse of low-caste women are
rare. Banvari Devi was one woman who was brutalized for daring to act or speak out against higher caste men.
More than lower caste men, women suffer extra-ordinary indignities, though there are laws in the books to
protect their rights. Phoolan Devi is another example of atrocities of upper caste men on lower caste women.
According to various reports, rural women suffer alarming violence and they are vulnerable to rape by
landlords, police and upper caste men. Men also suffer in rural areas but women suffer disproportionately
because of widespread discrimination and prejudice against women.
Though there are numerous laws that exist to protect women’s rights, government often is unable to enforce
the laws, especially in rural areas in which traditions are deeply rooted. Now-a-days, low caste women are
fighting back and farming self-defense groups to protect themselves against landlords, thugs and police who
are commonly known to attack, rape or even go to the extent of murdering them.
While tracing the origins of gender inequality, anthropologists had agreed to the fact that women have never
occupied a position of higher status or greater political power than men in any society, anywhere, anytime. In
some societies, some women had an elevated status. Women had been leaders, controlled wealth, served as
warriors also sometimes. But they had been exceptional. But the stark reality of our society is that women do
not appear to be privileged or dominant over men. Communities in which the amazons are the leaders appear
only in myths. Whatever people esteem in society, men always seem to have at least as much as women, most of
the time they have had more of it. This poses an unavoidable issue. It cannot be a happenstance that in every
society men have had higher status than women. We find ample varieties of cultures, histories, religions, ideals
and one of the few constant factors is that women are considered subordinate. The 3 ideas of socialization,
tradition and biology refer to the conservation of gender inequality.
Further, to be more specific, police records show that there are many incidences of crimes against women in
India. The National Crime Records Bureau has reported that the growth rate of crimes against women would
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be higher than the population growth rate by 2010. Earlier, due to social stigma, many cases of rape and
molestation were not even registered with the police. Official statistics show that there has been a considerable
increase in the number of reported crimes against women these days.
Different kinds of crimes against women
1. Sexual harassment
Majority of crimes against women are related to molestation and sexual harassment. Eve teasing is a
euphemism used for sexual harassment or molestation of women by men. Many activists blame the rising
incidents of sexual harassment against women on the influence of "Western culture". In 1987, The Indecent
Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act was passed to prohibit indecent representation of women
through advertisements or in publications, writings, paintings, figures or in any other manner.
In 1997, in a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court of India took a strong stand against sexual harassment
of women in the workplace. The Court also laid down detailed guidelines for prevention and redressal of
grievances. The National Commission for Women subsequently elaborated these guidelines into a Code of
Conduct for employers. However, many cases of this kind of harassment go unnoticed and in rural India.
2. Dowry
The Government of India passed the Dowry Prohibition Act in 1961, which enforced that the demands made
by the bridegroom or his family members for any kind of dowry during the wedding arrangements are illegal.
However, numerous cases of dowry-related domestic violence, suicides and murders have been reported.
In 1985, the Dowry Prohibition (maintenance of lists of presents to the bride and bridegroom) rules were
framed. According to these rules, a signed list of presents given at the time of the marriage to the bride and the
bridegroom should be maintained. The list should contain a brief description of each present, its approximate
value, the name of whoever has given the present and his/her relationship to the person. However, such rules
are hardly enforced.
A few survey reports claimed that at least 5,000 women die each year because of dowry deaths, and at least a
dozen die each day in 'kitchen fires' which are reported to be intentional. The term for this is bride burning and
is criticized within India itself. However, such dowry abuse has reduced considerably amongst the urban
educated.
3. Child marriage
Another hassle women are facing is child marriage which has been traditionally prevalent in India and
continues to this day. It is a social norm in India that young girls would live with their parents till they reached
puberty. In the past, the child widows were condemned to a life of great agony, shaving heads, living in
isolation, and shunned by the society. Child marriage is still a common practice in rural India, though it was
outlawed during 1860.
4. Female infanticides and sex selective abortions
Yet another hurdle women are supposedly facing in our country is female infanticides. Whether it is in high
class society or amongst low caste people, it has become a common obstacle. As a result, India has a high male
sex ratio. Another chief reason is that many women die before reaching adulthood due to many reasons.
Surprisingly, tribal societies in India have a less male sex ratio than all other caste groups, in spite of the fact
that tribal communities have far lower levels of income, literacy and health facilities. Many experts opine that
the high male sex ratio in India can be attributed to female infanticides and sex-selective abortions.
All medical tests that can be used to determine the sex of the child have been banned in India, due to incidents
of these tests being used to get rid of unwanted female children before birth. Female infanticide (killing of girl
infants) is still prevalent in some rural areas. Unfortunately, it can be greatly observed in Urban India too. The
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abuse of the dowry tradition has been one of the main reasons for sex-selective abortions and female
infanticides in India.
5. Domestic violence
Women struggling through domestic violence are also common complaints in the records. The incidents of
domestic violence are higher among the lower Socio-Economic Classes. The Protection of Women from
Domestic Violence Act, 2005 came into force on October 26, 2006.
6. Trafficking
The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act was passed in 1956. However, many cases of trafficking of young girls
and women have been reported. Human trafficking as observed these days is the illegal trade of human beings
for several reasons like that of commercial sexual exploitation, reproductive slavery, and a modern-day form
of slavery or forced labor.
The least known form of labour trafficking today is probably bonded labour, or debt bondage, and yet it is the
most widely used method of enslaving people. Victims become bonded labourers when their labour is
demanded as a means of repayment for a loan or service in which its terms and conditions have not been
defined or in which the value of the victims’ services as reasonably assessed is not applied toward the
liquidation of the debt. The amount of work they do is much greater than the original sum of money that they
would have borrowed. This kind of labour trafficking is severely undergone by tribal people and low caste
people who are illiterates. Their illiteracy is taken as the plus point to force them into this kind of exploitation.
Forced labour is another inhuman treatment in which victims are forced to work against their own will, under
the threat of violence or some other form of punishment, their freedom is restricted and a degree of
ownership is exerted. Men are at risk of being trafficked for unskilled work, which globally generates $31bn
according to the International Labour Organization. Forms of forced labour can include domestic servitude;
agricultural labour; sweatshop factory labour; janitorial, food service and other service industry labour; and
begging. Women are also not free from this kind of forced labour.
Further, another heinous crime that women are facing these days is sex trafficking. Victims are generally found
in dreadful circumstances and easily targeted by traffickers. Individuals, circumstances, and situations which
are vulnerable to traffickers include homeless individuals, runaway teens, displaced homemakers, refugees, job
seekers, tourists, kidnap victims and drug addicts. Trafficked people are the most defenseless and powerless
minorities in a region and are consistently exploited. Again, majority of the victims are the low castes and the
illiterates. There are many laws which have come up to protect women from all kinds of injustice and also to
protect their rights.
In spite of many legal advancements, many problems still remain which inhibit women from fully taking
advantage of new rights and opportunities in India. There are many traditions and customs that have been an
essential part of Indian culture for hundreds of years. Religious laws and expectations enumerated by each
specific religion often diverge with the Indian Constitution, eliminating rights and powers women should
legally have. Though there are many crossovers in legality, the Indian government does not take any risk of
interfering with religion and the personal laws they hold. Religions, like Hinduism, demand that women
should be faithful servants to God and their husbands. ‘Pativrata’ is the term that is used to describe a wife who
has accepted service and devotion to her husband and her family as her ultimate religion and duty. She,
without realizing that this kind of system has been established for the selfish motives of the patriarchal society,
continues to surrender herself blindly thinking that it is a sin to go against this custom. Indian society is largely
composed of hierarchical systems within families and communities. When hierarchies emerge within the
family based on social convention and economic need, girls in poorer families suffer twice the impact of
vulnerability and stability. From birth, girls are automatically entitled to less; from playtime, to food, to
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education, girls can expect to always be entitled to less than their brothers. Girls also have less access to their
family’s income and assets, which is still worse among the poor and rural Indian families. From the beginning,
it is understood that females will be burdened with strenuous and exhausting household responsibilities for
the rest of their lives, always with little or no compensation or recognition at all.
India is also a patriarchal society. According to this social system, males as fathers or husbands are considered
to be in charge and the official heads of households and hence men are generally in control of the distribution
of family resources. Women have become accustomed to and expect these traditions and ways of Indian life
which have been in effect for so long. Indian women often do not take full advantage of their constitutional
rights because they are not properly made aware of them. Women also tend to have poor utilization of voting
rights because of their low levels of political awareness and political efficacy. The female-to-male ratio in India
is 957 to 1000, showing that there are numerically fewer women in the country than men. This is due to several
factors, including infanticides, most commonly among female infants, and the poor care of female infants and
childbearing women. Although outlawed, infanticides are still highly popular in rural India, and are continuing
to become even more prominent. In urban India also it is not less. This is due to the fact, most especially in
rural areas, that families cannot afford female children because of the dowry they must pay when their
daughter gets married. Like infanticide, the payment of dowry is also illegal, but is still a frequent and prevalent
occurrence in the country. Above all these obstacles women face, they are considered to be “worthless” by
their husbands if they are unable to produce a male child, and can often face much abuse in this regard.
There is a lot of resistance going on against such abuses against women. Women also have started reacting
differently towards oppression against them without remaining passive. In India Feminism which is a
movement is also aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights
and equal opportunities for Indian women. It is the pursuit of women's rights within the Indian society.
Feminists in India, like their feminist counterparts all over the world seek gender equality: the right to work for
equal wages, the right to equal access to health and education, and equal political rights. Indian feminists also
have been fighting against culture-specific issues within India's patriarchal society, such as inheritance laws and
the practice of Sati, dowry etc.
The history of feminism in India can be divided into three phases: the first phase, began in the mid-nineteenth
century and was initiated when male European colonists began to voice out against the social evils of Sati; the
second phase which was from 1915 to 1947, when Gandhi incorporated women's movements into the Quit
India movement and independent women's organizations began to emerge; and finally, the third phase, which
is in the post-independence period, which has focused on fair treatment of women in the work force and right
to political parity.
Despite the efforts and progress made by Indian feminist movements, women living in modern India still face
many issues of discrimination. India's patriarchal culture has made the process of gaining land-ownership
rights and access to education challenging. As in the West, there has been some criticism of feminist
movements in India. They have been criticized for focusing too much on women who are already privileged,
and neglecting the needs and representation of poorer or lower caste women who can be considered the
subaltern of the subalterns. This has led to the creation of caste-specific feminist organizations and
movements.
Mahasweta Devi and Arundhati Roy being writer activists also project through their writings the status of
women which is not being very different from what women are facing from the past and in a way fighting for
their cause. The writers, along with projecting the harsh realities of the exploitation of the other marginalized
sections of the society, also expose the naked truth of how women, who are also marginalized in the
patriarchal society in India are exploited, oppressed. Though women are given the ultimate position of
goddess in our culturally rich society, they are in a pathetic condition of fighting for their natural human rights.
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And above all, it is still more pathetic that the organizations have been formed to fight for their rights which
they should have got naturally.
The works of the above mentioned writers and the works of another writer Sara Aboobacker not only bring
into the forefront the negative side of the treatment towards women but also bring out the way they react
towards the different kinds of oppression in different ways.
Representation of the place of women in Indian English literature
When we study the place of women as represented in Indian literature, it can be seen that most often women
are exploited by men at different levels. To be more specific, let me consider the representation of women in
the works of the social activist writers Mahasweta Devi and Arundhati Roy and another writer with social
consciousness, Sara Aboobacker. We can see how women are used and exploited by the men lot for various
reasons and how they are never allowed to empower themselves. But still we can also see that, when the
exploitation reaches its peak, women are capable of rebelling to such an extent, where, even men get scared
and are confused about their further actions. This proves the fact that women do empower themselves when
the need arises.
In the short stories (“Outcaste”, “Old Women”, “Till Death Do us Part”) penned by Mahasweta Devi the
women of lower caste are treated like animals, not only by the society but also by their own community people
and are never supported at the moments of crisis. The women rather end up with the profession of
prostitution as they would have been physically exploited and left to the streets. Such women who do not have
a choice or support from their own people do not commit suicide but want to live and hence become
prostitutes most of the times. They never get a chance even to lead a normal life. In such situations, where
comes their empowerment? The social norms also bound women in such a way that there is no escape. In one
of the stories in ‘Till Death Do Us Part’, the protagonist suffers mainly because of the custom of talaaq in
Muslim community where women suffer more than men. But the central character manages to defy the
custom and goes away from the village with her ex-husband and lives with him against the norm. In a way this
action proves that a woman, if she rebels against the system which harasses her, can empower herself which is
a mark of growth.
However, in a novel Breaking Ties written by Sara Aboobacker, the central character who is a Muslim woman
commits suicide as she could not get back to her loving husband after a Talaaq due to misunderstanding
between them. She suffers for no fault of hers. She had absolutely no freedom from the family members. She
was brought up according to what Manu had said in 200 B.C. (a girl should be under the care of the father in
her childhood, under husband’s care after marriage…).Since she doesn’t have either a choice or courage to run
away with her loving ex-husband ends her life and finds the solution in her own way. She could not empower
herself because of the social system.
In another story written by Mahasweta Devi (‘Draupadi’), a tribal woman Dopdi, was very much wanted by the
anti naxalite group, as she was involved in the attacks against landlords for their atrocities and also labeled as a
naxalite. Finally, when she was captured, she was gang raped and at the end of the story when she was to be
brought in front of Senanayak, the head of the searching troop, she was naked as denied the clothes given to
her and also was bleeding. The rebellious attitude that she had when she encountered Senanayak in the naked
condition, as if to challenge him ‘what else are you capable of doing to me?’ scares him for the first time in his
life. Here Dopdi, though captured and tortured to the core physically, due to her attitude and courage, she
could empower herself in a very different way by having an upper hand over the man who tortured her the
most.
All the stories which are mentioned above are the representations of true stories. Further, when we consider
Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, we come across Ammu, who is one of the major characters in the
novel, and undergoes mental torture within the family by her own people. Especially, when she has an affair
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with Velutha a lower caste man, she is ill-treated by her own aunt Baby Kochamma who was not married and
jealous of Ammu and her life. Velutha is targeted and killed by the police because of Baby Kochamma’s wrong
complaint against him. Finally, Ammu is thrown out of the family and she dies in a hotel room like an orphan.
Here also we can see how a woman is made to lead a life of restrictions without any freedom and value for her
feelings at all. When she is not given any kind of support or freedom within the family, and at the same time
the society also ill-treats her because she is weak, where comes the empowerment?
This story is a projection of how women are considered weak and hence not given any freedom of expression.
In the literary works cited above , it is very obvious that women are kept within the circles of social norms,
exploited physically most of the times as there is gender inequality and hence no chance of empowerment. A
twin mode of confronting the marginal treatment can be observed from the study- passivity and resistance. It
is evident that there are women who are passive and accept their fate of marginality and surrender to the
situation. On the other hand, there are women who are courageous, rebellious who can come out of the norms
which are only hindrances in their lives and successfully empower themselves in their own ways.
However, we can conclude saying that it will never be possible to give a definitive explanation of the origins of
gender inequality. The data are too sparse to decisively distinguish among the proposed explanation. The only
plausible theory could be- women due to the responsibility for childbearing had a different set of roles to play
than men. There was a division of labour due to this. If women got responsibility of childbearing and
rearing, men got greater responsibility of hunting, fishing and war because of which they had to travel far and
face dangers outside and this division of labour awarded men with superior political organization and a
relative monopoly over weapons. Also, this division of labour derived from reproductive differences pushed
men into leadership. As time and generations passed, the inequality took different shapes according to the
conveniences of male members of the society. This has been a strong reason for the pathetic status of women
in our society and no women empowerment has existed in a highly considerable manner.
Nevertheless, there are many healthy decisions and steps being taken by individuals, groups, and government
at large to reduce the hiatus between men and women and initiate women empowerment and improve their
status in the society which is already evident in many fields.
Notes:
Aboobacker, Sara. Breaking Ties, Trans. Vanamala Viswanatha, Chennai:Macmillan India Ltd., 2001.
Devi, Mahasweta, ‘Draupadi’, Breast Stories, Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Calcutta: Seagull Books,
2010.
Devi, Mahasweta, Old Women, Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2008.
Devi, Mahasweta, Outcaste, Trans. Sarmistha Dutta Gupta, Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2002.
Devi, Mahasweta, Till Death Do Us Part, Trans. Vikram Iyengar, Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2001.
Roy, Arundhati, The God Of Small Things, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 1997.
Sunder Rajan, Rajeswari, ‘Introduction’, Signposts: Gender Issues in Post-Independence India, Rajeswari
Sunder Rajan(ed), New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2001.
Dwivedi, P.O., ‘The Subaltern and the text: Reading Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things’,
www.japss.org/upload/15.Dwivedi.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_dscrimination_in_India
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CHALLENGING PATRIARCHY:THE ROLE OF NEW
WOMEN IN TENDULKAR’S SELECTED PLAYS
Dr. Deepali Rajshekhar Patil
Far removed from the superficiality and glibness of his precursors Vijay Tendulkar offered a new idiom to
Marathi theatre, in turn creating an indelible mark in the Indian theatre. He outrightly rejected the
conventional mode of character delineation, his portrayal of characters is a product of the opinions and
predilections he imbibed from the personal, social and cultural atmosphere he was exposed to. The projection
of women however is not governed entirely by his personal speculations but has also been influenced by his
immediate cultural environment. As mere anatomy would be inadequate to define feminine consciousness, it
is desirable to interpret their attitudes and responses very often directed by their socio-cultural environment.
This discussion is primarily an attempt to focus on the psycho-sexual aspects of the women which very often
go unnoticed or are deliberately ignored. Tendulkar’s radicalism seems to engender genuine feminism that
aims at relieving women from the tyranny of ignorance, isolation and vulnerability by questioning the hitherto
accepted notions of man-women relationships and hegemony.
The feminist perspective is based on the premise that women and men are constitutionally equal and share the
same human capabilities. Observed differences therefore demand a critical analysis of the social institutions
that cause them. Eva Figes aptly declares:
Man’s vision of woman is not objective, but an uneasy combination of what he wishes her to be and what he
fears her to be, and it is to this image that woman has to comply …. Woman is taught to desire not what her
mother desired for herself, but what her father and all men find desirable in a woman. Not what she is but what
she should be…. But since the standard of womanhood is set by men for men and not by women, no
relaxation of standards is allowed, she is either an absolute woman or nothing at all, totally rejected. (Charu
Mathur, 13)
Such deliberations cast the women in two extreme binaries. Woman is either idolized and placed on a pedestal
as a goddess or is condemned as an embodiment of evil who causes unbearable pain to man. Many
psychologists and anthropologists refer to this polarity as the “male’s virgin-prostitute” (Charu 14)
In either case, she resumes the status of an accessory with reference to man. The three things women are
prized for by men are service, sex and love. Quite naturally it is presumed that a woman has an absolute need
for man’s love without which her life becomes meaningless. The psychologist Erikson was of the view that a
woman’s needs are satisfied by “quest for a mate, child rearing and home-making, and her identity is loosely
formed in relational ties dependent on males” (Charu 14 qtd in Chatterji 7) Simone de Beauvoir aptly states:
Marriage is the destiny traditionally offered to women in society. It is still true that most women are married, or
have been, or plan to be, or suffer from not being. The celibate (single) woman is to be explained and defined
with reference to marriage whether she is frustrated, rebellious or even indifferent to that institution. (Charu
15)
In Gidhade (Vultures) the play that entails blood-curdling violence the only redeeming figures are Rama and
Rajaninath. Rama’s craving for motherhood compels her to step beyond the threshold and seek sexual
gratification from her brother in law. She tries to set free the shackles of morality only to attain the celestial joy
of motherhood. Her daring move is evidently a condemnable offence but her crime is mitigated by her pure
intentions.
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Rajaninath’s soliloquy at the outset affirms her longing for a child:
For twenty-two long years. All her hopes, her expectations
Were scorched, uprooted where they grew.
But she only knew
One longing,
Only one. Embraced it to her
Tightly, as one might one’s life.
Gathered up all her body, her being,
Grain by grain.
Threw off her chains in her need.
The need to swell with fruit.
A soft fulfillment.
Each womb-bearing woman’s right by birth.
It is not her carnal desire but maternal instinct that propels her to the repulsive act. Rama is a mute sufferer
who observes the brutal, gruesome acts of violence perpetrated by her husband and his family. Her
conjugation with Rajaninath, the only pure soul besides her in the play, is the only act of vindication in the
series of spine-chilling viciousness.
Rama’s torment is clearly apparent when she hysterically explodes:
“It’s not even my fault! This womb’s healthy and sound, I swear it! I was born to become a mother. This soil’s
rich, it’s hungry. But the seed won’t take root. If the seed’s soaked in poison, if its weak, feeble, lifeless, devoid
of virtue – then why blame the soil? And if still the soil should cherish that seed – should with god as its
witness make efforts – beyond life itself – to guard that seed, to nourish it” .
Her character is endearing to the heart, her woes are heart rending as they are the unarticulated cries of a
woman who longs to be a ‘mother’. Her end is not much different than other women who aim to cross the
limits for reasons of their own. When she finally is gifted with some moments of glory in her pregnancy, her
mirth is short-lived, as she has to succumb to her husband’s capriciousness and distrust. The play concludes on
a very pessimistic note that shows her husband taking her away from the vulturesque house, with Rama turned
into stone, unfeeling and benumbed. She has remained a barren form that follows Ramakant into a gloomy
future that breathes annihilation.
In Tendulkar’s Baby, the eponymous heroine is molested and forced to accept an illicit relationship with
Shivapa, the local goon after she is left forlorn in the world. Her brother Raghav being sentenced to jail on false
accusations by Shivapa, Baby is obliged to accept the atrocious conditions of Shivapa, the conman to survive.
Any other play perhaps would portray the tragic finale of the story in the complete undoing of the heroine.
But the dramatist is interested in sketching the other side of reality and transcending the conservative norms.
Baby is certainly a charming character who tries to cling to life despite least hope for change and bears no
grudges for her lot. She not only demeans herself to remain under the protective care of Shivapa, but also
readily consents to his eccentric demands- parading like a coquette, behaving like a pet dog and slavishly
obeying him. Baby’s plight intensifies and becomes more pathetic when she gesticulates like a faithful dog and
pleases Shivapa with gestures that he demands. Her cosseted world is provisionally disrupted with the return
of Raghav. The tragedy of the siblings is truly striking as none can venture to escape the wretched condition. It
is the distinct Indian ethos evoked by Tendulkar that demands a discomfited realization of the patriarchal setup where greater power is vested at the hands of men though they are misfits in the world. Raghav’s dilemma is
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more acute for his actual imprisonment has ensnared him in fears. His suffocation is more intense as he
helplessly witnesses the sorrow of his sister, her brutal exploitation but is too feeble, impotent to alter her
pitiable condition. His emotional and psychological turbulence incapacitate him to act second time as Baby’s
rescuer, instead he becomes a puppet in the hands of Shivapa. Shivapa, the gangster not only despoils Baby,
but also extracts physical pleasures ranging on inhuman perversity and demands financial assistance from her
for his sick wife. Baby is drawn in more sympathetic colors particularly because she is purely commodified by
Shivapa and even Raghav, who is weak to lift the cloud of suffering that shrouds her world. Baby works
relentlessly to satisfy the demands of these men who are dependent on her- one who physically rapes her and
the other who emotionally drains her. Neither of the men who pose as her saviors is able to offer solace to her
or even alleviate her sufferings. Baby sticks to Shivapa to save herself from public recrimination, with the
awareness that becoming his mistress is the only means of escape from suicide or prostitution. She invites
Karve with the hope of fulfilling her fantasies of passionate love. She agrees to keep Raghav with her despite
her embarrassment as he would provide some help in her household chores. All these hopes and wishes are
frustrated as these men lack the moral courage and strength that she desires and the situation demands.
Baby’s predicament is even more disquieting because she is fully conscious of her subjugation, wishes to
liberate herself from the bondage but finds no means of escape. Even her momentary romantic escapade with
Karve is cursed by the arrival of Shivapa, who seems to be the wicked hand that ruthlessly rules her world.
Baby rises like a phoenix from the quagmire of evil, she is defiant, does not succumb to the circumstances. She
fervently proclaims her philosophy, “Suicide is cowardly. No matter how difficult, we mustn’t give up hope; we
must keep making the effort. Life is a battle, Raghav!, later she voices her genuine feelings, “One who struggles
can’t afford to despair” . She joins the film industry as an extra artist to sustain herself against all odds. Her
indulgence in sexual overtures with Karve astoundingly reveals two aspects of her sexuality. She exploits her
sexual potentials firstly for her survival and secondly to attain love and warmth. Her profligacy does not show
a characteristic pattern but conversely depicts the oscillation between reality and idealism. Her promiscuity is
thrust upon her initially but later she exploits it as a means to gain freedom from the unwanted relationship.
Each move towards a positive relationship is coincided by a step beyond her suffocating, cloistered world.
Another play Chiranjeev Soubhagyakanshini previously entitled Anji which is yet to be translated into English
delienates Anjali Bhide’s journey from innocence to maturity. She seems to be one of the boldest heroines
stage ever witnessed. In Tendulkar’s Chiranjeev Soubhagyakankshini once again the ethical norms are
challenged by the desires and wish fulfillment of Anjali Bhide, the central character. It verges on the
psychological problem of schizophrenia and Anji’s rape by the schizophrenic Shekhar Bhagwat, who baffles
Anji and mesmerizes her with his quick temperamental changes. In a very strictly codified and culture specific
context, Anjali who has passed the marital age is searching for a suitable life partner. She finds her virginal
fastidiousness desecrated by Shekhar who assumes the role of his own brother intermittently and speaks
different languages and switches roles between a NRI and a Bengali Babu. Anjali however does not protest
over her rape or lose self-control, neither is she totally disintegrated but reckons it as a kind of self-awakening.
She finds herself a completely changed woman after the strange interlude.
In a peculiar way she recollects and rejoices every moment of her rape for she looks at it as a process of
awakening. The momentary interaction leads her into a consciousness of womanhood.
Heroine: The first experience ever in the life of twenty nine years. Giving the pain of death and a sense of
wonder something unwanted and yet something that should not end.
Later when the narrator learns what disaster has befallen, he utters the word “Sorry”. She unexpectedly raises
her voice and questions him,
What’s there to be sorry about? It was the only experience to be preserved, are you unhappy about it?
Otherwise perhaps – that pleasure or happiness would never have come to me. I could never earn it. I was
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denying it scared of my father. But for that single moment at least I lived”. “The real sorrow is that I could not
live that fleeting moment properly. It ended as it came; but yet it came. At least once it had come!.
Anjali’s reaction to the pitiless and vicious deed is indeed shocking and it blasted the Marathi stage by its
audacity. Instead of being disgusted by the loathsome experience, she is captivated by the total physicality of
the act which would have otherwise never come her way. In a way, Anjali unabashedly not only accepts the
occurrence without complaint but cherishes the memory of the momentary pleasure she gained through the
bitter-sweet experience. She, then shares a peculiar kinship with Leela Benare of Silence the Court is in Session
who is partially responsible for the moral outrage due to their sexual wantonness. Anjali also needs to be
blamed for she herself walks into the trap laid by Shekhar, possibly fully aware of the repercussions but in
exhibiting completely unexpected reaction, shows her nonconformity as also challenges the orthodox norms
of man-woman relationship.
It is significant to probe the demoralizing act as it could present the complexities of the issue at this juncture.
Griffin in her study, “Rape: All American Crime”, points out “the male psyche persists in believing that,
protestations and struggles to the contrary deep inside her mysterious feminine soul, the female victim has
wished for her own fate. The theory that women like being raped extends itself by deduction into the
proposition that most or much of rape is provoked by the victim. But this too is a myth. Although the facts
reveal that women like Benare, Ramaor Anji in a way contribute to their tragic experiences, their lament or
outcry cannot expiate their irrevocable acts, it must be admitted that their promiscuity is an appeal for
emotional support and social security, a dependence on male support in a thoroughly patriarchal set up.
The ideals of women spring from the dictates of society which in turn is governed by the expectations of men.
Women therefore are more dependent on social approval than men. Mariam M Johnson opines that
seductiveness and mothering are both sources of power in women and are hence used against them.
Seductiveness becomes a taboo in society while mothering is accounted to restrain a woman’s activity. (Charu
16)
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TRANSNATIONALISM, LIMINALITY: DIASPORIC
EXPERIENCE IN BAPSI SIDHWA AND CHITRA
BANERJEE
Dr. Pradnya D Deshmukh-(Kale)
Literature of Diaspora depicts the spirit of a globalized era. In the age of globalization, scientific and
technological advances have changed our life beyond our imagination. Migration within country and outside
the country has become an inevitable part of our life. Changes in the world since 1989 have refocused
attention on the displaced person, the Diaspora and the people dispossessed and separated from their identity
and their history. Diaspora is not new: it has its roots in history and religion. Hence this particular area has
innate national, international and interdisciplinary relevance over a period of time and now it has become a
burning issue. When people cross the national boundary and enter another nation, their language and culture
are transformed as they come in to contact with other languages and culture. The Diasporic writing raises
questions regarding definition of “home” and “Nation”. “Where are you from? To which country you
belong?”... Answers to these questions are ambiguous today. In the age of globalization the concept of
“nation” has to be redefined with reference to the theory of Hybridity and Multiculturalism.
Diasporic writers like Rushdie write about their nations using the fragments of memory that they have and
create their own ‘Imaginary Homeland’ (1991). They rewrite their history and remytholise the culture of their
country. Homi Bhabha shifts the focus of Nationhood to culture, from historicity to temporality; a hybridity,
which cannot be, contained either in hierarchical or binary structure. Bhabha questions the historical certainty
and settled nature of the term ‘nationalism’. The focus of temporality provides a perspective on:
The disjunctive forms of representation that signify a people, a nation, or a national culture: It is neither the
sociological solidity of these terms, nor their holistic history that gives them the narrative and psychological
force that they have brought on the cultural production and projections. It is the mark of ambivalence of the
nation as a narrative strategy- and an apparatus of power- that it produces a continual slippage into analogous,
even metonymic, categories, like the people, minorities, or ‘cultural difference’ that continually overlaps in the
act of writing about the nation. What is displayed in this displacement and repetition of terms is the nation as
the measure of the liminality of cultural modernity. (Bhabha-1994)
Ambivalence is the precondition of the national culture. The idea of a nation as being autonomous and
sovereign is questionable. The structure of cultural liminality of the nation-space would ensure that no
political ideologies could claim transcendent or metaphysical authority for themselves. A according to
Foucault, liminality of the nation space removes the threat of cultural difference. The great contribution of
Foucault’s last published work is to suggest that people emerge in the modern state as a perpetual movement
of the marginal integration of individuals. Foucault raises the ethnographic question ………’What we are
today’? (Foucault-1988) To the west itself to suggest that the ‘reason of state’ in the modern nation must be
derived from the heterogeneous and differentiated limits of its territory. It is this location or "in-between”
space which has turned in an advantage to Diasporic Indian writers. The new subjectivities, new identities
which are produced in this space are liminal and hybrid.
Bhabha’s concept of hybridity is a complex one, applicable not merely to identity, but also to theory and
discourse. His theory of cultural hybridity (1994) recognizes all cultural relations as ambivalent, subversive,
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transgressed and hybrid. To Bhabha hybridity is not a thing but a process. Hybridity does not comprise of two
original moments from which the third emerges but points out to an ambivalent third space of cultural
production and reproduction. Hybridity as posited by Bhabha has been helping to understand varied
experiences of contemporary Diaspora. Avtar Brah describes the status of Diasporas in the dominant culture:
……all diasporas are differentiated, heterogeneous, contested spaces, even as they are implicated in the
construction of common ‘We’ (Brah-1997).
The transnational technological networks enable immigrants to set up close linkages with their homeland.
This is the age of ‘in-betweeners’. In course of time, diasporic individuals from the same country form
communities and different diaspora communities make “composite communities”. Thus transnational
communities are formed. According to Robin Cohen the distinct diaspora communities are constructed out
of “the confluence of narratives of the old country to the new, which create a sense of shared history’
(Cohen-1997).
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is the most recent star in the diaspora sky. An award winning poet and fiction
writer, she has been teaching creative writing from multicultural perspective even before it became a big thing.
As a pioneer in the field she had to create her own textbooks including the anthology Multitude which she uses
for her freshman classes. She is the co-founder of ‘Maitri’ a helpline for victimized women. Her own
immigrant experience: the stark memories of Bangladesh refugees who fled to the India to escape the
massacre by the Pakistan Army in 1971, her association with ‘Maitri; and ‘Daya’ have influenced her writing.
She has eleven novels, four volumes of poetry, and two short stories collection to her credit.
Chitra Banerjee tries to show through her writing that survival is nothing but a connection between different
cultures and different places. Her texts effectively map the contours of the new South Asian Community in
the US and their struggle for identity. The novel of Chitra Banerjee is an exploration of contemporary
histories-western, sub-continental and contemporary societies that are in a state of transition. Divakaruni’s
sixth novel Queen of Dreams (2004) is pleasantly a typical tale of self discovery. This novel is written on a
National tragedy 9/11 and it’s repercussion on the existence of Asian Communities, especially in the US.
Exploration of alternative histories, interrogation of the master code and rewriting histories has been central
concerns of her writing.
The connection of the second generation Indian American to their homeland is a major theme of Queen of
Dreams. Rakhi is a young, second generation Indian American immigrant. She is an artist and single mother in
Berkeley, California. She has a strong connection to her 'Indian-ness' and cannot understand why her mother
refuses to speak of India. Though she is an artist, she has to run a tea-shop named "The Chai House" to earn a
living and to look after her six year old daughter, Jona, a third generation Indian American. A trouble soon
appears in the shape of a rival coffee shop. Her customers begin to transfer to her lower priced competitor. If
Rakhee is unable to support Jona financially, she may lose the custody of her six year old daughter to her exhusband, Sonny.
Everything was going normal and the national tragedy – 9/11 happens. Her life is shaken by new horrors. The
same day, two white men attacked Rakhee, her friends and her family out the “The Chai House” In the wake of
September 11, she and her friends must deal with dark new complexities about their acculturation. Rakhi’s
feelings about being treated as hostile, alien are poignantly delineated: “But if I wasn’t American then what was
I?” (QD-301:2). After – 9/11, Indian-Americans were deemed ‘suspicious’. One day Rakhi found that
someone had painted ‘TERRORIST’ in red letters over the name of their store.
Rakhi couldn’t bear the suspicious glances on the street. People never walked beside her on the street. Rakhi
wonders, “How is it that one can become, overnight, both so frightening, and so vulnerable? (3: QD P. 305).
Some of the Americans feel sorry for the terrible attack on her. They want to welcome her presence in their
community. They make her feel like a guest. Rakhi was confused and shocked:
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I was born here, she wants to tell them. How can you welcome me? (3: QD-305)
In this novel she tried to bring out the problem of identity. How can diaspora exist in a country where they are
considered as terrorists? How can they continue to live in America as Americans? Her basic purpose of
writing is to emphasize the similarities in different ethnic groups rather than differences.
September-11 disrupts Rakhi’s search for identity and a vicious attack on her friends and family calls their
notions of citizenship into question. Chitra Banerjee herself personally was hurt by post 09/11 hatred.
Divakaruni openly discussed about the paradoxes of American Polices. Through her writing she celebrates
the courage and humanity of women who suffered and rebelled against oppressive patriarchy and the
dominant culture, besides joining universal sisterhood.
Parsee novel in English came into into being in the Eighties with the appearance of Bapsi Sidhwa on the
literary scene. She is Pakistan’s leading diasporic writer. As there was no tradition either of women’s literature
or of English language literature in Pakistan at the time when Sidhwa started writing, she may be considered a
pioneer in both the fields. Dislocation and Diaspora forms the creative thirst of her fiction in which history is
the compelling factor. In her recent interviews Sidhwa openly discussed about the paradoxes of American
policies. After 9/11, she urges Muslims not to leave America and show them what the real Islam is. All her
novels give the live picture of the migration of the historically diasporic Parsee community and their process
of assimilation. The novel An American Brat can prove to be a good handbook for the Third World migrants
to US. Manek, an uncle of protagonist Feroza has given her all lessons of assimilation. In this novel the
Zoroastrian worldview operates explicitly. The heightened consciousness of Feroza is the outcome of
expatriation. Her intense search for adequate social space in the New World is typical of an expatriate, since
she too faces rejection in the white man’s land, though initially. As this New World alone ensures her
satisfaction, happiness coupled with freedom, she decided to settle in America.
An American Brat is a result of Sidhwa's years of living in the United States and tells of the problems of
adjustment to a new culture as experienced by her heroine Feroza who comes to visit and then to study in the
U.S. and who becomes "an American brat", according to some of he relatives. Talking about the theme of An
American Brat to Naila Hussain, Bapsi Sidhwa says that:
Naturally, the book deals with the subject of the ‘cultural shock’ young people from the subcontinent have to
contend with when they choose to study abroad. It also delineates the clashes, the divergent cultures generate
between the families 'back home' and transgressing progeny bravely groping their way in the New World.
(Naila-1993)
The theme of immigration is quite prominent in this novel. The issue of cultural differences moves from its
periphery to the center in this novel. An American Brat deals with the intercultural theme, which has assumed
vital significance for many a postcolonial novelist. As people move from one part of the world to another
seeming to dissolve national boundaries, the formation and maintenance of community take on new
dimensions, as community becomes more fluid. An American Brat is a significant contribution to the
literature of Diaspora.
In Feroza's case when she came to U.S.A, she felt uprooted; her sense of self is eroded by displacement. The
sudden swing from conservative milieu of Lahore to the exhilarating 'surreal world' of New York disorients
her. During the course of the story, Sidhawa touches upon almost all aspects of the new immigrants and
visitors experiences in the United States at first hand. Some of the incidents are funny some are ugly and
painful.
The ruthless interrogation of custom officer realizes her for the first time that she is in a strange country
amidst stranger. There is a moment of confusion as her Pakistani passport opens from the wrong end. Unlike
English, Urdu was written from right to left and not vice versa. Feroza is subjected to a rather inhumane
treatment by the customs officer. He asked her a number of questions – what was her name, how long she
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would stay, where she would stay, how old was her uncle, what did he do, was he a US citizen, resident or visitor.
As Feroza was confused, innocent, emotional, her answers do not seem satisfactory and she was directed to
secondary inspection- after collecting her luggage. The custom officer accuses Feroza that she is a liar- she has
no uncle in America and her so-called uncle is actually her fiancé. Her ears couldn't believe what she heard and
she started crying. The customs officer starts inspecting each and every item in her bags- the shoes, the
toiletries, the underwear, a sanitary pad. Feroza couldn't bear this humiliation and loses her patience. She
snatches the nightgown from him and says, "To hell with you and your damn country. I'll go back!"(AB, P.64)
Expatriation is a complex phenomenon, which involves a transition from the known to the unknown. It is a
shift from a familiar set of values and relationships at home to an alien value system and relationship in the
chosen land. Viney Kirpal writes about the dilemma of the expatriate writer:
He is not the de-regionalized, de-racinated man of the modern west. His marginality itself is the result of his
race, region and history. And he writes with this realization in his bones. (Kirpal-1989)
Regarding Parsi ethnicity, and their assimilation in alien land and writers like Sidhwa, V.L.V.N. Narendrakumar
observes:
The Parsees carry their ethnicity to the "Promised Land" (Toronto, London or New York). Their marginality
sometime serves as the spring of motivation. Some writers, like Bapsi Sidhwa, are unaffected by expatriation.
They remain rooted to the psyche of native land. In the twentieth century, the creative epicenter shifted from
the center to the margins. The Post-colonial writers are, in the words of Rushdie, 'Writing back to the center (9)
Through the close analysis of the novel An American Brat, it becomes obvious that Parsee ethnicity has
helped Feroza to adjust in U.S.A. and face the challenges of the new world. While presenting glamour and
efficiency of the America, Sidhwa also depicts the unpleasant and violent aspects of the life in post-industrial,
consumerist and technology-dominated society. The visitors from the third world countries are surprised to
see the amount of crime in this affluent country. New immigrants are often warned by well-meaning women,
friends about how careful they should be on streets and parking lots otherwise they would be raped and
robbed. This everyday crime is not that much common in the third world country.
In spite of these hostile, horrible experiences Feroza decided to live in America to make her career and to
become an independent woman. Her encounter with the culture of the chosen land results in her symbolic
rebirth. Her ethnic anxiety triggers off her quest for identity in the alien land. Towards the end of the narrative
her process of assimilation is complete.
Even Edit Villareal suggests in a review that the coming-of-age theme is closely linked with the theme of
immigration in Bapsi Sidha's novel:
Coming of age is never easy. Coming of age as a woman is even harder. But coming of age as a female
immigrant in a foreign country may be the most difficult of all. For any women born into societies with
restrictive social and political codes, however, immigration may be the only real way to come of age. (Villareal1993)
Feroza, after getting a crash course from Manek about how to survive in the states is soon on her way. Her
American roommate Jo helps her in assimilation to American lifestyle. She acts, talks and dresses like an
American girl. The shy and conservative Feroza turns into a confident and self-assertive girl. She learns to
drive, drink, dance and use the American slang. She says: " may-nayze" and "gimme", (AB, P.154) she uses
expletives like "motha-fuka" (AB, P.154) and "shit" and "ass-hole"(AB, P. 159). Jo picks up men casually but
Feroza is still restrained. Feroza knows that her parent would be surprised at her changed lifestyle but she
thinks of this behavior as a form of initiation.
The timid, shy Feroza even commits the cardinal sin of smoking (to Parsis fire is the symbol of Ahura Mazda
(God) and smoking an act of desecration). She flirts with an Indian student Shashi at the University of Denver
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where she studies hotel management. Later, she has a tempestuous love affair with a handsome young
American Jew, David Press. The ethno-religious pressures on her made her drift away from David and "She
had knocked him out with sugar" as the old Parsee proverb went. Luckily he gets a job with a firm in California
and he leaves Deniver. Zareen goes back to Lahore. Feroza feels shocked, insecured and uprooted for
sometime but she soon bounces back.
Feroza decides not to go back home but live in America. Although the sense of dislocation, of not belonging is
more acute in America, she finds it bearable because "it was shared by thousands of newcomers like herself'
(AB, P. 312) The attraction of America not only lies in the material comfort but in America 'freedom' is
considered a birthright of every individual. If the New World offers Feroza adequate social space to grow,
Zoroastrianism provides the ultimate emotional and religious space to her. Nilufer Bharucha has rightly
pointed:
Feroza in An American Brat is symbolic of the postcolonial Parsi- especially the post-colonial Parsee-woman
who has to battle not just dominant group pressures and their religious fundamentalism, but has also to
confront the orthodox patriarchy of her own ethnic group. However, the more this ethnic group identity is
threatened, the stronger it becomes and in the ultimate analysis it is an identity which is inviolate – as Feroza
realized no one could take away her Parsiness from her, not the mullahs, not the Parsi orthodoxy, not even
enchanting America could destroy it (Bharucha -2000)
Though America is full of paradox, she decided to live in America because it provides:
Privacy, she had come to realize, was one of the prime luxuries the opulence of the first world could provide,
as well as the sheer physical space the vast country allowed each individual, each child, almost as a birthright.
(AB, P.312)
America though paradoxical "was shaping a New world, the future in microcosm, the melting pot in which
every race and creed was being increasingly represented, compelled to live with and tolerate the “other”. (AB313) Feroza decided to play her role in shaping the future.
Feroza’s mental turmoil and the quest of identity typify the predicament of the modern multi-cultural society
in almost all country. Today human expectations have changed. International law provides protective cover
and the consciousness of human rights has increased all over the world. Though all democratic countries
believe in multiculturalism as a value, the power or hegemony remains a constant factor which characterizes
the relationship between individuals, peoples or nations. Multiculturalism is an irreversible fact today,
although the multiculturalists societies in the US, Canada and Britain have, of late, in the wake of the events of
9/11 and 7/7, begun to seriously question their commitment to pluralism as a way of life. Multiculturalism as a
value of democratic country is getting publicity now a days. The margin centre relationship is not stable. In this
age of Information technology, it is said that the world is becoming a global village and borders are becoming
meaningless. It is also said that we are the citizen of the world. But people are dwindling into symbols.
Ironically, in the face of global technology and the impact of satellite communications, ethnicity is becoming
last refuge into which great masses all over the world are coming back.
The protagonists of Sidhwa and Divakaruni are not prisoner of their ethnicities. Feroza and Rakhi try to move
beyond their ethnicity, try to challenge it and they also interrogate- to hegemonic pressures from the west.
Being immigrant they carve their own ‘routes’ in adopted land. Sidhwa’s ethono-religious discourse is thus
what Homi Bhabha has called “the social articulation of difference, from the minority perspective”. (Bhabha1994)
Notes:
Bhabha, Homi K. “Dissemination:Time,Narrative, and the Margins of the Modern Nation”. Nation and
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Narration. Ed. Homi Bhabha 1994.
Foucault, M. Technologies of the Self Ed. H. Gutman et.al.London:Tavistock 1988
Brah, Avtar. Cortographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. Routledge, 1997.
Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas: An Introduction. UCI Press,1997.
Divakaruni Chitra, Queen of Dream. New-York; Random house, 2004.
Sidhwa, Bapsi. An American Brat. Penguin Books 1993.
Hussain, Naila. "On the Writer's World", Interview with Bapsi Sidhwa, The Nation, Midweek, 26 May 1993, P.
19.
Kirpal, Vinay. The Third World of Expatriation. New Delhi Sterling 1989. P.5.
Villarea, Edit. "Feroza Goes Native." The Washington Post, Dec.16.1993.P.89.
Bharucha, Nilofer E. " Resisting Colonial and Post-colonial Hegemonies: Bapsi Sidhwa's Ethno-Religious
Discourse", Asian American Writing Vol. No. II ed. Somnath Mandal, Prestige Books, New Delhi 2000, P.94.
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 1994. P.2.
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THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY THE NOVELISTIC ART
OF PHILIP ROTH
Dr. P. Suneetha
Philip Roth is a Jewish American novelist who was born in Newark, New Jersey. His writing career has been
combined with various teaching posts in America. His complex relationship with his Jewish background is
reflected in most of his works, and his portrayal of contemporary Jewish life has aroused much controversies.
He won 2007 Man Booker International Prize and drew the attention of creative artists in the world. He is a
prolific writer who is into comic genre as well. He works include about Jews, Newark, American literature and
history besides focusing on such topics as ethnicity and race. The present article incorporates Roth’s insights
probing into the themes of the politics of identity, especially as defined by racial or ethnic affiliation, and the
possibilities available for self definition and transformation within modern American history and culture.
The study is restricted to nine representative works of Roth that have brought him fame and name by means
of awards and gripping themes.
Roth has used his writing to continually reinvent himself and in doing so to remake the American literary
landscape. His Debut book, Goodbye, Columbus which was published in 1959 was a novel with five short
stories. It won him the National Book Award in 1960. In this novel, he presents a humorous portrayal of
Jewish American life. It is a hilarious tale of a doomed love affair between a poor bookish young urban Jew,
Neil and a spoiled young Jewish-American Princess, Brenda Painkim from the suburbs. The story reaches its
peak when the hero visits his girlfriend’s palatial home and gapes, astonished, while her college-educated
brother who sits in his bedroom and listens over and over to his “Columbus on the record,” a souvenir from
his beloved Ohio State University. This novel grapples with the protagonist`s sense of self, particularly in
relation to his Jewish identity. While Brenda and Neil are both Jewish, their differences in socioeconomic class
create the central tensions of their relationship. Neil lives with his aunt and uncle in a lower middle-class area
of Newark in New Jersey, and works in a public library. Brenda is a college student at Radcliff College in
Boston, Massachusetts, spending her summer vacation at her upper-middle-class family house in the suburbs.
The first person narration portrays the relationship from Neil’s perspective, highlighting the class differences
between the two of them. A significant element of their relationship is their sexual encounter, first in her
family TV room, and later, while he is staying at her house, in her bedroom at night. Neil describes his first
sexual encounter with Brenda in terms of “winnin,” using the metaphor of the competitive game to describe
the experience of making love to her. Due to their class differences, the meeting between Brenda and Neil is
of symbolic socio-economic significance.
Goodbye, Columbus was hailed as the opening volley from a daring and brilliant new voice on the American
literary scene, particularly from the Jewish American sector. Critics classified Roth with Saul Bellow and
Bernard Malamud and also set him apart by virtue of his unaffected and caustic handling of Jewish American
culture, his suburban settings, and his third generation heritage.
The Professor of Desire (1977)2 another novel by Roth, features David Kepesh, who dreams of meeting the
whore that Kafka used to visit, introduced to him by his childhood hero Herbie Bratasky. David goes to
school at Syracuse for undergraduate studies and later goes to London and meets two girls who have a
threesome with him and then leave him always feeling as if adventure seeped out of his sexual life.Then he
goes to Stanford for postgraduate studies, and meets Helen. Helen is beautiful, but crazy, and still loves a man
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who once took her to Hong Kong and asked if she would be an accomplice in his wife’s murder, so that they
could be together without any troubles. Helen often wishes if she had gone along with him. Later she starts
taking lots of cocaine, and resorts to action that annoyed David and he wanting to divorce her. Finally they do,
and then he is alone in New York, seeing a psychiatrist named Dr. Klinger. He corresponds with the
Schonbrunnss, a fellow professor, and wife at Stanford, and eventually meets Clair who is simpler than Helen.
She is sane, and better for David, and finally everything ends rather happily.
The beginning of the novel is quite good and it progresses even better, but once all the action shifts to David
flying to Hong Kong to find Helen and then the divorce afterwards, it begins to seem more rapid. However,
David’s first person-narrations are truly slack as he constantly doubts whether or not he will be above to love
Claire forever without wanting something more. Towards the end, there are the most eye-opening segments,
whereas the beginning of the novel discusses nearly every sexual whim one could expect to come across in the
text book. This novel won the prestigious National Book Critics Circle Award in 1978.
The Counter Life (1986) that won National Book Award and also National Book Critics Circle Award, is
wonderfully precise and clear. Besides sexual expressions, phallic power, oral fixation, family oppression and
familial duties, there is the presence of everything that shows what it is to be a Jew. The death of Zuckerman’s
brother is the main point for discussion. The opening of the novel deals with Henry Zuckerman, a dentist,
who risks his life undergoing a heart surgery. He is willing to do it because he can stop taking medication that
has deprived him of his sexual potency. Not yet forty, he cannot face life without the ability to have sex with
either his wife or his mistress or assistant. Though the doctor tries to convince him not to have the risky
operation, Henry is determined to face risk. Shortly before his operation, he confides in his elder brother,
Nathan, his predicament and his desire to restore his virility, and it is Nathan who tries to understand what
drives his brother to such drastic measures. Another part of the novel deals with Henry who does not die
from the surgery, but of his emotional recovery.
Novel after novel, Mr. Roth has questioned what Jews want with almost the same irritated mindset we
associate with Freud`s question, “What do women want?” In The Counter life, the query has become more
riddling, more radical and, despite the antic flip-flops of the plot, more serious yet no less witty for all that: can
a Jew, if he wishes or if he wants – change into a Jew? And in what direction should he go to do that? And why
should the quiet course of a comfortable life be shattered by such questions, which were always there to be put,
but were answered by not being asked? And is not the anti-Semitism of a Jew or the refusal of a Jew to be one?
After recovery, Henry hastens abruptly away to Israel to take up righteousness and seek faith. There he will
carry a pistol and develop a different, more martial manhood. It is not heaven he has gone to, but to Judea for
war. There he receives doses of rhetoric from every mouth sufficient to cure complacency by killing it. Hope
is also ruined. The European Jew speaks, the radical right-wing Jew speaks. The anti-Semitic Jew speaks, the
peaceful Jew speaks and the Furies have their innings. The arguments that concern Jews are about Jewishness,
about power, and are entirely political. The political sense and morality are artfully confused. So this is not a
novel about only ideas, but also about beliefs. Every belief is buttressed, not with reasons, but with the crimes
of opponents. The Gentiles have done thus and so the Arabs also have done thus and so; therefore we, the
Jews, should do thus, and thus and so. Action follows action like an avalanche of rock. Of course resentment
stretches as far as one can see sand. And every Jew, except for the secular, corrupt, pluralistic and skeptically
minded Nathan, believes it essential that every Jew should believe the same as every other Jew, achieve the
solidarity of the Wailing Wall. The two brothers continue to counter each other, appear to oppose each other,
as the geography of the novel does, locating some of its scenes in America, others in England’s green and
pleasant areas as well as the deserts of Judea.
Roth’s another powerful novel Operation Shylock (1993) asks why the American Jews can both revere and
detest Israel at the same. Is there a real truth about the so-called Holy Land and the people that support it, or is
truth simply in the eye of the beholder? The novel provides no easy answer. It’s written in the first-person
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confessional style and built on the foundation of factual events. It does have an intriguing plot. The author,
recovering from a mental breakdown caused by the dangerous painkiller Halcion, travels to Israel to interview
his colleague Aharon Appelfeld for The New York Times Review of Books. He discovers, however, that
another Philip Roth has gotten there before him and has been preaching anti-Israel doctrine in his name.
According to the other Roth, the Jews must abandon the concept of Zionism and return to their homelands in
Europe before Israel disgraces the entire religion. Roth grows upset that his name is being used for political
purposes, especially with those which he doesn’t agree and goes out to confront his doppelganger. He
discovers that the “fake” Philip Roth is virtually indistinguishable from the “real” Philip Roth, and that people
are buying the ruse. The imposter refuses to back down from his impersonation, claiming to be a martyr for
the cause of Jewish Diaspora.
The views espoused by Philip Roth quickly come to the attention of both Israeli and Palestinian intelligence,
and soon the author can no longer distinguish reality from subterfuge. As a high-profile Jewish figure, Roth
begins to suspect that he is being ensnared by both Israelis and Palestinians into working for their causes.
Innocent encounters begin to seem like carefully crafted plots designed to sway his opinion.
As on top of these things of all this occurs at a time when tensions couldn’t be greater between Arabs and
Jews. Israel is involved in the trial of John Demjanjuk, a Cleveland auto worker accused of being the notorious
Nazi torturer Ivan the Terrible. The legitimacy of Jewish and Palestinian claims about Israel rests on whether
Demjanjuk is really a monster finally being brought to justice or a poor immigrant being subjected to a sham
trial.
For Roth, the final truth to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that there isn’t any. Israel is a paradise for the Jews
and a nightmare for the Palestinians; Demjanjuk is both a model American citizen and a Nazi butcher; and the
Israeli Intelligence agency the Mossad is both manipulative and deceitful as well as a noble institution worthy
of working for. If there is any simpler truth, the author concludes, it cannot be deduced from the evidence
that is now before us.
Philip Roth does discover one ultimate truth about himself and the Jewish people in the novel. It is almost a
statement made by the late Bernard Malamud: “If you ever forget you’re a Jew, a gentile will remind you.” In
other words, Jews will always be Jews before they are anything else- especially in Israel. This novel won
PEN/Faulkner Award for Roth in 1994.
American Pastoral (1977) is a Philip Roth novel concerning Seymour “Swede” Levov, a Jewish-American
businessman and former high school athlete from Newark, New Jersey. Levov’s happy and conventional
upper middle class life is ruined by the domestic social and political turmoil of the 1960s, which is described in
the novel as a manifestation of the “indigenous American berserk.”7 The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998
and was included in Time’s “All TIMES 100 Greatest Novels”.
The plot of the novel runs thus: Seymour Levov is born and raised in the Weequahic section of Newark as the
son of a successful Jewish-American glove manufacturer. Called “the Swede” because of his anomalous blond
hair, blue eyes and Nordic good looks, he is a star athlete in three sports and narrator Nathan Zuckerman’s idol
and hero. The Swede eventually takes over his father’s glove factory, Newark Maid, and marries Dawn Dwyer,
an Irish-American Miss New Jersey 1949.
Levov establishes what he believes to be a perfect American life with a beloved family, a satisfying business life,
and a beautiful old home in rural Old Rimrock, New Jersey. Yet as the Vietnam War and racial unrest wrack
the country and destroy inner-city Newark, Seymour’s teenage daughter Merry, outraged at the United States’
conduct in Vietnam, becomes more radical in her beliefs and in 1968 commits an act of political terrorism. In
protest against the Vietnam War and the “system,” she plants a bomb in a local post office and the resulting
explosion kills a bystander. In this singular act, Levov is cast out of the seemingly perfect life he has built and
thrown instead into a world of chaos and dysfunction. Like a number of real-life members of the Weather
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Underground, Seymour’s daughter goes permanently into hiding. In Zuckerman’s narration, a secret reunion
of father and daughter takes place in 1973 in Newark’s ruined inner city, where Merry is living in abysmal
conditions. During this reunion, she claims that since the first bombing she has set off several other bombs
resulting in more deaths and that she had been repeatedly raped while her life in obscurity.
The novel alludes extensively to the social upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s. It refers to the 1967
Newark riots, the Watergate scandal, the sexual revolution and Deep Throat, the code name of the secret
source in the Watergate scandal and the title of a 1972 pornographic film. In the novel’s final scene, both the
Watergate scandal and the pornographic film are discussed at a dinner party during which the first marriage of
“the Swede” begins to unravel when he discovers his wife`s affair with others. The novel also alludes to the
rhetoric of revolutionary violence of the radical fringe of the New Left and the Black Panthers, the trial of the
leftist African-American activist Angela Davis, and the bombings carried out between 1969 and 1973 by the
Weathermen and other radicals opposing the US military intervention in Vietnam. The novel quotes from
Frantz Fanon’s A Dying Colonialism,8 which Zuckerman imagines as one of the texts that inspire Merry to
carry out her bombing of a local post office.
In the novel, Merry’s bombing takes place in February 1968, during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson,
after which she flees to her parental home. By that time she has had a “Weathermen motto” tacked up in her
room for many months. In reality this would have been impossible. The Weathermen group was in fact,
formed in the summer of 1969. The lines of the “motto” which appear in the novel “we are against
everything that is good and decent in honky America. We will loot and burn and destroy. We are the
incubation of your mothers’ nightmares” allude to a speech by John Jacobs at a Weathermen “war council” in
December 1969. Thus the novel takes us upon an extended journey into the culture of American Jews, whose
search for the American dream has brought wealth and success in equal measure with heartache and pain. It
easily focuses on two generations of Levovs, descended from immigrant Jews with their disappointments and
horrors of the 1960s, and the devastating effects of a country divided over the Vietnam War.
Philip Roth’s Cold War novel, I Married a Communist (1998) is partial to “Social democratic” egalitarianism
espoused by the postwar left. He is sympathetic to Murray’s radical unionism and to Ira’s radical politics. He
portrays unrepentant communists as sympathetic characters in the novel. His disdain is for America’s failed
promise during the Cold War. He admires the “united front” at the end of the World War-II. He sees the
Communist vision for the U.S. as positive – communists not ‘foreign agents” but American “democrats.”
This was the Communist Party “line” at the end of the war – more a platform for a party of anti-fascists and
union activists than for revolutionaries. In short, he refuses to be mindlessly anticommunist.
Roth chooses to explore the explosive violence that is central to the postwar American experience. The past
that he is bothered about makes him Nathan has not surrendered the liberal premise that the United States
among all imperial powers operates in the world on the basis of moral principles. Both Nathan and Murray
agree that the destruction visited on several thousand American unionists, radicals, and CPers was a horror.
But on the plane of destruction that is American ‘cold war” legacy it was a miniscule. In the summer of 1950
when Nathan turns away from Ira, part of that retreat was in reaction to Ira’s harangues about the violence of
American reaction in Korea and the real possibilities of atomic warfare. As Nathan contemplates Ira’s
obliteration, lies and deceit are represented as strictly personal matters. The possibility that lies and mythmaking are requirements, that war-making is an instrument of the American imperial strategy, and that the
inherent socialist critiques of capitalism might be valid are not part of Murray`s or Nathan’s interpretation.
Roth has considered in this novel the crucial issue of the Jews and socialism. He feels that a significant portion
of poor and lower middle class Jews as well as intellectuals, turn to the socialist movement earlier in this
century. This led to a virtual identification of Jews and socialism that played in the rise of modern antiSemitism.
Murray narrates amply to Zuckerman thus: “Back in that era, there were a lot of angry Jewish guys around like
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Ira. Angry Jews all over America, fighting something or others. The lawyers, the convert into garment
business. Angry Jewish guys in Hollywood, Angry Jewish guys in the garment business. In the bakery line, At
the ballpark, Angry Jewish guys in the Communist Party, guys who could be belligerent and antagonistic.
Guys who could throw a punch, too. America was paradise for angry Jews. The shrinking Jew still existed, but
you don’t have to be one if you didn’t want to. My union. My union wasn’t the teachers` union-it was the
Union of Angry Jews.” This powerful novel won the Ambassador Book Award of the English-Speaking
Union in 1998.
The Human Stain is a novel of identity that revolves around the love affair of two people who could not be
more opposite. Coleman Silk a classic professor, who was once well respected in his small community before
an accusation took from him the identity he spent fifty years creating. Coleman’s lover, Fauna Farley, is an
illiterate woman who is being stalked by the ex-husband who blames her for the death of their two small
children. This love affair creates a scandal in their small town that is only rivalled by President Bill Clinton’s
relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
The novel is set in the 1990s United States, during fierce culture wars, political correctness and the Bill ClintonMonica Lewinsky scandal. The story is told by Nathan Zuckerman, a writer who lives a secluded life where
Coleman Silk is his neighbour. Silk is a dean of faculty at Athena College, a fictional institution in the
Berkshires of western Massachusetts. At 71, he is unjustly accused of racism by two black students, because
of referring to them as “spooks,” since they had never shown up in his seminar. “Do they exist or are they
spooks?” Having never seen the students, Silk did not know they were black when he made the comment. The
uproar eventually leads to Silk’s resignation and soon after to the death of his wife Iris. He starts an affair with
one of the school’s janitors, Faunia Farley, a 34-year-old woman married to an abusive Vietnam veteran.
Through flashbacks, it is revealed that Coleman Silk is a mixed-race man who had been presenting himself as
Jewish.
The novel examines that Philip Roth, throughout his work, questions how a country that was supposedly
funded on equality, hope and humanity could have possibly let itself evolve into such an unequal, hopeless and
inhuman land. It also points out that the concept of “racial passing” is a primary theme in this book.
Additionally, it analyses the theme of prejudice that prevents minorities from transcending their problematic
conditions while being blamed for virtually very ill that society suffers. A full length paper may be written by
comparing the themes expressed by Roth in this novel to those themes expressed by Lorraine Hansberry in
her work, A Raisin in the Sun and in Arthur Miller in his work “Death of a Salesman.” This novel has the credit
of having won PEN/Faulkner Award (2001), W.H. Smith Literary Award (2001) and Prix Medicis Etranger,
France (2002).
Everyman (2006) Roth’s another novel that won PEN/Faulkner Award (2007), takes its title and its theme
from the medieval play in which an unprepared sinner is informed by Death of his imminent judgment day.
Everyman in that 15th century incarnation is deserted as he faces his maker by first his friends and his family
and then his wealth; these impostors are followed by his strength, beauty and knowledge. All that is finally
stacked in his favour in the divine audit are his good deeds. It is not a cheerful tale.
The novel begins with a Messenger announcing the book’s purpose. Everyman will be called before God, and
thus every man should look to the end of his life even as he begins it. The sin that initially looks sweet will
eventually cause the soul to weep. Then God appears and tells the audience that man has forgotten the
sacrifice that God made for them at the crucifixion. God is angry and disappointed with man, who has
embraced the seven deadly sins. Since man has turned to sin, God is demanding a reckoning. He calls for
Death and instructs him to seek out every man who has lived outside God’s law. Death is to bring forth these
men for a final reckoning. Death promises to do so and seeing Everyman, Death asks him if he has forgotten
his God. Everyman is underprepared for Death and is frightened by that. Bellette, an elderly woman whose
mental process had been affected by a brain tumour, might in any case have been acting as the mouthpiece of a
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long-dead writer but he put the words out there, folding them into a larger argument about the ethics and
intellectual purpose of literary biography and the perils of mistaking gossip for criticism. Pride, covetousness,
wrath, and lechery turn modern twists on Everyman’s search for meaning in this.
Roth’s another novel Nemesis (2010) is about the polio epidemic effect of 1994 and its effects on Newark
community and its children who are threatened with maiming, paralysis, lifelong disability and death. In the
center of Nemesis there is a dutiful hero Bucky Cantor, a Javelin thrower, weight lifter, who is devoted to his
charges disappointed with himself because his weak eyes have excluded him from serving in the war along
with his contemporaries. Focusing on Cantor’s dilemmas as polio begins to ravage his playground-and on the
everyday relatives he faces, Roth examines some of the central themes of pestilence, fear, panic, anger,
bewilderment, suffering and pain.
Set mostly in 1944 Newark, it tells the story of Bucky Cantor at 23 a freshly minted physical education teacher
and summertime playground director. Life has made him deal with some blows: his mother died in
childbirth; his father, a thief, exited the picture long ago. Worse, to his anguish and disgrace, Bucky’s vision
keeps him from going to fight the Germans alongside his best buddies-alongside, for that matter, àll the ablebodied men of his age`.
But life has dealt him blessings. He inhabits the role of playground director with a combination of enthusiasm
and dignity that makes him, in the eyes of the children, “an outright hero”. “He wanted to teach them what his
grandfather has taught him toughness and determination, to be physically fit and never to allow themselves to
be pushed around or just because they knew how to use their brains, to be defamed as Jewish weaklings and
sissies.”
He thus, had been given a war to fight, the war being waged on the battlefield of his playground, the war whose
troops he has deserted for Marcia and the safety of Indian Hill. If he could not fight in Europe or the Pacific,
he could at least have remained in Newark, fighting their fear of polio alongside his endangered boys. Bucky’s
uncertainty of whether to place himself before his country spreads through him like a virus and infects all his
emotional relationships. In the beginning of the novel Bucky questions God’s role in the polio epidemic,
wondering, “how could there be forgiveness-let alone hallelujahs – in the face of such lunatic cruelty?” His
steadfast desire to be a good Jewish boy grows more and more tired as the novel progresses, and by the end of
Nemesis his doubts metastasize into full-fledged anger:
“And where does God figure in this? Why does He set one person down in Nazi-occupied Europe with a rifle
in his hands and the other in the Indian Hill dining lodge in front of a plate of macaroni and cheese? Why does
He place one Weequahic child in polio-ridden Newark for the summer and another in the splendid sanctuary
of the Poconos? For some who had previous found in diligence and hard work the solution to all his problems,
there was now much that was inexplicable to (Bucky) about why what happens, happens as it does.”
Roth’s success as a novelist is his ability to discuss the weightiest of topics-faith, marriage, family and
something of Jewish American life in the second half of the 20th century. Reading the opening sentences of a
Roth novel is one of the supreme joys of modern fiction. One may take a metaphor from cricket and say that
he is the kind of batsman capable of scoring a century before lunch. The voice of this Jewish man from New
Jersey is worth reading. Yet his work also remains a highly serious discussion of man’s tenuous place in an
increasingly hostile world. So this literary giant justifiably won the fourth Man Booker International Prize for
his achievement in fiction thereby bringing honour to the award.
Notes:
Roth, Philip. Goodbye, Columbus, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1980.
Roth, Philip. The Professor of Desire, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977.
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Roth, Philip. The Counter, Life New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1987.
Roth, Philip. Operation Shylock, New York: Vintage International, 1993.
Malamud, Bernard. Idiots First, London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1964, p.29.
Roth, Philip. American Pastoral, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
Fanon, Frantz. A Dying Colonialism, Grove/Atlantic, 1991.
Jacobs, John. Weather Man War Council, Chicago: 1969.
Roth, Philip. I Married a Communist, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1998.
Roth, Philip., The Human Stain, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.
Roth, Philip. Everyman, London: Jonathan Cape, 2006.
Roth, Philip., Nemesis, London: Jonathan Cape, 2010.
Sunday Book Review, The New York Times Oct8, 2010.
The Complete Review`s Review, Oct 18, 2010.
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IMPACT OF CHANGING PERSPECTIVES ON INDIAN
AUTHORS’ WRITING STYLES
B. Suvarna Bai
The trends of Indian writing in English, in India started one and half century ago but it has given great chance
of Indian authors to adopt new kind of writing styles in their respective specialized area, where they brought
many ancient histories, which it is with us through the ages of Indian literature, “ Literature” word itself
includes broadest sense : religious and mundane, epic and lyric, dramatic and didactic, narrative and scientific
prose, as well as oral poetry and song, ancient literature of India includes Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas and
Mahapuranas.
Indian literature believed oldest literature in the world. It has massive cultural diversities, around this, twenty
four languages officially recognized in India. Over the thousands of years. Literature has been produced
manifold languages during this time. Initially Indian literature dominated with Sanskrit language, and Prakrit
and Pali language also taken major share of Indian literature, where people adopted as common language.
After Vedic period Pali and Prakrit languages started speaking in India. Prakrit expresses widest sense of term
was indicative of any language that in any manner, deviated from standard one, comparatively Prakrit, Pali is
archaic and combination of various dialects. These languages were adopted by Buddhist and Jain sets in
ancient India. Lord Buddha (500 B.C) used Pali to give his sermons. Most of Jains tales narrated in Prakrit
language.
Hindu literature tradition have dominated on Indian culture, with reflection of great works, like Vedas and
epics such as Ramayana and Mahabharata, these three shastras treatises like Artha,Vaastu, and Kama well
reflection of Indian literary excellence. Early Hindi literature dialects Avadi and Brai, started around religious
and philosophical poetry. During this period, great exponent of Hindi literary poets Sant Kabir and Tulsi Das
has contributed their works, besides this Khadi boil dialect has been prominent upsurge till today, along with
these two religions followed by the same domination with Muslim literary tradition in a huge part of Indian
literature in medieval period.
English Language come along with Britishers’ in India with entry of East India Company in (1757-1858), and
after that followed by direct rule (1858-1947). Almost two centuries of influence on manifold organization
like government, law, language, architecture and sports. It has started at the time of Emperor Jahangir rule,
when he invited Captain William Hawkins, Commander of British Naval Expedition Hector to his Moguls
courts. It was India’s first tryst with an Englishman and English. Later he has given permission to open
permanent port and factory on the special request of James IV that was conveyed by his ambassador Sir
Thamous Roe. Late seventeenth century printing press came into India, this was helpful for publication,
initially it has published either of Bible or government decrees, and then English paper has come with name of
Hickey’s Bengal Gazette.
Indian writing in English came in 1793 A.D. the first book written by an Indian author Sake Dean Mahomet,
tiled “Travels of Dean Mahomet’s”. Narrative published in England; initially it was influenced by western art
form novel. Indian authors used English unadulterated by the use of Indian words to express an experience,
which was essential Indian. The reason behind this, most of the readers were either British or British educated
Indians, further century the writings were largely confined to writing history, chronicles and government
gazettes.
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In early 20th century, British conquest of India was achieved, with this new breed of writers started to emerge
on the block. These writers especially British, who were born and brought up or both in India, their writing
styles with mixture of Indian and western cultures made them new breed of narrative writers. From that day
English is one of the languages of Indian’s till today it has been spreading through out the country it became
common language as well as foreign language over many years, it has been with Indians more then two
centuries made them to write in Indian writing in English.
Some of the Indian writers in Indian writing in English are Sri Aurobindo, R.K Narayan, Anita Desai, and
Mahesh dattani. These are very famous writers of recent trends of Indian literature impact of changing
perspectives and cross cultures, globalization given new kinds of writing styles to prove their writings globally.
Sri Aurobindo was one of the greatest poet of Indian writing in English, who born and brought up with two
blended cultures; he was not only poet but also Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, yogi and guru. The central
theme of Sri Aurobindo vision was the evolution of human life into life divine. He wrote: “Man is transitional
being”. He is not final. The step from man to superman is the next approaching achievements in the earth
evolution. It is inevitable because it is at once the intention of the inner spirit and the logic of nature’s
process”. His writings synthesized Eastern and Western philosophy, religion, literature and psychology. His
works includes philosophy, poetry and translation of and commentaries on the Vedas and Upanishads and the
Gita. He examined Indian culture In Renaissance of India (earlier this piece called The Foundation of Indian
Culture).
Sri Aurobindo’s style writing shows adaptability and flexibility which vary with context. Always chooses
suitable text according to his subject, this we can analyze with the different essays in the volume entitled in the
volume The Future poetry. He also did interpretation of Vedas, the Vedas were considered by some to be
composed by a barbaric culture worshiping violent gods. Over all Sri Aurobindo’s influence has been wide
ranging in Indian writing in English.
R.K.Narayana was one of foremost novelist; he was born in Madras Presidency, British India. He has done his
schooling in his father’s school, his father worked as teacher, traveled many places because of this reason he
has stayed with his grandmother where he has learned, arithmetic, mythology, classical Indian music and
Sanskrit, his learnings’, we could see in his writings in manifold publications. When he studied in his father’s
school, he has got huge library facility where he has got fed up with reading then he has started writing. When
he has failed University entrance exam he has spend one year at home this also has given him opportunity to
learn writing and reading to improve himself as writer. When his head master of the school asked him to
substitute for physical training master then he left the school, and thought himself to decide to stay at home,
took writing as profession. Initially he has got little trouble to publish his writings but with the help of his
German friend Gram Green helped to publish his writings, always he encouraged him a lot, till the end of
Narayan’s life, and he has given a pseudonym to Narayan as R.K.Narayana, later he got much literary
appreciation in his literary career.
Narayan’s writing style, he has brought new trends in his writing style to get aware of changes in society, writing
focuses on unpretentious and natural humor. Every day he used to go market to search of new character in his
next writings and he converse with people a lot to know about their psychology. His first writing has taken
place in 1930 Swami and Friends. It was not immediately published an effort of his uncle inane, next novel The
bachelor of arts in 1937, it has given inspiration from his college days, third novel written in 1938 The Dark
Room, about domestic disharmony. One of his famous writings Malgudi, which he got literary fame. After his
wife passed away he traveled a lot to other countries. He has compared with many of western authors, some
critics considered him as “Indian Chekhov” one more author of western Anthony West from New Yorker
Comparing Narayan’s writing with Nicolai Gogol. One good thing about the situations, which surrounded
him, taken place in his writings, transparency of characters, English language has given him flexibility to
express and use original mother tongue words like sambar, idly and etc, gradually we could say him best writer
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of Indian writings in English.
Anita Dasi is one of the famous women novelists of Indian writing in English, born to German mother and
Indian father where we could see two cultures in her writings to express new trends in her literary career. At the
age of nine years she started her career in writing in English where we can proud of Indian born lady in Indian
writing in English, most of the changing perspectives, taken place in her writings, especially most of the
Desai’s works engage the complexities of modern Indian culture from a feminine perspective while
highlighting the female Indian predicament of maintaining self-identity as individual women. Cry, the Peacock
Desai’s first novel. Her works reflects on independence and communication, the influence of the West, the
tensions between religious and domestic interaction. Desai shows all the qualities of two brought up cultures
where she has got impact of cultural and language, globalization brought many new trends in her writings.
Mahesh Dattani has started his literary career as an actor and stage director; he has studied in Baldwin and
St.Joseph’s College, brought up with warmth and affection of indulgent parents and two older sisters.
Through out his academic career he was never a student of literature but he became good writer in English.
Besides this he was not at all creative writer. He has started his career has copywriter and subsequently worked
with his father in the family business. It was quite surprising of events which it has taken place in his career. He
worked for many Greek dramas and contemporary plays. There is an interesting story of Dattani wrote his full
length play, when he showed ten to twelve sheets of unfinished play he had began work on, response was very
encouraging, so he completed it. Today he is considered one of the India’s best play wrights in English. He has
also written plays for BBC Radio. Some of his plays such as Dance like a Man have been made into a movie.
His one of his debut film name with Mango soufflé got Lambda Award for best motion picture. With this
appreciation he has continued some of his excellent plays like Morning Raga was inspired by his of
Bhrartnatyam for six years during his late teens and early 20’s in Bangalore, initiation of Carnatic music, latter
he had chosen theatre and gave up dance, but taste of Carnatic music stay with him, when he was doing his
Mango Soufflé, interaction of the musicians and Amit who had studied jazz from Berkeley College of Music,
gave him the idea for the play. Finally not having interest in literary career made him one of the best literary
writers in Indian writing in English.
Gradually impact of changing perspectives brought many changes in Indian authors, writing styles shown,
how ancient trends changed with new trends of literature with each individual writer has his own identity, born
and brought with Eastern and Western cultures impact of their writing style to bring new trends, area of
interest made them mark in Indian writing in English. Indian writing in English writers got fame globally.
Some of the authors which we have taken above they belongs to one country but when we gone through every
individual works, followed by new subject with creativity.
Notes:
Aurobindo Sri, Wikipedia Encyclopedia
Desai Anita
www.enotes.com> …>Anita Desai Study Guide> Anita Desai Criticism
A Brief Biography of Anita Desai www.postcolonialweb.org/india/desai/desaiiov.html/
History of Indian English Literature www.iloveindia.com/literature/index.htmal
Indian Literature Through ages ccrtindia.gov.in/literaryarts.html
Indian English Literature en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English_literature
Linguistic Social characteristic of Indian English
www.languageindia.com /junjul2002/baldrigeindianenglish.html
Mahesh Dattani - Wikipedia Encyclopedia
Roy Sumita, ed., Indian Writing in English
Mahesh Dattani - Wikipedia encyclopedia
R.K.Nararyan –Wikipedia encyclopedia _en.wikipedi.org/wiki/R._K._Narayan
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POST 9/11 WORLD OF XENOPHOBIA, DISTRUST,
SUSPICION AND HOSTILITY: MOHSIN HAMID’S
“THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST” IN
PERSPECTIVE
Harish M.G.
In the wake of September 11, 2001, international political landscape has been permanently altered. The world
is shrouded with the clouds of suspicion, xenophobia, paranoia, hysteria and fear. The violence suddenly
sweeping two, even three continents, in post 9/11 era has been wrongly portrayed as a product of a single,
unitary conflict pitting good against evil, the west against Islam, the modern against retrograde. 9/11 has also
paved way to draconian restrictions on civil liberties, the vast bureaucracy of “security” and the increased
surveillance, electronic eavesdropping and other infringement of individual privacy and dignity that now seem
routine and irrevocable. U.S is using this mass hysteria and fear to gain support for an otherwise unpopular
wars and continue the interrogation, inhuman torturing methods, drone attacks and keeping alive detention
center like Guatanamo Bay. As Aijaz Ahmad rightly points out:
“The day itself was quickly christened “9/11.” Now, “911” is the phone number Americans call in an
emergency. Referring to the day simply as “9/11” meant symbolically, that there had been the onset of an
emergency” (Ahmad 22)
This sudden onset of emergency has spurred writers, especially Americans to reconsider their occupation.
Don DeLillo rightly admits that after twin towers in 2001, Americans who thought they invented the future
and were comfortable with the future, intimate with it, are forced by disturbances now, in large and small ways,
into a chain of reconsiderations. For American novelists this has been a period of intense self examination
and self loathing. They are in a state of shock. They had been ensconced deep in what DeLillo calls the
“Narcissistic heart of the West.” (Dellilo 03) Reinhold Neibuhr very interestingly describes America’s artificial
situation as “a paradise of domestic security suspended in a hell of global insecurity.” (Mishra 03). The
illusion induced among American writers by ever growing American power and wealth, that their society is in
its very nature immune to tragic social conflicts and acute problems of the modern epoch were unreal so far as
they were concerned has been shattered. 9/11 has broken these preoccupations and brought to fore
previously invisible conflicts and traumas of an interdependent world. This kind of a severe rupture and crisis
in civilization pressed down on America is not new. America and its novelist have gone through similar crisis
many times in the past but have to a large extent remained unaffected and indifferent. Indeed, America has
emerged more powerful after disasters and tragedies be it the two world wars, cold war, war of Vietnam or the
era of erratic progress of postcolonial nations. These central political events have registered faintly in the
American literary imagination even as it engaged some of the finest fiction writers in both western Europe
(Greene, Burgess, Scott, Camus, Duras) and its former colonies (Achebe, Mahfouz, Naipaul.)American
novelist’s political conformity has deepened their isolation. The tragedies of the century haven’t inspired any
sustained literary examination of national values and ideals. Ironically American novelists have always looked
to European events-Holocaust for suitably ‘serious’ themes. Many well off and politically liberal Americans
thought that they were gliding “through their lives on the assumption that the sheer fact of their existence has
is some way made the world a better place.” (Mishra 04) These comforting self images could no longer be
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maintained in the wake of 9/11. Novelists working within secure national contexts are dumbstruck by the
dramatic transformation around them. American novelists are forced into the mode of self appraisals. Writer
of the stature of Ian McEwan accept that he is now “wearisome to confront invented characters.” (Mishra 01)
On the other hand, response from the American intellectual circle has been equally disappointing and has
been a mere outburst of anger. Thomas Friedmann, pre-eminent foreign affairs columnist of the U.S. wrote
after 9/11: “take out a very big stick” and tell millions of Arabs: “suck on this” (Ahmad 83) Christopher
Hitchens responded “well, ha ha ha, and yah, boo” he mocked those advising against a war in Afghanistan.
(Ahmad 83) These kind of atrocities of thought and speech that blighted the west’s intellectual and popular
culture during 9/11 wars have been steadily matched in the east as well. Popular cinema’s like Pakistani World
wide hit “Khudha Ke Liye”(2007), Bollywood’s- “My Name is Khan” (2010), “New York” (2009) Turkey’s
biggest-ever film “Valley of the Wolves: Iraq” (2010), feature morally unhinged America. On the contrary,
Hollywood seems to be doing a commendable job by being alert to the fact that the human self, inescapably
plural and open-ended, increasingly finds itself in a bewildering enlarged and unforgiving arena. Movies like
Syriana, The Constant Gardener, Babel, Green Zone and The Hurt Locker prove that.
It wouldn’t be wrong to say that response to 9/11 through their novels is nothing short of disappointment. All
these writers seem to be helpless before the complexities of history and ideology. Writers of the caliber of
John Updike, Ian McEwan, Jay McInerney , Jonathan Safran Foer, Claire Messud , DonDelillo, Philip Roth,
Kalfus and Martin Amis seem to take the easy way out by retreating to domestic life or by relying on widely
circulated cliches about terrorists found in websites of Koranic pseudo-scholarship of jihad mongering
journalism and propaganda videos. There seems to be a considerable incompetence and incapability in
grappling with the great changes which 9/11 has ushered in. Even though DeLillo and Updike do
acknowledge that novelists are required to set up, within their narratives, a firm opposition to their own
feelings and predispositions-a strong character or event that would make the novels transcend their authors’
own prejudices, the American novelists have failed to do exactly that. One cannot deny that there is a peculiar
shallowness in the literary expression in the novels depicting 9/11.
Novelists Mohsin Hamid seems to transcend all these barriers quite effortlessly. Mohsin Hamid’s The
Reluctant Fundamentalist (novel short listed for Booker prize 2007) which so uniquely and compellingly
portrays the new existential incoherence, its suspicion, blurring of old boundaries and penetration of the
remotest societies on earth caused by capitalism and technology which have left no "elsewhere", exposing the
human self to unprecedented risks and temptations is one of the finest post 9/11 novel. Novel forcefully
objects to the liberal democratic west’s creation of evil after 9/11 called “Islamofascism” which is being
compared to totalitarian ideologies – Nazism, Communism and Fascism.
Mohsin Hamid was born in 1971 in Lahore, Pakistan where the novel takes place. In 1986 he went with his
family to United States. A little later he went to study literature at Princeton University during which he wrote
the first draft of his first novel was “Moth Smoke” published in 2000. The novel used multiple narrative view
points. There were many voices. The novel examines the contemporary, corrupt, military dominated Pakistan.
After Princeton, Mohsin Hamid graduated from Harvard Law School. He worked as a Finance Consultant
Manager in New York. In the year 2001 he gave up his job and went to live in London to pursue his career in
writing. It is interesting to note that before Mohsin Hamid left for London in 2001, he had spent exactly half
of his life in US and another half in Pakistan. In the summer of 9/11, before he left for London, he had already
completed first draft of his second novel. It was to be about a young Pakistani working in corporate America
who decides to return to Pakistan and then “September 11” happened. Most of the world saw 9/11 as a clash
between two cultures, two world views- the Muslim world and the west Judeo-Christian in its values although
until then secular in its practice. The importance of 9/11 couldn’t be overstated. So Mohsin Hamid threw out
the novel of which he had written the first draft and began another novel, still his second novel in which he
would examine the implications of 9/11. It took him six years.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist came out to international acclaim in 2007. In his first novel “Moth Smoke”
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Hamid had used multiple narrative view points. In “The Reluctant Fundamentalist,” Hamid went to other end
of the spectrum using only one narrative-a Pakistani, one speaker whose voice we constantly hear. This in
itself isn’t unusual or original. There are many novels which have only one voice, one narrator who narrates a
story without realizing that in the process of narrating, he is revealing much of himself just like in Kazuo
Ishiguro novel, The Remains of the Day. This novel is unique because the novel takes place in real time. (If you
were to read this novel out loud, becoming the narrator the amount of time it took you to read the novel aloud
is the actual time that elapses in the novel.) Although only one narrator speaks in the novel, one can infer from
what he says the reaction of the person to whom he is speaking. The other person who remains silent all
through the novel becomes real. We learn a great deal about him. This kind of writing was mastered and
perfected by Victorian poet Robert Browning in poetry famously known as dramatic monologue. Dramatic
monologue in a novel is a unique and refreshing structural achievement.
The entire novel takes place at a café in Lahore. It comprises of a single conversation between a bearded
Pakistani named interestingly as Changez and an American. This brief, charming, and quietly furious
conversation recasts a story so familiar as to seem almost banal: A young man arrives in a great metropolis to
seek his fortune, at length realizes that the new life he has adopted constitutes a betrayal of his deepest self, and
finally—sadder, wiser—returns home. But Hamid handles his material deftly and stylishly to produce a
multilayered and thoroughly gripping book which works as a poignant love story, a powerful dissection of
how US imperialist machinations have turned so many people against the world’s superpower. It turns out to
be nerve wracking tale of disenchantment and disillusionment. Novel goes to the heart of the most
important issue of our time-Clash of civilization, two cultures and world views. Novel is not judgmental nor it
offers any answers but it does pose many questions to traditional Judeo-Christian west.
The protagonist of the novel Changez is a Pakistani. Though he hails from a rich family, the wealth had
dwindled over a period of time. So studies hard and obtains a full scholarship at Princeton University. In order
to support his expenses at Princeton he takes up three part time jobs. He makes sure that he gets jobs at places
where nobody goes. One of the jobs he takes up is at “Library of near eastern studies.” This is the first
masterful hint Hamid gives to highlight the fact that Americans have no interest in studying other cultures
other than their own. Changez sees gothic buildings at Princeton which are artificially aged by acid treatment.
Deliberate false aging process of buildings at Princeton stands out as a sign of America trying to create history
where there is none. These are early signs of crack appearing in the façade of paradise called America. The
disillusionment only deepens as the novel progresses. Very soon Changez realizes that his professors at
Princeton are neither titans nor does America is brimming with generosity. He says:
“Students like me were given visas and scholarships, complete financial aid, mind you, and invited into the
ranks of meritocracy. In return, we were expected to contribute our talents to your society, the society we were
joining. And for the most part, we were happy to so. I certainly was, at least at first.” (Hamid 04)
Changez’s extraordinary talent fetches him a job in a company called Underwood Samson. Interestingly it is a
company which values the ailing target companies supposed to be taken over by a much bigger thriving
company. The guiding principle of the Underwood Samson is to rely upon fundamentals, to get to the core,
foundation of the target company. Changez excels, becomes an expert business investigator. He becomes an
expert business fundamentalist. Reluctance in what he is doing only comes later. Thus the title -“The Reluctant
Fundamentalist.” The title doesn’t refer to religion. Contrary to expectation not once in the novel does Hamid
mention words like religion, faith, spirituality. The name ‘Changez’ is also carefully chosen. Hamid completely
disagrees with western critics who look at name ‘Changez’ as ‘changes’ Hamid comments:
“Changez” is the Urdu name for Genghis, as in Genghis Khan. It’s the name of a warrior, and the novel plays
with the notion of a parallel between war and international finance, which is Changez’ occupation. But at the
same time, the name cautions against a particular reading of the novel. Genghis attacked the Arab Muslim
civilization of his time, so Changez would be an odd choice of name for a Muslim fundamentalist (“Mohsin
Hamid: ‘We Are Already Afraid’”)
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Changez initially loves New York for its Cosmopolitan nature. His office in a high rising building, forty second
floor to be precise, fills him with a sense of pride. He feels that America is another world from Pakistan. He
feels that his feet were supported by the achievements of the most technologically advanced civilization our
species had ever known. But such comparisons often lead him to more troubles. He states:
“Often, during my stay in your country, such comparisons troubled me. In fact, they did more than trouble me:
they made me resentful. Four thousand years ago, we the people of the Indus river basin, had cities that were
laid out grids and boasted underground sewers, while the ancestors of those who would invade and colonize
America were illiterate barbarians. Now our cities were largely unplanned, unsanitary affairs, and America had
universities with individual endowments greater than our budget for education. To be reminded of this vast
disparity was, for me, to be ashamed.” (Hamid 34)
His disenchantment with America and its citizen further grows when he is holidaying in Greece along with his
companions, expenses completely taken care by the company. Their lack of deference and refinement appall
him. He comments:
“I will admit that there were details which annoyed me. The ease with which they parted with money, for
example, thinking nothing of the occasional-but not altogether infrequent-meal costing perhaps fifty dollars a
head. Or their self-righteousness in dealing with those whom they had paid for a service. “But you told us,”
they would say to Greeks twice their age, before insisting things be done their way. I, with my finite and
depleting reserve of cash and my traditional sense of deference to one’s seniors, found myself wondering by
what quirk of human history my companions-many of whom I would have regarded as upstarts in my own
country, so devoid of refinement were they – were in a position to conduct themselves in the world as though
they were its ruling class.” (Hamid 21)
All goes well until one fine day when he switches on the television, while in Manila on a business trip.
Witnessing the horror of 9/11 on TV
“as one – and then the other – of the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center collapsed. And then I
smiled. Yes, despicable as it may sound, My initial reaction was to be remarkably pleased.”(Hamid 72)
Thus, begins his transformation as a “fundamentalist” in a land where he is taught to “stick to the
fundamentals”, ironic as it may sound.
To be fair to Changez, his pleasure was about a smug, defiant America being “visibly brought to her knees”,
(Hamid 73) and not about havoc the attack caused to innocents, as it may seem. Until that point, even if he felt
that way at a deeper level about the country that gave him education, financial standing, he had chosen to
ignore it and accept happily all the perks that he was getting as a part of his love affair with his new motherland
– recognition, adoration and money. But all that changes post-911 as he looks within and faces his true feelings
in the ensuing days, as one would if revealed his lover’s infidelity. All the flaws about America then become
magnified, and resentment and rebellion take over, creating a serious dent in his perception about his own life,
identity, and affiliations.
When he returns to America he sees a different America. On his arrival he is separated from his team at
immigration. While his colleagues join queue for American citizens, he is asked join the one for foreigners. His
beloved New York is no longer cosmopolitan. He sees New York being invaded by flags. Changez observes
that America is being gripped by super over patriotism.
“Flags were everywhere. Small flags stuck on toothpicks featured in the shrines; stickers of flags adorned
windshields and windows; large flags fluttered from buildings. They all seemed to proclaim: we are
America—not New York, which, in my opinion, means something quite different – the mightiest
civilization the world has ever known; you have slighted us; beware of wrath.” (Hamid 79)
He sees Pakistani cabdrivers being beaten, the FBI raiding mosques, shops, and even people’s houses; Muslim
men disappearing, perhaps into shadowy detention centers for questioning or worse. He hears tales of the
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discrimination Muslims were beginning to experience in the business world—stories of rescinded job offers
and groundless dismissals. He sees a country possessed by xenophobia, distrust, suspicion and hostility.
Underwood Samson itself takes serious objection to him growing beard. In the meantime war looms large
over Pakistan because of attacks on Indian parliament. Yet Changez continues to ignore and be clad in his
armor of denial.
This armor is pierced on his next mission to Valparaiso, Chile. He arrives there to value a publishing company
about to be taken over. The publishing company’s chief Jaun- Bautista asks some poignant pointed personal
questions and pushes Changez into a deep bout of introspection. Changez’s following conversation with
Bautista pushes the veil of illusion behind which he had concealed himself for such a long time.
“Does it trouble you,” he inquired, “to make your living by disrupting the lives of others?” “We just value,” I
replied. “We do not decide whether to buy or to sell, or indeed what happens to a company after we have
valued it.” He nodded; he lit a cigarette and took a sip from his glass of wine. Then he asked, “Have you heard
of the janissaries?” “No” I said. “They were Christian boys,” he explained, “captured by the Ottomans and
trained to be soldiers in a Muslim army, at that time the greatest army in the world. They were ferocious and
utterly loyal: they had fought to erase their own civilizations so they had nothing else to turn to.” (Hamid 151)
The conversation leaves him with no doubt that he was a modern day janissary, a servant of the American
empire at a time when it was invading a country with a kinship to him. Interestingly abbreviation of
Underwood Samson is U.S. Underwood Samson just like U.S believes in ruthless evaluation of ailing company.
It facilitates taking over. It’s over insistence on relying on fundamentals goes well with US’s excessive
attachment to maxim of maximum returns. US and its capitalistic attitude, its constant interference in the
affairs of others-Vietnam, Korea, the straits of Taiwan, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Iraq, the manner in
which America conducted itself in the world emerges to be real reasons for rise and growth of
fundamentalism. Changez decides to refuse to participate any longer in facilitating US project of domination.
He returns to Pakistan and takes up a job as a lecturer in a university. He furiously advocates disengagement of
his country with America. Soon he gathers followers. He persuades many to participate in demonstrations for
greater independence in Pakistan’s domestic and international affairs. These demonstrations are, as usual,
projected by the foreign press as anti-American.
There is a parallel narrative in the novel-Changez’s strained relationship with Erica. Changez meets Erica in
Greece. Their friendship blossoms into a physical relationship. But Erica often retreats into nostalgic fantasies
about her childhood sweetheart-Chris, who had died of cancer two years earlier. She has difficulty in making
love with Changez. This becomes possible only when he pretends to be Chris. Erica can be seen as a
contraction of “Am-Erica.” Even when presented with a considerate, highly capable, and attractive new
potential partner, Erica keeps looking longingly back in time for her dead love. That he was named “Chris”
seems no coincidence either. America, the novel hints, clings in isolation to its own cultural shreds, Christianity
among them, instead of entering into genuine cultural, political, and economic exchange. Erica’s depression
and apparent disappearance refers to recent loss of direction, sense of uncertainty after the trauma of 9/11.
America Changez comments
“America was increasingly giving itself over to a dangerous nostalgia at that time (9/11.) There was something
retro about the flags and uniforms, about generals addressing cameras in war rooms and newspaper headlines
featuring such words as duty and honour. I had always thought of America as a nation that looked forward; for
the first time I was struck by its determination to look back. Living in New York was suddenly like living in a
film about the second war; I, a foreigner found myself staring out at a set that ought to be viewed not in
Technicolor but in grainy black and white. What your fellow countrymen longed for was unclear to me—a
time of unquestioned dominance? of safety? of moral certainty? I did not know--but that they were
scrambling to don the costume of other era was apparent. ( Hamid 115) [Here America is quite contrary to
what Amir perceives America to be in Khaled Hosseini novel “The Kite Runner”- “A country (America) just
like a river, roaring along unmindful of the past” (136)]
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The Reluctant Fundamentalist’s nuanced treatment of Erica parallels its presentation of America as endlessly
attractive and self-absorbed rather than willfully destructive of self or others. Hamid’s novel demonstrates
what can happen to individuals when the health of their place is shot, when their culture does not mature.
American culture, as Changez experiences it, isn’t mature; like Erica, the United States he knows remains a
selfish adolescent.
Another important character in the novel is an American to whom Changez narrates the whole story to in a
café in Lahore. He is a burly man with commanding presence. We can infer from what Changez says that
American is nervous and suspicious. He prefers to sit with his backs to the wall. There is an ominous bulge on
his jacket. Can it be up-jacket holster favoured by many CIA agents? Is he a CIA agent sent to assassinate
Changez? One inescapable reference is of Kurtz and Marlowe from Conrad’s novel “The Heart of Darkness.”
Changez says that he felt like a “Kurtz waiting for his Marlowe” (Hamid 183) It is not clear whether Changez
also intends to kill the American. The tourist is escorted to his hotel “The Pearl Continental” at the end of the
novel. Could the word “Pearl” allude to a certain execution of the listener at the end? The novel ends on this
delicious note of uncertainty. Who is predator and who is the prey? Who is the assassin and who is victim?
Who will triumph in this clash which has began after 9/11? Answer is not simple. No one is absolutely sure.
What Hamid’s novel does is to hold up a mirror to the reader and say - you are complicated, the way you are
reading is complicated and the characters are complicated and that is the world.
Through Changez, Hamid simply tries to tell the Big brother the answer to the question Americans pose
regularly – “Why does everyone hate us?” And he does so with a certain conviction that would make many
uncomfortable or unsettled about how they can repair a damage that seems to be getting more serious with
every “progressive” step - A case in point being handling of the current conflicts in Pakistan between the
government and the radical rebels (Are the steps taken there well though-out and planned? Will they yield the
results that are desired?). More alienation from people in such troubled countries would not only mean more
Osamas, but possibly more Changezs as well.
This brilliant piece of fiction will surely make the fundamentalists on both sides of the table think and act.
Hamid should be commended for not implicating America in a way that may be anticipated. He paints no grim
pictures – there are no Quran quoting zealots who’ve resorted to militancy after their lives have been shattered
by bomb explosions or gunfire that American military often resorts to in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iraq; there
are no religious clerics preaching young gullible children the meaning of Jihad.
Hamid tries to indicate that America’s xenophobic attitude, suspicion, hostility towards other cultures, its
relentless quest for profit, its obsession to dwell on the glorious past, its predatory intent, do encourage
contempt in others. The novel also warns that it is crucial to avoid stereotypes that simplistically presume that
anti-Americanism on the part of a Muslim must be produced by Islamic indoctrination. This novel quiet
convincingly demonstrates that it is possible for a Muslim to develop contempt for America on substantially
non-religious grounds. Novel also highlights what many have failed to grasp - that globalization and
capitalism has not lead to a flat world marked by increasingly cosmopolitan openness. Rather it has sharpened
old antipathies and incited new ones and unleashed a cacophony of opposed interest and claims which
ultimately lead to 9/11.
Notes:
Ahmad, Aijaz, “Broken Countries, Broken Economics.” Frontline 7 October 2011
DeLillo, Don, “Falling Man” (New York: Scribner) 2007.
Mishra, Pankaj, “The End of Innocence.” The Guardian 19 May 2007.
Hamid, Mohsin, “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” (New Delhi: Penguin Books) 2007.
Mohsin Hamid: ‘We Are Already Afraid’: Mohsin Hamid on Tapping Into the
Reader’sImagination.”<http://www.themanbookerprize.com/perspective/articles/101>.
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BHARATI MUKHERJEE – A DIASPORIC WRITER
Dr. T.R. Shashipriya
Globalization and multiculturalism are common concepts in the fast moving modern world. Migration
abroad is a welcome idea and people accept it whole-heartedly. So ‘diaspora’ is a word that is used to denote
the condition of being away from homeland. Actually the origin of the term ‘Diaspora’ came from the way
the Jews or Jewish communities scattered ‘in exile’ outside Palestine or present Israel. The term not only
suggests the physical dispersal of Jews throughout the world but also carries religious, philosophical, political
and even eschatological (theology concerned with death or destiny) feeling towards the land of Israel and
themselves. Many intellectuals, professionals, writers and others, in the modern scenario, leave their
homelands with conscious decision. Yet they have the sense of loss, unsettlement and dislocation. This is
where the journey metaphor gets significance as journey itself and is a condition of being in continuous
change. The journey motif has significance for a diasporic writer. Journey involves quest, exploration and
suffering before one feels ashamed within and gets maturity of vision. A diasporic writer uses the journey
metaphor with philosophic detachment to express writer’s strong feeling of life and the nostalgia for the lost
home. This in turn resembles the quest for the eternal home. The writer tries to overcome the nature of
complex and dialectical relationship between homelands and the adopted home through the characters. The
intellectuals and professionals emigrate in search of better prospects. It is a kind of uprooting oneself and
can be called as transplantation. There is a location of person and he dislocates from it to find relocation in
some other place, but dislocation and relocation always depend upon the location to feel secure. The person
implants his physical self in a totally new and unfamiliar place. It creates a void socially, culturally, and
psychologically leading to alienation. A strong desire to go back to the homeland is present in him. Yet his
mind shows inability to depart from the host country. He neither can show solidarity to the homeland nor
spoil his relations with the host country.
The diaspora, in other words must involve a cross cultural or cross-civilizational passage. This creates a
unique consciousness of the diasporic people. In other words there has to be a source country and a target
country, a source culture and a target culture, a source language and a target language. There should be some
significant tension between the source and the target cultures. Then this displacement and mixed feelings help
the diasporic people to come into existence. The diasporic experience can be seen in the works of Sunetra
Gupta, Bharati Mukherjee, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Jhumpa Lahiri, Mitali Perkins and many others.
These writers employ language, themes and moods which are very culture-specific. Bharati Mukherjee is one
of the earliest of diasporic writers. The characters of Mukherjee are Indian women who are victims of racism
and sexism, often driven to desperate acts of violence after realizing they can fit into neither the culture of the
west nor the Indian society they left behind. Her stories show increasing optimism at the possibility of
successful integration as her characters learn that rebuilding their lives and identities allows them greater
personal opportunities and a chance to participate in fostering a more inclusive society and culture.
Bharati Mukherjee tells the stories of Indian immigrants through her early novels, who fail to adjust to the new
culture. The result is isolation and disorientation. They reflect the writer’s dissatisfaction with her own life in
Canada because of racial and ethnic discrimination of minorities. Mukherjee’s protagonists are well educated
women and sophisticated and are aware of the sufferings that afflict them. So they are not ready to get
absorbed into the mainstream of American life. They migrate and find themselves as new immigrants with a
feeling of alienation. The Tiger’s Daughter(1971) and Wife(1975) reflect the expatriate sensibility in two
different characters like Tara and Dimple.
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The Tiger’s Daughter is a satirical portrait of Indian society from the perspective of Tara Banerjee Cartwright,
a young expatriate who is not yet accustomed to American culture. Being away from her homeland, she is
alienated from the morals and values of her native land. Tara Banerjee is an upper class Bengali Brahmin girl
who goes to America for higher studies. Consciously and painfully she is aware that she will never again
belong to the culture which she has left behind. In the beginning she is afraid of the unknown ways of
American life. Though she gets a feeling of unsettlement and loss, she tries to adjust to it and marries an
American. After seven years of her marriage she returns to India.
Her American life brought fear and anger in her. Being a Bengali Brahmin, the granddaughter of Harilal
Banerjee and trained by the good nuns at St.Blaise, she remained composed. She did not confide to her parents
the new pains and the difficulties of the new life she faced. Yet she longed for Camac Street where she had
grown up. Her friends never knew her fears and envied her. Being polite and anxious, she felt homesick in
Poughkeepsie and little things upset her. She sensed discrimination when she showed understanding and
friendship. As a typical Indian she felt proud of her family and genealogy and defended her family and country
instinctively. Her friends at Vassar always identified her with the overpopulated India. But she always prayed to
be bold and not breakdown before the Americans. In India Tara was not exposed to the painful circumstances
that prevailed in the form of beggars, dark buildings, rotting garbage etc. She was sensitive to places.
On the other hand Tara’s husband David Cartwright is totally western and she is always uneasy over this. Her
failure in expressing about her family background and of life Calcutta shows the cultural differences they have
and that are deep-rooted in them. David is hostile to genealogies and mistakes her love for her family as
overdependence. Tara had dreamt of coming to India thinking all her hesitations and shadowy fears she had
faced in America would get erased magically at her arrival in Calcutta. But it never happens. A gap of seven
years and her struggle to accept the new life in America had made her Americanized. She fails to bring back
her old sense of perception and views India with the keenness of a foreigner. Shobha Shinde refers to this
expatriate reaction, “An immigrant away from home idealizes his home country and cherishes nostalgic
memories of it.” Even Tara does the same in America. When she faces the changed and hostile circumstances
of her home country, all her romantic dreams and ideals crumble down. She realizes that she has lost her
childhood memories in the crowd of America. She had also thought the journey by airplanes and greyhound
buses had bored her and she would be thrilled to travel in Indian train. But it irritated her and she regretted
over her arrival without David and thought she had confused her fear of New York with homesickness.
Her return to India gave her unhappy self analysis. She had thought all hesitations and all fears of the time
abroad would be erased quite magically when she returns to Calcutta. But to her amazement the irritating
hours on marine drive, the deformed beggars in the railway station and her train journey had brought her only
hurting wounds. She felt herself an embittered woman old and cynical at 22 and quick to take offense. The
dark scenery outside seems merely alien and hostile. Calcutta seemed to be touched by public rages and ideals.
Her journey to America involved quest, exploration and suffering. There she was under stress, and was always
conscious of her foreignness. She felt herself rootless but things did not appear better in India also. Her visit
to her relatives brings in contradictory emotions and wonder in her at the foreignness of her spirit which is like
a hindrance to her to establish kinship with her old relatives and friends.
Tara, starts fearing her friends and is afraid to be in their company. She is worried because they never spoke
nor were bothered about the stark reality of Calcutta. Even while recalling the religious aspects with her
mother, she forgets the next steps of the rituals and it upsets her because religion plays a central role in any
culture. She realizes what America has done to her, “It was not a simple loss… this forgetting of prescribed
actions; it was a little death, a hardening of the heart, a cracking of axis and center” (p.51). She has become
‘foreign’ to her native values and it fills her with a sense of rootlessness. She starts questioning the validity of
her own identity. Pronob’s dialogue, “I would hate to be an immigrant, I wouldn’t mind giving up the factory,
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but I had hate to be a nobody in America” (p.59), expresses their desire to enjoy the pleasures of America but
never want to lose their identity. Tara envied the self confidence of these people, their passionate conviction
that they were always right. Tara is totally confused. She cannot share her feelings with her friends and
relatives and she fails to share them with her foreign husband.
Tara is aware of the idea that America has transformed her completely. Her westernization has opened her
eyes to the gulf between the two worlds. In India she sees disease, despair, riot, poverty and the children eating
yoghurt off the sidewalk. Thus she has started looking at the ugly aspects of India. Always in her mind there is
an ongoing conflict between her old sense of perception and outlook on Calcutta and her changed outlook.
Though there were almost daily riots that frightened away most customers in Calcutta, Tara visits Catellicontinental once in a week so that she could read foreign news papers and magazines. There she does not show
much interest in the weekly rituals. But she read of crises in foreign stock markets, ads for villas in Spain,
presidential commissions, the Mets, hoping the foreign news would bring her closer to David -a feeling of
becoming American.
America is a land of diverse cultures and people from all parts of the world have settled there. Though she has
married an American she remains unexposed to the ‘other’ cultures within America. Her acquaintance with
America and living there for seven years made her not accept the reality that prevailed in India. At Camac
Street her home was in the state she wanted, the silence, the durwans, her study room and her mother’s pooja
room where she sat hours together praying. Tara fails in understanding the American culture as well.
Her experience had made her sure to say that poverty is an art which Americans will never master. In India
everyone is involved in each other’s fates. She felt her home coming was very vague, pointless and diffused.
David advises her to stand against injustice, unemployment, hunger and bribery. But she feels it is fatal to fight
for justice and it was better to remain passive and absorb all shocks as they come. In the end, Tara is caught in
the riots of Calcutta and raged mob where her friend Pronob gets killed. She is left in confusion and the reader
is left with a doubt what might happen to Tara. She is sandwiched between two cultures. Her America is a
land of violence and atrocity. But it appears to be a land of promise to people like her. It is a land of strangers
and all her attempts to assimilate become a failure due to her ‘otherness’. To get security in that alien land she
breaks her family tradition by marrying an American. But she fails to understand David thoroughly and
remains nervous and apprehensive. In other words while trying to Americanize herself she loses her Indian
identity and it makes her miserable. She does not understand the fact that she is an outsider in India because
of her decision to leave the country, to marry an American and live in North America. At the end when she is
caught in the midst of the rioting mob it is a sense of turmoil not only outside but also in her inner state of
mind.
Bharati Mukherjee’s second novel Wife shows us a more complex dimension of the theme of expatriate
experience. The story deals with the psychological crisis of an immigrant who is unable to cope up with
passion. The story is of the changing values and the dehumanizing effects of urban American society. It is a
narration of a middle class Bengali woman who migrates from Calcutta to New York. The novel begins with
the Indian narrative style that reminds the tradition of the country. It also shows the conflict of western and
Indian cultures and of modern and old fashioned traditions of female destiny in the protagonist of the novel.
Dimple Dasgupta had an aim in marrying a Neurosurgeon. She wanted a different kind of life as all her
neighbors were engineers. She thought marriage would bring her freedom, cocktail parties on carpeted lawns
and fund raising dinners for noble charities. She always thinks that marriage is a blessing in disguise and it
would bring her freedom, fortune and perfect happiness. Amit Kumar Basu, a young consultant engineer
marries Dimple and she is happy when she learns that Basu is aspiring for immigration to Canada, United
States or Kenya. She also wishes to go to America but at the same time is terrified by the thought and feels
herself as an exile. She loves talking frequently to her husband about the anticipated foreign trip though,
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“thoughts of living in Africa or north America terrified her” (p.17).
Dimple Basu has always lived in a fantasy world which is created by herself. But when she encounters the hard
realities of life, dreams crumble one by one and she is deeply upset. She thinks waiting for marriage was better
than getting married. She starts hating everything. To her, marriage had robbed her of all romantic yearnings
so tastefully nourished. She attempts to prepare herself to the newly dreamt life in America. Motherhood is
considered bliss by women as they are the source of ‘creation’. But to Dimple it is intolerable. She plans in
many ways to get rid of it. She fears it might disturb her immigration with Amit. Her disapproval is shown by
making fun of his dress, spilling curry on his shirt front at breakfast when she knew it was too late for him to
change and commenting on his gifts as hopeless taste. The hatred of child bearing is shown through her
chasing the small rodent and killing it in the bathroom. She becomes almost hysteric in killing the tiny creature.
This act of killing is an evidence of violence that is present in her. When she repelled by her own pregnancy it
is out of hatred for Amit, who fails to feed her fantasy world. To her, Pixie (a friend) and her life are the symbol
of independence and ‘freedom’ as she is outspoken and frank. One can understand the mental state of her
when skips to abort her pregnancy. This act is against the values of Indian culture and adopting the western
one eagerly.
The confirmation of Amit’s migration to U.S. brings great happiness to Dimple, her dreams here come true.
She thinks it is like living with a new person and she has to learn to please him in new ways. She prepares well
and sees to it that she misses nothing which is necessary for a new life. People who migrate think immigration
makes a person, a resident alien. Dimple feels excited and a little scared as well. She has never been to a city
bigger than Calcutta and the magnificence of New York terrifies her. She is surprised at everything there. She
compares the life in India with that of America and thinks her dreams might come true in America. But she
was startled at the new laws prevailing in America and thought she would be killed very soon there. Luckily the
Sens’ apartment at Queens seemed all Indian inside. They were very conscious of their identity and they never
tried to come out of the ghetto, their little India which was around them. The Sens’ disgust with Americans
and English language is the feeling of insecurity in an expatriate. People in an entirely different social milieu
and cultural atmosphere can hardly shed off their cherished values. But they are forced to adopt the new
values out of necessity. Getting a job in America is not an easy thing especially if you happen to be an Indian.
If one gets an opportunity, it is very difficult to sustain it. All sorts of humiliation and exploitation are borne
by them.
The life style of America leaves a traumatic effect on her mind. She is taken aback by the law of America. In a
party when Ina Mullick offers a weak gin to Dimple to make her feel a little bit modernized, Amit stops her as
he wants her to uphold Bengali womanhood, marriage and male pride and she denies it. She wonders if minor
irritation accumulated over decades, could erupt into a kind of violence she read about in the papers. Her
feeling of getting deceived by Amit makes her uneasy and she is even unable to tolerate his presence as well as
snores at night. Insomnia becomes her accustomed habit. His unemployment, she thinks, is the root cause of
all troubles. She starts feeling that he was not the man she had wanted as husband.
Her frequent meetings with Ina Mullick bring a strong desire in Dimple to change herself into an American.
She is equally unhappy with her physique also because she sees herself now with the eyes of Ina Mullick.
America underscores Dimple’s inferiority and she contemplates ways of bringing an end to this torturous
existence. Dimple’s desire towards modern and American ways of life increases and she spends hours, going
through the closets. She is thrilled to find things expressing modernity and tries them. Marsha’s flat is like a
dream come true for her, of her desires. She never wanted to shatter her American dream and suffers from a
feeling of lost somewhere. Amit also fails in understanding her psychology and never bothers about her
emotional needs. He advises her not to be nostalgic about Calcutta. In reality she has stopped thinking of
Calcutta and that has created the trouble in her. Her behavior and routine work changes and she shows her
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attempt at adopting the Americanness. America has outwitted her and now she is gripped by a sense of
nostalgia. Her whole world is limited to the four walls of the apartment and media becomes her only friend.
She feels different and American, in giving up lunch sometimes, eating the left over rice and curry from the
fridge without warming it and giving up bathing during the middle of the day, an old Calcutta habit and instead
having a shower at night. Dimple’s failure at assimilation with America is due to the lack of ‘shared-faith’. An
expatriate always makes an attempt of holding firmly to his identity even in most difficult moments of life.
When she is in America, she realizes how easy it was to live, to communicate, to share with people in Calcutta.
Loneliness becomes unbearable and she thinks about seven ways of committing suicide. It seems as if she is
in love with whatever is dark, evil, sinister and gruesome. Murder, suicide, mugging etc. are the words she
fascinates a lot.
Loneliness upsets Dimple and silence brings unrest and tumult in her mind. She is inwardly worried of her
turbulent thoughts and thinks a trip to homeland may correct her. But Amit is unable to detect the
pandemonium that is present in her. She is furious with Amit as he did not feed her reveries, he was unreal and
she felt desperate and sick. Some force was impelling her towards disaster. Her dressing, the glasses she wears
and going out with Milt and Ina are like the symbols of freedom and Americanness. She turns neurotic and
fails to differentiate between what she sees on television and what she experiences in real life. Watching
television is listening to the voice of madness. She is an alienated being, undergoing the supposed after effects
of alienation. With increasing insomnia she blames Amit for not being supportive. She suffers with the preinfidelity stage that was difficult. Her life had been demoted only to please others not herself. Amit fails to
observe the emotional breakdown of Dimple. She loses touch with reality. Guilt of adultery with Milt and
keeping everything a secret from Amit vexes her. She gets irritated over trifles and when Amit spills sugar as
usual while taking wheaties, she feels it unbearable to spend a whole lifetime watching him spill sugar. In a
state of madness, she kills Amit without thinking about its consequences.
In Wife Dimple undergoes a phase of mental abnormality. She is not happy in Calcutta after her marriage and
wanted to immigrate to America. When migrated to America she is confused by the free country and its
crimes. She undergoes a cultural shock and frustration. When her emotions burst out she suffers madness,
nightmares, reveries and insomnia. She finds solutions to all her problems by murdering her husband. It is the
country that intensifies her confusion and turns the violence inside out and she ends up as a murderess.
The ending of the novel The Tiger’s Daughter leaves the readers to ponder as to what happens to Tara. Does
she succeed in returning to her husband and start living happily with him keeping all her nostalgia aside or fall a
victim to the rioting mob? Tara finds herself in between two cultures. Her America, apart from being a land of
promise, is a land of violence and atrocity. As it is a land of strangers, her attempts to assimilate end in failure
due to her ‘otherness’. To find security in alien land she marries David who is an American. But her decision is
taken impulsively and it is an emotional marriage. She has not understood David and his society properly.
And in an attempt to Americanize herself she loses her Indian identity miserably. Her confusion in life is
because of her unstable self. She cannot stick on to her decisions. So she suffers alienation and this is shown
through her regular visits to Catelli - continental Hotel from where she feels she is away from the ‘real’ India.
Some of the thematic concerns of the present day Indian women novelists are feminist issues, isolation,
alienation, identity crisis or an individual struggling to be oneself. Bharati Mukherjee belongs to this phase of
women novelists. Her characters like Tara and Dimple in The Tiger’s Daughter and Wife respectively, show
the expatriate sensibility through their mixed feelings. Though America becomes a promised land for them,
yet they suffer disillusionment as they discover America is not really what they expected. Tara’s character
presents a typical case of an individual who is torn between two selves; one Indian and the other American.
She is an ‘insider’ who has become an ‘outsider’ and therefore finds herself rootless in both countries. Tara
senses rootlessness in India, as her own people do not accept her completely. She wanted to serve as a bridge
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between the two worlds but is unable as she observes the old society crumbling. A collapse of all cultural
varieties is witnessed by her. Thus she feels the foreignness of the spirit and wonders at it as she recognizes a
clash between her Indian self and American self. The violent incidents in Calcutta symbolize the harsh
irrationality of the modern Indian society before which the older way of life has crumbled completely and
Tara’s disillusionment is also complete. When she makes efforts to adapt to American society, she finds lack of
assimilation on all fronts. On the other hand, there are riots and chaos in Calcutta that make her position alien
between the worlds.
While Tara Banerjee in The Tiger’s Daughter comes to India, seven years after marrying an American, Dimple
Dasgupta of Wife marries an Indian engineer and immigrates to America. Though she is curious to adopt the
new culture, the life of America is a shock to her because she is treated as an alien there. To her, getting
married was like going into exile. The fear of American life makes her live in a dream world where she finds
peace and accepts it as an escape from the realities she faces. She gets trapped between two cultures and
aspires for a third one that is the imagined world. Added to this, violence, that is the fundamental experience
of New York, as projected in the television, attracts her and she drifts slowly from reality. The difficulty of
assimilation turns her into a mentally distorted person and she is unable to bridge the gap between the dream
world and the world of reality. She collapses inwardly due to the fear of the new society and becomes a victim
of loneliness and alienation. To adjust herself to the new society, she changes her Calcutta habits. She
becomes disoriented and deeply pathetic. Tara and Dimple go in search of new worlds and reject the old
world. They are troubled spirits, belonging nowhere, in the end. Their drift from one continent to the other,
from one country to another and from one identity to another, proves that the New World is without a fixed
gravity. So their changing identities are shown in Tara’s sense of exile in her homeland and in Dimple’s
becoming a victim of conflicting cultures.
Notes:
Usha Bande, Cultural Space and Diaspora-Journey Metaphor in Indian Women’s Writing, Indian Institute of
Advanced Study, Shimla, 2003,
Nagendra Kumar, The Fiction of Bharati Mukherjee – A Cultural Perspective, Atlantic Publishers, New
Delhi, 2001, p.31.
Christopher O’Reilly, Contexts in Literature-Post Colonial Literature, Series Editor: Adrian Barlow,
Cambridge University Press, 2001,
Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back-Theory and Practice in Postcolonial Literatures, Routledge, London, New York, 1989,
Gurbhagat Singh, “Expatriate Writing and the Problematic of Centre: Edward Said and Homi Bhabha”,
Jasbir Jain, Writers of The Indian Diaspora-Theory and Practice, Rawat Publications, New Delhi, 2003.
Jasbir Jain, ‘Foreignness of spirit: The World of Bharati Mukherjee’s novels’ ed. G.S. Balarama Gupta, Journal
of Indian Writing in English, JIWE Publications, Gulbarga, January 1985.
Maya Manju Sharma, ‘The Inner World of Bharati Mukherjee: from Expatriate to Immigrant’ ed. Emmanuel.
S. Nelson, Bharati Mukherjee: Critical Perspectives, Garland Publications, New York, 1993.
Bharati Mukherjee, The Tiger’s Daughter, Penguin, New Delhi, 1972.
Bharati Mukherjee, Wife, Penguin, New Delhi, 1975.
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TRANSLATING T.S. ELIOT INTO ODIA: A CRITICAL
STUDY OF GYANENDRA VERMA’S TRANSLATION
OF THE WASTE LAND
Bidyut Bhusan Jena
This paper makes a critical study of Gyanendra Verma’s “Poda Bhuin” (1956) which is a translation of T.S.
Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922), the first undertaken in any language of India. In fact, Verma translated almost
all the major poems of Eliot into Odia included in his anthology Poda Bhuin O Anyanya Kabita (1956). This
chapter concentrates on Verma’s translated version vis-à-vis Eliot’s text.
Gyanendra Verma, among the younger contemporary poets, reveals the true modern and progressive mind.
An out-and-out free thinker and iconoclast, he shows scant respect either for religion, mysticism, social
conventions or political sham. Conscious of a poet’s mission, he never hesitates to hit out hypocrisies with
sharp satire wherever he finds them (253).
Poetry among the other genres is very challenging to translate because it is difficult to retain the charm,
eloquence and melody of the original poem of a particular language in another culturally vastly dissimilar
language. Allen Tate is of the opinion that, “Translation of poetry is forever impossible and forever
necessary” (cited by Asaduddin, 322). Some even believe that poetry by its very nature is untranslatable and
poetry is what is essentially lost in translation. The problems that a translator confronts while translating a
poem are many. In his book discussing the methods employed by translators of Catullus’ Poem 64, Andre
Lefevere catalogues seven different strategies. The first one is Phonemic Translation, which attempts to
reproduce the source language (SL) sound in the target language (TL) while at the same time producing an
acceptable paraphrase of the senses. The second one is Literal Translation, where the emphasis on word-forword translation distorts the sense and the syntax of the original. The third one is Metrical Translation, where
the dominant criterion is the reproduction of the SL metre. The fourth one is translating Poetry into Prose,
which subsequently results in the distortion of the sense, communicative value and syntax of the SL text. The
fifth one is Rhymed Translation, where the translator ‘enters into a double bondage’ of metre and rhyme. The
sixth one is Blank Verse Translation, where the restriction is imposed on the translator by the choice of
structure. The seventh one is ‘Interpretation’, where the substance of the SL text is retained but the form is
changed, and ‘imitations’, where the translator produces a poem of his own which has ‘only title and point of
departure, if those, in common with the source text (Susan Bassnett, 81-82). However, according to M.
Asaduddin, even though the translation of poetry is beset with many difficulties, it must be attempted. He
says:
Had it been so, then great poets like Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Tagore, Pablo Neruda who have moved
readers profoundly down the ages and have created a world literary ethos, would have remained confined to
their own language communities. Luckily for us there are those who believe that translation of poetry is a
viable and valid literary, cultural and civilizational endeavor and if approached in the right spirit and with
necessary inputs it can and does produce fruitful results. Within India, Tagore, Ghalib, Subramanya Bharati
and a host of our great poets would have virtually remained unknown beyond their regions but for translations
(322).
Gyanendra Verma writes in the introduction to Poda Bhuin O Anyanya Kabita, “Till date no such translation
of Eliot’s poem is available in any regional language of India….Eliot, in his poem, apart from the English
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language has made use of Latin, Sanskrit, French, German and Italian, which are very sparse. Even though the
translation of all these languages has not been done strictly, yet no compromise has been made with the core
meaning of the poem in this matter” (11). In the Preface to the same book, the publisher Prafulla Kumar Das
makes a very interesting point regarding Verma’s translation of Eliot’s poems:
Eliot does not write for idlers and fools. He gives equal importance to literature and criticism. Without being
one with the poet’s thoughts nobody can understand his writings, as his poems are diametrically different
from the conventional mode…We present you ‘Poda Bhuin’, the Odia translation of the poem of the greatest
poet of modern world literature. This marks the opening up of a new chapter and the composition of a new
lyric in Odia literature. Translation of great literature is impossible, but recreation is. That being the case, the
gifted poet Gyanendra Verma has taken a lot of pains to retain the beauty of the poem in translation (3-4).
Verma voices a similar concern: “Whatever be the familiarity of the readers with Eliot’s lines, Gyanendra
Verma thinks that readers of his translations ought to equip themselves intellectually to ‘receive’ Eliot”
(S.Mohanty: JLS, 27). Both The Waste Land and “Poda Bhuin” contain around 430 lines each.
The so called ‘modern civilization’ after the two World Wars was characterized by uncertainty, sterility,
faithlessness and spiritual barrenness. Suffering without meaning seemed to be the only truth as the eternal
verities lost their metaphysical radiance. Eliot believed that a poet should probe beneath both beauty and
ugliness, to see the boredom, the horror and the glory. The contrast of a significant past with an uncertain and
disillusioning present, the loss of the profound and sacred aspects of reality and the futility of life are some of
the manifest thematic concerns of Eliot’s work. The Waste Land which won him the Nobel Prize in 1948 has
as its theme a sense of disillusionment, frustration and sterility that characterized modern European
civilization. Eliot describes the modern civilization with its spiritual barrenness as a waste land where nothing
can grow. People with parched lips wait for rain that never comes.
The reception of Eliot’s poetry and its influence was far-reaching. In India litterateurs welcomed Eliot as the
representative consciousness of modern times. Serious Indian interest in Eliot seems to have been aroused
around 1930. Eliot’s use of symbols, esoteric knowledge and obscurity was at the same time an attraction and a
challenge. Eliot’s tone and style showed a new way to respond to a new reality. Even though the contexts in
which Eliot and Indian poets were writing were quite different, Eliot’s vision of decay, fragmentation and
collapse cast its shadow on the horizon of Indian thought. As in the West, India was also experiencing
historical crisis and social upheaval. Many writers felt around them the looming of a twilight, a Yugasandhya.
To this group Eliot’s style provided a method. As Shyamasundar Padihari points out: “Eliot’s myth of decline,
his theme of death and sterility, may have had nothing to do with our own history and culture, but they seemed
to have some kind of parallel with our condition. Our values too were breaking down, our social order too was
falling apart and it was quite easy and tempting for us to identify our condition with that of Eliot’s tone of arid
despair” (80).
Eliot’s influence on modern Odia poets has been profound. Many Odia poets accepted Eliot’s sense of an
ending as reflective of their own experience. More particularly, they rebelled against the Romanticism and
Victorianism of Tagore, Sarojini Naidu and Sri Aurobindo. The poets who come under this category are Sachi
Routray, Guruprasad Mohanty, Ramakanta Rath, Sitakanta Mohapatra, Soubhagya Kumar Mishra and
Rajendra Kishore Panda. Guruprasad Mohanty’s “Kalapurusa”, “Gobar Ganesha”, and “Alaka Sanyal” are
poems where the mood of boredom, horror, anxiety, desolation and cynicism find expression. It is perhaps
the irresistible influence of T.S.Eliot that made Verma translate him. In the case of Guruprasad, three of his
poems, namely, “Gobar Ganesh”, “Kalapurusa” and “Akrura Ubacha” are clearly modelled on Eliot’s “The
Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock”, The Waste Land and “The Journey of the Magi” respectively. In
“Kalapurusa” the sickness and sterility of modern civilization breaks into a dark lyricism.
‘Waste land’ or ‘barren land’ is by definition infertile. ‘Poda bhuin’ means ‘burnt land’. In both cases, the land is
unproductive. The modern world with its moral and spiritual barrenness finds its apt metaphor in ‘waste land’
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where hope turns into hopelessness. Verma translates Eliot’s idea of ‘waste land’ into ‘poda bhuin’. The poem
is not a mere copy but an Odia transmutation.
The title of the first section of Verma’s Odia translation of Eliot’s poem is ‘Mrutara Satkara’ meaning ‘funeral
or burial of the deceased’ recalling Eliot’s ‘The Burial of the Dead’ when the last rites of dead are performed.
But there are some connotative differences. The word ‘Satkara’ in Hindu belief carries different implication.
According to Christian rituals, the dead body is buried with the belief in the ‘Day of Judgement’ when Christ
will descend from heaven and the dead will rise from their graves, each according to the nature of his or her
deeds would be rewarded or punished. Virtue will be rewarded and vice will be punished. The Christian belief
in the idea of resurrection is deeply ingrained in Eliot’s poem.
Hinduism believes in the transmigration of the soul. According to Hindu rituals, the mortal remains of the
deceased are consigned to the sacred flames, the purest of the five elements of nature. A devout Hindu
believes that the creation or the configuration of human body is the result of the confluence of the five
elements of nature or Panchamahabhutas. When the sacred flames consume the body a sort of diffusion takes
place and the five elements of nature that constituted the human body get disseminated and return to their
original source. In English, the Sanskrit word ‘mruta’ would mean dead. Its origin is the root word ‘mrutyu’.
Interestingly, its antonym is ‘amruta’ or the nectar of immortality.
Verma’s translation is faithful to the original in the main. There are some instances of cultural indigenization as
‘lilacs’, a typical European flower trans blossoms into ‘patali’ an Indian flower. The first line of Eliot’s poem
starts with the famous Chaucerian echo: “April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land…”
Verma’s poem begins thus: “Nidagha Aprel masa atyanta nirmama, srustikare bidagdha dharani pare patalira
phula…”. ‘Patali’ here forms an Odia counterpart of ‘lilacs’, but Verma does not translate ‘April’ into Odia,
perhaps because the connotation is deeply rooted in the European culture and the Christian scheme of things.
To change that would mean changing the whole context of the poem.
It is a challenging task to translate culture-specific terms and images that are meaningful in one cultural context
but do not carry any core value when uprooted and transplanted in another language, cultural and social
context. Despite the best efforts on the part of the translator, it is difficult to compensate or substitute the
intrinsic culture specific words which often detract from the beauty of the SL in the process of its translation.
To elaborate, during an opportune meeting with the Kendra Sahitya Akademi award winning translator
Jugalakishore Dutta explained the way a translator had wrongly translated a Bengali phrase ‘bel phuler mala’
into Odia as ‘bela phulara mala’. Actually ‘bel phul’ in Bengali is a fragrant white flower, while at the same time
‘bel’ or ‘bael’ is a tropical fruit. The translator misconstrued ‘bel phulo’ for the flower that the bel tree puts
forth. In Odia ‘bel phulo’ is ‘malli phula’. This example is to illustrate the complexities of translating culturespecific terms even within the Indian context. One can recall Susan Bassnett’s views on the matter when she
says: “In the same way that the surgeon operating on the heart cannot neglect the body that surrounds it, so the
translator treats the text in isolation from the culture at his peril” (Bassnett, 14).
Even though Verma replaces ‘lilacs’ with ‘patali’ he leaves the names of many objects, persons, places and
things unchanged. Names like ‘Starnbergersee’, ‘Hofgarten’, ‘Madame Sosostris’, ‘Phoenician sailor’,
‘Belladonna’, ‘Mrs.Equitone’, ‘London Bridge’, ‘King William Street’, ‘Saint Mary Woolnoth’, ‘Mylae’, and so
on are retained because their substitution would lead to a loss of specific significations. Edward Sapir’s view
on this issue is helpful. He says: “No language can exist unless it is steeped in the context of culture; and no
culture can exist, which does not have at its center, the structure of natural language” (Bassnett, 14).
Verma substitutes Eliot’s ‘spring rain’ for ‘jharanara pani’ (stream water). Eliot at the outset of his poem
mentions ‘April’. In the Western context it has a different significance. It is the time of regeneration and
natural renewal. It is the harbinger of ‘spring’ season, when the snow starts melting and the greenness
underneath is revealed, resurging the beauty of nature. Also, ‘April’ has a religious significance. It is the month
of Easter, a reminder of Christ’s crucifixion. Thus, for the inhabitants of the ‘waste land’ ‘April’ turns out to be
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a time of suffering and unbearable pain. The ‘spring rain’ only serves to quicken the sense of renewed life as a
resurgence of pain. Thus, the ‘stream water’ ‘jharanara pani’ far from bringing relief, in an ironic twist of the
obvious, accentuates the unbearability of life.
Similarly, ‘colonnade’ is changed by Verma into ‘stamba’. In The Waste Land ‘colonnade’ is plural, whereas in
“Poda Bhuin” ‘stamba’ is singular. Eliot writes ‘we stopped in the colonnade’ and Verma translates it as ‘band
hoigalu ame stambara bhitare’, instead of a more appropriate expression. ‘We confined ourselves in the
colonnade’ is almost contrary to what Eliot means. Verma translates Eliot’s ‘a wicked pack of cards’ into ‘hata
chamata tass mutha’, which is unnecessarily colloquial. From all such changes it becomes quite clear as to how
the structure and pattern of a language changes according to the exigencies and demands of a different
linguistic situation.
The technical aspect of Verma’s poem is pregnant with alliterations, consonances and so on, like: ‘Aprel masa
atyanta nirmama(the month of April is very cruel),’ ‘dharani pare patalira phula’(patali blossoms on the earth),
‘basudhaku bhulijiba barafa bhitare’(forgetting the world in the forgetful snow)’, ‘gada gada’(heaps), ‘salilara
sabda’(the sound of water), ‘tamari pachhare pare sakalare tamari chhai’(your shadow follows you in the
morning)’, ‘sitala samira’(cool breeze), ‘birakta rikta’(bored and tired)’ ‘tame kahiparibani, kimba paribani
anumana kari’(you cannot say or guess either), ‘dhuli bhitare mu tumaku dekheidebi bhaya’(I will show you
fear in a handful of dust) , ‘sitakala sakalar’(winter morning), ‘prataraka he pathaka’( unfaithful reader),
‘protyeka pada’(every step), ‘Saint Mary Woolnoth stagita karithile samayaku’(Saint Mary Woolnoth has
stopped the passing of time), and so on. Throughout the first section Verma maintains the rhyme scheme of
the stanzas in a tactical manner, like-‘srustikare/mishrakare’ (create and mix), ‘samira adhira’ (restless breeze),
‘uddipita kare/ jharana panire’ (enlivens in the stream water), ‘malamala chatana upare jhalamala…’(dazzling
on the `resplendent floor) , ‘ drakshyalatara bestani bhitare bandi hoi rahichhi darpana’(the mirror held up by
standards wrought with fruited vines), ‘gola goli misa misi’(mixed), ‘batayana bahi satej sandhya
pabanara’(cool evening breeze streaming into the room through the window), ‘pralambita pradipara sikhara
sphitika’(flames of the flickering lamp), ‘rangara rangin pathara’(colourful stone), ‘santarana shila eka
samudrika machha’(a swimming sea fish), ‘nirmama aghate nightingale’(nightingale with brutal or cruel
torture), ‘tathapi sei kare chitkara’(still he yells out a cry), tathpi pruthibi kare ta anugamana’(yet the world
follows her) ‘jug jug’, ‘ananya sabu shuska abasesa’(other dry remains or resudes), ‘ charita belare bulijiba band
matarare’(go for an outing in a car at four) and ‘nirmama niraba’(brutal and silent) and so on.
The title of the second section of Eliot’s poem, ‘A Game of Chess’ is translated by Verma as ‘Pasha Khela’.
The question arises as to why Verma translates ‘A Game of Chess’ into ‘Pasha Khela’, because ‘pasha’ in
English is ‘dice’ and ‘pasha khela’ would therefore mean ‘a game of dice’. One can wonder if this was due to
the absence of any fitting term in Odia for ‘chess’. A possibility could have been a non Odia Indian term like
‘satranj’. ‘Dice’ is used in a game of chance, but ‘chess’ is not at all a game of chance. It is rather, a demanding
game of wit and intelligence. Perhaps Verma used ‘pasha’ as a metaphor to indicate the uncertainties of the
modern relativistic world. Eliot’s title was taken from Thomas Middleton’s play A Game at Chess (1624), a
political allegory directed against Spain. A similar text has also been observed in another play, Middleton’s
Women Beware Women (1657). All these references and allusions add significance to the section. But Verma’s
translation deliberately or otherwise disconnects these connections by using different terms and words.
Eliot mentions ‘cupidon’ (cupid), the mythical Roman god of love. Verma replaces ‘Cupidon’ with ‘Atanu’
(Kamadeva), the mythical Hindu god of love. Besides Thomas Middleton’s play, Eliot in this section alludes to
Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra (1623), Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 AD), John Webster’s The Devil’s Law
Case (1623) and a popular jazz song that created waves during World War I to give a far reaching resonance to
his theme. Names and expressions like ‘A Game of Chess’, ‘burnished throne’, ‘the change of Philomel by the
barbarous king’, ‘wind under the door’, ‘OOOO that Shakespearian rag’, ‘Lil’, ‘Good night, ladies, good night,
sweet ladies, good night and good night’ (originally said by Ophelia in Hamlet) are clues to help the readers get
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at Eliot’s vision of horror. Verma translates “sad light a carved dolphin swam” into “santaranasila eka
samudrika machha/malina aloke dishe khola achhi tahin”, which does not mention the dolphin at all. Line 161
of The Waste Land: “The chemist said it would be all right, but I’ve never been the same” is not there in
Verma’s translation. The ending of the section runs like this: “…Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies,
good night, good night” (59), which in Verma becomes “Bidaya, mahilagana, bidaya, rupasi taruni brunda,
bidaya, bidaya” (22). There is no mention of ‘night’. Neither does Verma mention Philomela which could have
provided added intensity to his poem. England being a cold country, Eliot talks of hot water at ten and hot
gammon. Verma does not replace these expressions with any of his own, even though an Indian poet would
have typically used ‘cool’ since India is a hot country.
The third section of Eliot’s poem ‘The Fire Sermon’ derives its title from the Buddha’s sermon in which he
calls upon his disciples to renounce desire. Desire is the fire that burns us perpetually. Verma translates this as
‘Agni Mantra’. One can argue that ‘sermon’ does not mean ‘mantra’. Sermon on the other hand is a kind of
preaching which in Odia and other Indian languages could mean ‘prabachan’. But ‘Agni Mantra’ is a suitable
choice. It may be that Verma uses ‘mantra’ instead of ‘prabachan’ for phonic effect. He translates ‘spring’ as
‘basanta’. In the Indian context ‘basanta’ ia called ‘Ruturaja’, meaning thereby king of/among the seasons, for
‘basanta’ in the Indian context has an altogether different connotation from that of ‘spring’ in the Western
context. Line 247 of Eliot’s poem runs: “Bestows one final patronizing kiss…” (62). But Verma translates it
as “Dhali die kalyanara antima chumbana janakara shire…” (25). ‘Shire’ has been derived from the word ‘shira’
meaning head. But in Eliot’s line there is no mention of ‘head’. Verma has in a way tried to transcreate Eliot’s
poem in keeping with the linguistic and cultural particularities of the TL. Similarly in line 261, Eliot mentions
‘mandolin’ that Verma translates as ‘Ananda mukhara swora madhu muralira…” (26); ‘mandolin’ and ‘murali’
as musical instruments differ from each other. While ‘mandolin’ is a stringed instrument, ‘murali’ is a flute.
Eliot’s ‘red and gold’ in the line 280 has been translated as ‘suna o pohalara ranga’. This is a sort of
ornamentation by Verma. Instead of using ‘nali or lal’ for ‘red’, he uses the word ‘pohala’, the name of a fish
with red traces on its body. In this section Eliot alludes to Edmund Spenser’s “Prothalamion”, Andrew
Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”, St. Augustine’s Confessions and Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Verma’s
translation tries to retain the intertextual refraction of these references and allusions while changing the names
of the characters. Like the last two sections, this section too is pregnant with alliterations like ‘reshama rumala’
(silk handkerchief), ‘madhyanhara matia kuhudi’ (grey fog of the afternoon), ‘mahala mukha’ (facade palace),
‘andhara andha’(blinding darkness) and ‘jalijaya jalijaya jalipodi jaya’(burning burning).
The fourth section of Eliot’s poem ‘Death by Water’ has been translated by Verma as ‘Salila samadhi’, ‘salila’ as
‘water’ and ‘samadhi’ as ‘tomb’. The alliterative title adds to the auditory beauty of the section and showcases
Verma’s craftsmanship and poetic sensibility. In comparison to other four sections this section is pretty short,
yet deals with the truths of human existence. The undulating waves of the sea are compared to the rise and fall
or ups and downs of human existence. The Phoenician sailor drowns in the ocean. His death replicates
everybody’s death. In a philosophical sense, society is an ocean where we rise in glory and fall down to rise
again, at times losing our existence like the waves. Nothing is permanent. Death brings about a formal
cessation to all action.
The final section of Eliot’s poem ‘What the Thunder Said’ derives its title from Prajapati’s voice speaking
through thunder in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad. Verma translates this literally as ‘Bajra Kana Kahe’. This
section is testimony to the fact that Eliot was influenced by the Indic traditions. He mentions of Ganga,
Himavant and the message of the Upanishads with which the poem ends: Datta (give), Dayadhvum (be
compassionate), Damyata (Control yourselves), Santih Santih Santih, (peace upon the world). The boredom
and existential angst of the time yearns for peace that can only be provided from a spiritual source. The idea of
redemption seems a dream, but hope lies in obeying the thunder’s commands. It hints at the possibility of
redemption if and only if the wastelanders heed the voice of revealed wisdom or ‘Prajapati’ (the creator).
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Verma translates ‘spring’ into ‘Basanta’, ‘fiddle’ into ‘veena’, ‘whistle’ into ‘bansi’. Towards the end of this
section Eliot alludes to ‘Coriolanus’ and ‘Hieronymo’ to which Verma adds ‘vira’ (hero) and ‘rusi’ (sage),
perhaps to inform the readers of the reason that determined his choice of these characters. But the question
arises if Verma could substitute some Indian culture-specific terms for their western counterparts, why then
did he leave the other terms unchanged?
To conclude, translation as a process of transformation of ideas, sensibilities undoubtedly has its own share
of problems. There are translations that even surpass the popularity of the original text just as some
translations tarnish the image of the translator. But there is no denying the fact that the service the translator
does for the society is of paramount importance. As discussed earlier, the reason behind translating various
texts into Odia was not only to enrich Odia literature but also to construct an Odia identity. In this context
three years are worth mentioning- 1936, 1948 and 1956. In 1936 Orissa gained its separate statehood, in 1948
T.S.Eliot got Nobel Prize for literature and in 1956 Verma’s anthology of poems Poda Bhuin O Anyanya
Kabita was published. Even though Orissa has gained its separate statehood by then, yet other factors
including literature which contribute largely to the identity of a nation were in the process of consolidation.
Thus Verma’s attempt was a step forward in the process of identity formation. Verma was the contemporary
of T.S.Eliot who was in the prime of his literary career then and translating Eliot into Odia much before in any
Indian language was not just a literary activity or credit, rather contributed greatly to the enrichment of literary
sensibility with a new kind of experience. Verma’s translation in some way or other would definitely have
influenced his successors Guruprasad Mohanty and Vanuji Rao whose poems are largely modelled on that of
Eliot’s. Verma’s translation undoubtedly made Eliot popular to the common reader. As a result those who did
not have access to English started tasting the flavor of a new literary sensibility through their mother tongue.
Here one must recall T.S.Eliot’s prefatory response to Gyanendra Verma’s anthology of poems Poda Bhuin O
Anyanya Kabita: “For the most important service that the poetry of other lands and languages can perform
for us, is the stimulus and the suggestions that it can give to our own poets”. But as Voltaire puts it: “when we
decide to translate we must choose our author as one chooses a friend of a taste conforming our own” (Note
Books, 555-576). Verma’s translation of almost all the major poems of Eliot including “Poda Bhuin” appears
to be in compliance with this view of Voltaire.
Notes:
Bassnett, McGuire -Susan. Translation Studies. London & New York: Methuen, 1980: 1-132.
Block, Haskell. M. Ed. Voltaire: Candide and Other Stories. New York: Random House, Inc, 1956: 555-576.
Eliot, Esme Valerie. Ed. T.S.Eliot: Collected Poems 1909-1962. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc,
1970: 51-69.
Mansinha, Mayadhar. A History of Odia Literature. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1962:156-261.
M. Asaduddin. “Poetry in Translation: The Urdu Case”. Indian Poetry: Modernism and After. Ed. K.
Satchidanandan. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2001: 322-337.
Padihari, Shyamasundar. “The Influence of T.S.Eliot on Modern Indian Poetry”. Studies in Literature in
English. Vol VII. Ed. Mohit K. Ray. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers & Distributors, 2004: 76-85.
Mohanty, Sachidananda . “Translation Across Cultures: The Ethics of a Literary Translation”. JSL (Autumn
2004): 22-28.
Verma, Gyanendra. Poda Bhuin O Anyanya Kabita. Cuttack: Friends’ Publishers, 1956:13-34.
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SHIFTING PATTERNS IN DIASPORA: A
DIACHRONIC STUDY OF THE SELECTED NOVELS
OF ANITA DESAI
C.G. Shyamala
‘Diaspora’ bears cultural, social and political connotations that are in tandem, continually influencing the other
to draw perceptible lines of demarcation that evince innumerable explanations to the term. For sociologist
Brah, the diaspora carries “explanatory power in dealing with the specific problematic associated with
transnational movements of people, capital, commodities and cultural iconographies” (196) 1. Literature
provides the platform for analyzing and interpreting the sensibilities of the migrant. According to Ashcroft et al:
The diasporic production of cultural meanings occurs in many areas, such
as contemporary music, film, theatre and dance, but writing is one of the
most interesting and strategic ways in which diaspora might disrupt the
binary of local and global and problematize national, racial and ethnic
formulations of identity. (218)2
Writers of ‘Diaspora’ have distinctly voiced their opinions and concerns on the issues they confront amidst the
contemporary migrant situation. Parameswaran’s Trishanku discusses the divergent trends and the inimitable
phases of diasporic writing. While the first phase exposes the curiosity mingled with fear and nostalgia in the
immigrant experience, the second phase, a crucial transitional phase, expresses the immigrant desire and
determination to establish oneself in the new land and hence claim an undisputable space for oneself. Gradually,
a slow process of assimilation gets cemented, while memory of homeland gradually fades and the new reality
preoccupies the self. In the third stage the alien makes the effort to assert oneself and grow firm roots. Powersharing and political representation dominates the new born sensibility. In the fourth and final phase the
‘Newland’ becomes the homeland. The language and imagery change as the new home gets rooted in the
acquired, accumulated memory.
In the wake of globalization, recession and terrorism, mobility of man has increased, and the concept of
diaspora is in a perpetual state of flux. “Originally referring to a situation in which settler communities are
displaced from their ordinary homes, the Jewish and African diasporas” believes Sayyid, “…have become
templates for the understanding of what constitutes a diaspora” (37) 3. He further states, “Both involve the
forced mass removal of people(s) from a homeland to places of ‘exile’ and the construction of cultural
formations premised on territorial dispersal and political fragmentation”(37)4. The Indian diaspora constitutes
movements that have been forced or chosen due to colonial expansion, economic and social pressures and
globalization. Mishra explains the relationship between the diaspora and the homeland in dialectical terms:
diasporas construct homelands in ways that are very different from people of the
homelands themselves. For an Indian in the diaspora, for instance, India is a very different kind of homeland
than for the Indian national. At the same time the nation – state as an ‘imagined community’ needs diasporas to
remind it what the idea of the homeland is. (424)5
This predicament of modern man in the diaspora has emerged as a recurrent motif in the works of innumerable
writers and expatriates. Boehmer acknowledges, “The post colonial and migrant novels are seen as appropriate
texts for such explorations because they offer multi-voiced resistance to the area of boundaries and present texts
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open to transgressive and non-authoritative reading” (243) 6. Shades of diasporic experiences are portrayed by
V. S. Naipaul,Anita Desai, Bharati Mukherjee, Rohinton Mistry and Jhumpa Lahiri subjecting diaspora to a fresh
reflection. The observations of different critics and thinkers about diasporic experience unfold the ambivalent
nature of diasporic writings and the emergence of new paradigms of narrating and understanding this
experience.
Anita Desai, born of mixed parentage that of an Indian father and a German mother, has provided the scope for
double perspective when writing about India, Indians and the Indian diaspora. Bye-Bye Blackbird (1969) is
about postcolonial migrant Indians in Britain of the late 1960s. In Baumgartner’s Bombay (1988) a migrant
Austrian Jew in India is caricatured. Journey to Ithaca (1995) shows an Egyptian, acculturated in India along with
an Italian spiritual seeker in the subcontinent. The predicament of an Indian, Arun in USA, in Fasting, Feasting
(1999) is delicately handled. Her works abound in diasporic themes such as displacement, rootlessness,
discrimination, alienation, marginalization, identification, acculturation, and inter and cross-cultural conflicts.
Adit in Bye-Bye Blackbird lives in London with his English wife, Sarah. Dev is a new Indian immigrant. Adit has
adjusted himself in his adopted country and has allayed his sense of loneliness by being nonchalant to its various
causes. He has internalized the colonial attitude and believes in the supremacy of the western culture. Dev, on
the other hand, is critical of Adit’s attitude. Infuriated when someone whispers the word “wog” (17) behind his
back, Dev has more reasons to be lonely. As he ventures into the city he feels, “like a Kafka stranger wandering
through the dark labyrinth of a prison” (169)7. Later, Dev realizes that life acquires meaning only when it is lived
with a sense of relatedness and an all encompassing love. Eventually, he undergoes a transformation wherein he
refuses to give in and begins to think of England as ‘the land of golden opportunities’ (103) 8. Adit, meanwhile,
suffers from identity crisis. He realizes the fallacy of this supremacy and starts feeling isolated on the occasion of
a party at his in-laws’ home where he faces insult as a colored individual and gets disillusioned about this country
and its people. He learns that an Indian is always looked down as inferior by the racially biased white people. He
gets depressed at ‘Mrs. Roscommon-James’ sniffs and barks and Dev’s angry sarcasm’(176) 9 as well as from the
fact that Sarah ‘had shut him out, with a bang and a snap, from her childhood of one-eared pandas and large
jigsaw puzzles’ (176) 10. Adit’s visits to Mrs. Miller, his former landlady in Harrow are unwelcome.
Loneliness, rejection from acquaintances and discrimination by Sarah’s parents aggravate his sense of
marginalization. Notions of home, nation, cultural identity and belongingness now shattered, he resolves to
return to India with Sarah. To the first generation of immigrants, migration creates alienation, nostalgia of the
past and rootlessness at the place of migration as one still clings to the cultural beliefs, practices, and norms of
the homeland. Paranjape asserts, “…there is a clinging to the old identity and a resistance to making a transition”
(61) 11. Sarah has to experience the diasporic dilemma and redefine her identity as an Indian. As Brah puts it,
“The diaspora space is the site where the native is as much the diasporian as the diasporian is the native” (209) 12.
She faces stiff opposition from her own people. Her identity questioned by her racist relatives, she turns an
outcast in her own country. In the words of Tyson, “To be unhomed is to feel not at home even in your own
home because you are not at home in yourself: your cultural identity crisis has made you a psychological refugee,
so to speak” (421) 13. Her alienation is metaphysical and psychological. Migration to India is a major challenge
as she has to merge her identity with a foreign culture and hence reshape her double identity merging the east and
the west. The plural identity that inspires assimilation in Dev creates crisis for Adit. Tyson observes:
Double consciousness and unhomeliness are the two features of
postcolonial diasporas. ‘Double consciousness’ or unstable sense of the
self is the result of forced migration colonialism frequently caused. In the
diaspora this feeling of being caught between cultures, of belonging to
neither, rather than to both, of finding oneself arrested in a psychological
limbo that results not merely from some individual psychological disorder
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but from the trauma of the cultural displacement within which one lives is
referred to by Homi Bhabha and others as unhomeliness. (421)14
Torn by their dual nationalities, Adit, Dev and Sarah respond to the situations differently. In the words of Rao,
“…the English and the Indian immigrants do not see each other and they only see want to see stereotypes of
each other colored by prejudice”(49) 15. They grope in the quagmire of the immigrant situation and their
attitudes are molded to situate them appropriately, for escape is improbable. Dev lands on a job in Adit’s office
and shifts to the apartment that Adit and Sara have vacated.
The Jew, Hugo Baumgartner in Baumgartner’s Bombay is forlorn since childhood in Germany because of the
lack of identification. In Wilson’s view, “Hugo’s unconsciousness of continued rejection and ‘otherness’ began
with his childhood in Germany. The cruelty of racial discrimination dawns on humanity after a series of subtle
forms of rejection has been forced on his childish mind” (239) 16. Phillip’s The Nature of Blood too discusses
the Jewish predicament in the postcolonial scenario. When Hugo’s mother comes to fetch him with a cone of
bonbons on his first day at school, he holds up his prize for the others to see but already “the other children were
vanishing down the street” and “no one saw his triumph” (33)17. He accuses his mother for being late and
complains, “You don’t look like everyone else’s mother” (33) 18. Even when not neglected he feels desolate as is
evident from the Christmas incident in the school when all his classmates are sent gifts by their parents to be
distributed to them by their teacher. When the teacher makes the red glass globe up as his Christmas gift, he
instinctively realizes that his parents have not sent any gift for him and he stubbornly disinclines from accepting
it. It is perhaps this sense of desolation experienced by the Jewish community in Germany that helped Hitler
transform isolation into terror. The Baumgartner family lives in dread in Nazi Germany and fear is an acute
form of loneliness. Therefore, exposed to a displacement, not literal; the world around him has moved or rather
changed. When Hugo has a physical displacement and migrates as a teenager to India, he is separated from his
mother and he already harbors the sense of solitariness. The only means of communication between them is
through letters that prove to be of little consolation after going through Nazi censorship.
The Second World War rendered the Jewish diaspora nationless and hence identity crisis becomes inherent in
the community. In the opinion of Sayyid, “Diasporas have also been considered as anti-national phenomena.
Unlike the nation with its homogeneity and boundedness, diaspora suggests heterogeneity and porousness” (41)
19. He adds:
The Jewish experience of diaspora acts as an illustration of the antinational character of diaspora …the inability of a nation to be completed
by making it difficult to erase difference. It is in this sense that the
notion of diaspora is deployed as the anti-thesis of the nation.(42)20
Baumgartner is interned in a camp in British India during the Second World War because he carries a German
passport. In the camp Baumgartner remains reclusive as he could find no way “to alleviate the burden, the
tedium, the emptiness of the waiting days” (125) 21. After the war, when he meets one of his camp-mates, he
finds that the “too Jewish” Julius has been changed to the “very English” Julian. If Julian deliberately dilutes his
Jewish identity, Baumgartner unknowingly suffers from an identity crisis and to counter it, there arises in him a
sense of non-belonging. Baumgartner cannot go back to Germany because the Germany of his childhood no
longer exists and hence his perennial sense of seclusion continues. In India Hugo befriends Lotte, a German
cabaret singer. His relationship with Lotte is a poor substitute for all the meaningful relationships he craves for.
The company of stray cats is to give some purpose to his estranged existence. Sayyid contends:
“A diaspora is formed when a people are displaced but continue to narrate their identity in terms of that
displacement. For example, the Jewish diaspora is possible because …the Jews managed to maintain their
collective identity even when they were territorially displaced and politically subordinated.” (38). 22 ….
The Jewish diaspora is made possible by the development of a proto-nationalism, which prevents its
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assimilation into other cultural formations. (38)23 Hugo’s inability to assimilate the foreign culture is part of his
Jewish identity. The only time that Baumgartner tries to reconcile the Germany of his childhood with the
present-day Germany is by providing shelter German youth, Kurt, to his apartment. Robbed and murdered by
Kurt, it is perhaps the ultimate indictment that no reconciliation is possible and all attempts to wipe out the sense
of diasporic imbroglio.
‘Fasting, Feasting’ took a comprehensive shape after her considerable years of stay in Massachusettes, USA. It
explores how Desai left behind her Indian consciousness and native India to teach and write in the United States
of America (Dasgupta). This exposure has given her the necessary impetus to present aspects of diaspora life
and diaspora experience through her creation ‘Arun’ in her novel. The United States of America is a favored
destination of academic pursuit and economic prosperity. The respectable size of the Indian diaspora
community in the US renders it debatable to assert that globalization has provided solace to their concerns.
Racism unpronounced, the conundrum of the inner ‘human condition’ plagues the diasporic community. Anita
Desai reveals the shifting and unfinished history of displacement and settlement, original homeland or essential
identity and the condition and experience of hybridity through her diaspora connected character ‘Arun’ or
‘Ahroon’. Diaspora is both ‘a geographical phenomenon- crossing an area of land or water by an individual or a
group as well and as an abstract idea: a way of thinking, or of representing the world’ (Procter 154)24. Arun in
Fasting, Feasting is an Indian in the suburbs of Massachusetts, who finds himself destitute and unable to adjust
to a culture of freedom. America to him is baffling. He observes, “The cars speed away like metal darts aimed
into space by missile launchers in the towns they leave behind….all along the highway there will be signs, shelter,
food, gas stations, motorists’ aid call boxes…”(205) 25. He is not only chagrined by American college life but
also by the ways of the Patton family, his host for the summer. He cannot decipher the passion with which Mr.
Patton himself barbecues red meat after coming home early only to find his son Rod and daughter Melanie
absent from the ceremony. Arun finds it strange that Mrs. Patton’s refrigerator is always stocked to the full,
despite the few to consume. When Mrs. Patton and Arun visit a supermarket, they pick up a few cans and
cartons. Arun is conscious about the price as Papa was inclined to do whereas Mrs. Patton is worried about the
food value and calorific content (183). Arun retraces to his past practice in life and repeats the same practice in
the strange land. It shows that he can not get rid of his old custom that learnt at one point of time. He carries the
past with him and lives with the past in the present, a new homeland. But later, he adjusts to his new
surroundings. Arun obediently following Mrs. Patton to the cans and cartons of different brands not for their
varied prices but for their food value and calorific content (183). This is absolutely new for him and he has to
change his attitude toward purchasing canned foods here after. On another occasion, Mr. Patton gives Arun a
paper bag containing red meat for grilling. Arun, though a vegetarian, receives the red meat and leaves it in the
kitchen (202). This is another instance that reveals the fact that he has to adjust to the new environment. Though
Arun takes up jogging like Rod, he cannot devote himself to strenuous physical exercise. Arun is intimidated to
find Melanie’s condition of bulimia amid the plenty that America provides. As a diasporic experience, Arun also
becomes a victim of Melanie’s contemptuous look and scorn. The moment Melanie faces Arun, she hates him
and tries to insult him in every way. Melanie repeatedly uses a phrase ‘Go away’26. Here Arun is hated by an
American girl of his age for no reason. This reveals the scorn of the native, the immigrants encounter in a
strange land or a new homeland. Melanie’s contempt reaches to the extent where she is lying in her vomit, her
hair streaked with it and still she is vomiting. Arun watches her pathetic and helpless condition and offers her
help but she bursts out shouting ‘Go. Go’ way’ (223)27. This explains the the natives’ sense of hatred toward the
immigrants and the immigrants’ helpless situation in a new homeland. All dysfunctional indulgences of
Americans confound him and from this disconcertedness stem his sense of loneliness and insecurity.
Arun is a new immigrant torn apart between two worlds- Uma like women in India are raised only for marriages
and made captive for life and the older woman with cervical cancer in the US is absolutely free to pursue what
she wants in life (170-171). The term ‘diaspora’ describes communities moulded by histories of displacement
and migration between or within continents but for whom an affection and attachment to the homeland, real
and imagined, continues to give a mark of identification (Cohen 123).
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An invite or an acceptance may not dispense comfort, especially when the conviction of home and family
considerably differ across cultures. This difference, being superficial, not fundamental; so are all cross-cultural
conflicts and paradoxes. The first encounter that any migrant has with one’s adopted country is with its puerility
which is too deep-rooted to uproot. Arun tries to seep in through the surface for he knows that the rendezvous
of two cultures can only be some middle ground. To reach this middle ground he has to assuage the distance to
be covered, for which he has to know the extent of the other extremity. Arun penetrates into the core of the
suburban American family and inevitably he is shocked at his first encounter. He takes the first step in
transcending his state of shock by giving Mrs. Patton as parting gifts, the parcels that have been sent to him by his
parents from India. ‘“I’m leaving now, Mrs. Patton”…. “Please take these things – my parents sent them for
you,” he lies, hoping they will never guess what happened to their gifts and hands her the box of tea which she
takes with a polite murmur of surprise’ (231)28. Influences and counter-influences that influence one’s
perceptions govern human life. When the tension generated by these counter-acting influences rises to a critical
level, human beings suffer.
In “Journey to Ithaca: A Letter” Paranjpe writes, “Ithacas …symbolize …all kinds of human longing which,
however, are more valuable for the quests they induce than for any ultimate fulfillment (404)29. Matteo, the
Italian spiritual seeker in Journey to Ithaca comes to India of the 1970s with his wife Sophie. Like Baumgartner
Matteo leaves his parents back in Europe and comes to India, but unlike him does not have any longing for his
parents. Matteo, on becoming a devotee of the mysterious Mother subconsciously replaces his parents with this
spiritual guide. Sophie has come to India following Matteo, who is seeking spiritual love. His spiritual inclination
is in sharp contrast with Sophie’s as she can neither identify with Matteo’s ideals nor find the Mother as inspiring
as Matteo does. Sophie suspects the Mother, “It sounds as if she gets up on a stage and hypnotizes you all like a
magician” (102)30. Her womanly emotions raises jealousy and she decides to enquire about the past of the
Mother. Matteo, in search of spirituality and Adhyatma does not approve of Sophie’s search of her existence as
a woman with her husband. Sophie is left neglected and lonely in a foreign land. She leaves for Italy and tries to
fill the absence of Matteo in the company of Paolo, but in vain. “Her life with Matteo had spoilt her life with a
man like Paolo; it was no longer possible” (155)31.
As an expatriate, she experiences the dilemma of her identity. The sense of belongingness so vexes and
overpowers her that she questions her husband, “Couldn’t we stay in our own country? To die there?” (57)32 .
Unable to lead the life of an ashramite, she suffers a crisis. She smokes, thereby breaking the code of the ashram
and is filled with guilt and gratefulness; guilt for having denounced the ashram and gratefulness for not
associating with the inmates of the ashram. Her life is so wretched that she cries like a child, “I want to go
home” (89)33. Leaving for Italy twice, she returns back to Matteo leaving behind her children with their
grandparents. On returning, she excludes herself from the environment of the ashram due to the “lack of the
language” (34)34. It is quite ironic when Sophie discovers that the Mother herself is a seeker of divine love and
is of Egyptian origin who has traveled all over the world until settling in India. But by the time she comes to
make the revelation to Matteo, the Mother is already dead and Matteo has disappeared. She is left stranded
bearing in her the sense of spiritual loneliness that has come out of the mysticism in the churning of differing
cultures.
Desai’s fiction is significant as the study the ‘human condition’ is basically the tension between what is to be
included and excluded. Tiwari mentions:
It is the process, the journey, the expectation and the halfness that mark her
creativity. There is never a satisfying end. The journey is never complete.
There is no solace and complete union at the end of her novels.
Reconciliation, compromise, helpless resignation may be there but no
gratifying or complex experience is offered to the reader. This is our
reward, our net gain regarding this novelist. The wanderer in us is
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provoked. Rootlessness is celebrated. (3)35.
This is especially relevant when the fiction deals with the condition of being in a diaspora and migrant existence.
The issues that Desai depicts in her diasporic characters are the outcome of the confluence of the inner psyche
of the characters and their external circumstances. Iyengar comments, “The explosions in Ms. Desai’s novels
occur only within narrow domestic walls. Always, always it is the intolerable grapple with thoughts, feelings and
emotions” (464) 36. Her novels studied over a period of time explain Desai’s preoccupation with the issue of
diaspora and her attempts in defining the term with changing post-colonial interpretations. Written at intervals
spanning a few years, the concept of diaspora coupled with her understanding of the term and its exposition
have reiterated that Desai is sensitive to the dynamism of society and its complexities.
Notes:
Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Postcolonial Literatures. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2002. Print.
Boehmer, Elleke . Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors. Oxford, OUP, 1995. Print.
Brah, Avtar. Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. London: Routledge,1996. Print.
Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas - An Introduction. 2nd Ed. London: Routledge, 2008.Print.
Desai, Anita. Baumgartner’s Bombay. Oxford: Vintage, 1998. Print. ---. Bye-Bye Blackbird. New Delhi: Orient,
2001. Print.
---. Fasting, Feasting. Noida: Random House, 2008.Print.
---. Journey to Ithaca. London: Minerva, 1996. Print.
Dasgupta, Rana. “Introduction to Anita Desai's Fasting, Feasting.” 22 Sept. 2008.Web.12 Jan. 2013.
Iyengar, Srinivasa. K.R. Indian Writing in English. New Delhi: Sterling, 1994. Print.
Procter, J. The Routledge Companion to Postcolonial Studies. NewYork: Routledge,2007. 151-59. Print.
Mishra, Vijay. “The Diasporic Imaginary: Theorizing the Indian Diaspora.” Textual Practice. 10.3 (1996): 421 –
447. Print.
Parameshwaran, Uma. Trishanku. Toronto: TSAR, 1988. Print.
Paranjape, Makarand. “Valedictory Address: Interrogating Diasporic Creativity: The Patan Initative.”
Theorizing and Critiquing Indian Diaspora. Eds. Adesh Pal and Tapas Chakrabarti. New Delhi: Creative, 2004.
Print.
---. “Journey to Ithaca: A Letter.” The Postmodern Indian Novel in English. Ed. Viney Kirpal. Delhi: Allied,
1996. 400 – 10. Print.
Rao, Ramachandra. B. The Novels of Mrs. Anita Desai: A Study. New Delhi: Kalyani,1977. Print.
Sayyid,S. “Beyond Westphalia: Nations and Diasporas-The Case of the Muslim Umma. Un/settled
Multiculturalisms:Diasporas,Entanglements, Transruptions.London: Zed, 2000. Print.
Sheffer,G. Modern Diasporas in International Politics. London: Croom Helm, 1986. Print. Tiwari, Shubha.
“Dimensions of Anita Desai’s Fiction.” Critical Responses to Anita Desai. New Delhi: Atlantic, 2004. Print
Tyson, Lois. “Postcolonial Criticism.” Critical Theory Today. New York: Routledge,2006. Print.
Wilson, J. “Multiple Meanings of Marginality in Anita Desai’s Baumgartner’s Bombay.The Novels of Anita
Desai: A Critical Study. Eds. Manmohan K. Bhatnagar and M. Rajeshwar. New Delhi: Atlantic, 2008. Print.
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FROM REGIONALITY TO UNIVERSALITY
Dr. Kavita S. Kusugal
Translation is one of the most essential labours in any literature as it paves the way for international influences,
introduces new genres found in other languages, widens the capacity for meaning and expression of the target
language, provides a current of new ideas, and promotes a proper understanding among various people of the
world by the essential oneness of mankind. In the Indian context, its services become all the more valuable
because we have got at least ten of fifteen major literatures whose great works will be confined to narrow
linguistic areas unless translated into English.
“As early as 1964, Prof. V. K. Gokak underlined the need for the creation of a body of what he calls IndoEnglish writing consisting of scholarly translations into English of classical Indian literary works in Sanskrit
and other regional languages”.
There are fifteen languages that are written, read and spoken by 95 per cent of the people in India. By knowing
two or three languages one can get by nearly anywhere in India. In our everyday speech activity, we find that
many of us use at least three languages: one at home, another on the streets, and yet another at our office. We
constantly translate one language to the other. Plurality in language and translation are inseparable.
The Buddha, on the other hand, chose not to write in Sanskrit, the ‘father tongue’ (the scholar A. K.
Ramanujam always called Sanskrit the father tongue, somewhat like English is today). The saint-poets of the
medieval period in India did not use Sanskrit at all; rather, they used the ibhashas, the languages of India. They
were mystic and were deeply concerned with the society. Belonging to different parts of India, these mystics,
by opting to use the language of everyday speech to convey their religious experience, actually began to
communicate with their Gods in the languages of the streets and of the kitchen. There was indeed a special
language to address the God, but by their use of a familiar language, the mystic brought God to the common
people. As a direct consequence, their poetry empowered women and the lower castes for the first time. For
instance, in Karnataka, menstruating women are considered impure. But the mystics said: ‘No, they are as pure
as ever,’ defying a commonly held belief of the time. In this sense, the empowerment of women in India dates
back to 800 years. In western literature feminism is just the trend of 18th century, but Tagore’s Two Sisters,
translations of Kuvempu’s ‘kaanuru Subbamma Heggaditi’, ‘Faniyamma’, ‘Chappaligalu’ of Saara Abubkar,
Shivaram Karantha’s ‘Mookajjiya Kanasugalu’ will definitely reveal the status of the empowered women of
India to the west.
Language in Text and Context:
A Tulu or Konkani speaker encounters other speakers of those languages which are native to the speaker.
Otherwise it would be considered arrogant. Almost every one of the native Tulu and Konkani speakers would
understand Kannada and if he or she happens to be a writer, most probably the language of choice for writing
would be Kannada. Thus, Chomana Dudi, a celebrated novel in Kannada by K. Shivaram Karanth, is written
in Kannada. Choma the hero of the novel is an untouchable, and in real life, he would be mostly speaking in
Tulu. In fact, one could say much of the novel takes place in the language of Tulu,, and the author Karanth
while writing the novel is truly translating Tulu to Kannada.
When an Indian bilingual writes in English, he is obviously writing with a double vision in which both the
native Indian cultural tradition and the non-native western cultural tradition gets mixed up. The Indian
experience that an Indian expresses in English is bound to have a dimension distinct from the Indian
experience expressed in the first language. Secondly, English itself is bound to be affected by the pressure of
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the Indian experience. Linguistic and stylistic studies of Indian writers in English reveal the various strategies
that they use for conveying the Indianness of their experience, the strategies ranging from hybridization,
transliteration to syntactical and rhythmic patterning of sentences for conveying not only the objective texture
of Indian life but also the Indian modes of thinking and feeling. I have a feeling that the English language itself
with its inherent cultural and psychological associations modifies the Indian modes of thinking and feeling.
For instance, sentimentality, and romanticism which are inherent in Indian languages get tempered and
neutralized in English.
Need for translations:
Translations help in eradicating prejudices regarding the other cultures, countries and people by revealing the
common aspects in the lives throughout the world. We have three terms in the process of translation –original
creation, translation and transcreation.
Translation implies the claim that one has rendered an originally creative piece, originally engaged in a specific
language, into another language. More recently, the category transcreation has been used to suggest a process
in which translation manages to be enough of a close cousin to the original while rising a wee bit above mere
translation-in fact, spilling over into creation in its own right.
In his forewords to ‘The Golden Rings –modern Bengali poems in Translation’, Paras Datta says, ‘Poetry
translated from the original language to another definitely loses one generation of its resonance, very much
like a photograph, when copied. However, there is hardly any other way by which poetry lovers, who are not
Bengali-savvy, can get a taste of Bengali poetry.’ Tagore was a colossal personality in Bengal poetry. He had
mesmerized poetry lovers with his lyrical mastery for almost half a century. In the vast expanse of his poetic
pursuits Tagore himself transcended the barriers of innocent moods and themes of the nineteenth century
which had made poetry an “assemblage of verbal sound” and which provided a satisfaction derived from
adjustment of the reader’s feelings with the association evoked by the words; and entered the era of new
Bengali poetry which did cross formidable barriers and achieved new dimensions.
Tagore in the later phase of his poetry had gradually shifted from the older order of poetry to the new
changing order, both in form and content. But at the same time he wrote
“…. I have tried to go near that neighborhood
But did not have the courage to enter.
…. I still long for that unborn poet
Who will unfurl what I dared not…’
Poetry reflects contemporary stress and strain of society. Universal poetry does so of the entire world.
Crave for expression and to be understood is universal. Translations make it possible within a wider canvas.
Sybils: native and alien:
Sybil a Swedish Novel by Par Lagerkwist, translated into English by Naomi Walford, has been rendered into
Kannada by D. R. Mirji. Though the story is small, the character stands universal. The writer defines the
meaning of human life in the background of prolonged experience, besides the understanding of human
being from the prehistoric period to this day through nameless symbolic characters. Like Greek sculpture the
subject of the story is beautiful and complete.
After reading the novel we Indians wonder on sibyl’s story in Sweden, which is similar to the stories around
Yallammana gudda and other places in India. The novel brings awareness on non-typicality of Indian sibyls.
Here sibyls are called Devadasis. Sibyl reminds us the innocence of the girl or sibyl in Naanu Konda Hudugi of
Ananda in Kannada. So in context of these two stories we may say that the way of life is universal and this
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awareness is possible with the help of the universal language, English.
Unlocking India to West:
Vanamala Vishwanatha offers a different perspective in “Reading Distant Wor(l)ds: The Swedish translation
of Samskara.” She recounts her experience of playing a role between the Swedish translator of Samskara and
the author Anantha Murthy. For Vishwanatha the task of translation is a collaborative engagement between
the writer, translator and the cultures of the audience. Given that Ramanujan, the Guru of Indian Translators,
has already set a standard for the translation of Samskara how “could one even think of bettering this nearperfect translation,” asks Vishwanatha. Engaged in this daunting task of helping the translation of Samskara
into Swedish, Vishwanath describes her role as that of a “native informant” filling the gaps in the Swedish
translator’s grasp of the (con)text through information, explanation, discussion and demonstration. In the
process Vishwanatha insists that the native informant remains the “actual reader” of the text who can unlock
the hidden elements of the “native” text. For Vishwanatha, Anantha Murthy has assimilated diverse sources
from the West to “monumental text that attacks the caste system and religious intolerance of India.”
In order to offer “ten keys to unlock modern India for Western listeners,” the authors chose to adapt Samskara
for a radio narrative. The interpretive element comes in the choices that were made in condensing the text. The
process of condensation itself- - was governed by the framing of the text as a dilemma between duty and
pleasure. In order to make the text accessible to a general public in the West, Samskara’s theme was
characterized as a “classic conflict between God and man, duty and desire, virtue and vice.” They were able to
achieve this, the authors point out, by capturing all the core conflicts of the novel in six major characters – two
couples (Praneshacharya and his wife Bhagirathi, and Naranappa and Chandri) and two other Brahmins
(Garudacharya and Laxmanacharya). The interpretive frame here is clearly a response to the address of the
West – the necessity to “unlock modern India” – an almost inescapable condition of the post-colonial.
As Sibyl reminds us of customs in our own land, Samskara introduces conflicts between tradition and
modernity. If Samskara is known outside Karnataka, it is through the painstaking and sensitive English
translation (1976) A.K. Ramanujan, the Guru of Indian translator. In the forward, Ramanujan candidly writes,
“A translator hopes not only translate a text, but also to translate a non-native reader into a native one”.
Despite, the glossary and the self-explanatory details woven into the English text, there were many gaps in the
Hans’ understanding of the text because of the lack of direct contact between the two cultures. Ramanujan’s
grasp of the text as an insider to Kannada culture and his assumptions about an international English
readership had dictated the terms of his own initiative in translating Samskara into English, in1976. But
translating it into Swedish, for particular language and culture that is region-specific, and nearly 35 years after
its canonization as a Modern Indian classic called for a re-orientation in the mode of translating the text.
However, literatures from far-off continents have not had the same privilege either because they are not
commercially viable or simply due to the dearth of translators who can connect these constituencies. It is
against this backdrop that one needs to appreciate the commitment of the Indo-Swedish translation Project
team for their initiative in relating distant worlds.
The examples of translated Samskara and Sibyl reveal the fact that the English language has proved its vital
role in breaking the barriers between Swedish and Kannada. Without English Sibyl and Samskara would have
remained only regional works. All the reviews and readers attempt to establish a common human bond
between the two cultures and read it as an existentialist text that speaks to them across the borders.
Apart from the intrinsic merit of the text, the success of the Swedish Samskara is in no small measure due to
the positive intervention of the Indo-Swedish Translation Project team is not only creating the necessary
conditions conducive for the collaborative production of the translation but also in striving hard to create the
right ambience for the reception of the translated text which was ‘borne across’ through an adventurous
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passage. D.R. Mirji’s translation of Sibyl into Kannada really opened a way through which we realized that
devadasi system and the belief that God comes into somebody to talk to targeted people is not typically Indian
but universal.
Translation which often involves the tedium of facing cold print and reproducing more cold print was
transformed into a warm human experience in which much more than a mere text got translated. The success
of both the works in touching the hearts and sensibilities of the other culture readers is due to the
transcreation.
Translations do help in building bridges across unconnected cultures, even if the translation has been based
on a third intermediary language such as English. Comparative study of literatures is possible only with the
help of translation of different literatures. It further points to the fact that no text demands active mediation
from the translator/s and readers to get at its meaning. Again, meaning is not something that is tenuously
created by the active mediation of readers, who deconstruct the text based on their own location and
ideological make-up. Thanks to the translators who made it possible to open our eyes to the universal vision,
and broke the walls between the cultures. It is translations through which globalization in understanding of
cultures across the borders has become a new trend. Reading of translations made us more humane and peace
lovers.
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CONSTRUCTING THE DISCOURSE OF
DISPLACEPLACEMENT AND AMBIGUITIES:
INTERROGATING POST 1990 KANNADA
NARRATIVES
T. Avinash
It is true that contemporary Kannada cultural context is marked by no prominent, solid literary movements.
The kind of euphoric, social and literary movements that happened in 1970s and 80s is history now. After
Navya and Dalit-Bandaya movements, there seemed to be a lull in the production and sustenance of literary
movements as well. When Navya and Dalit literary movements were at their peak, a writer had the opportunity
of working in a particular framework and to choose his/her subject matter. But during post 1990 LPG era,
young writers were denied of any such particular framework. This in fact is a challenge for a new writer
because he/she has to negotiate things in their own way. There will be no pressure on new writers today to
follow the paths taken by the seminal writers of the past. Therefore, post 1990 Kannada narratives are marked
by heterogeneous themes and concerns. It is difficult for anybody to have any one particular framework to
describe contemporary literary canon. To borrow a phrase from a young writer in Kannada today is ‘literary
narratives are beyond any frame work’.
It is said that the post 1990 Kannada prose narratives are simple and hollow. It is assumed that there are no
great contemporary writers. It is also criticized for diluting the real issues in the society. It is believed that no
significant writer is coming up in the new era. In fact Kannada criticism did not take into account some of the
new writers of the LPG era. Literary criticism was limited to selective book reviews. The reasons for this were
that new writings were compared with previous canonical masters and it was concluded that the new writers
were no equal to the masters in past. Another reason was that the very parameters of criticism underwent a
drastic change. With the onslaught of modern critical theories and multidisciplinary approaches in critical
discourse, literature was not the only tool to understand society and culture. In this paper I have attempted
show how post 1990 Kannada prose writings continue the discourses of the earlier period and also how they
bring in fresh areas of negotiation. I strongly feel that it is wrong to compare new writings with classics of the
past and to conclude that contemporary writings are minor and hollow.
The onslaught of Globalization and liberalization has conveniently restructured and reoriented the native
societies of the third world countries. India is no exception to this change. In an era of post nationalism the
boundaries of once powerful nation-states are being blurred and diffused. Shiv Vishwanathan’s comment that
`from now onwards All roads will lead to coco-cola’!! is still marked in history. When he made that statement,
he was referring to the enormous power of the corporate sector and the kind of homogenization that it brings
in native societies. Globalization has produced tremendous crisis in native societies. The never ending thirst of
Globalization for consumerism and market expansion is intensely interrogated in these micro narratives. As
argued by many thinkers, the strategies adopted for globalization by domination and consolidation of power is
more perilous than that of the colonial strategies.
New Kannada narratives are not blind to all these experience. Kannada prose narratives and the novel form
has always negotiated with modernity, colonialism nationalism, caste discrimination and issues related to
women. From Marali Mannige (Shivarama Karantha) to Suryana Kudure (U.R. Ananthamurthy) various
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writers like Kuvempu, Karantha, and Tejaswi etc have negotiated with the complex issues of Modernity and
colonialism. There is neither a complete rejection nor a total acceptance of modernity. Ambivalent attitude
marks our negotiation with modernity. In fact one of the premier thinkers of Kannada, K.V.Subbanna
succinctly argued that our ambivalent negotiation with modernity/colonialism is the hallmark of modern
Kannada literature. Partha Chatterjee argues that ours is the modernity of the once colonized country. The
same historical process that has taught us the value of modernity has also made us the victim of modernity.
Our attitude to modernity therefore, cannot but be deeply ambiguous. In a plural and hybrid socio-cultural
scenario, there is no simple, final answer to above mentioned problems. Thus, this ambivalence is a result of a
historical process rather than of an individual writing.
The recent Kannada narratives continue such debates in different proportions. Different writers take
different positions and their concerns and negotiations are extremely amorphous. There is no single mega
narrative as such to describe these writers. The post 1990 Kannada narratives cannot be formulated in a single
framework. The narratives like Jugari Cross (Tejasvi), Yugaadi and Hampi Express (Vasudendra), Toofan
Mail (Jayantha Kaikini), Huli Savari (Vivek Shanbag), Hakuna Matata (Nagraja Vastaare) Putta Padada
Guruthu and Gandhi Chitrada Notu (Sunanda Kadame) narrate the traumatic and multiple experience of
globalization at individual, societal and at cultural level. Without being parochial and chauvinistic, the writers
have recorded the trauma and the violent nature of modern societies.
The following are some of the features of contemporary Kannada narratives.
•
These writers have come from different backgrounds and have come from all walks of life. Like
Navya tradition they are not Kannada /English academic teachers. They in fact are associated with MNCs and
know the system of working in multinational companies. Therefore listening to these inside voices from
within the structure of MNCs is an interesting and inevitable exercise. They are from different professional
fields like multinational companies (Vasudendra, Vivek Shanbhag, and Ashok Hegde), Media, (Jogi, B
Surendranath) architecture (Nagaraja Vastaare), Medicine (Guruprasad Kaginele) etc. The result of this is
diverse life worlds have entered Kannada literary sensibility. Such heterogeneity was never experienced before.
To borrow a phrase from a young writer Sumangala, ‘the contemporary stories are Yava chaukattigu sigada
chitragalu’. Readers are introduced to unexplored areas of society, language and culture. There is tremendous
variety in the subject matter of these writers. Looking at some of them, Mogalli Ganesha’s stories construct an
independent and autonomous Dalit world with all its complexity and nuances. In this respect Mogalli’s stories
are formidable continuations of Devanuru Mahadeva’s stories. Kum Ve in a brilliant manner explores the
discrimination, suppression and the violence let loose on marginalized people by the feudal Jamindars.The
unexplored life world of bayaluseema is narrated with humor, irony and sarcasm. However, the underlying
tone of Kum Ve is one of vishada. Jayantha Kaikini- though looks very lyrical and poetic at times- brings out
the subtle life of middle class people in Mumbai city. Sreedara Balegara’s stories confront the inadequacies of
development model which has brought displacement, rootlesness and destruction in Uttara Kannada region.
His stories certainly prove that big dams are NOT the temples of modern India. Writing with childhood
memories, Abdul Rasheed enacts the celebration of life in Muslim community of Coorg and Vainadu region.
Sunanda Kadame with her limited canvas shows the everyday life rhythm of middleclass women. .H
Nagaveni’s Gandhi Banda is a brilliant multiple narrative which brings out the violent nature of hierarchical
caste system in Dakshina Kannada district. Again, it also shows the influence of Gandhi at the level of
ordinary people. The list can go on. But what is important is that post 1990 narratives continue the discourses
of earlier Kannada narratives and at the same time introduce new areas of negotiation. Even the productions
of literary texts are extremely unconventional. Vasudendra has dedicated one of his story collections (Chelu)
to traffic jam and to his car driver in Bangalore! For puritans, who believe that literature is produced in the state
of meditation, and isolation, this statement is indeed a cultural shock!
•
Except one or two writers most of the other writers are not very ambitious. Let me rephrase this
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statement like this. Though they may be ambitious in their personnel capacity, it is not shown in their texts. Not
being very ambitious is not a quality to be celebrated and boasted of. In fact this could be a great drawback in
modern writers. But these writers narrate their stories in a very calm and unhurried manner. They don’t have
the urgency to tell anything and everything under the sun. Whatever is felt and grasped is leisurely narrated.
Like Navya tradition theirs is not mega narratives. In fact there are no central metaphors as such and they write
in very loose cannon. Without being judgmental and without being completely disassociated from the past
their stories bring out the cultural displacements of contemporary society. For e.g.: The stories of Vivek
Shanbhag narrate the developments and loss of native values as a result of the onslaught of modernity and
globalization. The story Huli Savari enacts how the corporate sector establishes, dominates and expands its
hegemonic power over the poor third world countries. The whole story takes place in far away Africa where
the strategies of domination are planned by imperialistic MNCs. The very economic base structure of third
world countries are destroyed by the faceless MNCs. It also proves how imperialistic forces can transgress the
notion and boundaries of the nation- state. His other story Kanthu has multiple layers of meaning where
people trade everything including their homes for the sake of money. Money madness has absorbed them.
The narrative questions the very notion of no holds bar consumerist culture. Globalization brings money
madness and converts native people into lunatics. Jugari cross in a brilliant manner shows the ugliness and the
horror of a world dominated by international smugglers, traders and middleman. The description of Malnad
we find in Kuvempu is transformed into a global Jugari Cross. People of Jugari Cross go after expensive
shining red stones and lose their sanity. In an inverted world interconnected by Telephone wires, Sanity and
Innocence becomes a big causality. The Protagonists of this novel, Suresha and Gowri (like Adam/Eve) are
caught in a vicious circle of the underworld controlled by faceless, unethical cutthroat people. Though Tejaswi
refused to read Jugari Cross with the back drop of globalization, the very texture of the novel shows how calm
and unhurried life in western ghat is thrown out of gear due to the distractive effects of globalization.
Kepu Gini of Vasudendra is a seemingly innocuous narrative which narrates the onslaught of mining industry
and the resultant socio-cultural and economic deformation. Aijaj Ahmed once remarked that the main feature
of globalization is to colonize everything that is natural and restructure it to suit its materialistic needs. The
mining industry – a byproduct of post LPG era in India – has acquired wealth and power to redefine the
concept of citizenship, ownership, morality and ethical values. It also has bulldozed the harmonious
relationship between man and mother earth. The restructuring of the economic order has given mining
industry an enormous political power. Even the state governments are influenced and controlled by the
mining mafia. The seeds of all these issues could be found in the very structure of this story. The ‘text’ here
raises another important question of landless laborers and feudal lords. It is true that the prose narratives in
Kannada have negotiated with the question of land less laborers and their relationship with hegemonic feudal
lords. Shivarama Karantha’s Chomana Dudi [1933] is a fine example. Chomana Dudi is set in a society where
changes are slow and it takes place at leisurely pace. However, Vasudendra ‘text’ brings forth the altered post
LPG society where changes are drastic and incomprehensible. Therefore, theses questions are not resolved so easily.
To conclude, the contemporary writers in their own way have attempted to show the paradoxical
displacements brought by neo colonial forces of globalization. On the one hand, many of these writers are the
insiders of the system and on the other hand they are aware of the cultural disfiguration that the phenomenon
has brought.
Notes:
Subbanna K. V “Adhunika Kannada Sahithyakke Heege Banni’ in Are Shatamanada Ale Barahagalu. Ed.
Ashoka T P. Akshara Prakashana; Heggodu, 2004
Partha Chatterjee. A Possible India. New Delhi; O U P, 2001
Shiv Vishwanathan. ‘Culture at the Turn of the Century’. Talk. Ninasam; Heggodu, 2003
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ECOFEMINISTIC APPROACH IN ALICE WALKER’S
THE COLOR PURPLE
Abirami V.
The magnitude of man’s greed and arrogance has become so massive that it has embezzled mother earth and
has become overtly significant to voice nature’s rescue call. Though postwar literature focuses on major
themes such as gender, race and class, the need to represent the deterioration of nature in literature failed to
find its due place until the late eighties. Ecocriticism evolved as a separate school of literary criticism in the
1990s. It is broadly concerned with the relationship between literature and environment and how man’s
relationship with nature is reflected in literature. It is an interdisciplinary study as it deals with both natural
science as well as humanistic discipline.
The scheme of Elaine Showalter’s model of the three developmental stages of feminist criticism is used for
describing the three important phases in ecocriticism. One such phase is as stated in The Ecocriticism Reader,
Corresponding to the feminist interest in the lives of women authors, ecocritics have studied the
environmental conditions of an author’s life – the influence of place on the imagination – demonstrating that
where an author grew up, travelled, wrote is pertinent to the understanding of his or her work. (P 9)
Alice Walker, an Afro-American activist writer lends a voice to the mute and the muted with an overwhelming
concern for the environment around her. Environmentally-conscious upbringing and ecological awareness
have deeply percolated into the soul of Alice Walker which is evident in the ‘green’ ideas of her writings.
Further, regardless of race, class, age and profession exploitation of earth is conceived as a feminist issue and
thus Ecofeminism finds its place in literary works. Being closely associated with the ‘green’ movements of the
1970s and 1980s she parallels exploitation of the environment with male domination and thereby takes a
staunch ecofeminist stance. Walker holds a unique place in the map of Ecocritical Approach to literature as
she clearly identifies the close connection between the race-gender issues and that of the environmental
issues. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple in particular exposes the nexus between the environmental damage
and violation against women across the globe. Ecofeminism illustrates the interconnection between women
and nature and this research paper focuses on the concept of Ecofeminism in The Color Purple where she
places human beings and environment on the same moral plane and how she links gender and race with
environmentalist concerns.
Walker addresses the questions of nature in addition to race and gender and thereby establishes a close link
among the three. History has enough evidences to show the dominance of men over women and nature
equally. Aristotle states, “Women are merely tools and they are property at the free proposal of men” (Stiff, 5).
Celie, the central character of the novel is a personification of oppression and subjugation and in the
beginning of the novel she states, “It all I can do not to cry. I make myself wood. I say to myself, Celie, you are a
tree. That’s how I know trees fear man,” (The Color Purple, 23). Celie’s untold sufferings at the hands of her
step-father and later her husband is just a microcosmic level of perception of the clout that men hold – the
license to violate the women in the family. It shows the social and historical setup of the male dominant society
where abused powerless women have to bear the brunt meekly. Celie is not a weak woman but one who
possesses the strength of integrity. She wades through all odds in her life only to achieve sexual, economic and
finally a spiritual liberation.
Nettie’s letters reveal the extent to which nature is ravaged in Africa. The conflict between man and nature has
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wreaked havoc to nature losing its ecological harmony. When the Whites start exploring the native Olinka
tribe’s territory, Nettie describes it thus: “The ancient, giant mahogany trees, all the trees, the game, everything
of the forest was being destroyed, and the land was forced to lie flat” (The Color Purple, P 144). God created
man in his image which gave him a sense of superiority over women and nature alike. Subjugation and
oppression of women is connected with the hatred against nature. This has slowly paved way to an oppressive
dualism contrasting between the ruler and the ruled. This dualism has left both nature and women
subordinated and inferior to men which have steadily eroded the harmony both among human and between
humans and nature.
Ecofeminists have replaced the hierarchies of domination between men and women and also human and
other beings of nature. They have discarded the dualistic thinking as this leads to a patriarchal society where
men are valued superior and that women and nature come under their fold. Alice Walker explicitly expresses
her views against the male-centrism existing in the society by bringing a radical transformation in Harpo and
his father. The holistic liberation of Celie and Sofia reflects Walker’s advocacy of self-sufficiency and equalfooting with men. This shows Walker’s ecofeministic ideology. The relationship between the father and son
reveals a traditional patriarchal dominance and authority. Further Celie’s marriage with Mr._ does not liberate
her in any way. She is never treated as an equal partner, instead of being a home-maker and a child-rearer. This
decrepit state pushes her to the extent of running away from home with Mr._’s lover Shug. Later there is a
radical transformation in Mr._’s attitude towards Celie which is achieved through her resistance. This change
has brought an ecological harmony between nature and man. Also the harmonious relationship between Celie
and Shug who are supposed to be rivals reflects another aspect of Walker’s ecofeminist consciousness.
Through their relationship Shug helps Celie to identify her self-esteem and self-confidence. Shug is initially
Celie’s friend, eventually becomes her lover but had always been a guiding spirit, a motherly figure helping
Celie to evolve herself as an independent woman, not crippled by emotions around her. Thus Shug gives Celie
a spiritual rebirth and helping her to enter “into the creation” (The Color Purple, P 170).
When humans attempt to change the gender relations and do way with patriarchic setup then it shall alter
human relations with nature. According to Alice Walker love is the key to save the earth from all its ills and only
love could change issues related to gender, race and nature. On the whole Alice Walker has proved that the
dominance over women and exploitation of nature are fundamentally linked and that this has resulted from
the patriarchal dualistic thinking. This dualism shall be overcome only through the liberation of omen and
nature alike. This message strongly runs along Walker’s The Color Purple.
Notes:
Glotfelty, Cheryll Freman Harold. The Ecocriticism Reader. University of Georgia Press.
Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. London. The Women’s Press, 1982.
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Athens, 1995.
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RE-LOCATING GANDHI BETWEEN HISTORY AND
HAGIOGRAPHY
Dr. Preeti Jain
Within the emerging corpus of modern Indian drama, attempts have been made to harmonise the conflicting
claims of ideology, history, mythology and aesthetics. The central concern of postcolonial dramatists is no
longer to represent a homogenous mass of likeminded people but to look at the hotspot of conflicts,
negotiations, bargains and manipulations of all kinds. Mohandas Gandhi, a historical persona, and a
hagiographical subject has permeated all forms of writings – literary and non-literary, it has of late made its represence in dramas too. While repositioning him in the postcolonial context through a deconstructive
approach towards this character, these dramas delve deep into his “Mahatmization”, its politics and history.
Mohandas Gandhi who although not so remote in historical time yet remains masked in his historicalhagiographical configurations. Seen as one of the most contentious figures in Indian past, his persona remains
open to an ever reworking interpretation.
Of late, however there is also seen an emerging trend of anti-Gandhi plays that questions the historical claims
and takes Gandhi off his pedestal, abandoning the halo on his head. Leaving aside either of these onedimensional approach towards his persona, the contemporary writers seems to take a different stand. Rather
than accepting the linear, conventional narrative structure, the contemporary playwrights punctures the
monolithic claim of history by bringing in an alternative category of hagiography. With this, the myth of the
mahatma is restaged but with more critical outlook.
As the image of Mahatma easily fired the imagination of writers and made him enter the folklore too, he
became the theme of new patriotic-nationalist literature in all genre forms, generating a lot of hagiographical
literature on him. The popular folklore and oral culture got heavily loaded with the iconic image of the
Mahatma. He is idealised as well as idolised by people from all cultures and beliefs. In Profiles on Gandhi, a
collection of American tributes, Gandhi in most cases is sensed with presence of an aura surrounding him.
Sarojini Naidu too exemplifies unquestioned Gandhi-reverence typical of that age. Her sonnet on Gandhi
“The Lotus” is a supreme example of Gandhi-devotional trends. For her, standing for ageless beauty and
supreme glory, he is a reincarnate of Brahma. Another great impact was observed when Raja Rao came with
his biographical work on Gandhi The Great Indian Way that sustained Gandhi’s hagiographical image. This
work is seen a landmark in Gandhi literature as it idolises Gandhi as an absolute in the words of his
unquestioning blind follower, Rao. In his presentation of this persona the Mahatma weighs more upon him
than the historical Gandhi. For that matter, among the most widely viewed cinematic portrayal the historical
figure of Gandhi continues to be a source of enthralment, for it presents the lone moral individual triumphing
over the conventional forces of authority in society. The first ever film on Gandhi that aroused the masses
interest in him and added much to his hagiographical image was Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi.
Then came Shyam Benegal’s Waiting for the Mahatma that held Gandhi in a critical mode and tried analysing
his life and thoughts not as saint but a political personality. Lately seen Feroz Khan’s Gandhi,My Father is again
exposing the contradictions that Gandhi had with his eldest son, Harilal. The film is a departure from the usual
celluloid homage to Mahatma Gandhi and describes the story as a clash of convictions, values and family
aspirations. The movie by the very nature of its story telling captures the undivided attention of the audience
and moves them completely. Apart from this, there exists a range of plays focussing on one or the other aspect
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of the Mahatma’s life such as Gandhiji’s Sadhana (1969) by K.S. Rangaapa, Barrister-at-Law (1977) by Ahmed
Abbas, Riding the Storm (1990) by S.K.Ojha, Gandhi – A Play (1983) by Trivedi and Dear Bapu by Mohan
Maharishi. And all these plays have been developing upon his much accredited image. Gandhi’s persona
attracting attention of several writers both pre-colonial and postcolonial has been caricaturised with all sorts
of contradictions. Thus the emerging anti-Gandhi plays in the postmodern phase, questions the conventional
and more often hagiographical claims. It takes Gandhi off his consecrated place, abandoning his existing aura.
Coming up first, Feroz khan’s Gandhi Vs Mahatma, then Chetan Datar’s Gandhi-Ambedkar and then again
Pardeep Dalvi’s Me Nathuram Godse Bolte. However the three theatre stalwarts chose to focus on three
different aspects of Gandhi’s life; in Gandhi Vs Mahatma the audience watched the battle between a son
whose father has given birth to a nation and a father who has no time for his own flesh and blood. The same
audience watched in wonder Gandhi-Ambedkar where India’s greatest statesman took intractable strands.
And with Pradeep Dalvi, the audience were trying to understand Godse who thunders in the play that
assassinating Mahatma Gandhi was a national need. By bringing in a survey of some plays written and staged
on Gandhi, I intend to emphasise on how in postmodern context the dramatists now puncture the grand
claims of history by giving recognition to some of the historical as well as hagiographical beliefs, rather than
simply adding to the existing faiths.
This paper seeks to approach modern Indian writing, specifically drama as a dialogic site where tradition and
modernity, history and hagiography forge new combinations, hitherto unexplored in the realm of theatre. In
this respect my paper shall primarily discuss Partap Sharma’s play Sammy! A Word That Broke An Empire
(2005). In addition to this some literary works on Gandhi are also drawn in, in order to emphasise upon this
changing scenario.
Partap Sharma, an eminent modern Indian playwrights too, in his play Sammy!, brings a new ‘turn’ to core
concepts in Indian thought and put them in a contemporary setting. He has attempted to draw out certain
events of Gandhi’s life history subjecting his chosen figure of past to both historical-hagiographical
reconstructions. Rather than depending upon the usual narrative structure, the playwright penetrates the
existing claims of history by drawing in an alternative category of hagiography. However, while dealing with
hagiography too, the playwright develops upon the social, cultural and political process through which he
became a Mahatma. He depicts it not as a sudden happening; rather we learn a series of events and situations
that enabled a gradual emergence of this image. He portrays this blending of history and hagiography by
selecting bits from both these narrative forms and weaves them together. Abandoning any one of these forms
is seen unfeasible by the playwright as the two images are quite analogous in understanding the figure of
Gandhi. Thus, through a dialectical approach towards the past, he restages it by including the versions of
marginalised histories as well.
Through this intricately crafted play, set against the background of India’s struggle for freedom, the
playwright brings live Gandhi’s philosophy, pragmatism, and sense of humour. By staging the dramatic
relationship between Mohan and the irrepressible Mahatma whom he could not ignore, Sharma allows us to
witness the constant tensions between the spiritual and the mundane; between hagiography and history.
Where the play is seen as a clear-cut shot to recreate history taking incidents from Gandhi’s real life story, it is
also meant to denote the historical-hagiographical linkage that subsist within present-day India. The
playwright has an interesting way of carrying the play forward that is through the two incompatible selves of
Gandhi. His portrayal vacillates between the historical Mohandas Gandhi and the hagiographical Mahatma
Gandhi emphasising that the history of Mohan was different from that of the Mahatma. The play places two
images in a parallel mode thereby exploring the conflict between Mohan and the irrepressible Mahatma with
his ‘inner voice’ constantly confronting him. As hagiography is the instinctual process of creating Mahatma
out of the dry stuff of history into the minds of people, the play reveals how Mohan, the historical figure who
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led the freedom struggle is transformed into a Mahatma having hagiographical inclinations. Partap Sharma
through a witty, lively debate between two actors (one Mohan and the other Mahatma) traces the development
of the young Mohandas Gandhi from being a protestor in South Africa to that of a shrewd politician and
finally into an enlightened person – a Mahatma or Great Soul that he later becomes.
The play touches upon some of the important milestones in our struggle for Independence like the
Champaran agitation, the Dandi March, the massacre in Jalliawala Bagh, and the ‘charkha’ as a weapon to fight
the British. The pros and cons of the movement itself are discussed between Mahatma (the inner voice) and
Mohan. As we reach the end of the play the playwright discusses in depth, the differences in thoughts and
beliefs that existed between Gandhi and other leaders like Jinnah and Nehru on one hand and the Viceroy and
his advisor Clancy on the other. The dramatist avoids making any biased or predisposed attempt at Gandhi’s
past, conveying matters relating to his appreciation, and his failings simultaneously. Revealing it to be an expert
work of art, Sharma does not state history plainly. Rather by using the potency of dramatic mode of
presentation he dazzles its audience by introducing a fictional element in the form of a separate character of
the ‘Mahatma’ (coming on stage as shadow) and Gandhi negotiating Mohan and Mahatma at all times.
Gradually as the play progresses the two are gradually drawn closer and conflict arises between Mohan, the
reason and Mahatma, representing idealism. Progressively the Mahatma wins and takes over as he speaks to
Mohan:
Mahatma: …No one before this has attempted to use individual moral force as a vehicle of group action. You
are trying to turn personal ethics into a political possibility. You are forging a new weapon. You can change
politics forever. Go now. Address them. (44)
The protocol used by Sharma of bringing two selves of Gandhi on stage, one Mohan, his real self and the
other as the Mahatma, acting as Mohan’s conscience helps him to question and reveal how the Mahatma
through his idealistic philosophy persuaded Mohan to follow him. This well turned-out witty portrayal of
Gandhi both as in history and hagiography simultaneously, immensely aided in the exploration of Mohan’s
journey towards his Mahatmization. Revealing how the two selves never really agreed with each other’s
thoughts and ideological beliefs, we are again sensitized to the dialectical existence of his personality. By
depicting a constant conflict that goes on in the play between his two characters (Mohan and Mahatma), the
playwright effectively highlights the concern of contemporary writers and thinkers who find Gandhi’s real
past lost between his contradictory/paradoxical images.
In Gandhi's own life too, he was said to have been plagued by his 'inner voice' which is given tangible form in
the play where the realist, Mohan, and the idealist, Mahatma, are dramatised visually through two actors
debating about Gandhi. The two voices (as the historical and the hagiographical) never quite agree with each
other. This technique of presenting the inner voice in form of a shadow facilitates the playwright in bringing
forth adequately several issues otherwise deemed contentious. Had Sharma allowed any other historical
character in the play speak on Gandhi’s failings, the impact would have been less and even measured as an
offence to his hagiographical image. This fictional strategy has greatly aided him in depicting the epic
transformation of an ordinary Mohandas Gandhi into an extraordinary figure called the ‘Mahatma’. Gandhi
has triggered a number of writings and creative artists to think and write of him over and over again but
unsatisfactorily. There is great reverence in the way the subject has been handled. Gandhi’s life may have
moments of high drama but the playwright does not allow it to denigrate into melodrama. The words closing
the drama, “I am a shadow. The shadow of an actor.” (The Mahatma reaches down and helps Mohan to rise.)
An actor in a drama beyond time.” produce a resounding effect upon our minds as we realise that the
Mahatma, being a shadow can never leave and will forever live with Mohandas’ persona. This duality makes
Gandhi a complex domain, as Gandhi the Mahatma cannot be completely isolated from Gandhi the man.
Gandhi has thus been subjected to both historical and hagiographical reconstructions with a frequency that
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invariably postpones his persona from being grasped or received in one particular way. But because Gandhi’s
persona has been defied to such a high pedestal and revered highly in hagiographical writings, his life history
too, besides the availability of data remains a complexity, thereby suspending his personality to be seized in
one particular way. Even when the narratives are retold and restaged in contemporary times by exploring
multiple possibilities, a similar dilemma surrounds us in our understanding of him. However by employing
critical thought and techniques, the contemporary readers are better exposed to the dialectical interplay that
characterises Gandhi. Approaching the historical-hagiographical narratives in a dialectical mode has helped in
the simultaneous appreciation of the marginalised or ignored versions of the past with all their underlying
contradictions and ambiguities. Through literary means, the texuality of historical accounts and historicity of
hagiographical texts are made more discernible. The emerging arena of modern Indian ‘historical’ drama thus
proves itself quite functional in balancing and countering the claims of institutional as well as noninstitutional histories, by providing an alternative source of historical knowledge for those trapped within the
dominant narratives.
Notes:
Arnold, David, and Staurt H. Blackburn. Telling Lives in India: Biography, Autobiography, and Life History.
Delhi: Permanent Black, 2004.
Brown, Judith. Prisoner of Hope. London: OUP, 1990.
---. Gandhi’s Rise to Power: Indian Politics 1915-1922. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.
Chatterjee, Partha. Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
Cousins, Norman. Ed. Profiles on Gandhi. Delhi: India Book Company, 1969.
Crow, Brain, and Chris Banefield. An Introduction to Post-Colonial Theatre. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1993.
Dalton, Dennis. Gandhi’s Power: Nonviolence in Action. Oxford: Columbia University Press, 1993.
Fischer, Louis. The Essential Gandhi. New York: Vintage Books, 1962.
Hardiman, David. Gandhi in His Times and Ours. Delhi: Permanant Black, 2003.
Iyengar, K.R.Srinivasa. Indian Writing in English. London: Asia Publishing House. 1962.
Parekh, Bikhu. Colonialism, Tradition and Reform: An Analysis of Gandhi’s Political Discourse. New Delhi:
Sage Publications, 1989.
Pathan, B.A. Gandian Myth in English Literature in India. New Delhi: Deep and Deep Publishers, 1996.
Rao, Raja. The Great Indian Way. New Delhi: Vision Books, 1998.
Rinehart, Robin. One Lifetime, Many Lives: The Experience of Modern Hindu Hagiography. New York:
OUP, 1999. 20 Sep. 2007. <http://books.google.co.in>
Sharma, Partap. Sammy!: The Word that Broke an Empire. New Delhi: Rupa & Co, 2005.
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CRUSADE TO EMANCIPATION: WOMEN IN
CONTEMPORARY INDIAN ENGLISH NOVELS
Manisha Bhagwanrao Kale
“The Vedas cry aloud, the Puranas shout; "No good may come to a woman. “I was born with a woman's body,
how am I to attain truth? "They are foolish, seductive, and deceptive -Any connection with a woman is
disastrous. “Bahina says, "If a woman's body is so harmful, how in the world will I reach truth?" (Bahinabai).
What saint Bahinabai stated was the bitter truth about Indian women, she laments her female birth and I agree
with Bahinabai’s above quoted lines which not only show ‘woman is’ but the archetypes about her.
This article discusses the levels of autonomy and self-definition of the ‘new Indian woman’ and their
emancipation in contemporary literature written in English by Indian women writers. The paper divides in two
parts; the first section focuses on the history of women’s depiction in literature, the second part seek to
analyze women in post-modern literature after independence and highlights on the novels of Anita Desai,
Shashi Deshpande and Arundahti Roy especially. Ample of times we are discussing about the predicaments of
women, yes I agree the educated woman is also not free even in the twenty first century but there are a lot of
positive changes that have occurred in the lives of women in India and this article aims to highlights on that.
The online dictionary defines the word crusade as “a holy war undertaken with papal sanction” “a campaign
in support of a good cause”, and “a vigorous concerted movement for a cause or against an abuse”. The word
emancipation means, “free from traditional social restraints bondage, oppression, or restraint” ‘liberate’. Here
the word Emancipation is used as the women's freedom from the oppressive conventions and customs of the
society. Women’s crusade against a male dominated society is of special importance in the Indian context. In
Indian culture, words like self-denial, sacrifice, patience, devotion, and silent suffering are always consider with
the ideal concept of woman. Women’s crusade in India was against gender, empire, orthodox norms of
culture and patriarchy and with sexual and textual politics.
The literature of any culture and society represents it’s cultural, sociological, political, and religious aspects.
The literary artists directly, indirectly represent the society and its fruits and diseases, and suggest the ways to
enjoy the fruits and also precautions and the ways to cures diseases. When we talk on the women’s literature
and especially about Indian women our mind capture the general picture of Indian women and I dare to say
that it not pleases us. The portrayal of women since from the ancient ages in classical literary and religious
texts represents the derogatory and secondary image of women and this is the factual portrayal of society. We
heard tells from epics like ‘Ramayana’ and ‘Mahabharata’ that a woman is always the cause of destruction.
Gandhari lives a life of blind for the sake of her husband, Draupadi being humiliated in the Kaurava’s court,
Sita entering in the fire to prove her loyalty and chastity, Ahalya hardened into stone, Shakuntala neglected and
labeled as the liar in the court of her husband. And these women are the models and idols for Indian woman
and they follow their footsteps and surrender all their desires. To understand women’s literature it’s crucial to
know social, historical, and ideological context in which literary production and consumption took place.
“The striking coherence we noticed in literature by women could be explained by a common female impulse to
struggle free from social and literary confinement through strategic redefinitions of the self, art, and society”.
(Tharu and Lalita: 1991, 26). The emancipation of Indian women from oppressive conventions and customs
of the society and religion is the output of reform movements and women’s continuous rebel against culture
and patriarchy. Indian women not only enslaved by patriarchy but also from religion.
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Once upon a time India was ruled by matrilineal society in Harappa and Mohenjodaro civilization. Tharu and
Lalita stated that opportunity offered by Buddhism was major factor in the rise of Indian women's literature in
the early 6th century BC. One of Buddha’s contemporary Mutta writes that, “So free am I, so gloriously free,
free from three petty things - from mortar, from pestle and from my twisted lord” (Tharu and Lalita:1991,68).
To know history means to know facts, and the history of women is always providing a gender dimension of
any period. The facts about women are always rested on patriarchal assumption and it is invented and
compiled by men. The nineteenth century witnessed a redefinition of women's place in Indian society. The
perception about women, formed out of the intimate interaction with the colonial state in the eighteenth
century, assumed a clearer shape in the early years of nineteenth century and manifested through a number of
reform movements. The women's question started gaining ground in India during the nineteenth century. The
campaign organized against sati, a custom of self-immolation of women in the funeral pyre of their husbands
was the first notable move towards their emancipation. Women participated in National freedom movement
like Vina Mazumdar, Madhu Kishwar, and Devaki Jain consider that Gandhian movement was the true
beginning of women’s emancipation and modernization. National freedom movement was not in a sense the
movement of women’s liberation, after freedom women in India fight for freedom.
Reform movements brought revolutionary changes in the life of Indian women that ultimately produced the
modern Indian women who trying to understand herself and to preserve her identity as wife, mother and
above all as a human being. Indian women began writing in English towards the middle of nineteenth century.
Social movements gave women’s writing clear vision and purpose. After independence male writers especially
focused on the freedom struggle and the social, economic and political disasters. The emergence of a number
of women writers in post-independence period dare to agitate against the stereotypical representation of
women in creative writing. Toru Dutt, Amrita Pritam, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, Ramabai Ranade, Shudha
Muzumdar, Urmila Haksar, Sharanjeet Shan and Pandita Ramabai are eminent among them. What Virginia
Woolf stated about women’s position is the fact about Indian woman. She writes, “Imaginatively she is of the
highest importance; practically she is completely insignificant, she is all but absent from history. She
dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in faction: in fact she was the slave of any boy whose parents
forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words, some of the most profound thoughts in
literature fall from her lips; in real life she could scarcely spell and was the property of her
husband”(Woolf,1929:66).
Women’s crusade is against her such brute condition in society. The literary works about women in this era
cannot destroy repressive social structure but raises the question about women’s lives and suggesting
solutions. Women’s literature has evolved to show common experiences, a sense of sisterhood and a range of
female experiences that question the recurring face of patriarchy.
The women represented in literature after independence is from different strata of society and their quest is
for the autonomy for the self. These women are confronted with several obstacles emerging mainly from the
irregularities in the social system. Their desire is to acquire self leads to disillusionment at every stage, but they
firmly refuse to lose their hope and courage and they are always in search of something positive. Women are
ready to meet the challenges of life arises due to changes in social, economic, political and patriarchal spheres
of their life. Freedom is not comes without responsibilities and women are not diverting from this. She prefers
individual freedom no doubt, but she considers family bonds and personal relationships to be prime
importance.
Kamala Markandaya, Anita Desai, Ruth Prawar Jhabvala, Nayantara Saghal, Bharati Mukherjee, Shashi
Deshpande, Dina Mehta, Bapsy Sidhwa, Namita Gokhale,Arundhati Roy, and Shobha De are leading
postmodern novelist have written about women in a varied perspective. They have probed the psyche of their
creations and thereby analyzed their relationship with society and culture at large. Their feminism is peculiarly
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Indian in the sense that it is born out of the predicament of Indian women placed between contradictory
identities: tradition and modernity, family and profession, culture and nature. Their art is intensely personal,
not political. It rooted in the native environment tends to be humanistic and optimistic in its outlook.
Anita Desai portrayed two kinds of women those who are symbol of growth and change and those who are
powerful means of withdrawal, regression, decay, death, and destruction. Desai depicting the inner furies of
women and their rising tone for emancipation and empowerment. She has rendered a new dimension to
fiction by handling the pitiable and awful plight of the alienated self. She has often tried to explore a woman’s
world, most often, through the conventional stereotypes predominant in her times, of women pitted against
patriarchy. The male characters - Nirode, Arun, Raman, and Gautum are individuals who have taken a step
forward in creating space for their female counterparts and re - establishing balance and preventing a virtual
break down of the family. Sita in Where Shall we go this summer? Is a woman who has set her own terms and
conditions of living and throughout the novel the patriarch seems to be invisible. But even then the problems
seem to exist and persist throughout the narrative. All these are indicative of a re-establishment of gender
roles within the family. A mother in the postmodern is not just a caretaker of her family but is also a bread
winner. Her roles gave shifted from the conventional home maker to a care taker. Sita decides to leave her
children and her husband and wants to escape to Manori Island where she wants to be all alone, away from the
busy, chaotic world that surrounds her and also from domesticity. Desai writes, “Everything stirred, tumbled,
move around her. Strange, she thought- the man so passive, so grey, how could the very mention of him arouse
such a tumult of life and welcome. She felt it herself- unwillingly, unexpectedly, but she felt it” (Desai, 1975:
94). The insecurities of Sita , her confusions and her anxieties are all resulting in incompatibility and Raman
has come out from the constrains of a stereotyped male family head and has helped his wife to introspect and
re-establish herself by shedding away her escapist attitude and finally re uniting and becoming a better
individual, a better householder. After her reconciliation with Raman, she realizes that “her time on the island
had been very much of an episode on a stage” (Desai, 1975:152). This novel is Desai’s portrait of an Indian
woman who rebels against the tradition – bound old mode of life in the life of the western liberty. Her
character suffers from various complexes and mental diseases, which obstruct the healthy growth of their
personality. In dealing with the psyche of the characters and their motivations she moves deeply and dwells in
the inner reality of her characters like Maya in Cry, the Peacock, and Sita in Where shall we go this Summer?
and Nanda in Fire on the Mountain.
Women in Shashi Deshpande’s writings evince sufficient vigour and courage to question the oppressive role
of society, religion and culture. The woman is bolder, more self-reliant and rebellious. In treating woman as an
individual, she highlights subtleties of human behaviour based on the subconscious and conscious mind
rather than on high fluted resolutions to National problems. She cannot conform to the Sita’s version of
womanhood. It is towards the end of the novels, that her female protagonist realizes herself and learns to live
up to the challenge. Searching for a solution to their private problems, the female protagonists in her novels
shift from their personal pains to the sufferings of the other women around. Jaya the educated and sensitive
protagonist of That long Silence (1983) has not experienced the tyranny of a patriarchal social order. She is
more enlightened and more advanced feels too suffocated in her relationship with Mohan, her husband. She
feels angry when she knows about Mohan’s decision to stay at Dadar flat; he has just taken her acquiescence
for granted. Her anger turns into frustration when she fails to bloom in her career as a writer due to the
restrictive dictates of her husband. She irritates when she heard Vanita Mami, “remember, Jaya, a husband is
like a sheltering tree, and without the tree, you’re dangerously uprooted and vulnerable…” (Deshpande, 1983
:32). She is torn from within. At the end of novel there is a strong desire and an attempt to break the silence
which could be well interpreted as a revolt against the tradition of suppression, a sort of frantic attempt to
achieve one’s true self. Jaya interpreting that, “the truth is simpler. Two bullocks yoked together… it is more
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comfortable for them to move in the same direction. To go in different direction would be painful, and why
animal would voluntarily choose pain?” (Deshpande,1983:12). Jaya was succeeding to break this silence and
emerge as an emancipated strong woman.
Arundhati Roy in her a very debut novel The God of Small Thing portrayed a rebel of woman against
orthodox patriarchal norms. Ammu the protagonist break her marriage due to the authoritative and dissipated
ways of her husband and living with her parents. Roy writes, “in her growing years, Ammu had a watched her
father weave his hideous web… he worked hard on his public profile as a sophisticated, generous, moral man.
But alone with his wife and children he turned into a monstrous, suspicious bully, with a streak of vicious
cunning. They were beaten, humiliated and then made to suffer the envy of friends and relations” (Roy,1997:
180). The desire of a son of family is considered as the “men’s need” and that of daughter decrees the torture.
Ammu not accept her condition as a fate but she tried to find out ways of her emancipation to acquire her
‘self ’.
The novelist’s has shown the Indian woman as being something other than that of Sati- Savitri tradition,
steeped in orthodoxy, hemmed in by taboos and leading a life of subordination. They depicts the modern
Indian woman as someone who can overcome handicaps, can live with pain and come out of it, and can live as
a twenty first century woman, modern in outlook, Indian in origin and with a mooring in traditional values.
The act of confrontation gives them the courage to decide things for themselves and increasingly leads them
to a positivistic detachment from life. Women characters questioning and answering with their own self and
tried to find out what’s wrong with them. Novelist not only represented women with their predicament but
suggest the ways to come out from that. The women represented in Indian English literature in recent era
emancipated from cultural norms but still psychologically she faces crisis.
The degree of attention, which women received, was unprecedented, as they had remained so long in
obscurity as the second sex. Women's status in relation to men in society was redefined and the discrimination
of being women gave way to a better definition of womanhood. They were no longer treated as inferior to
men on account of their sex. However marriage proves to be no escape. The husbands accept their wives as
working women but at the same time do not recognize or encourage the ‘feminist self ’ in them. Their
determination to face the situation and their dependence only on the self show them the way to confront the
crises in their lives.
The goals of Western Feminism are not the goals of Indian feminism. Feminism played a great role in India
also, Indian woman struggling for emancipation and tried to make the bridge between her ‘self ’ and family
happiness. Feminism, the organized movement promotes equality for men and women in political, economic,
and social spheres and not for to create the new system of domination and increasing divorce rates and mental
disorders will not be the output of this freedom. The woman in India in order to liberate herself needs to
empower herself to confront different institutional structures and cultural practices that subject her to
patriarchal domination and control represented in recent literature. Women in India are not to follow the path
suggested by western feminism but seek to find their own path. Culture is very complex phenomenon in
Indian context especially because culture states different views about women that one is good and the other is
worst, and the controversy still continued. The colonial legacy and the identification of women with national
culture have made for a selective identification of feminism in India with an inauthentic westernization.
Crusade to emancipation, women emerge out of the darkness, bravely throwing off their legacy of
humiliation, dependence and resignation seeking equality with their male counterparts. All of them are not
succeeded but they have successfully come out from the barriers of orthodox social systems and emerging as a
new social force. The contemporary women novelists are closer to the earthy reality, to the subtle nuances of
social behaviour, to the complex structures of lives of woman in Indian society. Women not surrender her life
for the sake of happiness of their counterparts; self-pity is not the answer for them. It is only through courage
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and resilience that one can change one’s situation from despair to hope. Women are totally emancipated only
when the women’s rights will not separate from the rights of human beings.
Notes:
Desai, Anita. Where Shall we go this Summmer?. Orient Paperbacks: New Delhi, 1982.
Deshpande, Shashi. That Long Silence. London: Virago Press, 1983.
Mores, Ellen. Literary Women: The Great Writers. Doubleday: New York, 1976.
Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. India Ink: New Delhi, 1997.
Surendra, K.V. (Eds.) Women’s writing in India: New Perspectives. Sarup and Sons: New Delhi, 2002.
Tharu, Susie and Lalita, K. (Eds). Women Writing in India Volume 1, 600 BC to the Early Twentieth Century.
Oxford University Press: New Delhi, 1991.
Tharu, Susie and Lalita, K. (Eds). Women Writing in India Volume II: the 20th century. The Feminist Press:
New York, 1993.
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. Hogarth Press: London, 1929.
Web References:
www.dictionary.reference.com/browse/crusade
www.dictionary.reference.com/browse/emancipation
www.boloji.com/bahinabai/articles10936
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RESISTANCE TO PATRIARCHY IN SELECTED
SHORT STORIES OF VAIDEHI
Dr. B.V. Rama Prasad
The aim of this paper is to see how the women characters of Vaidehi’s short stories resist and deal with the
limitations imposed on them by patriarchy, through the eyes of narrators or focalizers in one short story
collection. Vaidehi is a well known Kannada writer who has so far published six collections of short stories.
Many of the feminist theories find a subtle and better expression in her fiction. Her recent collection of short
stories has won Kendra Sahithya Academy award. This paper will try to see the complexities of resistance seen
in her short story collection Memories of Ammachchi published in 2000.
Patriarchy holds two opposing views about women. One view can be called the essentialist, which argues that
women have some intrinsic feminine qualities which should be pitied against the values that the masculine
society upholds. The values favoured here may be called as the values of the domestic sphere. Another
perspective can be called the sameness response, which argues that women can do whatever men can do, and
that ‘femaleness’ is an obstruction to this. These values can be called as the values of public sphere. The focus
here is on women entering the masculine fields.. The paper tries to examine which kind of response against
patriarchy is favoured in Vaidehi’s short stories. For this, the paper will examine the point of view from which
these stories are narrated.
The paper necessitates warning. A paper of this kind tries to find patterns in the works of a writer, assuming
that there is some pattern to be found. It is possible that the pattern one finds is not the only pattern that is
there to be found. For example, the feminist aspect is not the only prism through which we need to look at the
works of a woman writer. In fact there are some stories in this collection that need not have been necessarily
written by a woman. But as one of the characters in these stories says, “I am worried whichever way I talk
about this event I will finally end up talking about men women exploitation ego etc” (Vaidehi, 506). When a
woman writes about anything, it invariably becomes connected with feminism. Further, there are intrinsic
limitations on any study which focuses on a collection of short stories as there is an organic unity that usually
binds the short stories of a collection together. Usually the short stories in any collection are written in
different periods and these stories are not written so that they can be published in a single volume. So any
pattern that we find will have to be assumed as applying not absolutely (as say gravitation applies to the
behaviour of large physical bodies), but as something that applies generally, in most of the cases.
The female characters in these short stories can be grouped under three categories- ‘pre-modern’, ‘modern’
and ‘post-modern’. These terms are not used here in the sense in which they are used in critical theory, nor do
the categories refer to three different generations of women. Here we define ‘pre-modern’ women as those
who are economically and socially completely under the control of someone else, and this control is in some
way connected with patriarchy. The freedom of these women is severely restricted. Even their mobility and
the choice of what they can wear are limited. These are the women who are more or less restricted to the
domestic sphere. The ‘modern’ women are part of nuclear families and have relatively more freedom: they
may have some economic independence, they are relatively freer to go ‘out’, and they have relatively more
freedom in their dress. It varies with their efforts or a ‘better’ husband. The ‘pre-modern’ women are part of
joint families. They are educated which pre-modern women completely lack. Further, these women are
acquainted with the public sphere. Still, these ‘modern’ women are not completely radical as they do not
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question the institution of marriage consciously. It is the ‘post-modern’ woman who questions the institution
of marriage. The ‘post-modern’ woman is someone who has adopted the ‘western’ lifestyle consciously and
believes that women will be liberated if she does a man’s work too. Her values can be explained as the values of
public sphere. Once again, we have to stress here that these categories are not iron clad; there are women who
share the features of two or all of these categories. We also see (as it is depicted in the short stories) that some
of the strongest and most persistent struggles against patriarchy are done by the pre-modern women.
All the three categories of women have issues with patriarchy and try to deal with it in different ways. Some
struggle against it- without giving up; some completely surrender; and some imagine that they have already
won the battle and are already liberated that there is no need for struggle. We can classify these as the
strugglers, the vanquished and the prematurely victorious respectively.
We will look at these issues from the point of view of the narrators or the focalizers of these stories (we will us
use the word ‘narrator’, within single inverted commas, to refer to them as a matter of convenience).The
article deals with fourteen short stories from the short story collection which have its theme based on
patriarchy. In these fourteen stories, we have a ‘narrator’ who talks about either herself or someone else. In the
first ten stories, the narrator or the one from whose point of view the story is narrated looks at the life of some
other woman. Only in four stories we have the ‘narrator’ plays the role of a protagonist. When the stories are
narrated from the point of view of someone who is not the central character of the story, the narratorial point
of view is that of the ‘modern’ woman. That is, a story of someone is presented to us through the eyes and
voice of a ‘modern’ woman. These women often have a ‘public’ sphere and each of them has varied levels of
‘freedom’ compared to women that they are dealing with. The narrator of the first story, ‘The Light Inside’ is a
reporter. She can wander alone in the ‘outside’ world. She is allowed to take a tour alone on her own when she
is bored. This ‘independence’ may owe something to the fact that she is a spinster. She holds a public sphere of
her work as a reporter. The ‘narrator’ of the third story (Vani Aunty) is also ‘modern’ who is trying to reveal the
‘true’ narrative of Vani aunty which has been eclipsed by the ‘false’ narratives of the patriarchy. The narrator
of the story ‘That which cannot be silenced’ is also a ‘modern’ woman who is a member of a nuclear family
with a husband who takes ‘care’ of her well. She encounters another ‘modern’ woman in a train journey who
tells her story. The story ‘The Escape’ is again narrated by a ‘modern’ married woman of nuclear family who
tells the story about a ‘pre-modern’ woman restricted to her house by husband and who is killed by him
eventually. The narrator of the story ‘Abhi’ is once again a ‘modern’ woman who has a public life wherein she
attends a conference and encounters the only ‘post-modern’ woman of these stories whose concepts of
emancipation are not approved of by the narrator. The stories ‘Strange’, ‘Is there anyone?’, and ‘Those who
have disappeared’ all have ‘modern’ narrators talking about the problems of other ‘modern’ women. The
stories ‘Just a Wooden Box’ and ‘A Memory called Ammachchi’ are narrated by modern women who talk
about ‘pre-modern’ women. But in all these stories, the ‘public’ life of the ‘narrator’ is not detailed. For
example, there is no information about the ‘public’ aspect of the reporter narrator. We do not see her working
either in her office or in the streets. We see her only inside the house talking to her sister or trying to understand
the problems of her aunt. Even when one narrator is placed in a train, we see her in a one to one conversation
with another woman about ‘domestic’ problems. Though the narrator of the story ‘Abhi’ has come to a
conference throughout the story we see her only in her hotel room talking with her roommate. The writer pays
no attention to her paper presentation as there is no mention about the presentation. Thus, though a ‘modern’
working woman seems necessary for the writer to narrate her stories, the ‘public sphere’ in which some of
these women live at least part of their lives is conspicuous by its absence. It is as if these narrators, instead of
thinking about their problems, are focusing upon the problems of a different kind of woman.
The issues connected with the domestic sphere are predominant even when the ‘narrators’ are talking about
themselves. In the story ‘The Sound of the Door’ the ‘narrator’ is dealing with a religious struggle against
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patriarchy. But this religious struggle is also connected with the ‘private’ aspect of worshipping. The struggle is
connected with touching a holy stone (saligrama) which was forbidden for women by the Hindu religion. The
struggle takes place within closed doors as an internal struggle of the ‘narrator’. In ‘Those who vanished’, the
‘narrator’ is dealing with the problems of infidelity, love and sex. In this story the ‘narrator’ feels strongly that
women have a different way of looking at these things (“women do not sleep with men like men sleep with
women. Their selection is very subtle, very deliberate.” (533): and the narrator implies that having sex for a
woman is a way of protecting the impulse to love and nurture (537) ;). The ‘difference’ is very important here.
This ‘difference’ between a woman’s world and the male world is elaborately dealt within the story ‘In between
Destroying and Preserving’. The ‘narrator’ of the story is a ‘pre-modern’ woman who is nostalgically thinking
about the destruction of an old house in which she has spent most of her life. A relative has built a new house
in that place. The old woman remembers a lot of details about the feminine life in that house and deplores the
male tendency of destroying. She is angry with the male ego that is proud of erasing in contrast to the feminine
tendency which preserves whatever the male has tried to erase. Consequently the difference between the
masculine and the feminine world is stressed here.
Only one of the stories in this collection seems to create little difference between men and women. In the story
‘Forgetting’ an old woman goes out to buy vegetables but feels that she has forgotten something. On her
returning, she realizes that she has worn her husband’s clothes. In this story she wonders if these categories of
‘men’ and ‘women’ really exist. She feels that this wide chasm of man - woman neither existed in the beginning
nor will at the end of one’s life; it is something that exists in the middle, enchanting us and finally leading to the
epiphany of old age where categories dissolve. However, the story seems to suggest that it is only in old age or
with infants that these categories can be transgressed. The overall suggestion in this collection seems to be that
the ‘difference’ is worth preserving.
To conclude, the short story collection seems to favour the difference approach to the sameness approach.
This can be illustrated by looking at the ‘narrators’ in these stories. These ‘narrators’ do not deal with issues of
female empowerment connected with the public sphere. They do not ask for a radical revision of the female
and the masculine roles either within the family or in the public life. Rather they seem to celebrate the
‘domestic’ world of the woman. Or rather it is the problems connected with the domestic sphere which are
privileged in these stories.
Notes:
Vaidehi. Allegalalli Antharanga, The Complete Collected Stories. Heggodu, Akshara Prakasana; 2006.
Vaidehi. Ammachchiemba Nenapu (2000) in Vaidehi 2006, 429-527.
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STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN VIRGINIA
WOOLF’S NOVELS
Nasreen Ghani
Stream of consciousness is a method of narrative representation of multifarious thoughts and feelings of a
character which follow a free flowing style .It is a metaphorical term for an individual’s random fragmentary
thoughts and perceptions and subtlety of the mind at work.
The term `Stream of consciousness’ was coined by an American Psychologist William James to denote the
continuous flow of sensations, impressions, images ,memories and thoughts which are experienced by each
person. It was William James’ brother Henry who transformed the features of the sub-conscious from the
field of Psychology to literature.
Stream of consciousness in literature is a narrative mode, it takes the reader inside the mind of the character to
follow the thought patterns and enable the reader to get to know the character much better. It is written in the
way people actually think, tends to be disjointed and mingles thoughts and impressions in an illogical order and
violates grammar norms.
Stream of consciousness falls under the purview of more experienced writers because it can be complex and
difficult to write well which should be understandable by the reader, if not Stream of consciousness in
literature can make the work virtually impossible to comprehend. It is typically a character study where the
character is examining his or her response to the events. It is an ancient mind-body problem which recurs in
different guises at different times.
Victorian thinkers referred to the gulf between the mind and the brain as the `great chasm’ or the `fathomless
abyss’ but for William James the stream of consciousness is the unbroken ever changing flow of ideas,
perceptions, feelings and emotions that make up our lives. A `River or Stream’ are the metaphors by which it is
naturally described.
When we look around the world, unconscious processes in the brain build up a more detailed representation
of what is out there. As long as we look around there is a continuous stream of such pictures of what Damasio
(1999) calls it `the movie in the brain’. Example in the modern equivalent is the metaphor of the fridge door, Is
the light always òn’ inside the fridge? You may keep opening the door as quickly as you can but you can never
catch it out, every time you open it , the light is ON.
Stream of consciousness attempts to render the flow of impressions consisting of spontaneous associations
and fragmentary thoughts by the awareness of an individual in the way they flash through a character’s mind at
the pre- speech level and is represented by using informal, colloquial language, with no punctuation or
grammar rules.
Another technique frequently used with stream of consciousness is the discussion of a character’s memories
as well as thoughts, feelings and responses to the current events. This contributes to non-linear sense that
stream of consciousness communicates, often these memories are used as a method of `flash back’ which
allows the reader to think and guess what might happen later in the text, in other words `flashback’ technique
gives the reader an insight into the narrators past, usually in the form of a memory and links it to some specific
incident in the character’s past life which has a profound effect on the present behavior, sometimes the author
reveals an entire story as a flash back with the current events being unknown.
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There are two variations in the stream of consciousness technique, a) direct monologue and b) the indirect or
interior monologue. In the direct monologue the character speaks neither to another character within the
story nor to the reader and the author either never interferes or does so very subtly, and this is the true stream
of consciousness effect which James Joyce uses in Ùlysses’. Whereas in the indirect interior monologue, the
author appears less distant, guiding the reader through the unspoken thoughts of the character’s
consciousness.
Ernest Hemingway used indirect interior monologue as his stream of consciousness technique which he used
regularly and it is an important element in his war novel, A Farewell to Arms, he uses interior monologue of a
character to convey information. In `Fare well to arms’ one of the characters named Henry becomes de
moralized about his life and war, he has been drinking and his memories flow like the speech of an intoxicated
person; continuing on from one subject to the next without regard for the listener, but the reader is the only
listener here, his thoughts summarizes the previous few weeks in the following lines: “I had gone…….to the
smoke of cafes and nights when the room whirled and you needed to look at the wall, nights in bed, drunk,
when you knew that, that was all there, and the strange excitement of waking and not knowing who it was with
you, and the world all unreal in the dark and so exciting that you must resume again unknowing and not caring
in the night, sure that this was all and all and all and not caring”.
Virginia Woolf like James Joyce and other writers demonstrated the possibilities of the stream of
consciousness technique for the artistic portrayal of life. Born in London at Hyde park gate Kensington; she
published Reviews and Essays, at least 49 essays uptill 1912. In 1925 she wrote `Mrs.Dalloway’ followed by To
the Light House in 1928 which brought her recognition as one of the most important modern writers. She
adopted a revolutionary technique for the expression of her vision of life and human nature. She used the
stream of consciousness technique to get close to the mind of her characters and express exactly the impact
of life on their personality. The reader moves in Mrs. Dalloway’s working of mind from London to her
girlhood, in her family home at Boston and back again to London. The transition from past to the present and
from one consciousness to another are controlled by emotional or associational links. She has put up enough
sign posts for the guidance of her readers, despite her theory that life is, `not a series of gig lamps
symmetrically arranged but a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope’. In chapter-17of `to the light
house’ in The dinner party sequence-Mrs. Ramsay muses over the value of her life and about her marriage to
Mr. Ramsay – A weighty issue of much significance yet completely unrelated to the external events going on
around her-all the while mechanically seating her guests round the dinner table and serving them soup.
Throughout the novel Virginia Woolf makes the main characters’ sensory feelings and internal sequence of
thought accessible to the reader, thereby reflecting the propensity of the human mind to rove even when our
physical appearance gives pretence of our attention and listening.
Set in a summer home in Corn wall the novel spans almost twenty years. She introduces us to a world very
different from our own. The world inside somebody else’s head and at the same time exposes the relationship
between various members of Ramsay family and their visiting friends. When James , Ramsay’s youngest child
desires to sail to the light house, his hopes are dashed by his father who accurately predicts that the weather
would prevent their excursion to the light house the next day.
James disappointment will colour his memory of the day, of his mother and of his father he thinks “an axe
handy, or a poker or any other weapon that would have gashed his father’s chest and killed him there and then
James would have seized it”. Externally he is calm but what goes on in James’ mind is completely a different
experience.
Another character Lily, at the dining hall, she thinks of her painting and in a flash she thinks of putting the tree
further in the middle of her painting to fill up one particular awkward spot, so she puts the salt-cellar on a
LUMINAIRE
145
flower in the middle of the pattern on the table cloth, so that she might be reminded by it of the tree that is to
be moved in her painting. This shows perfectly how Virginia Woolf exposes the mentality of her character
unattached to what they do in real life.
The action of Mrs. Dalloway takes place during a single day in June 1923 in London there are experiments
with time, blending memory and reality in the thoughts of a fashionable middle aged lady by developing
flashbacks within her consciousness.
Stream of consciousness technique makes it possible for an author to place his reader inside the mind of his
subjects to experience their thoughts and feelings. The narration does not move forward in a chronological
order but there is much backward and forward movement as in Mrs. Dalloway’s mind , the world of a pleasant
London morning fuses and blends with the world of her memories, it is on this pattern that the whole
structure of the book is carefully built up. People spend much of their time pondering memories, regrets and
hopes.
Mrs. Dalloway even though she is old, her different love experiences have become a part of her present lifeWe understand love for Peter Walsh as it use to be and as it is ‘sentimental’ according to her. Clarissa Dalloway
hosts a party, peter Walsh had returned from India, he attends the party memories flood back upon her; the
past of her love for him is re-constructed for the readers. The novelist like a poet conveys how it feels to be in
love and how love-experiences can shape the course of one’s life.
The unusual organizational stream of consciousness strategy was very tough for the novelists to craft realistic
characters. Virginia Woolf solved this problem with what she called the “Tunneling technique” through which
the characters remember their past. In experiencing the characters’ recollection of their memories the readers
understand the background and history of the characters which otherwise, a narrator would have had to
provide.
By organizing this technique in a very clear and comprehensive method, Virginia Woolf mastered the medium
of Stream of consciousness in her novels, to apprehend this under-pattern a careful reading, as in the case of a
poetic drama is essential. For the thoughtless reader there is the apparent pattern; for the more careful reader
there is the more subtle and higher under-pattern.
Notes:
Friedman, Melvin. Stream of Conciousness: A Study in Literary Method. Yale University Press, 1955.
James,Williams. The Principles of Psychology. New York: Cosimo Inc, 2007 (Originally published in 1890.)
Woolf, Virginia. The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf. Hartcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989.
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Contributors:
Alapati, Rama Naga Hanuman: Assistant Professor, A.U. College of Engineering, Visakhapatnam.
Antony, Shwetha: Research Scholar, EFL University, Hyderabad.
Avinash, T: Associate Professor, Sahyadri Arts College, Shimoga.
Das (Deka), Babita: Academician & Independent Researcher, Bangalore.
Das, Rijuta Komal: Research Scholar, EFL University, Hyderabad.
Desai, Snehaprabha N: Lecturer, Sahyadri Arts & Commerce College, Shimoga.
Ghani, Nasreen: Reader, Garden City College, Bangalore.
Jain, Preeti: Lecturer, Sahyadri Arts College, Shimoga.
Jena, Bidyut Bhusan: Research Scholar, EFL University, Hyderabad.
Kale, Manisha Bhagwanrao: Assistant Professor, Pratishtan College, Aurangabad.
Kale, Pradnya D Deshmukh: Assistant Professor, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru College, Aurangabd.
Kusugal, Kavita S: Assistant Professor, Govt. First Grade College, Belgaum.
Khan, P. Sartaj: Associate Professor, Al-Ameen Arts, Science & Commerce College, Bangalore.
M.G, Harish: Assistant Professor, Govt. First Grade College, Channapatna.
M.S, Raju: Lecturer, Sahyadri Arts & Commerce College, Shimoga.
Patil, Deepali Rajshekhar: assistant Professor, S.B.B alias Appasaheb Jedhe College, Pune.
Patil, Jyoti: Principal, Renuka Mahavidyalaya, Nagpur.
Peethambaran, Greeshma: Lecturer, Acharya Institute of Graduate Studies, Bangalore.
Rama Prasad, B.V: Associate Professor, Kuvempu University, Shimoga.
Rufus, Samuel: Assistant Professor, Madras Christian College, Chennai.
Saha, Averi: Lecturer, Sushil Kar College, Kolkata.
Shyamala, C.G: Assistant Professor, Mercy College, Palakkad.
Shashipriya, T.R: Assistant Professor, Dr. Ambedkar Institute of Technology, Bangalore.
Sharma, Jayanta Kar: Reader, Govt. Women’s College, Sambalpur.
Suvarna Bai, B: Assistant Professor, Nova College of Engineering & Technology, Hayath Nagar.
Suneetha, P: Head of the Department, Govt. First Grade College, Gauribidanur.
Usha, N: Associate Professor, Krishna University, Machilipatnam.
V, Abirami: Assistant Professor, Kumarguru College of Technology, Coimbatore.
Vinutha, M.S: Assistant Professor, Govt. Law College, Hassan.
Yeshwant, Madhav Radhakisan: Assistant Professor, Karmaveer Bhaurao Patil Mahavidyalaya, Solapur.
LUMINAIRE
147
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