illuminati - vssd college, kanpur · heights (1993). her research interest for the last 14 years is...

IlluminatiA Transnational Journal of

Literature, Language and Culture Studies

IlluminatiA Transnational Journal of

Literature, Language and Culture Studies

Volume 6 – 2015-2016

Chief Editor

Neeru Tandon

ISSN No. 2229-4341

Bio-NoteEiko Ohira is Professor of English and Assistant to the President atTsuru University in Japan. She has worked on British fiction of the 19thand 20th centuries, with particular reference to Wuthering Heights andA Passage to India. She is the author of A Study of WutheringHeights (1993). Her research interest for the last 14 years is Indo-Pakistani partition novels and women’s writing, and her book on Indianwriting in English will be published in 2015. Recent publications includeessays on Rabindranath Tagore’s writing in English and Japanesewriting in English in the early 20th century.

From Editor’s Desk

Literature of the New Millennium“I found this to be one of the most powerful literary experiences I’veever had. For anyone who gives a whit about writing or the humancondition, New Millennium Writings should be required reading.”

—Kane S. Latranz“By the way, I really love NMW. The content is some of the most‘rockin’ ‘awesome’ stuff that isn’t shy and crosses boundaries, pushesthe envelope, winks at the nun—you know what I mean. I read LOTSof literary journals, and honestly NMW is up there in my top 5.”

—Shela Morrison, Gabriola Island, British ColumbiaI feel privileged to offer the Sixth edition of ILLUMINATI, focusing onLiterature of New Millennium, containing articles of academic criticism thatexplore the various issues, questions and debates raised by the contemporaryliterature. This special issue was designed to help the readers (researchscholars in particular) in assessing and formulating their point of view aboutthe bright possibilities and dark contour of literature written in the last oneand a half decade. Contemporary writings mainly deal with various issues:alternative sexuality (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender), Crimefiction, Chick lit, Campus Novel, Short story, Graphic novels, Diasporanovels, postcolonial novels and feminist novels. It also contains plays writtenand translated into English dealing with the social issues like hunger,transgender, eunuchs, Gay and Lesbian, Crime, etc.

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I admit that it was not possible to assimilate all distinguish literary trendsand paradigms in this one volume, but I am sure that through it scholarswill be in a better place to identify the changing face of the contemporaryliterature.The 12 articles in the volume examine the issues like Japanese ImmigrantWomen, Broken family, postcolonial dilemmas, New women in chicklit.Hindi short stories, essays, campus novel, theme of identity crisis, etc.Article by Dr. Sudhir K. Arora titled “Indian Poetry in English in the NewMillennium: A Tour” is a must to go through, if you have least interestin development of Indian English Poetry. Research article on Englishlanguage by Dr. G.A. Ghanshyam, “Revitalizing the English Classroom”gives food for thought.Besides insightful articles, there is an interview followed by three poemsand five book reviews.I have realized that one emerging genre-often called interactive literature,or new electronic literature breaks the bonds of linearity and stasisimposed by paper. It is because in this form the reader can interact withit. He is not a passive entity, rather he becomes the partial writer. Suchprominent writers as William Dickey, Thomas M. Disch, and RobertPinsky have tried their hand at interactivity for example when you gothrough Victory Garden, a hypertext fiction by Stuart Moulthrop you finda different experience. By the process of choosing which links to follow,readers determine the order—and therefore also the contexts—in whichepisodes of a story or poem appear. “They assemble their own versionsof a fictional world in much the same way that they piece togetherunique, personal versions of the real world from the fragments of theirown experience. The text becomes a real environment that the readercan interact with.”Happy Reading!

Neeru Tandon

Contents

Nagai Kaf and Okina Ky in and the Literary Portrayalof Japanese Immigrant Women in the U.S. 1Ikuko Torimoto

Indian Poetry in English in the New Millennium: A Tour 19Sudhir K. AroraRevitalizing the English Classroom: Are We Readyfor the Change? 49G.A. Ghanshyam

Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland: A Narrative Pattern of aBroken Family 58Binod Mishra

Postcolonial Dilemmas in Laurence’s This Side Jordan 67Neera Singh

New Millenium Women in Chick lit 75Neeta Shukla

The Subversion of Panopticism in Bankim ChandraChatterjee’s Anandamath 85Panchali MukherjeeForty Rules of Love: Mundane or Divine? 94Shyam Samtani

Translation: A Social Fact and Practice (Hindi Short Storiesby Ravi Nandan Sinha) 105Jayshree SinghThe Essence of Worldliness: A Reading of Rita Joshi’sCampus Novel The Awakening: A Novella in Rhyme 112Swati Rai

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Making Essays Palatable: An Analysis of RameshK. Srivastava’s Views and Expressions in Read,Write and Teach: Essays… 122Smita Das

Theme of Identity Crisis and Self Discovery inBharti Mukherjee’s Desirable Daughters 131Shraddha

INTERVIEWS: Neeru Tandon in Conversation withRobert Masterson 140Neeru TandonBOOK REVIEW: The Mahabharat Quest:The Alexander Secret 145Written by Christopher C Doyle, Reviewed by Supriya ShuklaBOOK REVIEW: Two-Minute Silence 149Written by C.L. Khatri, Reviewed by Rajendraprasad ShindeBOOK REVIEW: Surviving in My World: GrowingUp Dalit in Bengal 153Written by Manohar Mouli Biswas, Reviewed byJaydeep SarangiBOOK REVIEW: Scion of Ikshvaku 155Written by Amish Tripathi, Reviewed by Nivedita TandonBOOK REVIEW: Panacea for All What Ails India—Making India Awesome 158Written by Chetan Bhagat, Reviewed by Lalima Bajpai

POEM: Death—The Living Truth 161KumKum Ray

POEM: Heart o Art 163Jeffrey Herrick

POEM: Trust Me 166Neeru TandonContributors 167

JAPAN was still in a period of national isolation (1639-1854) during theTokugawa shogunate, whereas California, which became a state in 1850,already was attracting immigrants from all over the world. The CaliforniaGold Rush (1848-1855) marked the beginning of the history of Asianimmigration to the U.S.: Chinese coolies—many of them against theirwill—arrived in North America, the so-called “land of opportunity.”

On June 8, 1869, the first contingent of six Japanese immigrants arrivedin Gold Hill near Coloma, California, under the leadership of John HenrySchnell, a German soldier of fortune and an ardent follower of MatsudairaKatamori, the last feudal Lord of the Aizu Domain. The Pollack PinesPress Congressional Record mentions that the Schnell party arrived at SanFrancisco aboard the side-wheeler China of the Pacific Mail SteamshipCompany on May 27, 1869. These Japanese pioneers proceeded toSacramento by riverboat and then by horse and wagon to Gold Hill, whereJohn Henry Schnell bought 160 acres of land for $5,000.00 from CharlesM. Graner. In the fall of 1869, sixteen more Japanese followed (includingIt Okei, nursemaid to the Schnell household, which consisted of Matsuand Kuni). The colonists brought with them silk cocoons, 50,000 three-year old Kuway Trees (of the Mulberry family) for silk farming, tea plantsand seeds, grape seedlings, five-foot long bamboo roots, and sapling waxtrees. The colonists hoped to transform the arid California soil in order togrow tea and silk cultures, treasured in their native Japan. Okei wasbrought to the Wakamatsu Colony by Sakurai Matsunosuke, a middle-agedformer samurai from Aizu-Wakamatsu, who arranged for her passage fromJapan to serve as a nursemaid in the household of the Schnells severalmonths after their daughter Mary’s birth. In 1870, after the Wakamatsu

ILLUMINATI VOLUME 6 • 2015-16

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Nagai Kaf and Okina Ky in and the Literary Portrayal of Japanese

Colony failed, its members disbanded. Some stayed in the U.S., but we donot know what happened to most of them. Okei stayed at Gold Hill evenafter most of the colonists had left, hoping that one day in a not too distantfuture, someone would come to get her; sadly, the following year, in 1871,she died from malaria and never saw her home country again.

The Meiji government was the first to authorize emigrants, known asKanyaku Imin literally, “government contracted Japanese immigrants,” totravel to Hawaii, a practice that began in 1885 and ended in 1894. As aconsequence of terminating the Kanyaku Imin program, the Japanesegovernment lost control over the Japanese immigration population;government-licensed private agencies soon took over the recruiting ofJapanese immigrants, and a large number of self-contracted immigrantsstarted arriving in Hawaii. After 1895, one can see a rapid increase of thenumber of Japanese emigrants to Hawaii, and before long they beganarriving on the American West Coast. For the next thirty years, theJapanese population in the United States steadily grew, reaching a peak inthe early 1920s. But, by 1924, it began to decline rapidly. Looking at theevolution of the number of Japanese immigrants in Hawaii and on thePacific Coast during the periods 1885-1907 and 1908-1924 reveals theevolution of Japanese immigration and its relationship with such factors asthe 1908 Gentlemen's Agreement, various land laws, as well as immigrationacts and laws periodically enforced during this period until the JapaneseExclusion Act was enacted in 1924.

Japanese emigrated to the U.S. to find work and to make a better life forthemselves and their children. Japanese were willing to engage in manuallabor at near-subsistence wages. Japanese men were employed as bellboysin hotels, as housekeepers, and as manual laborers on the railroads, forexample. Many Japanese men brought their families with them; unlikeChinese women immigrants, many Japanese women could enter the U.S.with their husbands, as family members. However, most single Japanesemen worked as laborers in the United States and did not have enoughmoney to go back to Japan to find a wife, so they got married to a so-calledpicture bride. Exchanging pictures with their bride-to-be in Japan througha proxy, who also arranged to have their marriage registered in Japan,permitted the husband to bring his new wife to the United States. In thoseyears—twice a month—women from the Orient, (specifically Japan)would disembark, oftentimes provoking unfavorable reactions amongAmericans.



Anti-Japanese protests had escalated every year since 1900 and manynew anti-Japanese movements were organized. The first Gentlemen’sAgreement in 1908 prohibited the immigration of males as laborers;however, the parents, wives, and children of laborers already in the UnitedStates could remain, as could laborers who were already working in theUnited States. However, the 1913 Alien Land Law act prevented ownershipof land by “aliens ineligible to citizenship.” Japanese (and other Asian)immigrants were prohibited from becoming naturalized citizens, but therewas still hope for their children born in the United States to becomecitizens. Therefore, since the 1908 Gentlemen’s Agreement, the number ofsingle Japanese males looking for a wife from Japan, using the traditionalJapanese practice of meeting and marrying through pictures, “ShashinKekkon,” escalated. New brides arriving in the United States soon becameknown as picture brides. Since Americans believed in dating and marriagebased on love, celebrated in a church ceremony, most viewed the Japanesepractice as immoral. However, Japanese men in the United States hadvirtually no chance of meeting eligible women, and the Japanese governmentargued that arranged marriages created harmonious households in Japanand that Americans should respect cultural differences. The practicecontinued with thousands of picture brides arriving, whom whiteCalifornians increasingly viewed as a threat to their control over a growingJapanese immigrant population.

On October 26-30 and November 1, 1915, on the first page of the NichiBei, Yamazaki Hokusui published an essay in six parts titled ShashinKekkon Mondai (Problems with Picture Brides). His October 29 articleincluded statistics on the number of picture brides who had arrived in SanFrancisco: in 1912 (879), 1913 (625), and 1914 (768). Here, consider thatthe total number of Japanese males in the United States in 1914 was37,221: in California 31,676; in Utah, 1,445; in Arizona, 473; in Nevada569; and in Colorado 3,058. The total number of Japanese children in1914 was 5,549 boys and 5,279 girls: in California (boys 5,362, girls5,087), in Utah (boys 64, girls 48), in Arizona (boys 10, girls 11), inNevada (boys 6, girls 6), Colorado (boys 107, girls 127); and the totalnumber of births in those states were 1,145 boys and 1,122 girls (YamazakiHokusui, Nichi Bei (The Japanese American News) Oct. 29, 1915, 1).

Many Japanese women joined their husbands, living in one of the earlyWest Coast settlements, a formative stage in the process of culturaltransformation or cultural adjustment to America, which all immigrants



went through. However, the evolution of Japanese women immigrants tothe U.S. West Coast begins with the history of the Wakamatsu Colony atGold Hill, where the grave of a young Japanese girl named Okei standstoday as a solitary reminder of the past. Gradually, of course, increasedimmigration from the four corners of the world led to the formation of ahybrid culture very evident today in places, such as Seattle, San Francisco,and Los Angeles. However, until recently, scholars studying the lives ofimmigrants were primarily interested in the life of male immigrants, whosenumbers were far greater. The experience of women, to the extent that itwas described at all, typically, was told from a male point of view, asevident in two novelists I will consider next.

During my research on Japanese immigrants on the American WestCoast, I discovered the extraordinary life story of Okina Ky in (1888-1973), which present not only his own life story but also the life ofJapanese immigrants on the West Coast. While Okina shared manycommon experiences with his peers who crossed the Pacific to look for abetter future in the United States, his life took a different direction. Forambitious young Japanese like Okina, Japanese-American newspapersbecame the most valuable vehicle of communication available in which toexpress personal opinions on important social issues and, of course, todescribe everyday life in their community, thereby making newspaperarticles an invaluable source of information for scholars. Okina becameincredibly productive in this regard, publishing numerous articles, criticalessays, and novellas under the pen name of Okina Rokkei (occasionallyOkina Rokkei-Sennin). His works also appeared almost daily in suchmajor West Coast newspapers as the Nichi Bei (The Japanese AmericanNews), the Shin Sekai (The New World), and the Taihoku Nipp (TheTaihoku Daily News).

Specifically, I will look at his portrayal of women in the Japaneseimmigrant community in the early twentieth century. However, Okina wasnot the only writer to give a literary account of women’s life, which wasevery bit as tough as men’s, if not more so. But, in his many descriptions ofwomen, Okina, just like his contemporaries, for example, the novelistNagai Kaf (1879-1959), who, in his novel, Amerika Monogatari (AmericanStories), nevertheless adopts a sympathetic point of view, tends to subjectwomen to mostly negative stereotypes (waitress, prostitute, picture bride,run-away wife). Here, I would like to examine how Nagai Kaf and Okina



Ky in’s stories and memoirs portray Japanese immigrant women and showhow they consistently portray a certain type of woman in a negative light.

Nagai Kaf and Okina Ky in both traveled to the U.S. and describeAmerica in their literary works. Nagai Kaf , who went on to become oneof the most important modern Japanese writers, lived in Tacoma andSeattle but also in the Midwest, in Chicago and Kalamazoo, Michigan. Hebecame a student at Kalamazoo College, then traveled east, living inPennsylvania and New York between 1903 and 1907. His well-knownmemoir titled Amerika Monogatari is a detailed and gripping account ofhis American odyssey. Nagai spent a total of four years in the U.S. Hisjourney began at the age of twenty-three and lasted for four years; needlessto say, he was not a teenager but was older and maybe more mature thanthe average Japanese immigrant, who traveled to the U.S. on a studentvisa. He left New York and continued to France, which apparently hadbeen his primary destination all along.

As I stated above, there is not much literature dealing with the lives ofJapanese Americans, particularly Issei women or Japanese-born women inthe immigrant community during the early immigration period. In addition,although many Japanese women traveled to the U.S., few of them wroteabout life in America, whether in Japanese or in English.

I am interested in how male writers portrayed women in immigrantsociety, and I will focus on Japanese women on the North Americancontinent at the turn of the century. By looking at Nagai Kaf ’s journey tothe U.S. and using his Amerika Monogatari, as well as several literaryworks by Okina Ky in, who happened to be in the U.S. around the sametime and who lived in the very same cities, I hope to promote a betterunderstanding of the life of immigrant women. Both Nagai and Okinawrote novels about immigrant society and the life of Japanese people in theU.S., but their experiences, though apparently similar, were really quitedifferent.

Nagai Kaf ’s father, Nagai Ky ichir , was a scholar, bureaucrat, andsuccessful businessman, who visited Europe on government business andlater worked for the shipping company Nippon Y sen. Nagai was hisoldest son, and he was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps andbecome a bureaucrat.

In 1898, Nagai Kaf began writing short stories under the guidance of apopular novelist, Hirotsu Ry r (1861-1928). In 1899, he helped write andstage a Rakugo (a comic story). At around the same time, he dropped out of



the Tokyo Foreign Language School. In 1899, he began publishing shortstories. In 1901, he worked briefly as a newspaper reporter and then beganto study French. He was interested in the culture of the Edo period and, asIriye Mitsuko writes, “immersed himself in the lifestyle of a typical lateEdo dilettante” (Iriye ix); he took shakuhachi (bamboo flute) lessons,visited the Yanagibashi geisha quarter (the red light district in Tokyo), andfrequented Kabuki theaters. As Edward Seidensticker mentions in his booktitled Kaf the Scribbler, “he was sent to the United States [because] hisfather had given up hope of making a bureaucrat of him, and had decidedthat a degree from an American university might start him on a commercialcareer” (Seidensticker 18).

Around the same time, Nagai Kaf also became interested in Frenchliterature and devoured many of the French naturalist Émile Zola’s novels(which he read in translation). His novel titled Yume no Onna (The Womanof the Dream) was published in 1903 and told the story of a prostitute; thework is very “Zolaesque” and reminiscent of Zola’s masterpiece, Nana. AsEdward Seidensticker writes, when Kaf first appeared on the literaryscene, he was called an anti-Naturalist because he never could bringhimself to admit that flat, seemingly passionless and objective reportsought to be the ultimate goal of writers of fiction (Seidensticker 14-15).But then the categories used in Japanese literary history are sometimesquite curious, since essentially European schools of thought were importedpiecemeal and never consistently applied. Kaf ’s most famous statementabout literary naturalism can be found in the epilogue to his second story:“There can be no doubt that a part of man is beast…. He has built upreligious and moral concepts from customary practices and from thecircumstances in which he has found himself, and now at the end of longdiscipline, he has come to give the darker side of his nature, namely sin”(Seidensticker 14). Such a statement suggests that Nagai Kaf did havesome sympathy for literary naturalism, which holds that man is a prisonerof social forces beyond his control; however, as anyone who has read hiscollected works knows, Nagai Kaf ’s literary characters are not all aspowerless as the people who make up the world of Zola’s multi-volumefrescos of life in late nineteenth-century France, the cycle of novels titledLes Rougon-Maquart. Nor does the narrator explore the life story of hischaracters in the same depth as Zola. By comparison, Nagai Kaf ’s pointof view is superficial and almost dilettantish. Zola’s stated goal was toimprove society by exposing its faults; nowhere does Nagai Kaf express asimilar didactic position.



In September 1903, Nagai Kaf departed for the U.S.; he was one of thefortunate young Japanese who came from a privileged family background,and he had both wealthy patrons in the U.S. and financial support from hisparents. Nagai Kaf arrived in Seattle and settled in nearby Tacoma. Hequickly wrote his first story, in November. In 1904, he sent it to Japan,where it was published in a magazine the following January. In October ofthe same year, the Furuya-sh ten Trading Company, Tacoma branch office,hired him. Next, in November, he moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan, andenrolled at Kalamazoo College, a well-known and distinguished liberalarts institution. He wrote another story, titled Okano Ue (Atop the Hill), inDecember. He left Kalamazoo in 1905, staying in Pennsylvania beforeheading to New York City. He needed to save money to go to France andfound a small job at the Japanese Consulate; later he also worked for theYokohama Specie Bank. During his years in the U.S., his fourteen shortstories were published in various magazines in Japan. He left for France inJuly 1907 and went first to Lyon. Upon returning to Japan in 1908, hepublished a collection of short stories under the title Amerika Monogatari(American Stories). He also published Furansu Monogatari (FrenchStories) in 1909. The translator of Amerika Monogatari, Iriye Mitsuko,states that “no such work had ever been published in Japan” (Iriye xvii)and that this work presented a novel view of life in America, which retainsits charm even today.

This collection of short stories opens with Funab Yobanashi (NightTalk in a Cabin), recounting how the narrator boarded a ship bound forAmerica in Yokohama harbor. The story is cast in typical autobiographicalform but uses various framing techniques to bring in other, sometimesquite colorful characters who tell the actual story. The narrator simply setsthe stage for them to tell their stories and writes in a modern style typical ofthe second half of the nineteenth century, which seeks to create the illusionthat characters are perfectly natural and unaffected.

The story just mentioned is a good example of this technique. Thenarrator makes friends on board. One stormy night, he invites them to hiscabin for drinks. As they get to know each other, one of these new friends,Yanagida, tells the story of his life. After graduating from university, hewas hired by a company and transferred to Australia. When he returned toJapan he never doubted that he was highly valued and could obtain adesirable position based on his experience abroad; however, he wasassigned a translation job at the head office and paid a very small salary.



He was very disappointed by this treatment and therefore decided that itwas time to take a wife. He thought that surely it would be easy for a manlike himself to attract a lady. Eventually he did meet a lady, the daughter ofan aristocrat; however, she turned out to be married, and her husband wasa graduate of the university that Yanagida despised the most. Yanagida wasdevastated but recovered by deciding to embark upon another foreignexpedition. He found a position with a raw-silk company, which wantedhim to investigate the silk market in the United States. Then, the storysuddenly ends.

At this point, while the evening is still young, another new friend,Kishimoto, tells his story. He is married and has a child. At one point hestarted working for a company, but he did not have any prospects for careeradvancement because he did not have a college degree. When his wifeinherited some money, he begged her to let him use it to study in the U.S.He promised her that he would return to Japan upon receiving a universitydegree. His wife did not want her husband to strain himself to succeed, asshe did not want to be separated from her husband and believed that heought to accept his limitations and live peacefully. “Yet, faced with herhusband’s resolute entreaties, in the end she yielded and tearfully sawKishimoto go off to a faraway land” (Iriye 7).

The reader immediately notices that Nagai was no ordinary traveler:here was a first-class passenger with his own cabin, which included acomfortable sofa, and the right to order drinks through room service. Nagaiwas a bourgeois through and through, unlike most Japanese on their way toSeattle at the turn of the century. Moreover, Nagai’s female characters areusually presented through a male narrator. For example, Kishimotodescribes his wife, who sacrificed her own feelings and helped herhusband advance his career even if it meant that he would leave her totravel to a faraway country. Kishimoto’s wife is described as a devoted andloving partner of her husband, the ideal traditional Japanese wife.

The story titled Makiba no Michi (A Return Through the Meadow)takes place in the late fall. The narrator has decided to buy a bicycle andspends time cycling around the prairie with a friend from Tacoma. Hisdescriptions of the late autumn prairie are most vivid and colorful. Nagaiuses the same narrative technique as in the first story, letting his companiontell a story as they approach the Washington State mental hospital. Hisfriend begins his story by explaining that there are a few Japanese confinedin the asylum, adding mysteriously that they are “laborers” from Japan.



Here Kaf gets agitated; when he hears the words “laborers from Japan,”his ears ache, since he remembers how he crossed the Pacific with a groupof laborers. In this story Nagai adopts a new tone, expressing his genuinefeelings for people who were treated as something less than human, ascargo packed tight in the bottom of a ship full of immigrants. During goodweather, they would come up on deck to watch the ocean and smoke. Hedescribes those laborers this way: “unlike the rest of us, oversensitivesouls, they do not seem particularly struck by any feeling” (Iriye 11). Nagaiexpresses deep sympathy with those farmers who left farmland that hadbeen passed on to them from their ancestors, believing that three years ofhard work “abroad [will] sow the seeds of ten years’ wealth and happinessafter they go back home…. [they] remain patient all through humiliationssuch as immigration regulations and health examinations” (Iriye 11).

Now his cyclist friend tells the story of a laborer who lost his sanity. Theman arrived in Seattle, together with his wife, to earn a living. At that time,much of immigrant society was characterized by lawlessness; many peoplewho came to work in the U.S. ended up falling into traps set by crookedemployment brokerage firms, innkeepers, or smugglers of prostitutes.When immigrants stepped ashore they might be approached by some conartist or other. One such man guided the narrator and his wife to an inn.They paid a commission, and the husband was taken to the woods andgiven a job as a woodcutter while his wife stayed in town and worked in alaundry shop. One day his fellow workers cautioned him that it was asdangerous to leave his wife alone in Seattle as it was let a small child playalone at the edge of a river; a woman, they said, was a treasure worth asmuch as a thousand dollars. Pimps were always on the lookout for newprostitutes. When the poor man heard these scary stories, he could not bearthe thought that something might happen to his wife, yet he could not domuch in his present situation. His friends then suggested that he bring hiswife to live with him in the woods; he followed their advice. One day afterwork, his fellow workers started drinking and singing and then askedmatter-of-factly if they might borrow his wife for the night. The poor manturned dead pale, and began to tremble, but he could not do anything withhis wife crying at his feet. He fainted, and when he regained consciousnesshe had lost his mind and had to be committed to a mental hospital. In thisstory Nagai Kaf gives a vivid portrayal of life in immigrant society, withits often primitive mores. Women are described as male sex objects thatsatisfy carnal desire and as precious objects, since women were scarce in



an immigrant society dominated by males. In this sense, one might arguethat Nagai is a Naturalist, simply because he described what he saw andthe laws that seemed to govern human behavior.

Nagai’s story titled Akuy (Bad Company) focuses on a particularJapanese woman who works as a barmaid in a whorehouse in Seattle. Thestory begins one evening as Nagai is engaged in conversation with hisfriends. One of his friends asks: “Is it true that there are a lot of Japaneseprostitutes over there?” (Iriye 81). He recalls a certain waitress, a verysuave and good-looking woman, who worked at Daruma, a tea-stallrestaurant in Seattle. He found out that her husband was a well-knownthug in Seattle but also a college graduate with fluent English. As anewcomer to America, he is impressed by the contrast between good andbad. Evidently, society has many disgusting characters that make a livingby “seducing, kidnapping or smuggling women…so called pimps” (Iriye82). One of his friends, Shimazaki, knows the woman, who is aroundtwenty-six or twenty-seven years old, tall and with a slender face. Herecognizes her husband as a close friend of his deceased older brother.Shimazaki begins his story at the request of his friends. He arrived inSeattle three years ago. He was glad that he had landed safely, but he wasat a loss for what to do next. Then he met a man who said he was the deskclerk in a Japanese inn and took him to the area of town known as Japantown, where he checked into a dingy wooden inn. He describes thesurroundings from the inn’s window at night:

There was also the sound of samisen everywhere…followed bywomen singing and men clapping their hands…. Just imagine. Againstthe surrounding American view, you have on one hand the noise of“the West” presented by the whistling of ships, the bells of trains, andband music played by gramophones, and on the other, long-trailing,howling, moaning, and sleepy country songs from the Kyushu region,accompanied by the brief, intermittent sound of the strings. No musicis sadder, giving rise to such a discordant, unpleasant, and complex,even if monotonous, sensation. (Iriye 85)

One evening he was unable to sleep as the sound of the samisen wasringing in his ears, so he took a walk in the entertainment quarter,following a crowd of laborers. There were “huge crowds of Japaneseeverywhere, from the archery grounds and billiard parlors to variousrestaurants, and…from the windows of wood-frame houses, women’sfaces could be seen on and off…” (Iriye 86). He continues to describe



those women as “women from the western part of Japan, with flat noses,narrow eyes, and flat faces. Their hair was swept back in a bun at the backwith bangs at the front, and they wore what appeared like Western-stylegowns. But for me, just a glance at them was enough to make me feelsatisfied—or rather, queasy—anyway, I could not bear to get closer tothem” (Iriye 86).

Suddenly, he saw several distinguished-looking gentlemen coming outof a dark doorway. One looked vaguely familiar; as it happened, he wasnone other than the close friend of Shimazaki’s late older brother, a manwho used to come to see him quite frequently. This gentleman, namedYamaza, took Shimazaki to a Japanese restaurant in the same alley; there,Yamaza spoke with a waitress who sat down close to him and whohappened to be his wife (Iriye 90). Small world!

In Nezame (Rude Awakening), Nagai describes the fate of yet anotherJapanese immigrant. The protagonist of this story, Sawazaki Sabur?, isappointed manager of his company’s branch office in New York; “he leftalone for the United States in high spirits, leaving behind a wife andchildren at his home in Tokyo” (Iriye 105). After several months, he feels“desolate,” living all by himself in a foreign land. He explains “he is moreand more given to feeling the inconvenience of daily life as well as theloneliness of his lot” (Iriye 106). He misses a morning bath in a Japanesetub and enjoying grilled eel with a shot of warm sake; back home in Japanhe had a wife who willingly did everything he asked; and there was also atime when he secretly kept a mistress. He feels foolish for leaving the“comfort” of the life he enjoyed in Japan (Iriye 106).

The reader of this story may be inclined to feel sympathetic towardsingle company men transferred abroad; this particular protagonist workshard and essentially promotes himself to manager of the New York branchof his company. However, Nagai seems to be primarily interested in lettingSawazaki talk about his marriage, showing how this man married his wifeas a convenience, as though he was hiring a maid, according to custom,and as though his home was just for the sake of appearances, for the sakeof decency: “just a gateway for show, his children, ones to bring upprimarily because they had been born…. That was all there was to it, and itfelt quite unmanly and cowardly to worry about wife or home” (Iriye 106).

I came to Nagai Kaf after reading Okina Ky in, and so asked myselfthe question: “How does Okina Ky in measure up and compare to Nagai



Kaf ?” This question admits of no easy answer but does reveal both somedistressing similarities and some obvious and far-reaching differences. Letme now focus on the life of Okina Ky in and one of his major literaryworks, Akuno Hikage (Shadow of Evil) published in the Nichi Bei (TheJapanese American News) in 1915.

Okina Ky in traveled to the U.S. around the same time as Nagai Kafand he, too, lived for a time in the Seattle area. Both men were exposed toimmigrant society and wrote extensively about immigrant life. However,whereas Nagai Kaf remained a spectator constantly on the move, Okinaassimilated into immigrant society and tried hard to establish himself in theU.S.; even his Japanese wife Kiyoko joined him in the U.S. Okina had metKiyoko Ishiguro when he made a short visit to Japan. Kiyoko’s youngersister, Fusako, was married to a Japanese man who had emigrated toAmerica and now ran an orchard in Florin, near Sacramento. Kiyokoapproached him—rather passionately, it seems!, expressing her desire toreturn to America with him as his wife (Zensh Volume II, 361). He wasmarried to Kiyoko Ishiguro in 1913. Kiyoko took care of Okina’s fatherbriefly and, then, on March 10, 1915, was reunited with Okina in SanFrancisco before they went to live in Stockton.

In February 1914, Okina left his new wife with his father in Japan andreturned to the U.S. In November 1914, he left Seattle to go to SanFrancisco by boat. After arriving in San Francisco, he moved to Stocktonand started working for the Benri-sha. In 1915, Okina's wife, Kiyoko,joined him in Stockton. When he went to meet her, he saw that the shipcarried several hundred Japanese women—no less than 210—and notmany men.

Looking at these picture brides, Okina tried to fully comprehend whathe was witnessing. Their faces showed no emotion and appeared quiteexpressionless; they had just crossed the Pacific Ocean and were about totake their first steps into a new unknown world. “What were theythinking?” he wondered. They looked anxious and scared but, at the sametime, appeared to be both relieved and excited about finally arriving in SanFrancisco, as if they had suddenly emerged from back stage and foundthemselves on center stage, in the spotlight. Most of the women werewearing kimonos; not many wore Western clothes, and the simple andplain way they were wearing their kimonos suggested that they most likelywere from some forlorn province in rural Japan and not from a big city.Some were holding furoshikibukuro (a Japanese cloth for wrapping); but



those women looked more urbane, waving and talking to someone waitingfor them on the pier; one could easily tell that they were returnees backfrom a visit to Japan. Looking at the group of women, one man on the pierasked another, “Which one is yours?” He answered, “Maybe that one? Ithink so, yes, she is the one.”

Of course, Okina was also searching for Kiyoko among those womenwhile he was thinking about the “picture brides” phenomenon, which heknew to be a controversial issue in anti-Japanese propaganda.

Okina was anxiously looking for Kiyoko among the picture bridesmarching off the ship. Saeki, who had driven the whole way fromStockton, had been waiting for her to disembark for thirty minutes. Heapproached Okina and asked, “Is she wearing a Western dress?” Okinareplied, “I am not sure but... Oh, look at that woman wearing the kimono.”When Kiyoko saw him waving his hat, she smiled back. Okina introducedher to Saeki. He tried to shake her hand, but she hesitated for a moment.She was not used to the American way of greeting someone. It was also thefirst time for Kiyoko to ride in a car. They drove through downtown SanFrancisco, passed through Chinatown, then went up a very steep hill andstopped in front of the Imperial Hotel, where they stayed the night.

Okina’s years in Stockton (1914-1917) inspired his literary works onimmigrants. Living in Stockton, he interacted with Japanese immigrantsand had the chance to meet many influential people in the area, includingleaders of the local Nihonjin-kai (Japanese Association). Okina describedhis life and his involvement with immigrants as he became active in thecommunity, an experience that had a profound influence on his writings.On June 5, 1914, Okina started writing articles in the fu Nipp (TheSacramento Daily News) under the pen name Okina Rokkei. His articlesand essays appeared almost daily on the front page of the newspaper. Somearticles recounted his impressions of Sacramento and, more generally, ofCalifornia. Okina began writing criticism for the New Year’s specialeditions of the nine Japanese-American newspapers on the West Coast,urging the establishment of a pure immigrant literature. Okina emphasizedthe importance of a realistic literature based on the everyday life ofimmigrants; he felt that if the immigrant experience were seen throughrose-tinted glasses, it would seem meaningless.

By 1915, Okina’s literary works spanned virtually every genre. Inaddition to publishing articles and essays, Okina continued to write fictionand later comedy. As an advocate of literature about immigrants’ experience,



and with the support of Yamanaka Magae of the Nichi Bei, he wrote alengthy novel titled Aku no Hikage (Shadow of Evil), which appeared inthe Nichi Bei in 1915, in 99 installments (Aku no Hikage, Nichi Bei, 99installments between June 3, 1915, and September 16, 1915). At twenty-seven years of age, Okina was building a career as an editor at thepublishing company and the fu Nipp , and serving as secretary of theStockton Nihonjin-kai (Japanese Association). He also enjoyed life withhis wife Kiyoko, who had joined him in the U.S.

Aku no Hikage is about the lives of several young people: Ofumi,Okuni, Kumagaya, K no, Tajima, Tayama, and Tomura. He modeled twoof the female characters (Ofumi and Okuni) on the waitresses he hadbefriended in the Maneki restaurant, four of the male characters (Kumagaya,K no, Tajima, Tayama) on his personal friends, and Tomura on himself.All four are young Japanese immigrants who happened to be schoolmatesin the same junior high school in Japan and arrived in Seattle in the sameyear and struggled to make it in their new country. Tajima and Tomurabecame students, and Tayama went to Alaska to work. The story beginswhen Tajima and Tomura visit the cemetery where Tayama is buried; hewas killed four years before the story starts, after getting in trouble with awoman. Okina has very good powers of observation; he bases his story onsome episodes that happened in the community and on some of his ownexperiences with women, as well as on actual drinking establishments,waitresses working at several Japanese restaurants, houses of prostitution,hotels, and streets, including their physical layout, which is why somecharacters and episodes in the novel are so realistic, as if they were part ofa documentary. One example is a love triangle set in a drinking house, theManeki, or the Yachiyo in the Japanese quarter (Zensh , Volume III, 26-34). As the story progresses, it often becomes difficult for those peoplewho know Okina well to distinguish between his own life and the fictionalactions of the character Tomura, especially when Tomura describes hisfeelings for various women. Those readers familiar with his Zensh(Volumes II and III) are aware of the topics described in his diary and caneasily relate them to Tomura’s experiences with a white girl, whohappened to be Okina’s schoolmate in Union High School in Bremerton(Selma Pittack, who later became a silent film star). These readers alsorecognize his experiences with waitresses at the Maneki restaurant, theZabuton (Japanese cushion) incident, the prostitutes in King Street, hisvisits to Tacoma with his friend and meetings with a lady who openly



expresses her feelings toward Tomura. The story ends rather unexpectedlywhen Tomura suddenly loses his passion for her because he is disappointedby her rather rude behavior while she was drinking. She leaves town anddisappears. Okina’s story was well received by critics and many readers,who considered it the most vivid and realistic description of immigrantsthat they had ever read. He received many comments from his readers,most of whom were pleased with his story.

Finally, let me attempt to define the significance of Nagai’s and Okina’slife and work and how women are portrayed in their stories. Both writerswere exposed to all sides of immigrant society and wrote about the life ofimmigrants. Although they had similar experiences in America anddescribed many of the same experiences in their work, Nagai Kafremained aloof, knowing full well that he had other options, chief amongthem a visit to France (which he had been preparing all along). His journeyto the U.S. recalls the French Symbolist Charles Baudelaire’s famouspoem titled “Le Voyage,” which Nagai quotes at some length:

Mais les vrais voyageurs sont ceux-là seuls qui partentPour partir; cœurs légers, semblables aux ballons,De leur fatalité jamais ils ne s’écartent,Et, sans savoir pourquoi, disent toujours: Allons!“Le Voyage” (Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal)But the true voyagers are only those who leaveJust to be leaving; hearts light, like balloons,They never turn aside from their fatalityAnd without knowing why they always say: “Let’s go!”

In Nagai Kaf ’s stories, the Japanese female figures include the wife ofa man who comes to the U.S. to get a college degree, a laborer’s wife whois gang raped, a waitress whose husband is a pimp, an assortment ofprostitutes, a young female student attending college, and the wife of abusinessman who left her behind in Japan. These women are all quitehelpless; more importantly, they are usually victims, objects of male desire,particularly the prostitutes, but also the laborer’s wife who is raped, thewife who was abandoned in Japan and whose marriage was a marriage of(male) convenience, and even the student pursuing a degree from anAmerican college. All are portrayed as objects lacking emotions andpassion.



Okina, on the other hand, actually did become an American in the sensethat he lived and worked in America for many years. Okina’s work isimportant for historical reasons, because he helps us understand the livesof ordinary people in Japanese immigrant society. This is the personaljourney of a young Japanese man who wanted to come to America, theland of his dreams, in order to experience success. In so doing, he becamean advocate for immigrant literature, a new genre of writing by, for, andabout immigrants. Okina often used events that happened to him and topeople in the Japanese community as material for his novels and stories.He believed that their experiences made up the essence of immigrantliterature. In Okina Ky in’s stories, the Japanese female characters arerather few and limited to waitresses or daughters of Japanese immigrants.Often, his stories involve a young man’s struggle to make a living as animmigrant, tormented by love and lust, caught between his romanticfeelings and his carnal desire. For example, when Okina Ky in tries todescribe a young man’s passion for women, he often describes marriedwomen or waitresses. Needless to say, these women all are portrayed asquite helpless and as victims of immigrant society. Okina knew the realitiesof immigrant life first-hand. Women did not have much choice, and it wasdifficult for them to escape from the conditions in which they lived (ofcourse, the same could be said about many male immigrants at the time).Some women arrived in the U.S. without much knowledge about thecountry. For instance, they came as picture brides to strange men;sometimes one of these brides suffered so much that she ran away withanother man. Other women accompanied their husbands but could notendure the harsh reality of immigrant life and left. In some cases, womenwere lured by sweet talk of easy money and tricked into coming to theU.S., where they sometimes ended up as prostitutes. If they were lucky,they found work as waitresses, for example, but most women immigrantsdid not have many options.

The women who appear in Okina Ky in’s stories are often women withwhom the author himself was romantically involved, which means thattheir literary personae express the author’s emotions and passions ratherthan those of the characters he intends to portray. Okina s romanticinterludes ended rather quickly, though, and unfortunately were limited towomen of a certain type, who did not reflect a cross section of immigrantsociety. Actually Okina’s experience with women was rather limited,period. Moreover, he was not always able to make smooth transitionsbetween scenes, characters, and themes, which frequently creates an



awkward impression on the part of many readers. I believe that one reasonfor this “rushed” quality of his writing was that he was usually in a greathurry to meet a newspaper deadline. Many of his novels were serializedand appeared in 20, or 30, or more installments. Unfortunately, he did nothave the genius of a Balzac or a Dickens—the unacknowledged masters ofthe genre—to whet the reader’s appetite and to keep it in suspense, as itwere, until the next installment appeared.

Okina Ky in’s world is dominated by the harsh realities of immigrantsociety. However, this is not enough to make of him a Naturalist, at leastnot in the accepted sense of the term; nor was Nagai Kaf a Naturalist inthe French, Zolaesque sense of the term. Both writers met women inimmigrant society, whom they later described in their literary works;however, although women were omnipresent in immigrant society, theirstories almost always were told by male authors, not from a woman’s pointof view, but from a male’s, so one might say that an immigrant woman’svoice was seldom heard, if ever. Here again, I think of Okei, who wasbrought to the Wakamatsu colony and left all alone; she wished to return toher homeland but instead died in faraway America. Her grave stands as asolitary reminder of one Japanese woman immigrant’s sad destiny andechoes the challenges that awaited other women immigrants from Japan.

In the final analysis, despite all their shortcomings and their narrow andeven self-indulgent focus, both writers are eminently interesting to scholarsstudying Japanese emigration to the American West Coast because theirworks transcend literature proper insofar as they offer a wealth ofinformation about Japanese immigrant society.

Baudelaire, Charles. Les Fleurs du mal. Paris: Garnier Frères, 1961.Iriye, Mitsuko. American Stories: Nagai Kaf . New York: Columbia University

Press, 2000.Nagai, Kaf . Amerika Monogatari. Shinsh sha, Tokyo, Japan, 1951.Okina, Ky in. “Aku no Hikage.” Nichi Bei (The Japanese American News)

3 Jun. 1915:1-16 Sept. 1915: 1 (99 installments between Jun.3, 1915, andSept. 16, 1915). Print.

Okina, Ky in et al. Umino Kanatani, Okina Ky in Zensh . Volume II. Toyama,Japan: Toyama Sugaki Company, February 1972.



Okina, Ky in et al. Konjiki no Sono, Okina Ky in Zensh . Volume III. Toyama,Japan: Toyama Sugaki Company, May 1972.

—— S saku Aku no Hikage, Okina, Ky in Zensh . Volume V. Toyama, Japan:Toyama Sugaki Company, May 1972.

Pollack Pines Press Congressional Record. Vol. 113 Washington. Wednesday7 May 1969.

Seidensticker, Edward. Kaf the Scribbler: The Life and Writings of Nagai Kaf ,1879-1959. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies The University ofMichigan, 1965.

Takeuchi, K jir . Beikoku Hokuseibu Nihon Iminshi. Seattle: Tairiku Nipposha,1929.

Yamazaki, Hokusui. “Shashinkekkon Mondai.” The Nichi Bei (The JapaneseAmerican News) [San Francisco, CA] 29 Oct. 1915.1 Print.

(I)

POETRY is the life-breath of heart—the heart that creates a feeling oflove for beauty, evokes an excitement for life and awakens an urge tostruggle against the odds of life. Indian culture is woven with the richfabric of poetry. That Indian religious books are in poetry proves thesignificance of poetry. Indian poetry is rich in themes, thoughts, imagesand rhythms. Indian Poetry in English has now become an intrinsic part ofIndian Poetry. In its initial stage, it was often tagged as derivative. Now ithas come to its own by developing its own idiom, which is wholly Indianin form and content.

(II)Indian Poetry in English began with Henry Louis Vivian Derozio and

Kashiprasad Ghose. Its saplings sprouted in the Dutt Family Album. It gotthe world wide recognition and popularity when Rabindranath Tagorereceived the Nobel Prize in 1913 for his magnum opus Gitanjali. ToruDutt, Sri Aurobindo, Sarojini Naidu and Rabindranath Tagore proved to beits pathfinders. These pathfinders paved the way for the post-Independentpoets like Nissim Ezekiel, A.K. Ramanujan, Kamala Das and ArunKolatkar who became the signatures of Indian Poetry in English. JayantaMahapatra, Shiv K. Kumar, Keki N. Daruwalla and R. Parthasarathy arethe significant poets who established milestones, which became the sourceof inspiration for the poets of the new millennium. In this materialistic age,fiction has dominated over poetry. The poets are worried at the presentscenario but are not wholly discouraged as their pens continue to composepoem after poem. The Sahitya Akademi has done its best for Indian Poetry


19


Indian Poetry in English in the New Millennium: A Tour

in English by giving the prestigious award to Jayanta Mahapatra forRelationship in 1981, Nissim Ezekiel for Later-Day Psalms in 1983, KekiN. Daruwalla for The Keeper of the Dead in 1984, Kamala Das forCollected Poems in 1985, Shiv K. Kumar for Trapfalls in the Sky in 1987,Dom Moraes for Serendip in 1994, A.K. Ramanujan for Poems of A.K.Ramanujan in 1999, Jeet Thayil for These Errors are Correct in 2012 andAdil Jussawala for Trying to Say Goodbye in 2014.

(III)The bright future of Indian Poetry in English can be discerned from the

fact that more than 600 poets are composing poems despite the challengesthat they receive from fiction. From 2000 to 2015, more than 750 Indianpoetry collections in English have entered the world of literature. If this isnot the victory of Indian Poetry in English, what is it? The role of WritersWorkshop cannot be forgotten. These days Authorspress, New Delhi hastaken the responsibility of promoting poetry by publishing poetry collectionsof the old faces like Jayanta Mahapatra, Shiv K. Kumar and Keshav Malikand the new faces like C.L. Khatri and Saroj Padhi. No doubt, trashes inthe name of poetry collections are being published but are rejected with thepassage of time. If the wheat grows, the weeds also grow in the same field.But, the weeds are pulled out. Genuine poets remain silent but thepoetasters speak highly and create loud confusing sounds. Time is thesieve which separates the wheat from the chaff. The poetasters do not runlong and become breathless while the genuine poets are remembered andstudied.

(IV)Now, names of poetry collections, published during 2000-15 are givenhere year-wise.

2000Aju Mukhopadhyay’s The Witness Tree, C.L. Khatri’s Kargil, Darshan

Singh Maini’s The Aching Vision, Dwarakanath H. Kabadi’s Snail-PaceStreet, Gerson da Cunha’s So Far, Jane Bhandari’s Single Bed, JasvinderSingh’s What I Feel, Jayanta Mahapatra’s Bare Face, K.L. Chowdhury’sOf Gods, Men and Militants, K.V. Raghupathi’s Small Reflections,Kailash’s Ahluwalia’s O The Anthill Man!, Kanwar Dinesh Singh’s HouseArrest and Together: A Poem, Keki N. Daruwalla’s Night River, KishoreChatterjee’s Lamenkinen’s Lament, Leela Gandhi’s Measures of Home,Mahashweta Chaturvedi’s Back to the Vedas, Manas Bakshi’s Of Dreams



and Death, Mani Rao’s Salt, Menka Shivdasani’s Stet, Prabhanjan K.Mishra’s Lips of a Canyon, Pronab Kumar Majumder’s In the Ruins ofTime, R.C. Shukla’s A Belated Appearance, Ranjit Hoskote’s TheCartographer’s Apprentice, S.L. Peeran’s In Golden Times: SelectedPoems, Smita Tewari’s The Recycled, Sujata Bhatt’s Augatora. (MyMother’s Way of Wearing a Sari), Suresh C. Jaryal’s Silence of Love andTabish Khair’s Where Parallel Lines Meet are some poetry collections,published in 2000.

2001A.K. Ramanujan’s The Uncollected Poems and Prose, Anand Thakore’s

Waking in December, Arundhathi Subramaniam’s On Cleaning Bookshelves,Asha Viswas’s Mortgaged Moorings, Bijay Kant Dubey’s My SelectedPoems, My Father, and My Love Poems, Biplab Majumder’s Virtues andVices, Chandni Kapur’s Karma, Harish K. Thakur’s The Sun-Lyre, ImtiazDharker’s I Speak for the Devil, Jagannath Prasad Das’s Lovelines: Poemsof Longing and Despair, K. Satchidanandan’s So Many Births ThreeDecades of Poetry, K.B. Rai’s Soul’ n Fire Poems, K.K. Saxena’s DreamGirl, Kanwar Dinesh Singh’s Deuce: Haiku Poems, Kedar Nath Sharma’sOur Ancient Orchard, Keshav Malik’s Rumour, Makrand Paranjape’sUsed Book, O.P. Bhatnagar’s Cooling Flames of Darkness, PanikerAyyappa’s Days and Nights, R.M. Prabhulinga Shastry’s Self An Anthologyof Poems, R.A. Janakiraman’s Arteries, R.C. Shukla’s Depth and Despairand My Poems Laugh, Ranjit Hoskote’s The Sleepwalker’s Archive, S.L.Peeran’s In Golden Moments, Suresh C. Jaryal’s Flight to Immortality,Suresh Nath’s What Can I Do?, Tajinder Kaur’s Reflections, Tapti BaruahKashyap’s Peace of Silence, Vijay Vishal’s Parting Wish, Virender Parmar’sCollage of Quietude, and Vishnu Joshi’s Anjali Whispers in the Dawn aresome poetry collections, published in 2001.

2002A.N. Dwivedi’s Protest Poems, Anita Nair’s Malabar Mind, Aroop

Mitra’s In Search of the Lotus-Feet, Bhagirathi Mahasuar’s Emotional Meand Mine, Bijay Kant Dubey’s My Collected Poems and Mother Kali, D.C. Chambial’s Before the Petals Unfold, Darshan Singh Maini’s The FarHorizons, Dom Moraes’s Typed with One Finger: New and SelectedPoems, Dwarakanath H. Kabadi’s Chariot of Dreams, Gopi KrishnanKottoor’s Nirvana, Harish K. Thakur’s Confessions, I.H. Rizvi’s FetteredBirds, Jane Bandari’s Aquarius, K. Srilata’s Seablue Child, K.N. Daruwalla’s



The Map-maker, Kanwar Dinesh Singh’s Rainbows, Moonbows and Fogand The Flow of the Soul Selected Poems, Kedar Nath Sharma’s Love,Live & Leisure, M. Mohankumar’s Nightmares and Daydreams, M.S.Venkata Ramaiah’s Flash Point, Maha Nand Sharma’s A Spiritual Warrior,Meena Alexander’s Illiterate Heart, Monima Choudhury’s Impression,Pronab Kumar Majumder’s Creating-Killing Cosmic Time, R.K.Singh’s Cover to Cover: A Collection of Poems, Rabindra K. Swain’sSevered Cord, Reetika Vazirani’s World Hotel, Rudra Kinshuk’s MarginalTalks of the Galloping Horses, S. Parida’s The Next Valley Beyond theStars, S.L. Peeran’s A Ray of Light, A Search from Within, and In SilentMoments, Sanjukta Dasgupta’s Dilemma, Shiv K. Kumar’s Thus Spake theBuddha, Smita Agarwal’s Wish-Granting Words, Sudesh Mishra’s Diasporaand the Difficult Art of Dying, Sujata Bhatt’s A Colour for Solitude, SureshC. Jaryal’s Quest of Poesy, Tejdeep Kaur Menon’s Minnaminni, andTejinder Kaur’s Images are some poetry collections, published in 2002.

2003Agha Shahid Ali’s Rooms are Never Finished, Alexander Raju’s

Sprouts of Indignation, Ashok T. Chakravarthy’s Charismata of Poesie,B.K. Dohroo’s Musings, Bibhu Padhi’s Games the Heart Must Play andLiving with Lorenzo, Dwarakanath H. Kabadi’s Pyramid Poems, GopiKrishnan Kottoor’s Rev. Father Benedict Goes to Heaven, JelenaNarayanan’s The Gold Comb and Other Poems, Jerry Pinto’s Asylum, K.L. Chowdhury’s A Thousand-Petalled Garland and Other Poems, K.V.Raghupathi’s Voice of the Valley and Wisdom of the Peepal Tree, KanwarDinesh Singh’s Scintillations: The Junctures of Satori, Madhvi LataAgarwal’s Myriad Colours, Manas Bakshi’s From Adam to Myself, ManiRao’s Echolocation, Marilyn Noronha’s Different Faces, NiranjanMohanty’s Krishna, P. Raja’s To Live in Love, Pashupati Jha’s Cross andCreation, Prabhat K. Singh’s The Vermilion Moon, R.C. Shukla’s TheParrot Shrieks, R.K. Singh’s Pacem in Terris, Radhey Shiam’s Song ofLife, Raman Mundair’s Lovers, Liars, Conjurers, and Thieves, ReshmaAquil’s Shadows of Fire and The Unblending, Rita Malhotra’s Images ofLove, S.A. Hamid’s No Man’s Land, S.L. Peeran’s A Call from theUnknown, Saleem Peeradina’s Mediation on Desire, Shome Dasgupta’s InThis Place, Sudeep Sen’s Distracted Geographies: An Archipelago ofIntent and Prayer Flag: Poetry and Photography, Sudha Iyer’s On theEdge, Sunanda Mukherjee’s Moment and Other Poems, Tejdeep Kaur



Menon’s Oysters in Pain and Temsula Ao’s Songs from Here and Thereare some poetry collections, published in 2003.

2004A.K. Ramanujan’s The Oxford India Ramanujan, Abdul Rashid

Bijapure’s An Exotic Tree, Agha Shahid Ali’s Call me Ishmael Tonight,Arun Kolatkar’s Kala Ghoda Poems and Sarpa Satra, Baldev Mirza’sTheatre of Silence, Bijay Kant Dubey’s In The Jurassic Park & OtherPoems and My Sensical Or Nonsensical Poems, Biplab Majumder’sGolden Horizon, Chandni Kapur’s The Looking Glass, D.C. Chambial’sCollected Poems (1979-2004) and This Promising Age & Other Poems,Debjani Chatterjee’s Namaskar: New and Selected Poems, Dom Moraes’sCollected Poems 1954-2004, Essarci’s (S. Ramachandran) Rainbow, GopiKrishnan Kottoor’s Buchenwald Diary, Father, Wake Us in Passing, andMother Sonata, I.H. Rizvi’s Dripping Wounds and Love Never Dies, I.K.Sharma’s My Lady, Broom and Other Poems, J. Bhagyalakshmi’s A Knockat the Door, Jagannath Prasad Das’s Poems, Jeet Thayil’s English: Poems,Keshav Malik’s Earth in Space Selected Poems, Lakshmisree Banerjee’s Iam the Woman: I am the World, M. Mohankumar’s The Moon Has TwoFaces, Maha Nand Sharma’s Autumn Strains and Divine Glimpses,Mamang Dai’s River Poems, Meena Alexander’s Raw Silk, MeenakshiVerma’s Mute Voices, N.P. Singh’s Millennium Blues, Nandini Sahu’s TheOther Voice, Prageeta Sharma’s The Opening Question, Raanan Burd’sPoetry from Life, Ravi Shankar’s Instrumentality, Rukmini Bhaya Nair’sYellow Hibiscus: New and Selected Poems, Samartha Vashishtha’s ShadowsDon’t live in Walls, Som P. Ranchan’s Three Poems, Srikanth Reddy’sFacts for Visitors, Suparna Ghosh’s Sandalwood Thoughts: A Collectionof Poems and Drawings, Vihang A. Naik’s Making A Poem and VijaySeshadri’s The Long Meadow are some poetry collections, published in2004.

2005A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s The Life Tree, Abdul Rashid Bijapure’s The Third

Maya and Other Poems, Aju Mukhopadhyay’s Short Verse Vast Universe,Amit Chaudhuri’s St. Cyril Road and Other Poems, Anil K. Sharma’s FiveBeats of Heart, Anna Sujatha Mathai’s Life on My Side of the Street,Archna Sahni’s First Fire, Arundhathi Subramaniam’s Where I Live,Hoshang Merchant’s Homage to Jibanananda Das, I.H. Rizvi’s Haikuand Other Poems, Jasvinder Singh’s Stray Thoughts, Jayanta Mahapatra’s



Random Descent, Justice S. Mohan’s Many Splendoured Gem, K.Satchidanandan’s Stammer and Other Poems, K.B. Rai’s Pearls ofWisdom An Anthology of Poems, K.B. Rai’s Soul Tears, K.K. Srivastava’sIneluctable Stillness, Kazim Ali’s The Far Mosque, Ketaki KushariDyson’s In That Sense You Touched It, Kulbhushan Kushal’s Rainbow onRocks, Lakshmi Kannan’s Unquiet Waters, Maha Nand Sharma’s AFlowering of a Lotus and A Rudraksha Rosary and Other Poems,Mahashweta Chaturvedi’s Mother Earth, Makarand Paranjape’s PartialDisclosure, Manas Bakshi’s Not Because I Live Today, Mani Rao’s 100Poems: Selected Poems (1985-2005), Maria Netto’s Tabula Rasa,Nagamuthu Osho’s Mystic Melody, Nalini Sharma’s Rhythm, NandiniSahu’s The Silence, Pashupati Jha’s Mother and Other Poems, PriyaSarukkai Chabria’s Dialogue and Other Poems, Pronab Kumar Majumder’sWhere Time is Dead, R.C. Shukla’s The Parrot Shrieks II, R.K. Singh’s Fora World Peace, Raghu Kul Bhushan’s Sentinels of the Soul, RalphNazareth’s Ferrying Secrets, Rumki Basu’s Native Birds in Alien Skies,S.L. Peeran’s New Frontiers, Sanjukta Dasgupta’s First Language, ShantaAcharya’s Looking In, Looking Out, Sonjoy Dutta Roy’s Into GranderSpace, T. Vasudeva Reddy’s Pensive Memories and V.V.B. Rama Rao’sSeeing God and Other Poems are some poetry collections, published in2005.

2006Abdul Rashid Bijapure’s Desert Caves and Other Poems, Anjum

Hasan’s Street on the Hill, Basanta Kumar Kar’s The Naïve Bird, BijayKant Dubey’s Bootman’s India And Other Verses, Murkhamantri And HisCabinet And Other Verses, Poetry as Knowledge and Wisdom and Poetryas Wit and Humour and The Cartoonist Boatman’s India and OtherPoems, C.L. Khatri’s Ripples in the Lake, Chandramoni Narayanaswamy’sSunflower and Other Nature Poems, Deepankar Khiwani’s Entr’acte,Dwarakanath H. Kabadi’s Mystic Mysteries, E.V. Ramakrishnan’s Termsof Seeing: New and Selected Poems, K.B. Rai’s Soul Smiles, K.V.Raghupathi’s Samarpana, Kashmiri Lal Chawla’s My Zen Poetry,Kulbhushan Kushal’s Whirlpool of Echoes, Manas Bakshi’s Man of theSeventh Hour, Mina Kandasamy’s Touch, R.K. Singh’s The River Returns,Ranjit Hoskote’s Vanishing Acts: New and Selected Poems 1985-2005,Revathy Gopal’s Last Possibilities of Light, Robin Ngangom’s The Desireof Roots, S.L. Peeran’s Fountains of Hopes, Shanta Acharya’s Shringara,Sudhir K. Arora’s A Thirsty Cloud Cries, Syed Ameeruddin’s Visions of



Deliverance, Veeru Reddy’s Whispering Shadows and Vivek Narayan’sUniversal Beach are some poetry collections, published in 2006.

2007Aju Mukhopadhyay’s In Celebration of Nature and The Paper Boat,

Arbind Kumar Choudhary’s Eternal Voices, Aroop Mitra’s Light on theLotus, Binayendra Chowdhury’s Reflective Images, C.P. Surendran’sPortraits of the Space We Occupy New and Selected Poems, ChandramoniNarayanaswamy’s The Alphabet, The Friendly Animal World and TheGarden School, Charu Sheel Singh’s Etching on the Edge, Kashi: AMandala Poem and Scripture on Stone, Daljit Nagra’s Look We HaveComing to Dover, Dilip Chitre’s As Is, Where Is. Selected English Poems1964-2007, Hazara Singh’s Apostle of Non-Violence and Destination, I.H.Rizvi’s The Valley Still Blossoms, Imtiaz Dharker’s Terrorist at My Table,J. Bhagyalakshmi’s When Fortune Smiled, K. Ramesh’s Soap Bubbles,K.S. Pal’s Descending Dark Stairs, Kamala Das’s Encountering KamalaSelection from the Poetry of Kamala Das, Kunga Gyatso Bhutia’s TheHimalayan Bouquet and Binding Undulations of Sikkim, Mahadeva R.Iyer’s Bouquets and Garlands, Makarand Paranjape’s Confluence,Mohammed Fakhruddin’s Haiku, Self-Exploration, Nar Deo Sharma’sMelody of Wounds, Navkirat Sodhi’s Un, Om Prakash Arora’s The Edge ofthe Cliff, Omesh Bharti’s My Interaction with Life, Prabhat K. Singh’s Inthe Olive Green, Prageeta Sharma’s Infamous Landscapes, Pronab KumarMajumder’s Ontime Untime, Sparkles of Time and Time Never Returns toConsole and Other Poems, Purnima Ray’s Poetry: Autobiographical,R.M. Prabhulinga Shastry’s The State A Poem, Rita Malhotra’s I am notYour Woman and Other Poems, Ruskin Bond’s Book of Verse, SampurnaChatterjee’s Sight May Strike You Blind, S.L. Peeran’s In Rare Moments,Sridala Swami’s A Reluctant Survivor, Swami Nem Singh’s Creation andOther Poems, Tishani Doshi’s Countries of the Body and Vilas Sarang’sAnother Life are some poetry collections, published in 2007.

2008A.N. Dwivedi’s Beyond Borders, Arbind Kumar Choudhary’s My

Songs and Universal Voices, Bijay Kant Dubey’s A Collage of Verses andThe Divine Path and Other Verses; The Research Method; The Abstractand the Appendix, Chandramoni Narayanaswamy’s Hasmukh, CharuSheel Singh’s Collected Poems 1975-2003. Harish K. Thakur’s SilentFlows Danube, I.H. Rizvi’s Bleeding Flowers, I.K. Sharma’s End to End,



Jeet Thayil’s These Errors are Correct, K.K. Srivastava’s An ArmlessHand Writes, K.L. Chowdhury’s Enchanting World of Infant, KanwarDinesh Singh’s The Noontide Poems, Ghazals and Hymns andThoroughfare: A Book of Ghazals, Kazim Ali’s The Fortieth Day,Kulbhushan Kushal’s Songs of Silence, Lakshmi Shankar’s Under thePoetree, Mamta Agarwal’s Rhythms of Life, Meena Alexander’s QuicklyChanging River: Poems, N.V. Subbaraman’s Silver Fishes in the BlueWaters, Karthika Nair’s Distant Music, Niranjan Mohanty’s A House ofRains and Tiger and Other Poems, P.C.K. Prem’s Rainbow at Sixty,Prasant Kumar Panda’s Blue Prints of Retrospection, Praveen Gadhvi’sThe Voice of the Last, Pronab Kumar Majumder’s Faces of Love, MyIndia: Through Corridor of Time and Where I Is A Noun, R.C. Shukla’sThe Parrot Shrieks III, Rabindra K. Swain’s Susurrus in the Skull, RaghuKul Bhushan’s Rustling Leaves, Roshan Lal Sharma’s Mount Carol andOther Poems, S. Parida’s Behind the Tapestry, S.L. Peeran’s In SacredMoments, Sanjukta Dasgupta’s More Light, Shiv K. Kumar’s Losing MyWay, Smita Tewari’s And the World Changes Colour, A Travelogue inVerse, Crossroads and Hourglass, Swami Nem Pal’s Nature Poems, T.Vasudeva Reddy’s Gliding Ripples, Tapati Baruah Kashyap’s A Discovery,V.V.B. Rama Rao’s For Our Grandchildren and Other Poems andVirender Parmar’s The Voice Divine, are some poetry collections, publishedin 2008.

2009Agha Shahid Ali’s The Veiled Suite, Aju Mukhopadhyay’s Poems on

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Amit Shankar’s The 21st Shade of Autumn,Amrita V. Nair’s Yours Affectionately, Anjana Basu’s Picture Poems andWord Seasons, Arbind Kumar Choudhary’s Melody, Arun Kolatkar’s TheBoatride and Other Poems, Arundhathi Subramaniam’s Where I Live Newand Selected Poems, B. Cauveri’s Sandalwood Chip, B.S. Nimavat’sWords from Within A Poetry Collection, Bibhu Padhi’s Choosing a Place,Bijay Kant Dubey’s Pinda-Dana, Biplab Majumder’s Island’s DolphinSong, Chandni Kapur’s The Other Face, Debjani Chatterjee’s Words Spitand Splinter, Divya John’s Whispers Within, Eunice De Souza’s ANecklace of Skulls Collected Poems, G. Kameshwar’s Seahorse in the Sky,Hazara Singh’s Happy Meaningful Life, Imtiaz Dharker’s LeavingFingertips, Jayanta Mahapatra’s The Lie of Dawns Poems 1974-2008,K.B. Rai’s Soul Dances, Kamala Das’s Closure Some Poems and aConversation, Kanwar Dinesh Singh’s Prospect Hill: Shimla Poems,



Karthika Nair’s Bearings, Manas Bakshi’s The Midnight Star, MonimaChoudhury’s Manu Script Love Poems, Mousumi Ray’s The DancingLeaves Create Music Dust is Blowing, Nandini Sahu’s Silver Poems on MyLips, Nileen Putatunda’s Annya, P. Gopichand and P. Nagasuseela’sMushrooms and No Longer at Ease, P.K. Joy’s Beyond Many BendsSelected Poems of P.K. Joy, Pronab Kumar Majumder’s Passage to Peace,R. Hema’s Life Blues, R.K. Singh’s Sexless Solitude and Other Poems,Raghu Kul Bhushan’s Melodies of the Broken Reed, Ramya Sriram’sInklings: A Collection in Free Verse, Reshma Ramesh’s Reflections ofIllusions, S.L. Peeran’s Glittering Love, Seema Aarella’s Letters from theHeart, Semeen Ali’s Roses and Ashes, Shaleen Kumar Singh’s ProprietaryPains: A Collection of Short Poems, Shilpa Vinay Viswanath’s G for God,D for Distraction and Pause, Shujaat Hussain’s Heat and Dust, SmitaTewari’s Illusions, Suhasini Sakhare’s Living the Future, Suparna Ghosh’sDots and Crosses, Tanya Mendonsa’s The Dreaming House, Tapan KumarBandyopadhyay’s Glimpses of Ordinance, Tuhin Sanyal’s Phoenix on aFemale Body and Other Poems,V. Balachandran’s Signs of Love, VirenderParmar’s Within and Without and Vivek Sharma’s Saga of a CrumpledPiece of Paper are some poetry collections, published in 2009.

2010A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s Songs of Life, Abnish Chauhan, Mosam Sinha

and Ram Sharma’s A String of Words, Aditi Upmanyu’s Magical Poems,Aju Mukhopadhyay’s Insect’s Nest and Other Poems and Short VerseDelight, Akshat Sharma’s Viaticum: Journey of A Soul, AmeeruddinSyed’s Rainbow Rhapsodies, Anindita Sengupta’s City of Water, ArbindKumar Choudhary’s Love Poems and Nature Poems, Arun Kolatkar’sCollected Poems in English, Bipin Patsani’s Another Voyage andHomecoming, Chandramoni Narayanaswamy’s The Unseen Abode andOther Poems, Charu Sheel Singh’s Legacies, D.C. Chambial’s MellowTones, Gopi Krishnan Kottoor’s Victoria Terminus, Poems: Selected andNew, Hazara Singh’s Seasonal Festivals and Commemorative Days,Hoshang Merchant’s Shilong Suite, I.K. Sharma’s Collected Poems 1970-2010, Jasvinder Singh’s Poems of the Heart and Selected Poems 1980-2005, K.B. Rai’s Soul Speaks, K.V. Dominic’s Winged Reasons, K.V.Raghupathi’s Dispersed Symphonies and Orphan and Other Poems,Kanwar Dinesh Singh’s The Tears of Frost: Haiku Poems, Lalit Sharma’sPearls and Pebbles, M.S. Venkata Ramaiah’s Melting Point, MamtaAgarwal’s Voices of Autumn, Mani Rao’s Ghostmasters, Mina Kandasamy’s



Ms Militancy, P. Gopichand and P. Nagasuseela’s Sprouts, Pritish Nandy’sAgain, R.C. Shukla’s Ponderings I, R.K. Singh’s Sense and Silence:Collected Poems and Sexless Solitude and Other Poems: A BilingualCollection: English-Greek, R.M. Prabhulinga Shastry’s What is Beyond?An Anthology of Poems, Rajkamal Shiromani’s You and My Haiku, RitaMalhotra’s Across Social Wilds: A Woman’s Poetic Perception, RizioYohanan Raj’s Eunuch, Sachchidananda S. Kore’s The Vestal Virgin,Saleem Peeradina’s Slow Dance, Satish Kumar Shukla’s Panjab Moods ALiterary Adagio, Shankar D. Mishra’s A Cynosure of English Poems,Shanta Acharya’s Dreams That Spell the Light, Shilpa Vinay Viswanath’sAlias Da-ugh-ter and Ye Calliope, Erato and Polyhymnia, Sonnet Mondal’sPenumbra of Indian Verses, Sushila Kadian’s Twilight Expressions,Uddipana Goswami’s We Called the River Red, Vihang A. Naik’s PoetryManifesto New & Selected Poems and Vivekanand Jha’s Hands Heave toHarm and Hamper: A Collection of Poems are some poetry collections,published in 2010.

2011Adil Jussawalla’s Trying to Say Goodbye Poems, Apurv Kumar’s My

First Poems, Apurva Agarwal’s A Night’s Sail, Arbind Kumar Choudhary’sLove, Nature and The Poet, Aroop Mitra’s Poverty Profile Poems onHuman Deprivation, Asha Viswas’s The Rainbow Cave and Other Poems,Bibhu Padhi’s Migratory Days (a travel diary in verse), Bijay KantDubey’s My Nirguna Songs and Yama, Binod Mishra’s Silent Steps andOther Poems, Gopa Nayak’s Dissension, Harish K. Thakur’s NaturePsalms, Hoshang Merchant’s Hyderabad Quartet Collected Works VolumeI , K.B. Rai’s Words Speak An Anthology of Verse (Impressions), K.L.Chowdhury’s Homeland after Eighteen Years (A Travellogue in Kashmir),K.V. Dominic’s Write Son, Write, Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih’s TheYearning of Seeds, Mahendra Bhatnagar’s Dawn to Dusk and Life As It Is(These two books include some original poems in English by the poethimself), Manas Bakshi’s Between Flower and Flame, Meenakshi Hooja’sOutpourings: Poetic Expressions, P.C.K. Prem’s Of This Age and Obscurityand Other Poems, Padmapriya’s Galaxy, Pashupati Jha’s All in One,Pravat Kumar Padhy’s The Tiny Pebbles, Pronab Kumar Majumder’sRandom Poetry, S.L. Peeran’s Garden of Bliss, Saket Suman’s Little Talesof Little Things, Satish Kumar Gupta’s My Thoughts in Simple Verse, ShivK. Kumar’s Which of My Selves Do You Wish to Speak to? SelectedPoems, Sonnet Mondal’s Diorama and Easterlies, Sony Dalia’s Delightful



Dawn, Sunil Sharma’s Poetry amid the Golden Barrel Cacti, T. SaiChandra Mouli’s (Sony Dalia) Delightful Dawn, Vikram Seth’s TheRevered Earth and Vivekanand Jha’s Create Space are some poetrycollections, published in 2011.

2012A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s Songs of Life (ed. II), A.N. Dwivedi’s Wayward

Wanderings, Alka Agarwal’s Blooming Buds, Amit Agarwal’s RousingCadence, Anand Thakore’s Elephant Bathing and Mughal Sequence, AnnaSujatha Mathai’s Mother’s Veena and Other Poems, Bijay Kant Dubey’s APamphlet of Poetry, Ambulance, Brindaban, Crashing Over The Hump,Hari Om And Other Poems, The Dark Daughters, The Dark Is Beautiful,Beena, The Rhythm of Speech, The Rhythm of Life, The Third in Number,Tracing Paper, Unknown Citizen…I Had A Desire and Moored to theShadow, D.C. Chambial’s Words 1979-2010, Dom Moraes’s SelectedPoems, Geeta Chaabra’s An Indian Ode To The Emirates, Gopi KrishnanKottoor’s The Coloured Yolk of Love Vrindavan, Hoshang Merchant’sCollected Works Volume 2: Jonah Quintet, Jaydeep Sarangi’s FromDulong to Beas Flow of the Soul, K.K. Srivastava’s Shadows of the Real,Laxmi Prasad’s Universal Witness, Madhumta Ghosh’s For All You LovelyPeople, Meenu Mehrotra’s Sounds of Desire, Prathap Kamath’s Ekalavya:A Book of Poems, Pravat Kumar Padhy’s Songs of Love, Pritish Nandy’sStuck on 1/Forty, Pronab Kumar Majumder’s Sundown Poetry and OtherPoems, R.C. Shukla’s Ponderings II and Ponderings III, R.K. Singh’s Newand Selected Poems Tanka and Haiku, R.M. Prabhulinga Shastry’s TheSport, Raghu Kul Bhushan’s The Invisible Visible, Ranu Uniyal’s DecemberPoems, S. Parida’s The Estranged Periphery, Sonjoy Dutta Roy’s Diary’sPoems and Story Teller’s Rhymes, Sunitha C. Srinivas’s Mnemosyne,Supriya Bhandari’s Symphony of Silence, Sushil Kumar Sharma’s TheDoor is Half Open, T. Sai Chandra Mouli’s (Sony Dalia) Graceful Greenand T. Vasudeva Reddy’s Echoes are some poetry collections, published in2012.

2013Adwaita Das’s 27 Stitches, Amishal Modi’s Prelude to a Storm, Basant

Rath’s Own Me, Srinagar, Bijay Kant Dubey’s A Document of Poetry andA Statement of Poetry, Bijender Singh’s Confusing Poetry and Late NightPoetry, Bishnupada Ray’s Winter Sky, Chandini Kapur’s Timeless Interludes,Day Bhat’s A Maiden of 29, Geeta Chaabra’s No Journey Ends: A



Collection of Poems and Prose Pieces, Godavar’s A Turn of Poetry, GopalLahiri’s Living Inside, Hoshang Merchant’s Sufiana , Jayanta Mahapatra’sLand, Jaydeep Sarangi’s Silent Days, K. Pankajam’s Whispering Waves,K. Srilata’s Writing Octopus, K.V. Raghupathi’s Between Me and theBabe, Kamala Das’s Wages of Love: Uncollected Writings of Kamala Das,Kamalaprasad Mahapatra’s Pearls of Poesie, Keki N. Daruwalla’s FireAlter, Lakshmisree Banerjee’s Peahen Passions, Madhumita Ghosh’sFlowing with the River and Pebbles on the Shore, Mamta Agarwal’s AnUntold Story of a Pebble, Meena Alexander’s Birthplace with BurriedStones, Meenakshi M. Singh’s Soulful Symphony, Minoo Vania’s A VistaAhead, Nabina Das Nabina’s Into the Migrant City, Nayanathara’s In theShade of the Bodhi, Neelam Saxena Chandra’s Silhouette of Reflections,Hues of Love and Layers of Flickering Lights, Nileen Putatunda’s Beggar,P. Raja’s Five Headed Arrow, P.K. Panicker’s Without Borders, PoonamDwivedi’s The Confluence & Other Poems, Pravin Nair’s Gravity, PuneetAgarwal’s Voices and Vices, Rajender Krishan’s Solitude and OtherPoems, Reshmy Warrier’s Mirror, Mirror on the Mind, Riddhi Kapoor’sAlmost Poetry, Rohith’s Chirps, Sayantan Gupta’s Where the RainbowEnds, Sonnet Mondal’s Primatic Celluloid, Sujata Parashar’s Poetry Outand Loud II, Sunil Sharma’s Poems on Highway, Suvankar Ghosh RoyChowdury’s Cities and Lost Times, Syeda Afshana’s The Fugitive SunshineSelected Poems, T. Vasudeva Reddy’s Quest for Peace: A Minor SocialEpic, Tapati Baruah Kashyap’s Winding Ways, Vinita Agarwal’s Words NotSpoken and Vishal Bhojwani’s Spark are some poetry collections, publishedin 2013.

2014Aju Mukhopadhyay’s Manhood, Grasshood and Birdhood. An

Anthology of Assorted Poems, Ananya S. Guha’s There Is Winter byTouch, Anapurna Rath and Bhaskarjyoti Das’s Devi: A Journey throughPhoto-Poetry, Anil Prasad’s Destinations, Anjali Anirudhan’s To Feel orNot to Feel, Arundhati Subramaniam’s When God Is A Traveller, ArvindKrishna Mehrotra’s Collected Poems 1969-2014, Avdhesh S. Jha’s InSearch of Peace, Bibhu Padhi’s Magic Ritual, C.L. Khatri’s Two-MinuteSilence, D.C. Chambial’s Hour of Antipathy, Dalvir Singh Gahlawat andKalyanrupa Parasar’s Smile From the Veil, Dilip Mohapatra’s A Pinch ofSun and Other Poems and Different Shades, Dolly Singh’s The Awakeningof SHE, Durlabh Singh’s Song for Myself, Geetika Kohli’s The LostSonnet and Other Poems, Gopi Krishnan Kottoor’s Tell Me, Neruda,



Gouranga P. Chattopadhyay’s The Lonely Journey Begin, HoshangMerchant’s Collected Works Volume 3: Place/Name, A Sextet, JayashriShetty’s Silent Screams, Jaydeep Sarangi’s A Door Somewhere, JyotsnaSinha’s Silent Musings, K. Ramesh’s From Pebble to Pebble, K.Satchidanandan’s Misplaced Objects and Other Poems, K.V. Dominic’sMulticultural Symphony, Kamala Acharya’s Kindle the Spirit, KamalaDas’s Selected Poems, Kedar Nath Sharma’s Paradise Returned & OtherPoems, Keshav Malik’s Water Falling on Water, M.R. Venkatesh’s IWonder as I Wander, Mamta Anand’s Tresure a Tear, Mamta Madhavan’sConnecting Dots, Manas Bakshi’s Maduline Musings, Mani Rao’s Newand Selected Poems, Meena Kandasamy’s This Poem Will Provoke You &Other Poems, Mihir Vatsa’s Painting That Red Circle, Minaxi Sajeev’sThe Unlabelled Happy Woman, Murali Sivaramakrishnan’s Selected Poems,Naina Dey’s Snapshot from Space and Other Poems, Nandini Sahu’s Sita(A Poem), Neelam Saxena Chandra’s Purple Moon and The DelicateWings, O.N. Gupta’s Spilled Feelings: A Collection of Thoughts andRealizations, P. Raja’s Dhoti and Other Poems, P.C.K. Prem’s Tales ofHalf Men and Other Poems, P.M. Chandrasekharan’s Oh God Bunch ofPoems, Pooja Garg Singh’s Everyday and Some Other Days, PrashantRana’s The Onion Man, R.K. Bhushan’s Nerves of the Verbal Art: Songsin Follywood, R.S. Ramkumar’s Breeze: A Love Story, Rachna Gupta’sMyriad Hues, Ramkanth Rath’s Frontier Lyrics, Rochishmon’s Let UsUnderstand the Dawns, S. Chandramohan’s Warscape Verses, S.C.Dwivedi’s The Mouth of Truth, S. Jagathsimhan Nair’s Blue Sun andBlase Rains, S.L. Peeran’s Eternal Quest, S.P. Saxena Surya’s The Koel,Sadia Riaz Sehole’s Red Seeps, Samir Ranjan Chatterjee’s Under theSouthern Sky, Sangeeta Mahesh’s Ocean of Thoughts, Sanjula Sharma’sFor Rhyme or Reason, Saroj K. Padhi’s Shattered I Sing, SayantanGupta’s Poems on Life, Poems on Love and Poems on Mythology, ShaliniYadav’s Kinship with You, Shambhobi Ghosh’s A Stranger’s Conversation,Shiv K. Kumar’s Where Have the Dead Gone? & Other Poems, ShrutiChandra’s The Return to Beginning, Shubangi Joshi’s To Stir Up AnOrnate Nest, Shujaat Hussain’s Tolerant India, Sujata Parashar’s PoetryOut And Loud-III, Sukrita Paul Kumar’s Untitled, Sunil Sharma’s Mundane,My Muse, Tumpa Chatterjee’s Laughing Daffodils, Vandana Arora’sStorm to Serenity, Varsha Singh’s Deluges and Vinayana Khurana’sVinayana’s World: A Story Untold are some poetry collections, publishedin 2014.



2015Aabha Vatsa Midha’s Home Alone and Desire, Abhishek Rath’s Immotal

Ink Bleed: Imprints Beyond Depth, Beena Biswas’s Half a Life, Bina SarkarEllias’s Fuse, Dhiraj Das’s Walking with the Dead, Geetika Kohli’sNothingness at Boiling Point, Jaydeep Sarangi’s The Wall & Other Poems,Madhumita Ghosh’s My Poetry My Voice, Mahua Sen’s Insights, MeenaAlexander’s Atmospheric Embroidery, Menka Shivdasani’s Safe House, NarDeo Sharma’s Emotionoceans, Navya Jain’s Arcane Rhapsodies (ShortStories in Verse), Pashupati Jha’s Awaiting Eden Again , Pokhriyal Diwakar’sPoetry for Everyone, Prabhat Singh’s Indelible Impressions, R.M. PrabhulingaShastry’s “S‘HE’”, Rachna Gupta’s Kaleodoscope: The Changing Coloursof Love, Radhika Agarwal’s Mirage, Rashmi Jain’s Kaleiodoscopic Visions,Ratan Bhattacharjee’s The Ballads of the Bleeding Bubbles: A FabulousBouquet of Love Poems, S.A. Hamid’s The Ontology of Desire, Saroj K.Padhi’s Petals in Prayers and Rhyming Ripples, Sudeep Sen’s Fractals.New & Selected Poems / Translations, Suneel Sharma’s Thresholds, T. SaiChandra Mouli’s (Sony Dalia) Hopping on Hope, Vaishnavi Shrivastava’sRainbow of Feeling and Varsha Singh’s Unbangled and Other Poems aresome poetry collections, published in 2015.

(V)Here are a few instances of what kind of Indian Poetry in English is beingpenned. The excerpts demonstrate form and content along with the idiomthat Indian Poetry in English has developed with the passage of time.

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (1931-2015), the former President of India and therecipient of Bharat Ratna is a poet of inspiration and motivation. The LifeTree (2005) and Songs of Life (2010) reflect Kalam’s views on nation,patriotism, youths, humanity, relationship, spiritualism and, above all, life.He loves the whole humanity and is against all kinds of barriers, divisionsand narrow outlooks. His heart bubbles with love, compassion and all thehuman qualities, necessary for a meaningful life.

I build no walls to confirm joy and sorrowTo sacrifice or achieve, to gain or loseI just grow flowers on open spacesAnd float lilies on ponds and rivers. (The Life Tree 57)

While praising Kalam, Satish Kumar writes: “As a poet he is endowedwith forward looking quality. He excels in poetizing science and scientific



truth. He adroitly merges poetry with spirituality and true religious spirit.Kalam, who dreams of better and happier world for the children of Indiaand the world, is a poet of humanity” (Poetcrit 49).

Three collections of poems namely, Bare Face (2000), RandomDescent (2005) and Land (2013) along with the collected poems, The Lieof Dawns Poems 1974-2008 have come from the pen of the major poetJayanta Mahapatra (b. 1928), who does not appear as fresh and imaginativeas he was in his Relationship (1980). With the passage of time, the poet inMahapatra has become more reflective and submissive though lessimaginative.

Truth may be beautifulbut it has deformed feet.And the path it makes us walk onhas many answers,to know what it is to distortevery judgmentexperience has made for us. (Land 33)

Shiv K. Kumar (b. 1921) appears to be more imaginative and fresh inWhere Have the Dead Gone? and Other Poems (2014). With the passageof time, he has emerged from the ocean of complexity to the ground ofsimplicity by virtue of his understanding of life in its clarity. He is a poet ofintuition.

The best way to choose is not to choosebut just press on.If you plan to return home,it may take you a lifetime,as reason stumbles at every step.So why don’t you rest through the dayand voyage through the night?’ (Where Have the Dead Gone 95)

He has lost the teeth of irony, contrast and paradox, with which he used tobite. What he has now are memories, which make him wander in thememory lanes. He loves words, which come out from his pen naturally andsoftly with meaning, music and intensity.

Keki Nasserwanji Daruwalla (b. 1937) continues to write poetrybecause it gives him relief and proves to be a sort of cleansing force. He



talks of hunger of belly which degrades man from the category of a humanbeing to an animal. When a man is hungry, religion becomes secondary.

When hunger ragesYudhishthir and Duryodhana become meaningless. (CollectedPoems 25)

There is no use of living if no one knows identity. Daruwalla gives a newdefinition of existence which lies in others’ recognition:

Why can’t we define existence as somethingthat lives only in the awareness of others?Do you exist if no one knows you do? (Collected Poems 26)

The poet is quite concerned with the present state of the country. He thinksof the new millennium and finds no one to guide the people. He voices hisfeelings in ‘A Millennium Poem’ thus:

What have we to do with the millennium,We, who are going to flickerand fade out?

What have we to do with the spool of time,which, like Draupadi’s sari,unwinds, unwinds and unwinds?

Doomsdayers everywhere, and thugs.Hallucinationsand oracles abound.

Why must we find ourselvesin a season of prophecieswith no prophets around? (Collected Poems 342-43)

No doubt, his satire and irony bite but this biting is a boon in disguise. Hemakes the people morally conscious so that they may transform themselvesinto good citizens and tread the path of peace and prosperity. What he says inthe poem ‘To a Palestinian Poet’ is applicable to the people of all nations.

Let’s have less of blood,both in poetry and on the ground.Let peace descend on you and your neigbouring people. (CollectedPoems 23)



Arun Balkrishan Kolatkar (1932-2004), the poet of Jejuri appears in anew avatar in Kala Ghoda Poems. He emerges as the champion of theunderdog. Inbuilt irony, satire, imagery, objectivity, etc., are some significantliterary devices that he has employed in depicting how the street people leada life of alienation, frustration and despair in the metro cities like Bombay,now Mumbai. He has made ugliness visible to the point of beauty with hisgraphic vision. He makes Meera, the sweeper dance in the bin with herbroomstick. What the lute is to Krishna, the broomstick is to Meera.

When it is fullnearly to the brimshe climbs to the top

and begins to dancewithin the narrow compassof the wicker bin

like a Meera before her Lord,a Meerawith a broomstick for a lute. (Collected Poems 87)

Niranjan Mohanty (1953-2008) is, indeed, a great poetic pilgrim whobegan his journey as an outsider and ended as an insider. He is basically apoet of love. He simplifies the philosophy of love thus:

The beating and throbbing heartknows only, that the unspeakabletale of an in-within-ness is love. (Tiger and Other Poems 78)

He is also conscious of the contemporary reality. The poem ‘Kalahandi’presents the mental state of a woman, who lives with the granddaughter.Her son committed suicide due to hunger caused by famine. She cannotsee the granddaughter being hungry and, hence, requests the protagonist:

Tonight, you stay here. Don’t feed me.for, I’m a ripe mango sure to fall soonGive that girl some food. The road lies openfor her. Touch her tenderly. Sleep with herif you like, take her. Never permit herto be stung once again by hunger. (A House of Rains 30-31)



He surprises the reader by his scholarship and the poetic sensibility. Heweaves his thoughts and feelings with metaphors like ‘tiger’, ‘rain’,‘home’, ‘stone’, etc., to make his poetic texture rich and meaningful. Hecolours it with imagery, tonal variations and rhythms. “Merely to behuman” becomes “the theme song” (A House of Rains 90) of his life and sois of his poetry.

Jeet Thayil (b. 1959) got the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2012 for TheseErrors are Correct (2008) which reveals his intermixing of history withpoetry and his experiment with the fusion of styles. He seems to bepostmodern in his approach. He attempts to fill the gap with belongingnessthough the way he follows demonstrates his eccentric nature. Here is anexcerpt from his poem ‘Superpower’, taken from These Errors areCorrect.

You need a mind of sky, of rubber,to understand I. You needsilence, cunning. Exhale!You need to know that everything is metaphor,that poems sproutin my handslike mystic confetti, likeneural string theory.….and though I’m not rich it takes a lotof cash to keep mein the poverty to which I’m accustomed. (‘Superpower’, These Errorsare Correct)

Adil Jussawalla (b. 1940), after a long gap of 34 years (Missing Personin 1976) appeared in 2011 with Trying to Say Goodbye and won theSahitya Akademi Award in 2014. He is a poet who speaks candidly andfearlessly and while doing so he becomes somewhat melancholic inexpression. In Trying to Say Goodbye, he speaks of the common man aswell as the particular people including poets and artists. Even the lifelessobjects like radio, wood, marble, wristwatch, etc., become alive. GrazianoKratli while reviewing this poetry collection in World Literature Todaywrites: “His versification is tight, controlled, yet eloquently versatile andfluid. Trying to Say Goodbye reasserts Jussawalla’s stature as one of the



great English-language poets of his generation—and ours.” The twoexcerpts from the poems ‘House’ and ‘Snakeskin’, taken from Trying toSay Goodbye prove Jussawalla’s deep poetic voice in a controlled idiom.

Learn balance, with nothing to stand on.Though you’ve lost heart, lost ground.Go restless, homeless, but balance. (Trying to Say Goodbye 5)……I saw neither snakeskin nor snake.I lived in the forest for years.Forty years onwith the forest gone,my sight’s improved.There’s little to do but trywith the little I seeto make something new. (Trying to Say Goodbye 78)

Bibhu Padhi (b. 1951) is an inward-looking poet who searches for thecultural and interpersonal realities of life in the memory lanes. He is lost in“the dark forgetfulness of the past”, remembers “the remembrances of thepresent” and foresees “the future’s death—smelling/ homes of fantasies”(Games the Heart Must Play 53). He is a poet of feelings. He fusesfeelings with his thoughts. He takes the reader into the depth so profoundlythat he is lost in darkness and reaches the unoccupied spaces of memory.Today he realizes “distances matter and must be/ taken care of” (Gamesthe Heart Must Play 87). Distance has made him wait and while waiting,he recalls dream children to his memory.

On all these nightsI’ve been waiting for you,as if waiting was endlessbut somehow was true.And then, you might arrive,shrouded in stories and historylike a dark shadow from the pastlingering over my dreams—my dreams of you. (Games the Heart Must Play 21)



R.C. Shukla (b. 1943) is a significant poet of the new millennium. Godgifted traits of keen observation and catholicity of vision make him see theinvisible thing and decipher the un-deciphered pages. His poetry mirrorslife in varied forms. Despite the fact that death is inevitable, he celebrateslife.

Death is always close to meand yet I celebrate lifelife that dupes and disdainshow shall this end? (Ponderings I 43)

No doubt, he celebrates life, he always thinks of an end of this traffic fromthis world to the other world. Man takes birth, suffers, dies and, then, againtakes birth. The cycle continues. The poet interrogates this show of arrivaland departure and its relevance when he utters:

Let me understandlet some Janaksome Ashtavakrasome Krishnaor some Vivekanand comeand explain to mewhat is the sense inmy coming here again and again?Is this coming and goingand then coming againnot a part of the show? (Ponderings I 20)

Charu Sheel Singh (b. 1955) is a serious poet who makes the readerserious through his poems which reveal his love for Indian culture andIndianness. His poetry is a spiritual yoga in the tradition of Aurobindo—the tradition that leads to the path of self-discovery. Here are the twoexcerpts which demonstrate his poetic skill and scholarship.

Life is a littlepassword in chemicalchessboards that blackenand whitewash fablesof identity in asoup of inertia. (‘Terracotta Flames’, Collected Poems 224)



……..Rise O mortalsbeyond your coffinselves to inauguratetomorrows of love.Let the sea-shells singchoral hymns likethe eternal dove. (‘Terracotta Flames’, Collected Poems 228)

Gopikrishnan Kottoor (b. 1956) is a poet of love and feelings. InVrindavan (2012), he follows the Bhakti tradition and becomes a modernRadha in singing the song of devotion and love in praise of Krishna. Bysinging the songs of love through Krishna and Radha, he appears to be asignificant poet of love in the tradition of the Bhakti poets in the domain ofIndian Poetry in English. He makes Krishna confess that he is inconstantwhile Radha is constant.

Radhae,You sayI am inconstant.Yes, Radhae,You are constant.Inconstant,Ialwaysam,revolvingaround you. (Vrindavan 118)

D.C. Chambial (b. 1950) is a poet of love, life and Nature. Hour ofAntipathy (2014) is his ninth poetry collection. It records his journey as apoet. With the wings of memory and dream, he soars high in the sky andwatches the landscapes, dotted with cacti and lilies which offer him a peepinto the roots (of blood). These roots create a storm within him so violentlythat he feels anger to the extent that he calls the present hour—the hour ofantipathy. Ultimately, he seeks peace within and offers his vision—thevision of Heaven that will rise “out of Hell/ On this bloody Earth” onlywhen the people “sacrifice/ the devils of/ ego, desire, greed.” He alsopaints the scene of corruption though he doubts its end despite the sincere



attempts of Anna Hazare. He longs for the victory of Anna Hazare, whowages a war against corruption. But he doubts whether the corrupt menwill leave corruption.

StormWithin and without.

People rejoiceHis victory.

Will the ratsStop to nibble.

Running blindlyIn labyrinth. (Hour of Antipathy 19)

What one feels in Hour of Antipathy is the passivity of the imaginativefairy. The fairy is lost somewhere in the well of memory. The poems in thiscollection are the flowers—the flowers that have come out of his fancyrather than imagination.

R.K. Singh (b. 1950) is a poet of love and sex. What makes his poetrystriking is its unique way of opening the doors of imagination. The scenesor pictures he creates offer multiple interpretations. He is an artist whopaints the painting with visual words that have the unusual charm toprovide the pleasures to the readers who interpret according to theirwhims.

Before the foamywater could sting her vulvaa jelly fish passedthrough the crotch making her shythe sea whispered a new song (The River Returns 6)

For C.L. Khatri (b. 1965), poetry is not simply poetry but a means offighting against the erosion of cultural roots and values. He writes with amission—the mission of restoring Indian values which the Indian peoplehave lost somewhere in the blind race for globalization in the field ofmaterialism. Two-Minute Silence (2014) is his third poetry collection,which attempts to awaken the people’s consciousness towards the culturalroots and a meaningful life with human values.



Let’s observe two-minute silenceOn the shrinking space, shrinking sunStinking water of the sacred riversSleeping birds, falling leavesWatermelon being sliced for quarreling cousins.

Someone whispered in my earCan’t we do with one minute…?

(‘Two-Minute Silence’ from Two-Minute Silence 67-68)Vihang A. Naik’s (b. 1969) poetry is very communicative. It

communicates what the poet feels and experiences. His intuition overpowershis reasoning faculty and stirs him to the depth of creation. What strikes inhis poetry is the way of life that he not only enjoys himself but makes thereader feel it also. Here is an excerpt which reveals the poet’s longing forthe love in the age of science and technology:

LOVEIs there a softwarefor love or a command?Tell mecan love beprogrammed? (Poetry Manifesto 11)

Going through his poetry offers a new experience to the reader who enjoysthe aesthetic feast along with some reflections that he reflects over theideas expressed in short melodic lines.

Saroj K. Padhi (b. 1962) has registered his remarkable presence withhis poetry collections, namely, Pearls of Dew (2014), Shattered I Sing(2014), Rhyming Ripples (2015) and Petals in Prayers (2015) whichreveal his relationship with Nature, soil, human beings and, above all, life.His poems bubble with the Orissan landscape, ethos and sensibility, whichbecome universal in nature. He offers a vision of life with all its physical,mystical, romantic and human ingredients. He sings the song of love andoffers its essence thus:

love is a forgetfulness of selfin prayer to God in silencewhen all conflicts about possessionmelt into nothingness, its essence. (Shattered I Sing 61)



While praising Saroj Padhi, Dr. Satish Kumar writes: “Saroj inherits thehoary cultural, religious and literary traditions of Orissa…. He is one of thetallest Indian English poets and in future, I am sure, the fragrance of hispoetry would emit in all corners of the world and he would have a privilegedplace in the comity of the world poets” (Foreword, Petals in Prayer).

With Again (2010) and Stuck on 1/Forty (2012), Pritish Nandy(b. 1951) returns to poetry but fails to impress the readers. Whether it isform, typography or anything, he is known for his experiments with verse.He is candid in expression and his short poems reveal his postmodern wayof thinking. Here are the two excerpts from Again which reveal Nandy’spostmodern attitude:

Iamfuckedmy lord.Friends are dying all around meSome, old and tiredOthers, bored. (Again 1)…..God lies. (So do we all.)But we do not claim divinity.Love is good enoughan excuse.

to escape the boredomof living in Hell.So give me old-fashioned lust instead.Give me vanity and pain,the profanity of living in sin again and againOr (if you deny me what I want)give me the rain (Again 4)

Syed Ali Hamid’s (b. 1954) The Ontology of Desire New and SelectedPoems (2015) which includes No Man’s Land (2003) and Desire, Ultimately(2013) reveals him a poet of desire and intuition. He is spontaneous andfresh. Artificiality fails to touch him. His poems flow like the water of theriver Ganga—pure and mysterious. Urdu orientation enters his poems. He



succeeds in creating an innovative idiom, which becomes the fusion ofUrdu and English in form and Hindustani or Indian in contents. Here arethe two excerpts to prove his poetic skill.

In the dark regions of the minddesire takes birthlike a rainbowpiercing a grey cloudand once perceivedis nourishedsometimes flirted withbeneath the indulgent veneerof respectability. (‘Desire’, The Ontology of Desire 139)…..And, of course, I remember youthe momentI forget you. (‘I Remember You’, The Ontology of Desire 142)

T. Sai Chandra Mouli (b. 1947) whose pen name is Sony Dalia is apromising poet. His poetry collections Delightful Dawn (2012), GracefulGreen (2012) and Hopping on Hope (2015) reveal his poetic heart thatpossesses a deep love for Nature and concern for a peaceful life. Here arethe two excerpts which demonstrate his poetic talent as well as his love forNature.

Sun-kissed breeze caressesunveiling rainbow color dreams,unmolested silence quietly echoessoft strains of bygone eras. (‘Dawn’, Delightful Dawn 1)…….Monsoon showers refresh spiritparched land opens up in hopedrops of rain reach or notpleasure lies in anticipation (‘Monsoon Showers’, Graceful Green 9)

Jaydeep Sarangi (b. 1973), a rising voice speaks his heart whichoverflows with love and kindness. He blends his Bengali idiom with theEnglish idiom so well that it seems to be global. He speaks what comes tohim naturally and expresses in a brief and aphoristic way without caring



for the form or design. He flows, rather his soul flows. Here is an excerptwhich reveals his concern for the poor.

Madan paddles his fateMoves fast.

Disturbs the comfortableAnd comforts the disturbed.Hits back with words. (The Wall and Other Poems 59)

(VI)The women poets are not inferior to their male counterparts. With thepassage of time, they have created their own idiom which reveals theirmiserable plight, pain, suffering, trauma, beauty, love and, above all, life.Here are a few instances to prove the poetic skill of Indian women poets.

Sujata Bhatt (b. 1956) is a poet who copes with life in a colourful waywhile painting its different dimensions, particularly the erotic ones. Herrecent collection A Colour for Solitude offers poems about paintings andpainters. She asks for “a better colour/ for solitude.” She uses the brush ofher words and takes the colour for images in order to create a magic inpainting. Here is an excerpt which demonstrates the art of her paintingwith words and images.

a muddy river—and then you enterwith a sharp knifeto carve out the light.To find light beneath salt, brine—to find your first pale coloursswallowed by muddy paint. (A Colour for Solitude 33)

How beautifully she creates a painting while using citrus fruits as symbolsfor creating erotic feelings!

Look at the lemon in my left handright between my breastsLook at the orange in my right handheld further downa bit below my waist (A Colour for Solitude 70)



Meena Alexander (b. 1951) is a poet who is on a quest and for this questshe wanders in the memory lane and attempts to trace out the roots of heridentity. She joins the fragments in order to fuse her experiences which sheexperienced in the past. The metaphor of river suits her as she also passesthrough many hurdles while focusing her final goal. Here is an excerptfrom her poem ‘Cosmopolitan’, taken from her poetry collection QuicklyChanging River.

Odd questions massed in me.Who knows my name or where my skin was torn?If I could would I return to Kashi?And might the queen of triumph intercede for me? (Quickly ChangingRiver 4)

Imitiaz Dharker (b. 1954) celebrates life in transition. She composespoems of joys and sorrows. She voices the feelings which a woman wishesto hide. She gives voices to her concerns while passing through the lanesof uncertainties in Terrorist at My Table. Here is an excerpt which revealsDharker’s poetic art.

I slice sentence to turn them intoonions. On this chopping board, theyseem more organisedas if with a little effortI could beginto understand their sharp. (Terrorist at My Table 22)

Mani Rao (b. 1965) is a poet who believes in experiments—experimentsin form and content. Her poems seem to be prose pieces to the eyes butthey are poems in true sense as they touch the very core of the heart. ForJeet Thayil, Mani Rao’s poems look like prose on the page, in the mouththey feel like poetry.” Sex and god find place in her poetry. Here is anexcerpt from her poetry collection Echolocation.

You know a language well if it does things you don’t have controlover. Bring me the words without meanings, words all meanings haveabandoned, sentenced to meaninglessness. (Echolocation)

Meena Kandasamy (b. 1984) writes to have a parallel line with heridentity. She writes for the dalits—the unvoiced and pens their pains. Hereis an excerpt from her poem ‘Becoming a Brahmin’ which offers a formulato convert a shudra into a Brahmin.



Step 1: Take a beautiful Sudra girlStep 2: Make her marry a BrahminStep 3: Let her give birth to his female childStep 4: Let this child marry a BrahminStep 5: Repeat steps 3-4 six timesStep 6: Display the end product. It is a Brahmin. (Touch 42)

Arundhathi Subramaniam (b. 1973) is a Mumbai-based poet who hasemerged as an individual powerful voice in Indian Poetry in English. Shecomposes poems which reflect life and her devotion. For Bruce King, sheis becoming a major poet. Here is an excerpt from her poem ‘Reface’,taken from her poetry collection When God is a Traveller.

Do I want another face?Sometimes I do?A face no longer disfiguredby need. A face you can turninside out like a socknever knowing the differencebetween surface and interior,soft as old wool, implacableas peace, the fibres accustomedto concavityto disuse. Accustomedto my absence. (‘Reface’, When God is a Traveller)

Asha Viswas (b. 1946) is a poet who is guided by her inner convictionsand gives flow to her poems which demonstrate her aesthetic sense. Shedoes not believe in any propaganda. Her brief lyrical poems flow withfeelings while offering image after image. Here is an excerpt from herpoem ‘Displaced Desire’, taken from her poetry collection The RainbowCave and Other Poems.

Ego, pendulum like,moves between the earth and the skyan absurd theatre of human life. (The Rainbow Cave and OtherPoems 29)

(VII)This tour reveals that Indian poetry in the new millennium is experimentalin forms and contents. It presents the contemporary landscapes, ethos and



identity. Poems of male poets like Hoshang Merchant, Makrand Paranjape,P.C.K. Prem, Raghu Kul Bhushun, Susheel Kumar Sharma and SunilSharma and women poets like Sukrita Paul Kumar, Shanta Acharya,Sanjukta Das Gupta, Menka Shivdasani, Archna Sahni and Nandini Sahuhave created an interest in the hearts of the poetry lovers. Hence, the futureof Indian Poetry in English is bright. Poetry will continue to inspire poetswho will make a flow of poems from their pens. As long as there arehuman beings, poetry will be penned. What though poetry does not pay! Itwill be written, loved and read for its therapeutic values.

Alexander, Meena. Quickly Changing River: Poems. Evanston, Illinois:Triquarterly Books, 2008. Print.

Bhatt, Sujata. A Colour for Solitude. Manchester: Carcanet Press, 2002. Print.Dharker, Imtiaz. Terrorist at My Table. Great Britain: Bloodaxe Books Limited,

2006; New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2007. Print.Chambial, D.C. Hour of Antipathy. Maranda: Poetcrit Publications, 2014. Print.Daruwalla, Keki N. Collected Poems 1970-2005. New Delhi: Penguin, 2006.Hamid, S.A. The Ontology of Desire. New Delhi: Authorspress, 2015. Print.Jussawalla, Adil. Trying to Say Goodbye: Poems. Mumbai: Almost Island Books,

2011.Kalam, A.P.J. Abdul. The Life Tree: Poems. New Delhi: Penguin-Viking, 2005.

Print.Kandasamy, Mina. Touch. Mumbai: Peacock Books, 2006. Print.Khatri, C.L. Two-Minute Silence. New Delhi: Authorspress, 2014. Print.Kolatkar, Arun. Collected Poems in English. Ed. Arvind Krishna Mehrotra.

Great Britain (Glasgow, Scotland): Bloodaxe Books Ltd., 2010. Print.Kottoor, Gopi Krishnan. The Coloured Yolk of Love Vrindavan. New Delhi:

Authorspress, 2012. Print.Kratli, Graziano. “Rev. Trying to Say Goodbye.” World Literature Today (March

2013).Kumar, Satish. “A.P.J. Kalam’s The Life Tree: An Appraisal.” Poetcrit 26.2

(July 2003): 45-49. Print.Kumar, Shiv K. Where Have the Dead Gone? and Other Poems . New Delhi:

Authorspress, 2014.Mahapatra, Jayanta. Land. New Delhi: Authorspress, 2013. Print.



Mohanty, Niranjan. A House of Rains. Kolkata: Cambridge, 2008. Print.——. Tiger and Other Poems. New Delhi: Sarup and Sons, 2008. Print.Mouli, T. Sai Chandra (Sony Dalia). Delightful Dawn. Gurgaon: Prasoon, 2011.

Print.——. Graceful Green. Gurgaon: Prasoon, 2012. Print.Naik, Vihang A. Poetry Manifesto (New & Selected Poems). New Delhi: Indialog

Publications Pvt. Ltd., 2010. Print.Nandy, Pritish. Again. New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 2010. Print.Padhi, Bibhu. Games the Heart Must Play, Bhubaneswar: Pen and Ink, 2003.

Print.Padhi, Saroj K. Shattered I Sing. New Delhi: Authorspress, 2014. Print.——. Petals in Prayer. New Delhi: Authorspress, 2015. Print.Rao, Mani. Echolocation. Hong Kong: Chameleon Press, 2003. Print.Sarangi, Jaydeep. The Wall and Other Poems. Allahabad: Cyberwit.net, 2015.

Print.Singh, Charu Sheel. Collected Poems 1975-2003. New Delhi: Adhyayan, 2008.

Print.Singh, R.K. The River Returns. Bareilly: Prakash Book Depot, 2006. Print.Shukla, R.C. Ponderings I. New Delhi: Adhyayan, 2010. Print.Subramaniam, Arundhathi. When God is a Traveller. New Delhi: HarperCollins,

2014. Print.Thayil, Jeet. These Errors Are Correct. Westland: Tranquebar Press, 2008.

Print.Viswas, Asha. The Rainbow Cave and Other Poems. Kolkata: Bridge-in-Making

Publications, 2011. Print.

ENGLISH has become the global lingua franca. The ability to effectivelycommunicate in English is thus considered a skill that enables individualsto deal with the demands and challenges of everyday life in a globalizedworld. However, English has been an integral part of the education andsocial fabric of India long before it attained the status of being aninternational language. Like it or not, the language has become inextricablyinterwoven with the cultural texture of the land and cannot be ignored ortaken lightly.

Considered to be the language of the elite, English has long transcendedthe barriers of class, to merge with the masses. Today not even singlesentence of Hindi or any other regional language is possible without theinclusion of a word or two of English. Being a multi-linguistic nation, wedid have a healthy and varied appetite of languages, and English served tobe the cherry on the icing.

Eulogies for the language can take an eternity to accomplish and sodoes its criticism. Yet an important thing that cannot be ignored is—“loveit or hate it, yet you cannot live without it”. Integrated in our educationsystem from the primary level and extended till our graduation, the Englishclassroom has been plagued by a plethora of problems. Lack of trainedteachers to a general attitude of apathy towards the subject has led it tobecome one of the most vulnerable aspects of our education system.

Though everyone has woken up to the fact that communicativecompetency in English is a must for all students to ensure employability,yet little has been done to upgrade its present status. A lot of hullabaloo hasbeen raised on the issue; methodologies designed, seminars and workshops


49


Revitalizing the English Classroom: Are We Ready for the Change?

held, yet the ground realities remain mostly unaffected and unreformed.Except for a handful of institutions and organizations working in the field,little has changed on the whole. Most of the students passing out fromgovernment run schools or private institutions of dubious reputation do noteven have the basic knowledge of English after having studied thelanguage as a subject for the last seven to ten years. At the college levelobsolete syllabus fails to hold the interest of the students with theiruninteresting and irrelevant course content. Hesitation and inhibitions instudents further deteriorate the situation.

Educationists define education as an experience involving both studentand teacher; an experience that remains unrealized in the present form ofclassroom. The teacher is the sole source of knowledge in the traditionalsetup and remains out of reach of the student; positioned at the frontusually behind a desk/podium; and the experience gets divided intoteaching and learning. Ineffective teacher-student interaction and theresultant gap mar the experience from becoming a fruitful one. An entiresystem seems to have gone awry somewhere, owing to its inability toevolve and grow with the times.

Our entire school [university] system, like our over-organized economy,politics, and standard of living, is largely a trap; it is not designed for themaximum growth and future practical utility of the children into achanging world, that they too will hopefully improve, but is a kind of ineptsocial engineering to mold, and weed out, for short-range extrinsic needs.And even when it is more benevolent, it is in the bureaucratic death-grip,from the universities and the boards of education down, of a uniformity ofconception and method that cannot possibly suit the multitude of dispositionsand conditions. (http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-faculty/schaffner/teaching/fall2010/505/readings/Deemer.Happening.pdf)

The English classroom has become dead and obsolete in the presentcontext. The need of the hour for the sake of our students and their futureis to infuse new life into it: to revitalize the English classroom. Shortcutsare hardly available or applicable. Sorry to say but there is no “Revital” pillto regenerate energy into the English classroom. The responsibility liessquarely on the shoulders of each and every person involved with theEnglish classroom—right from the content builders and developers to thetrainers and teachers imparting that content to the students. Educationalinstitutions should also take up the responsibility to put more emphasis on



the development of language skills of the students, and should provide therequired infrastructure to modernize the classroom with technological aids.

School administration and government education department shouldappoint academic experts to advise them on creating learner orientedlanguage classrooms. It has to be acknowledged by the management that alanguage classroom is unlike classrooms of other subjects. It needs to havespace for the learner to create, play, comprehend and apply. It is a creativesubject where the student can explore and learn in the process. Apart fromcontent building and the process of teaching, efforts should be made tobring in a change in the construction and designing of the classrooms.

As a teacher when we are aware of the problems and understand them,then we also need the skills that would allow us to do something aboutthose problems. As teachers, administrators, and researchers who areconcerned about learners, we must also be the driving force for thispositive change. Continuous professional development must be madecompulsory for the teachers so as to keep them updated with new teachingpractices and aids. A great responsibility lies not only with the administration/management but also with the teacher who at the end is actually going toapply those methodologies in practice.

Teachers should not rely on outsiders to change the minds of reluctantor disbelieving colleagues, principals, parents, politicians, or anyone else.What is needed is education, and it is teachers themselves who must be theeducators. Teachers are—or should be—the experts. They should notexpect others to be better qualified and more authoritative in changing theteaching world for them. Even if others live up to this heavy expectation,which I think is improbable; it will serve only to underline how ineffectualteachers can be (Smith, F. 1986: 246).

Breaking out of the mould they have to break free of the conventionalroles and practices. In the past, teaching styles were very teacher-centered.Arguably, the traditional purpose of English Education was only to passthe examinations. The emphasis to learn English was on grammar, reading,and writing skills. Students practiced a lot of drills and repetitions so thatthey could get accustomed to grammar. Speaking was and is still the mostneglected aspect in our present language education. In fact even listeninghardly ever occurs with teachers resorting to the overuse or complete useof the native tongue instead of using English. In order for English languageeducation to become revitalized, it is essential to reframe the activity of



language use and teaching in the classrooms as well as the coursecurriculum.

The purpose of education is to help students develop their own identityand faculties. The prime role of the education system either in school orcollege is to motivate students to learn. Language teachers have theresponsibility to teach the English language, and also foster students’ selfand cultural awareness through well-balanced teaching. English as alanguage is no longer a compulsory subject to be taught and learnt in orderto pass examinations alone; it is the pre-requisite to higher education andbetter life opportunities. Students need to acquire good communicativeskills as well as a better sense of the self in relation to the world. This canonly happen when the students feel familiar and confident in the classroom,and can be vocal about their views, ideas and experiences.

The creation of a favourable atmosphere in the classroom is theforemost step towards revitalizing the English classroom. The approachhas to be learner-centred and the role of the teacher should be that of thefacilitator. Students are not be lectured but guided through the learningprocess, giving them the opportunity to think, analyze, comprehend andutilize the knowledge. Spoon feeding hampers this growth of intellect.

A learner centred classroom places more responsibility in the hands ofthe students to manage their own learning, while teachers take on the roleof facilitators of knowledge to help learners learn rather than being theprime source of knowledge. Learner centered approach is beneficial in thegrowth of the student as they show a high degree of motivation: havingself-confidence; demonstrating an awareness of learning needs and of theirrole; being strategic and enthusiastic in learning; being curious andcreative in thinking; and holding democratic, open-minded, and criticalattitudes.

A major area of concern especially in Higher Education is the remodelingof the English language syllabus currently in use in the colleges (in contextof Chhattisgarh). Times have changed and so have the needs. Today it isvery essential that the student should acquire good communicative skills inthe language. The present syllabus hardly caters to this demand.

Innovation is the key for revitalization. The teacher should think out ofthe box. When burdened down by a vast syllabus, creativity needs to beused to transform the syllabus into an interesting one. Activities andprojects assigned around the given topics will make them interesting forthe learners to work it out in practice and learn in the process. Creativity



and novelty can go a long way in reviving the English classroom. Colourscan be used to create posters or collages as a part of the learning process.Instead of imparting knowledge through the lecture method, hands onapproach can be undertaken through art projects that will help in theacquisition of language skills of LSRW.

Djalal Tebib writes about ‘al fresco writing’ in his article. The activityconducted in a relaxed and free atmosphere in the university gardenproduced some very good essays on a variety of topics. The learners wereself motivated as they found it interesting; and it was a collaborative effortwith students helping out each other with words and ideas. The activityprovided a wonderful opportunity to develop writing skill. It also helpeddevelop an important soft skill of cooperation and team work, giving themample opportunity to practice the first three skills too.

Imagination is an important element in this process of revitalization. Itis through imagination that we have improvise and utilize ‘what is’ into‘what it ought to be’. A poem on “Tree” for instance can be used to createa group project on environment that can include making of posters orplantation or even the formation of a nature club. Students will acquiremore language skills from such activities than from a mere rendition andexplanation of the poem in the class.

The ICTs have become a crucial element in ELT both within theclassroom and, more importantly, outside the classroom, where theyprovide the necessary tools and give full sense to the idea of learnerautonomy. The ICTs provide the learner not only with an unlimited numberof learning materials that suit every learning style and specific need, butalso with the instruments to organize and plan their learning.

Inclusion of technology will undoubtedly provide the much neededimpetus to revitalize the English classroom. Teachers should be wellversed in the use of technology and have a creative bent of mind toimprovise and adapt it to suit the specific needs of their students. Audio-visual media and internet have a big role to play in this context. But whatare required are a flexible and innovative approach; and the attitude to putin a little extra. A teacher has to be attuned to the needs of the learners.

Use of technology in the English language classroom not only improvesthe teaching process but also changes the very nature of instruction.However teacher educators, as well as students, need to be criticalconsumers of technology: be judicious users who question and reflect onthe best ways to integrate technology in the learning process. Possibilities



abound for the integration of technological opportunities that relate toEnglish language teaching. Students can create web sites, participate inonline discussions in real-time chat rooms and videoconferences, createtexts, add graphics and pictures, determine appropriate formats, revise andedit. The use of technology and the ways it can enrich the Englishclassroom is immense.

An excuse that is often heard is the lack of infrastructure and support inremote and rural areas. For technology to work, some infrastructuralpreliminaries have to be fulfilled. However there are enough improvisationsthat can be done to include technology or to hold the interest of thestudents. Mobile phones can be utilized for the purpose very effectively. Ifmobile internet is accessible in the area, the possibilities and scope of thisteaching aid can be greatly extended.

Internet accessibility provides a vast number of learning opportunitiesthat liberates the English classroom from its monotonous and limitedatmosphere. Various technological aids that can be employed effectively inthe learning process include podcasts, blogs, social networks, mobilemessaging applications, etc.

Students can develop their writing skills through blogs. With the help ofblogs students can comment online and also on other student’s blogs. Theteacher can also involve in blogging by adding his/her comments. Studentscan be encouraged to write regularly, which will also help them in sharingtheir ideas and experiences. Learners can be encouraged to create poetryblogs, fiction blogs, etc. Blogs will give them the space to interact freelyand become self motivated thereby improving their communication skills.Blogs can be used to post assignments and guidelines and discuss.

Podcasts are helpful in developing the reading and speaking skills ofstudents. A podcast enables a student to hear his/her voice as the voice willbe recorded and posted on the website. Podcast can be created on a varietyof topics like storytelling or recitation of a poem or reading a passage,interviews, lectures, etc. The learner can learn at his own time and pace bylistening to the podcasts.

Website can also be created to form a community of learners that willenable teachers and learners to communicate. Student projects orassignments can be presented on the site, lectures uploaded and resourcesshared. E-materials and reference material can be provided for the benefitof the learners.



Social network sites like Google or Yahoo also enables groups to beformed that can be effectively employed by the learners and teachers tostay in touch and communicate, discuss and post information and ideas.Email or chats can be used to interact thereby creating a virtual classroomon the move, and beyond the bounds of the classroom.

Technology is an important helping tool for continued learning. Learnerscan be easily motivated to use the various technological aids after a littletraining. The role of the teacher also extends to become a guide and afacilitator who shows the path to the students to acquire knowledge anduse them in practice.

Even when infrastructural shortages makes it difficult for technology tobe used in the classroom a little innovation and creativity can go a longway to utilize the available resources and infuse new life and energy intothem. CD players and computers can be used to play audio for listeningactivities or to listen to recorded speech of the learners. Weekly tweets canbe employed in the classroom with the help of board, paper and pens whenthere is no internet facility. A message tree can be used for a similarpurpose whereon the learners can post their short message, idea orinformation. Weekly topics can be assigned to the class and tweets invitedfrom them.

An old but effective tool to reach out to the students and engage themactively in the learning process is through storytelling or playing roles.Both of these activities can be employed in an engaging session ofstorytelling with pictures, sounds and movements incorporated into it.Learners can then play the role of the characters from the story. They canalso recreate the story or take the story forward as a part of the creativewriting activity.

Language learning theory has seen a gradual move towards a moreholistic view of language use. The integration of storytelling into thelanguage arts curriculum could lead to an improvement of generallanguage proficiency in listening comprehension, speaking, reading, andwriting. Teachers should integrate storytelling into their teaching. After astory has been enjoyed and understood, numerous listening, speaking,reading, and writing opportunities can emerge. Prior to, during, and aftertelling the stories, the students were involved in a variety of communicativelanguage learning activities that aimed at providing them with ampleopportunities for active participation and enhancing their abilities to usethe four language skills.

ILLUMINATI VOLUM E 6 • 2015-16


If there are problems plaguing the English classroom, there are alsoinnumerable ways through which these problems can be overcome. Whenthe classroom evolves to become learner centred and the learners areactively involved in the learning process as collaborators, it will becomemuch easier to break through their walls of inhibition and fear.

Incorporate interesting and challenging projects into your teachingplans; you never know when a student can surprise you by their work.When students from a language class where asked to prepare a shortproject on one of the topics from their syllabus or a topic of their choicerelated to them, wonderful insights were presented by the students. Thestudents who never went beyond their textbooks had to search for theirmaterials from other sources as the guidelines provided for the projectforbid them to use textbook material. Collecting the material, planning andpresenting them in their reports was an activity they found interesting andsome beautiful works emerged from the exercise.

A simple and conventional activity like periodical test or quiz can alsohelp to garner the interest of the learners. Classroom discussions on thetopic to be taught help to make them more vocal and build theirconfidence. Regular and positive interaction is often the key to break thebarriers in communication and engender interest in the class.

Weekly editorial team can be chosen from the class for Class NewsPaper which can be prepared and presented once a week by one of thestudents. The paper can have sections on the subject, creative, social andsimilar topics. The teacher can also contribute a piece. The exercise willhelp build confidence of the learners and develop their writing skills. Bestof the Session edition once a year can be brought out that will include thebest pieces from the regular weekly editions.

It has been often noticed that students don’t take an interest in theproject assigned and participation is poor. Usually this happens when thelearner is unable to relate to the work he/she has to do. Combining classprojects with hands on projects and practical situations will make themmore interesting and challenging for the students. Applicability to real lifesituation renders the work more credible and useful for the learners.

Educationists and academicians have sought to bring in positivechanges in the teaching methodologies. Innovative approaches have beenadopted by various teachers to revitalize and revamp the dull, uninterestingand burdensome English classroom into a new, active and interestinginteractive session between the teacher and student. Lisa Morgan for



instance experimented with yoga to create a “harmonious” Englishclassroom. Based on the TPR (Total Physical Response) approach that wasdeveloped in the 1970s by American Psychology Professor, James Asher,the theory is based on the fact that a learner’s memory is enhanced andaided through association with physical movement. Morgan used yoga thatreduced the initial anxiety and fear that learners encounters in the Englishclassroom. Short sentences and commands related to some simple yogapostures helped her develop her learners’ confidence by breaking theirwalls of hesitation and easing out their discomfort through relaxation.

Who would have thought that yoga could be employed as an aid in anEnglish classroom? The main impetus to harbour a positive change in thecurrent scenario is to feel that positivity within ourselves and then infuse itinto our classroom by breaking out of the box. We can best decide what,when and how to apply in our classroom as we are attuned to the specificsituation. Even a few small changes in our approach and attitude can helptransform the English classroom.

As teachers we also have become the catalysts for change. The systemhas to change too but what is important question is how much and how farwe ourselves are ready for the change?

Morgan, Lisa. English Teaching Forum. No. 4. (2011).Smith, F. Insult to Intelligence: The Bureaucratic Invasion of our Classrooms .

New York: Arbor House, 1986.

JHUMPA Lahiri, who rose to fame with her Interpreter of Maladies(1999), continues with her favourite theme of diaspora, alienation,acceptance and adjustment in her other works too. There is no denying thetruth that the issue of cultural confrontation is developing in a complex andprogressive way in a multi-cultural global world. Her latest work, TheLowland (2013), which had been long listed for the Man Booker Prize2013, echoes with the complexities of immigration and exile in a thirdworld. The novel with its context, inter-text, pretext and subtext covers thecomplex reality of some initial Mao-movement, immigration of a family tothe United States and gradually its cultural assimilation therein. Accordingto James Clifford, “Everywhere individuals and groups improvise localperformances from (re)collected pasts, drawing on foreign media, symbolsand languages”.1 Such attempts of immigrants mostly lead to despair anddissatisfaction.

The present paper endeavours to explore not only the movement of anindividual to United States for his education and his gradual entanglementinto the culture of the country with Bela and Gauri but it also examines thenarrative of a broken family bent on finding some tissues with which thefamily may be reorganized. The novel also deals with the phenomena ofhybridity and cultural dislocation. Further, the paper dives deep into thepsychological realities of Gauri’s existence, seeking reasons for herdisinterestedness in social relationship. An attempt will also be made todiscover the phenomenological reason of Bela’s complete assimilation inAmerican culture.

The Lowland very subtly discusses the plight of an Indian family thatwitnesses the trials and tribulations of all sorts. While the two brothers


58

Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland: A Narrative Pattern of a Broken Family


Subhash and Udayan had a very secluded childhood at Tollygunj, theireducation separates them forever. The elder brother leaves for UnitedStates while the younger Udayan, highly influenced by Naxal movementsdecides to submit himself to the cause of his native land. He refuses hisbrother’s proposal of going to USA and being ‘indifferent to building up acareer’, he tells Subhash: “How can you walk away from what’s happening?There, of all places?”2 (30). As time moves, Udayan gets closer to Gauri,the sister of his friend and later marries her. It was Gauri’s love forindigenous things and traditional practices that Udayan gets attracted to.Unaffected by the waves of changes that most girls of her age often nourishan infatuation, Gauri is mostly afraid to go out with her fiancé and evenavoids going to the movies with him. The novelist draws Gauri’s simplicityand cultural hiccups in the following lines: “It was one thing to fall intoconversations with him on the portico, or at the Coffee House or to walkover to the College Square to watch the swimmers in the pool. They hadnot yet stayed from that immediate neighbourhood, where they weresimply fellow students, where it was always unreasonable for them to be”(TL, 60).

The novel shows the first break-up in the form of two brothersseparating because of their different goals. Subhash’s academic pursuitsprompt him to apply for Ph.D programs in the U.S. while Udayan confineshimself to the happenings in his country. Despite Udayan’s realization ofhis being ‘nothing’ without Subhash, the latter’s action appears selfish toUdayan. Initially, Subhash feels isolated and seems to gather strengththrough recollections of his native land—its pulls steeped in his brother’sletters which also smack of revolutionary approaches. The concluding lineof his brother’s letters unsettles Subhash who foresees the immanent fearsthat would distance them in the times to come. Lahiri records: “He felttheir loyalty to one another, their affection stretched half-way across theworld. Stretched to the breaking point by all that now stood between them,but at the same time refusing to break” (43). Subhash feels ill at ease atRhode Island in the beginning but he learns to leave without the familiarvoices of his family members. Eager to know about the happenings inCalcutta, he relies on letters yet feels helpless, unable to fulfil his parents’wishes of not disregarding them as Udayan did. He consoles them byoffering reassurances but becomes a part of the impending web ofglobalization where cutting off from inmates and ignoring them become anintegrated affair.



Gauri, a student of philosophy, gets won over by the innovative andoriginal ideas of Udayan who preferred simplicity and idealism overeverything. Buoyed by the thought of Marx and Rousseau whose booksUdayan had given her to read, Gauri eloped with him and married. Buttheir marriage could not last longer because of Udayan’s rebelliousescapades and explosive views. As ill luck would have it, this marriageproved only a medium to nurture Udayan’s Naxal views which finallydevastated Gauri and her in-laws. Udayan got killed in the broad daylightat the hands of the police for his complicity in a murderous act of apoliceman. Gauri became a widow in the prime of her life. She became abad omen for the family members who held her responsible for the tragedy.Her notion of independence abruptly got stalled and she became an objectof neglect and indifference. Gauri’s existence in her in-laws’ house didn’tmatter to anyone till Subhash, Udayan’s younger brother visited Kolkatta.At an early age of 23, Gauri had to fall in line with other widows who weremeant to dissociate themselves from all sacred ceremonies. Lahiri outlinesGauri’s brokenness in the following: “The vermillion was washed cleanfrom her hair. The iron bangle removed from her wrist. The absence ofthese ornaments marked her as a widow. She was twenty-three years old….She was given white saris to wear in place of coloured ones so that sheresembled the other widows in the family. Women three times her age”(TL, 108-09).

Udayan’s death shatters the entire family. Subhash, who used to receivegifts sent from India every Durga puja gets a telegram during Puja in 1971and is broken to read the lines: Udayan killed. Come back if you can.Driven by the despair, Subhash returns to India and endeavours to knowabout the circumstances that resulted in his brother’s death. The discoverythat his brother was a Naxalite adds to his shock yet his parents’ blind lovetowards Udayan surprises him at times.

On his return to India, Subhash is haunted by the memory of hisbrother. His last meeting with him had created mixed feelings. While itwas quite usual not to find his parents at the airport, what shocked himmore was their indifference even to him. The disorientation of the houseand the depression of his parents fell heavy upon him:

His parents asked no questions about America. Inches away, theyavoided looking Subhash in the eye. He wondered whether his parentswould ask him to remain in Calcutta, to abandon his life in RhodeIsland. But there was no mention of this. Nor was there any mention of



the possibility of their arranging a marriage for him. They were in noposition to plan their wedding, to think about his future. An hour oftenpassed without their speaking. The shared quiet fell over them bindingthem more tightly than any conversation could. (TL, 96)

Subhash is shocked to see Gauri widowed at such a tender age. Gauri isdevoid of all delicacies at 23. As his acquaintance grows with her, he feelssympathetic and starts nursing the idea to take her to U.S to provide herwith the basic requirements. He faces opposition from all quarters yetdecides to give Gauri what his brother failed to provide when he was alive.He was of the view that the American world of larger culture would helpGauri assimilate with the worldly challenges where the helplessnessbehind the rigours of Indian culture go in oblivion and help her begin lifeafresh. The reality that Gauri had Udayan’s child in her womb doesn’tdeter Subhash’s determination to marry her though in a small gathering, atthe cost of several whispers making round. While Subhash married her onhumanitarian grounds, Gauri had her own beliefs since in her isolatedmoments, she felt thankful for ‘his independence and at the same time shewas bewildered’ (126). Lahiri writes: “She had married Subhash as ameans of staying connected to Udayan. But even as she was going throughwith it she knew that it was useless, just as it was useless to save a singleearring when the other half of the pair was lost” (127-28). Gauri foreseesthe ghosts of uncertainty in America where she would be left both withoutUdayan and Manas, making her life an exile in true sense. Her miseriesremind us of the predicament that most immigrants suffer from in a newcountry as well as in a new culture. Edward Said’s observations about exileappear quite apt in this regard:

It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a nativeplace, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness cannever be surmounted. And while it is true that literature and historycontain heroic romantic, glorious, even triumphant episodes in anexile’s life, these are no more than efforts meant to overcome theachievements of exile permanently undermined by the loss of somethingleft behind forever.3

Subhash tries utmost to make Gauri comfortable and therefore tries tomake her familiarize with the surroundings. But he is terrified to seeGauri’s volte face after her return from such a gathering. She feels herselfquite low and finds her status inferior. Finding nothing in common withthe group, she also refrains from the idea of inviting them to their house. In



addition, she destroys her Indian clothes and puts on a new look. Sheseems to get weary of her past and hence tries to rinse it. The phantoms ofpast and the meadows of future play hide and seek in her life. Her age aswell as her bodily demands seems to shake her from within. Though anexpecting mother, she visualizes her position as a forsaken woman whoseexistence depended only upon the child in her womb. The gap between theexternal and the internal world lacerates her entire being. Her personal lifeand her desire seemed to have an uproar which was unheard by the manwho posed to live with her as husband. They posed as couple yet livedapart under the same roof. The walls of tradition and custom which shewanted to break appeared to chase her as ghosts. She realizes that whileUdayan appreciated her independent moves and thoughts, Subhash distancedhimself from all these though he lived in a far advanced country likeAmerica. Because of his predilection and reverence for his dead brotherand his remains, Subhash feels ill at ease. The novelist throws light on hisconflict and realization in the following: “He had inherited his brother’swife: in summer he would inherit his child. But the need for herphysicality—waking up from the dream, in the apartment in which theywere living both together and separately, he could no longer deny that he’dinherited that also” (TL, 141).

Gauri gives birth to Bela in U.S. People in the surroundings treatSubhash and Gauri as couple yet the latter reassures herself that Belabelonged to Udayan. It is from here that Gauri’s existential journey begins.Philosophy as her subject of study works as a solace to her. Interrogationabout time, people and surroundings drive her to a new world where shetries to assimilate the brokenness of her life into a new form she could call‘a form of sustenance’ (151). The new couple’s relationship being asordinary as anything enables Gauri to ward off the onslaughts of time inher own way. She most often attended philosophy classes in Rhode Islandand developed a sort of nonchalance towards the physical realities of timeand space. The novelist graphically describes the waves of Gauri’s mind inthe following ways: “She saw time; she sought to understand it. She fillednote-books with her questions, observations. Did it exist independently, inthe physical world, or in the mind’s apprehensions? Was it perceived onlyby humans? What caused certain moments to swell up like hours, certainyears to dwindle to a number of days?” (TL, 151).

Gauri’s childhood habit of ‘waking up a staircase in darkness’ and thenher yearning for philosophy started its imprint on her real life the way


ILLUMINATI VOLUM E 6 • 2015-16

things started shaping in her life. The Greek’s concept of future as‘indeterminable’ and Aristotles’s teaching that ‘a man could never say forcertain if there would be a sea battle tomorrow’ (152) comforted Gauri.The continuum of space and time galvanized her existence more thananything else.

If philosophy acted as a soothing balm to the bruises of Gauri’sexistence, idealism and practicality perpetuated Subhash. While Subhash’sexternal reality differed from his internal outbreaks, he seemed to derivesatisfaction in posing himself as Bela’s father. Bela’s childhood joys wereSubhash’s perpetual concerns. In a world divided by space and time,Bela’s growing childhood sutured the gaps in marriage solemnizedbetween Subhash and Gauri. Lahiri records: “The point of their marriagewas Bela, and in spite of the damage Gauri had wrought, in spite ofher new schedule, her coming and going, the fact of Bela remained”(TL, 176).

The wheels of time and fortune kept Gauri and Subhash at bay throughBela—‘a filament’ connected them. The growing child often got unnervedby Gauri’s confinement in a room surrounded by papers and books. Sheunderstood later that her mother’s Study also served as her bedroom. Shealso realized lately that in her shaping, the parents were never together.The child that connected her parents though in a make-believe bond,had her own suffering which was becoming not a part but a whole rather.The novelist records painfully the growing child’s isolation andindependence in the following lines: “There was no one to observewhether she had toast or cereal, whether or not she finished, though shealways did, spooning up the last of the sweetened milk, putting the dirtybowl into the sink, running a little water in it so that it would be easier torinse clean” (TL, 204).

Bela’s curiosity deepens on her visit to her grandparents’ house in India.Her grandmother makes her wonder by pointing to a portrait as that of herfather—a smiling teenager. The child in Bela fails to understand theimplication of burning incense in front of the picture. Subhash laterplacates the puzzle by calling the smiling teenager as his late brother whodied of illness caused by an infection ‘the doctors were unable to cure’(204). He also lies to Bela that he and Gauri couldn’t marry because of thelack of time. Both Subhash and Bela, on their return from India aredismayed at the sudden disappearance of Gauri, who had moved toCalifornia for a teaching assignment. The father calms the daughter by



feigning ignorance about the reason of her mother’s catastrophic decisionyet the growing child is not at ease with the circumstances. Subhash trieshis best to control the situation but in a way fails to fill the void left byGauri. Both Subhash and Bela are affected badly. Bela’s performance atstudies suffers and later improves after several sessions of counselling byDr. Grant. As time passes, Bela graduates to become an agriculturalapprentice working on farms. She also becomes a victim of someone’sphysical contact and gets conceived.

Though Gauri had no contact with Subhash, Bela continued to payvisits to the former, who always longed for her company. He grew fond ofBela and her ideologies which smacked of Udayan at times. A bond whichSubhash had himself forged both with Gauri and Bela, at times, intimidatedhim. While the bond appeared real to the outside world, its frivolous naturefrightened him. Lahiri sketches Subhash’s fears in the following lines:“And yet sometimes he felt threatened, convinced that it was Udayan’sinspirations: that Udayan’s influence was greater. Gauri had left them, andby now Subhash trusted to stay away. But there were times Subhashbelieved that Udayan would come back, claiming Bela from the grave ashis own” (TL, 225).

Gauri’s decision of leaving Rhode Island for California is propelled byher existential anguish resulting from the forces of American dream whereeveryone can vie for a space of one’s own. Broken from within, she had notbeen able to assimilate herself with Subhash who played a quasi-husbandand with Bela who was unaware of her mother’s split identity. Seen fromGauri’s perspective, she was moving towards diasporic identity of peoplewho were “constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew throughtransformation and difference”4 (Hall, 235). Her sudden move to Californiamay appal many of us but her further action of not keeping any ties eitherwith Bela or Subhash provides her more time to build her own identity. It isquite significant to note that Gauri makes up her mind to see Subhash,instead of replying to his letter seeking a divorce. Finally, she decided tofree Subhash to whom she had proved ‘an imposition, an intrusion’ (TL,304). Unfortunately, she met Bela and her child as Subhash was not home.Gauri ruefully receives Bela’s admonitions and admits of her fault but it’stoo late. The meeting between the mother and the daughter is bereft of anycordiality and becomes very tumultuous where Bela’s daughter, Meghnaworks as a comic relief.



Bela inherits the brokenness left by her mother. A protected childhoodin the beginning followed by a disturbed growth later take a heavy toll onher life. A second generation immigrant, Bela decides to give birth to anillicit child, thinking it to be her single source of identity. Subhash’srevelation about Udayan being her father had made Bela empathetic andempowered. She was following Subhash’s model of bringing up afatherless child, ‘an element of life that for different reasons they wouldshare’ (TL, 271). She grew more intimate with Subhash and revered himmore than her mother. Subhash had provided him stability while Gauri hadabandoned her when she needed parental care more.

Thus, a close analysis of The Lowland attests to the fact that brokennessbecomes the fate of all the characters. The novel acts a narrative of abroken family. Starting with the rebellion of Udayan, the novel takes in itsweb the intricate relation between Subhash and Gauri who stand unitedthrough a thin line of relational scale where the one always overweighs theother. Brokenness becomes a part of Subhash’s parents who continued toremain isolated from their sons—one way or the other. It is only Gauri,who, despite several ups and downs, finally emerges from the breakdownand establishes her own identity though at a heavy cost. She loses Udayan,of course, because of cruel fate but chooses to severe her ties with Subhashand Bela only to allow them assimilate with the demands of a diasporic andglobal world. Subhash proves himself to be a sheet anchor ready to shieldthose who need him—whether his parents, Udayan, Holly, Gauri, Bela,Meghna and Elise. He plays an instrumental role in uniting the separatedones and yet remains separated and solitary throughout. The myriad upsand downs of his life had taught him that happiness was but ‘theoccasional episode in the general drama of pain’ .5 And hence, severaldecades of his American life also couldn’t propel him to compromise withhis Indian faith and values of a family life, despite having any blood tieseither with Gauri or Bela or even Meghna. On the other hand, Gauri,dislocated from her roots, learns to grow and to transform herself to a lifeof autonomy and freedom. Though reticent in her Rhode Island’s house,she proves through her action that subalterns (women) too can speak.Gauri’s indomitable spirit always runs parallel with Subhash’s indefatigableact where both remain a loser to each other. The novel, thus, has wovenintricately the narrative pattern of a broken family.



1. Clifford, James. The Predicament of Culture. Harvard University Press,1988: 14.

2. Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Lowland. U.K: Random House India, 2013: 30 (Allsubsequent references have been quoted from the same edition of the bookand their page numbers mentioned in brackets).

3. Said, W.E. Reflections on Exile and other Essays. Cambridge Mass:Harvard University Press, 2001: 137.

4. Hall, Stuart. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora”, in Community, Culture andDifference. Ed. Jonathan Rutherford. London: Lawrence and Wishart Ltd.,1990: 235.

5. Hardy, Thomas. The Mayor of Casterbridge. Chapter 45.

IMPERIALISM was legitimized by the European colonizers by expoundinganthropological theories which portrayed the peoples of the colonizedworld as inferior races and, therefore, requiring the “paternal” rule of theWest. The concept of race underlying such anthropological theories placedthe White races as superior to the non-White ones inhabiting the countriesof Asia and Africa. White culture was seen as civilization and anythingnon-White was “non-civilized”. Consequently, the imperial powers wentabout “civilizing” these people with a clear conscience, terming their self-imposed task as the “White man’s burden”.1

The twin instruments that helped establish the cultural imperialism ofthe West were the Church and the Western way of education. While thefirst, through missionaries, Christianized the native population, the second,through mission schools, westernized them. The two, however, provedcounterproductive as the educated colonized, realizing the worth of theirown culture, led the masses to resist the Western domination. Thus, muchof the 20th century involved long political struggle, and the eventualtriumph, of the colonized against their imperial masters. The shift fromcolonial to an autonomous status represented only a relatively minor shiftas neo-colonialism still exists, with the major world powers continuing torun the governments and the economies of their ex-colonies, on the pretextof “developing” them. Their agenda is furthered by globalization,privatization and by generating transnational capital.

However, the cultural imperialism of the West proved more damagingto the indigenous psyche than did its political and economic exploitation.As the traditional way of life of these people had been disrupted, the now


67


Postcolonial Dilemmas in Laurence’s This Side Jordan

semi-westernized colonials constantly suffered from a nagging sense ofguilt at having abandoned the gods and culture of their forefathers. Longyears of suffering humiliation and exploitation robbed them of their realidentity. They realized they belonged neither to the old nor to the newworld, and that they could neither fit in the westernized modern cities norfeel at home in their native villages. A feeling of uprootedness andunbelonging created a fear psychosis in their minds. Ironically the samesense of fear and insecurity assailed the colonizers too. On the verge ofleaving a world where they had been comfortably living for years and nowhaving to return like strangers to their own native land, unsettled andunnerved the colonizers.

Margaret Laurence brilliantly captures these psychological, moral andpolitical dilemmas in her first and only Africa based novel This SideJordan (1960). One of the most prominent names in Canadian literature,Margaret Laurence happened to be in Africa when the European settlerswere on their way out of their adopted land. She was witness to theAfricanization of the British colony of Ghana, for the three years she livedthere, prior to its independence. Laurence herself belonged to a time whenCanada, which had never been an imperial power, was just emerging fromits experience of being a colony of the British and French. This greatlyhelped Laurence to relate sympathetically to the plight of all colonizedpeoples and to also draw parallels between the African and Canadiansituations and characters. Spending seven years in the ‘Dark Continent’,from 1952 to 1957, Laurence observed the stunting effects colonizingnations can have on the lives and cultures of the people. This Side Jordanparticularly establishes how a colonized person is injected with complexes,trepidations, fears and insecurities which lead to a “cultural cringe”. 2

My paper is an attempt to show the stultifying effects of colonization onthe African psyche by taking Nathaniel Amegbe (the protagonist of thenovel) as representing all colonized people.

This Side Jordan has a network of parallel situations and characters. Itis a story revolving around two communities: Ghananian and expatriateBritish; two protagonists: Nathaniel Amegbe and Johnnie Kestoe; and twosets of cultural pasts, which continue to influence the present, and withwhich the characters must come to terms. On the African side, theprotagonist is Nathaniel Amegbe, a teacher at Mensah’s Futura Academy.He is the mission-educated son of Kyerema, a drummer to a Chief. On theBritish side we have Johnnie Kestoe, an accountant employed in the Accra



Textile Branch of Allkirk, Moore and Bright, which is an English-centeredexport-import firm.

This Side Jordan portrays the problems of colonialism and the damageit causes not only to the Africans but also to the British. The English, whoknow that their days are numbered in Ghana, are confused, resigned andresentful as embodied by Johnnie. In the sanctuary of his club, Johnniemourns his island home and a lost world of private schools and comfortablesecurity. He feels a mingled attraction and repulsion for Africans, whichsuggests that he is projecting his own guilt on them. The sense ofconfusion and insecurity felt by the British colonizer is very aptlyexpressed in his words: “It’s true that I’m afraid of Africa…but—if we’resent home, what shall we do? What will become of us?” (TSJ, 124).

The story of the novel moves on two levels, each presenting its owndilemmas and conflicts. On the broader level, it concerns the birth of anation—Ghana, and on the level of the individual personality, it deals withthe birth of self-awareness. The birth of the new nation means the death ofthe old order. It means the death not only of European domination but alsothe death of the tribal world. To the men still owing allegiance to the oldworld, whether European or African, the new world is thus an abomination—a monster. Moreover, once the bewildering transition from ‘traditional’ to‘modern’ comes about, the Africans must face the twin problems offreedom and survival, of gaining and maintaining an independence that isboth political and inner. According to Clara Thomas, “the Africans,deluded or cynical, ignorant or corrupt, are in various stages ofunpreparedness. They must, willy nilly be ready to take over the problemswhose magnitude they cannot even estimate and for whose solution theyhave neither sufficient training nor sufficient self-confidence, as embodiedby Nathaniel.”3 As Victor Edusei, Nathaniel’s friend puts it: “You put yourfaith in Ghana, don’t you…. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a dead body lyingunburied. You wait until after independence. You’ll see such oppression,as you never believed possible. Only of course it’ll be all right then—it’llbe Black men oppressing Black men, and who could object to that?” (TSJ,117).

On the personal level, the novel deals with how the individual, despiteodds like an identity crisis, the disintegration of personality or the mentalconflicts caused by the pulls and pressures of an inherited past and anacquired present, is able to find his true bearings and recover faith inhimself. Through Nathaniel, one hears the voice of the colonized and



experiences the ambiguity of the situation. One learns through him thatAfrica had a rich culture, which disappeared when the colonizers came.One also learns about the suffering and humiliation of the African peoplecaused by years of exploitation, and their sense of despair regarding theirlife. “The past was dead…but the future could never be realized” (TSJ,64) is how Nathaniel sums up his agonizing awareness of the situation.

For Nathaniel to find his true bearings means to find out who he reallyis. He knows that Nathaniel is not his African name. Missionaries whoChristianized him give it to him: “And after they had given him a differentname they began to give him a different soul” (TSJ, 242). This makes himunsure about himself and his real identity. He is also tremendouslyinsecure about his situation in life, including his job as a teacher. The rootcause for this insecurity, according to Nathaniel is, “His lack of qualification”which “terrified him” (TSJ, 24). His own inadequacy and a sense of fearalways hover very close beneath the surface of his personality. To add tohis woes at work, he is made to “grovel apology for every remark that hisemployer, Mensah, chooses to interpret as insubordination” (TSJ, 26).With no bargaining power at his disposal, Nathaniel only feels more andmore vulnerable. He is also not comfortable with his physical self and thisdiscomfort manifests itself in his physical appearance as well. He lacks theconfidence and the pride of conviction to wear his native clothes and, atthe same time, he feels uncomfortable and gauche in a badly fittingEuropean suit. At a European party he attends, he realizes that his fatherwould have done better, “he would have worn a Kente cloth and saunteredamong these people…and they would have flocked to him…but heNathaniel…was not interesting to them because they could see no furtherthan to think he was trying to be like them and not succeeding” (TSJ, 145).His increasing anger towards the situation is not only easily discernible butit also highlights the fact that he is suffering from an acute crisis of identityengendered by colonialism which in turn has led to inner conflicts thatmake it difficult for him to cope with the existing situation.

These conflicts surface time and again, especially when dealing withsituations involving the Europeans. The feeling of being exploited by theEuropeans has engraved itself so deeply on Nathaniel’s mind that in anyinteraction with the Europeans, he feels uncomfortable and ends up gettingdefensive. In one incident, he over-reacts and refuses to help pushJohnnie’s car because he is “not a servant, not a slave to be summoned”(TSJ, 161), but later realizes his mistake of having made too much of a



small request which any other person would have agreed to unquestionablywith no thought of insult. This realization adds to his already heightenedfeeling of shame and humiliation.

This Side Jordan presents the struggle and confused despair ofNathaniel who is a product of two cultures pulling him in two oppositedirections. He is torn between past and future; bush and city; between hisancient tribal culture and modern western ways. According to ClaraThomas, “Laurence focuses on Nathaniel and the multiplicity of theworlds he must live in.”4 Nathaniel is presented as a colonized who isdisplaced, dislocated and even depersonalized. He lives in the city and hiseducation and migration create opposing pulls between his inherited socio-cultural and religious traditions that he has discarded, and the alien beliefsand values that he has acquired. He has lived in mission schools since hewas seven years old and the “stamp of the mission was deep on him” (TSJ,28). However, his acceptance of the religious beliefs of the mission priestsalways cause a conflict in is mind whenever he realizes that his family andvillage believe in different religions: “Sometimes the old anger stirred andhe would not set foot in the church for months. Then out of need or habithe would return, never entirely believing, never entirely disbelieving,doubting heaven but fearing hell” (TSJ, 107).

A victim of British imperialists, he suffers from a sense of belongingnowhere. He has been uprooted from his village and yet has not been ableto accept the city as his permanent home where he feels in exile. “The cityof strangers is your city, and the god of conquerors is your God, and astrange speech is in your mouth, and you have no home” (TSJ, 167), is hisdistressing thought. Colonialism has made him a stranger in his own home.He has never quite been able to fathom where he belongs. On his ownadmission, “I was of both and I was of neither. I forgot one way when I wastoo young to remember everything of it…and learned another way when Iwas too old for it to ever become second nature” (TSJ, 243). This is whathas been the cause of his fragmented personality.

Nathaniel welcomes the freedom which the new world offers him in thecity, yet at the same time he finds he cannot totally reject the old world ofthe tribe and its values. He, especially, cannot reject his father, the oldtribal drummer, and all the things his father believed in without doingviolence to his own self. He feels guilty about his father’s death andbelieves that “He, Nathaniel, had damned his father to that eternity. Thefather had been damned by his son’s belief” (TSJ, 28). But at the same



time, while performing the funeral rites for his father, Nathaniel realizesthat “He had not forgotten the ways of his people” (TSJ, 28). Thisrealization is further augmented by the remark of one of his uncles, “Theyhave not stolen your soul Nathaniel, the White priests” (TSJ, 30). Thisremark intensifies Nathaniel’s mental turmoil as he cannot reconcilehimself to the fact that somewhere he is still a tribal at heart, in spite of hisrational self believing in the missionary religion. While on the one hand,he admits to himself that he does yearn for his simple village life even now“You do not know that I mourn everything I have lost. I mourn the godsstrangled by my hand. You do not know how often I have wanted to goback” (TSJ, 73), on the other hand, he cannot make himself give up hisnew faith despite his having tried once in the chapel after his father’sfuneral: “He stood before the statue of God’s crucified son. And he spatfull in the thing’s face, his heart raging to avenge his father. But it did notwork. For he believed in the man-God with the bleeding hands, and hecould not spew that out of himself” (TSJ, 31-32). These contradictoryemotions only add to his confusion and agony. Thus, Nathaniel is atortured man standing between two worlds, and aware of the ambiguity ofhis situation. As he puts it himself in a conversation with his uncle, “Ibelong between yesterday and today.” On his uncle commenting, “But thatis nowhere,” Nathaniel replies, “I know…yes, I know” (TSJ, 106-07).

It is often believed that one has to touch rock bottom before one canbegin an ascent. In the case of Nathaniel this is seen to be completely true.When he reaches the depths of despair, self-loathing, confusion and mentalturmoil, it is only then, that he gains a new perspective into his life andmakes his decisions. When Nathaniel starts taking stock of his situation, helearns his first important lesson in self-knowledge: fear has held him backbut overriding curiosity with its strong element of hope has pushed him on.This moment of epiphany occurs when Nathaniel visits an EvangelistChurch. Listening to the confessions made by the members and how all ofthem were saved by the grace of their god, Nathaniel too confesses tohimself and recalls how he has suffered from an acute feeling of guiltbecause he has not entirely forgotten his old ways while he has adopted thenew ways of the mission. As he remembers, “The new name took hold andthe new roots began to grow. But the old roots never quite died, and thetwo became intertwined” (TSJ, 243). Once he confesses this, the meaningof what the preacher is saying becomes clear to him. He realizes thateveryone carries their own private hell and fears within themselves and it is



for each person to overcome these and strive for a better life. Just as in theBiblical reference, “Joshua had a big battle to fight and Joshua has a bigriver to cross. Yes, he was afraid. Nobody ever got to the Promised landwithout a fight” (TSJ, 245), Nathaniel too realizes that it is not fear itselfthat is bad, but the fear of failure that warps a man and causes rifts in hispersonality. Joshua agreed to try, “That’s right God, I’ll try if you say so.Yes, Sir, I’ll try if you say so” (TSJ, 246), and things fell into place for him.“The river parted its waters…and the children of Israel crossed over on dryground” (TSJ, 246). Nathaniel too decides to try, leaving whatever he mayhave done behind him and resolves to re-dedicate himself to his life afresh.This unique experience helps him to recover faith in himself and hope forthe future.

On the heels of this incident comes another one which helps seal hisdecision to make the city his permanent home. Aya his wife gives birth totheir baby in the city hospital much against the wishes of her mother andaunt who want the birth to take place in the village. Their insistenceconstantly reminds Nathaniel that he is betraying his people in some way.But now all his apprehensions are laid to rest and he feels “…a terriblelonging to stay after all, to stay here in the city where you could feeltomorrow being reached for, where you could believe it might happen so,and to you” (TSJ, 268). At last he can finally say, “A man must belongsomewhere. If it is right or it is not right, I must stay. The new roots may notgrow straight, but they have grown too strong to be cut away” (TSJ, 274).

Nathaniel now understands that in order that he may retain his sense ofworth as a human being, he must assimilate the old into the new. He mustcome to terms with the emotional pull of the old ways, neither succumbingto them nor rejecting them outright. He must stay where he is and take hisown uncertain tortured steps into a very uncertain future, to cross likeJoshua at last the river Jordan, and return again to his own land and takepossession of it and enjoy it as “there must be pride and roots, O mypeople” (TSJ, 22).

The Biblical image of being on this side of River Jordan and crossing tothe Promised Land on the other side, sets up the expectation of a finaltransition from the old traditional life to a new life of independence, as acountry and as an individual. The Biblical image also refers to a turningpoint after a long struggle or journey. Nathaniel successfully completesthis journey, from his upcountry traditional ways, through mission school



to urban Western life. His naming his child Joshua is a metaphor for hisown renewed efforts of building a better Ghana.

Nathaniel is finally freed from his ambivalence regarding his identitywhen he stops despising his inherited past and goes on to accept it. Only thenis he able to assert confidently that, “…my home is here, here, here, myhome is here at last” (TSJ, 275). Nathaniel is given the novel’s final words tovoice the enduring hope that has always been stronger than his fear: “Joshua,Joshua, Joshua, I beg you. Cross Jordan. Joshua” (TSJ, 282).

This Side Jordan thus places before the reader the problems caused bycolonialism. The novel echoes Margaret Laurence’s firm belief thatindividuals can achieve harmony only when they can make peace withtheir past, ancestors and gods and assimilate the old into the new. Thisbelief is aptly reinforced through the person of Nathaniel Amegbe, whostarts with a consciousness of psychic disorder that is overwhelming, buthe ends with a fragile, but stubborn grip on a new order and with a degreeof hope. In his struggle one can see the struggle of all colonized Africanscontending with problems generated by colonialism. And in his hopefulmarch into the future one can look forward to the colonized, now better-equipped with self-awareness and a correct assessment of their situation,overcoming all odds.

All quotations from the novel This Side Jordan have been taken from theMcClelland and Stewart Publishers’ edition. 481 University Avenue, Toronto,Ontario.

1. Coined by Rudyard Kipling the term refers to the supposed or presumedresponsibility of the White people to govern and impart their culture tonon-White people, often advanced as a justification for Europeancolonialism.

2. A feeling of inadequacy or insufficiency vis a vis one’s culture and traditions.3. Thomas, Clara. Margaret Laurence, (Canadian Writers No. 3, New

Canadian Library, McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1968), p. 28.4. Thomas, Clara. “Morning Yet on Creation Day”. A Study of This Side

Jordan, from A Place to Stand On: Essays by and about Margaret Laurence,ed. George Woodcock (Edmonton: Ne_West Press, 1983), p. 99.

CHICK lit is a genre that centers on the lives of urban class womenwritten in a lively and playful manner. In the late 1990’s the genre gainedimmense popularity in the west having movies and serials based on thenovels. Chick lit is generally not taken as an off shoot of the romance noveleven though many novels have romance central to them. The heroine’srelationship is not bound to just one man but to other people in her life too,who could be family or friends. The female protagonist’s womanhood isthe matter of concern in the plot. ‘The term appeared as early as 1988 ascollege slang for a course titled “Female Literary Tradition” and CrisMazza and Jefferey Deshell used the term as an ironic title for their editedanthology Chick Lit—Post Feminist Fiction. The genre was defined as atype of post-feminism or second wave feminism that went beyond femaleas fiction to include love, courtship and gender. The collection emphasizedexperimental work, including violent, perverse and sexual themes. Workssuch as Helen Fielding’s ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ and Candace Bushnell’s‘Sex and the City’ are examples that help establish contemporaryconnotations of the term. The success of Bridget Jones established chick litas an important trend in publishing. ‘The Girls’ Guide to Hunting andFishing’ by Melissa Bank is regarded as one of the first chick lit works tooriginate as a novel (actually a collection of stories), though the term wasin common use at the time of its publication (1999).

There is well-known band of Indian writers whose writings cannot beneglected for they have a huge readership and have established themselvesas writers in the world. The pioneers like Arundhati Roy, Jhumpa Lahiri orKiran Desai have etched Indian Writing on the international map bywinning the much coveted literary awards. Shobha De writes in a style thatdeals with modern life cocktail and parties, bold socialite scenes and fourletter words that shocked the Indian reader when they first appeared in


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New Millenium Women in Chick lit

print. Today, expletives are common place in corporate corridors,entertainment rooms, and college and school circles. There is a generalexpectation from writers that matters addressed by them should have socialrelevance. Modern day writers are bringing in their experiences ofinternational travel, describing graphically the culture shock, how theyhave made the adaptations and brought change in their value system.Taking into account the demand and supply of modern literature forwomen, chick lit is considered serious business. What started off as genrespecific romance writing for the liberated, modern woman has todaybecome an area that addresses everything from the universal search forlove, balancing a career, family issues to psychological problems, growingup, marriage, kids and jobs. Light hearted fiction writing for the modernIndian women is a relatively new phenomenon. Many women writers likeSwati Kaushal (Piece of Cake), Anuja Chauhan (The Zoya Factor and TheBattle for Bittora), Advaita Kala (Almost Single) and Rajshree (Trust Me)have tasted immense success with their young, single, modern Indianwoman protagonists who are lively, peppy, unconventional and independent.These women have an innate ‘Indianness’ that every woman here canidentify with. Contemporary Indian popular fiction that narrates ‘desi’cosmopolitan stories has been mirroring the changing man-womanrelationship in a more open and accepting urban India. When theglobalised 1990’s began to creep into ‘desi’ books, the theme of lovebecame wider and the books began to include more complex motifs with“emotional riddles, tangled relationships and even same sex love.” In thedecade of 2000, the thrust of stories became younger in years as darkpassionate secrets came tumbling out of cup-boards and the complexrelationships (that have always been there in a particular class in the urbanareas) became open.

Being single is nothing out of the ordinary for a woman in the presentscene. Socio economic situation after liberalization has made womeneconomically sound and her emergence as an independent individual. Butthe term ‘single’ has brought in a host of inchoate meanings that arise fromthe diverse discourses of the family, free market, development, consumerism,behavioral psychology, feminist movement among others. The singlewoman is regarded as any one or a combination of the following:unfortunate, lonely, vulnerable, incomplete, frustrated, frigid, man-hater,woman-lover, self indulgent, promiscuous, predatory, unpredictable, non-conforming, subversive, free or liberal. In a patriarchal context, the whole



range of reference is over determined by the absence of a male figure. Hersingleness becomes her primary attribute and she is regarded single notbecause she does not have friends, family and males in her life but becauseshe does not have a legitimate sexual partner. The different modes ofsingleness include the widow, the divorcee, the separated or desertedwoman and the unmarried woman. The unmarried woman is not appreciatedas the other figures of women are. The unmarried single woman is anenigma or unthinkable especially in our context where marriages are to alarge extent arranged and not a matter of individual choice. Single isthought to be a state achieved almost by chance and in most cases rarely bydesign. In the modern world, however, this state gestures towards areordering of relationships, reorganization of notions of intimacy and afundamental subversion of the family model. To accept them as singlemeans to accept that they are free to act for themselves. But it is a wellknown fact that women in this country are seldom free and are alwaysunder the guardianship of their father, husband or other relations. Thewomen, who are single, in most cases, never chose to be single out ofchoice even though they have strong political opinion on the institution ofmarriage and are not at all enamored by the idea of marriage. They neverthink of it as an ultimate aim in life and it is something that could havehappened and their life gone on a different path but the lack of it also doesnot trouble them. The women instead engage in personal development andneed their own time and space for this. Personal space has become veryimportant and also the philosophy of ‘live and let live’. The thrust is onquality time which has become an important mantra in today’s life.Personal liking over anything, be it caste or status, gets priority and womenget into relationships on an equal footing. Chick lit depicts the life of suchpredominantly young, single, urban women and details their life, loves,trials and tribulations. But the themes in the novels have also gone beyondlove and marriage to individuality and fame, love hate relationship withparents, the arranged marriage circus, female bonding and friendships,homosexuality in India and the struggle to be modern yet Indian. This newwriting has become an amazing commercial and publishing success,progressing from just being a trend acquired from abroad, rather it hasbecome a cultural phenomenon cutting across sections of race, religion,culture, age, color, and even sex. The entry of an Indian protagonist on theChick Lit scene came much after the best sellers in America and Europehad made their mark. Indian-American characters in chick lit emerged in



America in the early 2000s with protagonists following a progressive lifestyle in America. Kavita Daswani wrote For Matrimonial Purposes (2003)followed by Everything Happens for a Reason (2004), The Village Brideof Beverly Hills (2004), Salaam Paris (2006), and Indie Girl (2007). Allthe novels have protagonists who started their stories from a life groundedin India but then because they of their marriage they found themselvessettled in America where their stories orbited around the marriage issueand the way they dealt with it. Arranged marriage is central to them andthere is a struggle between the modernity around them and their Indianupbringing. Anjali Banerjee’s Imaginary Men (2005) shows Lina Ray—amatchmaker in San Francisco with a very traditional Indian family whofinds an Indian boy before her life takes a horrible turn and things go awry.In her next novel Invisible Lives (2007) Anjali portrays the story ofLakshmi who runs a sari shop in Seattle and “was born with a magicalability to perceive secret longings in others”. She too has to make adecision between a marriage arranged by her father and her feelings for anAmerican chauffeur. Then Sonia Singh introduces the problems of Indianwomen oscillating between values and change in Goddess for Hire (2004),Bollywood Confidential (2005), and Ghost Interrupted (2007). Likewise,Poonam Sharma, author of Girl Most Likely To (2007) and All Eyes onHer (2008) does the same. She introduces a desi flavor to her works, withher novels discussing similar dilemmas as those of her fellow writers, thedaily struggles of career and dating, juggling between personal demandsand pressures of family and evolving as an Indian American. But the mostsought after Indian Chick Lit are the three novels by Kaavya Viswanathannamely How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life (2006). Thepopularity of all these books by all the authors lies in their protagonists’presumed Indian-ness and their authors’ popularity happens for the samereason. Swati Kaushal’s Piece of Cake came out in the year 2004 whichdelineates the story of the protagonist, a twenty-nine-year-old woman,Minal Sharma, who is the Associate Products Manager at InternationalFoods. She has to put up with her mother’s attempts to get her marriedthrough matrimonial advertisements in newspapers; shield her career froma cowardly boss, as also from the office’s in-house femme fatale who posesa threat to her promotion, and a new colleague who turns out to be apeeved competitor from her childhood hell bent on sabotaging her career;she has to choose between an amorous radio-jockey younger to her in ageand a successful, selfish and uninteresting oncologist. The novel became a



best-seller, encouraging Kaushal to write again and she came out with AGirl Like Me (2008) that narrates the travails of an Indian teenager whoreturns from Minnesota to settle to a life in India. Rupa Gulab’s ‘GirlAlone’ introduces the particular girlish apprehensions of Arti, theemotionally insecure, intellectual snob who is also cough-syrup addict andan avid reader of T.S. Eliot’s poetry and finds that rock bands have acalming effect on her. On one hand, she works hard to find professionalsatisfaction while on the other she has to find a decent man in Mumbaiwho shares her interests and appreciation for Woody Allen and D.H.Lawrence, and with whom she can make a life. Her worst fear is that if sheis not able to find the right man then she has to marry the man selected byher mother. Rajashree’s Trust Me narrates the experiences of Paro, a girlfrom Amravati who works in the film industry and gains first-handknowledge about black money, casting couch and immoral actors. AdvaitaKala’s Almost Single (2007) asks the question, “Is there any such thing asa perfect relationship?” and immediately connects with all women in arelationship or who are looking for a relationship. Focused on AishaBhatia, twenty-nine years old Guests Relation Manager at the GrandOrchid Hotel, Delhi, the novel records the predicaments of the young,savvy girls and their gay friends as they hope for love in the city. Chick Litnovel by Smita Jain Kkrishnaa’s Konfessions, tells the story of Kkrishnaaan impulsive, spirited, stubborn and enterprising primetime script writerwho is distressed by her inability to write so she goes around looking forinspiration and in the course of this she witnesses a murder, has to steal andseduce, and also spend a night in jail. Meenakashi Reddy Madhavanin You Are Here (2008) portrays the character of Arshi a twenty-five-year-old woman who goes through many complicated relationships includingone with her American step mom, a two timer ex-boyfriend, and aninsufferable boss. Such array of people in her life baffles her and sheyearns for solace through alcohol and comfort through physical relationships.Anuja Chauhan’s The Zoya Factor (2008) tells about a plain lookingadvertising executive Zoya Singh Solanki’s journey with the IndianCricket team to the ICC World Cup Championships. In spite of allmisgivings she is declared the official goddess of lucky charm for the team.In Chauhan’s second novel Battle for Bittora (2010) twenty-five-year-oldJinni lives in Mumbai, works as an animator and is very satisfied with herhappy go lucky and unconstrained life. This only lasts till her bossygrandmother ends all this and makes her contest the upcoming Lok Sabha



elections from their sleepy hometown, Bittora. Her resistance goes unheededand she soon ends up swathed in cotton saris and frumpy blouses, battlingthe heat, an irresistible opponent with whom she has had previousassociation. Almost all the novels discuss the insecurities, apprehensions,desires, pain, dilemmas and tussles in the life of the protagonists.

Why people read these books is because through them the reader wantsto find out how the protagonist deals with the problems in the books, thedilemmas they face in their everyday life. Women ask why femaledilemmas should be any less universal than male problems. The answer tothe question starts with Jane Austen, who, it’s been suggested, is the great-great-grandmother of “chick lit”. Since then such writing as written byJane Austen feature upwardly mobile young women and their capriciouspredicaments in the world of modern romance (and modern-day shopping)and are customarily based in the best neighborhoods in the best cosmopolitancities. The protagonists are down to earth, erring and painfully aware andcritical of themselves in an alluring and irresistible manner. Almost all thenovels have the women committing errors of judgment because ofexcessive pride or prejudice in making out the men in their lives and mostdo not end up with their match as Elizabeth does in Pride and Prejudice.Sometimes there is a Wickham like character crossing and misleading theprotagonist and causing havoc in her life and maybe breaking up herchances of settling with her Darcy. She works hard at the relationships butit is only after she fails to connect with the man she is in relationship withthat she goes looking for the lesser desired one. The friends too are of nohelp they are either the married ones who are self righteous or the singleones who are sailing in the same boat. The female friends are as confusedas the protagonist, some because they are maybe undergoing problematicrelationships themselves or others who think they are strong and insist onplaying the part of a feminist. Despite many complications easy romanceand playful dating is what carries the story forward. The protagonists arewomen of the world and abreast of world issues and familiar with well-known women like Oprah, Julia Roberts, Jane Fonda and Madonna andare on the same wavelength in their worldly knowledge as any othereducated woman of any part of the world. The fact remains that the readeridentifies with the protagonist, laughing with her than at her and comes toaccept her own flawed self just as the imperfect character she finds in thebook. A feeling of shared camaraderie and intimacy makes the booksappealing and popular. The books recount the experiences of one woman,



however fictional, that are accepted and understood by many others.Chick-lit tries to ratify the readers’ feelings as natural and brings aboutconsolidation of a particular group of women because of their ability toreflect everyday reality of women.

Hence chick lit represents contemporary young women as far asindividuality, femininity, career and relationships are concerned, andexposes insights about their lives as they get around their expectations ofcareer and relationships. Women use these popular cultural texts in makingsense of their own social experience and construct congruity between theunderlying message of the chick-lit novels and their own conditions ofexistence. By construing the different ways in which chick-lit tries tochallenge cultural expectations about women as buyers, readers andwriters, chick lit does open up spaces for ruminating over the contradictionsinherent in contemporary feminine personalities. Concerned with theculture and lives of young urban women, the books mainly delineates thelives of modern, cosmopolitan, single women in their 20s and 30s whoplace great emphasis on their dating relationships, careers and shoppingand their everyday struggles with work, home, friendship, family or love.These are young women working in the corporate sector, media andpublishing houses, fashion magazines, hotels, PR firms, etc. Almost all arewritten in a self-deprecating, funny, first-person voice. Taken as a whole,these works provide an interesting examination of images of women andtheir concerns in contemporary popular culture, while at the same timeentertaining their readers. Indeed, the difference between chick-lit novelsand their literary antecedent is the ability of the modern protagonists tolaugh at themselves while simultaneously the literature treats women’sissues with wittiness and insight. In terms of desire, sexual play andexperience, chick-lit heroines seem to differ from the naive and artlessheroines of traditional romances. Unlike traditional romances, contemporarychick-lit doesn’t always end in marriage, and the heroine’s active social lifeoutside the man-woman relationship plays just as important a role in herlife. Chick lit for this reason reaches to a wider group of women who arenot just looking for romance but the various issues and situations womenface when fending for footing in a commercial world. There is a certaintypical nature to most chick-lit novels that indicates the popularity of it andbecause of this the novels are adapted to the standards laid down bycommercial requirements. Truly, the content of chick-lit novels may beformula-driven but the writers have given creative modifications to these



formulas. Chick-lit is criticized, stigmatized and rejected, but nobody candeny that today it is a publication wonder and social critique. The genrehas a long historical connection and actually reflects a powerful culturalinterplay. Also, studying the notion of femininity shown in present popularfiction and the chick-lit fiction can make us understand how the discourseof marriage, sex, feminism, money unfolded in the years between JaneAusten’s Pride and Prejudice and present day novels. The women in thenovels and the readers of the novels show how they have found a space toscrutinize similar feelings and experiences of their daily lives regardinggender roles, relationships, sexuality, career and marriage within theframework as exhibited in these popular cultural writing. The situationsand dilemmas faced by the young women characters in the stories of chick-lit novels have come to be accepted as normal and of those apprehensivewomen who are dissatisfied with their bodies and their relationships, whoseek approval about their female body and show anxiety over careerbetterment. For instance, many chick-lit heroines turn to other magazinesand programs that give information to look better and beautiful. Latestmagazines and self help books have a strong hold on the heroines’ life. Bysharing the details of her problematic relationships, her job, and failedattempts to reduce her consumption of alcohol, cigarettes and calories, shegains women’s empathy. To emphasize their individuality and freedomyoung contemporary urban women adopt drinking, socializing, dating andindulge in the pleasures offered by shopping. The protagonists, therefore,are not only the contrivance of their authors, but they also are an imitationof their reading audience. This couples the stories immediately to theirreaders by appealing to them to find similarities with the characters andsituations described, and to note that they are talking of their own lives, themanner how personal and social problems are managed. It does not seemwrong to say that the women who read these books are a lot like the womenin them, young, quite successful but a wee bit insecure, have a propensityfor romantic alliances and demonstrate professional weaknesses, look fordrama and entertainment and also go to books and magazines for guidance.Chick-lit serves two purposes, it is functional and relevant as it emulateswomen’s lives as well as is entertaining. Women use these popular novelsin making sense of their own social world and experience and try copingwith their contemporary, urban lifestyles where they are torn between thecontemporary modern atmosphere and the traditions that still asks of themto maintain a conventional demeanor. The women readers welcome the



chick-lit texts according to their needs; these texts work for them and are ofuse so far as it helps them to stand up to the bargains and challenges thattheir daily lives involve. The female readers establish purpose implicit inthe chick-lit novels and their own conditions of existence. The manner inwhich the dilemmas and complications are handled is humorous and this iswhat makes these books pleasing for readers. They playfully deal with theaspects of contemporary women’s lives and relationships in regard to menand the competitive urban world. In today’s world, where women areexpected to be smart and ambitious as well as stylish and chic, these booksare close to heart and easy to relate to without being sententious. Thedebates on chick-lit reflect the conflict over the issue of portrayal ofwomen, gender and sexuality. The conflict on chick lit is ongoing andprobably due to the depiction of women’s liberation as her entry into themasculine world, her image, identity, sexuality to go hand in hand with theever expanding consumption of commodities, while the need for socialchange to improve women’s lives takes a back seat. These books do notclaim to bring social reform rather they serve to represent the lives ofwomen as they are, the battles they face daily both inside and outside theirself. Women are under enough pressure caught up in between thecontemporary modern lives and the prescriptions that still expect them tomaintain a traditional femininity; they do not want to worry about what thefeminists will think when they want to read something entertaining andeasy to relate to. Besides, chick-lit deals with issues essential to feminism,like the pressures on women about their identity through how good theylook and then how they balance work with intimate relationships. Somewhatparadoxically, it provides readers a humorous break from the demands ofbeing smart, fashionable and sexy all at once, while it also satirizes whatchick-lit represents. The pleasures, entertainment and meanings raised inchick-lit reading are many; it is like they are offering room for culturalmanipulation. The practice of reading chick-lit raises the platform foropposition as well as compliance to structures of power operating insociety. The market promoting chick-lit books for profit, using strategicselling techniques and luring readers through formulaic styles are all partof the chick-lit reality, but when looked beyond these, one can considerchick-lit as an important representation of modern women and issues thatthey face.



Bushnell, Cadence. Sex and the City, London, Abacus: London, Reprint, 2004.Chauhan, Anuja. The Zoya Factor, Noida: Harper Collins India, 2008.——. The Battle for Bittora, Noida: Harper Collins India, 2009.Daswani, Kavita. For Matrimonial Purposes, New York: HarperCollins

Publishers, 2003.——. Everything Happens for a Reason , New York: HarperCollins Publishers,

2004.——. Salaam Paris, California: Plume Books, 2006.Ferriss, Suzanne. Young, Mallory. Chick lit: The New Woman’s Fiction.

Routledge: New York, 2006. WebGulab, Rupa. Girl Alone, New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2005.Jain, Smita. Kkrishna Konfessions, New Delhi: Westland Limited, 2008.Kala, Advaita. Almost Single, Noida: HarperCollins Publishers and The India

Today Group, 2007.Kaushal, Swati. Piece of Cake, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2004.Lakshmi, Rama. “India’s Cheeky Chick-Lit finds an Audience.” The Washington,

November 23, 2007.Mazza, Cris, Jeffrey De Shell. Eds. Chick Lit: Postfeminist Fiction. New York:

Fiction Collective 2, 1995.Madhavan, Meenakshi Reddy. You Are Here, New Delhi: Penguin, 2008.Rajashree. Trust Me, New Delhi: Rupa and Co., 2006.Singh, Sonia. Goddess for Hire. New York: Avon, 2004.——. Bollywood Confidential. New York: Avon, 2005.——. Ghost, Interrupted. New York: Avon, 2007.Sunaina Kumar. The Rise of Ladki-Lit. The Indian Express, October 8, 2006.«Chick Lit», Wikipedia, [22/02/07], Wikipedia. «What is Chick Lit? », Chick Lit

Books, [22/05/07].

PANOPTICON had been discussed by Michel Foucault as a disciplinarystructure in Discipline and Punish (1977) and also in an interview entitled“The Eye of Power” (1980). “The Panopticon is an architectural devicedescribed by the eighteenth century philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, as away of arranging people in such a way that, for example, in a prison, it ispossible to see all of the inmates without the observer being seen, andwithout any of the prisoners having access to one another” (Mills 45). Apanopticon may be defined as:

A perimeter building in the form of a ring. At the centre of this a tower,pierced by large windows opening on to the inner face of the ring. Theouter building is divided into cells each of which traverses the wholethickness of the building. These cells have two windows, one openingonto the inside, facing the windows of the central tower, the other,outer one allowing daylight to pass through the whole cell. All that isthen needed is to put an overseer in the tower and place in each of thecells a lunatic, a patient, a convict, a worker, or a schoolboy. The backlighting enables one to pick out from the central tower the little captivesilhouettes in the ring of cells. In short the principle of the dungeon isreversed; daylight and the overseer’s gaze capture the inmate moreeffectively than darkness, which afforded after all a sort of protection.(qtd. in Mills 45)

Michel Foucault analyses the particular way of organising the spatialarrangements of prisons, schools and factories to attain maximum visibilityand argues that a new form of internalised disciplinary practice occurswherein an individual is forced to act as if she/he is being constantly


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The Subversion of Panopticism in Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Anandamath

surveyed even when she/he is not. Thus this form of spatial arrangemententails a particular form of power relation and restriction of behaviours.

The main tenet of Michel Foucault’s ‘Panopticism’ is that discourse canbe effectively used to control and/or modify ideology/ies in a particularspace usually for the benefit of a particular governing class or organizationwhich in turn renders the role of an ‘active agent’ that displays coercivepower to be unnecessary.

The idea of the “Panopticon” which has been described above as asurveillance technique that forces an individual to internalise a particulardisciplinary practice even when the individual is not being constantlysurveyed leading to a particular power relation and restriction of behaviourcan be observed in the colonial subjects. As a result literature produced ina colony does not enjoy the same autonomy as it does in a sovereigncountry. Colonialism brings about a compulsion of choices as in thecolonies the colonizers do not allow even moderate expressions of freethinking on the part of the colonized.

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (1838-94) who in addition to being aDeputy Magistrate and a Deputy Collector in the Government of BritishIndia was also a writer, poet and a journalist. He wrote the novelAnandamath (1882) primarily in Bangla which was later translated intoEnglish. The novel was produced during a tumultuous time in history. Theauthor who was a colonized subject had written this novel when India wasunder the yoke of British colonialism and despite being employed in theBritish administration he espoused the cause of freedom. This novel is saidto be based on Indian nationalism or rather Hindu nationalism and isconsidered to be the pioneer of the anti-colonial movement in India. Indiawas gradually rising up for a freedom struggle to attain independence fromthe British rule and the Indians required an ideological basis for theirfreedom struggle which was provided by this novel. The novel is not onlypolitical but also historical. It is set in Bengal in the background of the‘Sanyasi Rebellion’ in the late eighteenth century and the famine that tookplace in 1770 thereby portraying the aftermath of the famine. The novelbegins with an introduction to a couple Mahendra and Kalyani who are inthe grip of a severe famine in the Padchinha village and are without foodand water. They decide to move to the nearest city for survival. During thecourse of the events Kalyani gets separated from Mahendra. She runs withher infant through a forest in order to avoid the man-hunters till she losesconsciousness on the bank of a river later to be rescued by Satyananda, a



Hindu monk. Satyananda takes care of her and her infant till she is reunitedwith her husband. On the other hand, Mahendra has joined the brotherhoodof the monks who serve the nation. Kalyani wants to kill herself to relieveMahendra from his worldly duties. Satyananda joins Kalyani to help her.But before he can help her the British soldiers arrest him as the monks arefuelling a revolt against the British rule. When Satyananda is being ledaway he spots another monk in ochre robes and indicates to him with thehelp of a song that a lady is to be rescued. The other monk deciphers thesong, rescues Kalyani and the infant and takes them to a hideout of therebel monks. Mahendra also takes shelter in the hideout of the rebel monksthereby resulting in his reunion with Kalyani. The leader of the rebelmonks shows the three faces of Bharat Mata or Mother India therebyindoctrinating him in their ideology. The influence of the rebel monks is onthe rise and their ranks swell as a result they shift their headquarters to afort which is attacked by the British. Heavy fighting ensues and the rebelsfight bravely making the British take a tactical retreat. The sanyasis chasethe British, finally to be trapped. The British artillery opens fire on therebels inflicting severe casualties. Some of the rebels capture the Britishcannons thereby firing back on the British lines. The British are forced tofall back and the rebels win their first battle but the struggle continues. Thestory ends with Mahendra and Kalyani building a home and Mahendracontinuing to support the rebels.

The novel although set in 1770 portrays the historical conditions of thenineteenth century when the Indians had begun to feel the urge of freeingtheir land from the foreign rule thereby beginning a freedom struggleagainst the British rule. The Indians in the novel are shown to resort toguerrilla warfare as the British forces are stronger in terms of resourcesthan the Indian forces. Warren Hastings wants to establish control overIndia so the task is given to Major Edwards. It is thus described as:

Edwards realized that it was no European campaign. The enemy hadno army, cities, capital or forts, and yet everything was under theircontrol. When the British encamped in a certain place, they were incharge for the time, but as soon as the British forces left, BandeMataram rang out from all sides! The newcomer was unable todiscover from where his enemies issued like ants at night, burning anyvillage that was under British control, or despatching instantly anysmall contingent of British forces that came their way. (219)



Thus, the novel conveyed the idea of guerrilla warfare against theEnglish to the Indian masses as the English forces were more powerful andorganized compared to the Indian rebels. The novel directly or indirectlytries to motivate the Indian masses to end the foreign rule.

When this novel was produced, India was under the British rule whichwas a foreign rule. The novel is grounded in a powerful anti-colonialistideology that is evident here. The famine of 1770 killed many people. In1771 though there was rain and there was a good growth of crops but therewere no people to buy them as a result the tenants couldn’t pay their taxesto the zamindars and the zamindars were unable to pay the revenues to theking. Thus, the zamindars’ lands were confiscated. The common peoplejoined the order of the ‘santans’ to rebel against the ruling class of Muslimsas the king’s men were held responsible for their plight. The British senttheir forces to quell the rebellion but it was of no avail (188-90). Thisexample portrays the plight of the colonized people who are ruled byforeign powers such as the Muslim and the English that brings aboutmisery and deprivation on the colonized thereby offering an insight intothe colonial political set-up. This example questions the efficacy of aforeign or a colonialist rule thereby suggesting implicitly the throwing offof the foreign or the colonial rule.

The novel also questions certain religious practices such as polytheismin the Indian society of those times which have a direct influence on theHindu way of life. The healer tells Satyananda:

To worship three hundred and thirty million gods is not the EternalCode. That’s a worldly inferior code. Through its influence the realEternal Code—what the foreigners call the Hindu rule of life—hasbeen lost. The true Hindu rule of life is based on knowledge, not onaction. And this knowledge is of two kinds—outward and inward. Theinward knowledge is the chief part of the Eternal Code, but unless theoutward knowledge arises first, the inward cannot arise. Unless oneknows the gross, one cannot know the subtle. (229)

The historical, political and social condition in which the novel wasproduced makes it a manifesto of freedom, nationalism and progressthrough social and religious reforms. These ideas are espoused in the novelto make the Indians aspire for a life based on liberty and progress.

The fact that when the novel Anandamath was written and published byBankim Chandra Chattopadhyay India was a colony of Great Britain and



as mentioned above Bankim Chandra was an employee employed in theBritish government in India the metaphor of a ‘panopticon’ is used in thiscase as a technique of surveillance used by the colonizers, the British, onthe colonized, the Indians, to maintain the paradigm of power with theBritish doing the supervision leading not only to the subjection andnormalization of the Indians but also in the internalization of the gaze ofthe colonizer which in turn results in the disciplined behaviour of thecolonized or in justifying and accepting the colonizer’s supremacy and inthe creation of model subjects. The literature that is produced from thecolonies during the period of colonialism usually embodies the discoursesthat modify the ideologies of the masses through consensus and notcoercion thereby benefitting the governing class by justifying their rule aswell as by maintaining political control and order.

The novel Anandamath a landmark text in terms of providing theideological basis to the Indian freedom movement and inspiring the Indianfreedom struggle belongs to the corpus of literature produced by acolonized territory of the British. The novel raises genuine concernsregarding the yoke of British colonialism and implicitly tries to subvert thejustification of the British rule by questioning its efficacy. But thissubversion is done obliquely and it is stated that the British rule should endafter maximum mileage is extracted from it by the Indians. When thehealer appears before Satyananda in the monastery of the Santans,Anandamath, he tells him to give up warfare and to allow people toundertake agricultural activities rather than continuing with it as theMuslim rule has ended but Satyananda argues that the British are yet to beuprooted to which the healer comments that the British being veryknowledgeable in the outward knowledge will instruct the indigenouspeople which will help them to attain an understanding not only of theouter knowledge but also of the inner knowledge. This in turn will helpthem to understand the “Eternal Code” (Anandamath 229) based on theHindu rule of life thereby making them wise, virtuous and strong. Untilthen the English rule should remain intact. The English should rule overthe indigenous people as friends and moreover, the indigenous peoplerepresented by the Santans do not have the power to fight the British andwin over them. Thus, the healer advises Satyananda to change the courseof his life by going to the Himalayas with him (Anandamath 228-30).

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay in his novel subverts the metaphor ofa ‘panopticon’ that is in place as a result of British colonialism in India and



the Indian subjects have internalised the ideology of the British related tothe ‘White Man’s Burden’ thereby justifying their rule. This novelindirectly undercuts the idea of the efficacy of a foreign rule over theindigenous people by showing the Santans to be up in arms against theMuslims who are considered to be foreigners ruling over the Hindusresulting in the end of the Muslim rule. This is an oblique comment thatholds good even for the British rule but Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaybeing a colonized subject conveys the idea of a free Indian nation to theEnglish through the example of the Muslim rule which is shown to cometo an end as a result of the Santans. Nevertheless the author through hisnovel makes it evident to the British that their rule is temporary and theirpresence in India will be there till they impart outer knowledge to theindigenous people. This leads to the subversion of the panopticism that theEnglish had put in place to rule India with an iron hand.

Anthropomorphism refers to the interpretation of non-human entities orevents in the form of human characteristics. The term has been derivedfrom the Greek word “anthropos” meaning human and “morphe” meaningform. The term was initially used to refer to the attribution of humanphysical and mental features to a deity. In the mid-nineteenth century, theterm came to be used in all the spheres of human thought and action whichincludes daily life, arts and sciences in addition to religion. It may occurconsciously or unconsciously. It is also known as “personification” in thedomain of literature and graphic art (“Anthropomorphism”). BankimChandra Chattopadhyay in his political novel Anandamath usesanthropomorphism to bestow a national character or identity to aconglomeration of kingdoms or principalities, that is, India. This nationalcharacter or identity that is bestowed by the author on India through theuse of anthropomorphism is to unify the inhabitants of the above-mentioned geographical territory, to inspire them to revolt against theforeign powers who have established their rule in this territory and finallyto throw off the yoke of foreign rule that has had a debilitating effect on thecountry. The technique of anthropomorphism used by the author in thenovel not only gives the country an identity of a mother who sustains andnourishes her children, the indigenous people of this country, but alsoinvokes patriotism in the Indian psyche through the idea of respecting themother, worshipping her and liberating her from the clutches of the alienrulers. It helps the author to resist the effects of colonialism and pre-emptthe dream of a free India. In the novel, the monk, Satyananda Thakur, who



is also the leader of the rebels takes Mahendra inside a temple in the abbeywhich is also the abode of the Santans and shows him three forms of themother representing India. The form of the mother as she was in the past:

At first Mahendra was unable to see what was inside, but as he peeredmore and more closely, he could gradually make out a massive four-armed statue bearing a conch shell, discus, mace and lotus, respectively,in each hand, with the Kaustubha gem adorning its breast, and thediscus Sudarshan seeming to whirl around in front. (149)

The monk takes Mahendra to the next image of the mother which is herform in the present. It is described thus:

Blackened and shrouded in darkness. She has been robbed of everything;that is why she is naked. And because the whole world is a burning-ground, she is garlanded with skulls. And she is crushing her owngracious lord underfoot. Alas, dear Mother! (150)

The monk finally takes Mahendra to the form of the mother as it will bein the future. It is described thus:

Prostrating himself, the monk said, “And this is the Mother-as-she-will-be. Her ten arms reach out in ten directions, adorned with variouspowers in the form of the different weapons she holds, the enemycrushed at her feet, while the mighty lion who has taken refuge there isengaged in destroying the foe. Behold her whose arms are thedirections….” (150)

The three forms of the mother represent the past, present and future ofthe nation, India. The example brings home the glorious past of the countryas highlighted in the glorious image of the mother. The present image ofthe mother is dark, mysterious and ominous thereby obliquely commentingon the present state of the country that has been laid to waste as a result ofour subjugation, exploitation and deprivation by the foreign powers. Thefinal image of the mother represents the future of the country that will beprosperous after its enemies, the foreign rulers, have been eradicated.Thus, anthropomorphism has been used by the author to indirectlyindoctrinate the masses with the nationalistic ideology.

‘Panopticon’ refers to the surveillance of the many by the few whichtakes place in a colonial set-up whereas ‘Synopticon’ refers to thesurveillance of the few by the many. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaythrough his historical novel Anandamath projects both the Muslim rule aswell as the British rule to be alien rules that are to be ended sooner or later



thereby establishing the national identity of a free country, India. Similarly,A.S.P. Ayyar in his Indian English historical novels Baladitya (1930) andThree Men of Destiny (1939) obliquely comments on the political conditionsprevailing in contemporary India like infighting among various membersof Indian royalty and support provided by some Indian kings and chieftainsto foreigners so that they are able to gain a strong foothold in the country.As a result of which the British had been able to strengthen their rule in thecountry. He also elucidates the role of the traitors in undermining theIndian rulers and helping the foreign rulers in establishing their stronghold.He covertly comments on the plight of India under the British rule bycritiquing the rule of the Huns. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay urgesIndians to put up a united resistance against the British rule in India. Hebecomes a representative voice of the masses who puts the rulers (Muslimsand British) who are a selected few under surveillance. He is able topresent a critique of the rulers as well as of the political conditionsprevailing in India at that point of time. He comments on the Muslim rulethrough the mouth of Bhabananda who states that the Muslim rule has justbrought misery on them instead of protecting them: “Everywhere elsethere’s a pact with the king for protection, but does our Muslim kingprotect us?” (147).

The author hints at the annihilation of the British rule which is also aforeign rule, not immediately but in the future:

“Muslim rule has been destroyed”, said Satyananda, “but Hindu rulehas not been established. Even now the English remain powerful inKolkata.” (228)

The author deconstructs the panoptical metaphor by bringing about areversal of the panoptical polarity as in this case the author representingthe Indians becomes the overseer who gazes at the Indians as well as theforeign rulers who are actually the British but ostentatiously the Muslims.Thus, the author replaces the ‘Panopticon’ that is in place as a result ofcolonialism by the ‘Synopticon’ through his novel.

The effects of the subversion of “Panopticism” is traced in BankimChandra Chattopadhyay’s political novel when he implicitly urges his fellowcountrymen to rebel against the British and put up a united resistance againstthem through the historical example of Sanyasi Rebellion which is placed faraway in the historical past so that he could avoid the pernicious consequencesof producing a seditious literary work. Nevertheless, the novel had been



banned during the British rule. It was only released in the post-independenceIndia. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay through the example of the Santansof the Sanyasi Rebellion urges the Indians to rebel explicitly against theMuslim rule and implicitly against the British rule and drive them out ofIndia. The author preaches his ideology of Hindu nationalism through thisnovel that portrays both Muslims and British to be outsiders who have beenruling the country and the need for their ouster from the seat of power. Heshows in the novel that the Santans have achieved their first goal of endingthe Muslim rule but they need to wait to realize their second goal of endingthe British rule. Bankim substitutes the metaphor of ‘Panopticon’ with thatof ‘Synopticon’. In his novel, he reverses the idea of the surveillance of themany by a selected few and replaces it with the idea of the surveillance of aselected few by the many. The author’s role is reversed from being anindividual who is observed to that of an observer which gives him agency asa colonized subject to change the power dynamics. He effectively observesthe selected few like the Muslim rulers and the British rulers, analyses thereasons behind India’s loss of freedom and prescribes solutions.

Ayyar, A.S.P. Baladitya: A Historical Romance of Ancient India . Bombay:Taraporevala, 1930.

——. Three Men of Destiny. Madras: Caxton Press, 1939.“Anthropomorphism.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica

Online. Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., 2015. Web. 18 Jan 2015.<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/27536/anthropomorphism>.Chatterji, Bankim Chandra. nandamath, or The Sacred Brotherhood. Trans.

Julius J. Lipner. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005.Jefferson, Ann. “Structuralism and post-structuralism.” Modern Literary Theory.

Ed. Ann Jefferson and David Robey. London: B.T Batsford Limited,1986. 92-121.

Mills, Sara. Michel Foucault. London: Routledge, 2002.Rabinow, Paul. The Foucault Reader. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.Selden, Raman. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory.

Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheat Sheaf, 1989. 70-113.

ELIF Shafak, the Turkish novelist, is scaling shoulder high with thecontemporary Brazilian novelist Paulo Coelho and Chinua Achebe, theNigerian novelist of the last century. Out of the corpus of her works thenovel The Forty Rules of Love (2010) stands on the same pedestal as TheAlchemist (1988) by Coelho and Things Fall Apart (1958) by Achebe.Apart from the millions of copies sold, the thematic contents and thenarrative technique of her novel are unique and outstandingly unparalleledin the genre of fiction. She has not only maintained the contemporaneitybut has adroitly telescoped it with the events in the lives of Shams Tabriz,the Sufi mystic and Rumi, the legendary poet of the thirteenth centuryrecreating the archaic milieu in Konya then and fusing it with the hi-techpresent America. The ease with which she takes her readers from USA toTurkey, back and forth, is like a smooth unhindered journey from oneplanet to the other.

The cover page depicts a middle aged woman clad in sleeveless longsummer frock down below the knees, trudging by the sea side shore withfeet immersed ankle deep in the wavy water while her seemingly tiltedpensive look gazing on the birds soaring high to the ninth cloud. It is amarvelous, wordless expression of perceptional duality conveyed throughsuggestive portrayal of the entire scenario. The lady has her feet on waterywet earth, symbolizing mundane existence, though looking up to the birds,may be aspiring to peep into the divine, like the climber of the birches inRobert Frost. The title, The Forty Rules of Love, is splashed across herphysical frame, with a vast ocean in the backdrop. The bold white of thetitle stands in conspicuous contrast with the name of the author in the bold


94

Forty Rules of Love: Mundane or Divine?


black. A symbolic juxtaposition indeed. Seldom have I come across suchsuggestively meaningful cover page of a novel.

Hamlet had play within play “to catch the conscience of the king”.However, there is no such motive in this novel which has narrative withinnarrative. The narrative covers two different zones viz. Northampton, nearBoston in USA, enveloping a time period from May 18,2008 to September7,2009 and the second starting in Samarkand to Konya covering the eventsfrom March, 1244 to October, 1260. There are in all eighty nine segments(chapters). Action in twenty three takes place in Northampton, USA; whilethat of the remaining in Samarkand, Baghdad, Konya and Damascus; thebulk being in Konya, Turkey.

Ella, the protagonist and caption of the twenty-three segments set inUSA, on the threshold of forty, has been married to a dentist for twentyyears with three children, discharging all her day and nocturnal obligations,without any demur or confrontation, despite the known infidelity of herhusband often spending nights out with his clients or staff. It was a life like“still waters—a predictable sequence of habits, needs and preferences” (1).On the last Valentine’s Day she got a diamond pendant, heart shaped, witha card reading:

To my dear Ella,A woman with a quiet manner, a generous heart, and the patience of asaint.Thank you for being my wife.Yours,David. (2)

Reading the card she felt as if it was an obituary, an epitaph whichwould have been carved out on her grave when dead. A calm docile woman,who would not think of “changing even the daily coffee brand,” (3) files anapplication for a divorce. A pebble was hurled in her still lake like lifecausing ripples. Literally, it was the calling of love from the far offunknown individual whom she had never met but had just web links, someexchange of e-mails which, over a short period of 40 odd days, orchestratedthe inner strings of music, the food of love.

Having grown up, the children no more need mother’s apron strings.With husband also getting busier Ella finds ample free time from thehousehold chores. She accepts an assignment from a literary agency to go



through the manuscript of a novel titled Sweet Blasphemy by an unknownauthor A.Z. Zahara of Holland and write a report on it. The reading of themanuscript unfolds Shams’ mystic life from his childhood to murder. Avery interesting feature of Shafak’s novelist he dove-tailing of travails inElla’s life with the metaphoric uphill journey Shams undertakes to andcompletes with Rumi.

Every page of Shams’ life spells out the rules of love one after the otherwhile interacting with the persons he meets in his journey. IntermittentlyElla exchanges e-mails with Aziz (Zahara) who affectionately replies everyone of them. This exchange of mails between the two tangentially touchesElla’s life which shows cumulative, though gradual, change culminatinginto an astonishing finale.

The discord which had been brewing beneath surfaces out one afternoonover the lunch when the eldest daughter Jeannette, still a student in acollege for graduation and dating Scott for eight months, announces hermarriage with the guy. The news unsettles the parents, particularly Ella.The resistance expressed through suggestive hints not only drives a wedgein the relationship between the mother and daughter but also tears open theseams of love vis-à-vis marriage. The exchange of dialogue is worthquoting:

“Mom, haven’t you been in love?” Jeannette retorted, a hint ofcontempt creeping in her tone.

“Oh, give me a break! Stop daydreaming and get real, will you? You’rebeing so….” Ella’s eyes darted toward the window, hunting for adramatic word, until finally she came up with “…romantic!”

“What’s wrong with being romantic?” Jeannette asked soundingoffended.

Really, what was wrong with being romantic? Ella wondered. Sincewhen was she so annoyed by romanticism? Unable to answer the questionstugging at the edges of her mind, she continued all the same. “Come on,honey. Which century are you living in? Just get it in your head, womendon’t marry the men they fall in love with. When push comes to shove, theychoose the guy who’ll be a good father and a reliable husband. Love is onlya sweet feeling bound to come and quickly go away” (10) (Italics mine).

A bolt from the blue for David, he confronts Ella, “So should Iconclude that you didn’t marry the man you loved.” She replies, “I was in



love with you back then.” Deadpan David, “So when did you stop lovingme?” (11). While Ella breaks into tears David moves away in agony.

The situation worsens when Ella speaks to Scott purporting to dissuadehim from the marriage till they mature and understand each other. Thisback fires and Ella finds herself estranged from the family members whowalk away on her. With mental and domestic peace in shambles, corneredand abandoned, as Ella turns to the manuscript she fumbles on the firstpage which carries a note about the author: “For despite what some peoplesay, love is not only a sweet feeling bound to come and quickly go away”(15) (Italics mine). Ironically, a contradiction to what she had uttered to herdaughter. If love is not only a sweet feeling bound to come and quickly goaway, it surely is bound to be something else as well. What could that be!The religion, the essence, the elixir or the purpose of life. Is it allpervasive; does it impact everybody at one or the other stage of life even amiddle aged married housewife? A cool breeze blows and strikes softlyagainst her face infusing fresh spirit. Indeed, it is inspiration enough forElla to take a plunge into the manuscript.

Out of curiosity she googles A.Z. Zahara and a personal blog flashes onthe screen. Running through the blog; bright colored page featuring “amale figure with a long white skirt whirled slowly” (42) a whirling dervish,with a small invitational poem underneath:

Let us choose one another as companions!Let us sit at each other’s feet!Inwardly we have many harmonies—think notThat we are only what we see. (42)

After a couple of sections appended is Rumi’s immortal poem:Choose Love, Love! Without the sweet life ofLove, living is a burden—as you have seen. (43)

Ella felt as if everything in the blog was meant for and related to her lifewhich as of that moment was loveless and insipid. Let alone Shams’ FortyRules of Love, she felt she could write her own sets of rules; “The FortyRules of the Sedentary, Suburban, Earthly Housewife”, starting with “Stoplooking for Love! Stop running after impossible dream! There are surelymore important things in life for a married woman about to be forty” (44).Incidentally, the protagonist in The Bastard of Istanbul also writes herpersonal manifesto for Nihilism. In such a conflicting contrariness she



writes her first email to Aziz, the first step towards the unknown, theuntrodden.

There is now a transition backwards to Shams’ journey. As a child he“received visions and heard voices” (38); he felt he talked with God whoresponded. Sometimes he would ascend to the seventh sky and alsodescend to the lowest pit to experience the high and the low. He lost hisappetite so much so that for days together he would not feel hunger northirst. He started seeing his guardian angel and when he wanted to sharehis experience with his father he was accused of having “wild imagination”and advised not to scare the villagers with his stories. His own kith and kincould not understand him. As he grows older, the visions become strongerand grip harder. He abandons the house and embarks on his quest for God.Having no roots he travels east and west, high and low, all round the globe.For days together he would not come across a single soul but did not giveup. He would lend a patient ear to philosophy and logic from sages andseers, but would not hesitate arguing vehemently his point of view. Themystic revelation, the celestial ray was not far to seek.

Recapitulating his experiences and ruminating over them again andagain he felt he can compile a list of some principles which would spinethe basic laws of Islam, universal and dependable. These basic principlescould constitute the Forty Rules of the Religion of Love which could be“attained through love and love only” (40). One of those rules said,

The Path to the Truth is a labor of the heart, not of the head. Make yourheart your primary guide! Not your head. Meet, challenge, andultimately prevail over your nafs with your heart. Knowing your selfwill lead you to the knowledge of God. (40)

It takes him years to compile these rules, the forty of them. He feels heneeds to handover this divine treasure trove to someone to carry on and hecalls for His help. “Go to Baghdad,” the message from the guardian angelresounded the room in a rhythmic echo, “a singsong voice.” There hewould get the master who would guide him in the right direction. He ispromised a spiritual companion there. With profound gratitude, Shamstravels from Samarkand to Baghdad in the hope that he would get divinedirection there. His face bears the testimony of his ascetic pursuits for morethan forty years. His black apparel, a wooden bowl befitting a mendicantalong with a baton, all invest him with a halo of a mystic sufi, a dervishwith a more than an earthly appeal.



In the mid Thirteenth Century, Baghdad was basking in splendor,luxurious opulence like a rich full blooded youth in hay days. None tookcognizance of the new entrant save that he was one of the mystic sufis whowere believed to complicate simple things of life with their individualisticexperiences and esoteric interpretations of life; offering impracticablesolutions for the undefined labyrinthine spiritual destination. As a mark ofsocial responsibility a lodge was run by Baba Zaman for dervishes who cansojourn there for a short white till they embark on their journey ahead.Coincidentally Shams arrives in this lodge at a time when the judge, arenowned scholar with vast influence and royal authority in the area wason his visit to the lodge to safeguard against rampant sufism. The two enterinto acerbic arguments about the need and place for searching God andShams’ articulation silences the Judge.

Shams lingers in the lodge for almost nine months, against theexpectations of Baba Zaman, leading unconventional life. None could tellwhat he has been waiting for. Baba Zaman receives a letter from MasterSeyyid Burhaneddin requesting for a scholar, a mystic dervish who couldbe an assiduous companion, with no hope ever to return, for Rumi, theMawlana, the renown erudite teacher in Konya. In the session called forfloating the invite only Shams is willing to undertake the journey. It wascurdling winter, so he is made to wait from winter to spring and then springto autumn, metaphorically to put his enthusiasm to acid test. But Shams’zeal does not wane nor does his patience in the hope of an imminent divinepromise. One of the rules exalts patience thus:

Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be farsightedenough to trust the end result of a process. What does patience mean? itmeans to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and seethe dawn. Impatience means to be so shortsighted as to not be able to seethe outcome. The lovers of God never run out of patience, for they knowthat time is needed for the crescent moon to become full. (74)

With Baba Zaman’s nod he gets two sealed letters, one giving the name ofthe city and the other the person i.e. Konya and Rumi, the name that zoomshim high, for Rumi, the emblem of love, sure is the abode of God for Helives in the hearts of lovers. So now it is a journey from Baghdad to Konya,an inner journey of Love, “for a new self to be born...” with implied hardshipalike a child labour. “Just as clay needs to go through intense heat to becomestrong, Love can only be perfected in pain” (86). As Shams goes to bid adieu



to Baba Zaman, he observes a perceptible change in him even before thejourney has commenced. Yes, “the quest for Love changes us. There is noseeker among those who search for Love who has not matured on the way.The moment you start looking for Love, you start to change within andwithout” (87) is the enlisted rule. So off towards Konya.

A change is in the offing in Ella’s life too. Her email to Aziz has beenwarmly responded. A stranger going all the way to The Tree of theBrokenhearted to tie a wish to the branch for reconciliation between themother and the daughter is a no mean gesture as compared to her husbandwho had preferred to stay away abandoning her to suffer alone during thatpainful night. What a contrast between the two males! Aziz suggestssubmission which is not weakness, but “a form of peaceful acceptance ofthe terms of the universe, including the things we are currently unable tochange or comprehend” (55). He signs of the mail with a wish “May lovefind you when you least expect, where you least expect” (55). A meteoricfulfilment of the wish; Ella gets a reconciliatory call from her daughterassuring that she loves her. Ella feels a soft niche carved in her heart forAziz, the stranger still, just a single email old. She is further impressed byhis next email where he states to have visualized her aura, with “warmyellow, timid orange and reserved metallic purple” (92) predicting them tobe her colors. As he asks an old lady to give him a tapestry to be presentedto Ella when they meet in times to come, the one she picks from the pile ofmore than fifty, had the same color combination. A sheer coincidence nodoubt, but it inches the niche further. Ella closes her eyes to visualize thecolors and she is in different world. Call it a trance, or a senso-aesthetictransport or romantic transcendence, or intuitive elation on viewless wingsof love, she is far away from the kitchen where she was supposed toprepare breakfast for the family. She is jolted out of her reverie by thegiggles of four individuals surprisingly watching her lost in the mail on thetablet.

Another email complimenting Ella on her fortieth birthday, associatingforty with many auspicious and significant religo-historical events like“the flood of Noah lasting for forty days”, “Jesus went into wilderness forforty days and nights”, “Muhammad was forty years old when he receivedthe call to become a prophet”, “Buddha meditated under a linden tree forforty days”. He assures her of “a new mission at forty, a new lease on life”(115). It is like the sweet unheard melodies which reverberate all around, aclarion call creating ripples in her consciousness.



The sporadic becomes so frequent that now the note book and the emailaccount remain open throughout the day waiting for the ping rushing her toread the contents which spiral her to the hitherto unscaled heights of love.She acknowledges within her sleeves that this is flirtation with the webfriend, but since there is no physicality involved it is Platonic. On anexclusive dinner, David shares with her that he is aware of the affair going onbetween the two as he has been reading those exchanges of emails. Withoutthe slightest hesitation Ella now shows the guts to declare that she is in lovewith Aziz. Complacency is slapped foreboding a storm in the tea cup.

The emails give way to telecommunication and sms on her personalcell. The first email was sent on 19th May, 2008 and on 29th June, 2008her cell pings a message of Aziz’s arrival in Boston in Hotel Onyx. Itcauses emotional turmoil. Boston is two hours’ drive from her residence.Should she drive the next morning or right away but on what pretext?Taking a Que sera sera attitude she decides to jump the family bridge andreaches Onyx post haste within 2 hours. The dream man is there and thetwo spend more than an hour and a half over several cups of coffee withthe conversation taking an intimate tone and casually a kiss planted on herfingertip. Riveted through exchange of glances with a bit of playfulflirtation Aziz asks Ella, “Would you like to come to my room?” (302), aninvitation which on one hand lifts the mantle while on the other causes stirin her bubbling stomach and creates confusing apprehensions in the mind.Having travelled so far would it be worth the effort to advance a bit more?They arrive in the room colorfully decorated with a king size bed in thecenter apart from other warm and cozy settings. Is this going to be the pitchfor the erotic; a waterloo for the wedded morality?

Writ large in Ella’s eyes Aziz has no difficulty in plumbing the mentaldilemma. He moves her away from the bed towards the chair in the corner,

“Hush, it’s so crowded inside your mind. Too many voices.“I wish we had met earlier.“There is no such thing as early or late in life. Everything happens atthe right time.” (302)

He fiddles with her so that wherever he touches her she feels warm. Hegently moves her unto the bed and lets his palm play around the bodymuttering words that sounded like a prayer; “although there was nothingcarnal about it, it was the sexiest feeling she had ever experienced” (303).Burning between the legs she closes her eyes in a state of bliss, puts her



arms around Aziz pulling him towards her, ready to go further. But Azizimplants a tender kiss on her nose tip and withdraws.

“Don’t you want me?” quips Ella.“I don’t want to do anything that would make you unhappy afterwards.”(304)

How unlike Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey, one pining for the lip-locks and the other in mercurial haste to unleash his passions in FiftyShades of Grey. Unconsummated but elated though, Ella leaves the hotelroom around 1.30 in the middle of the night.

Every day she drives from Northampton to Boston to spend time withAziz, visiting places, enjoying the beauty of the town, sharing experiences.On the last day, she expresses her desire to go with him to Amsterdam. “Iwould love to take you to Amsterdam with me, but I cannot promise you afuture there” (322). A shocking revelation follows. Aziz has been diagnosedwith a terminal disease melanoma which has spread to his internal organsincluding lungs and that he has just been given sixteen months. How couldhe take her to Amsterdam with the wicks of his own life burning out fast.The scales are loaded: twenty years of wedded life versus just forty days ofweb acquaintance; lovelorn settled life with an infidel husband prepared tosink the past, promising a restart and three grown up children versussixteen months of intimate proximity with the new found lover followed byan uncertain future. The call for the unknown proves stronger. Leaving thetable with lavishly prepared meals for the last super and unlit candles keptin the side, she picks up her suitcase to join Aziz.

Most of the time they travel together to various places but theirtogetherness comes to an end in Konya, the home of Rumi who had beentransformed out and out by Shams. So has been Ella. Aziz succumbs to hismalignancy but has a peaceful death. Ella invites his friends who join fromdifferent parts of the world for the burial, a warm and joyful ceremony,with sufi musicians playingney and his Scottish friend sprinkling rosepetals on everyone. One of the locals said, “this must have been thecraziest funeral Konya had ever witnessed, except for the funeral ofMawlana [Rumi] centuries ago” (349).

Two days after the funeral Ella found herself alone to take the stock ofher life. She rang up her daughter Jeannette, the only one who hadsupported her in this venture, to break the news of Aziz’s death. “Will yoube coming back home now?” No was the answer. Ella decides to rent a flat



in Amsterdam and go on a daily basis, earn her livelihood somehow butmost certainly listening to the call of her heart it being one of the rules:

“A life without love is of no account. Don’t ask yourself what kind oflove you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, Easternor Western…. Divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has nolabels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple.

“Love is water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire.“The universe turns differently when fire loves water.” (350)

Thus states Rule Number Forty. Listen to the calling of love when itorchestrates your inner strings. Think not of the past which is aninterpretation, nor of the future which is nothing more than an illusion.Live in the present even though it is evanescent. Don’t toe the flow, be theflow. What joy and ecstatic moments did Ella derive during those sixteenmonths remain a treasure with her. She has the consolation of being withher lover for that long. It is interesting to note that as against the webrelationship in the present novel, Kunal Basu described epistolaryrelationship in The Japanese Wife where Snehmoy Chakrabarti andMiyage had pen friendship which led them to marriage vows. Over aperiod of seventeen years they never met but exchanged gifts as husbandand wife do. On his death Miyage comes to India, fully shaven head, cladin a white sari as a widow, to perform the posthumous rituals. Choosing theheart as her primary guide Ella enjoyed the bliss of companionship withher lover even though for a short period which would go all the wayembedded in her memory to sustain her in the remaining part of her life.The quest for love changed Ella within and made her stronger to face thelife as it ensues.

A very outstanding feature of the novel is the beginning of each chapter.It has in all eighty-nine chapters and every one of them starts with alphabetB, a rare feat. Alike the elements of the universe, she has classified thesections as Earth, Water, Wind, Fire and The Void. Underneath thesecaptions she has hinted the reader what he would find therein.

Substantial space has been given to Shams’ interaction with manyindividuals in Konya where he travels to be with Rumi as his companion.Rumi is completely transformed. The two deliberate for days together inthe closed library to the exasperation of their family members. Ultimatelythey come out with what they call Forty Rules of the Religion of Love. Letalone Shams’ presence, even by just going through the narrative in the



novel Sweet Blasphemy Ella has undergone complete metamorphosis.Shams’ tutelage and Rumi’s feat can be the pursuit for another academicendeavor.

Basu, Kunal. The Japanese Wife. Noida: HarperCollins Publishers India, 2009.James, E.L. Fifty Shades of Grey. London: Arrow Books, 2012.Shafak, Elif. The Bastard of Istanbul. USA: Penguin Books, 2008.——. The Forty Rules of Love. USA: Penguin Books, 2010.**Shakespeare, W. Hamlet. London: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

**Figures given in brackets pertain to this edition.

IntroductionIn the words of Simeoni Daniel (2009), “Translations are textual

artefacts’ whose functions are inscribed in the particular social culture thathosts them”. Peter Newmark made a detailed differentiation betweensemantic translation and communicative translation. He defined semantictranslation as “an attempt to render as closely as the semantic and syntacticstructures of the target language allow the exact contextual meaning of theoriginal” (63). According to him the words as signs or as images presentsliteral information of the contemporary understanding of the thingsprevailing in the surroundings. The signifier i.e. meaning of the wordsconveyed in language construction is per se the mental, social and personaloutlook of the speaker or the writer in an independent creative work. Thesigns and signifiers in the source language relate to self-raising and self-propelled idea of the signification and communication in which semioticdevice depends on the structure and meaning of the language morespecifically. In source language, the semantics i.e. signs refer faithfully theindication of cultural phenomenon and dimensions in the exact sense;while in target language i.e. (in case of the rendering versions) the signs,words, symbols get free from the indigenous framework and they arereframed or adapted to their ‘semiotic niche’. For instance the translatorRavi Nandan Sinha in English rendering of the stories—titled Atonement,assuringly retains the original title in print. Prayaschit. This is because inIndian cultural phenomenon and social dimension the word prayaschitdenotes larger sense than mere apology for doing something wrong. Thetranslator aims to describe the meaning of the original word as it is actuallyused in a particular “geographical origin and social class membership ofspeakers” (56). His perspective as regards the representation of a sign is torefer to the traditional connotation of a specific geographical origin. Indeed


105


Translation: A Social Fact and Practice

it contradicts the Ferdinand de Saussure’s conception of linguistic semantics,in which Saussure prescribes the meaning of the word in structure of alanguage as it should be, while Ravi Nandan Sinha unfollows theprescriptive expression of meaning and applies his descriptive comfortzone for communicative meaning.

The Social Facts and the Social PracticeThe translation of a source text into a target language is a human

activity. Paradoxically a faithful rendering of the original text reinforcesone’s insight, knowledge and linguistic ability and translatability. In thearticle ‘Translation and Social Praxis in Ancient and Medieval India’,Debendra K. Dash and Dipti R. Pattnaik write that:

Translation has been perceived as an ideological enterprise and studiedas a potential site for raising issues related to practices of power andknowledge within a community or culture.

In Indian context, translational and linguistic transactions are commonlypractised due to multilingual society. On account of this there arechallenges as regards meaning and felicity of expression during translationactivity. Yet the exchange between the two languages is an aestheticexperience, because translation involves the ‘peripheral aspect of exegesis’(133). In translation it integrates knowledge and power. The translator is atime-binder who challenges the metaphysical notion of authorship bysituating text materially. His interpretation of the source text goes acrossthe space-binding because he recreates the linkage of language to knowledgein the target language.

For instance, the translator Ravi Nandan Sinha legitimises themultilingual nature of Indian society and ontological status of differentlanguages of India by transcreating the Hindi short stories in order to letthem reach to a wider range of readers. His rendering not only caters to theintellectual taste but also to the social needs. The activity of retelling andsubverting the text of short stories not only takes into account the narrativedynamics but also internal and external forces of intercultural and exchangerelationship while the process of translational transactions. The translationof Hindi Short Stories in English language assimilates freely the linguisticand lexical materials. The heterogeneity of local language is healthilyintermixed and consolidates the co-existence of source language with thetarget language.



Ravi Nandan Sinha in translating the original story Puruskar titled asThe Reward written by Jaishankar Prasad, retains the original author’ssource text conventional symbolic signs, because he could not findequivalents in the target-oriented literature or language. The words such asAdra Nakshatra, Bhadre, Bhadra, Devi, Chanwar, Kalash, Kumkum,Prahar, Shrawan (Sinha, 34) signify ethno-philosophies, ethical-culturalsubject of an indigenous ethical system at the primary level. Secondly theelement of transcoding such ethical words indeed violates the essence orthe conscience of the nature-culture frame. Therefore the translatorattempts to recognise the terrain of culture in aboriginal mother-tongue.The translator metaphorically does representation of aboriginal concepts inthe performing art of literary translation as word and image. He presentsthese symbols in “generalizable semiotics” (Spivak, 242). Similarly thetranslator Sinha emphatically prints the original title: Goonge, besidestranslating it as Dumb People. The author intends to focus on the acoustic,receptive and auditory perspective of the word in the native Indian tone aswell as the perception towards such people of disabilities in Indian socialsettings and realities. Besides he wants to reach inside “the correspondingconceptual structure of the discourse” and to search “the problem of thetransposition of the subject” in the target language by avoiding semioticdeviations (Gill, 31-36).

The translator while narration faithfully adheres to the linguistic patternof sentence structure expressed as in source language. Indeed there isgrammar-translation and vocabulary-translation, yet he constitutes hisrendering on the model of “natural – method” (en. wikipedia) alikeMaxmilian Berlitz who preferred to avoid target language as an expressionfor communicating the tone/voice of the original object, rather he letsongoing interaction between the word and the sentence per se sourcelanguage. In the story Prayaschit, the translator not only sticks close toreligious sensitivities of the speakers of native language, but he maintains arelationship between the rendered version and social perspective of thevocabulary for indigenous readers. He translates the maid’s reaction whilepreserving the standard in the normative structure of source language “AreRam, the cat is dead. Ma ji your daughter-in-law has killed the cat. It’sindeed a very serious matter”. Further the translator attempts to createnormative linguistic entity while translating the standard behaviour ofnative speaker in the lines spoken by Pandit Paramsukh on the event. Hesaid in a grave voice, “Hare Krishna! Hare Krishna! It is a terrible sin.



Killing a cat early in the morning! The scriptures prescribe the Kumbhipakhell for such a killer. Ramu’s mother, this is really a serious matter”(Sinha, 91).

The translator tries to constitute separate and automous entities. To keepreligious adherence in order to perform linguistic stability between sourcelanguage and target language, a critic writes that “languages remaininsulated from one another” (Lewis, 21). The author does not want tostabilize the normal selection of a social, regional speech pattern at acertain point, while he progressively includes “standard forms of thelexical, morphological, phonological and syntactic mixtures of the targetlanguage” (22). This manifests the translator’s efforts to achievenormalization and standardization for determining translatability andtraditional linguistics in “cultural, social and situational possibilities incommunicative acts” (23). The translator R.N. Sinha while communicatingmeaning in the rendered version establishes relationship between signswhich are to be interpreted by readers and the readers have to disseminatethe information if they belong to the source language group, and if they arefrom target language group then they have to decipher the mixed or hybrid/non-standard cultural and linguistic context. For example the story originallywritten by Rangeya Goonge titled conveys metaphorically the differencebetween the sense-oriented and sign-oriented function, that are two kindsof typical strategies to interpret communication. Communication is amonolingual activity but when the translator or interpreter works on thesemantic content and mental representation of the transposition process,the activity turns bilingual. The translator chooses deftly words as conceptsto indicate signification and communication. It is apt to go through apassage from the story Dumb People to understand the difference in sense-orientation and sign-orientation. He writes the English rendering versionin this way—‘Gesturing with her fingers’, Chameli asked to the dumb boy,“then what happened?”

The dumb boy covering his face with his hands to indicate a veil repliedin a sign-language: She ran. Who ran away? It was sometime before peoplecould understand what he was trying to say. He was saying: “When he wasyoung, his mother who wore a veil left him. That happened because‘father’ represented by a gesture of handlebar moustaches, died. And hehas been brought up by—by whom? The boy’s reply to this question wasnot clear to anyone, but everyone understood that those who brought himup thrashed him frequently” (Sinha, 80).



The gestures, signs, expressions indeed explain the image or object thatthe speaker aims to draw, but when it comes to kinaesthetic, the mentalrepresentation has to be decoded and for that translator has to haveconsciousness raising insight, even if it appears to be an anomaly symbiotically.While doing translation from the psycholinguistics point of view, themeaning has to be drawn from the sense of the concepts, but not from thefactual idea of the word/sign. In this context it is apt to quote a literarytranslation theorist to understand Ravi Nandan Sinha as the professionaltranslator/interpreter who focuses on the ‘sense for sense process whichconsists of the deconstruction of sign into sense and reconstruction of senseinto sign. His bilingualism is mediated by the possession of a single store oflogical and encyclopaedic entries for concepts but distinct language-specificstores of lexical entries for the languages involved. For such translator thesign in the target language is called up by the concept, by the sign in thesource language (Bhargava, 55).

The Social Nature of TranslationLiterary translation tends to increase knowledge and dissipates ignorance.

It enlightens and instructs interpreter or reader or audience with informationand instruction regarding socio-cultural realities and socio-political contextof the society, man and norms. It designs mental faculty with intellectualvigour to explore the primitiveness prevailing in socio-cultural phenomenonof the original text. It manifests in its utterance the characteristics ofconventions and intentions of the historical, ideological, “social andpolitical functioning” (Culler, 36) of a culture or community.

Literary translation is a skilful device to transmit the reflections ofculture and to discuss the relevance of past nature-culture frame in thepresent times and context. The social nature of rendered version carriesideas, attitudes and values of the contemporary times of the original text,but at the same it significantly indicates resistance and inquiry in themeaning of the complex at three levels of rendering—“linguistic,ethnographic and pragmatic” (Herman, 78). For example the translatorRavi Nandan Sinha in the rendered English version of the book GreatHindi Short Stories picks up the Hindi short stories that falls within thespan of last hundred years. His observations and experimental approachbrings out his mediation, consideration, direction, depiction and dimensioncapacities as regards the societal conditions of India; he surfaces thematter-of-facts that shows conformity of the socio-cultural aspects. He



changes “these from one language into the other language to retain thesense” (Smithy, 1958) with the realisation that in contemporary times suchissues need change and thoughtfulness as well as “hermeneutic approachin translation to apprehend performance rather than existence of diverseidentities of human species” (Harvey, 295-320). The translated Englishversion story entitled She Had Asked Me (originally titled as Usne KahaTha written by Chandradhar Sharma Guleri) gauges gender-consciousnessand gender-language issue in literary translation. The interpreter Sinha setsbefore us the conventional assumptions of identification and self-identification that are perceived and treated differentially, in relation towomen’s status and the notion of gender imposed by society. He writes thatin Amritsar the big coachmen unlike bamboo cart-drivers while pickingtheir way through the narrow, winding lanes of Amritsar say with patiencetheir brethren “Save yourself Khalsaji”, “Wait a minute brother”, “Let mepass Lalji”. Their tongue cutting, their way like a sweet knife, when drivepast some old women (who) despite being asked middle of the road, theysay to her, “Hut ja jeene jogiye, hat ja karma walie, hut ja putten puriye,bach ja lambi umara waliye!”

Ravi Nandan Sinha translates and it means “You deserve to live, youare fortunate, you are loved by your sons and you have a long life ahead ofyou; what do you want to die under the wheels of my cart? Please let mepass!” (Sinha, 2).

ConclusionThe translator here acts as a revisionist to such gender symbolic and he

integrates from the source text the gender sensitive language into the targettext. The translator rejects the traditional images of the source text; whiletranslating he distils “the traditional usage of the modern language, and donot translate word by word, rather communicates with his creative geniusthe sensitivity, individuality as well as the target texts’ conception of thesource text in particular and of textuality in general” ( Zellermayer, 75).There is “shifts of expression in the social nature of translation” (Toury,ed., 75). The translator focuses more on “the contextually conditionedculture-specific structures of meaning, rather on the lexical differences ofthe language peculiarities or on the reproduction of the linguistic expressionin its exact completeness. The translator internalises connotative context ofthe text” (Talgeri, 86). Thus the native cultural reference either thetranslator has retained the sense in its originary or he has decontextualised



the verbal culture of SL into TL contextual situation for the sake ofconsciousness-raising regarding heterogeneous cultural sensibility.

Anderman, Gunilla (2011). “Linguistics and Translation”. A Companion toTranslation Studies. Eds. Piotr Kuhiwczak and Kiran Littau. New Delhi:Orient Blackswan.

Bhargave, Rajul (1999). “The Psychological Perspective in Translation Studies”.Literary Translation. Ed. R.S. Gupta.

Culler, J. (1997). Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: OUP.Daniel, Simeoni (2009). “Translation and Society: The Emergence of a Conceptual

Relationship”. In Translation–Reflections, Refractions and Transformations.Eds. Paul St. Pierre and Prafulla C. Kar. New Delhi: Pencraft International.

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Herman, Theo (2011). “Literary Translation”. A Companion to TranslationStudies. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.

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Newmark, Peter (1981). Approaches to Translation. Oxford: Pergamon.En.wikipedia.org/wiki/semiotics

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Zellermayer, Michal (1987). “On Comments Made By Shifts in Translation”.Translation Across Cultures. Ed. Gideon Toury. New Delhi: Bahri Publication.

THE genre of campus novel has as its setting the closed world of a campusand is focused on students, teachers and sometimes academic administratorsas well. David Lodge, one of the most famous practitioners of this sub-genre writes in this context: “In English ‘Campus Novel’ is a term used todesignate a work of fiction whose action takes place mainly in a college oruniversity, and which is mainly concerned with the lives of universityprofessors and junior teachers...” (30). The tone of a campus novel iscomic but occasionally it turns into mild or harsh satire on academic life.Chris Baldick in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms writes:“Campus novel is a novel, usually comic or satirical, in which the action isset within enclosed world of university (or similar set of learning) andhighlights the follies of academic life” (30).

The present paper is focused on the satirical portrayal of campus life asdepicted in Rita Joshi’s campus novel, The Awakening: A Novella inRhyme. The novel deals with the experiences of a Cambridge educatedidealistic lecturer in Delhi, about whom she writes: “From Cambridgecheerfully she came/ to seek at home fortune and fame” (10). Through JR,the protagonist of the novel, the author gives us a grim insight into the stateof higher education in the country. The novel deals with the theme ofcorruption and opportunism in educational institutions and draws attentionto the negligence or lack of concern of the faculty towards academics. Thelarger part of the action in the novel takes place in the campus of awomen’s college in Delhi. The unbecoming academic setting in modernIndia is sketched with enormous detail in the novel.


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A Reading of Rita Joshi’s Campus Novel The Awakening: A Novella in Rhyme


The novelist, in the very beginning, gives a very clear picture of thequandary of the Indian students and the sorry state of affairs in theacademic atmosphere of the Indian colleges. Though JR’s first impressionsare mixed, she is able to understand the degrading academic scenario inher college:

The scholarships here seems less,The library is in a mess,The tutorials are redundant,Guidebooks are far too abundant,Lectures seem to be forcefed,What really goes into the head? Other’s in the Department sayThat students while time away. (14)

This is a powerful sardonic comment on our times, where the campus—the seat of learning, becomes a subject of satirical criticism on students,teachers and the principal of the college.

JR observes that the students in B.A. (Hons.) English are not serious intheir academic pursuits. The young girls take up the study of literature forwrong reasons. They have opted English because a B.A. Honours degreein English comes in handy as a matrimonial qualification:

An English Honours B.A. degreeCounts well for matrimony.An Eng. Lit. type is thought smartAnd so good for the marriage mart.Though is there a real connectionBetween marriage and deconstruction?Logic seems to be defiedBy this concept of a bride. (14-15)

One can distinctly feel the ironic bite in the following lines:In different contexts degreesCreate different pedigrees. (15)

In such an anarchic situation, JR is naturally inclined to feel concernedabout women’s education and the female situation. Women’s colleges were



set up to facilitate the higher education of women so that they could tobroaden and widen their social horizon and empower themselves bygetting equal opportunity of education and employment.

But the Supreme College for Women seems to make a mockery of thesecherished ideals. Neither the principal nor the teachers could be seenmaking any attempt in helping students rise above their view about theirsubject and education. The principal called SS is driven by selfishintentions and indulges in power politics. Coercion into subservience ispart of her administrative stratagem:

On the first day the principal metThe newcomers to the set.Called SS by her initialsAnd compared to SS officialsBy students whose muttered dissentHer rigid armour could not dent,To the new ‘recruits’ she made clear,Her word they must respect and fear. (10)

The character of SS offers a contrast to Mr. Daash, a senior lecturer inRanga Rao’s The Drunk Tantra, who was a father-figure and pillar ofsupport to students and junior collegues. SS like a dictator loves to retainher authority like a monarch and abominate trade unionism in the collegewhich poses a threat to her authority:

Trade Unionism she abhors,Monarchy she adores,On sycophancy she thrivesAnd terrorising young lives. (26)

Among other things happening on the campus, the annual dramaperformance comes as a big prospect for SS to show herself off. SS who isplanning for her extension and so she wants to make a notable impressionby inviting all the dignitaries to the show. With the senior members of theteaching staff preparing to go on a strike, she singles out the new candidateJR as a soft victim and almost forces her to assume responsibility of theCollege Drama Society:

JR begins to demur,SS stops any murmur:



No protest, you must say yes,I will not accept anything less,You are not married, you’ve got the time,Teach them drama, teach them mime. (27)

If we compare the character of SS with Mr. Natarajan, the Principal inP.M. Nityanandan’s novel The Long Long Days we can observe that whilethe graceful personality of Mr. Natarajan is remembered by his studentswith tremendous love and respect, SS on the other hand insists that sheshould be feared and esteemed, little realizing that respect and love cannotbe forced and has to be earned. Her relationship with the students is shownin these words:

SS always wants to evictStudents for disobeying orders,Her strictness on mania borders. (55)

In another very important episode the author shows how SS, blinded byher power and position indulges in malpractice. JR is shocked to find thatthe principal, who preaches discipline and morality, indulges in corruptactivities. During examinations, JR is shocked to see that SS unashamedlyapproaches her niece in the examination room and tells her the answer:

After ten minutes SS againReturns ostensibly with a pen.This time JR goes nearThem in an attempt to overhear,SS is clearly giving clues,Asking the girl not to have blues. (88)

When JR tells SS that what she is doing is wrong and she can’t do it, SSsimply glares but moves along. An hour later ET and PR discuss this eventof malpractice and misuse of power by the principal. An emergencymeeting is called the next day when ET gives a report that she and JR sawthe principal help her niece in the examination:

ET (to the Staff) gives a report(JR interjects for support):“Miss JR and I yesterday sawSS help her niece outside our door,



Without teachers the girl was placedAlone on a desk- SS graceThe corridor twice and suppliedAnswers to her niece at her side.” (88-89)

It is quite shocking that in the meeting SS straightaway and unabashedlydenies having done such an act. It is through her power and position thatSS arranges things to prove her innocent. A few flatterer like NV also comeout in the defense of SS:

NV speaks in defence of SS:“JR once more causes distress.These young upstarts are out to shameUs, and upset our good name.” (89)

Here the author highlights and satirizes another aspect of college life,where teachers are shown, driven by the selfish motives, trying to get intothe good books of the principal.

During the enquiry SS highlights the absence of any concrete evidence,the lack of a photograph or a recorded tape of her conversation with herniece, and in turn accuses JR as a creator of conspiracy:

What proof do they have of what I saidTo my niece? You can’t accuse a Head.No photographs, no recorded tapeCan their claim support- this scrapeIs cooked up-what they say I’ll deny,This is all that forms my reply-All this is just defamatory,Insolent, inflammatory. (92)

In absence of any tangible proof, SS gets a clean chit along with a noteof reprimand. But the Board of Trustees is not pleased by this squalid stateof affairs. The Principal’s demand for extension of her term is rejected andshe is asked to proceed on leave without any farewell. At the end, when theprincipal’s post is advertised, it is quite distressing to know that ET, anyundeserving candidate is made the principal:

In a strange quirk of fateET is chosen and thought first rate. (94)



Here the novelist attempts to indicate the flaws of the selectioncommittee in the modern day educational institutions because of which thechosen candidates are sometimes not even worthy of their posts. JR’s viewis therefore right when she feels:

Colleges must awareness breed,Fight evil, not egos feed,Can our present dons truly guideStudents to swim against the tide? (95)

After these histrionic events the protagonist JR feels disillusioned withher fraternity and her place in it. She also becomes aware of the ironywhich permeate higher education. She realizes that everything else hascaptured the centre stage in teaching profession aside from teaching. Thisinsight weighs heavily on her consciousness and she feels depressed. Shetherefore makes up her mind to resign from her job because she feels shedoes not belong to this fraternity:

She explains her predicament thus—I teach, it should be fine,But I feel I’m toeing the wrong line,I’m fighting fights I don’t want to fight,How do I get out of this plight? (51)

This is the moment of her awakening and it dawns upon her thatcreative writing is decidedly her field and she must devote herself to it:

She must try to heal her gashes,The phoenix must rise from the ashes,Creative work she feels will bringResurrection, an awakening. (52)

She decides to write a book which will be based on her experience inSC college.

The novel also portrays the faculty with its very strange with conflictingattitudes. None of the faculty member is seen to be academically orientedor concerned with the welfare of the students. JR during her tenure in thecollege learns about the insalubrious details about her colleagues in thedepartment and gets to know the outlook of individual faculty member. Forinstance, MW, short for Maid in Waiting, is a weird and strange character.



She feels offended at the fact that though she liked men, they never returnher compliment:

She liked men but they did not returnThe compliment, this made her burn. (13)

She is a discontented cynical woman who savours self-praise and losesno opportunity of condescending her colleagues:

These women, they don’t read,They’re teaching only out of greed.They are just housewives and mothersBut of course there are others-I’m the poetess of the Staff,MW ends with a laugh. (13-14)

In the course of her outburst, MW never loses the chance to praiseherself. She claims that the girls are enthralled by her, and she lives in aworld of self-deception, hoping that her poems will earn her fame andfortune:

Like patients they are etherised,By me the girls are mesmerised.My poems will bring me fame,I’ll make my fortune, have a name. (17)

Since she has the habit of denouncing everything and everybody, shetells JR that since the publishers in India are unremarkable, she has sent-off her manuscript abroad for publication:

I’ve sent off my manuscript,Publishers here are nondescript,I’m going to publish abroad,Here everyone is a fraud. (17)

Apart from MW, there are a number of other peculiar figures in theteaching staff. NV and PR are SS’s stooges who always want to be in hergood books. NV is MW’s aunt and considers her niece much efficient thanJR. She never misses an opportunity to criticize JR:

Some of the responses are odd,All do not her effort laud,



NV, MW’s lofty aunt,Says with a sneering taunt:“No one can with my niece compare-To do a play does JR dare?” (30)

PR is a non-assertive woman. She takes pride in being a devoted wifeand feels irresolute and perplexed about everything:

I am feeling weak,At home my husband is my guide,Here I walk by SS’s side,Such angry word about SSWill lead us all into a mess. (70-71)

MT is interested in astrology and often speaks of starry influence andprofesses to dabble in occult powers:

All the younger Staff come to me,I predict without a fee.I read hands, I can read face,But I believe in God’s Grace. (18-19)

ET is the Secretary of the Teacher’s Union. She is a large woman whocould always be seen eating. PV reads papers at conferences and considersherself a renowned academic. She carries about her air of discontent withthe college. Then there is CD who is twice an M. Phil and a Ph.D and isconsidered most intellectual of the lot. In JD one can trace similarities withthe character of Ranjana Malhotra from Anuradha Marwah Roy’s TheHigher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta. Like Ranjana Malhotra shetoo is renounced by her husband, and she independently carries out theresponsibility of her two children. There is another odd character, QT whobelongs to high society but whose morals are considered loose.

A women’s college is a place where female mind should be progressiveand liberated, but ironically, the women in question lack a sense of femalefraternity and fail to form any meaningful bond. They are shown to bemotivated by selfishness and rivalry. It is very unfortunate to see how meanand ruthless women can be with their own kind. A better understanding oftheir attitude can seen when they pass derogatory comments on JR’sendeavours. For instance, when JR’s review appears in East Ind Times, ET



considers all that as ‘faltoo’ and advises JR that there is more to life thanonly the books. According to her money is far more important as one canbuy food with it. She also reveals to JR the futility of her exercise ofreviewing books:

By reviewing books what will you earn?Uselessly why do you burn?What we know is more than enough-All they read is that kunji stuff. (47)

According to ET teachers need not update themselves academically asstudents are in the habit of reading guide books and so they do not requireany scholarly ideas. The protagonist JR laments over the pathetic conditionof the academic profession:

Education seems a pretense.She wonders where she’s getting,What scholarly urge she’s whetting,Universities have not curbedA society from being disturbed.Higher selves have not emerged,In fact they seem to be submerged. (38)

JR feels sad when she compares Supreme College to Cambridge. She isbaffled to see the degradation of higher education and the behaviour andattitude of the academicians.

The novelist also points out that the dilapidation is prevalent not onlyinside the campus, but also in society at large. The author throws light onthe sycophantic reverence shown to foreign experts, in the hope of gettingan assignment abroad. There is an episode in which The FIC (ForeignIndian Centre) is shown sidetracking a very knowledgeable local academic,Dr. Bhim and choosing an Englishman to deliver a lecture just because hewas incharge of some grants:

The Englishman’s reading is slight,To give this talk he has no right,But all listen obsequiouslyThey take him very seriously.He is incharge of some grants



And can aid academics’ wants.So at the end of the talkMany persons around him flock. (54)

Through this episode the author draws out attention towards the biggesttragedy of our day present education system. Our education system todayhas become so commercial and materialistic that people with power andmoney climb the ladder of success while the truly knowledgeable andsincere people are left behind.

By way of summing up, we can easily call The Awakening a powerfulcampus novella which very realistically captures the grim realities of theworld of academia and brings to light a host of unsavory aspects of highereducation in India. A range of themes like, an uneasy political context,teacher’s movement and the struggles of writers and artists, forms part ofthe backdrop of the novel. Through an amusing and light-hearted portrayal,the author throws light on the various aspects of campus life and bringshome the point that with corruption, and malpractice sneaking into thecitadel of learning, the higher education and teaching positions are notsacrosanct anymore.

Baldick, Chris. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford:Oxford UP, 1990. Print.

Joshi, Rita. The Awakening: A Novella in Rhyme. New Delhi: UBSP, 1993.Print.

Lodge, David. Nabokov and the Campus Novel, paru dans Cycnos, Volume 24n°1, misen ligne le 20 mars 2008. Web. 10 March 2014. <http://revel.unice.fr/cycnos/index.html?id=1081>.

Nithynandan, P.M. The Long Long Days. Bombay: Asia Publishing House,1960. Print.

Rao, Ranga. The Drunk Tantra. New Delhi: Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd.,1994. Print.

Roy, Anuradha Marwah. The Higher Education of Geetika Mehendiratta . NewDelhi: Orient Longman Limited, 1993. Print.

FRANCIS Bacon in his essay “Of Studies” writes about the nature ofbooks by using a metaphor from taking food: “Some books are to betasted, others to be swallowed, some few to be chewed and digested”before explaining the metaphor further, “that is, some books are to be readonly in parts; others to be read but not curiously; and some few to be readwholly and with diligence and attention” (italics mine 182). In using thesame metaphor, I wish to express my strong feeling that though Srivastava’sessays have usually been informative and instructive, he has made thempalatable with the help of wit and humour. He writes: “As meals becomepalatable with the addition of salt and pepper, the transmission ofinformation—general or technical—becomes easier by the addition ofspices of wit and humour” (Read 106). In his essays, Srivastava hasfrequently used the metaphors of salt and paper, believing that the choicestof dishes have these indispensable nutritious ingredients. By developing apositive attitude to life, one can certainly make a bland life pleasant andenjoyable.

Srivastava’s Read, Write and Teach: Essays in Learning to LiveTogether is a collection of 35 essays on a wide variety of subjects, dealingwith the university education, administrative machinery, road and railtransport as also a perceptible fall in democratic and moral values. With hislight-hearted approach, he has made them quite palatable. It is significantthat in an age when the eating habits are dictated not by the nutritionalvalue of an edible item but its outward look and taste, Srivastava has

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Ramesh K. Srivastava’s Views and Expressions in Read, Write and Teach: Essays


attempted to make his essays both palatable and valuable so that they havesome chance of survival even in an age of novels and short stories.

These essays are neither bookish, nor borrow ideas and expressions ofother writers but carry the distilled essence of the lifetime of the writer’sexperiences. It is the richness of his experiences which appeals to thereaders. If Bacon’s essays continue to be popular even after four centuries,the reason was, as Selby felt, they “are the fruits of his observations of life”and “reflect his experience of men and the world” (Selby xvi). When basedon genuine and dispassionate observation of life, Srivastava’s essays touchthe head and heart of the readers. This is what Pashupati Jha feels when hewrites: “The mark of the author’s vast experience as a student and teacherof literature as well as of a sensitive and fully conscious, intelligentobserver of what is happening around is stamped on each page of thisbook” (351). For Anupama Chowdhury also, the book presents “a galleryof prismatic experiences culled from various fields” (355). They reflect thechanging trends, attitudes and values in social matters, politics, education,teaching and administration. Srivastava’s essays are not mere replays of thevideo recordings of his experiences with semblance of realism on surfacelevel but are the results of his conscientious acts of x-raying and churningof the issues in his mind before articulating his observations, conclusionsand suggestions by testing them against his own experiences in India andabroad. The basic thrust of his essays has been to wipe out bureaucratichurdles and traditional cobwebs surrounding religious and moral issues forthe greatest good of the largest number.

A very large number of these essays deal with education and howinnovative methods could be used for its improvement. In the first essay“Creative Reading, Creative Writing and Creative Teaching,” the authoremphasizes the importance of creativity in reading, writing and teaching.Creative reading is not to be mistaken as if it is meant merely to grasp thepredictable set of meanings but it goes beyond the surface meaning,particularly when “one’s mind is filled with thousands of ideas, and eachsentence, each word, even punctuation marks and blank spaces becomeimbued with one’s knowledge and experience” (Read 2). Unfortunately,our educational system has been reduced to learning for particularinformation and hence it leads to fragmentation and disintegration ofknowledge. The traditional method of annual examinations with stereotypedquestions goes against the very principle of creativity. Besides, good or baduniversity and college teachers make or mar anything like the painters, as



Pablo Picasso had said, “who transform the sun to a yellow spot...[and]transform a yellow spot into the sun.” The same creativity can be in writingwork, but in Indian educational system, there is the total absence of writingwork. In American educational system, the writing work is an integral partof the course work which brings perfection and exactitude in man. It is inwriting that one has to organize ideas, choose appropriate words andexpressions, and ensure that they carry the burden of the contents decently.

The systematic erosion of standards of education has been due largelyto unscrupulous politicians who through their short-sighted approachappoint “pseudo-academics as heads of institutions” out of their ownsycophants, flatterers, and yes-men, notoriously known as chamchas, andwho, in turn, breed their own prototypes. For such people, Srivastava usesstartlingly harsh epithets which hit the bull’s eye. Jonathan Swift had asincere desire to bring some reform in the society of his time but his senseof humour was somewhat grim and sardonic. Srivastava occasionallyresorts to the Swiftean humour and satire when he uses lacerating and evenwounding expressions against the pseudo-academics, calling them “four-footer, dwarfish,” “one-eyed,” “drum-beating” and “high-soundingacademics” who constitute their own “society for mutual admiration.” Theauthor concludes: “Under the guise of supervising teaching and research,some of these white-collared, bespectacled, hoary-headed professors arereally criminals who operate under the respectable garb of academics”(Read 162). He does not spare even internationally celebrated writers likeR.K. Narayan and hits out at his simplicity of style in rather uncharitableterms: “Narayan’s style is indeed like an old, rickety, wooden spinningwheel squeaking and rattling noisily at a monotonous pace. Feed the bestof material into it but the thread shows no sign of fineness” and again“Narayan’s artlessness conceals no art but reveals artistic bankruptcy”(Read 117-18).

Srivastava believes that in teaching, the use of comic devices “enlivensthe text,” removes dullness, brings in a gust of fresh air so that “the tiringfacts and figures retouched with wit and humour remain permanentlyembedded in the memory” (Read 21). In their absence, the dull classescould become “daily marathon boredom exercises”. The errors, blundersand howlers need not make the teachers of English tear their hair; takenlightly, they can be “a matter of enjoyment and fun.” Unmotivated teachingmakes the teacher “an unwilling beast of academic burden.” Srivastava isopposed to those teachers who hide their deficiency in the subjects of his



teaching by reciting poems or narrating funny incidents. He warns againstthe excessive use of comic elements in teaching and says: “Wit andhumour are to teaching what salt and pepper are to food; they must be usedonly as much as add to the taste and not more” (Read 21).

Gifted with a sense of humour, Srivastava observes the world with aglint in the eye and believes strongly that this world can become a betterplace to live with the use of humour. This is undoubtedly his mostfavourite sweetening palliative which can transform all walks of life toagreeable entities. C.L. Khatri finds in the works of Srivastava “apervading sense of humour” as also in him “a penchant for talking seriousthings in lighter vein” (93). A large number of Srivastava’s essays dealwith humour in some way or other, such as: “Wit and Humour inUniversity Teaching,” “Wit and Humour in Indian Life and Indian EnglishFiction,” “Teaching of English can be Fun too,” “Humor as a Strategy forCommunication” and “A Little Knowledge can be a Humorous Thing.”

Odd and funny situations provide a fertile area for wit and humour, notonly in teaching but in all walks of life provided one has the right attitude.The road signs, sign boards of advertisements and catchy slogans paintedbehind trucks and busses can make one smile. The essay “These Witty andHumorous Road Signs” finds that warnings to drivers can be couched inoblique, indirect and humorous expressions to discourage drunken driving.A road sign warns: “Drive on horse power, not on rum power.” To checkover-speeding, a wise counsel is: better to be “fifteen minutes late in thisworld than be fifteen minutes early in the next.” In “These FunnyAdvertisements!” a man with the consumption of a bottle of coke has beenshown to jump from a helicopter without injuring his finger. By looking atthe unrealistic claims of advertisers, one can enjoy seeing how businessand humour are “harmoniously blended” in such advertisements.

Some of Srivastava’s essays have been written in a lighter vein withtongue-in-cheek humour in the style of Addison and Steele. JosephAddison had a keen sense of genial humour with which he wrote hisCoverley papers and through them brought a great deal of reform in thesociety of his time. What makes Srivastava’s essays palatable, as the blurbof the book points out, are their “pungent yet savoury humour, piquant butpleasantly sharp wit, spicy albeit illustrative anecdotes, stimulating scholarlyquotations and provocative questions.” The test of any piece of literature,like that of an exquisitely delicious meal is: how much and how long doesit stay in the memory. After seeing thousands of beautiful daffodils,



Wordsworth recalled them whenever he was in vacant or pensive mood. Incertain cases, Srivastava employs catchy idioms, modified proverbs,debased sayings, pleasantly distorted words and phrases, and newly-coinedfunny definitions to convey his ideas pleasantly, such as, “To err is human,but to forgive and to laugh it away is certainly divine.” A father can bedefined as “a banker provided by nature;” a bald man as one “who has lotof face to wash and very little hair to comb;” and a doctor “who cures yourills by pills and kills you by his bills.” Such expressions remain lingeringin the mind, teasing and pleasing insistently.

Sometimes Srivastava packs a lot of vigorous punches in his expressions,such as, some research scholars who plagiarize the works of others arecalled “academic porters” for physically lifting the entire thesis ordissertation. They produce scholars who have “research degrees withoutresearch.” Students in a boring class appear to be in “a prolongedcondolence meeting,” while boring teaching is termed “daily marathonboredom exercise.” For short-sighted, selfish academics, “the world is notthe family but the family is the world.” The power-packed officers in theadministrative empire are “the mighty Atlases of bureaucratic India” andthe common man’s act of chasing his files in these offices is “a pilgrimageto various secular temples of bureaucratic India.” In a narrow sense, auniversity could be called “local-ity rather than university” for catering tothe interests of local people. In the absence of good education, a collegeis often reduced to “an academic factory manufacturing degrees anddiplomas.” Pashupati Jha finds the essays from the view points of thesubject matter and expression “intellectually quite stimulating. Theyactivate the dormant mind of the readers by challenging their deeplyentrenched thoughts” (352).

Charles Lamb usually wrote personal essays in a style which isinseparable from his humour. His humour is caused largely by his far-fetched comparisons which include a lot of exaggeration. Lamb wasgenial, humorous, autobiographical and occasionally laughing at his ownreal or imagined weaknesses. Srivastava’s essays are not consistentlyhumorous, but he delighted, as Lamb did, “in weaving threads of fiction ina web of truth” (Walker 236). Though Srivastava is known mainly for hiscritical essays, novels and short stories, he has occasionally contributedboth serious and light-veined essays depending on the subject matter. In alighter vein, he portrays an idiotic traveling companion in the manner ofCharles Lamb for whom economically weak relations in the essay “Poor



Relations” made him burst “into a perfect riot of whimsical metaphors”(Walker 241). In “Travelers Gather many Wise and Unwise Companions,”Srivastava obviously imitates Lamb when he writes: “An idiotic travelingcompanion is nature’s left-handed boon to your desire for romanticmoments in your journey, a butterfly in a glass of your cold drink, an ill-timed joke at a crematorium, a broom in a well-furnished drawing room—something not quite undesirable—a hot morsel in your mouth you canneither swallow nor spit it out” (Read 173).

Akin to the use of comic devices, Srivastava gathers together manyhowlers and then emphasizes that English is a foreign language and errorsand mistakes in its use by Indians are bound to take place. What is neededis to respond to them in a human way with consideration, as one would tothose of his near and dear ones. If someone fails to understand “length ofservice” and “sex” meant respectively for duration of stay and gender, theerrors are not so much grammatical as cultural ones. The same thingapplies to mispronunciation of words “wrap” as “rape” and “snacks” as“snakes” or difference in meanings between “outstanding” and “standingout” as also between “come in” and “income.” In conclusion, Srivastavafeels that rather than tearing one’s hair over the howlers, an innovativeteacher “with the help of comic vein and lighthearted attitude,” can makethe students’ English better by making its learning “a matter of enjoymentand fun” (Read 59).

The use of apt examples and illustrations appears to be Srivastava’sfavorite game which makes his writings delightful. An appropriate imageor illustration brings before the mental eye two objects simultaneously,sometimes even from two different fields, quickening the reflexes of areader or a listener and in the process he delightfully moves fromconfusion to clarity, from seriousness to light-heartedness, unlocking, as itwere, the windows of his mind. That is the reason, cartoons are socommunicative. Anupama Chowdhury talks of Srivastava’s originality ofnarration evident from “the apt examples he cites to prove his point” (355).Besides, in his writing, “images shape up from different areas—sometimesculinary as well” (356) because Srivastava is “a scholar of rare merit [who]reinforces his view point with apt quotations and adorns it with choicestillustrations” (357). Such illustrations are many times poetic, as one findson the opening page of the book:

Creative reading is an act of unfurling one’s mind while going throughthe text, allowing it to spread around like the light from the filament of



an electric bulb rather than like that of a glow worm which barelylights its own path. (Read 1)

Or they are tell-tale exposures, likeNow for M. Phil and Ph.D. degrees, candidates do not plagiarizematerial—that would be like stealthily using nuts and bolts belongingto others—but they smuggle it wholesale. (Read 16)

A few of Srivastava’s one-liners are quite apt, memorable, meaningful,catchy and quotable, such as, “A short story is a frozen moment of life,carrying in it the seeds of perennial truths.” If the story is too brief, it “mayhave the effect of a cracker’s explosion that unnerves one for a momentand then is forgotten.” For the claimers of unanimity, he warns, “Theapparent peace on surface hides a volcano underneath.” He defines theVice-Chancellor as “the spinal cord of a university.”

Many times, appropriate examples and anecdotes are brought fromwell-known classics and mythological stories. In order to point out thedrawbacks and dangers of fragmented knowledge, Srivastava has succinctlyshown with the help of examples of shooting of the shabda-bhedi arrowsby King Dasharath of Ayodhya in The Ramayana and by King Pandu ofHastinapur in The Mahabharata which had rocked their kingdoms andhad brought about widespread ruin and destruction.

Many serious problems of Indian life which have plagued the commonpeople for decades and even centuries have not escaped the attention ofSrivastava. He has deeply contemplated over the contradictions betweenthe appearance and reality in the country. The entire system of governancebecause of bureaucratic delays and red-tapism has bred corruption, delayand inefficiency. The vote-bank politics is another dangerous factor whichis making the country hollow from within. The essay “Democracy in India:Secular or Seculiar” refers to the Indian democracy where minority rulesthe majority. Any party that favours the majority is called “communal” butthose favoring minority become “secular,” thereby making the country“secu-liar” formed from “secular” and “peculiar.” Since politicians considerlaw unto themselves, “the violation rather than the observance of law”becomes an ideal. In “Come Back Later,” the author calls the governmentofficers as “the mighty Atlases of bureaucratic India” before whom thepeople have to offer obeisance though they might make the latter run tovarious offices. The author advises the people in an ironical tone:“conserve your energy, give rest to your lungs, and retread the soles of your



shoes so that you could stand in various queues for hours or trudgetortoise-like miles away through the papery labyrinths, chasing your files,now to one office, now to other as if going on a pilgrimage to varioussecular temples of bureaucratic India (Read 199).

The moral fabric of the country has equally been torn asunder byhypocritical politicians, thieves disguised as moral and social reformers,and white collared deceivers shown in “Research Potentialities amongUnscrupulous Indians.” Such people do a lot of research work in adulterationof various items and in fooling the common people in the names of caste,creed, religion, business or job opportunities. No other country has donefraudulent researches on such a grand scale as have Indians, such as, for“the salability of divinity” which with little investment earns foreignexchange with the help of “international clientage of devotees” of the self-proclaimed bhagwans, swamis and yogis. In “Art of Prevarication,”Srivastava points out how Gandhian principles of truth and non-violencehave been abandoned and telling truth has become a risky affair. Indianpoliticians are past masters in the art of prevarication. In the essay “OnShrinking Sizes,” the author points out how a rupee’s value has comedown to less than thirteen paise but even with the devalued currency,honesty of people from a bus conductor to M.L.As, M.Ps, and evenministers can now be bought. In this once-spiritually-great country, wordslike “honesty” and “integrity” are shrinking and shriveling up beyondrecognition. A child reportedly said, “Father, I know of Brooke Bond tea,Lipton tea, Tata tea, Chinese tea and Kashmiri tea, but you never made ustaste integri-tea and hones-tea” (Read 155).

Occasionally, Srivastava can get carried away emotionally and then hisstyle becomes highly charged. When responding to his views on the idea ofsuccess, he writes:

For me, success is not a royal throne to be simply dreamt of, nor is it alollipop to be had only for the asking. It is not an end-product, as iscommonly understood or a finished jigsaw puzzle, but a continuingprocess, not the feeling of having reached but that of striving andprogressing perpetually. (Read 143)

A versatile genius flourishes in a thousand ways. Srivastava who hadshown his writing skills in critical studies, novels and short stories—andno less in teaching—has demonstrated that he is equally at home in writingserious and light-veined essays reflecting the inner unarticulated urges and



sentiments of the people who have hands itching but can do nothing andwhose tongues strive to formulate words but are bitten by the teeth.Srivastava’s essays are not like those temptingly attractive and well-packaged items in the multinational departmental stores in the metropolitanMalls, but like humble wares in the dusty, weekly bazaars of the rural areawhere the common people come, pick up the items of their needs and goback home with broad smiles of satisfaction over their faces.

Bacon, Francis. “Of Studies,” Bacon’s Essays. Ed. F.G. Selby. London: Macmillanand Co., 1962, pp. 128-29. Print.

Chowdhury, Anupama. Book Review of Ramesh K. Srivastava’s Read, Writeand Teach: Essays on Learning to Live Together. The Critical Endeavour.Vol. XXI (January 2015), pp. 355-57. Print.

Jha, Pashupati. Book Review of Ramesh K. Srivastava’s Read, Write and Teach:Essays on Learning to Live Together. The Indian Journal of EnglishStudies. Vol. LII (2015), pp. 351-53. Print.

Khatri, C.L. Book Review of Ramesh K. Srivastava’s Read, Write and Teach:Essays on Learning to Live Together. Cyber Literature. Vol. XXXIV. No.2 (December 2014), pp. 92-95. Print.

Selby, F.G. “Introduction” to Bacon’s Essays. London: Macmillan & Co. Ltd,1962, pp. i-xxix. Print.

Srivastava, Ramesh K. Read, Write and Teach: Essays on Learning to LiveTogether. New Delhi: Authorspress, 2014. Print.

Walker, Hugh. The English Essays and Essayists. New Delhi: S. Chand & Co.,1959, Print.

I have tried to analyze the lives of three well educated sisters who aretrying to strike a balance between their traditional culture and desire formodern Western life. They have learned to live on their own condition,taken independent decisions in life, chose their life partners. Tara theyoungest, even divorces her husband Bishwpriya Chatterjee withoutknowing herself the exact reason, all she knows that her life was not merrywith her husband and there was a lack of emotional bonding whichhusband and wife share. Whenever she thinks about her love life with herhusband she feels that something was missing though Bish was aresponsible and caring husband. She could not blame him for anyparticular fault since he was faultless. All the sisters are intelligent andartistic. They never feel let down by the society and they never feelsuffocated by a conventional society which has little regard for women.They come from rich and traditional family so always the dilemma persiststhat whether they should follow their intellectual instinct or obey whattheir family dictated for them. They all move in different directions and inunexpected circumstances, each of them tries to carve out a unique identityof her own. But the identities are in flux since all of them attempt toachieve self realization and self actualization. Each of them tries to connecther past with the present, memory with the desire. Each of them were onthe move. Mukherjee portrays through these three moving and identityshifting characters who have partial affiliations, disinterested identities,tactical belongings their sense of belongingness which is constantlyreinvented and relocated, like the name of Tara—“Our Tara Lata”, and


131


Identity Crisis and Self Discovery in Bharti Mukherjee’s Desirable Daughters

“Tara Lata the Tree Bride” Mishtigunj and anew Tara Banerjee Cartwrightof Mukherjee’s other novel. Unlike the Tara of Tiger’s Daughter, our Latahas deep affiliations with her ancestry, her culture. She wants to connectherself with the mythic Tara Lata, “The Tree Bride.” This myth providesthe base for Tara Lata’s curiosity to establish her identity throughinterrogations of cross cultural ties. The novel Desirable Daughters is notjust an idyllic tale of three desirable daughters and their differentcircumstances but of upbringing but is a complex transnational narrativecommenting on the intricate and enigmatic process of growing up and ofthe feminist struggle of these three sisters to stick to their own self, theircultural moorings in times of crisis.

Desirable Daughters delineates the character of Tara along with hertwo sisters—Padma and Parvati, who challenge some of the ideologicalmarkers that determine the identity. Though their identity is malleable andalways in process, the process of formation of their identity is not so easyto define. The protagonist and first person narrator of Desirable Daughters,Tara is a thirty-six-year-old Indian born woman, who migrates to theUnited States after getting married to an Indian man Bishwapriya Chatterjee,the first man from a wealthy family. With exposure to both Bengali andWestern culture, the daughters are intelligent and artistic both. They rebelagainst the established strict socio-cultural set up and carve a place of theirown.

Since childhood Tara is acquainted with the fact that identity ispredetermined as she is born in a country where class and caste are veryimportant aspect of the society. While in the US she feels free to exploreher identity and she reinvents herself too. She has the chance to transformherself in spite of the social configuration of India that compels her topresent a well-established and delineated sense of self. She describes herperception of Indian identity as

Fixed as any specimen in lepidopterist’s glass case,confidently labeled by father’s religion (Hindu), caste(Brahmin), subcaste (Kulin), mother tongue Bengali,place of birth (Calcutta), formative region of ancestralorigin (Mishtigunj, East Bengal), education (post and professional)and social attitudes (conservative).(Desirable Daughters 78)



This thing is very much on the mind of Tara that in India identity isidentified with religion, caste, sub caste, mother tongue, and place of birth,ancestral origin, education and social attitudes. When she compares herlife to that of her American friends, Tara ironically concludes that herfriends should be thankful for their identity crisis: “When everyone knowsyour business and every name declares your identity, where no landscapefails to contain plethora of human figures, even a damaged consciousnesseven loneliness becomes privileged commodities” (Desirable Daughters34). She tells us thus that in India her identity is so well defined that shewill not even be allowed to have such feelings.

Tara also knows that her American friends have wrong impressionsabout India in general and mainly about the city where she was born:

My American friends in California say God, Tara,Calcutta! as though to suggest I have returned to Earthafter a journey to one of the outer planets. (DD 21)

Though she comes from a privileged background her position in Indiaand the fact that she is a woman do not favor her in some aspects of herlife. It is mainly because of her cultural indoctrination of gender roles andrelation within that particular Indian society that she has to struggle toconstruct a new identity in a geographical location. Tara migrates to theUSA she gradually notices that the traditional conceptions of gender rolesand relations for Indian women from her class and caste need to bereassessed. Her migration to a better and freer atmosphere makes her senseout new vistas of life provided to woman.

At the end of the novel, Tara’s mother tells her that she and her sistershave proved that a daughter was as good as son. Such a comment meansthat though Tara, Parvati and Padma proved themselves to be gooddaughters, it is culturally assumed that daughters are not equal or specialstill in the Indian society even in the upper strata of the society.

Though Tara accepted Bish as her husband after living in the USA sherealized that relationship was not working out for her. She decides todivorce Bish and this decision was unacceptable for her. For Bisheverything was in clear and simple terms: “You married, you had a son,you provided for the family, and if you provided very well, everyone washappy” (DD 273). His wife wanted a different vision of life not love asduty and providing for.



Tara’s diasporic experience in the US and her confrontation with aculture that is different from India makes her to decide about the divorce.She was unable to get the freedom which she desired when she was livingwith Bish in a flourished environment.

Tara’s divorce and her subsequent relationships with other men such asAndy show her rejection of gender roles that are generally laid down byIndians of her class. She explains that when she married Bish and came toUSA for living she had a feeling that she would be living a liberating lifeand that would change her perception about the world too. But slowly sherealizes as the time passes that she was caught up in a more traditionalworld of her husband. She was only serving her family and modernity wasout of question. She felt suffocated within her marriage. In other words,she realizes that she is playing a role that she does not particularly want to,and that promise of life as American wife was not being fulfilled” (DD 85).Consequently, she asks for divorce.

After giving divorce to Bish, Tara realizes that love relationships shenow has given her a sense of freedom, a chance to relive life. She got anopportunity to date for the first time in her life, since dating was notpossible for her even in India. Tara reveals several relationships she hasafter her divorce as she informs her eldest sister Padma:

I may be alone right now, this week, but thesepast three nights are the first time I’ve been withouta man or the attention of many men, most of itunwanted, in seventeen years! You thought that myworld ended when I left Bish? (DD 184)

Although she mentions several names of former boyfriends, it is heraffair with Andy that is described in detail. It is her relationship with himthat she understands the different meanings of love for both of them. Taraexplains that:

“Love” in my childhood and adolescence…wasindistinguishable from the duty and obedience.Our bodies changed but our behavior never did…the boys our fathers would eventually select forus to marry. (DD 27)



In India Tara had learnt that love must be associated with duty andobedience, for Andy, love is having fun with someone else, more fun withsomeone than with anyone else” (DD 27)

In conclusion, as Miller observes, “The differing definition emphasizethat Tara chooses between duty, family and community represented byBish and the appeals of free choice and romantic love as represented byAndy” (Miller 68).

The concept of home and migration is very much embedded in thenarratology that Bharti Mukherjee presents in Desirable Daughters. It isthe sense of migration which brings about a change to the identity ofPadma, who has finally made New York her home, her land of choice. Shetoo is an independent woman like her sister Tara. But her inalienableattachment to her home makes her the sustainer and preserver of Bengalitradition in America. The alien culture thus fails to subvert her traditionalidentity. Hence migration plays a crucial role in restructuring individualidentities and cultural attitudes and perception.

The forty-two year old Padma is Tara’s eldest sister and has amysterious life. The mystery Tara tries to solve throughout the wholenarrative revolves around her. Like her sisters Padma was born in Indiaand shares with them gender, caste, class, ethnicity, religion, sexuality andeducation. Moreover, she is also a diasporic subject as she moves toSwitzerland, England and finally settles in the USA. As a result of hertraditional upbringing in India, Padma’s identity also seems to be pre-determined. As Tara states her sister seems to posses “a firm identity resistsall change”, but as Padma’s own attitudes in the USA show, she alsodestabilizes the gender roles with which she was indoctrinated in India(DD 196). As explained before, the reader has access to Padma’s storymostly through Tara’s narration. We get mostly all information aboutPadma through indirect source, though some facts about Padma’s storycannot be confirmed in the novel, either by Tara or by Padma herself.Padma too was raised up in the same elite environment as her youngestsister Tara. She was born in to a privileged elite family from Calcutta, a“blessed, elite minority” (DD 28).

Not all status and class comfort, however seem to be favorable forPadma. Like her youngest sister she was raised and educated to getmarried, so on all the three sisters there was pressure and expectation. Theywere not allowed to freely express their will in choosing their partners or totake important decisions about their own lives. We can easily make out the



traditional mental set up of their family. The elite family provides all sort ofmodern means of life to these women but when it comes to takingimportant decisions they are not allowed to make. The eldest daughter getsmarried first and that was the rule of the family and of Indian culture too,but when Parvati expressed her desire to get married first before Padma.

So many eyes were watching, so many precautionswere taken, and so much of value was at stake-themarriage ability of Motilal Bhattacharjee’s oldestdaughter, which unless properly managed, control-ed the prospects of his second and third daughtersas well- that any violation of the codes, any breathof scandal, was unthinkable. (DD 32)

The second sister Parvati too is a follower of the ideal of Independence.She opts for a love marriage and not an arranged one.

Parvati was in her second year at Mount Holyokewhen her letter came, Daddy, I have found a boyand we have fallen in love…. A love marriage wastragic enough, but even worse, Parvati was jumpingthe marriage queue. She has an older sister andcustom dictated that the first born had to be firstmarried even if she had not expressed interest…. (DD 272)

By choosing a man on her own was not acceptable to her family. Morethe family was concerned about their prestige in the society and the futureof their eldest daughter. By marrying a man of her choice Parvati wouldspoil the marriage prospects of her eldest sister also that was the thinkingof Bhattacharjee’s family. Family reputation was given preference over thehappiness of the girls.

The lives of all the three sisters were controlled in many ways and theystruggled for finding space for themselves. As Tara tells us in the novel thatthey were never allowed to take decisions against their parents. Their “carwas equipped with window shades. We had a driver, and the driver had aguard” (DD 30). Although Tara relates that there was nothing to rebelagainst in Calcutta, so much restriction and protection was unbearable forher eldest sister.

We can make out from the narrative of Tara that Padma was interestedin movies and was keen to pursue her career in dancing and singing. She



tells Tara that in the 1970’s, the Indian Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray,perhaps the most well-known Indian film maker in the Western world, waslooking for a new girl to star in one of his movies. The girls father howeverturned the proposal down, despite the fact that he was fond of the cinemaand appreciated American movies, their “family westernization “wassuperficial, confined to convent school, metro cinema and movie magazines,and overlaid a profound and orthodox Hinduism” (DD 178). Thus,although Padma wants to and seems to be the right girl for the movie, sinceher age, language, class, caste, appearance, education and ethnicity makeher perfect for the role, her father her father does not allow her to be a filmactress mainly because she is a woman. The eldest daughter of Bhattacharjeefamily was overprotected and their “father would never have permitted anyform of exihibitionism” that could cause damage to the girls reputation(DD 29). Consequently, it can be said that all the constituents of identitythat seem to place her in a privileged position such as class, caste andeducation do not guarantee the freedom of choice that she wants. Becauseof her gender, that is, because she is a woman who has to play certaingender roles within that class, she is unable to make her own life decisions.It is possible to say that such repression is responsible for her resolution toleave India and settle elsewhere. In her teenage only, Padma goes to finishher studies and then lives for sometime in London. Finally she moves toNew York and decides to live there permanently. One can sense out easilythat all the three sisters were striving to gain identity of their own. Thoughthey were provided every facility to grow up in a highly educated andadvance atmosphere still at many places their personalities were curbed inthe name of family honor.

The second sister Parvati too is a follower of the ideal of Independence.She opts for a love marriage and not aa arranged marriage.

Tara is but partially assimilated into the alien soil of America. Tara hada deep feeling of being cut off from her community and its life style. She“stands out,” she is in the milieu but not with the milieu. As a racializedsubject, she encounters the racist and nationalist idealogy segregating her,pushing her away from the centre of American experience. Hence she“stands out” from the rest. She emerges with a new identity:

I felt as though I were lost inside a Salman Rushdienovel, a once firm identity smashed by hammerblows, melted down and reemerging as somethingwondrous, or grotesque. (DD 195-96)



The second sister Parvati too is a follower of the ideal of Independence.Bharti Mukherjee depicts a liquid society in her novels, that is society influx. It is a society of which flows perennially, the ever flowing society ofimmigrants, the flow of machines, flow of criminals flow of people andcommodities. Even we see the crossing of geographical boundaries whenTara in search of her roots remembers her ancestral ties with Tara Lata the“Tree-Bride of Mishtigunj”.

Loneliness had made Tara a little immodest woman and that immodestyhad made her lonely. Tara was trying to reconstruct her identity through herdiasporic experience.

She was attempting to redefine the importance of her culture throughspace and time. Tara’s reconstruction of identity is rooted in her nostalgican romantic collection of her past. Tara belongs to both tradition andmodernity. Her identity is highly assimilative. The curiosity about her greatgrand aunt’s life makes her undertake a root search of Mishtigunj, thevillage where the Tree Bride lived. Tara could easily adopt and accommodateherself both to her traditional Indian way of life and to her newly adoptedAmerican ethos. But she does not stick to the value system of either ofthese ways of life. She moves on both the planes—the Indian andAmerican. She vacillates between two lives “may be I really was betweentwo lives” (DD 251). Yet to strike roots, yet to belong to any of these lives,she exemplifies the “existential dilemma “of diaspora and the problems animmigrant who has a fluid identity associated with mobility and pluralityrather than static and singularity. Though Tara wants to examine her familyrelationships and explore her roots, she is not haunted by diasporic ghosts.She is a modern cosmopolitan woman, an American in the making againstthe backdrop of Indianess. She has subverted her Indianess and madeherself discovery.

In conclusion, one can say that all three sisters together achieve identitywhile moving on in life. They have passed through various phasessometimes they tried hard to turn their dreams into reality but they succeed.They all are able to discover themselves, by rebelling against the traditionalconventions of their family and culture. One thing is noteworthy that alldon’t fall and forget their culture entirely in the process of self discovery.As the process of self destruction and self construction takes place inparallel, Indian American women portrayed by Bharti Mukherjee invariablyseems to evolve in to new women.



Bose, Brinda. “A Question of Identity: Where Gender, Race, and America Meetin Bharti Mukherjee.” Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson. Bharti Mukherjee: CriticalPerspectives. New York: Garland, 1993, 47-63. Print.

Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Post colonialism. New York: Routledge, 1998. Print.Miller, Katherine. “Mobility and Identity Construction in Bharti Mukherjee’s

Desirable Daughters: The Tree Bride and Her Rootless Namesake.” Studiesin Canadian Literature, 2004. 63-73. Print.

Mukherjee, Bharti. Desirable Daughters. New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 2002. Print.Wisker, Gina. Post Colonial and African American Women’s Writing: A Critical

Introduction. London: St. Martins, 2000. Print.

ROBERT MASTERSON is a professor of English at The City Universityof New York’s Borough of Manhattan Community College, New YorkCity, New York, USA. He holds both a BA and an MA (with distinction) inEnglish Literature from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; anMFA from Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of DisembodiedPoetics in Boulder, Colorado; and a weird little academic certificate fromShaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, the People’s Republicof China. His books, Trial By Water (Dog Running Wild Press,1982), Artificial Rats & Electric Cats (Camber Press, 2002), and GarnishTrouble (Finishing Line Press, 2011) are available on various platformsnow and again. Immensely-talented Robert Masterson is one of ‘thekindest, bravest, warmest, and most wonderful writers’ of present times.He is a master at picking little things that say something much bigger thanthey reasonably should. He believes that ‘Smart people learn from theirmistakes. Smarter people learn from other people’s mistakes.’

Neeru Tandon: Robert how would you describe what you do?Robert: The first question seems the hardest to answer. Of course, on

one level, I am immersed in the day-to-day tasks and errands in which weall find ourselves tangled…work, shopping, bills, cleaning, sorting, and onand on and on. I try to watch at least one movie a day; I do not listen tomusic as much as I once did (shameful), but I read at least one newspaperevery day and listen to talk/news radio when I am in my car. So, I guess,I’m multi-tasking there which means I’m not doing any job particularlywell. Still, I think it important to know what goes on outside my littleworld, to gather the pieces of the larger picture in which I am such a smalldetail.


140

Neeru Tandon in Conversation with Robert Masterson


Behind or beneath that, though, I am a writer and a photographer, so Ifind myself scanning and searching that day-to-day for its hidden beautyand hidden meanings. The stories I hear from the news, from my students,from my colleagues, all get dumped into some kind of memory file throughwhich I can sift. I jot down notes—phrases or images—that I find striking.The moments of light and composition urge me to take a photo (and thankgoodness, I guess, for cell phone cameras).

I guess I am a recorder. That might be the definition of what I do. Irecord.

Neeru: How do you get in the mental place where you find thisdeeper interior and write?

Robert: Though I am able to consciously sit down and make myselfwrite, more often I find myself compelled to stop whatever it is I am doing,and I write before “it” is lost. “It” can be a story, a monologue, a journalentry, a poem, but if I do not force myself to take a time-out just to recordthat, I fear it will be lost.

With all the responsibilities and requirements of my job and my day-to-day life, I have probably lost more than I have recorded, but such is thelife.

Neeru: What is most challenging about what you do?Robert: Honestly, the most challenging aspect of my creative work is to

resist the temptation to just repeat what received approval, applause, orappreciation. My inclination is to repeat what worked, what garneredpositive attention in order to receive even more positive attention.

The challenge, then, is to keep challenging myself, to keep from gettingcomfortable, to keep myself from being complacent about my work.

Neeru: It sounds interesting. But what was you trying to achievewith Artificial Rats & Electric Cats?

Robert: “Achieve” is such a strange word to use. And it takes me backto the notion of recording. It was a very difficult time in China’s recenthistory—still reeling from the devastation of the Cultural Revolution andgroping its way to whatever kind of Free Market Socialism they’vecreated—and, of course, it was a difficult for a foreigner, an American, tojust sort of land in the middle of all this and try to find a way to just bethere, to advance my studies while learning something about the place, toturn Robert Heinlein’s book title around and convey something of what itwas like to be strange in a stranger land. China was and continues to be an



oppressive, repressive dictatorship by an opaque elite. How, then, was itpossible to meet people, to learn something about the way they lived anddied, to come home with something more than snapshots of sceniclocations.

Well, I did come home with a lot more than snapshots; the wholeexperience ended rather badly, it took me at least ten years to even begin towrite about what happened, and, if anyone wants to know, they shall haveto read the book.

Neeru: In your Rats and Cats there are ghost stories from the newchina number three and number seven. My question is why you havementioned the title twice?

Robert: I returned from the PRC with plenty of ghost stories and thosejust happen to be the third and the seventh in the series that I wrote.

Neeru: What does it mean to you to be a poet? How does a poembegin for you, with an idea, a form, or an image?

Robert: Poetry, for me, begins in either a phrase or an image or aphrase that captures an image. The next step is to build an armature oflanguage around that phrase or image from which to hang other phrases orimages in the attempt to create something with meaning.

Neeru: Are there any forms Sir that you haven’t tried but wouldlike to?

Robert: I think the form that I would most like to try is film, but sincefilm is both expensive and collaborative, I don’t really see that happening.I barely know what I’m doing myself, so to try to work with a team on abudget seems quite unlikely.

Neeru: What conditions help you with your writing process?Robert: That’s difficult to say. I’m not the kind of writer who requires

a special place or specific tools or regimented schedules to work. I canwrite in utter silence when alone or in a crowded restaurant or, sometimes,while driving in my car. Tricky, that, but possible.

Neeru: What is the relationship between your speaking voice andyour written voice?

Robert: I hope they are the same voice, that my written voice matchesmy speaking voice. It seems authentic, then. If I wouldn’t say it, I shouldn’twrite it. If I wouldn’t write it, then I’d best not say it. I talk to myselfconstantly, either audibly or just inside my head. I’ll turn a phrase or a



sentence or an idea over and over and over again until it sounds right, real,authentic, genuine, and truthful.

Neeru: What else would you like people to know about RobertMasterson as a writer?

Robert: I have a PayPal account online and everyone is invited to makelarge deposits.

Neeru: Ha ha. That shows the real Robert, a simple man who canmake anybody smile. But a serious question Robert you have spentthe summer of 1993 in Hiroshima, Japan, researching A-bombsurvivors; what prompted you do that and how it affected yourwritings?

Robert: Well, I spent a good part of my childhood in Los Alamos, NewMexico, USA, where the first atomic bombs were designed and built. Ihave been to reactors in New York and visited the Trinity Site inAlamagordo, New Mexico, where the first bomb was detonated. It onlyseemed natural that I visit the place where the second bomb was used. Ihave been to Chernobyl, Ukraine, and to Three Mile Island, the site ofAmerica’s worst known nuclear accident, and I hope to someday visitNagasaki, Japan, and Fukushima.

Speaking with survivors, especially survivors who have processed theirexperiences through art—literature or painting—gave me insight, I believe,into the entire process of imagining, designing, using, and being victim ofatomic warfare.

Neeru: Tell us something about—“I Weep. You Weep. She Weeps. WeAll Weep.”

Robert: That piece was commissioned by a group of New Mexicowriters who wanted to put together a themed anthology. The stories allcentered on a figure called La Llarona, the weeping woman who haunts therivers and irrigation ditches of the Rio Grande valley searching for thechildren she lost or drowned. The story itself goes back to the Spanishconquest of Mexico when Hernan Cortez acquired a native translator to aidin his military adventure. Commonly known as “Cortez’ Whore,” LaLlorona, much like Medea, killed her children when Cortez abandonedher. Regretting her action, regretting her treason, she wanders eternallyseeking what she destroyed and destroying what she seeks. Should anyliving child fall into her hands, that child, too, shall be drowned. There is amarvelous complexity to the story, of a life-giving river that is mortally



dangerous, of a native woman betrayed and seeking solace and vengeancesimultaneously. I think it came out rather well (except, perhaps, for the lastparagraph which the editors insisted I add. So, should you read it, pleasejust don’t read that last paragraph).

Neeru: What is the message you want to convey through “ImaginarySyllabus for an Imaginary Class at an Imaginary College”?

Robert: Really? I think all I really wanted to say was that writing is anelusive subject to teach or be taught and that teachers and students ofwriting often take themselves way, way too seriously.

Neeru: For our readers please comment upon Literature of theNew Millennium.

Robert: Yikes. Without naming names or pointing fingers, I have littleuse for America’s current love-affair with the mash-up, with appropriation,and with mindless repetition. I find myself gravitating more and more tononfiction—old travel narratives, essays on culture, contemporary culturalcritique, and the like. There is something happening here in the States thatI find cringe-worthy and, like many movements, schools, and fads, I shalljust wait until it passes and real writing with real meaning becomes onceagain fashionable.

Neeru: Thanks a ton Robert for being so friendly and enlightening uswith your views.

Price: ` 195ISBN 978-81-7273-959-1


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CHRISTOPHER C Doyle’s The Mahabharat Quest: The AlexanderSecret published by Westland Publishers and released on October 9, 2014created ripples amongst readers with a bumper sale of 15,000 copieswithin a month. It received positive critical reviews from readers andliterary reviewers. Second in the thriller Trilogy, the first being TheMahabharat Secret released in 2013, the main inspiration of the author isThe Mahabharat. The book is a blend of science, history and mythology inwhich the author attempts to explore the tales of Mahabharat and theirscientific interpretations. Doyle read the Mahabharat and researchedextensively consulting Sanskrit scholars in interpreting shlokas that he hasused in his book. He himself describes his novel to be “a contemporarythriller which is an intriguing blend of history, science and mythology.”

Although he utilized the ideas and has used the principal characters ofhis first novel in his second book he claims that this was not a sequel to thefirst book but a logical extension of it combining the Mahabharat andAlexander’s secrets. He makes use of Alexander’s campaign of India.Pondering deeply over Alexander’s trajectory it dawns on him that therewas something more significant in his visit to India than just makingconquests and that is where Doyle spins the Alexander secret. He explainshis own views:


The Mahabharat Quest: The Alexander Secret

I could not accept the traditional explanation that his soldiers revoltedat the banks of the Beas river saying they wanted to go back. In fact,the first time the soldiers wanted to go back home was after conqueringPersia and that’s where Alexander first told them they were goingeastwards, towards the ends of the earth.... For a man who hadmarched 20,000 miles in the quest of conquering the world wouldhave ideally liked to conquer this territory as well. Instead he turnedback mysteriously. So for me I saw this as a big gap and this is whereI found the linkage in my book between the secret of the gods andAlexander’s real purpose for visiting India.

The Mahabharat Quest: The Alexander Secret is not just a sciencefiction with unexplained conspiracy theories. Doyle uses cutting-edgescientific discoveries of the last decade to substantiate the secret of variousevents especially the Samudra Manthan after consulting scientific expertswho said that the explanations given by him seemed plausible. Heresearched the scientific reasons to support the secret that he revealed inthe book. Doyle himself clarifies, “The use of hard core science andaccepted scientific fact to explain mythology was something that makesmy books different.”

Christopher Doyle transports his readers back to 334 B.C. giving vividdetails of the era and the characters in the very beginning and then bringsthem back to the present weaving the story with intriguing situations andhis vivid characterisation. The book is interspersed with antiquity and thecontemporary.

334 B.C.Alexander the Great and his passionate ambition to conquer the world

plans and begins his conquest of the Persian Empire. However, his lust forattaining everlasting glory goads him to march towards the Ends of theEarth—the lands of the Indus—on a secret quest. This mission will realisehis dream as it will lead him to an ancient secret concealed in the myths ofthe Mahabharata. Once the powerful secret is unearthed it will certainlytransform him into a god. For this he reaches India with his generalEumenes and discovers a secret. But with the untimely death of his generalthe information of the secret related to Alexander is not chronicledanywhere.

Present Day—In Greece, the ancient tomb of a queen is discovered, atomb that has been an enigma for over 2000 years. This tomb is that of



Alexander’s mother, Olympias, which archaeologist Alice Wallace and herteam discover, together with a mysterious cube. As she is almost about toexplore more her team members are killed in a blast in the tomb. Aliceescapes to India with the cube and finds refuge in her ex-boyfriend, Vijay’sJunagarh fort. After a close examination of the cube by Vijay and his teammates it is found that the six-faced cube had scripts written on it whichthey attempt to decode.

Meanwhile in New Delhi, the Intelligence Bureau discovers corpses ina hidden lab. Vijay Singh and his friends, now members of an elite taskforce, are entangled in a struggle with a powerful and ruthless enemy. Thequest begins for them as they hazardously strive to solve a riddle fromantiquity that will lead them to encounter shocking secrets from the pastwhich has mystifying and perplexing links between ancient history, theMahabharata and the ancient enemy.

Ancient secrets buried in legends with an incredible blend of scienceand history creates a gripping story which keeps the reader captivatedand glued to the book till the end. Blending fiction with history,science and mythology seems to be Doyle’s forte, and he has undoubtedlycarved a niche for himself in this genre and in the literary corpus of fictionwriting.

Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty from The Hindu in her review believedthat with the book, Doyle was “all set to establish [himself] as a fantasywriter who looks at legends and mythology through the tunnel of science,from the convenience of the modern-day world.”1

Aaj Tak’s book reviewer, Nupur Gosai also gives a positive review,saying that “Doyle puts up a good image of the archaeology and theancient history in front of the ‘selfie-freak’ generation, although theymight find it difficult to grasp all the concepts.... The best part about thebook is its pace and the storytelling which will keep readers engrossedcontinuously.”2

Arunava Sinha from Scroll.in affirms it has been one of the year’s topselling mythological books in India, saying that “book-buyers are still keento have their traditional myths packaged into racy tales, and the more theycan combine historical characters and different epochs of time, the better.Hence the success of The Mahabharata Quest: The Alexander Secret byChristopher C Doyle.”3



1. Barooah Pisharoty, Sangeeta (26 November 2014). “A taste of legends”.The Hindu.

2. Gosai, Nupur (3 December 2014). “” [Book Review: The Mahabharata Quest: The Alexander

Secret] (in Hindi). Aaj Tak3. Sinha, Arunava (28 December 2014). “The three genres that topped 2014:

the gap between pulp and literary fiction just got wider”, Scroll.in

Price: ` 195ISBN 978-81-7273-959-1


149

ALL of us have observed a thousand times Two-Minute Silence on thepassing away of one or the other known and unknown person in places ofour work or in any public place where we happen to be for some reason.We observe many modern day to day rituals like we perform manyreligious rites without our emotional involvement most of the times.Khatri’s “Two-Minute Silence” exactly and poignantly points out this deeprooted hypocrisy in our lives. The title of the poem speaks volumes aboutmany insignificant things that have occupied our lives. Modern educationis expected to have made us critical about things we do but it is irony thaturban civilization has become extremely insensitive to life itself. The poemseems to be alluding to Nissim Ezekiel’s famous poem “Very Indian Poemin Indian English” in which the speaker addresses the audience whilepassing on tongue-in-cheek comments on people’s hypocritical behaviour.‘Sisters and Brothers’, ‘Mothers and Fathers’, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’ and‘Friends...’ these are various ways of address used by the poet to include alltypes of people in India who observe these rituals. The poet wisely usesTwo-Minute Silence to express tragic loss of many good things in our livesand many wrong things that have crept in our lives. Our politicalinstitution is defunct with ‘broken chair’ and ‘uprooted microphone’.Constitution is found in titbits in the highest house. We have lost reverence


Two-Minute Silence

to all our values. ‘Dhoti’ and ‘Pugadi’ are symbols of sound culturalheritage which was reached to us by our forefathers but the poet cries thedeath of all those good things. Industrial revolution signified by the wheelhas brought us chopped up hands and lame legs. This great grand culture isnow on the verge of extinction. The poet wants the readers to observe two-minute silence on this great loss. The environmental pollution and thewhole world being on the brink of end culminated by the age-old wound ofpartition and continuing quarrels conclude this terrible Two-Minute Silencewith one representative voice suggesting ‘One-Minute Silence’ instead ofTwo-Minute. The poem is the landmark in modern Indian English Poetrybecause it rues the loss of an age-old civilization and attacks the veryfoundation of this chaotic situation and that is our exposure to Westernculture through English language. The modern, sensitive Indian reader willsurely be moved from within after reading the poem because he will learnto look at the wide-spread hypocrisy with a new insight. It is truly Indianpoem that desires the old values to be adapted once again to make our livesculturally enriched. The writer of this review is the member, Board ofStudies, Shivaji University and the Convener of the Committee constitutedto revise the BA III Special English Poetry Paper. The Chairman gave freehand to him to make the paper appropriate for the Indian students to beable to look at poetry with Indian perspective. All these years we had onlyBritish and American poetry as the major thrust in the paper. The convenerinitiated the process to include the living modern Indian poets in thesyllabus. There was strong opposition from one corner of scholars who areprimarily from language area but they think it their privilege to oppose thisnovel move. However the convener of the committee was successful, withsupport from like-minded members and especially the Chairman to include“Two-Minute Silence” in the forthcoming syllabus. He is extremely happyby this achievement. The university has also planned to publish theanthology of poems and this poem has appeared along with Shakespeare’ssonnet, Gray’s Elegy and Wordsworth’s Daffodils. He is sure that studentsin Shivaji University will greatly benefit from this. They will have adifferent perspective in studying poetry in general and Indian EnglishPoetry in particular.

The dedication is a quotation of Sir Percy Fitzpatrick from a Letter toLord Milner, 1919 which suitably creates correct ambivalence for thepoems that ensue. Women are responsible for the sustenance of the thoughtwhich means human civilization. The poet probably has his mother in his

Two-Minute Silence


mind ‘for the sap and soil with which she has nurtured’ him. The poems inthis anthology have already appeared in eminent anthologies like EnglishPoetry in India (An Anthology of Thirty Five Contemporary Poets inEnglish) Kolkata and The Dance of the Peacock (Canada). The poet drawsparallels between the things around him and his life. While doing this heponders on life itself. In ‘River’ he turns the river into the metaphor forlife. He thought that all difficult situations in his life were easy for him toovercome. The end of life is clearly death but ‘selfless work’ will reachhim to ‘salvation’. Impediments and crises did never end and the very endbecame a weary way. The stark reality around him is represented by‘rhinoceros…’ peeping at him ‘through the skin of the mud’ and he pointsout at the other end of the river of life and that is death, Ram nam satyahai. Most of the poems remind us of Salman Rushdie’s famous sobriquetthat we have put our heads together all these decades to understand theWestern Cultural Allusions in poems like The Waste Land but now timehas come when the Western reader has to study our cultural world tounderstand what is (to) ‘chutnify’. The poet does not hesitate to use Indianexpressions in original because they are most succinctly there in thecontext of the poem: ‘Ram nam satya hai’, ‘Sati’, ‘Prakriti’, ‘yajna’,‘hunkar’, ‘Haa Haa Kaar’, ‘Pugadi’ and ‘dhoti’. There are many suchexpressions throughout the anthology. The poet seems to have seethinganger against the all-pervasive indiscipline, corruption and politicization inevery field in Indian society: ‘the minister pleads building blocks offuture…the poet cries fucking future’ (‘Government Schools’). He hasimmense reverence and infinite love for his mother and all his kith and kin:

Grinding grains in grindstone

…..She looked goddess incarnate...

Absence shows one’s real worth.

……A deity in the sanctum

She lives in me, …..

Who cares if I win or lose the race I am not in?

(‘Homage to Maa’)The most remarkable aspect of these poems is strong and prominent

message of social and gender equality expressed in them. The little girl in‘Conversation’ would like to be like her Mummy or the peon in the college


Two-Minute Silence

rather than brainy but dominating men around her. There is also amesmerizing sense of nostalgia in them. ‘Reversal Syndrome’ recounts lifein the small village when the narrator was a small child and his life’sjourney has taken him to ‘little shreds of life’. Materialism is now the partof our life. However, the poet has a strong dream that human civilizationwill make its journey to all the nice things in the past, though in the newform.

This anthology indeed involves the reader in the concerns of the poetlike Michal Paul Hogan has correctly said in the blurb. Dr. Khatri’scommand on the straightforward phrases and his ability to turn them intouniversal message will make this anthology a landmark in modern Indianpoetry in English.

Translated from the Original Bengali byJaydeep Sarangi and Angana Dutta

Foreword by Sekhar BandyopadhyayWritten by Manohar Mouli Biswas

pp. 150, Price: ` 350ISBN 978-93-81345-09-2


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‘Biswas the poet, fiction writer and activist is worth reading for hisrevolutionary spirit. It is our good fortune that we have this Englishtranslation that opens another window for us.’—G.J.V. Prasad, Centrefor English Studies, School of Language, Literature and CultureStudies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

‘The narrations of Biswas bring to life the struggles of survival of thedalit namashudra community. This, and more such translations willhelp fight the illusion that “there is no caste discrimination inBengal”.’—Sharankumar Limbale, Regional Director of YashwantraoChavan Maharashtra Open University, Pune.

‘As a writer, translator, journalist and activist, Biswas’s “life writing”testifies to the nexus between the word and the deed, redefiningaesthetics from below.’—R. Azhagarasan Associate Professor,Department of English, University of Chennai.

A translation of the author’s autobiography Amar Bhubane Ami BecheThaki (2013), this book consists in addition a detailed interview of theauthor that bridges the gap between Biswas’s days of struggle as a dalitchild labourer, as narrated in the autobiography, and his later (so farunrecorded) life as an accomplished dalit literary activist, as one of the


Surviving in My World: Growing Up Dalit in Bengal

leading members of the Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sanstha that supports dalitliterature. Born in 1943, in a family of small agriculturists among theformerly untouchable namashudra community in Metiargati, a village inthe Khulna district of East Bengal, a wetland, Biswas has grown up notonly wrestling poverty, starvation and discrimination against dalits but alsopractising their customs, participating in their economy and experiencingtheir cultural richness.Incredibly moving, written with great direct simplicity, this also reveals thebeliefs and practices of the namashudra and their coherent worldview withthe Matua cult of Sri Harichand and Sri Guruchand Thakur undergirdingtheir lives, also leading them to political mobilization against the uppercaste stranglehold that operated socially and economically.Manohar Mouli Biswas is the President of the Dalit Sahitya Sanstha, thepublisher of Dalit Mirror and one of the founders of Chaturtha Duniya thatpublishes dalit writings in Bengali. Jaydeep Sarangi is Associate Professor,Department of English; Angana Dutta, Assistant Professor, Department ofSociology, both of Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri College, Kolkata; SekharBandyopadhyay is Director, New Zealand India Research Institute, VictoriaUniversity, New Zealand.

pp. 354, Price: ` 350Publisher: Western Ltd., Year 2015


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AFTER much fanfare, perhaps the biggest and most expensive promotionaldrive for a book, Amish’s trilogy was released on June 22, 2015. Before itcame, newspaper ads, exclusive Kindle offers and a record-signingamount, it had readers waiting with bated breath for the next offering fromAmish, the storyteller in the true sense. This time he was retelling India’sfavorite story, The Ramayana.

Ingeniously called the Ramchandra series, one will be shocked and bein awe on looking at the liberties the author has taken in writing the storyof Ram, but at the same time one cannot help but admire Amish for theway he completely transforms the old into new. He has the magical abilityto transform the familiar mythological tales while retaining their originalessence. The Ramayana has always served as a fountainhead of inspirationfor storytellers. Ram and Ramayana, both belong to the people. We haveseen the various interpretations of Valmiki’s Ramayana from Kamba’s12th century Ramavataram in Tamil to Tulsidas’ 16th centuryRamcharitmanas. Now we have the new deviation in the hands of Amish.

In the Scion of Ikshvaku, not only has the story of Ram been retold butseveral contemporary ills have also been debated upon and some solutions


Scion of Ikshvaku

suggested. The beauty of the book lies in the fact that one need not believein Ram or follow a particular religion in order to enjoy this week.

Ram is the first-born of King Dasrath, the first prince of the Sapt-Sindhu but unlike the original version, he is not the much-loved prince ofAyodha, the apple of his father’s eye. Rather he is considered to be ill-fatedas he is born on the same day on which Dasrath concedes his first defeat tothe Lankan king, Ravan. Not only has that defeat drained Sapt-Sindhu ofmoney, but also drained Dasrath’s vigor and zeal, thus making him an unfitking. Under the tutelage and training of Guru Vasistha, Ram and hisbrothers grow up each with their distinctive traits—Ram is the idealfollower of rules, Laxman has strength, Bharat is a pursuer of freedom andcreativity while Shatrughan is a seeker of knowledge. As they grow theyrealize the inadequacy of their father as a king. Ram being the eldest, doesnot rebel against his own father, rather has to establish himself as a leaderfollowing all the laws.

The characters have been delineated well with the saintly Ram, thediabolic Ravan, the morally upright Sita, the rebellious and somewhat of aladies man, Bharat—all are real people with real lives in this book—withattractions to the opposite sex, daily quibbles and teasing betweensiblings—the mental conflict between right and wrong. The language usedis colloquial, a good relief to people who have not been able to follow theRamayana due to its intricate Hindi or English. The narrative is fast paced.The contemporariness of issues is brought about by discussing theconcepts of marriage, of masculine and feminine form of administration,and of structural politics. The pros and cons, the positives and negativesare laid out and it is not difficult to draw out parallels of these with lawsimposed on us presently. An episode where a girl is gang raped and one ofthe accused is a juvenile is definitely inspired by the Nirbhaya incident andthe dilemma of how to punish the juvenile is very realistic. Anotherinteresting deviation is the portrayal of the character of Manthara. Mantharais not Kaikayi’s maid but an astute and shrewd businesswoman who hasinfluence over the major political and trade players of Ayodhya.

There is a Tolkienesque charm in the portrayal of the remodeled citiesof Ayodhya and especially Mithila. The architecture of the quarters was sonicely detailed, it wasn’t hard to imagine the unorthodox structures of thebuildings at all. The fall of Ayodhya and the opulence of Lanka are wellwritten too.

Scion of Ikshvaku


As for the literary merit of the book, it is not meant to be literary. It ismore an offer to the common masses. It is meant to be an easy tounderstand moral tale, entwined in mythology, which has the potential togrip the masses, especially the youth, who wants a light read. Thenarrative’s pace keeps you occupied for hours. The language is, as onewould put, simple Indian English. This book is about 350 pages long, yetreading is not a strain. It brings out the genius of Amish. The Scion ofIkshvaku is what could be called a modern take on Ramayan, with Amishusing as much poetic license as he could. Nevertheless a very interestingreinterpretation of the Ramayan.

pp. 177, Price: ` 176Publisher: Rupa Publications


158

ONE of India’s most successful writer Chetan Bhagat, who shot to famewith his first work—Five Point Someone in 2004, has donned a new rolein his latest book ten years down the line. It’s the role of a preacher forsolving all of India’s ills. His latest book Making India Awesome isbasically a collection and compilation of the essays and articles written byhim on what ails modern India and how to fix it.

The 177 page book published by Delhi based Rupa Publications isbroadly divided in five categories covering the content under the title ofpolitics, economy, awesome society: who we are as a people and what weneed to change, awesome equality: women’s rights, gay rights andminority rights, and awesome resource: the youth, along with two pageconcluding thoughts.

It’s very natural for a non-fictional writer of his success and popularityamong India’s 800 million plus youth, who was described by India Todaymagazine as “Symbol of new India. A torch bearer for an unafraidgeneration,” to try and suggest changes in the society, polity and economythrough his writings.

Deeply moved by the sorry state of Indian polity, society and economyChetan Bhagat laments ninety six per cent India’s youth for either being

Panacea for All What Ails India—Making India Awesome


self focused and indifferent or for taking sides on the basis of their politicalconsiderations. He explains that objective of this book is to reach out toand expand this small group of some four per cent of the population that isdescribed by him as ‘caring and objective Indians’.

The writer aptly describes the current state of Indian media andresponses of users of social media platforms. The shrill noises made bytelevision anchors fade away in a day or two without solving anything. Butsupporters of a particular or ideology or personality may continue to chaseand abuse their opponents as it becomes a free for all on social media aspeoples and icons are heckled on social media by a virtual mob.

In his book, Chetan writes: “Just as people gather on road to see afistfight, India gathers at night to watch TV debates. However, soon thenovelty of the fight wears off and as nothing is solved, people get boredand move on. It is time then for a new controversy, and for each side tostart a dual again. Breaking news, fiery debates, no solutions. Rinse andrepeat.”

He wonders: Does anyone actually want solutions instead of the drama?However, the maverick writer ends up offering solutions in this messed upand confused situation.

He discusses in brief the traumatic period of 2011 to 2014 that startedwith Anna Hajare led Jan Lok Pal movement against the scam taintedgovernment, that also included spontaneous movement against the brutalrape and assault on a paramedic student in New Delhi that eventuallyended up in the dislodging of Congress led UPA government from thecentre and emergence of Narendra Modi as a symbol of hope and hisascension to the office of Prime Minister of India.

In an interview to Times of India, Chetan Bhagat defended his decisionto support Prime Minister Modi. He said: Bhagat said he believed inpraising when it’s due and criticising when it’s deserved.

“There are definitely aspects of the PM’s intentions and policies that aregood for the country. At the same time, there are aspects of intoleranceamong some BJP supporters that is unsavory. Hence, I have commentedaccordingly.”

In the chapter Seventeen Commandments for Narendra Modi, Chetanwarns that after a long time we have had a stable mandate at the top, if theBJP blows it, it will set India back by a decade.


Panacea for All What Ails India—Making India Awesome

Commenting on Prime Minister’s flagship program ‘Make in India’ tocreate millions of jobs and make India a manufacturing hub Chetan writesthat India needs to change the mindset of ‘control freak’ bureaucracy to letthe entrepreneurs flourish. On another flagship scheme of Prime MinisterModi—Swachh Bharat or Clean India he says that we first need to cleanand change our mindset.

While praising the hope ignited by Modi ascent to the power, he alsodescribes the ‘hope and disappointment’ cycle as he refers to the fadingaway of Modi wave as BJP was brought down to dust by the historic win ofa resurgent Aam Admi Party in Delhi assembly elections this year. Butsoon the party and its leaders were also engulfed in controversies. A case inpoint is the arrest for former Delhi law minister Jitendra Tomar accused ofprocuring and using a fake law degree.

In recognition of rights of minorities, be it religious, linguistic or transgenders, or even women, Chetan stands out as champion of defender oftheir rights and free speech in this book.

In the chapter “Awesome Equality” Chetan Bhagat argues that justmaking India developed and rich is not enough. He says that coolness andrespect does not come from money and military might alone. He explainsthat it comes from providing fair treatment and equality but also concedesthat no country is perfect in terms of equality and full equality in humansociety is impossible. He advises men to respect working women, andadvises women to respect their inner beauty.

He also tears into typical Indian hypocrisy about sexuality as it isalways considered taboo under the Indian culture. He also supports gayrights and describes Section 377 of British era Indian penal code ascollective sin.

In the end, Chetan Bhagat deals with the solution part in his book. Howto fix it? For him India’s demographic advantage, its youth, is the part ofthe solution as the country is home to 800 million people below the age of35. However, he warns that this demographic advantage cannot be takenfor granted and this energy has to be channelized well to make the countryawesome—cool, rich and impressive.

Chetan Bhagat has used simple and plain English that is clear, conciseand easy to understand. Perhaps, this is aimed at expanding his reach as anEnglish author beyond the typical Indian English readers.

Do I lament for those dear ones, who have departed from this WorldOr those whom I see going before my eyes….Or those who await death, terminally ill;Or those who are taken away, without warningOr, those awaiting to embrace death,

‘WE ARE CREATURES OF A DAY’ said Marcus AurilleusRiddled with death to learn how to live…‘trivialise the trivia’If death is a trivial interlude,For a change of the “garb” as the Hindu sages sayThen why the lament?Even when the clarion calls resound all aroundAnd the silence of the ‘soul’ shrieksTransient, impermanent, the ‘mythia’ [false] of living points only toRenunciation,

Then flash the story of the first King…Acharya Mahapragya,The nuggets in in his verse,The words of comfort…“Fear not, for fear is to die.The essence of this life is to toilMeasure the worth of your handsThe night follows the day


161


Death—The Living Truth

This is well knownTell me, who is such a manWho gets to see only dawn?Truth is not justWhat I believe it isThe sky is not justWhat I see it asThe infinite, do notLimit within your home too

There is the sky, accept the truth.” [translated by SudhamahiRegunathan]

The heart hath no relief but breaking

—Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookh

From functions sheaves, curvesO branes, as automorphic forms

Know om in harmolodics,Leave reeves and ring

Langlands from unseen sea,Realm that whelms real,

Where sick siiankos causeUnhallowed hollows and bellows

Below loud bows o tallTalipot trees that seize

And freeze leese in friezes,As the kerna cornet nets

Deafened defenders who findNycanthe in the cant o can’t,


163

those hellish fires that light

The mandrake’s charnel

leaves at night


Heart o Art

Moored by samoors, moreLessened than les âmes damnées,

Those Thracian thrashers that flat-hatCeaselessly, unless Israfil is,

Retrilled till the time at the toneO the Tonquin goldfinch clinches

The haunts of the fount foundIn Chindara wherein love laves

And leaves as Camadeva, comesWith the scent o the Nagacesara sans caesura,

As Amrita rite, writO the tree o the tomb o Tan-Sein,

Jumbo jambul with bulbulEggs, yggdrasil abysmal,

As is this, if theses o la-laRooks rock your talk

With ticks o the heart o art,The light o the haram that rights

Barren signs it sings, and OIf there be an Elysium on earth

It is this,

It is this.

From the Pen of Jeffrey Herrick

“For me, poetry is the use of language at its most self-conscious. Thisincludes makeup its textual and contextual conditions. Marking a contextualcondition through epigraphs is traditional, but I extend this to the additionof my own marginalia which also mark their textual condition through theuse of various languages. These are echoes the reader may or may not careto attend to or add to. The sound of language is, of course what lyric poetryin particular call’s attention to. I mark this by harkening lyric contexts, herewith echoes of such 19th-century British music masters as Moore, Scott,Swinburne, and Tennyson, and the 13th-century Sufi poet Uman Ibn-al-Farid. I also harken the Sonics of polysemy through puns and thepolyphony of polyphony through rhyme and rhythm, the originary markersof song makers. My sense of poetry I call humming OM—for whom whohas ears to see, as Shakespeare put it.”

My unquestionable and rock solid devotion for you,Ever flowing trust, faith, care and desire seem new.Your smile, look and touch kindle a fireMy heart melts with your warmth even prior.Your eyes speak and create a thunderHow could I live without you, I wonder.

I still remember the day when I shudderedAfter hearing, ‘either I am yours or I am a dead man.’That day I lost myself and got my world in those wordsMe a flowing stream got in you, its alluvial fan.

Yes, I enjoy long talks accompanied by long walksYes, I enjoy nature and strolling on the lovely beachBut I prefer to cuddle up with you and sleep.Wrapped in your love my face changes by your sideMy expressions at your sensuous talks are difficult to hideBut I prefer your words to clasp me and glide.

You always can depend on me; I’m faithful and sincere;And I wouldn’t say I love you If it were not true, my dear.

I am a wife; committed to the courseJust be with me, you will never know remorse.


166

IKUKO TORIMOTO, Associate Professor of Modern Languages andLiterature, Coordinator of MLL, St. Norbert College, De Pere.SUDHIR K. ARORA, Associate Professor, Maharaja Harishchandra PGCollege, Moradabad. He has authored a number of books includingAravind Adiga’s The White Tiger: A Freakish Booker and MulticulturalConsciousness in the Novels of Kamala Markandaya. The voluminouscritical work, Cultural and Philosophical Reflections in Indian Poetry inEnglish in five volumes, is his magnum opus.G.A. GHANSHYAM, Professor and Head, Dept. of English, Pt RevatiRaman Mishra Govt. College, Surajpur, Chhattisgarh, India. He is vice-president ELT@I, India.BINOD MISHRA, Associate Professor of English, Dept of Humanitiesand Social Sciences, IIT Roorkey, Uttrakhand. He is editor in chief ‘IndianJournal of English Studies.’NEERA SINGH, Associate Professor, Dept of English, IGNOU, NewDelhi.NEETA SHUKLA, Associate Professor, Dayanand Girls College, Kanpur.PANCHALI MUKHERJEE, Ass. Professor, Dept of Languages, T. JohnCollege, Bangalore University, Bangalore.SHYAM SAMTANI, Professor Shyam Samtani is the former Head, Deptof English, Indore Christian College, Indore. Besides, he was on thevisiting faculty of school of Languages, Devi Ahilya Viswavidyalaya,Indore for M Phil Program.JAYSHREE SINGH, Head, Department of English, Bhupal Nobles’Post-Graduate College, Udaipur-313001 Rajasthan.SWATI RAI, Research Scholar, BHU.SMITA DAS, Associate Professor of English, S R Group of Institutions,Ambabai, Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh.


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Contributors

SHRADDHA, Research Scholar, Dept of English, Allahabad University,Allahabad.SUPRIYA SHUKLA, Head, Dept of English and Vice Principal, VSSDCollege, Kanpur.RAJENDRAPRASAD SHINDE, Associate Professor & Head, KisanVeer Mahavidyalaya, Wai, Dist. Satara, Maharashtra, India.JAYDEEP SARANGI, Vice President of GIEWEC as well as SPELL inKolkata.NIVEDITA TANDON, Associate Professor, DG College, Kanpur.LALIMA BAJPAI, She taught in a degree college as guest faculty. Herresearch is on Partition Novels.NEERU TANDON, She is chief editor Illuminati, Associate Professor,Dept of English, VSSD College, Kanpur. She has the credit of being thefirst ever and only D.Litt in English from CSJMU.KUMKUM RAY, Director, Amity School of Languages, Amity University,Lucknow.JEFFREY HERRICK, He has a Ph.D in English from the University ofChicago. He is a professor of English at Otemon Gakuin University inIbaraki, Osaka, Japan. Two full length books of his verse have come out inJapan, Patterns and Fittings in Zipangu and Valences, along with acollection of essays, Poetrying.

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illuminati - vssd college, kanpur · heights (1993). her research interest for the last 14 years is...

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