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Themes and Techniques in Multicultural Literature in English

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The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. 1 111 Ideas of Philip Larkin Presented in Diverse Moods with Special Reference to His Poem “Here” Dr. Ram Sharma, Dr. Archana The Whitsun Weddings established the reputation of Larkin which he had earned with The Less Deceived, published in 1964. This collection brought one opinion forward that it may be that Larkin changed his themes, superficially yet his style did not develop. His style all through the years may be termed as static and consistent; as there is no radical development. In a conversation with Ian Hamilton, he defined the extent of his development as far as he could see it, as: “I suppose I’m less likely to write a really bad poem now, but possibly equally less like to write a really poem now, but possibly less likely to write a really good one. If you call that development, I’ve developed.”1 The poems of The Whitsun Weddings are more varied and subtle than Larkin’s previous poems. Larkin distills poetry from the mundane life, without falsification and sentimentality. Larkin embodies in his poems attitudes of mind and soul that seem peculiarly characteristic of time, boredom and aimlessness. Larkin evokes for the readers an environment of contemporary sensibility. Larkin depicted human emotions/ illusions in various dimensions, as stated by John Press: “If The Less Deceived can be called Tennysonian because of the notes of lyrical intensity, loneliness and longing that resound so plangently in its pages, The Whitsun Weddings reveals the other side of the Tennysonian medal on which the lineaments of Contemporary England are depicted”2. Larkin’s first poem “Here” surveys the urban scene and gives us an overview of the world of The Whitsun Weddings. But the poem itself presents a diverse scene altogether: Swerving east, from rich industrial shadows And traffic all night north; swerving through fields. Too thin and thistled to be called meadows, And now and then a harsh named halt that shields Workmen at dawn; swerving to solitude Of Skies and scarecrows, haystacks hares and pheasants, 2 And widening river’s show presence, The piled gold clouds, the shining gull marked mud, Gathers to the surprise of a large town; This is perfect piece of Larkinesque writing. The poem “Here” is somewhat breathless in tone and turns out to more than one place: Here domes and statues, spires and cranes cluster Beside grain scattered streets, barge crowded water, And residents from rawestates, brought down The dead straight miles by stealing flat-faced trolleys, Push through plate—glass swing doors to their desires- Cheap suits, red kitchen ware, sharp shoes, ived lollies. Electric mixers, toasters, washers, driers-… Here is an out of place chosen topic, it’s an ambiguous term, it can refer to anywhere. Though later on the vision of the poet edges towards the sea the repetition of the words – here and swerving are noteworthy. Larkin emphasized especially on isolated places, where he loved to live. He created a sort of private world of his own; his personal paradise: Here silence stands Like heat. Here leaves unnoticed thicken, Hidden weeds flowers, neglected waters quicken, Luminously – peopled air ascends; And passed the poppies bluish neutral distance Ends the land suddenly beyond a beach Of shapes and shingle. Here is unfenced existence: Facing the sun, untalkative, out of reach. The very few people were allowed in Larkin’s personal paradise, but just like shadows. Here refers to a place both within and out of reach. Its only an imaginative attainment. There is a sort of an independence from time, people and distance. About the last passage/stanza of the poem another movement poet Donald Davie aptly remarked: “Here every non-urban thing comes along with a negating or canceling epithet—leaves are ‘unnoticed’ waters are ‘neglected’ distance is ‘neutral’. And if existence is ‘unfenced’ it is also out of reach; if it is ‘untalkative’, it is by that token non-committal unhelpful”3. 3 The final stanza of the poem actually deciphered the meaning of the title “Here”. Everything seems to be associated with life, growth and development. Whereas Larkin even brought out his popular and most favourite theme of loneliness and solitude. Personal life of Larkin is always reflected in each of his poems. In the final stanza a specific location; a geographical position is achieved. There are abstract elements used by the poet deliberately. But the language, rhyme scheme, manner of presentation of ideas, emotions, depth are admirable, beyond words of anyone of us and even the critics. References 1. “Four Conversations”, Philip Larkin in an interview with Ian Hamilton in London Magazine, 4, 6. November 1964, p. 77. 2. Press, John, “The Poetry of Philip Larkin”, Southern Review, 13 (1977), p.132. 3. Davie, Donald, Thomas Hardy and British Poetry (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1975) p. 81. 4 222 Voice to Voiceless: A Critical Study of Manju Kapur’s Home Dr. Mohd. Shamim, Bhavana Kapoor Talking about patriarchal world, the group of women is supposed to be marginalized that has no voice to express its hopes, expectation and desires. They are rendered voiceless by confining them into the four walls of home. They are snatched their voice by suppression and exploitation. Talking about the varieties that are found in the different parts of the world, the status of women is usually same despite the differences found in different parts of the world. They are supposed to be silent that is interpreted as the main characteristic of a woman of good character. If they try to voice their desires they are called ill-mannered and of bad character. The question is why they are not allowed to voice their feelings and desires. The answer is because they are woman, a form that is socially constructed by patriarchal society and has been attributed different characteristics that a woman supposed to have. Talking about this socially constructed form of a woman Simone De Beauvoir has pointed out that women are not born but made. This socially constructed forms of men and women are to create differences and show superiority of men over women. There is only man who has voice because it is he who decides what should be done and he keeps the woman silent. But, now women instead of being silent bearer of the exploitation raise their voice and effort to achieve proper place for them. In her book The Second Sex, Beauvoir refers a book Modern Woman: The Lost Sex by Dorothy Parker who wrote, “It cannot be fair about books that treat women as women. My idea is that all of us, men as well as women, whoever we are, should be considered as human beings.” Women have been marginalized since ancient time. In ancient Shiv Puran, the description of women is more disappointing especially in Uma Sanhita where women are picturized mean and fool. They are depicted as sinner. In the Quran, they are presented like the field where men are allowed to seed accordingly. But now women are awakened. They do not want to be voiceless for long. They want to prove themselves. They want to show that they can do what men do. Last ten-fifteen years have given them opportunity to come out from the four walls of the house and walk shoulder to 5 shoulder with men. This group of women is given voice in the works of many feminist writers in their works in which Manju Kapur is one. She gives voice to these voiceless group of women by voicing their desires and hopes without presenting them as rebels but as one who searches a new way of compromise and cooperation that determines to change the patriarchal world into a new world that has a balanced importance of man and woman without giving importance to one between the two. Beauvoir has written, “…the situation of woman is that being, like all humans, an autonomous freedom, she discovers and chooses herself in a world where men force her to assume herself as Other: an attempt is made to frieze her as an object and doom her to immanence, since her transcendence will be forever transcended by another essential and sovereign consciousness” (Beauvoir, 17). But, the time came when women instead of thinking it their fate started opposing it and claiming and asserting for their identities. Those who plunged in the movement for women to place them equal to men, is known as feminism and supporters as feminists. Feminism is divided into three waves. It is best to call the first wave of feminism as the Women’s Movement started in about 1830s in the Western countries especially in America. Women started struggling for suffrage. Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) and Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (1929) came out as magnum opus for these strugglers. After this long-lasting struggle, the right to vote had been given to women in many countries as in America in 1920, in Sweden in 1921, in England in 1928 and in India with its freedom in 1947. The political scope of feminism had been broadened by the impact of Marxist ideology that made the women to challenge sexism along with capitalism for both encouraged the patriarchal setup.1 The second wave of feminism starts in the 1960s. It questioned the preconceived assumptions about the roles that men and women should have in their lives, as they mostly work to the advantage of men over women. Malti Mathur writes in an article about the domestic role that is given to a woman: The home was her Karma bhoomi and for a woman to aspire to a life beyond the limits of the home was considered hearsay of the worst kind…. The Lakshmana rekha of Hindu Mythology through which Lakshmana seeks to limits Sita’s movement in outside world is both a physical and psychological boundary 6 as it sets out the markers within a woman may operate. The consequences of crossing the rekha, of transgression in a patriarchal world, are there for all to see as Sita is abducted by the demon king Ravana and carried away to his island- Kingdom. The rekha so etched out can be seen as a restraining concept that operates in all cultures and civilization, not restricted to the Indian ethos alone. The feminists felt that women had been poor victims of male oppression and exploitation, and expressed anger and strong resentment against injustice done to women. In literary texts feminist theory brings to scrutiny the portrayal of gender roles, which intends to impose social norms, customs, conventions, laws and expectations on the grounds of gender discrimination. Feminists throw a challenge to the age long tradition of gender differentiation. They do not agree with this view that women are different from men since their birth. These feminists consider woman as the construction of patriarchal society, so they are called constructivists. They demand for equality and try to demolish the wall that is constructed to make a division between men and women where men are considered superior to women. Now feminists noticed the everywhere women are disadvantaged so there is a need to demand for all advantages given only to men. Betty Friedan, in her book The Feminine Mystique (1963), writes, “For woman, as for man, the need for self-fulfilment, autonomy, self-realisation, independence, individuality, and self- actualization as important as the sexual need” (p. 20). The aggressive face of feminism gave a jolt to the patriarchal system. But after 1980s, this radical phase of feminism adopts a calm and composed manner for its denial of patriarchal system, with a sane and serene approach. This is supposed to be called the third wave of feminism. It lays emphasis on individual woman’s inner freedom and awakening, a resolving the issues and problems raised by feminists and on understanding the relationship of interdependence between man and woman. Now the ‘equality of sexes’ refers to recognizing and learning to live with individual differences and identities. It is the ‘mutual understanding’ between men and women. It is the acknowledgment and management of individual differences. The idea of ‘gender free’ structure of society sounds ideal, but it is not exactly so, as felt by feminists later on. It is realized that though biological differences are inevitable, yet gender-differences can be managed by certain readjustment. 7 Casting a glimpse on the treasure of English literature, especially the Indian English literature where the depiction of women till the nineteen-fifties is seen very disappointing because it depicts only how women are exploited by giving them no opportunity for education and their choices for marriage and they bear it all silently. But since the nineteen-sixties the new picture of women has been portrayed where women are given voice to their rights. The main factor that helped to voice to this voiceless creatures is education. With the rise of feminist movement, Indian writers too began to come out into with their abundant talent of writing (Swami, 15). In her novel Home, Kapur depicts the picture of women after independence not as helpless creatures who suffer but as one who voices their desires. Here she talks about a joint family where women are depicted neither helpless nor rebellion but as who tries to voice to their desires and hope without being rebels whether we are talking about Sona, Rupa, Sushila, Asha , Seema or Rekha. Banwari Lal, the patriarch of a family-run cloth business in Karol Bagh, is a believer in the old ways. Men work out of the home, women within. Men carry forward the family line, women enable their mission. But all is not as it seems. His two sons may unquestioningly follow their father in business and in life, but their wives will not. Neither will his granddaughter who is determined to strike her own path. In the midst of these tensions, a secret emerges which threatens the old-fashioned family to its foundation. The opening of the novel shows— “Mrs. Sona Lal and Mrs. Rupa Gupta, sisters both, were childless.” The novelist starts depicting the difficulties that both sisters, in general all women, face. She presents Rupa, the younger sister, in somehow less tormented condition because she is not taunted for her childlessness as is Sona who finds that “the ache in her empty heart and belly increased day by day.” It raises the eyebrows of a reader, especially, female one. So many questions come in her mind as Why does the novelist wants to makes her reader to know about these sisters that they are childless? And the answer that she gets with the lives, she has lived and the experiences, she has gained, is that the identity that a woman get in the society, here wants to specify the society that is mainly patriarchal, at first with her association with the father, after marriage through the name of her father and after marriage it is child that gives her identity. It makes the reader to think the condition of a woman in the society that is dominated by man. Both sisters are childless and are taunted for that. They want 8 to gain their identity as mothers willingly. Here again a question comes in the reader’s mind that instead of trying to have their recognition as mothers why they are not struggling to have their recognition as individual. In order to justify their willingness, here the term ‘Hegemony’ used by Gramsci can be used. Their willingness is nothing else but the consent gained by continuous force. Where there is question of voicing this voiceless creature, Kapur does it. Between Sona and Rupa, Kapur presents one in the traditional form while other as the model to encourage others. Rupa does not find herself depressed as Sona, but searches a way of living by starting a pickle business. She struggles to gain her identity by voicing her inner desire to gain an economical independence and succeeds. One thing, that should be noted in the novel that Kapur presents some characters that live their life by following the tradition, made for them and some characters who carved a new path for them. It helps to connect the theme of the novel to reality as well as to voice the new way of life to women that should be. Other character as Sunita, only daughter to Banwari Lal, has been presented to live a tormented life. She is seen to be suppressed by her cruel husband and finds end of her life in the name of a kitchen accident. The other characters as Asha, wife of Vicky, Seema, wife of Rekha have been dealt living life as they saw their grand- mother and mother living. Here is the description of the life Asha is living: She cooked over Raju, she pressed her grandmother-in-law’s feet, she ran with the Grandfather-in-law’s tea when he came home, she practically lived with Sona, next to Sona to the stove. She had on airs, no grace, she was humble, obedient and helpful (Kapur, 102). The character of Nisha who belongs to second generation has been presented more promising. She succeeds in voicing her desires and wishes more fruitfully. She has been brought up in tradition- driven society, yet she thinks differently. She expresses her love for Suresh, though it can be resulted in marriage. She has to face many quarries that she faces boldly. She finally gets ready to accept the groom of her parents’ choice, though they finds themselves failed in it. Then, Nisha shifts her interest towards her father’s business of salwar-suits. She succeeds in showing her dexterity and becomes a successful businesswoman. She gets married with Arvind but with a condition that she will be allowed to continue her business. “Like a modern woman craving to spread her horizon beyond 9 traditional limits of a woman she also wishes for a larger space in her husband’s heart and mind…she enjoys the bliss of married life” (Srivastava, 83). Thus Kapur is one of the promising female writers of the twenty- first century who writes about the condition of women since pre- independence and to present time. She writes to uplift the women by giving them voice to speak and to be successful in forming their identity as not as assigned by the society but their inner conscience that craves for a happy life. References Beauvoir, Simone de, The Second Sex. London: Vintage books, 2009. Kapur, Manju, Home, New Delhi: Random House India, 2006. Srivastava, Sarika, Novels of Manju Kapur: A Feministic Study, New Delhi: Sarup Book Publishers Pvt. Ltd. Swami, Indu, The Women Question in Selected Novels of Nayantara Sahgal, Manju Kapur and Arundhati Roy, New Delhi: Sarup Book Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 2009. 10 333 “Quest for Identity: A Study of Arun Joshi’s Select Novels” Dr. Ram Chandra Yadav English literature in India is a product of the colonial rule over Indian people. Though now it is a thing of the past, its hangover persists in the Indo-English Literature, which cannot ignore the native models. No doubt, with the achievement of our national independence we are politically free but there is still an invasion of cultural colonization from the West. Most of the Indian authors writing in English have been globetrotters or educated in the West. They have not been able to cut themselves off either from their oriental roots or from the occidental influences. It is because of this duality that Iyenger has called the Indo-English writer, “…a confused wanderer between the two worlds”1. These two worlds are those of India and Europe. In many cases, the novelists as well as the characters in their novels face what psychologist call ‘identity crisis’. After 1950, the Indian English novelists shifted their interest from public to private sphere almost all of them started delineating the individual’s quest for the self in all its varied and complex forms and also his problems and crises. Arun Joshi is one of those novelists of the younger generation who have broken new grounds. In search of new themes he has, “…renounced the larger world in favour of the inner man and has engaged himself in a search for the essence of human living.”2 He has dexterously handled thought- provoking themes such as rootlessness, detachment, quest for better alternatives in this ostentatious world and self-realization. The most pressing problem that man faces in the present time is the problem of his quest for identity. He suffers not only from war, persecution, famine and ruin but also from inner problems. According to Shalini Sharma : He suffers from his conviction of isolation, randomness and meaninglessness in his way of existence. He fails to perceive the very purpose behind life and the relevance of his existence.... His quest for identity conspires towards philosophy of meaninglessness, boredom and the absurd. The treatment of this theme by Arun Joshi is no less interesting.3 The close observation of Joshi’s fictional world reveals a world where the self confronts man and the question of his existence. His 11 search is directed at both the question of his existence and at the inscrutable region of human psyche. He makes effort to enter into the mysterious region of uncertainty and inscrutability and his this effort makes him a great artist of psychological insight. “My novels” says Joshi “are essentially attempts towards a better understanding of the world and myself.”4 He was influenced by Albert Camus and other existentialist writers. He openly accepts their influence: “I did read Camus and Sartre, I liked The Plague and read The Outsider. I might have been influenced by them.”5 To read Johi’s novels is not always a smooth experience; there are moments when one is caught in doubts and questions. In his novels, at least there is ‘something’ that attracts one’s attention and then grips the reader. He makes his dwelling place in the inner recesses of human psyche where he finds instincts and impulse at work. More or less Joshi’s characters are hopelessly lost. They live in the lonely quarters of the dark recesses of existence. Most of the characters are divided in their souls. This causes them to suffer from loneliness and thereby they feel the meaninglessness of their life. His protagonists are confused men, they find themselves participating in a wild rat race with no clear aim in their mind. The economic drudgery, social pressures, the dissolution of old faith and dogmas and uncertain loyalties mercilessly crumple their life and wound their psyche. So they adopt a cynical attitude towards life and the established social norms and values. This lead them to rebel against socio-cultural pressures, and pursue their quest for identity, the higher values of life. The Foreigner (1968), Joshi’s first novel has : …a strange feeling of aloneness and aloofness associated with the word ‘Foreigner’ which permeates the entire narrative and provides the necessary texture and structure to the novel.6 The protagonist Sindi Oberoi narrates the story. He finds his life to be lonely and is an existential character—rootless, restless and luckless in the world. All alone, he moves from Landon to Boston and then to New Delhi. He himself admits that “his life is nothing else but alone in darkness.”7 Sindi is always a lonely and ill at case in the world in which he has to live. He seems to belong to no country, no people and regards himself as an uprooted youngman aimlessly living in the later half of the twentieth century. Having lost both his Indian father and British mother, Sindi is borought up by his uncle. He goes to Boston as an engineering 12 student. There, in a foreign student’s party he comes close to June, an attractive, American young woman. He fells in a short lived but passionate love affair with her. His feeling of loneliness often expressed to anyone who meets and talks to him. When Jenne meets him firstly, she tills him: There is something strong about you, you know. Something distant. I’d guess that when people are with you they don’t feel like they’re with a human being. Maybe it’s an Indian characteristic, but I’ve a feeling. You’d be a foreigner everywhere (33). Sindi is trained in his own loneliness, which is accentuated by his with drawl from the society around him. He wonders: …in what way, if any, did I belong to the world that reword beneath my apartment window. Somebody had forgotten me without a purpose, and so far I had lived without purpose. Perhaps I felt like that because I was a foreigner in America. But then, what difference would it have made if I had lived in Kenya or India or any other place for that matter. It seemed to me that I would still be a foreigner (16). A thorough study of the novel shows that it is an attempt to plumb man’s perennial dilemmas. It is about something that Sindi wants: “…the courage to be and the capacity to love. His alienation is of the soul and not of the geography. As he himself confides, his ‘foreignness’ lies within him and drives him from crisis to crisis rendering it difficult for him to leave ‘himself behind wherever he goes (61). In his quest to find out the meaning of life, Sindi lives in a strange world of intense pleasure and almost equally pain. But he feels in his quest as he himself tells us, “…his twenty-five years are largely wasted in search of wrong things in wrong places” (p. 92). His soul becomes, “a battlefield where the child and the adult warred unceasingly” (130). Sindi’s sufferings are not only manifestations of his spiritual crisis but also of all other sensitive people who have to face it. His position is like a dull school boy who always gets stuck with the same unanswerable questions. He badly needs place, the courage to love and the capacity to live without any desire and attachment. Above all he wants to conquer pain and death, which wipe out everything leaving only a big mocking zero. His wide experiences in life leave him with many 13 unanswered questions. Sindi escapes to India hoping that it will provide him a place to anchor an this lonely planet, but his hopes do not come true. He finds India no better than America. He articulates. “In truth it had only been a change of theatre from America; the show had remained unchanged” (207). Sindi himself is convinced that this ultra-modern life is not going to help him solve his problems. In the some way, he finds the Hindu philosophies also utterly useless for his purpose. While explaining his strangeness to Mr. Khemka, he says, “My set of experiences have taught me a reality that different from yours” (134). He further remarks : …you had a clear-cut system of reality morality, a caste system that laid down all you had to do. You had a God; you had roots in the soil you lived upon. Look at me, I have no roots. I have no system of morality. (p. 35-36) More or less Joshi’s other novel, i.e., The Apprentice also depicts, the plight of the contemporary man, who is sailing about in a confused society without norms, without direction, without even a purpose. Ratan Rathore, the protagonist of the novel, belongs to an improvise middle class family. He has to find his own way and pay his own price in this world. Naturally, like other children, he also inherits the qualities of his parents. His father was a patriotic and courageous man, but his mother was endowed with worldly wisdom reminding Ratan, she often told him: …it was not patriotism but money…that brought respect and brought security. Money made friends. Money security. Money made friends. Money succeeded where all else failed. There were many laws... but one was a law into itself.8 Unlike Sindi, Ratan is a conscience-torn man with a curious mixture of idealism and docility. Having a vague sense of values, he becomes a helpless self-deceiver with a deep awareness of conflicts between life and living. It is not the story of only Ratan Rathore but is symbolical of almost everyone. The apprentice turns Ranan, a fake, a corrupt official and an exhausted family man. His inside gets hollow. He loses his personality and identity. His initial restlessness leads to apathy and a gradual change coming over him is noticed. He passes through anger, remorse and intense suffering unlike Sindi he has a different life style to live. His apprentice sense of the futility scolds him inwardly and leaves him so exhausted that he pathetically 14 tells his listeners: So your see, my friend, here I am, a man without honour, a man without shame, perhaps a man of our times.... How do I know life had purpose? Actually I do not, And, quite honestly mine is not the mind that can grasp such questions. But let me tell you something that a colleague of mine used to say. Life is a zero, he would say, he would and he would add, you can take nothing from a zero (204-05). Ratan’s dilemma is not an individual one belt of an average product of this highly sophisticated civilization. He goes with his troubled conscience to and fro without finding any peace or solace. He openly confesses to Himmat Singh: That is a terrible sensation ... the realisation that one’s life has been a total waste, a great mistake, without purpose, without results, There are many sorrows in the world, but there is nothing in the three words to match the sorrow of a wasted life. All else, thought of revenge, of pleasure of pain… (140). Ratan tries hard to find out the purpose of life and all its activities. But it takes Ratan almost a life time to free himself from the shackles of the valueless urban civilization. In his eagerness he visits the temple to derive courage from the world of religion. But what he discovers, to his harror, that even religion is not free from corruption; it is corrupt and can hardly be expected to provide any solutions to various problems of this meaningless world. The Last Labyrinth (1981) deals with the theme of modern India’s existential predicament, was awarded the Sahitya Academy Award. In the words of Basavaraj Naikar: It represents an extension of the theme of his earlier novels so as to project a presentational image of contemporary men’s organized consciousness contending with the threat of insanity.9 The novel synthesizes the themes of Arun Joshi’s earlier novels projected on a more intense level of experience than any of his other novels. Thirty-five years old Som Bhaskar, the protagonist of the novel, has been educated in the best educational institutions. He is a millionaire, married to the woman of his own choice and is the father of the two children. Though he has everything much more than any man can aspire for, he feels restless, disconsolate and overcome by anxiety and the fear of death. He has an unquenchable passion for possessions and is assailed by the clamour of his inner. 15 It makes him feel that he wants more worldly possessions as is assailed by the clamour of his inner voice, which makes him feel that he wants something desperately. However, he is unable to understand what he really wants. The Last Labyrinth centres on Som Bhaskar’s confrontation with the darkness of death and emptiness in Lal Haveli where he goes to buy Aftab’s shares. Mainly, the action of the novel is set in Lal Haveli which is as mysterious as the mythical world of Bhils encountered by Billy Biswas. Lal Haveli is situated at the end of blind alley, and its eerie and bizarre atmosphere serves as a symbolic setting for Bhasker’s contentions with the convulsions in the psyche. The maze-like passages and the dark interiors of the Haveli are the projections of Som’s mind. His intellectual and scientific mind is constantly caught up in a conflict of ideas, values, philosophical issues and metaphysics and is troubled by ‘nagging celebrations’. He wants to get a fix on reality and, thus, finds himself groping through the labyrinth of life and death. Som is disillusioned with the contemporary society marked by images of vehicles and men running around aimlessly. Being a scientist his father could not realize that science did not have an answer for every question or a solution for every problem. While trying to affirm his belief in science, he wonders: “Couldn’t there be a first cause that would explain everything, whose nature might lie behind the natures of all the rest?”10 Som does not give any importance to his father’s musings far he thinks that they are irrelevant thoughts of a confused mind. His mother had been an ardent devotee of Lord Krishna to such an extent that she had even refused to take any medicines to case the pain of cancer from which she had been suffering. Ultimately she died with the belief that Lord Krishna would somehow save her life. However, his mother’s death shatters his complacency and undermines his faith not only in Lord Krishna but in himself also. Som gets lost in the labyrinth of his mind “going forwards, backwards and sideways” (23) in trying to overcome the anxiety over death. In vain, he tries to overcome the fear of death by physical relations with women. This is the time when he goes to Lal Haveli to buy Aftab’s share and meets Aftab’s mistress, Anuradha. The chemistry between him and Anuradha is such that he feels the need of psychic language to communicate with her. Som has physical relations with many women, and, in each of them he finds a quality to satisfy his needs. His wife Geetha, gives him a feeling of trust and reassurance, and in Leela, a philosophy 16 professor; he finds a fusion of his need for freedom and his father’s scientific quest for the first cause in everything. Leela possesses an analytical mind, therefore, she tries to reason with Som and make him face the reality. However, her advice is unable to help him and he shrugs it away as mere chatter whereas it implies the separation of the materialistic world from the spiritual one. He is unable to get rid of the inner voice, which tells him constantly that he needs something, and, it is this inner conflict, which leads him to Lal Haveli and its, labyrinth, which are symbolical of the labyrinth of life and reality. His friend, Aftab tells him: “There are rooms within rooms, corridors that bring you back to where you started” (3-37). Anuradha saves Som from phantasizing his self and till him: You are not as clever as you think. You are wrong about many things. You are even wrong about yourself. You think you know a lot, when, In fact, you don’t” (79). We find that Anuradha has suffered much more than anyone possibly can, and it is this scattering that might have made her so mature. She is an intelligent child of an insane mother, homeless and has been molested in her childhood. She has practically all the evils of the world like murders, suicides and much more. But she has managed to keep herself as clean and pure as the fire in temple that burns away all impurities in order to give light. She is not ashamed of the fact that she is Aftab’s mistress and say philosophically:” It is better not to be anyone’s wife …you cannot marry everyone you love. So why marry anyone at all?” (43). Thus we find that Arun Joshi’s novels are increasingly bold attempts to discover the meaning of life. They try to find ways and means to remove the difference between the individual pursuits and his fulfilment. Joshi’s heroes are lonely and misfit in the world in which they have to live and face the meaninglessness of life. Though they are not religious or saintly, they are humble enough to learn lessons taught to them by the problems of their lives. While experiencing the normal claims of love and hatred, doubts and dilemmas, they try to face challenges of their meaningless life. Thus, to conclude we can say that Arun Joshi has managed to convey man’s isolation with great dexterity in his novel. References 1. Iyngar, K.R. Srinivasa, “The Literature of India”, in A.L. Mclead (ed.), The Commonwealth Pub., New York: Cornell University Press, 1961, p. 140. 17 2. Verghese, C. Paul, Problems of Indian Creative Writer in English, Bombay: Somaniya Publications, 1971, pp. 24-25. 3. Sharma, Shalini, “Crisis of Identity and Rootlessness in Arun Joshi’s The Foreigner and The Apprentice”, Post -Independence Indian Writing in English (ed.) Anju Bala Aggarwal, Vol. II, Authors Press, Delhi, 2010, p. 220. 4. Dua, M.P., “Reply of Joshi, Sept. 3, 1971 qtd. by R.K. Dhawan, The Fictional World of Arun Joshi, New Delhi: Classical Publishing Co., 1986. 5. Banerji, Purabai, “Interview with Joshi”, The Sunday Statesman, Feb. 27, 1983, qtd. by R.K. Dhawan. 6. Bhatnagar, O.P., Arun Joshi’s The Foreigner: A Critical of East and West, JIWE, 1, No. 2, 1973, pp. 13-14. 7. Joshi, Arun, The Foreigner, Hind Pocket Book, New Delhi, 1968, p. 189. All the subsequent references have been taken from the same edition. 8. Joshi, Arun, The Apprentice, Orient Paperbacks, New Delhi, 1974, p. 20. All textual references have been taken from the same edition. 9. Naikar, Basavaraj, “Existential Despair in The Last Labyrinth’, The Quest, Vol. 15 (ed.) Ravi Nandan Sinha, p. 22. 10. Joshi, Arun, The Last Labyrinth, New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 1981, p. 27. All the references of the text have been taken from the same edition. 18 444 “Kubla Khan”: S.T. Coleridge’s Psycho- Philosophic Probing into the Paradoxical Nature of Life and the World Dr. Bir Singh Yadav Analyzing the nature of Coleridge’s poetry, C.M. Bowra rightly asserts that Coleridge thought that “the task of poetry is to convey the mystery of life”(18). Commenting on “Kubla Khan”, he writes that in this poem “there is a highly individual presentation of a remote and mysterious experience” and revealing the creative power of the unconscious, he states that “Coleridge may not have been fully conscious of what he was doing when he wrote it, but the experience which he portrays is of the creative mode in its purest moments, when boundless possibilities seem to open before it” (11). Coleridge sheds a celestial light on the objects of sense and makes them much more wonderful by reflecting eternal significance through them. Therefore, he is seen on the line of the Greek poets who believe that there are moments in life when a divine glory illuminates earthly things and makes man partake of the timeless felicity of the gods. If Coleridge had not described the poem as a ‘fragment’ and ‘ a psychological curiosity’ in his Preface, as P.H.B. Lyon points out, who would have dared to talk of its “patchwork brilliance” ? (101). Of course, the poem is a fragment in the sense that it is an attempt to explain the nature of a fragmented piece of the universal whole-this world located on this planet, the Earth which is a fragment or a part of this universe. The poem is what Humphry House calls “dream built up within the dream” (114) and Livingston regards it “sphere in sphere” (409). In the poetry of Keats and Coleridge reality is surfaced through dream which is a direct message from the unconscious to conscious and then they co-relate it to the objective world generating a new kind of reality with the power of imagination. In Coleridge’s Miscellaneous Criticism, stressing the role of the unconscious in art and life, Coleridge writes that “There is in genius itself an unconscious activity; nay, that is the genius in the man of genius”(210). The poem “Kubla Khan” requires psychoanalytic as well as philosophic critical tools for its unpacking in order to explore the hidden reality. Psychoanalytic approach takes us to a probing into the unconscious from where, as Freud says, reality or true literature comes. In “The Anatomy of Mental Personality” Freud, showing 19 the nature and power of unconscious, writes that “we call a process ‘unconscious’ when we have to assume that it was active at a certain time, although at that time we know nothing about it”(100). At a certain time when Coleridge’s unconscious was active within him with god like creative power, he saw something in dream that was a trance-like state to him. The full implication of that dream requires something more that is not dreamed of for its materialization because every dream, indeed, in itself is a fragment giving inkling to something more than that. But Coleridge, like Freud, also opines that the great art or literature spontaneously emerges from the power of the unconscious when the genius flows like a sacred river in the unknown, the dynamic depths of unconscious. In the dream which is a trance-like state to Coleridge, he visualizes this whole vision. The flow of this truth is from the within in the form of a dream and simultaneously at the philosophical level, secondary imagination also involves in the act of contemplation and thereby a new kind of reality is created out of the material objects perceived by the mind. Coleridge thinks that no one can be a great poet without being a profound philosopher and the roots of this profound philosophy lie in secondary imagination which he takes as idealizing, recreating and unifying power for creating an ideal organic whole which reconciles the opposites or constitutes a balance through the reconcilement of opposites or discordant qualities. In chapter xiv of Biographia Literaria, Coleridge emphasizing on the role of secondary imagination says: It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates in order to recreate…. It synthesizes disparate elements in order to generate a new reality. It is a vital and organic faculty which permits the mind to see beneath the transitory surface of the material world- to see, that is, into the life of things and to perceive the intimate relationship between the perceiving mind and the objects of its contemplation. Combining the subjective truth of unconscious with the objective reality of the universe in a paradoxical way in the poem, Coleridge generates a new kind of reality. His secondary imagination comes into operation within the context of a particular philosophy wherein he projects this world as the pleasure palace. Coleridge’s treatment of the supernatural becomes very credible and convincing in its naturalized form. The whole supernatural description of the ‘pleasure palace’ depicts the paradoxical nature of life and this world. In a trance-like dreamy state of profound sleep when his 20 whole soul comes into activity, he sees in the vision ‘A stately pleasure dome’—this world—a grand divine creation where the sacred river, Alph flows “Through the caverns measureless to man/ Down to a sunless sea”. The sacred river Alph is an imaginary river symbolic of the flow of generations in the world. The caverns through which it flows are “measureless to man” because the mystery of their depth is beyond the human knowledge and the river disappears by merging its identity into a ‘sunless sea’ about which nothing is known. The deep caverns are symbolic of the deep mystery of the procreative process from where this sacred river of generations starts flowing and ‘the sunless sea’ is indicative of the mysterious disappearance of life into the unknown and unseen. Coleridge points out the mysterious nature of life and death as he wonders at how life originates, flows and disappears. Things which are deep and take place outside the light of the sun or beyond the reach of human thought are not the subject of human knowledge. The physical flow or motion of life is perceptible but how does it originate and come into motion or flow is a mystery. The river Alph is flowing in the pleasure palace but its source is a mystery; the physical demise is perceptible but what happens afterwards is not seen, hence Coleridge also touches the physical and spiritual nature of life in a paradoxical way. ‘Fertile ground’ is suggestive of the favourable life conditions created by the creator on this planet covering a space of twice five miles in the universe. In spite of using ten miles, Coleridge has used twice five miles in order to maintain a balance between the opposites—pain and pleasure with equal proportion. In this world, along with God’s creation, sharing of man’s creativity in the divine scheme has also been displayed as it is girdled round with ‘walls and towers’. Paradoxically speaking, the world is a construct of eternal and temporal powers—God and man—God made the country and man made the town. The earth or ‘the pleasure palace’ is God’s creation whereas ‘walls and towers’ are human artefact. In case of Coleridge’s poetry Cleanth Brooks’s seminal statement is appropriate that ‘…the language of poetry is the language of paradox’. Great poetry always emerges out of paradoxes. This world or the pleasure palace has gardens blossomed with ‘many an incense bearing tree’ and it has also forests which are as ‘ancient as the hills’. These forests enfold ‘sunny spots of greenery’. This pleasure palace is a co-mixing of roses and thorns. Pleasures and pains, joys and sorrows, happiness and sadness are 21 interwoven in the text of life as well as in the origin of the world. The sunny spots of greenery are surrounded by the darkness of the forests representing sorrows, sufferings and pains which are as old as the hills or the creation of this world. With a sense of bewilderment, Coleridge draws our attention towards the highest kind of joys of this world when he symbolically describes the deep romantic chasm with “A savage place” ‘holy and enchanting’ with the power of beauty and love but simultaneously it is being haunted by the ‘wailing’ of a woman for her ‘demon-lover beneath the waning moon’. On the one hand, God has created beauty and noble feeling of love in this world but on the other hand, beauty is shortlived and declines like the waning moon, hence there is something unsatisfying and incomplete in the nature of love and beauty in the world, therefore, the woman is wailing and the lover, with so many unsatisfying factual conditions like the momentary nature of joy, melting potency, fleeting nature of youth and beauty as well as with several kinds of other limitations causing loss to the feeling of love, has been presented as the demon- lover to the beloved. In the whole scene what Coleridge wants to suggest and C.M. Bowra observes as the dominant voice of the romantic poetry is “a prevailing mood of longing for something more complete and more satisfying than the familiar world” (272). In this world, sublime things like beauty, joy and love demand something of having more permanent nature which is not in this world as John Keats in “Ode to a Nightingale” moans “Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes. Or new Love pine at them beyond to- morrow”(29-30). At the psychoanalytical level, Coleridge’s presentation of wailing woman and her demon-lover also requires Ghost theory for the better understanding. Andrew Bennett and Nicolas Royle write that “the ghost is internalized, it becomes a psychological symptom” (161), therefore demons and ghosts move into one’s head. They further state that “Ghosts are everywhere revealing a painful fact of life” (162). Nicolas Abraham contends that “the ‘phantom’ [or ghosts], whatever its form, is nothing but an invention of the living”. People see ghosts because “the dead were shamed during their life time or…took unspeakable secrets to the graves”. These secrets remain, like a crypt, a gap, in the unconscious of the living. The ghost or phantom thus embodies “the gap produced in us by the concealment of some part of a loved object’s life…what haunts are not the dead but the gaps left within us by the secrets of others” 22 (171). Derrida, thinking that deconstruction offers perhaps the most important contemporary theory of ghosts, also states that “everyone reads, acts, writes with his or her ghost” (139). Therefore, the wailing woman and her demon-lover are the emblematic of the secrets of declining or less satisfying nature of the worldly beauty, love and joy on account of certain limitations of the mortal nature of life. The presence of the charming beauty and the sweetness of love has in itself the absence of something that causes inner grief that becomes an untellable and shameful secret which Coleridge has artistically and successfully conveyed through the “wailing woman for her demon-lover in the romantic chasm beneath a waning moon”. In the romantic chasm, there is ‘A mighty fountain’ which is the source of the water of this sacred river, Alph. The flow of the river symbolizing the flow of generations on this earth comes from this powerful fountain that makes it fertile as Humphry House remarks that “The fertility of the plain is only made possible by the mysterious energy of the source”(117). With the procreative urge on account of this mighty fountain of sex-power, mother earth has been presented in the role of a young female with ceaseless turmoil in fast breathing and excited condition. This procreative urge rooted in sex-power is uncontrollable, that is why, the world is going on. Momentarily or for the time being its flow may forcefully be controlled but soon it bursts out throwing aside the huge fragments like the rebounding hails. Again Coleridge has displayed its power through the symbolic image of the thresher’s flail. Coleridge uses symbol- system and by establishing relationship gives inkling to the desired meaning, hence the reader by recreating the text generates a meaning. Inanimate world becomes animate by the power of this procreative urge as Coleridge makes it clear through the image in the line, And “mid these dancing rocks at once and ever./It flung up momently the sacred river”. Matter when it comes in contact with energy or spiritual power becomes active and starts displaying its dance in the form of life. The river Alph with its flow of generations passes through wood and dale with a mazy motion in a non-linear manner covering a distance of five miles. Actually, this is the journey of life from birth to death in a zigzag manner passing through the hardships of the wood and joys of valley experiencing ups and downs of life. Finally, the river reaches the caverns where the physical form of life disappears and the another half of five miles remains a mystery about which nothing is known what happens thereafter. After sinking in the tumult of death, a constant 23 cry coming from a far distance in the form of ‘ancestral voices’ prophesying war against mortality is being heard by Kubla. Here Coleridge suggests a futile and helpless perpetual war of the mortal beings against the mortal nature of life as well as their endless struggle for existence in this world. Kubla Khan, as Humphry House says, should not be taken as a “fixed symbolic character in the form of God or Adam or Representative Man or Mankind in general but he has been placed in the poem in dynamism” (120). Highlighting the paradoxical nature of the world and life, Coleridge locates this pleasure palace as such where “the mingled measure/From the fountain and the caves” is heard. Fountain represents life force, joy as well as bright side of life whereas caves are symbolic of death, sorrow and darkness. ‘The mingled measure’ is suggestive of the opposite forces—joys and sorrows, life and death, light and darkness. Pleasures cover the half portion and the remaining half is covered by pain. Moreover, these pleasures are not in stable and constant form but they are in fluctuating and wave-like position as the poet shows them in the poem “The shadow of the dome of pleasure/Floated midway on the waves.” In this way naturalizing the supernatural, Coleridge presents the realistic picture of the wonderful creation of this world. The strange and wonderful nature of this rare kind of miracle has been articulated in a sweet musical and magical way: It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice! ‘A sunny pleasure dome’ stands for all kinds of joys, happiness, birth as well as life and ‘caves of ice’ represents sorrows, suffering, death as well as the dark side of life as Humphry House commenting on the poem says, “As it is, the miracle of rare device consists in the combination of these softer and harder elements”(122). “Kubla Khan”, as Maud Bodkin says, is a poem about the act of poetic creation about the “ecstasy in imaginative fulfilment (95). Coleridge, in a trance-like state of activated unconscious corresponding to the objective reality of the universe, objectifies the subjective reality of the unconscious through poetic inspiration as he articulates: A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid, 24 And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. In such a rare blessed moment, as Coleridge says ‘Once in a vision I saw’, the poetic inspiration comes from his unconscious in a dreamy state in which he beholds the goddess of knowledge in the form of ‘an Abyssinian maid’ playing on her musical instrument inspiring him to reveal the hidden mystery of the world. The maid was singing of Mount Abora—an imaginary exotic mountain symbolizing the highest or the most secret form of knowledge beyond the human reach. It is what Wordsworth sees with the power of inner-eye of the philosophic mind, Coleridge visualizes in vision by the power of unconscious. The poem, as Humphry House says, is not about the “failure and frustration of the creative power” but it is “a triumphant positive statement of the potentialities of poetry” (115, 116). The crux of the poem lies in these lines: Could I revive within me Her symphony and song To such a deep delight ’t would win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice. Whatever is in the external universe, the same is within man’s unconscious and Coleridge has suggested it by using the phrase ‘within me’. But to explore the whole of the unconscious is equal to get the whole knowledge of the entire universe. Knowledge in its perfect form does exist in subjective and objective form in the unconscious and in the universe respectively but its complete realization requires perfection which is impossible in this world. If the poet could revive within him the symphony and song of the maiden, he would have been in a blissful state with perfect knowledge and he would have conveyed this secret knowledge of that ‘sunny dome’ and ‘caves of ice’ to the whole world in a loud and long voice through the imaginative power of his poetry by building the ‘dome in air’. In this second part of the poem the poet reaches the culminate point as Humphry House observes, by showing a “fusion of pleasure and sacredness” (119) which is the stage of a seer or a prophet, a sacred or a holy soul with a bright radiant halo of shining knowledge around the face which is rare or rather impossible in this world. If anyone or the poet gets such a 25 state of knowledge in this world then that person ceases to be the worldly being and on beholding such an angelic figure in the world people would start crying: “Beware! Beware/ His flashing eyes, his floating hair”. The flashing eyes and floating hair are angelic or super-human qualities reflecting the brightness of knowledge from the eyes and the ‘above-earth’ status of a being with floating hair in the flight. Then such a person is viewed as a divine being having ‘a circle round him thrice’. Coleridge has used the word ‘thrice’ in symbolic sense for a being with perfect material and spiritual knowledge existing in the world as a divinely inspired being to serve the purpose of the divine power. Finding such a being in the world, people would close their eyes with ‘holy dread’. The phrase ‘holy dread’ is suggestive of the realization of the difference between ignorance and spiritual knowledge that inspires the people to lead towards perfection by creating a sense of sacred fear on account of the lack of this pious knowledge. Such a person lives on the honey- dew, the divine food of spiritual knowledge because that person has tasted the milk of Paradise—the taste of spiritual bliss in comparison to false material gains. Such beings have their own place in the ideal scheme of God and if anyone gets such a status in this world, he/ she is promoted to the ‘Higher Existence’ before revealing the mystery. To conclude with Humphry House would be appropriate that the poem “images the power of man over his environment and the fact that man makes his Paradise for himself” by acquiring god like knowledge which makes the world understandable. “Just as the whole poem is about poetic creation at the imaginative level, so, within the work of imagination, occurs the creativeness of man at the ethical and practical levels”(120). In this poem, Coleridge has revealed not only the realistic picture of this world but by blending the power of unconscious with the secondary imagination in a vision, he also arouses man’s curiosity to get the highest possible knowledge in the world in order to drink the ‘milk of Paradise’ which is the ideal aim of human life. References Abraham, Nicolas, “Notes on the Phantoms: A Complement to Freud’s Metapsychology” (1975), The Shell and the Kernel: Renewals of Psychoanalysis, Nicolas Abraham and Maria, (trans.) Nicolas Rand, 1994. Bodkin, Maud, Archetypal Patterns in Poetry, OUP, 1940. Bennett, Andrew and Nicolas Royle, An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory, London: Pearson, Longman, 2009. 26 Bowra, C.M., The Romantic Imagination, London: OUP, 1950. Brooks, Cleanth, “The Language of Paradox”, The Well-Wrought Urn, London: OUP, 1942. Raysor, Thomas Middleton (ed.) Coleridge’s Miscellaneous Criticism, 1936. Coleridge, S.T., Biographia Literaria (ed.) J. Shawcross, London: Oxford University Press, 1956. Derrida, Jacques, Spectres of Marx: The State of The Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International (trans.) Peggy Kamuf. New York: Routledge, 1994. Freud, Sigmund, “The Anatomy of Mental Personality”, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, New York: W.W. Norton, 1964. House, Humphrey, Coleridge: The Clark Lectures 1951-52, New Delhi: Kalyani Publishers, 1997. Keats, John, “Ode to a Nightingale”, The English Romantic Poets (ed.) Marius Rewlet, New York: The Modern Library, 1970. Lowes, John Livingstone, The Road to Xanadu. London: OUP, 1931. Lyon, P.H.B., The Discovery of Poetry (ed.) J. Shawcross, 2 Vols, 1907. 27 555 An Alternative Discourse on Sustainable Peace Dr. Rajkumari Indira “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed”. UNESCO Every human being is trying to achieve peace of mind, tranquility and happiness. From this personal and individual level if only one could extend the values of mutual respect, acceptance and equity to all our fellow beings, the journey towards peace and development will bear fruit. Unless we create the atmosphere of cooperation, the process of development would never go forward. The pages of human history open before us reflects stories pertaining to tensions, clash-conflicts, struggles and wars at regional, national and international levels. And we all are aware of this fact that the emergence of conflicts in society and their resolution or struggles and their transformations will continue until human beings exist. During this decade there has been a lot of talking on peace and ‘peace education’. When we talk of peace or bringing peace through dialogue between a powerful nation or group and a small, marginalized endangered group, the equation does not always match. On the other hand, ‘peace’ has numerous connotations and paradigms to offer. For instance, India has not fought a war in the last 36 years. The last war fought was in 1971 with Pakistan during the Bangladesh liberation war. But military strength in India is ever increasing. Talking about America, she is also increasing its military strength and yet talks about peace. Is there some kind of contradiction in it? From the context of historical discourses, how will one interpret, for instance B.R. Ambedkar’s statement, “The Northeast should be treated like Red Indians of America”. A positive interpretation may lead us that the tradition and culture of Northeast India should not be disturbed by the mainland ethos. Though the intention was not ill-natured in approach, as consequence of such extreme policy of exclusivity, the Northeast, even after 50 years of independence has remained exclusive. It is a fact that no other country in the world has a separate policy for one of its own parts. Is it not the right time to revise this whole policy of uniqueness adopted by the Indian Government? How can this region have peace at the expense of the people’s fundamental freedom? We are fighting against the AFSPA. Irom Sharmila has been on fast for the last decade demanding this 28 draconian law to be removed. When Mrs. Ila Zilani of the United Nations Human Rights Commission took the initiative to enquire about Sharmila, the state government was forced to come up with an answer. And the report from the state government stated that Sharmila had been arrested under Article 309 of IPC for attempted suicide. Northeast India is curtailed by insurgency. But the question is, did it come automatically? The Northeast is connected with mainland India by a narrow corridor known as the chicken’s neck in Siliguri in the North Bengal region. The people of this region belong to the Mongoloid race; even within this region, people have different cultures. No doubt, their cultures are quite different from that of mainland India. Is it possible to unite a Nation through a common culture? What is a Nation, it is but a mixture of different cultures and people. In the process of nation building, is the Northeast not trying to lend to mainland India the unique components of a nation through their culture, religion, political aspiration and even language? So, these issues to be addressed, discussed, analyzed and disclosed. In this prevailing situation, the world is already giving lessons of peace education and the practice of non-violence. It now is a subject being discussed and analyzed on priority at all stages of educations and at all levels, from local to national and national to international. At this point, cooperation and coordination based peaceful non-violent method is the only way available. Efforts should be made to ensure that it is more important and necessary to work in current perspective than the past. Non-violence thus categorically calls for performing one’s duties, and discharging responsibilities through morality and ethics. It is the essential condition of existence through realization and continuous practice. Non-violence should be the nuclei of day-to-day practices ranging from the individual level making it conducive as per the demand of time and space paving the way for conflict resolution. The Rationale for Peace Education Initiatives Peace education in a so called multiethnic, multi- cultural and multi-lingual world immediately raises certain basic issues about culture and ethnicity. Peace is a concept which is not only affected by external forces or factors or conflicts, it is affected by internal factors also. UNESCO’s declaration of the principle of International cultural cooperation (1986) was a unique attempt for peace and its dictum is “it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed”. 29 A sustainable peace culture can only be realized through initiatives that seek to promote social cohesion. Education stands the sole medium which prepares man for social service, develop his knowledge about spirituality. For attainment of peace, the knowledge of spirit and the feeling of unity are required at every step. All human values can be developed in students through various strategies of imparting education in classroom and with the help of teachers or administrators. It is only with the help of education that peace can be inculcated in coming generations of the society. As we all are aware, women have been playing a vital role in maintaining peace in the society and in bringing social change and development. Peace today needs to be redefined not merely as the absence of violent conflict but as the positive and creative process of building sustainable societies. During 1980s, women played a leading role in the movement against nuclear war. The women of Bongainville initiated a peace settlement between secessionists and Papua New Guinean government. There are many United Nations recorded stories of women working hard to bring back normalcy and reconstruct the society. In the context of the conflict between Pakistan and India, groups such as Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace (WISCOMP) and Women’s Initiative for Peace in South Asia (WIPSA) facilitated sustained dialogue between women’s groups in two countries, when official relationship was not cordial. Gandhi, during the freedom movement of India brought women out of the kitchen and mobilized them. One of the United Nations report states, “women make an important but often unrecognized contribution as peace educators in the families and in the society”. In some places even if there is recognition women seldom have equal participation in decisions to negotiate peace and resolve conflicts. In the institution of the family (patriarchal) women always have weak voices. They can only persuade and try to balance the family controversies. In the social domain where men play a strategic role in ending violence, they are excluded from sitting on the negotiation table. When the state initiates to involve them, it is really to ‘go between’. A woman’s role is thus that of a healer or pacifier and nothing more than that. As Kofka Annan states, “For generations women have served as peace educators both in their families and in their societies. They have proved instrumental in building bridge rather than wall”. There is no doubt that sustainable peace requires the full participation of women at 30 all stages of the peace process. Feminist and non-violent activist Barbara connects feminism with non-violent cooperation in application of Ahimsa to both the ‘other’ and the ‘self’. Feminism’s approach to human nature claims that human-to- human violence is not natural, but socially constructed within the evolution of patriarchy. As it seems, a paradigm shift is needed to transfer from weapon based security towards gender aware human security. The status of women in Northeast India has been considered higher as they are more visible and mobile. In places like Manipur history tells a number of stories where women were the leaders in driving out the colonial power. As Bhabananda Takhellambam states that though annals of women’s movement in Manipur are of bravery, courage and self-sacrifice, they have never found a space when it came to decision-making. The women of Manipur in their legacy of movement act in a non-violent way at different levels of history. However, as we have seen that the socio-cultural and political tradition of Manipur though has legitimized the women of Manipur in whatever task that they may take up, the legitimacy is based much more on social and moral approval than on legal sanctions. Rita Manchanda in her paper on “Building Peace, What Difference Do Women Make?” aptly reiterates that there remains a huge gap between “valuing women as a resource in stopping the violence and respecting them as facilitators in providing a channel of communication, to recognizing that women should be seated of the peace table”. Do women not make a difference in reorganizing the policy and the society? Where cultural and structural violence continue the notion of positive peace is utmost important. By positive peace we mean social justice, gender equity, active co-existence, economic equality and ecological security. Peace-building by transforming conflicts in pluralistic societies is an all-inclusive, non-violent, participatory and evolutionary process. Peace-building cannot be exclusive. Peace-building processes and those who involve and aim to promote conflict resolution and as well as transformation should essentially, work towards creating positive peace. Peace building is about starting at the lowest level, with oneself and working on outwards. Anuradha Dutta, Peace studies Guwahati has rightly noted “Peace building by women groups in Northeast India seeks to prevent, reduce, transform and help people recover from violence in all forms, including structural violence”. She also categorizes the efforts of peace-building (i) it wage conflict nonviolently through activism 31 and advocacy, (ii) it reduce direct violence through peacekeeping, relief aid, and legal systems, (iii) transform relationships through dialogue mediation, negotiation, and trauma healing, and (iv) build capacity through training and education, development, military conversion and research. We can also quote Jahan Galtung’s famous distinction between ‘negative peace’ and ‘positive peace’. He defines negative peace as simply the absence of war whereas positive peace as the societal condition in which the structures of domination and exploitation that underlie war have been eliminated. Peace-building is meaningless without changing in social, political and economic relations. A sustainable peace culture can only be realized through initiatives that seek to promote social cohesion. Education stands the sole medium through which social peace can be built. Social peace is learning to live together, one of the important four pillars of learning as enunciated in the UNESCO report “Learning : The Treasure Within”. At its first step, we could start at home. Parents can take the major role. Children should be taught to respect the ‘other’. They should be made aware that regarding one’s culture as supreme can hurt feelings and lead to conflicts. They should uphold understanding and awareness of the ‘other’ and faster in their children, an appreciation of the values of mutual respect, acceptance and equity. It is natural for tension to evolve in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society. In fact, at every level of human interaction, a sense of competition is introduced. It is the way in which the completion is handled in a healthy manner. Peace education can however be fully effective when it is systematically incorporated and politically contextualized. This would mean that efforts need to come in from both official and unofficial levels. In schools, children should be encouraged to mix and mingle. For building of a nation, moral values like truth, love, honesty, brotherhood, morality, service, sacrifice and non-violence should be taught to pupils early from their childhood. Youth is the future of tomorrow, so it is necessary to impart them with holistic education which is fruitful for them as well as for the society. With the help of education, the youth (the students), the leaders of tomorrow may learn each other’s culture, history and religion. They can also learn and understand different ethnic groups’ versions of history and culture. In this sense, they will be able to challenge stereotypes on a daily basis and in the process build a ‘shared identity’. Each and everyone can’t be a Gandhi who has the most powerful spiritual 32 weapon ‘Satyagraha’. However, the young generation should be taught the life history of great people. The Gandhian way, the universal method of resolving conflict is still valid. It is essential for the students to learn of their young age that religion is meant only to unite and uplift everyone. Swami Vivekananda was also a great educator. When we look at his philosophy we find that wherever he went, whatever he spoke, whatever he did came from his balanced state of mind. True knowledge stands from peaceful state of mind and when internal peace is attained then non-violence is automatically attained. Swamiji’s philosophy espouses peace and non-violence. Both Vivekananda and Gandhi rethought and revitalized their religion not only to purify it from within, but also they make it more contemporary so that it can withstand and cope with new challenges of the changing world. Like Mahatma Gandhi, we have global icon like Nelson Mandela, a black activist whose struggle, triumph and life is embedded the story of a man who has contributed to make the world a better place to live in. He also began his struggle on a peaceful path, greatly inspired by Satyagarha. So, all the stakeholders of education should come under one umbrella to undergo research in non-violence and peace in particular. At the end, one has to move by the fact that the spirit of oneness should be carved in our hearts. Both men and women require equal participation at all struggles for the achievement of positive social and cultural goals. A paradigm shift to participatory human relations rather than control, from weapon based security towards gender aware human security is inclusive. “Woman is the companion of man, gifted with equal mental capacities. She has the right to participate in the very minutest details in the activities of man and she has an equal right of freedom and liberty with him. She is entitled to a supreme place in her own sphere of activity as man is in his.” —Gandhi References 1. Dutta, Anuradha, Ratna Bhuyan : Women and Peace Chapters from Northeast India, Akansha Publishing House: New Delhi. 2. Prakash, Anurag, Advancing towards the Equality of Women and Men, Preeceding of Non-violence and Peace Education, Vol. II, Shridhar University. 3. Desai, A.R., Social Background of Indian Nationalism, Popular Prakashan Pvt. Ltd.: Mumbai (Reprint), 2003. 33 4. Chandra, Bipin, India’s Struggle for Independence 1857-1947, Penguin Books India (P) Ltd.: Delhi, 1989. 5. Kumar, Rabindra, The Gandhian Way. A Universal Method of Resolving Conflicts, Pub. by World Peace Movement Trust. 6. Kumar Rabindra, Global Peace (ed.) Vol. 13, No. I, Sept. 2013. 7. Kumar, Rabindra, Gandhan Thought : New World, New Dimensions, New Delhi, 2008. 8. Kshetri, Rajendra, The Emergence of Meitei Nationalism. 34 666 Photographic Fidelity vis-a-vis X-rayed Accuracy in Untouchable and Akkarmashi Sunil Kumar The destiny of an untouchable has been a windowless room in which millions of man-made ‘untouchables’ are still writhing with excruciating pain of exploitations and deprivations. Suffering, want, pain, exploitation, hunger, social injustice—the marginalized Dalit community is continuously victimized by all these evils yet it has a unique tradition and culture of its own. The word ‘Dalit’ has become a synonym of Scheduled Castes and Tribes beacuse majority of people of these castes & tribes live under the BPL and have been the real victims of the disparaging and absurd caste system of Hindus. The treatment of Dalit in Indian literature is two-fold; one is done by born Dalit writers and other by non-Dalit writers who have often been, especially in the dawn of Dalit awareness, excluded from any discussion of Dalitism. Such studies invariably expose the inherent dichotomy which emerges from two different perspectives. While the non-Dalit writers are charged with producing only imaginary and fictional plights of Dalits, and the Dalit writers have been applauded for rendering a very authentic and often autobiographical or empathetic literature. But it is not fair to divide the literature in castes or groups which is in itself employed to expose the absurdities of the division of caste in the society. Intentions and objectives should be sincere and sensible in literary crusade against this heinous caste-structure of the society. Experiences may vary from writer to writer in their poignancy; and simply on the basis of indignation and stings of anguished experiences we cannot and should not declare the ‘participant observer’ more genuine than the ‘non-participant observer’. Most of the Dalit writers and critics do not ascribe the Dalit literature to a particular caste or tribe. In this connection M.N. Wankhade shares his views with Babu Rao Bagul and defines Dalit literature as—“The word ‘Dalit’ doesn’t refer only to Buddhists and backward class people, but also to all those who toil and are exploited and oppressed.” Arjun Dangle also observes on the same track: “““Dalit literature is one which acquaints people with the caste system and untouchability in India, its appalling nature and its system of exploitation. In other words, Dalit is not a caste but a realization and is related to the experiences, joys and sorrows and 35 struggles of those in the lowest stratum of society.”2 A Dalit work of art pleads directly or indirectly for the annihilation of chicaneric caste system and for integration of Dalits in the mainstream. The present paper seeks to compare the problem of untouchability and absurdity of caste system in two writings- Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable (1935) and Sharan Kumar Limbale’s evocative autobiography Akkarmashi (1984). Untouchable deals with the evil of untouchablity in pre-independent India and Limbale’s Akkarmashi jeers at the constitutional, social and economic progress of the post-independent Indian society. While Anand photographed the oppressed destiny of the untouchables in pre-independent India but Sharan Limbale X-rayed the raped destiny of the untouchables in socialists, secular, democratic and independent India. Both the works sincerely and vibrantly record the perpetrators and victims of the typical curse of Indian society— the caste system. The latter part of the paper is concerned with a cursory glance on the current situation (scenario) of the caste system along with some hopeful and possible suggestions and changes that are bound to emerge to trample the juggernaut of caste system. In exposing the reality of caste and class stratification, Anand can be taken to be a forerunner of Ambedkar. Exposure of the hypocritical nature of the caste system or untouchability has been a constant and recurrent motif in the Untouchable. At the very outset of the Untouchable, the colony of the outcastes has been described as “…the ramparts of human and animal refuse that lay on the outskirts of this little colony, and the ugliness, the squalor and the misery which lay within it, made it an ‘uncongenial’ place to live in” 3. It is a colony of those ‘untouchables’ who execute impure tasks only to maintain the touchability and purity for ‘touchables’ (others). Their resources are plundered by the colonizers and the local oppressors. They are first denuded and the despised and humiliated. Further, when Bakha, the 18 years old untouchable hero, kindled a desire to go to school in his childhood it was at once blown out by his father, who had got himself acclimatized to the exploitative surroundings, he retorted that— “schools were meant for the babus, not for the bhangis.” 4 Now Bakha thinks of the absurdity of Hindu Caste system—“…there is no school which will admit him, because the parents of the other children will not allow their sons to be contaminated by the touch of a sweeper’s son. How absurd that is, since most of the Hindu (upper caste) children touch him willingly 36 at hockey but not want him at school with them.” 5 Such is the hard lot of an untouchable that Bakha is doomed to get in inheritance. The crookedness and wickedness of caste conscious society give another jolt when remembering the new arrangement he has made for his English lessons and relishing Jalebis he unknowingly and unconsciously collides with an upper caste Hindu. The caste- Hindu lets loose his latent volcanic hatred towards low-caste in volley of abuses along with a slap on vulnerable and soft target Bakha—a sweeper boy. So here the upper castes’ unbridled arrogant superiority and caste consciousness come to the fore with a continual chain of bursts of bitter abuses and humiliation: “Swine dog why didn’t you shout and warn me of your approach…. Don’t you know you brute, that you must not touch me!”6 The spectators assembled there have nothing to do with the injustice done to a helpless and innocent boy except enjoying ‘a sadistic delight’ of the scene; although they are Hindus, so-called upper caste “pure’ Hindus who proclaim themselves to be the followers of one of the most humanitarian religion. The question is why they are behaving so inhumanly and the simple answer is that they are doing injustice and inflicting pain under the unscientific and illogical notions that they are superiors and the lower castes are inferiors. The very shadow of an untouchable is supposed to pollute them but the irony implicit here is that they are not polluted while molesting a sweeper girl. Sweepers born and die, live and walk on the same earth on which the upper castes live and have their temples. It means the entire earth is polluted by the constant defiling touch of millions of untouchables. At each step of life Bakha has to suffer more than ever. The hypocrisy goes on and we witness the cry of defilement. Pollution and a torrent of abuses greeting Bakha as he goes from door to door to beg the food for himself and his family for doing ‘untouchable jobs’ for them to maintain their ‘‘‘touchability’’’. In another incident where Bakha carried the little injured boy to his home but in return the mother of the boy cared her caste status more than her ethereal maternity and accuses Bakha: “You have defiled my house” and “polluted the child”. 7 After all these disturbing experiences of the day Bakha returns to his bed with a hope of better day relying on Gandhi’s approach and Machine. His soul reconciles to his present lot. E.M Forster comments: “His (Bakha) Indian day is over and the next day will be like it, but on the surface of the earth if not in the depths of the sky, a change is at hand.” 8 But the change did not come next day or 37 next year or even next decade. But even after independence when Sharan Kumar Limbale’s evocative and ‘frighteningly candid’ autobiography Akkarmashi appeared in 1984 near about 50 years after Anand’s Untouchable we found the situation more deteriorated rather than ameliorated. The depiction of untouchability in Untouchable seems just “like touching the tip of an ice-berg of the complex, chronic and perhaps racial disease of Hindu collective consciousness”,,, if it is compared with Limbale’s Akkarmashi. Sharan Kumar Limbale belongs to Hannur village in Maharashtra. Sharan’s experiences of humiliations seem a never ending tale. He has not only to fight with untouchability but also meant to hopelessly grapple with the destiny of being an akkarmashi” (which means an illicit child born out of socially unacceptable relationship in which a woman is compelled owing to her poverty & helplessness). Bakha has even his own identity in his surroundings to some extent. He “is only partly the prototypical untouchable for he is also himself, a unique individual, even in some measure is exceptional untouchable.”9 But Sharan, a product of post-independent, democratic, secular and socialistic India, is neither accepted by high–caste as his biological father is a high- caste Patel and nor by untouchables. High-caste people call him ‘untouchable’ and untouchables call him ‘akkarmashi’; here Sharan’s situation resembles the agonizing plight of a colored child at carnival in Langston Huge’s poem— “Merry go round” wherein racial discrimination culls the child’s innocent desire of riding in ‘merry go round’. The black child questions: White and coloured Can’t sit side by side, ….On the bus we’re put in the back— But there ain’t any back To a merry-go-round! Where’s the horse For a kid that’s black? Reasons of discrimination with Sharan and the black child may be different—caste and colour but effects on psyche are same •— Where to go? Whom to associate? This is the accursed destiny of an ‘akkarmashi’. Sharan, a Mahar caste urchin, is brought up by penury and helplessness. Sharan’s mother Masamai is married to Vithal Kamble, 38 a labourer under Hanmanta Limbale’s supervision. Hanmanta Limbale exploits Masamai and eventually Kamble deserts Masamai and deprives her of two sons. Masamai doesn’t marry again but Limbale continues the quenching of his carnal desires with Masamai thereby Sharan is born. Later Hanmanta Limble disenchants from Masamai and accuses her of faithlessness; reason is definitely to disown the paternity claim of Sharan. Masamai along with Sharan returns to her and her mother Santamai. Masamai, again exploited by another touchable Yashwant Sidramappa Patel, begets eight more ‘akkarmashi’. Sharan grows under unconditional love and care of Santamai and her committed live-in-relation partner Mahmud Dastgir referred as Dada by Sharan, Dada himself a deserted husband without any issue. Sharan completes his graduation and gets a job of telephone operator. There are many incident in Sharan’s life glaringly full of atrocities and discriminations done by upper caste Hindus. Let’s take an instance of shocking poverty and extreme hunger which is being perpetuated among untouchables since the days of Bakha. Sharan narrates: “During the harvest when cattle grazed in the fields, they passed undigested grains of jowar in their dung. The grains were yellow and swollen. Santamai picked up such lumps of dung and on the way home washed the dung in the river water, collecting only the clean grains. She then dried them in the sun. As they dried they shrank. I felt the grains should not be washed as washing shrank them back. We went home when the grains were dry. Then Santamai ground the jower grains into flour.”10 Indeed, if Bakha had been in that time he would have felt himself fortunate to be born much earlier than Sharan Limbale. When Sharan entered in high school and apply for a ‘freeship’ (or scholarship) the application form is to be signed by his father. Mother’s name is suggested but father’s name is demanded. Even the Sarpanch doesn’t fix his identity. Here Sharan’s soul cries: “But I too was a human being. What else did I have expect a human body? But a man is recognized in this world by his religion, caste, or his father. I had neither a father’s name nor any religion, nor a caste. I had no inherited identity at all.”11 Sharan inherited only a raped destiny. Really, Sharan suffers for the sin of a high caste man’s lust. These stories are not of Bakha and Sharan but their (all untouchables’) genealogy. Given the shortage of space many incidents which expose the hypocrisy and chicaneries of caste game can’t be narrated. Limbale’s 39 autobiography is “frighteningly candid story of his childhood and growth as an unsired person; and in its power to disturb it may be compared with L. Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (1759-67) and Jean Genet’s A Thief’s Journal (1954). It has the same intensity of narration that raises the ultimate question in social ethics, namely- ”What at all is morality?”12 The autobiography concludes with these questions: “Why has this complex of moral establishment been created at all? Who created morality and immorality? Why? If my birth and life are being branded as immoral, what morality do I follow?”13 Limbale knows that there are no answers to these questions. Akkarmashi pointing to the futility, agony and frustration in searching the answers of these questions as Sharan gives his son a name ‘Anarya’ because he is not assured of his integration with ‘Aryans’. Although Untouchable appeared in 1935 and Akkarmashi in 1984, but the horrendous plight of unfortunate untouchables in Akkarmashi renders the time much backward than Anand’s Untouchable. Bakha’s hope relied on the convictions of Gandhi’s approach and Machine (or technology). But former died its natural death lacking pragmatism; and machine or technology is hopefully surging ahead engulfing the caste-system and untouchability slowly and steadily. The caste system is now being artificially propped up socially by some vested interests like ‘vote bank politics’. But the basis of the caste-system—‘economic limits’ or profession’s limit has been destroyed by the advent and advance of technology as Sharan Kumar is not bound to adhere to his ancestral business of scavenging. He is now a telephone operator. His son Anarya may be an engineer or a doctor, thanks to technology. Here, I am keeping my fingers crossed that the obsolete caste-system in India will not last for more than 10 or 20 years from now as its very basis has dwindled. Modern technology, now, no longer bothers about the caste of a worker but bothers about his technical skills. “Earlier handicraft industry has largely been replaced by mill industry wherein caste system is outmoded and is hampering our progress.”14 As far as suggestions for eradication of the caste-system are concerned B.R. Ambedkar’s suggestion given on 25th Dec. 1927 at Mahad seems stalwart—“If we wish to root out untouchability, we must recognize that the root of the untouchability is in the ban on inter-marriage…we must press it home against the ban on intermarriage; otherwise untouchability cannot be removed by the 40 roots. Who can accomplish it?”15 Positive advancement of technology, people’s awareness regarding social justice and upliftment and intermarriages can accomplish it. In a modern industrial society the division of labour cannot be on the basis of one’s birth but on the basis of technical skills. Although physical dimensions of the evil of untouchability has almost been mitigated, but psychological dimensions of the evil are yet to be erased completely. As in Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things a comrade says, “But frankly speaking, comrade, change is one thing, acceptance is another.” Notes and References 1. Wankhade, M.N., “Friends, the Day of Irresponsible Writers is Over”, in Poisoned Bread (ed.) Arjun Dangle, Hyderabad: Orient Longman Ltd., 1992, p. 317. 2. Poisoned Bread, pp. 264-65. 3. Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable (1935), New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 1970, p. 1. All the subsequent page references are to this edition. 4. Untouchable, p. 42. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., p. 51. 7. Ibid., pp. 127-28. 8. E.M.Forster in his Preface to Untouchable, p. 8. 9. Iyengar, K.R.S., Indian Writing in English, Sterling Publishers, p. 338. 10. Sharan Kumar Limbale’s Akkarmashi (1984) (trans.) Marathi by Santosh Bhoomkar as, The Outcaste, (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2003, p.10. All the subsequent page references are to this translated edition. 11. Ibid., p. 59. 12. G.N. 12. Devy, G.N., Introduction to The Outcaste, 2003, p. xxiv. 13. Akkarmashi (1984) translated from Marathi by Santosh Bhoomkar as The Outcaste, Oxford University Press: New Delhi, 2003, p. 113. 14. Markandey Katju, a Supreme Court judge, in his article “Looking Back on the Caste System”, The Hindu, 8 January, 2009. 15... “Dr. Ambedkar’s Speech at Mahad”, Poisoned Bread, p. 230. 41 777 Racial Discrimination in the Selected Novels of William Faulkner Dr. Veer Singh The racial problem is, in the first place, only one of the many problems that America faces at the present time. Indeed, we share in the problems that seem endemic to the twentieth- century societies of the West, particularly those societies that have been industrialized for a considerable time. In the second place, the racial problem has its own relation to the whole complex of such larger problems and, in my opinion, cannot be fully understood in isolation from them. But race has been much in the headlines of late. The problems of race are certainly urgent, and it is these problems that have attracted the special attention of some of our finest literary minds. Moreover, in this matter of the racial problem a ‘close’ reading of texts may be particularly useful, if we are really concerned with what the writer in question is saying in his fiction, and especially if that writer is William Faulkner. Because of its very urgency, of its topicality, and of the emotional charge that it carries for a great many Americans of the present time, the reader may very well attribute to Faulkner’s texts meanings that are not actually there. Such a reader, if challenged, can of course reply that what he finds is surely what Faulkner ought to be saying since a sensitive and imaginative writer like Faulkner must surely be as enlightened a man as the reader himself is. Such reasoning is very human, and who am I to say that this or that particular reader has not seen the truth and that whenever we have doubts as to what Faulkner meant we should read the passage in question by the clear light of that privileged reader’s perceptions. That, however, is not the way that literary criticism works—or perhaps I should say that I am so old-fashioned that I thank that is not the way it ought to work. For every reason, it seems to me important to try to see what Faulkner’s text actually says. If we value Faulkner as an artist, we must do this. In so far as we really believe that the insights provided by a sensitive artist may tell us something about the state of society in a particular historical period, it is all the more important to determine as precisely as we can what the import of the work actually is. Faulkner published nineteen novels and more than seventy- five short stories from 1926 to 1962. Most of his novels deal with childhood, families, sex, race, obsessions, time, the past, his native 42 South, and the modern world. He invented voices for characters ranging from stage to children, criminals, the insane, even the dead- sometimes all within one book. He developed beyond his ventriloquism, his own unmistakable narrative voice, urgent, intense, highly rhetorical. He invented an entire southern county and wrote its history. The most prolific fact that Faulkner has given about his southern county is a dubious relationship between the blacks and the whites which is the focal point of this thesis. There is no denying the fact that most of Faulkner’s best works stand on their own merits, just as each member of a family has a value of his own, though he is related to the other members. The view of man he gave in his Nobel Prize address seems old-fashioned to many readers but he insisted that man is spiritual being capable of love and pity and courage and endurance. These are the positive attributes of human nature and these are the only things worth writing about. Man will endure and also prevail because he is not merely a creature of glands but a creature of soul. Faulkner remarked of Dilsey and other black characters in The Sound and the Fury that they endured. He might have added that they gave witness to the possibility of human heroism in contrast with many of the white characters who are weak, cruel or insane. The fact is that Faulkner wrote about exactly what he said was important in the Nobel Prize Speech. The aim of present study is to scrutinize race relations in the fiction of William Faulkner. Faulkner’s ideas about white-Negro relations, about racial injustice and racial prejudice call for a careful and objective analysis. This is certainly a subject of importance in the Faulkner field; race is a central theme in four of his novels, several of his short stories, and many of his non-fiction prose writings. In his own essays, speeches and letters to editors of American newspapers and magazines, Faulkner consistently spoke out against racial injustice and advocated the integration of segregated schools in the South. The present study is designed to show race relations in four of Faulkner’s novels— The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom!, Light in August and Intruder in the Dust. Anyone seeking to shed light on the vexed subject of the racial convictions expressed by William Faulkner during his life and in his fiction must, I think, confront the central fact that Faulkner’s racial attitudes, like his explorations of gender and class, were often contradictory, even violently conflicted at any given moment of his career. True, as Arthur Kinney points out, Faulkner progressed from 43 giving voice both in his life and work to some of the most pernicious racist beliefs about African-Americans that he had inherited from his family and his society to expressing more insight into and sympathy for the plight of southern blacks than almost any other southern white male writer of his time. As a young man in his mid- twenties in New Haven, Connecticut, in the autumn of 1921, for example, he smugly lectured his father about how unworkable the relatively enlightened race relations up north were: You cant tell me these niggers are as happy and contented as ours are, all this freedom does is to make them miserable because they are not white, so that they hate white people more than ever, and the whites are afraid of them. There’s only one sensible way to treat them, like we treat Brad Farmer and Calvin and Uncle George (Watson, 149). Indeed, Faulkner’s first Yoknapatawpha novel, Flags in the Dust (first published in 1929 as Sartoris), perpetuates rather than examines Southern racial stereotypes and caricatures. As Professor Kinney remarks, African-Americans in this novel “are characterized by the Strother family-a father who swindles the people of his parish by gambling on their savings [and] a son who lies about his heroism during World War I” (267). Caspey’s short-lived rebellion in the novel against his white masters only serves to parody the shattering effect that aerial service in World War I has had upon the young Bayard Sartoris. No longer content to play the faithful family retainer like Simon Strother, Caspey loafs insolently and retails to his credulous family absurdly fabricated stories about the war in dialect. But his revolt is settled with comic violence by old Bayard with a stick of firewood, and thereafter he relapses into the obedient ‘nigger’ he was before he went overseas. Thereafter, he disappears from the novel. Conceivably, this brief rebellion against white authority represents the unsettling effects which the war had on those black veterans who returned to the society for which they had risked their lives only to find that it still refused to grant them equality, but it is treated far too broadly to be taken seriously. Even Simon’s self- importance parodies Sartoris arrogance in that being a Sartoris servant, he sets himself a peg or two higher than the other blacks in the novel. Kinney’s assertion, however, that Faulkner also reveals that Simon’s daughter Elnora has “surrendered to the white Colonel John Sartoris to produce a mulatto, and bastard, son” (267), presumably Isom, is incorrect. Elnora does not have a child by Colonel Sartoris in Faulkner’s third novel, although he went on to make her the colonel’s illegitimate daughter in the 1934 short story 44 “There Was a Queen” (727). And Professor Kinney is also right to draw our attention to Faulkner’s infamous analogy in the book between Negroes and mules: the omniscient narrator claims that the latter resemble blacks “in their impulses and mental processes” (268). From this youthful nadir, Faulkner underwent the difficult task of trying to shed his racist inheritance without completely doing so. His progressive evolution when it comes to issues of race is there for all to see in works like Light in August (1932), Absalom, Absalom! (1936), Go Down, Moses (1942), and Intruder in the Dust (1948). And those familiar with Faulkner’s biography are well aware of his courageous, embattled attempt in the 1950s to stake out a public compromise position between impatient northern interventionism and southern intransigence in particular over the Civil Rights crisis and in general over the role and place of African-Americans in the predominantly Euro-American modern South and indeed in the rest of the United States of America. If Faulkner’s solution, a liberal version of gradualism, strikes us today as conservative, we would do well to remember that he was privately and publicly vilified by family, friends, and others for advocating it. In today’s environment of generally sympathetic progressive ideological analysis of Faulkner’s novels, however, it seems all too easily forgotten that the man who in 1931 published the story “Dry September,” one of the strongest critiques of lynch law and mob rule yet offered by a Southern writer, wrote a letter at the same time to the Memphis Commercial-Appeal that Neil R. McMillen and Noel Polk call “astonishing for the baldness of the racial attitudes it expresses” and “its virtual defense of lynching as an instrument of justice” (McMillen, 3). After asserting “there was no need for lynching until after reconstruction days,” Faulkner goes on to say, “I have yet to hear… of a man of any color and with a record beyond reproach, suffering violence at the hands of men who knew him” (McMillen, 4). No student of Faulkner familiar with his horrific and critical representation of the lynching of Lee Goodwin, a white man, in both the original and the published versions of Sanctuary (1929, 1931) could fail to be troubled by the lines with which the author concludes his letter: “But there is one curious thing about mobs. Like our juries, they have a way of being right” (McMillen, 6) In The Sound and the Fury Faulkner shows that the relationship between the two races is somewhat normal though the whites show dominant mood whenever they get any opportunity. Mainly the relations between the two races are good due to the enduring 45 capacity of Negroes like Dilsey who is a figure remarkable for her poise, her hard realism and above all her ability to maintain her selfhood under humiliating conditions. Accepting her inferior status and surviving as a human being, she is a matchless Negro character who feels that the South is a natural community Negroes entirely belong to. She is a character of great strength and moral beauty who provides the soothing touch to the children of Compson family. She is a ray of light amid darkness, a living being among the defunct waste-landers of Compson family. All the members of Compson family are pigmy beings, made of weak stuff. Benjy is an idiot unable to distinguish past with present. Caddy becomes promiscuous and for whom sex is a fate rather than temptation; Jason is a great materialist who cares for nobody in the family. Quentin is so weak that he is not able to tolerate the complexities of life and Mrs. Compson is always a lady never a mother. In contrast to these stands Dilsey, strong, whole—a voice of judgment over the Compsons. So the relations between the two races are good due to the enduring capacity of the Negroes like Dilsey. While dealing with the issue of race in Absalom, Absalom! Faulkner seems to adopt a different path. The understanding and caring attitudes of The Sound and the Fury are nowhere in Absalom, Absalom!. Race relations in Absalom, Absalom! are dipped with racial prejudice which is responsible for the tragic end of Sutpen and his family. The novel clearly shows that nigger is a creation of the white man. This is reflected through Sutpen who rejects his son and wife not because of any inherent quality but because he has discovered a social definition, an abstract definition to which certain qualities may be imputed. His son, Henry, is two steps ahead his father regarding racial prejudice. The prospect of miscegenation fills him with horror, and while he is ready to countenance incest between his sister and Bon he can not agree to their marriage once he knows it would involve a mixing of blood. Until Henry is not aware of the black blood of Charles, he is ready to sacrifice even his life for him. Even the thought of incest cannot change his loyalty for Charles. But the moment he comes to know about black blood of Charles, he can’t accept him and shoots his brother at the gate of Sutpen’s Hundred. Racial attitude assumes a new dimension in Light in August. Now Faulkner emphasizes that for the whites the Negro often exists not as a distinct person but as a spectre of phantasm. In Light in August Faulkner has given a story loaded with social significance. The novelist tries to reveal that the southern folks are shadowed by 46 evils inherited from a pre-war social system and ideology. The story revolves around three main characters—Joe Christmas, Jonna Burden and Doc Hines. Joe Christmas, a white Negro, is the central character in the tragic story who does not really know whether or not he has Negro blood. Miss Burden comes of New England Calvinists and nigger-lovers, and has spent her life helping the Negro women. Doc Hines, Christmas’ grandfather, is a combination in extremes of religious and race fanaticism, one who advocates the extermination of Negroes in the interest of racial purity. His way of dealing with miscegenation is to shoot the father of his grandchild, let the child be adopted by a great hater of sin as himself, the cruel farmer McEachern. Due to the racial prejudice of Doc Hines, Christmas suffers throughout his life. Joe himself chooses to present himself as a Negro, he refuses to accept Negro status in a white society and in the end this, in part, causes his break with Jonna, which leads to his killing her and to his being lynched. In Intruder in the Dust Faulkner reveals the fact that the relations between the two races are not good due to the cynical attitude of whites. And if anyone sensitive to the plight of Negroes, wants to have friendly relations with them, he can’t for doing this he’ll be alienating himself from his society. The relationship is revealed through Charles Mallison, a white and Lucas Beauchamp, a Negro. The white boy accepts the black fellow as his equal and helps him when the latter is accused of the murder of a white man. The white mob threatens lynch Justice. With the help of Mallison Lucas is proved innocent and goes free. And the mob that was adamant to lynch Beauchamp, does nothing now when the tact is revealed that a white has murdered a white. A white can be pardoned even for the most heinous crime like fratricide but a Negro can’t go unpunished. Due to this biased attitude the two races are in conflict. Thus race relations in Faulkner’s fictional world are at ease in some cases but problematic in most of the cases. Mainly the relations are guided by southern attitude. The white boy of this society is bound to southern taboo. He knows that black boy is his equal but he can’t defy the social code of his society for doing this he would be alienating himself from his family, his society, and his heritage. Relations between the two races may be at ease during the childhood stage or till the white boy realizes his superior status. The relations get worse as the child steps toward adulthood. The researcher is planning to visit a number of Libraries in New Delhi particularly the American Research Centre to collect data and material on William Faulkner. Special attention will be 47 given to critical books on the novels of William Faulkner. The researcher may also visit the American Research Centre in Hyderabad. Apart from these source, the researcher is planning to discuss the American racial issues with some good teachers and researchers who have already worked in this particular area. The candidate will be reading a number of book on William Faulkner to have an in-depth knowledge of his racial attitude. After that the Researcher will make a framework to elaborate this issue systematically. It would be based on the reading of critical books and the ideas of the scholar about William Faulkner’s depiction of racial discrimination. References Blonter, Joseph, William Faulkner : A Biography, Vol. 1&2, New York: Random House, 1983. Fowler, Doreen and Abadie, Ann J., William Faulkner: International Perspectives, Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha, University of Mississippi, 1982. Fowler, Doreen and Abadie, Ann J., New Directions in Faulkner Studies, Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha, University of Mississippi, 1983. Gresset, Michel and Samway, Patrick, Faulkner and Idealism, University of Mississippi, 1985. Howe, Irving, William Faulkner: A Critical Study, New York: Random House, 1952. Second Edition, revised and expanded, Vintage Books, 1962. Malin, Irving, William Faulkner: An Interpretation, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957. Nilon, Charles H., Faulkner and the Negro (University of Colorado Studies: Series in Language and Literature, No. 8) Boulder: University of Colorado Press, September, 1962. Ruppers Burg, Hugh M., Voice and Eye in Faulkner’s Fiction, The University of Georgia Press, 1983. Slatoff, Walter J., Quest for Failure : A Study of William Faulkner, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1960. Vickery, Olga W., The Novels of William Faulkner: A Critical Interpretation, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959. Waggonee, Hyatt H., William Faulkner: From Jefferson to the World, Lexington: University of Ketucky Press, 1959. 48 888 Alienation in Jhumpa’s Fiction—The Namesake Mamta Alienation refers to estrangement, division, or distancing of people from each other or of people from what is important or meaningful to them, or of a person from their own sense of self. The concept has many discipline-specific uses, and can refer both to a personal psychological state (subjectively) and to a type of social relationship (objectively). In sociology, the concept has been summed up as “the distancing of people from experiencing a crystallized totality both in the social world and in the self” (Kalekin-Fishman, 1998: 6). It was first the writings of Karl Marx in the 19th century and later the works of particularly Melvin Seeman that popularized the concept in sociology, along with Emile Durkheim‘s anomie. Marx’s concepts of alienation have been classed into four types by Kostas Axelos: Economic and Social Alienation, Political Alienation, Human Alienation, and Ideological Alienation (Axelos, 1976). The term alienation has been used over the ages with varied and sometimes contradictory meanings. Many social scientists have begun to view widespread alienation as a major development in modern life. Alienation is seen a sign of personal dissatisfaction with structural elements of society; it has been related particularly to economic and political elements. This dissatisfaction has been defined in the more recent studies in terms of expressions by individuals of feelings of powerlessness, meaninglessness, normalness, social isolation and self-estrangement. During the last ten years there has been considerable focus on delineation of the concept of alienation and on measurement of its relationship to modern social structure and function. Countless literary characters feel painfully alienated from the social institutions that surround them. Some, like Jake Barnes in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, feel alienated from their own communities. Others, like Caddy Compson in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, feel alienated from their closer connections, including family members and loved ones. Still others, like Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, feel alienated by the religious institutions in which they have been raised; sometimes this type of alienation extends so far that the character or characters feel alienated from God himself. 49 Perhaps the most extreme form of alienation lies in characters such as Meursault in Albert Camus’s The Stranger, who feels alienated from everything with which he comes into contact: his family, his society, and the whole of modern life. The proliferation of literary characters who struggle with alienation is a result of the real-life struggle many human beings have with feeling disconnected from, shunned by, and unrelated to other human beings and the societal institutions that shape and guide us. Diasporic works also comprise the element of alienation caused by different factors and it has been vividly evident in Jhumpa Lahiri’s novels The Namesake. The terrible dilemma and tormenting feelings of divided identity, suppressed emotions and displacement of migrant characters in these creations lead them to a state of alienation from family, society and the world. Jhumpa Lahiri has emerged as a modern Indian English writer revealing the inner voice of the old and new generations of modern Indian migrants. The theme of alienation is vivid throughout the novel entitled The Namesake, a masterpiece. The Namesake, a major international best-seller consists of abundant elements of alienation reflected through Gogol, the protagonist, Ashima and various characters. The Namesake focuses on first-generation Indian immigrants and the issues they and their children face in the United States. The Namesake follows the Ganguli family over the course of thirty years. The alienation of the characters of the novel is the result of the odd and adverse circumstances faced by them such as dualness in identity, name-crisis, culture-conflict, generation gap, tensed personal relationships, longing for homeland. Thus, they get alienated from family and society. The crisis of name and identity, always leading the characters to the state of alienation is introduced at the very beginning the novel, when Ashima calls out for her husband from the bathroom. She doesn’t use his name when she calls for him, since “it’s not the type of thing Bengali wives do” (Jhumpa Lahiri: The Namesake, 15). Their husbands’ names are considered too intimate to be used. The Bengali tradition of pet names, or daknam and ‘good’ names, or bhalonam, is explained. Only close family uses the pet name in the privacy of the home, while the ‘good’ name is used in formal situations like work. Ashima and Ashoke have to give their son a pet name as they wait for the ‘good’ name suggestions to arrive from Ashima’s grandmother, but the letter from Calcutta never comes. The language barrier that is to be the source of much struggle 50 for Ashima and Ashoke is evident when they arrive at the hospital for Gogol’s birth. After she has been given a bed, Ashima looks for her husband, but he has stepped behind the curtain around her bed. He says, “I’ll be back,” (The Namesake, 38) in Bengali, a language none of the nurses nor the doctor speaks. The theme of alienation, of being a stranger in a foreign land, is prominent throughout the novel. Throughout her pregnancy, which was difficult, Ashima was afraid about raising a child in “a country where she is related to no one, where she knows so little, where life seems so tentative and spare” (The Namesake, 16). Her son, Gogol, will feel at home in the United States in a way that she never does. When Gogol is born, Ashima mourns the fact that her close family does not surround him. It means that his birth, “like most everything else in America, feels somehow haphazard, only half true” (The Namesake, 16). When she arrives home from the hospital, Ashima says to Ashoke in a moment of angst, “I don’t want to raise Gogol alone in this country. It’s not right. I want to go back” (The Namesake, 11). When Gogol starts kindergarten. His parents intend for him to go by ‘Nikhil’ at school and ‘Gogol’ at home, but Gogol is confused and doesn’t want a new name: “He is afraid to be Nikhil, someone he doesn’t know. Who doesn’t know him” (The Namesake, 18). As a child, he associates a new name with a new identity. By his fourteenth birthday, Gogol has come to hate his name and resents being asked about it. Ashima feels alienated in the suburbs; this alienation of being a foreigner is compared to “a sort of lifelong pregnancy,” because it is “a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts... something that elicits the same curiosity from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect” (The Namesake, 140). Gogol also feels alienated, especially when he realizes that no one he knows in the world, in Russia or India or America or anywhere, shares his name. Not even the source of his namesake. As Gogol grows old enough to interact with his parents as a child. While Ashima is pregnant with Sonia, Gogol and Ashoke eat dinner alone together and Ashoke scolds Gogol for playing with his food. He says, “At your age I ate tin,” (The Namesake, 142) to draw attention to how grateful Gogol should be for having the food to eat. The relationship between Ashima and Ashoke and their own parents is also mentioned when they find out that their parents have died; Ashoke’s parents both die of cancer, and Ashima’s mother dies of kidney disease. They learn about these deaths by phone calls. 51 Ashoke decides not to tell Gogol about his near-death experience because he realizes that Gogol is not able to understand it yet. This decision points to the tension between life and death: “Today, his son’s birthday, is a day to honour life, not brushes with death. And so, for now, Ashoke decides to keep the explanation of his son’s name to himself” (The Namesake, 126). The tension between Bengali culture and American culture is revealed in Ashoke’s words to Gogol when Gogol tells him he wishes to change his name: “In America anything is possible. Do as you wish” (The Namesake, 169). He is resigned to the fact that his son is an American. When they find out about Gogol’s relationship with Ruth, Ashima and Ashoke point out examples of failed marriages between Bengali men and American women. Maxine’s parents, Gerald and Lydia, interact in a way that emphasizes to Gogol the difference between Bengali and American marriages: they openly kiss and cuddle, whereas Ashima and Ashoke never share intimate moments in public. The importance of name and identity is clear when Gogol changes his name legally to Nikhil. At first, the name change is confusing because everyone who knows him still calls him Gogol. However, when he goes to Yale, nobody knows him as Gogol and he can become Nikhil. It takes a while for him to really feel like Nikhil, since it is not just a new name but represents a new identity. As Nikhil, it’s easier for Gogol to separate himself from his parents. They represent his old life when he understood his identity as Gogol; now he is Nikhil and he can ignore them without feel responsible. He does not tell them about his relationship with Ruth at first, since “he has no patience for their surprise, their nervousness, their quiet disappointment, their questions about what Ruth’s parents did and whether or not the relationship was serious” (The Namesake, 126). Once he moves to New York to work as an architect, he stops visiting his parents so much. “He prefers New York, a place which his parents do not know well, whose beauty they are blind to, which they fear” (The Namesake, 222). His mother tries to get in touch with him by calling him, and he ignores her calls. Alienation and loneliness is evident with regard to Ashima. She is living alone in the house on Pemberton Road and she does not like it at all. She “feels too old to learn such a skill. She hates returning in the evenings to a dark, empty house, going to sleep on one side of the bed and waking up on another” (The Namesake, 135). When Maxine comes to stay with the Gangulis at the end of 52 the mourning period for Ashoke, Gogol can tell “she feels useless, a bit excluded in this house full of Bengalis” (The Namesake, 145). It’s the way he is used to feeling around her extended family and friends in New Hampshire. The theme of alienation appears in Moushumi’s life, as she describes to Gogol how she rejected all the Indian suitors with which her parents tried to match her. She tells him, “She was convinced in her bones that there would be no one at all. Sometimes she wondered if it was her horror of being married to someone she didn’t love that had caused her, subconsciously, to shut herself off” (The Namesake, 130). She went to Paris so she could reinvent herself without the confusion of where she fit in. The theme of the United States vs. India is apparent during the wedding between Moushumi and Gogol. Their parents plan the entire thing, inviting people neither of them has met and engaging in rituals neither of them understands. Gogol begins to feel more and more nostalgic as his marriage with Moushumi progresses. In Paris, he wishes he could stay in bed with Moushumi for hours as they used to do, rather than having to sightsee by himself while she prepares for her presentation. During the dinner party at the home of Astrid and Donald, Gogol becomes nostalgic for when he and Moushumi were first dating, and had spent an entire afternoon designing their ideal house. The theme of name and identity emerges while Astrid, Donald, and the guests at the dinner party discuss what to name Astrid’s baby. Moushumi reveals to the guests nonchalantly that Nikhil was not always named Nikhil. This offends him because it feels like a betrayal of an intimate detail only she knew to people he doesn’t like. Moushumi begins having an affair with Dimitri, is told from Moushumi’s point of view. For that reason, the narrator refers to Gogol as ‘Nikhil’; that is how Moushumi knows her husband. This narration decision makes Moushumi’s decision to have an affair with Dimitri more sympathetic than it would be to the reader had it been discovered from Gogol’s point of view. Nostalgia is prevalent as Ashima prepares for the last Christmas party she will ever host at the house on Pemberton Road. She remembers when Gogol and Sonia were little, helping her prepare the food for these parties: “Gogol’s hand wrapped around the can of crumbs, Sonia always wanting to eat the croquettes before they’d been breaded and fried” (The Namesake, 89). As Sonia, Ben, Gogol, and Ashima assemble the fake Christmas tree together, Gogol remembers decorating the first plastic tree his parents had bought 53 at his insistence. The difference between Bengali and American approaches to marriage is clear in Ashima’s evaluation of Gogol’s divorce from Moushumi. She thinks, “Fortunately they have not considered it their duty to stay married, as the Bengalis of Ashoke and Ashima’s generation do.” References Lahiri, Jhumpa, My Hyphenated Identity—Newsweek:Worldnews- MSNBC.com. 4 March, 2006. Web. —. The Namesake, Houghton Mifflin (Boston MA), 2003. Print. —. Interpreter of Maladies : Stories (Book Club Kit ed.) Boston [u.a.]: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. Print. —. Unaccustomed Earth, New York/Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf. 2008, Print. Lystad, Mary Hanemann. Social Alienation: A Review of Current Literature, The Sociological Quarterly 13 (1972): pp. 26-31. Print. Marx, Karl, “The German Ideology.” In Rivkin, Julie and Ryan, Michael, Literary Theory: An Anthology, Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. Print. Murray, Donald M., “Henry James and The English Reviewers, 1882-1890”, American Literature, 1952. Print. Smith, Nicole, Short Story Analysis and Themes Summary of A Temporary Matter by Jhumpa Lahiri, Articlemyriad, 2011. Print. Ulvinen, Veli-Matti, “Prison Life and Alienation”, in Kalekin- Fishman, Devorah (ed.) Designs for Alienation: Exploring Diverse Realities, Finland: University of Jyvaskyla, 1998. Print. Weber, Donald, “Outsiders and Greenhorns: Christopher Newman in the Old World, David Levinsky in the New”, American Literature, 1995. Print. 54 999 Homosexuality—An Abnormal Aberration of Human Society in Mahesh Dattani’s On a Muggy Night in Mumbai Disha Khanna The question of homosexuality is largely a thought-provoking subject of taboo in Indian civil society. Although existence of homosexuality is evident in Indian culture since pre-historic times, as visualized in different forms of art like paintings and carvings in temples, homosexuals are not acknowledged as a separate identity in India and depicted as abnormal human beings. Homosexuality is a romantic fascination or in other words, a sexual attraction between members of the same sex or gender. Most people have multifarious notions towards the recognition and identity of homosexuality. Firstly, there is the existence of those humans who ponder that homosexuality is in contradiction to Indian culture and is immoral and unnatural. Secondly, the progressive class of people who venerates an individual’s right to cherry-pick his/her sexuality. Thirdly, those multitude of parents who enunciate that everyone has a right of choice but anticipate and invoke to God, Almighty that their own sons should not be labelled as gay. Even those parents who are prepared to be recognised as modern will not let their progenies to be branded as homosexuals, as it will levy a blot on their clean chitterlings. Finally, the last chunk of individuals is those who are deft in cracking cheap jokes on homosexuality and ridiculing the underestimated fraternity. Mahesh Dattani, India’s leading English dramaturge and the 1998 Sahitya Academy Award winner playwright renders the homosexuals of India to give a vent to their pent up emotions on homosexuality, for the first time in the Indian theatre in his play On a Muggy Night in Mumbai (Naik, 1982). A Bangalore born product of 1958, Mahesh Dattani is unanimously acclaimed as one of the paramount playwrights in the modern India. He outshines as a subtle writer who fancies to pen down about the lifelike, suppressed and traumatic problems of the Indian citizens rather than indulging in romantic and whimsical philosophies. His plays are a slice of social life. They exhibit the true portrayal of life as it is (Ayyar, 2001: 15). In his own words, I am certain that my plays are a true reflection of my time, place and socio-economic background. 55 Dattani outlines the hollowness, pettiness and ugliness of modern age in his plays. He dextrously moulds his subject so that it is representative of a class as well as appealing. His plays traverse across linguistic and cultural barriers. Dattani being a versatile genius makes an abundant use of Indian mythology, rituals and contemporary hitches which India is beset with but he elevates these themes to the zenith, touching the human chords that emanate love, happiness, sexual fulfilment and problem of identity. “I write for my milieu, for my time and place—middle-class and urban Indian,” confesses Dattani (Mee, 1997: 21). My dramatic tensions arise from people who aspire to achieve freedom from society.… I am not looking for something sensational, which audiences have never seen before… some subjects which are under-explored, deserve their space. It’s no use brushing them under the carpet. We have to understand the marginalized, including the gays. Each of us has a sense of isolation within given texts. That’s what makes us individual. On a Muggy Night in Mumbai is a piece of performance that showcases the societal space of viciousness and humiliation faced by homosexuals. Adapted to a film Mango Soufflé, On a Muggy Night in Mumbai is the unsurpassed and the most intricate play that debates the socio-psychological identity crisis of the gays who are utterly shattered between the social taboos, subjective whims, inner conscience and what the outmoded Indian society ruminates and presumes of them. It sensationalizes the skirmishes, torments, predicaments, insecurities, qualms and frustrations of the gays in a materialistic society. It is a drama about how society generates configurations of behaviour and how susceptible it is for personages to fall dupe to the anticipations society crafts. Thus, Dattani efforts to scrutinize the identity crisis of the gays who inhabit no praiseworthy space in cosmic social order and traditionalists ponder such a relationship as something atypical, detestable and repulsive one. Dattani eulogizes that in an old-fashioned and conservative society, sustaining a life of a gay is not as easy as ABC. Numbers of times, homosexuals have to completely conceal their actual identity from being ostracised and excluded from the present society. On a Muggy Night in Mumbai is a “metro-sexual love story” that heaves a foremost skeleton out of collective closets—sovereignty of sexual choice (De, 2003). Outspoken and clear-cut, it expedites into the realm of gays through a love triangle that turns into a 56 quadrangle with astonishing outcomes. In this play, Kamlesh and Prakash were zealous and ardent lovers. But Prakash had abruptly transformed into Ed by feeling abashed of being homosexual. Then his eyes befell on Kiran, who inappropriately transpired to be Kamlesh’s sister. In due course of time, Kamlesh’s sexual prerequisites were being fulfilled by Sharad, who was still passionately in adoration with Prakash. Incidentally Prakash once again bumped into the life of Kamlesh as a lover of his sister, Kiran. Ed has abandoned him because he wants to hide his gay identity and therefore he intends to marry Kiran who is Kamlesh’s sister. He longs to remain in touch with Kamlesh through Kiran so that nobody suspects his identity. He says, “Nobody would know. Nobody would care…I’ll take care of Kiran. And you take care of me”(105). When she got cognizance of this dwindling relationship, she displayed all compassion for the gay community and homosexual associations. At one point of time, Kiran innocuously commented: “I really wish they would allow gay people to marry”. And she gets a reply from Ranjit who says, “They do. Only not to the same sex” (98). He visualizes no future in an open gay liaison. He does not yearn himself to be branded as a gay publically. He defends himself of his intentions of pretending ‘straight’ in the arguments in the party when by discoursing, Look around you. Look outside…. There are real men and women out there. You have to see them to know what I mean. But you don’t want to. You don’t want to look at the world outside this—this den of yours. All of you want to live in your own little bubble (99). On the other hand, Deepali is a ‘sensible’ lesbian amid the entire group. She feels compassionate and concerned for Kamlesh and has an affinity towards him which is replicated in her tête-à- tête with Kamlesh, “If you were a woman, we would be in love…. If you were heterosexual, we would be married” (65). She is vocal of her sexual inclinations in her arguments at the party and says, “It’s not shame, is it? With us? Of the corners we will be pushed into where we don’t want to be” (89) and of the gay cause, “I am all for the gay men’s cause. Men deserve only men!” (60). Deepali, like her co-brethrens, is in the apprehension of being positioned in the margins: “It’s not shame, is it? With us? …It’s fear…Of the corners we will be pushed into where we don’t want to be”(14). 57 The guard who does odd jobs for the people at the party is also a homosexual who is seen putting up his attires in front of Kamlesh just at the commencement of the play. Ranjit who desires to obscure his gay identity in India has his gay partner residing in England. Mahesh Dattani has adeptly showcased the burning issue of today of gays enjoying proper empathy and reverence in the society in his existing play. Every person next door may be a homosexual but dread of barring, restrains him from exposing his real self and thus endures with the pretence of heterosexual (Bhatia, 1987). Through this play, Mahesh Dattani has endeavoured to relax the subtly exasperated society towards the gay community and stir up benevolence for these people. On a Muggy Night in Mumbai is a treasure-house of all the homosexual characters Kamlesh, Sharad, Ed, Ranjit, Bunny and Deepali simultaneously breathing in two worlds. The entire play compacts with unisexual and bisexual love relationships. None has ever taken the bold initiative of declaring in the open about their sexual orientation and are never liberal to freak in and out of the closet. Kamlesh, fretful about his homo erotic friendship for Prakash, becomes correspondingly alarmed about his sister and attempts not to prove hindrance to her love life which incidentally abides around Prakash alias Ed. Ranjit has established in UK where he can overtly proclaim his desires. Bunny, too is clearly attune with the situation: “Do you think I will be accepted by the millions if I screamed from the rooftops that I am a gay”(13). Through the serial, Yeh Hai Hamara Parivaar, he has become an epitome of normal heterosexual union as Kiran exclaims: “You are an ideal husband and father! I can’t imagine anyone else in that part”(15). The ‘ideal husband and father’ tag keeps his wife ‘content’. Dreading the social disapproval he adores his co- brethrens to be secretive about it. There is a sort of guilt complex in him for being a nonconformist in their conjugal life but lacks the ethical audacity to admit it amenably or even rectify the damage by being compassionate to her. Henceforth, his public image of a happily conjugal man becomes an alluring trap to which he rescues no outflow. Kiran also becomes marginal when she is a divorced individual in the society’s vigilant eyes: “At the party, I felt their stares, as if they were saying, ‘That’s Kiran. The one whose husband dumped her’”(21). Hence her counsel to Kamlesh is: “Don’t let people know about you. You will spend your whole life defending yourself.” And adds: “if I had a choice, I would stay invisible too” 58 (22). That the periphery/marginal is not accommodated by the centre there arise a desire to form an alternative identity which in itself establishes the presence of the centre. In addition to it, the peripheral is supposed to shield its deviances throughout so as to be acknowledged by the centre. Herein crops up a sense of predicament which leads to a kind of identity muddle. In one of Kamlesh’s speeches, the mental agony to be a gay is established: Please! I am afraid! I need your help! I need you all. I am afraid. frightened. (Pause.) After Sharad went away-I decided that I didn’t need anyone to live with me. I had my work. That should have been enough. It wasn’t. I felt this void. The same feeling when three years ago, Prakash left me, I would have understood it if he had left me for another man, but he left me because he was ashamed of our relationship. It would have worked between us, but he was ashamed. I was very angry. I left my parents and my sister to come here…for the first time in my life, I wished I wasn’t a gay (68-69). The drama even dared to revitalize the façade of sexlessness from male-male intimacy, dealing pliably with homosexuality. It also efforts to dispense with conventional and so called orthodox, man/woman role playing. When Sharad the political erroneous queen rants against ‘penis power’ and the ‘macho-man’ syndrome, Dattani gives the impression to be pointing at the communal spaces between gay and feminism liberation where both situate a familiar oppressiveness in the straight male and his assertion of phallocentric normal the self-delusion of their creed. Sharad is mindful of the implications of his insinuations and this part of the action requires a deep resonance as the gay man speaks to the lesbian and both are intelligent, open and gay people unashamed of their sexual choices. Sharad is the antithesis of Ed who is vocal and totally loquacious of his gay identity. “Let the world know that you exist. Honey if you flaunt it, you’ve got it” (70). He himself concedes that “I am not bisexual. I am gay as a goose.”(100) and teases Ed with his speech on ‘Macho Man Syndrome’ that Ed tries to feign: You see, being a heterosexual man—a real man as Ed put it—I get everything. I get to be accepted—accepted by whom? Well that marriage lot down there for instance. I can have a wife, I can have children who will all adore me simply because I am a 59 hetero…I beg your pardon—a real man. Now why would I want to give it all up? So what if I have to change a little? If I can be a real man I can be king. Look at all the kings around you, look at all the male power they enjoy, thrusting themselves on to the world, all that penis power! Power with sex, power with muscle, power with size (101). Twice in the play, Ed makes an attempt to commit suicide in the play which showcase that he is the frailest of all the homosexuals because he is suffering the most from this identity crisis. Ed doesn’t want his true identity to be revealed even to his best buddies and to his sweetheart also. He is deeply heartbroken in the end when his gay identity is revealed to the society and to his fiancé through his photograph with Kamlesh where both are naked and embracing each other. He is in a dilemma as to what to do: “Where do I begin? How do I begin to live?” (111). The play is a vindication of rights of the gays who at least prerequisite some social space to overcome their identity crisis. The play culminates with “Fade out last on the picture of Ed and Kamlesh, Kiran and Kamlesh holding each other” implying the acceptance of gay identity by at least one heterosexual and revelation to the rest of the society and the picture depicts that the reality will be everlasting howsoever or whosoever tries to negate it. Reminiscing the Mumbai staging of On a Muggy Night in Mumbai, Dattani eulogizes, “During the interval on opening night, I overheard the husband of an elderly couple behind me, say: `You know, in Europe, they actually allow gay people to marry; men marry men, women marry women... ‘She said, `I read about it. Now things are changing. All this is in the open.’ There was no judgment in their conversation, only wonder. I felt so moved by it” (46). Dattani in one of his interviews pronounces, “You can talk about Feminism because in a way that is accepted. But you can’t talk about gay issues because that’s not Indian, that doesn’t happen here” (Chaudhury, 2005). Homosexuality is not a fatal disease or mental illness that requires to be, or can be, ‘cured’ or ‘altered’, it is just an added expression of human sexuality (Iyengar, 1985). Homosexuals are as normal as ‘you’ and ‘me’ or ‘anybody’ around. Yet, just because they love ‘their own kind’, they are ostracised and persecuted by the law. And branded as ‘queers’ and ‘aberrations’—specifically what they are not. Homosexuals are typical humans attracted to their own gender. They sustain in their own make-over world 60 temporarily liberal from any restrains and societal aversions. One should enjoy the entire freedom in his own hands to opt the gender he aspires to indulge in. But the societal based environmental hazards impose him to be heterosexual. He has to garb himself with the veil of being a heterosexual by totally defying his wishes. If one is blessed with a male organ, he has no right to have physical relationship with another male as the civilization’s protocol considers it to be immoral and debauched. Thus, at the culmination of the paper, volley of questions are thrown up for the humanity to ponder upon gay identity and acceptability which otherwise the society would prefer to sweep under the carpet and be mum on the burning issue. Intimate same sex behaviour in India has always been looked down on as an act of disgrace. According to Indian social structure, a man has to prove his machismo by having sex with a woman and by becoming a father. This generates a social and familial pressure for men to marry women. Men with a preference for homosexuality thus only enter heterosexual relationships to satisfy social expectations, and in order to save their family structure and social status. On a Muggy Night in Mumbai lifts the blanket of secrecy that shrouds the marginalized cultures, sexualities and lifestyles. Can homosexuality transform into heterosexuality? Is homosexuality an unnatural aberration of human society? The above piece of work challenges to pose these consistent questions, fully being aware that the ultimate solutions are hardly conceivable but is still expectant. References Ayyar, Raj, “Mahesh Dattani: India’s Gay Cinema Comes of Age”, Gay Today 8.167 (2001): http://www.gaytoday.com/ interview/040103in.asp. Bhatia, Krishna S., Indian English Drama: A Critical Study, Sterling Publisher, 1987. Print. Chaudhury, Asha Kuthari, Mahesh Dattani, New Delhi: Foundation Books, 2005. Print. Dattani, Mahesh, Mahesh Dattani: Collected Plays, New Delhi: Penguin, 2000. Print. De, Aditi, “Out of the Closet, On the Screen”, The Hindu (March 9, 2003): http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/2003/ 03/09/stories/2003030900660500.htm Dhawan, R.K., ‘The Plays of Mahesh Dattani’, Prestige: New Delhi, 2005. Print. 61 Dhawan, R.K. and Reddy, V.K., ‘Flowering of Indian English Drama’, 2002. Print. Iyengar, K.R.S.,’Indian Writing in English’, Sterling Publisher, 1985. Print. Mee, Erin B., “Mahesh Dattani: Invisible Issues.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 19.1 (January 1997): pp. 19-26. Print. Naik, M.K., ’History of Indian English Literature’, Sahitya Akademi, 1982. Print. 62 101010 Mahasweta Devi’s Bedanabala Her Life Her Times: Unheard Melodies of the ‘Other’ Dr. Indrani Singh Rai Perhaps very few have tried to hear the unheard melodies of the silenced who are the inhabitants of the margin. Only some have ever endeavoured to feel their ache and agony, effort and quest to find a voice in the society. These melodies bear strains of pain and gloom, but even in their misery and murk, the melody of life is floated. The human spirit that has been striving for liberation and bliss from long back still tries to seek life through buoyancy and fortitude. This unheard melody is the song of the life; an oeuvre of custom; a tale of the ‘other’, the subaltern. Bedanabala. Her Life. Her Times is a moving fiction which deals with the unspeakable anguish of a class that exists in the same society where the mainstream lives but at the same, they are still marginal because they are called prostitutes, whores or kept women. Mahasweta Devi through her perceptive creation tries to sympathies with this segment and tries to correct the outlook of common people that the prostitutes cannot be the outcaste because the people who cross the threshold of their rooms are the men from common homes. She questions, when the men folk is not accused, rather they are considered blameless, why the whores are always to be blamed? Sharing the same periphery with others, why are they so distant, why are they termed as ‘Other’? The novel recounts the lives of ‘fallen’ women from the age of the Uttar Veda to the present day. Mahasweta has searched the agony of those women whose stories will never be told completely. Mahasweta Devi, it seems in this novel, holds the hands of her reader and takes them directly to the world of whores, who are accepted as locales of outcast. They really do not have homes; they are the inhabitants of a dark area where the common people reluctant to enter publicly. Here is actually a depiction of closed world of kept women. Starting from the late nineteenth century, the voice of Bedanabala proves itself as a perforate observer to the experiences of many women who find themselves outside the shelter of domestic fence. The fiction seeks to highlight a fragment of society, condemned even by other women as beyond the bounds of decorum and societal recognition. Bedanabala is a proof of numb collective attitude to feeble, unaided women’s account which is never acknowledged. The trauma of these ill-fated, socially unrecognized sufferers is 63 exposed through Bedanabala. We are introduced with Kamini, the grandmother of Bedanabala whom she called Did’ma and Kamal, her mother. They all belong to the ‘Other’ segment known as prostitutes which is considered as subaltern in its own sense. Three generations are seen in the story where the writer tries to show the way how a woman becomes a whore and suffers for the crime she is compelled to do with intent or unwillingly. Kamal was a daughter to some zamindar family whereas Kamini’s job was to keep hunting for pretty girls from rich homes as her opinion of motherly attention was like that “The mother won’t be daughterless without this one. She’s got two none” (2). Mahasweta asserts, Did’ma apparently owned a three storeyed house. A girl in every room, some had bandha-babus, regulars, some others were in the theatre. Old world whores, belonging to an old time, following old codes of professional conduct (2). Kamini had her own rooms, cooks, servants, handmaidens and counted her profits as they brought more and more girls into the trade. Kamini was the owner of a huge whore house. Actually Kamini is the medium through which the author expresses her feelings for the downtrodden and gives her consent to accept them unreservedly. In this novel we have a clear picture of the social status of the women who somehow left their home and caught up. There were many girls who were involved in ‘theatre’ but going theatre was against a social norm for women. The society refuses them place. The male folk kept whores in their lives as it was a social status for them. We have the example of Soluchana, a kept woman of zamindar Nanda Babu, who “Been keeping women in the same way as their wives down the ages, from the days of his grandfather, his father. Building them houses. Setting them up” (3). So other whores dreamt of the same fate as Sulochana’s who was “…in Kashi. A house of her own. A maid that lives with her. A dip in the Ganga every day, spends time in meditation, charity. She’s well. Quite well” (3). Kamini felt that she was not doing any immoral because she thought like other professions, prostitution was a new dealing whether the society accepted it or not. She played her part to look after the girls whom the society had discarded. She felt proud and contented that “At the end of the day, none of my girls have to take to begging” (4). The writer tries to catch a ‘mother’ in a whore and unfurls their nominal expectation from life. Kamini was a whore, whose daughter fell in love of Chan’an, a boy from a reputed family, a man from civilized society. He assured “Whether I marry or not, your place is yours alone” (5). But it is a strict prohibition of society for a house- 64 holder to live with a whore. In fact, neither the society nor the conscience of the boy permits to accept a marginal. He was prohibited to marry a kept woman and even more, he never wanted to bring disgrace to his home. The girl committed suicide and Chan’an was happy with his two wives. This is the spite of the society which is generally unnoticed. The lure to be a householder gripped the girl too strong because the whores, unlike other know the intensity of love but they can’t expect the return. The society always shuts the door behind it degrading them dispossessed, subaltern in the true way. Kamini’s reaction was “Nothing but an unfortunate death for every whore that hankers for a home. If only she’d kept on as a whore. Wouln’t have died so young then” (7). But Kamini discloses the truth that it was a premature death of her daughter because whores die to be as happy as householders? Don’t householders die too? Doesn’t the rest of the world? Whores die when their bodies break. If they’re careful, they live. And the one’s who aren’t, they go begging at Kalighat. Die on the streets. I’ve seen Bhubani parading about in Parsi sari-jackets. And I’ve also seen her begging, tin bowl in hand (6). Mahasweta has traced an impasse between a mother who never wants her daughter to become a prostitute and the decree of society which she is bound to obey. Kamini had an exceptional affection with the girl so she did not want Kamal to be a professional whore. She wished “It I have to, I’ll give her to a rich man. A fixed salary, maids and servants waiting hand and foot, kept like a queen, something for me every month as well” (2). In Bengali culture, a girl is given good education and knowledge of music and it is somehow must for a lady who wants to get married to a rich and cultured family. Following this line, Did’ma tried to give all to Kamal, who was bemused to know that the reputed men came to the kept women for new taste, new flavour but no one called them sinners after all because that name was kept for the ‘kept women’ only. Kamini confessed to Mani that she was sure that she’s set her heart on someone. Remembering her past inhumanity done by the society, Mani rebukes, So? What difference does a heart make? Given or taken? In the end you’ll have her marry a bit of metal and her name’ll be added to the police records! ... and feed them and fatten them like chickens in a coop. Then hurl them into hell. If they’d been with their own true parents perhaps they’d marry too, have families too (27). 65 It was the passionate love of a mother for her daughter that led Kamini to examine her conscience. And by its radiance, to realize that what she was doing was a grave sin. It is very strange to know and accept that to make a woman ‘fallen’, a woman is liable first and then comes the role of a man. The conversion of a blameless girl to a subaltern, sub-human being can be traced in the transition of Mani who was stolen when she was six years old. Mahasweta points to the brutality and coldness of the parents who have lost their girl children in a very sharp way. She informs that in rural Bengal the lost girls are not accepted by their parents back as they fetch shame upon them. Mani never went away from her home deliberately but when she came back, her mother was terrified. “Her mother’d stepped even closer. On the one hand the fear of scandal and on the other, the incredible wonderment of seeing her daughter” (12). She’d turned furtive, looked this way and that. “They’ll turn us out of the village. It’ll be hard to marry off the other girls. And your father’ll chop you to bits if he sees you” (13). Mani was assured by her mother that she was dead to her family and she was advised by her mother, who showed her the first ray of this world, to drown in the Ganga. Mani was humiliated, mortified and disgraced by her mother who was too week to protest because the helpless mother does not shatter the social constraint, rather she wished, “we drown together” (13). How pathetically a soul has been tortured, how cruelly a daughter has been silenced by her mother. Someone had spoken out in a reedy voice; I could tell just from the clothes…. That’s no married woman…. Women of that sort…. Her mother turned away, walked away with them. And Mani’d understood then, in a flash, how foolish she’d been. Even the police records had her name down as a professional. And she’d thought of returning home? ...Her mother’d been right. Spoken the truth. That Mani is alive, that she is whoring under the control of the well- established Kaminibala Dasi—the sheer shame of it all would kill her mother. Cast her father out of the village (14). Mahasweta while unfolding the ill fated kept women and their humiliating and subaltern position in the society finds out the revolt against the social attitude in the transformation of a prostitute, Surjomukhi. She had indeed changed her religion; had a nikaah and married the man and bagged a house for herself. She was well, living on the banks of the Ganga in Kashi. The Nawab sent her five rupees, her daughter ten. What more could anyone ask for. The girl, 66 changing herself from Surjomukhi to Firoza Begum, put a protest by snatching her social identity. The dissent can also be noticed in the transition of Kamini. She expressed her anger for her mother because she considered her mother for her pathetic life. She asserts, Fate was against me. A girl, that too born to a whore. What else could I expect? My mother pushed me into sin and I’m carrying on with the job...now when I look at Kamal I think it’s time to change...no more! No more stealing girls, no more new whores for me (19). It was the kept woman Kamini had transformed into some other woman. In the deep dejection of her mind a voice akin to her own would say, All her life…so many girls…on days like this one she’d make them fast from the morning…bathe them in turmeric water in the evening. Then place a curved hand-held iron blade on the low wooden stool, or the bonti from the kitchen, the one used to cut fish. And while five whores ululated, the girl held a lamp in her hand and circled that stool seven times. A garland flung upon the blade, another around the girl’s neck. Then exchanged. And the priest who did the rites for the dead reciting loudly, To this blade of iron I now marry you/All trouble and strife I cross out for you/Everybody’s woman. Alone no more./Till now, a girl. From now, a whore (21). The question is can a whore break the rules of her own kind? A kept woman must have her social acceptance because she is like other normal human being. They are not born to be someone’s ‘kept’. She had a long list of names in the past days like Kashabi, Kuchni, Gastali, Ranrh, Khanki, Bebushhye and so many others. From one kingdom to another, one age to another, even one language to another. There is no turning back. “Men will tear her to pieces while she’s alive. And when she’s dead, the government will swallow every bit she leaves behind” (21). But there is no home for a prostitute for her old age shelter, no place to spend her last days in peace. They are throughout their whole lives take care of men, please them physically, but they are not permitted to express their consideration candidly. Kamini teaches Kamal that whores are even never widowed. They are married for life to a bit of iron, which can never be died or broken. “So how can we be widows? Was it a real man we married? And then, who was there for me to run away with?” 67 (34). This is the acute ache of a kept woman whom we never want to hear. The author expects that day soon when the kept girls will not feel ashamed to speak out to say, “Yes we do this. We do this work for the money” (47). But it is really pitiable to realize the wretched plight to be a married woman, a householder that was the ultimate in life, a position of unquestioned respect. The evolution of life of the characters Kamini and Kamal is seen. What Kamini dreamt for her Kamal, came true as she was married to a reputed, open minded man who did not consider the kept woman as disinherited, disown and divest. Kamal was happy to get a graceful life. At the same, she avows the practical death of a prostitute Kamini in this way, That old woman, my Did’ma, not my mother’s own mother, a whore, a prostitute, a janapadbadhu, a janmakalankini, paapini, patita…. Whatever you wish to call her. If that is so, then it is the society that inscribes such a fate for them even before they are born, even as they grow in the womb, the men of that very society do nought else but visit brothels, give the women ugly diseases, suffer from the same diseases themselves and ultimately burn on the pyre complete with their mistresses and their legally married wives. Did’ma was a carrier of that same tradition (70). Mahasweta Devi always picks up the social maladies and tries to correct these. Harassment of prostitutes and the common outlook for them as underdog and subaltern is hideous. Mahasweta throws the question to all those orthodox people that “Prostitutes. Whores. Kept women. And who are they, who visit them? Who enter their rooms? Young men, from homes like yours and mine. But they are innocent, isn’t that so? All the sin left behind to keep these women company?” (52-53). Bedanabala makes the common people introduced with the experiences of many women who find themselves outside the safety of domestic walls and feel their position as subaltern and question the suitability of an oppressive social custom. Mahasweta mocks that all have changed but the change has been merely on the outside. Not only in city but also in villages, districts, markets, parks, pavements, hotels, clubs, borders and stations, this trade is alive, thriving and flourishing. She inquires, “Where is the change? Just that they can speak up now? I am a sex worker and this is my profession? A mother’s name to be her child’s identity” (72). She affirms, each prostitute; each sex worker has the right to light, to break free of the darkness. They 68 must know this and they must earn this for themselves. It is apt to say then with Mahasweta that if the sky were sheet of paper, if every blade of grass on earth were pen, if the seven seas were awash with ink, if all of that were used up even then, it would not be enough for their history to be written. References Devi, Mahasweta. Bedanabala. Her Life. Her Times (trans.) Sunandini Banerjee, Kolkata. Seagull, 2005. (All parenthetical references of the text are to this edition.) 69 111111 Travelogues and Creative Literature: Focus on William Wordsworth and S.T. Coleridge Dr. Bir Singh Yadav “Travel is a creative act”(140) remarks Paul Theroux as it reflects the journey of the mind simultaneously. Substantiating the point Peter Bishop also asserts that “Travel writing creates worlds, it does not simply discover them”(204). Therefore travel writing, as Tim Youngs thinks, is “the most socially important of all literary genres” and “traveling is something we all do, on different scales, in one form or another” (Youngs, 1). Reflecting on the nature of travel writing Carl Thompson also remarks that the term “encompasses a bewildering diversity of forms, modes and itineraries” (2011: 1-2). In John Frow’s words “genres actively generate and shape knowledge of the world; they create effects of reality and truth, authority and plausibility, which are central to the different ways the world is understood in the writing of history or of philosophy or of science or in painting or in every talk” (2006: 2). Dea Birkett and Sara Wheeler providing a new dimension to travel writing opine that “Travel writers have become more literary and less literal” and in new travel writing what matters is “not what we see, but how we see” (Introduction, ix, x). Thus travel writing reflects and influences the way we view the world and ourselves in relation to it. In Romantics the narrative emphasis on individualism coincides with the introspection, or association between the external and internal, therefore, the case of Romantic poets, particularly Wordsworth and Coleridge, shows how travel accounts may be utilized in other forms of creative literature. Carl Thompson rightly suggests that in Romantic poetry “the poet himself is, or has been some sort of suffering traveler” in the role of misadventurer which may be called “self dramatization” (Thompson, 7,8). Whatever may be the period, there have been the four fundamental subject of travel writing—quest, the inner journey, race and gender and sexuality. The single most important organizing principle of travel writing is ‘quest’ which being central to travel writing leads to interior journey as Tim Youngs observes that “Quests of different sorts have motivated travellers for millennia. They may be spiritual or material, pacific or martial, solitary or collective, outward into the world or inward into the self…they aim to find spiritual reward or 70 psychological repair in enactment of the inner journey” (Youngs, 87) This quest for spiritual reality in its most creative form is perceptible in several poems of Wordsworth such as “Lucy Gray”, “The Solitary Reaper”, “Alice Fell”, “Nutting”, and “Tintern Abbey”. Maillart Ella’s remarks in “My Philosophy of Travel” about a true traveller are appropriately applicable on Wordsworth that “the true traveler is the one urged to move about for physical, aesthetic, intellectual as well as spiritual reasons…one travels in order to learn once more how to marvel at life in a child’s way. Blessed be the poet, artist, who keeps alive this sense of wonder” and further connecting the outer and inner journey shows that “one’s mind colors the journey as if one wore individually tinted spectacles. It is our mind we project outside and ultimately decipher when we think we meet the ‘objective’ world” (Youngs and Forsdick, 36). Wordsworth’s realization of the spiritual self in human body finds expression in the poem “Lucy Gray” while he was undertaking an interior journey in meditative mood in the quest of knowing this spiritual essence and externally he depicts it as an imaginative travel through the forest as the opening lines of the poem reflect: Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray And when I crossed the wild I chanced to see at break of day The solitary child. (1-4) The physical journey of crossing the wild is also coupled with the inner journey wherein at the break of day which is symbolic of the dawn of spiritual knowledge the poet realizes the presence of ‘the solitary child’, i.e. soul. He saw the solitary child or soul not with his physical eyes but with the inner eye as A.C. Bradley points out, “What is lonely is a spirit” (Bradley, 142). Lucy has been spiritualized in the poem as she represents soul and John Beer calls it “spiritualization of the character” (Beer, 92). Lucy has no permanent mate, comrade or companion as she comes alone to this world and also goes alone. She is the essence of this body—” The Sweetest thing that ever grew/Beside the human door.” Lucy is the most beautiful invisible spiritual power within this human frame. Lucy having a lantern in her hand metaphorically impels the reader to think of the soul endowed with imperishable spiritual knowledge. Transcendentalism in Wordsworth is a unique way to give extraordinary shape to ordinary things by taking them logically up 71 to the apex level of imagination in the poem ‘Father,’ ‘hook’, and ‘faggot band’ set our imagination to soar high and the simple language assumes the metaphorical shape as they convey the idea of God, the mystery of dissolution and the unity of body and soul respectively. Creation and destruction go side by side in His scheme of things. The storm of death comes before the anticipated time. Lucy leaves this world and passes over many a hill. Lucy’s floating state here is akin to the poet’s spiritual journey. Wordsworth also presents the realistic picture of the ignorant mortal beings through the wretched parents who go on shouting far and wide during the whole night because of the physical attachment as they take this body as reality on account of their ignorance. Their lamentation is emotional outlet. The footprints of Lucy are visible up to the bridge where this life comes to an end. The poet makes it clear that as long as the body and soul are together, life is in its visible form but when this unity is broken, this physical life disappears like Lucy’s footprints on the ice. With the decay of the physical self, the footprints disappear but the spiritual self remains unaffected as it has immortal nature. Bradley points out that Wordsworth’s intention “is clearly shown in the lovely final stanza” (Bradley, 196) as he articulates the immortality of this spiritual self: —Yet some maintain, that to this day She is a living child; That you may see sweet Lucy Gray Upon the lonesome wild. O’er rough and smooth she trips along And sings a solitary song And whistles in the wind. (57-64) Wordsworth strongly advocates that not all but some enlightened people like the poet himself maintain the belief that Lucy is not dead but she is a living child and her sweet face may be seen in meditation. John Beer also comments that though the girl is betrayed in the storm but the inner spirit “is the spirit that lives on” (Beer, 92). When this individual soul merges with the soul of the universe, the echo of her whistling sound can not be heard by physical ears but this soundless and voiceless song becomes audible only to the imaginative minds. Thus in the poem the poet’s physical journey has conformity with inner spirituality which resultantly expresses itself through a creative poetic form. 72 A penetrating insight reflects that in travelogues physical, mental, moral and spiritual activities remain inextricably interconnected, hence the creative literature of Romantics is the outcome of travelogues. Wordsworth’s nature poetry and Shakespeare’s plays also reflect this creative flow in spontaneous form. Shakespeare in As You Like It through Duke Senior who after covering a long travel is in the forest also reflects this creative flow in highly imaginative way by articulating, “And this our life, exempt from public haunt,/Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,/Sermons in stones, and good in everything” (Act II: Sc.I,15- 17). Similarly Wordsworth’s “Nutting”, an outcome of interior and exterior journey when analyzed in the light of eco-criticism imparts a powerful message of bio-centric world based on Deep Ecology rejecting anthropocentrism as addressing the entire humanity through his sister Dorothy he utters: I felt a sense of pain when I beheld The silent trees, and saw the intruding sky Then dearest Maiden, move along these shades In gentleness of heart with gentle hand Touch—for there is a spirit in the woods. (52-56) Wordsworth counters what Peter Barry calls: a long standing deeply ingrained Western cultural tradition of anthropocentric attitudes, which are both religious and humanist, and often enshrined in commonplace references and sayings: thus the early Greek philosopher Protagoras (fifth century BC) makes the famous statement “Man is the measure of all things”, which places us confidently at the centre of everything; in the book of Genesis human beings are given ‘dominion’ over “the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground” (Barry, 252). Wordsworth not only issues a warning against high cultural licence for attitudes which are anthropocentric rather than eco- centric but also provides a moral and spiritual message of collective responsibility and spiritual claims of the world beyond. In this journey for nutting the poet seeks a higher kind of wisdom as Ella Maillart reflects that “Seeker is really another name for traveller. — whether one seeks sunshine, fun, inspiration or wisdom. I would travel till I did not need to seek any longer. Ultimately, all pretexts being eliminated, I traveled to become wiser” (Youngs and Forsdick, 2012: 41). Wordsworth also becomes wiser in this journey as his 73 vision reflects eco-justice replacing anthropocentrism with biocentrism and providing a central place to Pan-humanism in place of the Western concept of humanism which has committed countless sins and crimes to humanity in the name of man; and consequently has made man ‘ the butcher of the world’ as Graham Huggan and Helen Tiffin in their book Postcolonial Ecocriticism (2010) sharing the eco-ethical vision of Wordsworth and taking into account Europe’s atrocities against its advancement emphatically show “the unwanted evidence of the inhumanity done to humanity in the name of Man” (Huggan and Tiffin, 208). The sublime spiritual and ethical vision of Wordsworth taking Pan- humanism within its fold crosses the Western boundary of the humanist philosophy and accommodating the non-humans within humanistic thought is sure to contribute to the real happiness of the Mother Earth. It may be taken as a journey from man-centered world to bio-centric worldview or from the West to the East. “The Solitary Reaper” which is also an outcome of the stimulus of the Scottish Tour that Wordsworth undertook in 1803 reflects the universality of sorrow through the song of a simple rustic girl. In her journal Dorothy also gives a description about the sight of reapers. Both Dorothy and William affirm that the basic idea of the poem came from a sentence in Thomas Wilkinson’s manuscript account of a tour of Scotland which was later published in his Tours to the British Mountains (1824) wherein it is recorded that “Passed a Female who was reaping alone; she sung in Erst as she bended over her sickle; the sweetest human Voice. I ever heard; her strains were tenderly melancholy and felt delicious, long after they were heard no more” (Gill, 717). In this poem , the poet responds to the ‘ melancholy strain’ coming from the suffering heart of the solitary reaper. Though the poet is alien to the dialect of her singing and there is none to make him understand the exact meaning of the contents of the song but from the sorrowful tune of the song the poet judges that it is a song of suffering. The girl is transformed into a prototype of suffering humanity. In the poem the poet uses a dramatic opening to frame the situation with the phrase “Behold her”. The elementary melancholic feeling originating in the heart of the young girl becomes so powerful that it finds expression through her song which fills the valley as the poet asserts in the end of the first stanza, “O listen! for the Vale profound/Is overflowing with the sound” (7-8). After crossing the valley and “Breaking the silence of the seas” the song reaches “Among the farthest Hebrides” (15- 74 16) wherein it takes global dimension. In this way Wordsworth shows that the atomic feeling of sorrow emerging from the small heart of the girl becomes universal and scientifically speaking whatever is universal is true. The poet stresses that no human heart is untouched by sorrow and this sorrow is endless as he articulates that, “Whatever the theme, the Maiden sang/As if her song could have no ending” (25- 26). No song could be endless but it is the music of sorrow that is endless in the world. John Beer’s remarks are also appropriate about the nature of the song as he asserts that, “If it is a song of experience of he human heart, past, present or future, it is also, by its very quality, a song out of time” (Beer, 1978: 136). Since the song emblematizes human sorrow and sufferings, hence it becomes eternal in nature that crosses the physical and temporal limitations. Wordsworth also dilates upon the kinds of sorrow in the world which broadly speaking may be divided into two types—man created as well as natural sorrow. The poet thinks that “plaintive numbers” flowing out of the girl may be about “Old, unhappy, far of things/And battles long ago” (18-20) or in a more humble way the song may be about “Familiar matter of today” (22). Wordsworth states that most of the problems resulting in suffering and sorrow are man created. Man himself is responsible for the breaking out of battles and wars or some other sorrows occurring in day to day life.. Undoubtedly, sometimes man has to suffer for the wrong-doings of others since he is living in the world which is not perfectly just. Directly or indirectly, man himself is responsible for the most of the sorrows and sufferings of the world as they emerge out of man’s actions. Here Wordsworth also introduces the theme of existentialism that emphasizes that man is fully responsible for his decisions and actions. Wordsworth does admit that some natural calamities do take place but they are indifferent to man. They are the inevitable part of the natural process as he writes, “Some natural sorrow, loss or pain/ That has been, and may be again” (23-24). These natural loss or pain have no inimical design against man but they are the essentials of the universal scheme. They had been in the past, occurring in the present and will happen in future also. Keeping in mind both kinds of sorrows the poet gives support to the general dictum that this world is a vale of sorrow. The poet realizes these stark realities of human life not in an ordinary mood but when he is at the height of imagination as he mounts “up the hill” (30). In Wordsworth’s work hill or mountain symbolizes apex 75 imagination and as he goes into deep meditation, he feels himself at the highest point of the sky, the world of imagination wherefrom he sees reality. The song becomes perpetual in the heart of poet as Beer states that “It becomes a self-perpetuating fountain in the heart of the hearer” (Beer, 1978: 136). Therefore, in Wordsworth this imaginative journey at the exterior and interior level leads to creative poetic composition. Wordsworth’s “Alice Fell” is also a creative offshoot of a travel as Dorothy writing about the origin of the poem in her Grasmere Journal (March, 12: 1802) records her brother’s wording, “When I was coming home, a post chaise passed with a little girl behind in a patched ragged red cloak. The child and cloak Alice Fell’s own self” (JDW Moorman, 145). The child and the cloak in the poem are the two facets of the living personality. Alice Fell, an emblem of soul, laments over her torn cloak which has turn into wretched rags by the fast moving wheel of the time and is not worth wearing. She weeps loudly and bitterly “As if her very heart would burst”, “as if her grief/Could never, never, have an end” (23, 39-40) and all her strong grief is “for her only friend/She wept, nor would be pacified” (51-52). The attachment and the intimacy that a reader sees between the girl and the cloak is suggestive of soul and body. But finally as the girl gets the new cloak she forgets about the old and becomes ‘Proud creature’ next day. Dorothy also writes in her Grasmere Journal (16 February, 1802): Mr. Graham said he wished W’m had been with him the other day—he was riding in a post chaise and he heard a strange cry that he could not understand, the sound continued and he called to the chaise driver to stop. It was a little girl that was crying as if her heart would burst. She had got up behind the chaise and her cloak had been caught by the wheel and was jammed in and it hung there. She was crying after it. Poor thing. Mr. Graham took her into the chaise and the cloak was released from the wheel but the child’s misery did not cease for her cloak was torn to rags, it had been a miserable cloak before, but she had no other and it was the greatest sorrow that could befell her. Her name was Alice Fell. She had no parents, and belonged to the next Town. At the next Town Mr. G. leftmoney with some respectable people in the town to buy her a new cloak (JDW Moorman, 92). The poem “Tintern Abbey”, composed in 1798 at the time of his second visit to the river Wye, is the flow of the creative genius of 76 Wordsworth as he recounts his first visit to this river five years ago. His experiences of the previous visit after passing through the long process of deep meditation and philosophic contemplation sharing the colour of his creativity appear with freshness and novelty on the screen of his mind in his second visit. His visits in the world of nature become creative and fruitful as they are not merely at the physical level but they are replete with interior journey with sublime ideas and ideals emerging out of the holy wedding of the mind with the external world of nature. He presents a coherent and unified vision of man and nature, therefore, in his poetry things are not as they appear; hence in his poetry the surface meaning assuming instrumental role leads to the revelation of the true nature of things comprehensible to human mind. In the Preface to The Excursion (1814) he also announces that his high argument is the capacity of the mind “When wedded to this goodly universe/In love and holy passion” (53-54) to transfer the world into paradise and The Prelude, as A.C. Bradley states, is “the story of the stages by which he came to see reality, Nature and Man as the partial expression of the ideal of an all-embracing and perfect spiritual life of ‘Being’ (Bradley, 186) thereby he reveals the growth of a transitory ‘Being’ culminating into a ‘philosophic mind’ realizing the spiritual and ethical significance of this world. Almost in all his poems, directly or indirectly, he reveals the hidden spiritual and ethical significance of human life and the world. ‘Tintern Abbey” is considered as one of his masterpieces highlighting his moral and spiritual ascendancy. The solitary image of the ‘hermit’ is highly symbolic epitomizing ‘the philosophic mind’ contemplating nature in her superlative divine form. In the poem through the images “Of the vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,/Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by the fire/The Hermit sits alone” (20-22), Wordsworth significantly points out this growth whose ultimate goal is to achieve the philosophic height of the mighty mind through spiritual ascendancy as he articulates : That blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened—that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on— 77 Until the breath of this corporal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony and the deep power of joy We see into the life of things. (40-52) Taking interior spiritual journey, in a state of solitude or meditation or apex imagination, when he descends into the deeper layers of reality, he finds himself in blessed mood with the realization of truth as the mystery of this unintelligible world becomes transparent to him. But this stage is possible only with the realization of the spiritual essence in the self and in the external world of nature or in the light of recent scientific discovery it is the realization of ‘the God particle’ working every where in this universe. The ascending movement of spirituality reaches its climax when the poet surpassing the matter-of-fact observation beholds cosmic vision with mystical insight as he articulates: And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. (93-102) The journey into the self distinguishes the modern travel from its precursors. The focus of Romanticism on inner consciousness and its relationship to the external is an important offshoot of this interior journey. Dea Birkett and Sara Wheeler claim that “the writer’s inner journey is the most important part—and certainly the most interesting part –of any travel book” (Birkett and Wheeler, 1998 vii). They also observe that “creative imagination has always been vital to successful travel writing … the inward looking eye—is 78 more important than ever. More important than anything else.” In their opinion “it is the psychological journey that is paramount” (Introduction, ix). This inner journey may be presented or interpreted as parallel to the external one as S.T. Coleridge in the most creative way presents in his poem “Kubla Khan”. Referring to this fact Donald R. Howard writes that Coleridge claims to have been reading Purchas’s anthology of travels while composing “Kubla Khan”. Howard also reminds us that Coleridge was very much fond of Mandeville’s Travel as he (Coleridge) himself writes that he had Purchas’s book open at a passage that reads “In Xandu did Kublai Can build a stately Palace encompassing sixteene miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile Meddows, pleasure springs, delightful Streams, and all sort of beasts of chase and game, and in the middle thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure, which may be removed from place to place” (Howard, 1-2). The poem “Kubla Khan” requires psychoanalytic as well as philosophic critical tools for its unpacking in order to explore the hidden reality. Psychoanalytic approach takes us to a probing into the unconscious from where, as Freud says, reality or true literature comes. In “The Anatomy of Mental Personality” Freud, showing the nature and power of unconscious, writes that “we call a process ‘unconscious’ when we have to assume that it was active at a certain time, although at that time we know nothing about it”( Freud, 100). At a certain time when Coleridge’s unconscious was active within him with god like creative power, he saw something in dream that was a trance-like state to him. The full implication of that dream requires something more that is not dreamed of for its materialization because every dream, indeed, in itself is a fragment giving inkling to something more than that. But Coleridge, like Freud, also opines that the great art or literature spontaneously emerges from the power of the unconscious when the genius flows like a sacred river in the unknown, the dynamic depths of unconscious. In the dream which is a trance-like state to Coleridge, he visualizes this whole vision. The flow of this truth is from the within in the form of a dream and simultaneously at the philosophical level, secondary imagination also involves in the act of contemplation and thereby a new kind of reality is created out of the material objects perceived by the mind. Combining the subjective truth of unconscious with the objective reality of the universe in a paradoxical way in the poem, Coleridge generates a new kind of reality. His secondary imagination comes into operation within the context of a particular philosophy wherein 79 he projects this world as the pleasure palace. Coleridge’s treatment of the supernatural becomes very credible and convincing in its naturalized form. The whole supernatural description of the ‘pleasure palace’ depicts the paradoxical nature of life and this world. In a trance-like dreamy state of profound sleep when his whole soul comes into activity, he sees in the vision ‘A stately pleasure dome’—this world—a grand divine creation where the sacred river, Alph flows “Through the caverns measureless to man/ Down to a sunless sea”. The sacred river Alph is symbolic of the flow of generations in the world. The caverns through which it flows are “measureless to man” because the mystery of the depth is beyond the human knowledge and the river disappears by merging its identity into a ‘sunless sea” about which nothing is known. The deep caverns are symbolic of the deep mystery of the procreative process from where this sacred river of generations starts flowing and ‘the sunless sea’ is indicative of the mysterious disappearance of life into the unknown and unseen. This world or the pleasure palace has gardens blossomed with ‘many incense bearing tree’ and it has also forests which are as ‘ancient as the hills’. These forests enfold ‘sunny spots of greenery’. This pleasure palace is a co-mixing of roses and thorns. Pleasures and pains, joys and sorrows, happiness and sadness are interwoven in the text of life as well as in the origin of the world. The sunny spots of greenery are surrounded by the darkness of the forests representing sorrows, sufferings and pains which are as old as the hills or the creation of this world. With a sense of bewilderment, Coleridge draws our attention towards the highest kind of joys of this world when he symbolically describes the deep romantic chasm with ‘A savage place’ ‘holy and enchanting’ with the power of beauty and love but simultaneously it is being haunted by the ‘wailing’ of a woman for her ‘demon-lover beneath the waning moon’. On the one hand, God has created beauty and noble feeling of love in this world but on the other hand beauty is shortlived and declines like the waning moon, hence there is something unsatisfying and incomplete in the nature of love and beauty in the world. Therefore, the wailing woman and her demon-lover are the emblematic of the secrets of declining or less satisfying nature of the worldly beauty, love and joy on account of certain limitations of the mortal nature of life. The presence of the charming beauty and the sweetness of love has in itself the absence of something that causes inner grief that becomes an untellable and shameful secret 80 which Coleridge has artistically and successfully conveyed through the “wailing woman for her demon-lover in the romantic chasm beneath a waning moon”. In the romantic chasm, there is ‘A mighty fountain’ which is the source of the water of this sacred river, Alph. The flow of the river symbolizing the flow of generations on this earth comes from this powerful fountain that makes it fertile as Humphry House remarks that “The fertility of the plain is only made possible by the mysterious energy of the source”(117). With the procreative urge on account of this mighty fountain of sex-power, mother earth has been presented in the role of a young female with ceaseless turmoil in fast breathing and excited condition. This procreative urge rooted in sex-power is uncontrollable, that is why the world is going on. Momentarily or for the time being its flow may forcefully be controlled but soon it bursts out throwing aside the huge fragments like the rebounding hails. The river Alph with its flow of generations passes through wood and dale with a mazy motion in a non-linear manner covering a distance of five miles. Actually, this is the journey of life from birth to death in a zigzag manner passing through the hardships of the wood and joys of valley experiencing ups and downs of life. Finally, the river reaches the caverns where the physical form of life disappears and the another half of five miles remains a mystery about which nothing is known what happens thereafter. Highlighting the paradoxical nature of the world and life, Coleridge locates this pleasure palace as such where “the mingled measure/From the fountain and the caves” is heard. The strange and wonderful nature of this rare kind of miracle has been articulated in a sweet musical and magical way: It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice! ‘A sunny pleasure dome’ stands for all kinds of joys, happiness, birth as well as life, and ‘caves of ice’ represents sorrows, suffering, death as well as the dark side of life. Coleridge, in a trance-like state of activated unconscious corresponding to the objective reality of the universe, objectifies the subjective reality of the unconscious through poetic inspiration as he articulates: A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid, 81 And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. In such a rare blessed moment, as Coleridge says “Once in a vision I saw”, the poetic inspiration comes from his unconscious in a dreamy state in which he beholds the goddess of knowledge in the form of ‘an Abyssinian maid’ playing on her musical instrument inspiring him to reveal the hidden mystery of the world. The maid was singing of Mount Abora—an imaginary exotic mountain symbolizing the highest or the most secret form of knowledge beyond the human reach. It is what Wordsworth sees with the power of inner-eye of the philosophic mind, Coleridge visualizes in vision by the power of unconscious. The crux of the poem lies in these lines: Could I revive within me Her symphony and song To such a deep delight ’t would win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice. Whatever is in the external universe, the same is within man’s unconscious and Coleridge has suggested it by using the phrase ‘within me’. But to explore the whole of the unconscious is equal to get the whole knowledge of the entire universe. Knowledge in its perfect form does exist in subjective and objective form in the unconscious and in the universe respectively but its complete realization requires perfection which is impossible in this world. If the poet could revive within him the symphony and song of the maiden, he would have been in a blissful state with perfect knowledge and he would have conveyed this secret knowledge of that ‘sunny dome’ and ‘caves of ice’ to the whole world in a loud and long voice through the imaginative power of his poetry by building the ‘dome in air’. In this second part of the poem the poet reaches the culminate point as Humphrey House observes, by showing a “fusion of pleasure and sacredness” (119) which is the stage of a seer or a prophet, a sacred or a holy soul with a bright radiant halo of shining knowledge around the face which is rare or rather impossible in this world. If anyone or the poet gets such a state of knowledge in this world then that person ceases to be the worldly being and on beholding such an angelic figure in the world 82 people would start crying: “Beware! Beware/His flashing eyes, his floating hair”. The flashing eyes and floating hair are angelic or super- human qualities reflecting the brightness of knowledge from the eyes and the ‘above-earth’ status of a being with floating hair in the flight. Then such a person is viewed as a divine being having ‘a circle round him thrice’. Coleridge has used the word ‘thrice’ in symbolic sense for a being with perfect material and spiritual knowledge existing in the world as a divinely inspired being to serve the purpose of the divine power. Finding such a being in the world, people would close their eyes with ‘holy dread’. The phrase ‘holy dread’ is suggestive of the realization of the difference between ignorance and spiritual knowledge that inspires the people to lead towards perfection by creating a sense of sacred fear on account of the lack of this pious knowledge. Such a person lives on the honey- dew, the divine food of spiritual knowledge because that person has tasted the milk of Paradise—the taste of spiritual bliss in comparison to false material gains. Such beings have their own place in the ideal scheme of God and if anyone gets such a status in this world, he/ she is promoted to the ‘Higher Existence’ before revealing the mystery. To conclude with Humphrey House would be appropriate that the poem “images the power of man over his environment and the fact that man makes his Paradise for himself” by acquiring god like knowledge which makes the world understandable. “Just as the whole poem is about poetic creation at the imaginative level, so, within the work of imagination, occurs the creativeness of man at the ethical and practical levels”(120). In this poem, Coleridge has revealed not only the realistic picture of this world but by blending the power of unconscious with the secondary imagination in a vision, he also arouses man’s curiosity to get the highest possible knowledge in the world in order to drink the ‘milk of Paradise’ which is the ideal aim of human life. Taking the outer and the inner or the physical and spiritual journey into consideration in subjective and objective forms in case of these romantic poets, it would be appropriate to sum up with the remarks of Ella Maillart who in the essay “My Philosophy of Travel” writes: At the hour of my death, what would the meaning of these travels be? They were important to me in so far as they had changed me, brought me nearer to my real centre. Slowly they had led me to what matters most. Only the inward journey is real. I found myself. Which is the same as to say that I found the 83 way to become freed from my preposterous ego. Now I know that there is a way to the unchangeable centre— that Core which is the same in all of us. And because of It, I can try with sincerity to love my neighbour as much as myself. Feeling no longer divided but concentrated, I can march with patience towards that oneness which we all feel, is the ultimate as well as the first word of life (Youngs and Forsdick, 2012: 42). Therefore, the entire history of travel writing may not be considered simply as an account of objective journey and description but more than this it may be treated as the history of an endless tension between the temperament and character of the writers of different generations along with the world they lived through. References Barry, Peter, Beginning Theory, New Delhi: Viva Books, 2013. Print. Beer, John, Wordsworth and the Human Heart, London: Macmillan Press, 1979. Print. Birkett, Dea and Sara Wheeler, “Introduction”, Amazonian.: The Penguin: The Penguin Book of Women’s New Travel Writing, London: Penguin, 1998. Print. Bishop, Peter, “The Geography of Hope and Despair”, Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard, Critique, 26,4 (203-16), 1985. Print. Bradley, A.C., Oxford Lectures on Poetry, London: Macmillan Publishers, 1909. Print. Coleridge, S.T., Coleridge Poems (ed.) John Beer, London: Dent and Sons, 1990. Print. Freud, Sigmund, “The Anatomy of Mental Personality”, New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, New York: W.W. Norton, 1964. Print. Frow, John, Genre, London: Routledge, 2006. Print. House, Humphrey, Coleridge: The Clark Lectures 1951-52, New Delhi: Kalyani Publishers,1997. Print. Howard, Donald R., Writers and Pilgrims: Medieval Pilgrimage Narratives and their Posterity, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. Print. Huggan, Graham and Helen Tiffin, Postcolonial Ecocriticism, London, New York: Routledge, 2010. Print. 84 Maillart, Ella, “My Philosophy of Travel”, Travel Writing (eds.) Tim Youngs and Charles Forsdick, London, New York: Routledge, 2012. 33-42. Print. Moorman, Mary (ed.) Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, London: Oxford University Press, 1971. Print. Shakespeare, William, Shakespeare Complete Works (ed.) W.J. Craig, Bombay, Madras: Oxford University Press, 1983. Theroux, Paul, “Discovering Dingle”, Sunrise with Sea Monsters, London: Penguin, 1986. pp. 140-45. Print. Thompson, Carl, The Suffering Traveller and the Romantic Imagination, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007. Print. Thubron, Colin, “Travel Writing Today”, Travel Writing (eds.) Tim Youngs and Charles Forsdick, London, New York: Routledge, 2012, pp. 57-69. Print. Wheeler, Sara,Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica, London: vintage, 1997. Print. Wordsworth, William, William Wordsworth (eds.) Stephen Gill and Duncan Wu, New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Print. Youngs,Tim, Travel Writing. New York, New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Print. Youngs, Tim and Charles Forsdick, Travel Writing, London, New York: Routledge, 2012. Print. 85 121212 Nehruvian Socialism in Girish Karnad’s Tughlaq Shivangi One of the foremost dramatists in India, Girish Karnad was born on May 19, 1938 in Matheran (Maharashtra). A multi-faceted personality, Karnad has earned international praise as a playwright, poet, actor, director, critic and translator. Upon graduation, Karnad went to England and studied at Oxford where he earned a Rhodes Scholarship and went on to receive a Master’s degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. After his return to India, Karnad worked with the Oxford University Press at Chennai. He left the job in 1970 to become a full-time writer. His plays, written in Kannada, have been translated into English and other Indian languages. His very first play, Yayati, written in 1961, chronicles the adventures of mythical creatures from the Mahabharata. Tughlaq, Karnad’s second play, written in 1964, is perhaps his best known work. A compelling allegory of the Nehruvian era, Tughlaq is a history play dealing with the last five years of the troubled reign of Muhammad Tughlaq. The action of the play takes place first of all in Delhi in the year 1327, then on the road from Delhi to Daulatabad five years later. Tughlaq is an allegory on the Nehruvian era which started with ambitious idealism and ended up in disillusionment. Written in 1964, and first performed in 1970, Karnad’s play seems to say that a well-intentioned, idealist king, intent on consolidating the diverse political impulses holding sway in different parts of the country, is still a despot—irrational, unrepentant, and deaf to general good counsel. Nehru’s ‘hamlet-like’ indecision was commented upon even during his lifetime by political commentators. Shown here through the persona of Tughlaq, Nehru appears not only to be realistic and ambitious but also politically savvy. Hence, Tughlaq captures the disillusionment of many Indians with the idealistic policies of early independent India. It is a tale of the crumbling to ashes of the dreams and aspirations of an over- ambitious, yet considerably virtuous king. Tughlaq is a perfect mockery on Nehruvian socialism. Before he wrote Tughlaq, Karnad read about the monarch who came to be regarded as a ‘wise fool’ or ‘mad Muhammad’ by his contemporaries and historians. He recounts : “As I started reading about Tughlaq, I suddenly realized what a fantastic character I had hit upon. Everything about Tughlaq seemed to fit in to what I had read was the correct thing to do, which was to be mad and do impossible things and so on.” Karnad’s 86 Tughlaq is divided into thirteen scenes. It has a wide canvas with Muhammad occupying the centre stage. In overt design, Tughlaq appears to be an idealist but in his pursuit of ideals he perpetuates the opposite and there arises a discrepancy between the real and the ideal. India, the play says, is a country with so many different types of people that ‘the Azams’ are bound to benefit from whatever whichever government does, but ‘the Azizs’ are bound to undergo greater suffering under irrational despots, and the schemes hatched by the smarter members of the population. Tughlaqs or Nehrus remain blind to the effect of their policies on their people. Nehru started his career as the Prime Minister of independent India in 1947, and immediately launched a number of economic reforms. Nehru was a firm believer in state control over the economic sectors. His socialist ideals revealed themselves in the way he introduced laws for land redistribution, in order to curtail the economic disparity in India among the landed and the land-less classes. One of Nehru’s key economic reforms was the introduction of the Five Years Plan in 1951. It was introduced to determine the mode of government expenditure and grants in important development sectors like agriculture, industries and education. Stability— political and economic, the one sought to be achieved through Non- Alignment and the second through Planned Economic Development was a preeminent goal of Nehru administration. Consolidation of positions was yet another goal: one being the consolidation of the Congress rule; and the second being India’s position in the comity of nations. Even the planned economic development set in motion by the Nehru government supported centralist goals. Towards these ends, while promising secular justice, fairness, equality and purposeful peace, the Nehru government nevertheless had prominent left leaders like A.K. Gopalan detained. Others were discredited. Contemporary commentators on Nehru’s administration were critical of his policies seen to be furthering a pro-Congress system led from the power centre at Delhi. Girish Karnad’s Tughlaq has Nietzsche’s venom and brilliance, and like Nietzsche he is tortured by a blocked spiritual vision. Tughlaq, the king is depicted as being deeply conflicted—his vision for a secular and just peace, versus the necessity for political consolidation—the latter resulting in atrocities and the infamous move to Daulatabad. He desires a logically laid out Kingdom of Heaven in which everything is in neat and settled order according to a lucid, Apollonian logic. The inevitable, fatalistic eruption of events shatters him and drives him mad. He becomes a destroyer, a ‘lord of skins’ 87 as Aazam describes him. His tenuous and inchoate spiritual vision cannot sustain the overwhelming demands of the affirmative instinct. Part lunatic and part sage, he has formidable cunning and frank self-insight but blends incalculable cruelty with sublime intellectual refinement. A gorgeous evil freak-that is what he eventually becomes. Muhammad-bin-Tughlaq ascended the throne of Delhi in February/March 1325 after rumouredly assassinating his father and brother at prayer time. He holds a special place in the history of India as his reign is significant from several points of view. During his reign, the direct rule of Delhi Sultanate was established in most of the South and it was at the zenith of its career from the point of view of territorial expansion. At the same time, the disintegration of the Sultanate began because of the Utopian schemes of the Sultan, such as the introduction of token currency, levying of heavy taxation especially in the Doab and the transfer of capital from Delhi to Daulatabad. Karnad closely follows historical sources in this respect. Girish Karnad remarks: “Muhammad the mad ended his career in bloodshed and political chaos. In a sense, the play reflects the acute disillusionment my generation felt with the new politics of independent India, the gradual erosion of the ethical norms that had guided the movement for independence, and the coming to terms with cynicism, and real politics.” Girish Karnad has portrayed Muhammad Tughlaq as a scholar, a visionary, and an idealist in the play. But his ideals are frustrated and he cannot find any support for implementing them. His nobles as well as the common people have turned against him. Two of his most significant measures—shifting the capital of his empire from Delhi to Daulatabad and the introduction of token currency—prove to be his downfall because he cannot garner support from his nobility and the common people in such revolutionary measures. Even those close to him leave him and the Sultan walks about in a trance at the end of the play. All his ideals have come to naught. People have started calling him ‘mad Muhammad’ and he knows this. Muhammad, once an idealist and a visionary is frustrated and bewildered at the end of the play. God is his only companion in madness because He has also failed in establishing an ideal world. His passion to create a secular Heaven in his Kingdom is an attempt to rediscover a lost spiritual vision and to force that vision to its culmination by way of translating it into reality. Tughlaq is a man full of ambiguities as history terms him ‘the wisest fool’ and Ratan Singh calls him an ‘honest scoundrel’. Perhaps these two epithets 88 summarize his character in a nutshell. At the end of the play, Tughlaq senses the irreversible damnation of his soul, because consciously or unconsciously he had attempted to transform himself into another God. He is warned by Shiekh Imam-ud-din that he attempted to become omnipotent disregarding the Quran. His is a sin worse than polytheism (the only unpardonable sin in Islam), in that he attempted to become another God, and the Sheikh warns him against it. His last attempt to come to terms with himself is evocative of the last scene in Marlowe’s Dr Faustus. Caught between his syncretic, eclectic soul—he talks of poetry, the beauty of roses— and his ruthless, devious administrative genius, Tughlaq swings as though on a pendulum from justice and compassion to violence and uncontrollable rage, from joy at minor achievements to calm acceptance of large calamities. Tughlaq is not a man deceived, or a romantic idealist with his head in the clouds. Given the promises he makes to his people of religious amity, ‘purposeful Peace’ and Justice, one may view the monarch as a ‘visionary’. But even if he were so, the being of a visionary did not make him less ruthless, selfish or politically naïve. But he is also a man much misunderstood like Nehru. Despite the foolishness of deciding to shift the capital of India from Delhi to Daulatabad to ‘centralize administration,’ despite the highhandedness of making copper coins equal in value to silver dinars, despite the shamelessness of designing a conspiracy to kill his own brother and father at prayer hour, what is remarkable, and relatively unknown, in the much-infamous character of Tughlaq is the willingness to work for his people and to ensure their happiness, the courage to take initiative in the direction of communal-equality; and a keenly observing and ever- diligent mind. The disappointment in the end when he is not understood by his people and followers is obvious. And Karnad captures it all beautifully in his inimitable style. Like Tughlaq, during his lifetime, Nehru too was regarded as a charismatic leader and a political hero, not only in India but the world over. Mandela named him as his hero, although Mandela is often himself likened to Gandhi. In the years following his death and for nearly two decades after that Nehru’s policies, particularly state-led economic growth, were vilified in India, as the country began to look away from his basic philosophies of modernization and orientation towards science and technology. The assessment of his consolidation of the country post-independence was often mercilessly critical. Tughlaq is fascinating because though he was one of the most learned monarchs of Delhi, and had great ideas and a grand vision, his 89 reign was also an abject failure. He started his rule with great ideals—of a unified India, of Hindus and Muslims being equal in the eyes of the state (he abolished the onerous tax Jaziya on the Hindus) and the Sultan being the first among equals, yet he failed. He wishes an immortal place for himself by imposing liberal humanist secular mindset on his people but he fails miserably. His idealism declines into cynicism. The ideal and the real, the fanatic and the secular, the political and the historical are the different selves or facets of Tughlaq. He is also a poet, a civil servant, a historian and, in the end, a self-pitying king. There is no overreaching aim of the Sultan to create history, Muhammad wanted to reduce history to a kind of autobiography, to reduce India to his own consciousness. These different selves reveal the underlying indeterminacy of self-identity. In his desire to be an ideal secular humanist, he begins to manipulate, treat men as pawns in a political game of chess, resort to cruelty and bloodshed, and ends up as a frustrated human being. This fractured plural self of Tughlaq reflects the contradictions and discrepancies in the Indian value system. Critics find the political disillusionment of the post-Nehruvian era reflected in the play. The series of events in the play have resulted in his progressive alienation from society, religious priests, courtiers and even from people close to him. Consequently, far from being the savior-monarch of his people as he wished to be, he becomes a tyrant. Tughlaq desires “to cover the whole earth with greenery or prosperity; he intends “to cover up the boundaries of nations.” He wants to diminish all restrictions by virtue of his secularist rule. Besides, the fort built by Tughlaq in his youth is symbolic of his dreams which he wants to imprint in history, by building it brick- by-brick. Tughlaq speaks of a half-built gate trying to contain the sky within its cleft. These reflect the protagonist’s aspirations which never reaches its ultimate aim and shatters down. The half-burnt torch mirrors his hopes that get extinguished half-way. The rose garden the king envisages is the garden of ideals which has dried up towards the end. And, finally, the play Tughlaq is itself symbolic. It is not only historical, but relevant to the modern times. The play was written in 1964, one year after the death of Nehru. Sixteen years after independence, the country was still in a state of turmoil and was no better than when it had started off as an independent country. Thus, Tughlaq becomes symbolic of the dreams of Nehru. The Indian government’s policies are echoed by those of Tughlaq. Practical politicians took advantage and made most of the policies. 90 The disillusionment it echoes is not only that of India, but of the Third World countries as well. Hence, the multifarious universality of the play. References Karnad, Girish, Author’s Introduction to Three Plays. Kumar, Nand, Indian English Drama: A Study in Myths. Iyengar, Srinivas, Indian Writing in English. Naik, M.K., Critical Essays on Indian Writing in English. 91 131313 The Dichotomy of Body and Soul in Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana: A Study of Padmini’s Psychic Turmoil Rakesh Patel The context plays a vital role when we attempt an earnest study of a piece of literature. Girish Karnad’s well known play Hayavadana requires us to pay a special heed to its context and the present scenario if we really wish to probe into the psyche of a leading character like Padmini. Though the roots of the play are under the soil of ancient myths and legends, its relevancy is felt even today in terms of the dichotomy of body and mind in which we often caught. In India, the roots of spirituality are deep down into the essence of humanity in general. Even though our body desires something the soul would deny. However, it is the discrimination power which wins! The main plot of the play Hayavadana is based on ‘the story of transported heads’ in the Sanskrit Vetala Panchavimsati. What adds the charm to the play is Karnad’s own treatment with the old theme and as a result, what we see is the life-like characters that we come across in our daily lives. The central character Padmini undergoes the same pangs of life and confusion when it comes to making a choice. She is torn between the two choices in terms of Kapila and Devadutta, one is physically strong whereas the other is rationally superior. Since she is very much flesh-n-blood, she desires to have both but this is not possible due to the social restrains. She cannot marry both but the fate makes a miracle for her. Initially she feels to be triumphant for her wish but later on she gets the right impression about the nature that humans are mere puppets to act to the tunes of the nature. Devadutta is an attractive Brahmin youth with a beauty of the mind. He falls in love with an unrivaled and witty girl named Padmini. Being a son of an ironsmith, Kapila has wonderful physique. Devadutta and Kapila are close friends like two bodies and one soul. When Kapila comes to know that his friend Devadutta is in love with Padmini, he helps him to win her love and finally arranges the marriage of Padmini with his friend. Meanwhile, Padmini unconsciously develops likings for Kapila. At a time Devadutta becomes suspicious for Padmini’s soft behaviour towards his friend Kapila: “Does she really not see? Or 92 She deliberately playing this game With him?” (22) Devadutta represents the beauty of the mind whereas Kapila represents the physical energy. Being a human Padmini is caught between these two qualities and unconsciously desires both. Padmin likes the simplicity of Devadutta but at the same time she is blinded by the ethereal shape of Kapila. She praises Kapila’s body in words as: “What an ethernal shape! Such a broad back-ocean like Muscles rippling across it” (25) Since Devadutta develops an extreme jealousy, it becomes hard for him to live and ultimately sacrifices his life to the Goddess Kali. Kapila also loses his life leaving Padmini to be baffled at such horrified situation. In haste, Padmini attaches the head of Devadutta to the body of Kapila and the head of Kapila to the body of Devadutta. Due to the blessings of the Goddess Kali both come to life but the real problem arises as to whom Padmini should go with. A great Rishi offers a fine solution to the predicament of Padmini and advises her to go with the man with Devadutta’s head. When Padmini goes with the man with Devadutta’s head and Kapila’s body, her mind fills with extreme joy because she has now both, the beauty of Devadutta’s mind and the ethernal shape of Kapila. But the power of nature is supreme and unpredictable. With the course of the time, Devadutta gains body of Kapila and Kapila develops the intellectual beauty of Devadutta. At the end of the play, both friends Devadutta and Kapila fights a duel in which their heads roll again and Padmini toys the idea of performing sati. Like a modern emancipated woman, Padmini’s predicament is worth to mention in today’s context. She pines for Devadutta’s intellectual power as well as Kapila’s physical power. She gets the opportunity to have the both but ultimately her triumphant vanishes into failure with the course of the time. Since human beings are incomplete, not most desires are fulfilled. Like Savitri in Mohan Rakesh’s Halfway House, Padmini wish to be loyal to her husband but can’t resist the temptation of the physical beauty of other man. However, there is a sense of repentance in her and this leads her whetting upon the idea of performing sati, like a typical Indian woman, at the end of the play. 93 References Karnad, Girish, Hayavadana, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1975. Rakesh, Mohan, Halfway House (trans.) Bindu Batra, Delhi: Worldview Publications, 2001. 94 131313 Recognization of Self: A Study of Foe Anuradha, Urmil Rawat “At last I could row no further. My hands were blistered, my back was burned, my body ached. With a sigh, making barely a splash, I slipped overboard. With slow strokes, my long hair floating about me, like a flower of the sea, like an anemone, like a jellyfish of the kind you see in the waters of Brazil, I swam towards the strange island, for a while swimming as I had rowed, against the current, then all at once free of its grip, carried by the waves into the bay and on to the beach” (J.M. Coetzee, Foe: 5) J.M. Coetzee is one of the most influential novelists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His works have been noticed with glory of literary awards, including South Africa’s prestigious CNA Prize. He was the first novelist to win the Booker Prize twice and made the Nobel Laureate in Literature. His boyhood in the Cape Province was dominated by cultural conflicts, consequent upon his situation as English-speaking white South African, the social location of his school teacher mother, and his father, who practice intermittently as a lawyer. Coetzee’s art as a novelist has given a new dimension and meaning not only to novel writing but to a relationship between a truthful author and a lying state, and characterize a contagious logic informing the relationship between the two. Coetzee’s narratives have made him a social revolutionary. He discusses about common individuals of South Africa and writes about them with empathy. His works are real depiction of humanist protests against colonial rapacity at large and in particular against the intricately institutionalized system of racial oppression that prevailed in South Africa. Coetzee uses a variety of techniques to represent his native country both during and after apartheid. His post-colonial references use myth, allegory and a touch of realism. A glimpse of apartheid portrays familiarity of marginalization. Foe is a different study of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe which marked a transitional stage for Coetzee. The present study is an exploration of the possible similarities and dissimilarities in the works of two authors, i.e., J.M. Coetzee’s Foe and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe that shows us how to create the great world of intertextual fiction. The present work craves to focus 95 on various aspects of intertextuality. The author creates a work with all the information and understanding s/he learns from his surroundings, and reader understands the fiction with all the knowledge s/he possesses. Every work of art is encrusted with social, cultural, racial, emotional and many other pressures that are not essentially identical for creator and viewers. People fuse a sense of reason and importance into each aspect of their lives as they attempt to build sensible end in the magnificent chaotic world around them. It facilitate people identify their own reason of existence. The presumptions of people are based on the notion that they are just a piece of a great deal. People connect things and generate logic of reason for themselves. The universal acceptance of popular culture indicates that a widely felt need and demands are being met. The worldwide reach makes for a greater connectedness among people and the emergence of some kind of universal culture. Writer is always a reader first and his experience with the outer world affects his writings. Worton and Still has stated: Firstly, the writer is the reader of texts (in the broadest sense) before s/he is a creator of texts, and therefore the work of art is inevitably shot through with references, quotations and influences of every kind.... Secondly, a text is available only through some process of reading: what is produced at the moment of reading is due to the cross-fertilization of the packaged textual material (say, a book) by all the texts which the reader bring to it. A delicate allusion to a work unknown to the reader, which therefore goes unnoticed, will have a dormant existence in that reading. On the other hand, the reader’s experience of some practice or theory unknown to the author may lead to a fresh interpretation.... Both axes of intertextuality, texts entering via readers (co-producers), are, we would argue, emotionally and politically charged.... Coetzee’s Foe is an observation on intertextuality by reproducing and altering various aspects of Robinson Crusoe, and by drawing an impression that he is writing an original work. The word intertextuality is derived from the Latin intertexto, which means to ‘mingle while weaving’. The only dictionary that has a meaning for the word intertextuality is Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. The dictionary defines the word as follows: “the complex interrelationship between a text and other texts taken as basic to the creation or interpretation of the text”—which might be referential, 96 but by no means sufficient. Intertextuality deems that no text can be read completely without the reader being fully aware that there are prior texts which mould the reading process. To get a greater understanding of the term, we must trace its theoretical origins. The term intertextuality accomplished popularity in the glossary of literary criticism when Bulgarian-French semiotician theorist Julia Kristeva coined the term intertextualite in her essay “The Bounded Text” for the first time in 1960. However, the application of intertextuality is not somewhat inventive as for many centuries critics and writers of literature have carried on the influence of authors or literary tradition on a later author who has sometimes adopted, and sometimes change, aspects of the subject matter, form, or style of the earlier writer(s). In The Art of Fiction, David Lodge briefly points out “that all texts are woven from the tissues of other texts, whether their authors know it or not”. Foe has a remarkable value because of the way in which its political, fictional and theoretical values are interrelated. By and large the novel is divided into four parts in the first part, Coetzee crafts the story of Susan Barton, a castaway washed onto the shore of Robinson Cruso’s island her year-long stay there with Cruso and Friday, their rescue, and Cruso’s death aboard the rescuing ship. Susan Barton finds herself on an island heavily influenced by Cruso’s societal definition. Throughout, she calls the island Cruso’s island, implying his ownership and control. She refers to herself and to Friday as subjects and states that Cruso ruled over. The next part is written in epistolary style that explains the time in which Susan Barton lives in England in Daniel Foe’s abandoned house. The third part is also told by Susan Barton in it she links her communication with Foe in his new house. The final part is narrated by an imprecise narrator most likely an authorial tone who returns to the house years later. Foe aims to develop post-colonial consciousness and subjectivity. It tries to construct a relationship between self and other, author and reader, speaker and audience. Coetzee has stated in Doubling the Point (1992), “[i]n each of the four novels after Dusklands [i.e., In the Heart of the Country, Waiting for the Barbarians,Life & Times of Michael K, and Foe] there seems to be one feature of technique on which there is a heavy concentration. In Foe it was voice.” Foe’s significant feature of intertextuality is the use of acknowledged and traceable textual precursors for construction by taking historical text and historical author as 97 essential inter-text components, which deeply influence post- colonial plot development. The transformative effect of intertextuality is used in Foe. In post-colonial intertexts by and large villains became victims; the origins of heroes and heroines or of their wealth questioned; marginal, silent characters given a voice, reclaiming places and their stories. Post-colonial critics such as Lewis Nkosi, Gayatri Spivak and many others consider Robinson Crusoe as a colonialist and imperialist text that praises the customs of racism, coercion and colonization. Nkosi states that “in Robinson Crusoe the element of myth regarding the painstaking industry of building a civilization from nothing, ex nihilo, is inseparable from the story of colonization, of subjugation, exploitation, and finally Christianization.” The figure of Cruso gives an idea about an intertextual relation between the figure of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Coetzee’s Cruso. Along with using similar aspects Coetzee tries to explain and present some themes and things that are different from Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Coetzee’s Cruso is only a secondary figure in Foe almost an excuse for the re-evaluation of the Crusoe legend. He is portrayed with unenthusiastic features which bring to light his lack of curiosity and his pitiable idleness. Coetzee strips his Cruso the heroic qualities of the original quality we recall from the original story. Derek Attridge mentions that Coetzee’s Cruso is a parodic version of Defoe’s Crusoe because Cruso has “made only minimal attempts to improve the quality of his life, he has kept no journal, he does not even notch the passing days on a stick and has no desire to leave the island.” Foe features a female castaway who lands upon an island inhabited by a Cruso (Coetzee’s spelling) who lacks motivation and a Friday who has had his tongue cut off. Coetzee’s text as a post-colonial critique of Defoe’s, focusing on the gender and race issues it foregrounds and its exploration of “spacing and displacement,” in Gayatri Spivak’s terms. Cruso is (unlike Crusoe) not the narrator of Island’s story rather Susan Barton tells the tale in first phase of Foe. He is adverse to Susan’s prospects that is familiar with Robinson Crusoe, supposes that Cruso would act like his literary predecessor. But he refuses to keep a written record of his stay on the island. What I chiefly hoped to find was not there. Cruso kept no journal, perhaps he lacked paper and ink, but more likely, I now believe, because he lacked the inclination to keep one or if he had 98 ever possessed the inclination had lost it. I searched the poles that supported the roof, and the legs of the bed, but found no carvings, not even notches to indicate that he counted the years of his banishment or the cycles of the moon (F, 16). When Susan advises Cruso that he should record his experiences so: “that they will outlive you; or […] to burn the story upon wood, or engrave it upon rock,” (F, 17) Cruso declines her idea: “Nothing I have forgotten is worth remembering,” (F, 17). For Cruso, the barren terraces and walls he and Friday have been constructing laboriously, though in vain “will be enough. They will be more than enough” (F, 18). Thus, as Dominic Head has suggested, “[w]here Defoe’s Crusoe is the archetypal imperialist, governed by economic self-aggrandisement, Coetzee’s Cruso is concerned merely with subsistence and sterile work.” Susan considers that memories should be recorded. According to Susan, without its ‘thousand touches’ and details, their ‘island tale’ becomes one of archetypal generalizations and will not be considered truthful: [S]een from too remote a vantage, life begins to lose its particularity. All shipwrecks become the same shipwreck, all castaways the same castaway […]. The truth that makes your story yours alone, that sets you apart from the old mariner by the fireside spinning yarns of sea-monsters and mermaids, resides in a thousand touches which […] will one day persuade your countrymen that it is all true, every word (F, 18). Cruso has no interest in others too. He is unconcerned to know what has brought Susan to the island, and he talks to Friday only when giving him directions to do something. Susan tells her search for her abducted daughter in the New World, and her abandonment by mutineers: “With these words I presented myself to Robinson Cruso, in the days when he still ruled over his island, and became his second subject, the first being his manservant Friday” (F, 11). According to Susan, when she tells him her story he simply watches in silence (F, 10), showing no further curiosity and asking nothing (F, 13). He does not want to leave the island (F, 13) and is indifferent to salvation; (F, 14) he does not care about rescuing tools (F, 16) 99 and does not keep a journal either. He is also dirty and toothless, (F, 19) does not teach Friday English, (F, 21) is angry at seeing his realm invaded by a woman, (F, 25) and will not allow changes (F, 27). He is a dull, boring man (F, 34) with no stories to tell of his own life and no interest in the lives of others, (F, 34) someone who would be “a deep disappointment to the world”, although a better thing on his island (F, 34-35). Being concerned only with the island, he imposes on Susan and Friday a “morose silence” (F, 36) which even caused Friday’s memories to die “under Cruso’s rule” (F, 59). Looking back to that time on the island, Susan believes that “life with Cruso put lines on my brow” (F, 93). Cruso is indifferent to being rescued, as Susan describes: So I early began to see it was a waste of breath to urge Cruso to save himself …as I later found, the desire to escape had dwindled within him. His heart was set on remaining to his dying day the king of his tiny realm. In truth it was not fear of pirates or cannibals that held him from making bonfires or dancing about on the hilltop waving his hat, but indifference to salvation, and habit, and the stubbornness of old age (F, 13-14). Cruso spends his days devoid of much expectations or ambitions, and dies, without seeing the Promised Land, while the ship which rescued him is merely a three-day voyage away from the shore of England. Coetzee’s Friday is also altered. Friday is a Negro of African origin. He is not a Carib as in Defoe’s text. The African Friday in Foe, details to both the eighteenth century’s flourishing African slave trade and the twentieth century’s silenced black South Africans under apartheid. Coetzee’s Friday is presented as a weak, mute and mysterious personality which makes him a symbol of those who have been silenced by the power structures wherever and whenever they lived. Coetzee’s Friday is tongueless and thus unable to express his feelings and emotions through words. Friday as a, tongueless, black 100 African is an example of political intertextuality. As Dominic Head has pointed out in his reading of Foe as “an allegory of modern South Africa”, “[t]he obvious allegorical connotation of his [Friday’s] silence is to represent the repression of South Africa’s political majority”. While Defoe’s Friday was “the aptest Scholar that ever was” (RC, 249) in learning of his master’s language Friday’s weakness to express his feelings and emotions through words affirms that the mystery of Friday’s origin as well as exactness of Cruso’s various stories will probably never be solved. As Susan discovers when back in England, she presents him with picture- stories in order to get to the truth. Beyond his obedience to Cruso’s commands Friday’s feelings and actions such as scattering white petals on the ocean remains impenetrable. In his discussion of the politics of canonisation in Foe, Derek Attridge argues that Friday’s silence is not a passive silence, but a resistant one to all efforts of the dominant discourse to describe this silence in linguistic figures. He says: “For her [Susan Barton], there can be no assurance that all silences will eventually be made to resound with the words of the dominant language, and to tell their stories in canonised narratives—not because there is an inviolable core of silence to which the dominant discourse can never penetrate, but because the most fundamental silence is itself produced by—at the same time as it makes possible—the dominant discourse” (F, 181). Coetzee’s fiction has introduced the female narrator, i.e., island’s third dweller Susan Barton. She is, a “free woman” (F, 115), who attempts, however ineffectively, to challenge Cruso’s authority (as she will later challenge Foe’s); she says of Cruso, for example, “But if he thought by angry looks to inspire me to fear and slavish obedience, he soon found he was mistaken” (F, 20). Susan has praiseworthy characteristics. She is a true representative of Western Cultutre as was Crusoe in Daniel Defoe’s Novel Susan has a goal—to escape the island: “I have a desire to be saved which I must call immoderate…. It burns in me night and day, I can think of nothing else” (F, 36). Hellen Tiffin has aptly interpreted Foe as a reaction against those texts which are considered as part of the process of fixing relations between Europe and its others of establishing patterns of reading alterity at the same time as it inscribed the fixity of that alterity, naturalising difference within its own cognitive codes (Tiffin, 98). 101 Susan is a modern figure who does not want to be treated as a feeble. She does not want to play conventional role of woman and refuses to be the captain’s mistress and to provide free labour for Cruso and be a fictitious character in Foe’s narrative. She insists that she is a “free woman who asserts her freedom by telling her story according to her own desire” (F, 131). Susan is indeed performing the role of Robinson Crusoe as an author. She uses her knowledge to tell the true story of the island. She also makes an effort to help Friday to communicate his own. She uses various of communication, such as music, words, pictures, but with no success. She writes ‘her story’: “your pen, your ink, I know, but somehow the pen becomes mine while I write with it, (F, 66) Susan is so calm and quiet due to her intertextual relationship with Defoe’s eighteenth century text and its canonical power, so that Susan’s statement that she felt like “a ghost behind the true body of Cruso” (F, 51) simultaneously means beside the true body of Robinson Crusoe, “growing out of my hand” (F, 66-67); “I had not guessed it was so easy to be an author” (F, 93). Thus to conclude we can say that the transformative effect of intertextuality is used in Foe. Coetzee’s Foe aims at questioning the fundamental hypothesis of the British canonical text, Robinson Crusoe, and examining the text’s many complexities such as the issue of authority, images and use of language. Crusoe’s story and history has been narrated from the viewpoint of a female castaway Susan Barton. Susan experiences the island with Crusoe and Friday and tells the story a new. References David, Attwell, J.M. Coetzee: South Africa and the Politics of Writing, Berkeley ; Cape Town : University of California Press , David Philip, 1993. Coetzee, J.M., Foe, New York: Viking, 1986. Gallagher, Susan, A Story of South Africa: J.M. Coetzee’s Fiction in Context, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1991. Graham, Allen, Intertextuality, London: Routledge, 2000. Dominic, Head, The Cambridge Introduction to J. M. Coetzee, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 102 Julia, Kristeva, Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art, Leon S. Roudiez (ed.), T. Gora et al (trans.) New York: Columbia University Press, 1980. Kossew Sue (ed.) Critical Essays on J.M. Coetzee, New York : G.K. Hall; London : Prentice Hall International, 1998. Poyner, Jane J.M. Coetzee and the Paradox of Post-colonial Authorship, New York: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009. Tiffin, Hellen, “Post-colonial Literature and Counter-Discourse”, The Post-colonial Studies Reader (ed.) Bill Aschroft, et al (7th Edn.) London & New York: Routledge, 2003. Worton, Michael, Judith Still, Intertextuality: Theories and Practice. Manchaster: Manchaster University Press, 1990. 103 141414 Stereotypes and Prejudices in Mahesh Dattani’s Dance Like a Man Lalit Ratoniya India is a land of diverse cultures, religions, languages and communities. There is a great diversity in its traditions, manners, habits, tastes and customs. ‘Unity in Diversity’ has been the distinctive feature of its culture. But, this diversity has given birth to various stereotypes and prejudices. Post-independence, India has gone through democratic, social, economic and political transitions. Yet, the stereotypes and prejudices which were there before independence can still be experienced in Indian society. Stereotypes can be defined as, “a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing” (oxforddictionaries.com). Stereotypes lead to social categorization, which is one of the reasons for prejudice attitudes, i.e., preconceived negative opinions formed for any person or group. A prejudice is not based on experience; instead, it is a prejudgment. It often leads to unfair discrimination when the stereotypes are unfavourable. It restricts an individual to exhibit one’s true self. And when one defies the accepted conventions, it results in the outcast from the society. In Indian society, stereotypes based on gender and castes are very commonly found. Many Indian psychologists, sociologists and writers have criticized the stereotyping of any person or group of people according to their gender, religion, caste and community. One of the greatest contemporary dramatists, Mahesh Dattani has explored various social issues in his plays and this issue is one of them. This paper aims to study the stereotypes and prejudices common in Indian society as explored by Dattani in his one of his most famous plays, Dance Like a Man. It also intends to analyze how a person becomes victim of the stereotypes and prejudices as he/she is expected to act in a certain manner and follow the age old conventions. One of the leading thespians of the present time, Mahesh Dattani holds very important position in the history of Indian English Drama. Described as one of India’s best and most serious contemporary playwrights writing in English by Alexander Viets in the International Herald Tribune, he is the first playwright in English to be awarded the Sahitya Akademi award. All his plays highlight current social issues and real life problems. Dance Like a 104 Man is one of the most critically acclaimed play which explores the human relationships and conflicts between them. It provides an insight into the social set up of India. The story of the play revolves around Jairaj, Ratna, who both were once Bharatnatyam dancers and their daughter Lata who is an aspiring and promising dancer. Jairaj had to sacrifice his passion for dance because of his father who never approved a man to become a dancer and also because of his wife as she wanted to earn name and fame. Taking inspiration from her parents, Lata also wants to become a famous Bharatnatyam dancer and wants to marry Vishwas as the young man will allow her to dance after marriage. The story unfolds the dilemma and crisis of Jairaj who even after leaving dance could never become an independent and self reliant man. In his play Dance Like a Man, Dattani questions the age old stereotypes prevalent in Indian society which often lead to, or are the result of prejudices. With the dance as the background of the story, the play focuses on the stereotype connected with the dance. The stigma attached with the dance, especiallyBharatnatyam is age old when dance was a ritual in the temples where devdasis used to be the professional dancers of the temples. But with time and because of economic necessity these devdasis turned to prostitution. In addition to this some British termed it erotic dance and highly criticized this form of art. It almost died when few young dancers endorsed Bharatnatyam and learnt it from the old devdasis during early 1940s. But the society always saw it as the debased form of art. Amritlal, Jairaj’s father is the representative of such type of society. He was prejudiced against learning Bharatnatyam and so he did not approve his son, Jairaj and daughter-in-law, Ratna to learn it. Though, in spite of being a freedom fighter and a reformer, he never considered it to be the profession of a respectable person. In the argument with Jairaj he said, “I will not have our temples turned into brothels” (38). He is also against sending Ratna to the house of a devdasi, Chenni Amma for learning the ‘art of abhinya’ from her even after her being an old lady of seventy-five years: Amritlal: The sound of your bells coming from the courtyard of a prostitute. Ratna: She is seventy-five years old. Amritlal: And people peer over her walls to see my daughter- in-law dancing in her courtyard. Ratna: Yes. Dancing the divine dance of Shiva and Parvati. Amritlal: And you feel what you are doing is right? (42-43). 105 This reveals the stereotypes and prejudices related with the dance form and the problems faced by Jairaj and Ratna to fulfil their dreams. The most prominent stereotype one can observe in the play is the stereotype of gender roles. Gender roles are socially and culturally defined and the men and women are expected to abide by their roles. If they do not act according to their roles then they are seen as social outcasts. John Beynon in “Understanding Masculinities” observes: The widely accepted view among the general public is that men and women fundamentally differ and that a distinct set of fixed traits characterize archetypal masculinity and femininity. This is reflected in popular sayings such as ‘Just like a man!’ or ‘Just like a woman!’ …Masculinity and femininity are often treated in the media as polar opposites, with men typically assumed to be rational, practical and naturally aggressive and women, in contrast, are held to be expressive, nurturing and emotional (56). In the play Dance Like a Man, Dattani has explored these stereotypes based on gender roles. Jairaj, as a man was not expected to learn the dance as the society viewed it to be unmanly trait. Vishwas trying to imitate Amritlal, revealed the attitude of society when he said, “Where will you go being a dance? Nowhere! What will you get being a dancer? Nothing! People will point at you on the streets and laugh and ask, ‘Who is he? ‘He is a dancer’. ‘What does he do?’ ‘He is a dancer’. ‘Yes, but what does he do?’…” (14). Amritlal was upset with his son as he wanted to take up the profession of dance but learning dance by a male was forbidden by the society. It was looked down and the prejudices forced him to ask such questions about the guru of Jairaj, “Why does he wear his hair so long?” (39) and “I’ve also noticed the way he walks” (39). That is why he resisted Jairaj to learn dancing as he did not wanted his son to become ‘womanly’. While talking to Ratna about Jairaj, he asked her that, “Do you know where a man’s happiness lies?” (49) and in reply to his own question he said, “In being a man” (49). The typecast attached with the gender roles is sometimes responsible for the anxiety, frustration and disillusionment in an individual. Amritlal always wanted to make his son a ‘man’, but when he saw the defiance in the eyes of his own son then he took help of his daughter-in-law, “Help me make him an adult. Help me to help him grow up” (51). But, in spite of growing as a ‘man’, Jairaj 106 lost his self identity. He neither succeeded in becoming a dancer, nor became a self-dependent man. His wife Ratna commented, “You! You are nothing but a spineless boy who couldn’t leave his father’s house…” (21). Thus, Aggrawal rightly points out, “In the play Dance Like a Man, Dattani expresses his resentment for close fisted gender roles in the conventional social framework where the passion of an artist is quashed against the restrictions imposed on individual according to their gender roles” (24). In the play, women are also stereotyped according to their conventional roles played by them. Vishwas in the beginning of the play only mentioned that, ”Me marrying a Southie my father will tolerate, but accepting a daughter-in-law who doesn’t make tea is asking too much of him” (8) and then again he said to Lata,”When my mother comes here, she’ll want to watch you make coffee. Be prepared”(12). So, from the women it is always expected to be a homemaker and that is what has been revealed in the play. Moreover, Amritlal could never tolerate his son to be a dancer, but could allow her daughter-in-law to dance if she would help him. Interestingly, one can find Lata against these tradition roles of women as defined by society. Lata advises Viswas to “go marry someone else” (6) when the later sees the former as only the producer of his children. Society has made boundaries for the activities of men and women. When a man tries to break the social norms and enters into the assigned space of women he becomes a moral transgressor for the society. Thus, Dattani in his play, Dance Like a Man questions the prejudices and stereotypes formed by the society on the basis of a general belief. He criticizes the social conventions which hinder someone’s dreams and individuality. The prejudiced beliefs for the dance and stereotyped roles for men and women resulted in the catastrophe in the lives of Jairaj and Ratna. References Agarwal, Beena, Mahesh Dattani’s Plays: A New Horizon in Indian Theatre, Book Enclave: Jaipur, 2008. Beynon, John, “What is Masculinity?” Masculinities and Culture, Open University Press: Buckingham, 2002. Dattani, Mahesh, Dance Like a Man, Penguin Books: New Delhi, 2006. (All textual citations are taken from this edition.) http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/stereotype/ 12 January 2013. 107 151515 Women’s Poetry in Pakistan: The Voice of Protest Prof. Ami Upadhyay Poetry is the highest form of human utterance. It expresses the most profound feelings and thoughts of human hearts and minds. It has become the vehicle of protest and transformation. Poetry comes out like a cry, piercing and shearing through the veils of traditions, taboos and tyranny. For a long time, Urdu poetry had been dominated by men and women voices were marginalized and neglected. Literary traditions in Pakistan and Urdu poetry have been largely conservative though Urdu poetry has been quite fascinating. Urdu is relatively a young language and it grew as a lingua franca for the army, soon after the Muslim invasions of the subcontinent. This happened during 1th to 14th centuries. It is a hybrid derivative of Persian, Arabic and North Indian dialects. Urdu is a quite flexible language but it was ignored for a long time and no literature was produced in it. Persian was the language of the courts and elites. Classical Persian literature made tremendous influence on Urdu poetry. Urdu poetry flourished in cities like Delhi, Lucknow and Hyderabad, especially during the Moghal periods. Muslim rulers patronised poets who paid rich tributes to their patrons in eulogizing words. The great Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib lived in the shadows of Bahadurshah Zafar, himself a poet in the first half of the 19th century. Those were the days when poetry was essentially men’s forte. Women with their charm and beauty provided them raw material for poetry. Love, separation, longing were the themes of poetry but it was man’s love, his separation and his longing. No poet cared or ever wrote a line about their sufferings, their slavery and muffled voices. It was a flowery world of love and romance where women and their beauty were the sources of pleasure and entertainment for courtly elites. Social consciousness in Urdu poetry was dimly expressed in the 19th century but by and large, Urdu poetry had been romantic and replete with sharab (wine) surahi and maykhana (wine shop and bar). It was intoxicated by wine and beauty of women. Poet Iqbal was the first poet who introduced political themes in Urdu poetry. In 1940s, the progressive writers Association revived Urdu literature with patriotic zeal and desire for freedom. However, it was the period of prose fiction. Ismat Chugtai’s collection of short 108 stories Angaarey was banned by the British fearing unrest among the people. Manto, all sardar Zafari, Mukhdom, Meeraji, N.M. Rashid and Faiz Ahmad Faiz were the remarkable writers and poets who enriched Urdu literature. Ghazal is the most popular form of poetry in Urdu which can be set to music. It begins with a rhymed couplet and each following couplet introduces a new idea or image linked to the central theme of the ghazal. Very often, the ghazal ends with a couplet mentioning the name of the poet. Ghazal poetry has largely been the poetry of love abounding in traditionally idioms and images. Women poets who wrote ghazals had to abandon these traditional idioms and images and employ all together a new type of language with new images. Women poets now refused to conform to the traditional ideas of men about women. They revolted against male-oriented world view claiming a new, independent identity. This was certainly not easy. It was a struggle that required courage and determination to fight. Fahmid Riaz chooses the language of the rustic people avoiding archaic Urdu diction. Sara Shagufta violated all the conventional norms of Urdu poetry. She even shuns metrical patterns, lyrical sounds and worn out images. She is a true poet of revolt who challenges the double standards that operate in chauvinistic and male-dominated society. Urdu literary world had no place for women. Male critics and poets neglected women poets and their works. In fact, women poets and writers had been neglected for a long time in literary world everywhere. Women’s writings have been marginalized and their voices have been muffled, be it Sylvia Plath in England or Taslima Nasreen in Bangladesh or Sara Shagufta in Pakistan. In order to understand women’s poetry of Pakistan, one needs to understand political background of Pakistan. After independence and partition, in 1947, Pakistan has been under military rule except for a few short breaks of democracy. Fundamentalism has been a perpetual enemy of democracy and human dignity in Pakistan. Subjugation of women is the result of fundamentalism and orthodox conventions. Fundamentalism usually operates under different religious norms and slogans. It justifies injustices to women and others through the dictates of the holy books. General zia-ul-Haque who seized power from Prime Ministr Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1977 in a military coup hanged Bhutto and banned political activities of all kinds. He formulated a programme of Islamiztation with the aim of cementing crumbling Pakistan’s national identity. 109 During the Zia regime, a nation-wide campaign ‘chadur aur chardiwari’ (Veil and four walls) was mounted to enforce the seclusion of women. The government issued orders regarding the wearing of veils. It was later followed by the campaign which was aimed at reducing the participation of women in television and entertainment. A serious attempt was also made to deny educational opportunities for girls and women. Even at attempt was made to link the age of marriage with the Islamic Law which considered the onset of puberty as the right time for marriage for girls. A campaign to relegate women to segregated universities did not succeed due to the pressure from the women’s groups. Federal Shariat courts had been set up to accelerate the process of Islamization. Rape, for example, was equivalent to adultery for women. These laws were used against women proving the victims of rape guilty of adultery. In 1984, a couple Fahmida and Allah Bux were awarded punishment of death by stoning. It was then that women’s group based in Karachi jolted into action. Women’s Action Forum was launched and several chapters in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Peshawar were set up. Women had by now realised that as the law pertaining to rape protected rapists and it confused the crime of rape with adultery. Najma Sadeque’s efforts drew public attention to the instances of cruelty and injustice to women during the Zia regime. She was a founder member of Women’s Action Forum (WAF) and successful journalist. She exposed the cruel game of enslaving women through laws by the Government. With the strengthening of Islamization, violence against women increased but the activism of women’s groups could prevent it to some extent. For example, the Law of Evidence, which in its earlier draft was anti-woman had to be modified in its final draft. However, much damage had already been done. Literary and cultural events were dominated by men as music, singing and dancing almost disappeared from public performances. Television became a means of religious propaganda praising asceticism and abstinence of pleasures. Fear of God rather than love for God became the slogan. Death became a perpetual threat to life if one did not obey certain dictates of religious as interpreted by the clerics. Even Benazier Bhutto, an intelligent English-speaking woman did very little for the freedom and emancipation of women. She could not openly praise her voice or challenge legislations that affected women’s freedom such as donning veils. As a Prime 110 Minister, she seemed to be under the control of fundamentalist forces. She was never seen in Western garments herself un-like in her younger days. Nawaz Sharif, her successor was brought to power through coalition and he too remained a tool in the hands of fundamentalist forces in more or less degrees. Even as late as 2011, things have still not changed much for women in Pakistan. Women constitute 51 per cent of the total population of the country and yet cruelty and crimes against women have increased. For example, in 2011, during the first half of the year, about 4,500 women had become the victim of cruelty and crimes against them. Around 1,137 women had been raped and 799 were put to death either for property or after being labelled as women of disrepute. 402 women committed suicide and 16 were burnt alive. The women of Pakistan look forward to the days when they can enjoy liberty, equality and human dignity. Artists are the flagbeareres and champions of human equality and freedom irrespective of religion, caste and creed. Pakistani women poets have made their presence felt and their voices have started echoing far and wide. Kishwar Naheed is a true rebel poet with a defiant feminist stance. She challenges male domination and fundamentalism openly. Her life style, her thinking and writings are examples of her commitment to women’s cause. She held a powerful position of the editor of reputed monthly Maati-i’Nau where she showed her editorial independence and progressive attitude. She had published an abridged version of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex for which a charge of obscenity was brought against her. However, she won the court battle. Kishwar’s personal life had been controversial while as a poet, she earned the reputation of a rebel poet. Her poetry became more popular during the period after, Bhutto’s deposition. It was the period when repressive forces were actively at work against women. Kishwar wrote in free verse with boundless energy and exuberance. She explored her themes in unabashed manner. Her poems have a wider range which covers traditional love poems to feminist issues of male chauvinism and political issues like censorship, the U.S. intervention in Pakistan and so on. Her major works include several volumes of poetry. To name a few: Lips That Speak, Unnamed Journey, Amidst Reproaches and To colour Pink within a Black Boarder. Two of her collections have been translated into English. Kishwar Naeed in her poem “We Sinful Women” comes out defiantly against atrocities committed by men and fundamentalists. 111 She says, “It is we sinful women Who come out raising the banner of truth Up against barricades of lies on the high ways Who find stories of persecution piled on each threshold Who find the tongues which could speak have been severed.” (We Sinful Women) She says that the wall which has been felled will not be allowed to be raised again. Male dominated society calls women sinful if they speak against oppressions committed against them and if they do not submit to their patriarchal religious bans and restrictions. “Section 144” is a poem about law that tries to muffle the voices of women making them blind, deaf and mute so that they can’t see their own miseries, can’t hear their own tribulations and can’t speak against oppression and exploitation. However, an independent voice cannot be controlled forever. In a very touching poem “The Grass is Really Like Me”, she says that— “But neither the earth nor woman’s Desire to manifest life dies.” (The Grass is Really Like Me) Kishwar Naheed in her poem “Who Am I?” says that the voice of a true woman poet cannot be suppressed and, “I am one you hid beneath The weight of traditions For you never knew That light can never fear pitch darkness.” Like a true feminist, she says that men have enslaved women by traditions. Men had profited by women’s shyness, modesty, motherhood and fidelity but now women are prepared to throw away these dead weights of traditions if required. Kishwar Naheed refers to the birth of Pakistan and her poverty under undemocratic, military regime. She says: “I and my country were born together But we both lost our vision in our childhood. I have not seen bread In my imagination I picture it and eat it. 112 A number of my generation dreams only of bread.” (“Nightmare”) Bread in the poem above symbolizes not merely a want of good but personal liberty and hman dignity. “Anti-clockwise” symbolizes resistance against male domination. The poet says: “Even after you have tied the chains of domesticity, Shame and modesty around my feet Even after you have paralysed me This fear will not leave you That even though I cannot walk I can still think.” (Anti clockwise) Society is afraid of free thinking women. Male chauvinism will certainly end when women are free, when they think and work independently. Kishwar Nahed’s voice is genuinely poignant. She does not portray women a helpless victims of patriarchy. They are certainly oppressed and exploited but she feels that time will soon come when they will overcome their sufferings and be free. They will enjoy equality and freedom like their sisters in many parts of the world. Fahimda Riaz has published several volumes of poetry. She was the editor and publisher of the magazine Awaaz. Fourteen cases of sedition were filed against her during the Martial Law. She escaped to India to whist on bail and lived at Jamia-Milia University during the period as a poet-in- Residence. She has translated Eric Fomme’s Fear of Freedom into Urdu. Since the restoration of democracy, she returned to live in Pakistan. Her book The Body Lacerated caused a lot of controversy because of its uninhibited exploration of women’s sexuality. Fahmida rejects the traditional concept of woman and her enchanting beauty and the passive role. She tries to prove that women are full of life, vigour and passions. Her remarkable contribution lies in her recognition of the role of language in society. She believed that literary Urdu became the language of the royal courts losing its touch with the masses. It became weak and sapless. She brought lyricism and musical quality to the language of the people. Famida Riaz in her poem “The interrogator” defiantly says that “law is a ray worthy of the dust off the rebels’ feet”. Women will shred it into pieces and their dictatorial rule will be overthrown. In another poem “Search Warrant”, she proclaims that, 113 “New words will be inscribed now on the walls of this city O passing moment! I swear by your desecrated honour Red is the dust around my house Beyond this window blooms a red flower.” (Search Warrant) “Chadur and Diwari” (Veil and Wall) is an outcry against fundamentalist imposition of veil and seclusion for women. It depicts the sufferings of women who become “halal for the night” and “the blood of their innocent youth stain the whiteness of (your) beard with red.” She cries out vehemently and violently. “Bring this show to an end now, Sire, cover it up now Not I, but you need this chadur now.” (Chadur and Diwar) Modern women in Pakistan refuse to be slves of men and man- made, tyrannical laws. She says: “I am the companion of the new Adam Who has earned my self-assured love.” (Chadur and Diwari) “Akleema” refers to the version of the legend that the Biblical Cain and Abel, Adam’s sons fought over their sister’s hand. Fahmida Riaz makes her speak on behalf of all women. She says that women are different “between her thighs, and in the bulge of her breasts” but, “Imprisoned by her own body Burning in the scalding sun She stands on a hilltop Like a mark etched on stone Look at this mark carefully Above the long thighs Above the high breasts Above the tangled womb Akleema has a head too Let God speak to Akleema sometime And ask her something.” (Akleema) Women have feelings and they have intelligence also. They are free and none can rob them of their freedom and ecstasy. She is a perfect picture of independence— “There she goes, her billowing in the wind 114 The laughter of the wind There she goes, sing with the wind.” (The Laughter of a Woman) Sara Shagufta, like Sylvia Plath, committed suicide at a young age depicts the sufferings of a woman artist and her tragic travails. She rejects the traditional role models established by patriarchy both in society and literary world. She defies poetic traditions of Urdu challenging the so-called hypocritical standards. She uses new, rich imagery, original and striking. “The Last Word” is a biographical letter appended to her only collection of poems Eye. It describes the sufferings and pangs of the birth of a dead child while poets and critics talk of Rimbaud, Freud Saadi and Warris Shah. Male poets are either indifferent or unaware of agonies of a woman. Creation is as painful as child birth but for male poets and critics, traditions and techniques matter more than the sincere expression of experiences. In her poem “Woman and Salt” she writes, “We were born wearing shrouds around our heads not rings on our fingers Which you might steal”. (Woman and Salt) In another poignant poem “The Moon is Quite Alone” she says, “I am dressed in my sorrows. Clad in a garment of fire. Shall I tell you the name of my shade? I give you the moons of all the nights. (The Moon is Quite Alone) “Compromise” by Zerha Nigah is a poem about Chadur (the veil) symbolizing imprisonment and discrimination against women. The entire poem is worth quoting. “Warm and tender soft, this chadur Of compromise has taken years to knit No flowers of truth embellish it Not a single false stitch betrays it It will do to cover my body though And it will bring comfort too, If not joy, nor sadness to you Stretched above us this will become our home, Spread beneath us, it will bloom our curtain. (Compromise) 115 Zerha Nigah’s work has traditional touch. It is not only defiant but contains undercurrent of protest with subtle nuances. Her poets often express surrender and resignation that women resort to. However, tinge of pathos is clearly visible in her works. “Hudood Ordinance” expresses a silent but strong rebellion against cruel laws. She says: “I grew Taller than my father And my mother won.” (Dedication) In a very beautiful poem titled “Liberation”, she exhorts the captives and the exploited to raise and throw away their shackles. Like Karl Marx, she tells that they have nothing to lose but their chains. The poem is a very strong-worded manifesto of liberation. She says: “Captives Arise Rise and chisel the mountains Mountains of dead traditions Mountains of blind beliefs Mountains of cruel hatreds” (Liberation) At the end of the poem, she tells that they should shun idleness and slumber of sheltered mentality. She exhorts those who are wrapped in sheets of insensitivity that they should arise and think of freedom. Ishrat Aafreen has written fine ghazals with new feminist themes. Talking of a girl, she tells about herself. “Hidden inside me lives this delicate girl Strange aspect, strange passions she has, this girl.” And, “Though she scatters into myriad crystals She curls into the apparition of a flower, this girl.” (Ghazal, 167) In another ghazal, there is a moving picture of the suppressed woman whose lips are dry and cracked. Her eyes are stony and she is cold like ice. She lives in a bare court yard, only with damp veil and moist lips. “Derelict thoughts, bitter words Lovely, gentle, red, juicy lips 116 What will they say to all this talk: “Girls, they say, must seal their lips”. (Ghazal, 169) In yet another ghazal, the sufferings of womanhood has been poignantly depicted. The poet says, “Why do girls follow the destinies of their mothers? Why are their bodies deserts, their eyes the ocean deep. (Ghazal, 171) Saeeda Gazdar edited a literary magazine Pakistani Adab. She has published a novel The Boat man’s wife and a collection of short stories. Her two volumes of poetry are Chains of Days and Nights and ‘Gallows and Millstones’. She has fought for women’s rights in Pakistan through her writings as well as through active political action. “Twelfth February, 1983” is a poem based on the struggle of women against the Law of Evidence which was designed to curtail the civic rights of women in Pakistan. Police resorted to teargas, lathicharge and arrests. The poem asks Mariam, Khadija and Fatima to hear the travails of women who are victims of manmade laws. Women are given the title of queens of their houses but they are not allowed to speak out even if they suffer immensely. They cannot go out and to raise their voices to demand right for freedom. The outcry in the poem is really heart-rending. “You snatch from me the status of a human being I refuse to give birth to you Is this the only use of my body That my womb should nurture a child Raise for you an army of slaves Blind, deaf and mute?” (Twelfth of February, 1983) Saeeda says that two crore of Pakistani women shall testify against the tyranny and cruelty and men for being enemies of light and truth shall be punished. Neelam Sarwar served as a Deputy Superintendent for the Police force in Lahore. She has published a collection of poem called “Tongues of Stone”. Her poems are often personal. Her poems often deal with the theme of guilt and punishment. As a police officer, she feels that a person who receives lashes as punishment is a Messiah who bears the sins of the nation. She experiences guilt for punishing the man and says, “We are all thieves 117 We are all fornicators We are all corrupt robbers Then, the punishment which everyone deserved Why did you receive it?” (The First Man to be Awarded Lashes) The poems referred to here are selected from “We sinful Women” (Contemporary Urdu Feminist Poetry) translated and edited by Rukhsana Ahmad published by Rupa & Co. 1994. Rukhasana Ahmad taught English Literature at the University of Karachi before moving to England. She is a freelance writer and journalist. Feminist poetry in Pakistan has been largely overlooked problems and sufferings of women are human problems and sufferings and they should be seen as these only. Women still suffer in many parts of the world in one or the other way. Do American women often become victims of house hold violence, beating by their husbands? Do many women still not die dowry death in India? Are Khap panchayats not perpetrators of cruelty against girls who dare to love boys outside their casers? Pakistani women represent the sufferings of the victims of patriarchy and fundamentalist, orthodox regime. Will men never understand a very simple thing that a no religion is above humanity and love? Is love and compassion not the true attribute of God and are we not entitled to receive this love and compassion of God through our own fellow humans? Let us hope that the religion of Universal Love will soon rule our lives and hatred and violence will e banished from this beautiful world forever. References Primary Source “We Sinful Woman, Contemporary Urdu Feminist Poetry” (trans. and ed.) Rukhasana Ahmad, New Delhi, Rupa & Co., 1994. Secondary Sources Russell, Ralph, The Pursuit of Urdu Literature: A Select History, Zed Books, 1993. Khavan, Mumtaz and Farida Shaheed, Women of Pakistan: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back?, Zed Books, 1987. 118 119 161616 Enigma of Partition Depicted in Bapsi Sidwah’s Ice-Candy-Man Md. Jakir Hossain The decade of the 1940s was the era of the two major historical catastrophes, the Second World War with the holocaust in Europe and the Partition in India. Rituparna Roy writes “partition is a cataclysmic event that impinged upon the lives of millions on the subcontinent, in a way that even the two World Wars had not, in terms of the sheer brutality and damage that it inflicted upon a considerable portion of the population, the mass exile and displacement that it caused and the new schisms that it created among people.”1 August 1947 witnessed the end of the British rule in the subcontinent by subsequently giving birth to a new nation Pakistan. Historians belonging to the main current of Indian nationalism blamed Imperialism for tearing off the bonds that had held them for centuries. According to them, Partition of the subcontinent was a logical conclusion of the ‘divide and rule’ policy of the British by which they sowed the seeds of communal hatred and pitted the Hindus against the Muslims in the subcontinent. This division was based on two ‘nation theory’ with the argument that the Hindus and the Muslims cannot live together as one nation due to their distinct cultural and religious identities. The Muslim majority regions of Punjab and Bengal were divided, with West Punjab and East Bengal forming West and East Pakistan, and India in the Middle of the two (Hasan,1993). This resulted in massive and violent migration of the people across the borders. The people in the subcontinent experienced an unprecedented trauma of partition and its pervasive influence and impact on contemporary life cannot be ignored even today. Partition has been an enigma which depicted in all aspects of arts, Literature being the most emphatic forms, Ice-Candy- Man belongs to the genre of Partition literature as a very important work like Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan (1956), Manohar Malgonkar’s A Bend in the Ganges (1964), Chaman Nehal’s Azadi (1975), B. Rajan’s The Dark Dances (1959) Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines (1988 and to certain extent Salman Rushdie’s Midnights Children (1980). Bapsi Sidhwah’s Ice-Candy-Man was first published in London in 1988. This title was changed to Cracking India in its American edition in 1991, because the 120 publishers thought the Americans would misunderstand ‘ice- candy’ and confuse it with drugs. The above mentioned books present the Indian perception of the partition holocaust. The first novel on Partition was Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961) by Attia Hosain which depicts the vulnerability of human lives in the subcontinent. Mehr Nigar Masroor’s The Heart Divided (1987) presents the Pakistani version of these violent and tragic events. Both these versions offer us an insight into the trajectory of the holocaust of partition .Being the third novel on partition by a woman author, Ice-Candy-Man demonstrates how Partition ruthlessly divided friends, families, lovers and neighbours on the either side of the borders. There are certain striking parallels between Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel and Attia Hosain’s partition novel, Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961). Both these novelists use a female narrator with considerable merit. Attia Hosain’s narrator Laila reveals the trauma of Partition through her memories and insights of the Taluqdar family disintegrating. In the same way the enigma and horror of Partition are revealed by Siddhwa’s child narrator Lenny. Ice-Candy-Man is a novel of political upheaval in the subcontinent and its aftermaths, involving characters from all communities—Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Parsis. Thus a multiple perspective of Partition emerges as witnessed by all the affected people. But what distinguishes Bapsi Sidhaw’s Ice-Candy- Man from other partition novels is her use of Parsi sensitivity to delineate the story. Another distinct quality of the of the novel is the character of Lenny who is like the persona that Chaucer adopts in his Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, rendering credibility by being almost a part of the readers consciousness. With the wonder of a child, she observes social change and human behaviour, seeking and listening to opinions and occasionally making judgments. Her childish innocence seems a naive display of Chaucer’s persona, a source of sharp irony. This device helps Bapsi Sidwah treat a historical moment as gruesome as Partition without morbidity. The subtle irony and deft usage of language creates humour which does not shroud but raucously highlights the trauma of Partition. Partition is shown as a series of images and events depicting human loss, agony and dislocation. The dislocation of settled life is brought before us by Lenny’s understanding of the demographic change in Lahore. In awe she observes that Lahore is no more 121 cosmopolitanism. The Sikhs and Hindus have fled. “Lahore is suddenly emptied of yet another hoary dimension: there are no Brahmins with caste marks—or Hindus in dhotis with bodhis. Only hordes of Muslim refugees” (175). The child narrator senses the difference and pain caused by the huge exchange of population. The dislocation and up rootedness of Partition is thoroughly experienced by Lenny and her brother, Adi as they drift through the Queen’s Gardens searching in vain for familiar faces and acquaintances. “Adi and I wander from group to group peering into faces beneath white skullcaps and above ascetic beards…I feel uneasy. Like Hamida, I do not fit. I know we will not find familiar faces here” (237). The dislocation of life during Partition caused emotional upheavals. This is best exemplified by attitude of Lenny when she comes to know that Masseur is one of Ayah’s several suitors proposed marriage. Even in the child there is a feeling of insecurity as she clings to Ayah’s hands and cajoles her not to marry the masseur as it would amount to separation. The scenes of violence and arson and above all the venomous hatred of friends who had months earlier insisted on the impossibility of violence, have a frightening impact on the young Lenny. Violence breeds violence as Lenny is also a victim. Her rage is directed at her collection of dolls. In a frenzy she acts, “I pick out a big, bloated celluloid doll. I turn it upside down and pull its legs apart. The elastic that it holds them together stretches easily. I let one leg go and it spans back, attaching itself to the brittle torso” (138). The destructive urge overcomes Lenny and she is not satisfied till assisted by her brother Adi she wrenches out the legs of the doll and examines the spilled insides. This violent act by Lenny is an apt allegory on the mindless violence of Partition. Bare facts present the horror of the greatest communal divide in history. Bapsi Sidhwa aptly shows the inexorable logic of Partition which moves on relentlessly leaving even sane people and friends helpless and ineffective. Communal riots spread from towns to small villages like Pir Pindo. To avoid further loss people like Sher Singh, Prakash, Kirpa Singh and Shanker decided to move to safer places with their near and dear ones. Degree of insanity reached its pinnacle when small kids were not left out of this communal frenzy. Ranna, the young playmate of Lenny is one of them who is made to suffer a 122 lot, and forced to take shelter at a refugee camp and fortunately gets reunited with Noni Chachi and Iqbal Chacha. The impact of communal frenzy is such that even characters like Hari and Moti are forced to change their names. Thus they suffer change of religious identity as well. The communal frenzy exerts distorting effect on people and leads to feelings of suspicion, distrust and rumours. Even the children, Lenny, Adi and Cousin are suspicious of the movements of Mrs. Sethi and Aunt Minne who travel all over Lahore without taking the children with them. Ayah heightens the sense of mystery when she says that the dickey of the car is full of cans of petrol. Thereby the author establishes the fact that such things are common in a charged atmosphere like this when people are under the grip of communal frenzy. The three children are stunned by this disclosure and let their fantasy go wild. Finally, they come to the conclusion. “We know who the arsonists are. Our mothers are setting fire to Lahore! …My heart pounds at the damnation that awaits their souls. My knees quake at the horror of their imminent arrest” (173). The children begin to fantasize about their mother’s movements but the author shows how rumour preys upon the frenzied minds of men debased by communal hatred. Ice-Candy-Man and his friends overhear a news on the radio and they at once interpret as “there is uncontrollable butchering going on in Gurudaspur” (149). There are further rumours of a train full of dead bodies coming Lahore from Gurudaspur. Ice-Candy-Man declares after a frantic cycle ride that all the dead are Muslims. This news adds fuel to the communal frenzy of Ice-Candy-Man and the people gathered at Queen’s Garden and harbour a feeling of revenge against the Shikhs. Even they now look with vengeance on their friend Sher Singh making him flee from Lahore. Under such a highly charged atmosphere, insanity prevails over rationality. Such ignominy is best exhibited when Ice-Candy- Man out of sheer rage says, “I’ll tell you to your face—I lose my sense when I think of the mutilated bodies on that train from Grurdaspur…that night I went mad, I will tell you, I lobbed grenades through the window of Hindus and Sikhs I’d known all my life! I hated their guts” (156). Revenge becomes the leitmotif for Ice-Candy-Man and his 123 friends. The role of rumour and the consequent violence that follows are delineated with subtle irony by Bapsi Sidhwa is very contemporary as are depicted by Amitav Ghosh in his The Shadow Lines (1988). During the tragic history of partition, vicious acts were not confined only to the adults. Even children were also exposed to same violent and angry world. They too could not escape the harsh realities. Those children who were lucky enough to survive the partition were haunted by the horrible memories so much so that they were physically and psychologically handicapped forever. Bapsi Sidhwa has focused on this aspect of tragedy through the characters of Lenny and Ranna. In one of the incidents, Lenny witnesses a Sikh mob attacking the streets, burning buildings, and fighting with Muslims. Lenny‘s eyes focus on a man tied to several vehicles and then viciously torn apart: “[Her] eyes focus on an emaciated Banya wearing a white Gandhi cap. The man is knocked down. His lips are drawn away from rotting, paan-stained teeth in a scream. The men move back and in the small clearing, his legs sticking out of his dhoti right up to the groin—each thin, brown leg tied to the jeep” (145). At first, Lenny is upset and terrified; however, when she returns home she is curious and is eager to know the meaning of what she has seen. Bapsi gives us a detailed account of the psychological and physical tortures that the innocent folk underwent at the hands of the cruel world around them. Minor characters are made to suffer the psychological or forced to undergo the psychological trauma. The abduction of Ayah reflects Lenny‘s childhood innocence falling a prey to the wicked world around her. She blames herself as responsible for the kidnapping of Ayah. Thus she suffers most intensely throughout the course of the novel. The absence of Ayah is a void not only in the house but within her little self also. The loss is much more than vast the absence of the Ayah from the family, which nothing can fill up: “Ayah less and sore-tongued I drift through the forlorn rooms of my house (…)” (185). Ranna‘s encounters in the village of Pir Pindo entail substantial physical and psychological damage. Ranna, being such a small boy, is innocent to the capabilities of men and is thrown into a world where he is a stranger to violence and brutality. Ranna suffers a great deal of pain at the hands of others; he has a massive gash in his head, spear punctures in his legs, and extensive body damage 124 from his flight to safety (213). It would be difficult for any child to fathom a reason for why this is being done to him or her; however, Ranna accepts his wounds and easily adapts to a will to survive. While Ranna‘s physical wounds will heal, the scars left behind will forever remind him of the treacherous day when his family was stolen from him. Every atrocity that he witnesses is imprinted on his mind forever. Ranna recalls his father‘s death: “There was a sunlit sweep of curved steel. His head was shorn clear off his neck. Turning once in the air, eyes wide open, it tumbled in the dust. His hands jerked up slashing the bleeding stump of his neck” (213). Ranna‘s ability to re-enact such a gory scene proves just how etched the events are in his mind. Ranna remembers every detail of his father‘s head, his bodily actions, and his blood—a sight that he will retain forever. Bapsi Sidhwa presents a detailed account of the psychological and physical tortures that the innocent souls suffer at the hands of the cruel world around them. Sidhwa shows how the Partition and its continuing trauma affected women focusing on Lenny and her Hindu Ayah. The partition narratives are testimony to the fact that the women of Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims were among the greatest victims of religious and cultural persecution (Pennebaker, 2000). On both sides of the newly created border, women were kidnapped, abducted, raped and brutally killed. Defilement of a woman‘s body was considered to be the greatest dishonour that a family had to endure. And the violence inflicted upon women was equivalent to a sacrilege against one‘s religion, country, and family. Recalling the chilling shrieks and moans of recovered women at the time, Bapsi Sidhwa asks herself, Why do they cry like that? Because they are delivering unwanted babies, I‘m told or reliving hideous memories. Thousands of women were kidnapped (Sidhwa, 1997). It has become the practice of the victors that they tend to celebrate their triumphs on the bodies of women while crossing all the limits of humanism. The most abhorring scene in the novel Ice-Candy-Man is the abduction of Ayah. Ice-Candy-Man abducts Ayah, the very woman he loves, because she is a Hindu. Ayah is subsequently gang-raped, and as if this physical abuse by the Muslim mob was not enough, she is then condemned to a life of prostitution in Hira Mandi. Although Ayah escapes her abductor, but even with her family in 125 Amritsar, she will be marked for her defilement during partition. Thus, she will suffer the psychological and emotional outbursts forever. Inevitably then, women became the worst victims of atrocities during civil strife as victories against the enemy were inscribed marked and celebrated on their bodies. According to Urvashi Butalia, “The figures [of women raped, abducted, tortured] range between 33,000-50,000 Hindu and Sikh women and 21,000 or so Muslim women” (1995: 81)2. Lenny’s Ayah was just one among those thousands of victims. After Ayah’s abduction, Hamida is recruited from the adjacent rehabilitation camp by Mrs Sethi as a replacement for Ayah. It is significant though that she herself describes the camp as a ‘camp for fallen women’ —her self- definition as ‘fallen’ is eloquent not only of the way she is perceived by her society in general. Nothing much is told about Hamida in the novel, and we never come to know the exact circumstances of her violation because the prime focus of the novel is on Ayah and not on Hamida. Partition has been an enigma, which caused an irretrievable loss on all sides in so many ways. All arts and Literature have tried to re-evoke that unforgettable trauma suffered by people across borders. Sidhwa has shown her belongingness to the awakened humanity that remembering past is painful but learning too. It is apparent from the above discussion that Sidhwah has successfully created a new discourse by bringing before us the holocaust of Partition. With sparkling humour, parody and allegory Sidhwa conveys a sinister warning of the dangers of compromising with religious fundamentalism. Though it encompasses the horror of partition, Bapsi Sidhwah reveals that communal riots are contemporaneous and her message is clear that those who forget, are condemned to repeat it. Notes 1. Roy, Rituparna, South Asian Partition Fiction in English: From Khsuwant Singh to Amitav Ghosh, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010, p. 132. 2. Butalia, Urvashi, The Other Side of Silence: Voices from India’s Partition, New Delhi: Viking, 1995, p. 81. References Bharucha, Nilufer and Nabar, Vrinda (eds.) Mapping Cultural Spaces Postcolonial Indian Literature in English, New Delhi: Vision Books, 1998. Print. 126 Chandra, Bipin, India’s Struggle for Independence, New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 1989. Print. Ghosh, Amitav, The Shadow Lines, New Delhi: Ravi Dayal, 1988. Print. Hosain, Attia, Sunlight on a Broken Column, Delhi: Arnold Heinmann, 1979. Print. Hasan, Mushirul, India’s Partition: Process, Strategy, Mobilization, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. Print. Pennebaker, M.K. (2000), The Will of Men:Victimization of Women during India’s Partition’, Agora 1(1) retrieved on June 8, 2010 from http://www.tamu.edu/chr/agora/summer00/ pennebaker.pdf Sidhwa, Bapsi, Ice-Candy-Man, New Delhi: Penguin, 1989. Print. 127 171717 The Male Political Unconscious in Females in Sashi Despande’s The Dark Holds No Terrors Dr. S.K. Mishra Ms. Geeta Misra Shashi Despande is one of the major writers of contemporary India who trace woman’s journey from self-effacement to self- actualization.1 As an Indian novelist writing in English Shashi Despande’s reputation has been on the rise. Her novel The Dark Holds No Terrors2 has also received major awards. She has domestic and international readers. The presentation of women in her writing is realistic. She presents a realistic image of woman in her writings. Social fabric of India forms the bases of her novel. The Dark Holds No Terrors2 is an extension of her short story. In Sagar-aswathi Thandakamalla’s3 words, the novel displays the trauma of a girl child who has suffered the bullying and curtailment of activity by her mother. The Dark Holds No Terrors2 is a tremendously powerful depiction of a single women’s fight for survival in a world that has no easy options. Sarita still remembers her mother’s caustic words uttered when as a little girl she was unable to save her younger brother from drowning. Now when mother is dead and Sarita returns to the family home ostensibly to take care of her father. Sarita has suffered the scathing remarks of her mother. She is always in a pain though she has not committed any mistake. She is an unwanted child and her brother’s death makes her more unwanted. Saru the heroine of The Dark Holds No Terrors2 was not happy in her childhood. She had only bitter memories of it. Her mother makes her feel guilty of her brother’s death. She says, You killed him. Why did not you die! Why are you alive ,when he’s dead! (The Dark Holds No Terrors,2 191) Growing in unfavorable environments, she grows up as a rebel. The novel lands itself to other media also as Jasbir Jain4 in his editorial comments rightly observes. For Feminism itself, the written text and social activism are no longer enough in themselves. It needs 128 to interact with all forms of media—newspapers, Journalism Theatre and film. In Indian society Gender Discrimination can be seen even today. Male members in the family are given importance. Females feel it and sense of insecurity grows within themselves. Though they are biologically different they are not able to feel the independence in all walks of life. In some families girls are unwanted even today. The novel delineates the patriarchy internalized by mother. The bias in mothers towards sons is in fact their political unconscious formed in and through a male dominated society. This novel reflects the gender biasing by mothers. Saru could feel as a child that her mother is more fascinated towards her brother. She builds differences with her mother. She cannot tolerate the preferences given to her brother because he is a boy: Dhuva and I ………. Dhruva and I …… did I push him! The question sprang at her out of nothing again and again….did I ! did I ! (The Dark Holds No Terrors,2 72). The sunlight fell full on his face, making the fair skin almost transparent. She could not avoid the pang of envy that shot through her. Don’t go out in sun you will get even darker. Who cares? We have to care if you don’t. We have to get you married. Will you live with us all your life! Why not! You cannot. And Dhruv! He is different. He is a boy (The Dark Holds No Terrors,2 45). The political unconscious in Indian society is also reflected in the belief that the girl has to leave the parents house and go to her husband’s house. Boy has the right to stay with his parents. This feeling of gender discrimination is seen in the novel The Dark Holds No Terrors.2 The novel clearly shows that the mother is biased even in her unconscious. She gives more importance to her son. This deep rooted feeling of inferiority complex developed in Saru. She cannot get rid of this feeling even when she grows up. She became a rebel. Saru recalls that there was always a puja on Dhruv’s birthday. A festive lunch in the afternoon and an arti in the evening 129 my birthdays were almost the same—but there was no puja” (The Dark Holds No Terrors,2 169/170). Life becomes more desperate to Saru after Dhruv’s death. There are no celebrations at home, her much awaited birthday passes off in silence both at school and at home. Right from the beginning saru is made to understand that she is inferior to her brother. Saru feels that men enjoy more liberty and freedom in Indian society. When a mother differentiates between her own children for whom she has equally suffered and taken equal pains. This feeling of insecurity makes a life of a girl more miserable. The rigidity of do’s and don’ts prescribed by the patriarchal mother makes her grow more wild and defiant later. As a sign of rebellion, Saru takes up medicine as her career. Her mother is not in favour of it. She just wanted to get her married and go to her marital home. The same scenario is seen in many of the Indian homes even today. In the 21st century also parents are not interested to spend money on girl education. They feel if they will give education to a girl it will be a waste because she has to go to another house. But they must know that education is an investment. Dr. James Emmanuel Kwegyir Aggrey said “If you educate a boy, you educate an individual but if you educate a girl you educate the whole nation”. Saru seeks her father’s support for her admission to the medical college, and her father for the first time is on her side. Saru hates her mother and she is not in talking term with her mother. It shows that she has deep rooted hatred for her mother. “But she is a girl” Yes, I’ am a girl. But it’s more than that I’m not Dhruva. Is that all I am, a responsibility! I can pay either for her marriage or her studies. She chooses to be educated (The Dark Holds No Terrors,2 144). Saru marries Manohar. She feels that she has the right to choose her partner. She does not feel it necessary to take her parents’ consent. She becomes a successful doctor and she has patients in her own office independent of her father and husband. She does not take any help from the male members related to her in her professional life. As Sarita observes bitterly, a+b they told us in the mathematics is equal to b+a. But here a+b was not definitely equal to b+a. It becomes an unbalanced equation (The Dark Holds No Terror2 42). 130 Her choice for a boy from a lower cast is a sign of her rejecting ways and values her orthodox mother. Saru’s mother asks her: What caste is he! I do not know. A Brahmin! Of course not. Then cruelly…his father keeps a cycle shop. Oh! So they are low cast people, are they! (The Dark Holds No Terrors,2 96). After her marriage Saru is hurt to hear from a mutual acquaintance that her mother had prophesied about her unhappy marital life. Let her know more sorrow that she has given me. She even thinks at one point that she is unhappy and destroyed in her marital life because her mother has cursed her. In Indian society patriarchal values have long-standing tradition. It has taken generation to form a male dominated political unconscious and it is reflected in religion as well as culture. Certain religious groups embrace gender discrimination as part of then dogma. Attitudes toward gender discrimination can normally be traced back to the roots of certain segments of society. Although gender discrimination is traditionally viewed as a problem normally encountered by females. Now the question arises—Is it the mindset of the people or the biological differences between Male and Female that females have to face this? All this moment Saru makes us feel that a gender equal society would be one where the word ‘gender’ does not exist. Where everyone can be themselves without fear and favour. In this world of globalization even in modern society gender discrimination is a reality seen and felt by women. It is a deep rooted disease which cannot be cured by simple measures. There is a need to change the mindset/political unconscious of the society and women should be brought at par in the society. Female should not have any inferiority complex. A simple complex should be understood if we want to live in a society then both the genders are of equal importance without any one they are not able to extend the family. Then where is the need of gender discrimination as the poet James Kirkup’s5 puts it aptly in the poem “No Men are Foreign”: Remember ,we, who take up arms against each other It is the human earth that we defile 131 Remember, no men are foreign And no countries strange No country can progress if its women are not given their participation or are devalued in any way. There’s absolutely no reason why a girl should be treated as inferior. It has to start right from birth. Urgent steps need to be taken to make parents and society aware of equal importance of girls everywhere. As per Manu Smrti: Yatra Naryastu Pujyante, Ramante Tatra Devata. This also depicts the importance of a woman in the society. Our ancient sages rightly came to the conclusion that God’s dwell in that place where women are worshiped. The high padestrial on which the women are put by the sages shows the awareness in the society in those times about the women being the key factor to turn earth in to heaven in terms of progress and social development. However, there are not simple solutions for problems of unconscious podiatry takes us to our childhood. Perhaps all societies where gender discrimination exist need to visit to their childhood to detect the formation and treatment of patriarchal unconsciousness. Notes and References 1. Thakur, Pallavi, Shashi Deshpande’s Fiction A Woman’s Journey, New Delhi. Prestige Book International, 2011. 2. Deshpande, Shashi, The Dark Holds No Terrors, New Delhi: Penguin, 1990. 3. The Commonwealth Review: A bi-annual journal denoted to the new literatures in English, Vol XXI, New Delhi: Prestige Publishing House. 4. Jain, Jasbir and Rai, Sudha, Films and Feminism edited Essays on Indian Cinema, Jaipur: Rawat Publication, 2009. 5. Kirkup, James, Poem: “No Men are Foreign”. 132 171717 History and Travel Writing: Amitav Ghosh’s Dancing in Cambodia and Other Essays Shiv Kumar The concern for history is an indispensable aspect in post- colonial agenda which has led to interpret and understand the historical past from different perspectives to understand the present according to past and vice-versa. Amitav Ghosh, in his Foreword to Other Routes, writes, that the travelers “do not assume a universal ordering of reality; nor do they arrange their narratives to correspond to teleologies of racial or civilizational progress” (9). Here Ghosh refers to the traveler’s creative imaginative faculty and his narrative obligation through which he records unheard voices and creates an alternative historical version of past which counters the stratified historical facts and narratives. Travel writing, epistemologically, is a movement from one culture to another, crossing boundaries from one set of cultural and linguistic tradition to another that it “crosses those precise national boundaries as well as going beyond into the past to a time where they did not exist, at least not in the modern restrictive sense”, as James Clifford says (76). Traditionally travel is the symbol of mobility and movement, but it is also a symbol of radicalism which breaks away from traditional and narrow conventions of stratification and presents itself as a transcending force, which moves away from territorial, geographical, socio- cultural and political boundaries. The travel motif is a strategic tool, through which Ghosh interprets the archives of historical documents and formulates a kind of genealogical approach to interpret accepted versions of historical narratives. In Dancing in Cambodia and Other Essays Ghosh not only travels physically from one country to another but also imaginatively to the historical remote past, to delineate the cultural glory of the presently devastated Cambodia. Flipping backward and forward journey provides a kaleidoscopic view of history and cultural anthropology which is central to Ghosh’s concern in his writings. The traveling narrative camera always shifts from past to present and vice versa, which disrupts the linear time framework and creates a paradigmatic historical trajectory which is fragmented in its nature. This historicization of past is a deliberate strategy to disrupt the official version of colonial history which situates the remoteness of past to render the 133 contemporary native culture rootless. This counter-historicization helps Ghosh to erase the vast gap between past and present, to familiarize the past to present, to give the indigenous people a sense of historical rootedness. This paper explores the motif of travel employed by Ghosh in three essays, Dancing in Cambodia, Stories in Stones and At Large in Burma, through which he problematizes the historical claims of knowledge of past while simultaneously retrieves the indigenous cultural past of the once colonized nation. These essays present Ghosh’s concern of history which shapes the present conditions of Cambodia. In Dancing in Cambodia, Ghosh explores the sociological, economical and ideological effects, repercussions and outcome of the French colonial system, which had finally culminated into the destruction of Cambodia’s socio- economic structures and cultural past. In the second essay, Stories in Stones, Ghosh questions the Western colonial historiography of colonized nation and their deliberate strategy to erase historical and cultural symbols to authenticate their own version, which is an excavated version of past of Burma. The third essay “At Large in Burma”, is Ghosh’s personal response to the grand narratives of West. He subjectively participates in the historical debate by creating a space for himself, to interpret the official documented history from personal point of view and brings out the multiple subjective narratives of natives of Burma. In his first essay, “The Dancing in Cambodia”, Ghosh travels across the physical space and chronological time and with the help of official documentation of historical events reconstructs an imaginative history of Cambodia. He gives it a fictionalized portrayal which allows Ghosh to interpret historical incidents from subjective point of view. In this essay Ghosh, with the help of official documents related to King Sosowath’s travel to France, imaginatively creates a historical past of Cambodia which was not yet been destroyed or affected by the ideological battle of extremist Pol-Pot’s regime. For him the past carries the answers of the present dilemma. So his imaginative backward journey not only lays bare the colonial agenda of France, their biased views about orient, their deliberative motive of orientalizing the East’s sensibility through stereotypical representation of East. But also allows Ghosh to delineate once culturally prosperous heritage of the Cambodia in the form of traditional dance which carries with it its historical rootedness of the vivacious cultural past. In the first part of the essay Ghosh exposes the colonial bias 134 and the notion of the ‘other’ in the mind of the West that perceives and projects the East as exotic other of the West. The first passage talks about 1906, a time when Cambodia was a free nation and the then King Sosowath travels to France “carrying a troupe of nearly hundred classical dancers and musicians from the royal palace at Phenom Pehn” (1). Before their arrival at France the local newspapers exaggeratedly creates a sense of expectations and “the port was packed with curious onlookers” to get a look of the “unfamiliar” (1). The intense enthusiasm shown by the French people to witness “exotic and opulent fantasy” of Cambodian people is the classical example of orientalization of East which finally culminates in despair, as “the onlookers were taken by surprise. They had expected perhaps a troop of heavily veiled, voluptuous Salomes; they were not quite prepared for the lithe, athletic women they encountered on the Amiral-Kersaint” (2, 3). They appear outside the expected boundaries of categorization as “they seem to belong to no definite sex” (3). This categorical expression brings out the colonial mind set up of West which ideologically functions to feminize and devalorize by referring the Cambodian women as sexually ambiguous which is a typical instance of colonization and objectification of native sensibility. The process of knowing always effectively demonstrates the link between knowledge and power as it stereotypically constructs and dominates orients through the process of knowing them. In the next passage the exploration of pre Pol-Pot era is a major contrastive strategy of Ghosh through which he deliberately contrasts the pre-devastating condition of Cambodia with the Pol- Pot’s period of cultural destruction and post Pol-Pot era where through the assistance of U.N. the country again tries to constitute the entire nation together. They try to revive the same old traditional Cambodian dance which had earlier brought the entire nation together which provides them a reason to survive after experiencing the extremist and devastating Pol-Pot’s regime. In contrast to the grand narratives, the travel motif allows Ghosh to narrativize the experiences and history of the subaltern character like Molyka, whose grimy historical past was never recorded. Instead of assuming the omnipresent role of an author and representing fictionally the experiences of the characters, he chooses to record their own personal narratives in their own words. Molyka’s epic journey epitomizes the experiences of the entire Cambodian people who have suffered physical and psychological blows during the 135 Pol-Pot’s regime. In 1975, when she was thirteen, the Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh and she and her extended family of fourteen people evacuated to a labour camp in the province of Kompong Thom. Three years later, ten of these were dead, including her father, two brothers and a sister. Her mother transforms into a terrified hysterical woman and her brother turn into a guilt-ridden son for having accidentally betrayed his father to Khmer Rouge. Ghosh adopts position of an outsider to describe the odyssey of Molyka which inevitably puts the narrator intellectual into a minority or even marginalized figure of an outsider, which is a favourite figure of Edward Said, to subvert the diminishing representations of the East. This helps to create a necessary condition for the development of the ‘critical consciousness’, which categories as not being ‘at home’ in the norms of any notion or system (qtd. Said). This first narrative ends when the contemporary generation has lost its contact with its culturally shared past and are finally brought together to participate and witness the first ever traditional dance to unite the nation after Pol-Pot atrocities. The traditional Cambodian dance is the epiphanic moment in which the entire nation comes to term with their shared historical past and coming out from the catastrophic condition. Here the common shared ‘suffering’ becomes a means of survival which also recovers the historical Cambodian past. This philosophical skepticism helps Ghosh to denounce the master narratives of West as they have lost credibility in postmodern world. In these essays the anti- foundational approach of Ghosh disputes the validity of the foundation of discourse and recovers the remote past of Cambodia, as Padmini Mongia says, “the advent of European colonialism severed pre-existing relations and structures to create a fissure that has almost erased the histories which Ghosh recovers” (83). In the second essay, “Stories on Stones”, the narrator adopts the position of Saidian outsider figure and challenges the Western historiography. By creating a narrative, he interweaves his own history into it where his main aim is to reverse the colonial gaze of the discourse to analyze the hagemonic discourses from the point of view of an orient. This essay is prompted by Ghosh’s travel to Angkor Wat, the twelfth century Cambodian Temple which is incrusted with religious iconography with its own history like mythologies, as the building is heavily overlain with the biographies of kings and other potentates. In this essay Ghosh takes up the issue of representation 136 which constitutes and categorizes the stereotypical image of the East. West sees the hieroglyph of the temples as stereotypical romantic symbols of lost ‘civilization’, which foregrounds the role of colonial forces, attributed to “its accidental discovery by the nineteenth-century French explorer Henry Mouhot” (53). Ghosh puts ironically that the French archaeologists did discover something but not the religious structure of the Angkor temple but “they discovered a mirror for themselves: of the imperial state, in all its power and splendour” (53). This discovery of image is appropriated and authenticated by calling it a recent discovery of a lost civilization. This is a conscious strategy to uproot the historical heritage of Cambodia to render Cambodian generation rootless and historyless. Through this pseudo-discovery they did succeed in camouflaging the ancient temple, forcing it to keep in ‘purdah’, which would remain invisible to the eyes of the rest of world (52). This would assist the West to construct and appropriate a constructed historiography of the Cambodia, as Leela Gandhi says, this Western Historiography helps “to confirm the civilizational priority of Europe through a systematic erasure of non-Western past” (59). Ghosh disrupts the constructed knowledge of history which produces grand narratives and is legitimized by scientific proof and narrative construction. These grand narratives legitimize the official colonial version of history. So to counter-attack one has to disengage with these hegemonic versions by formulating dissent to counter it, as the stereotypical literary representation is inescapably bound up with the politics of worldly existence. The narrator’s odyssey into the stories and postmodernist narrative bring out the disruptive subjective narratives of the locals which are a digression from the sanctified hegemonic version. According to the local versions, Monks have been living in the temple for centuries even before the French archaeologist discovered it, and the narrative of monk Ven. Luong Chun, who has a historical connection, stands entirely opposite to the official version of West, which erases the historical past of the ancient Cambodian temple. He represents the subaltern collective consciousness, whose recovery justifies Ghosh’s reading of the destruction of Cambodian culture by Western ideology, as Robert Dixon says, the narrative of the monk is “an implied recovery of the presence, while at the same time forever retreating into a post-structuralist lexicon of textual traces” (29). Like Ranajit Guha, Ghosh counters the Western 137 historiography by recuperating, recognizing and recovering multiple stories of subjugated, subaltern characters like the monk. For Ghosh the ancient temple is not a symbol of lost civilization but a part of the lived culture of locals which is destroyed by the colonial powers and this ancient culture symbolizes modernity for the contemporary Cambodians as the “Angkor Wat became a symbol of the modernizing nation-state” (53). The third essay, “At Large in Burma”, begins with a personal narrative and reveals that Ghosh is more interested in subjective narratives rather than in official one. Here he takes up the plethora of subjective ‘stories’ of other countries where his “parents and relatives had lived or visited”, in this case of Burma (57). It is this journey motif through which Ghosh synthesizes these multiple stories into multiple digressive narratives. This choice of stories strategically places forward the digressive nature of multiplicities of narratives, which is also a process of ‘novelization’ which records and brings forward the unrecorded voices (Bakhtin). Travel takes the narrator back to the historical past, to a multiplicity of stories, to a backward journey to historiography. This multiplicity distorts and disrupts the hegemonic historical version by placing multiple subjective perspectives of the personal historical experiences which do not accord with the official version of history. This essay is not an engagement with the linear trajectory but an attempt to capture the essence to construct a narrative by deconstructing certain accepted assumptions. Ghosh’s journey to Burma is a process of learning through which he captures the drama of the past and recreates an epoch. The meta-narrative of the journey of Ghosh’s uncle Prince, from India to Burma and than back to India, primarily represents the degeneration of Burma’s socio- economic conditions. He says “it was a golden land”, but the autocratic regime of junta has wiped it out from the earth “for almost three decades”(57). Then later in the same passage Ghosh refers to the popular assumption according to which Indian’s dominating presence in Burmese government has culminated in anti-Indian feelings which has finally led to form a revolution against the inadvertent encroachment of Indians, as Ghosh says “Burmese nationalism practically started with anti-Indian riots”(59). And later this revolution was turned against the colonial regime of British Empire. On the contrary, to assumed popular belief his uncle produces another kind of story, as he says, “that’s just one part of the story…there was a lot of friendship, too”(59). The presence of 138 this small narrative does not affiliate with the high theory and produces another version, which is a different kind of recounting of the same history, and shifts the paradigm of the hegemonic version. This also foregrounds his presence in this historically turbulent country and he pictures not only the country which “the rest of the world has almost forgotten”, but also asserts his participation in this violence ridden country (80). This authentication of Burma’s historical past from the point of views of indigenous historical past where bits and patches are reworked to create a trajectory of unvoiced historical voices, puts the Burma on the map of the world as James Clifford notes that “we are seeing the emergence of new maps: borderland culture areas, populated by strong, diasporic ethnicities assimilated to dominant sates”(110). Apart from this counter-history Ghosh does not lose the opportunity to criticize and expose the West’s journey to East which is primarily based on colonial agenda to colonize, subjugate, exploit and prove superiority over East. In this essay Ghosh goes a step further and talks about the withdrawal of defeated British Army by General Aung San and their final deeds to insure the destruction of colonized nation. Even though after defeat by the army of General Aung San, the withdrawing British army from Burmese territory after granting independence to Burma, destroy the socio-economical infrastructure of the country leaving them at the point of struggle, as Ghosh writes, “The British had adopted a scorched-earth policy when they withdraw from Burma in 1942, demolishing bridges, setting fire to oil fields”(59). Later the earlier assisting Japanese army follows the same route and shatters the remaining hope of Burma to survive, by rendering them at a point of extinction as “three years later, the retreating Japanese had reciprocated, destroying all that was left of Burma’s infrastructure”(59). Ghosh interprets the history in a deconstructive manner rather than in traditional linear format and adopts a kind of narrative commentary which journeys backward and deploys past to evaluate the present conditions. It is a kind of quest narrative through which he attempts to portray the dynamic form of resistance to the reifying power of colonial discourse and ideology and to “connect the kaleidoscopic past to the monochromatic present”(Gandhi, 59). In this context General Aung San’s journey from subjugation to freedom, and his assassination in 1948, finally leads to the gradual impoverishment of the country, as after his death the authoritarian regime takes over this democratic country. But even after his death 139 he remains alive in the consciousness of the nation in the form of a “hero of its independent movement” through pervasively proliferating images “on coins and banknotes, on street corners, in market place” to strengthen the national democratic feeling of the nation (61, 64). This aura of Aung San provides an easy access to his daughter Su Kyi into the democratic movement in 1988, to win back that lost freedom which her father has won three decades ago. Finally, as conclusion in these atavistic travel essays, Ghosh merges the dwelling and traveling into one another, and “attempts a historiography that restores agency to the subaltern class” (Padmini, 77). He considers travel as a form of situating the self, which focuses attention on the traveller as well as on the places and geographies to which he travels. In these essays the older ethnographic model which erases the specificity of the observer has been replaced by ethnographies where acute importance is paid to the observer as well as the object of the study. In these essays the “travel is not so much about physical movement and the journey from here to there. It is a figure for different models of stasis, movement and knowledge” (Padmini, 75). References Bakhtin, Mikhail, “Epic and Novel”, The Dialogic Imagination (trans. and ed.) Michel Holoquist, University of Texas Press: Austin Texas, 1981, pp. 3-40. Clifford, James, “Of Anthropology”, Other Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century, Harvard University Press: USA, 1997, pp. 59-91. —. “The Prologue”, Other Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century, Harvard University Press: USA, 1997, pp. 1-17. —. “White Ethnicity”, Other Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century, Harvard University Press: USA, 1997, pp. 92-241. Dixon, Robert, “Travelling in the West: The Writing of Amitav Ghosh”, Amitav Ghosh: A Critical Companion (ed.) Tabish Khair, Permanent Black: Delhi, 2003, pp. 9-35. Gandhi, Leela, “A Choice of Histories: Ghosh vs. Hegel in In an Antique Land”, Amitav Ghosh: A Critical Companion (ed.) Tabish Khair, Permanent Black: Delhi, 2003, pp. 56-72. Ghosh, Amitav, Dancing in Cambodia and Other Essays, Penguin 140 Books: Delhi, 2008, pp. 1-98. Ghosh, Amitav, “Foreword”, Other Routes: 1500 Years of African and Asian Travel Writing (eds.) Tabish Khair, Martin Leer, Justin D. Edwards and Hanna Ziadeh, Signal Book Ltd.: Oxford, 2006, pp. 9-19. Mongia, Padmini, “Medieval Travel in Postcolonial Times: Amitav Ghosh’s In an Antique Land”, Amitav Ghosh: A Critical Companion (ed.) Tabish Khair, Permanent Black: Delhi, 2003, pp. 73-89. William, Patrick, “Edward Said (1935-2003)”, Contemporary Critical Theorists (ed.) Jon Simons, Edinburgh University Press, 2006, pp. 269-85. 141 18 Translocation, Adaptation and a Desire to Re- Construct Identities in Bharati Mukherjee’s Desirable Daughters Dr. Satya Prakash Prasad Bharati Mukherjee, a noted diasporic novelist of Indian origin settled in America is known for writing on women from multiple perspectives. Her early novelsThe Tiger’s Daughter, Wife andJasmine indicate that leaving India and assimilating with the cultural ethos of the Western world/America, is a way of getting liberated from the enmeshment of orthodox traditions which put a woman on the subservient identity. Her Holder of the World depicts a journey of a woman from the West to East and her previous novel, Leave It to Me focuses on the American way of life from the perspectives of an upstate American girl. Mukherjee’s sixth novel, Desirable Daughters marks a phase of changed sensibilities as she admits the change in an interview: My style has changed because I am becoming more Americanized with each passing year…. I left India by choice to settle in the U.S. I have adopted this country as my home…. I view myself as an American author in the tradition of other American authors whose ancestors arrived in Ellis Island” (Carb, 26). Mukherjee in this novel presents her thesis, based on her own experience of staying so long in America, of alternative ways rather than one to belong to an alien land. It can be seen as the strategies one adopts to negotiate with cultural transactions, nostalgia for lost home in the phase of globalization and multiculturalism. Desirable Daughters, as Martin and Mohanty observe, is, “a complicated working out of the relationship between home, identity, and community that calls into question the notion of a coherent, historically continuous stable identity and works to expose the political stakes conceded in such equations” (195). Mukherjee’s, Jasmine depicts the protagonist’s various selves which keep on clashing with one another as they emerge from her past life that forces her to run constantly from her past and reinvent herself time and again, giving the reader an impression of her fragmented self. However, in Desirable Daughters, Tara, the protagonist does not run from or fight with her past experiences, but welcomes them in order to evolve her identity. Tara uses the history of Tara Lata, her 142 great grandmother as a template against which she endeavors a search for her own identity. Mukherjee in this novel and its sequel, The Tree Bride attempts to broaden the horizons of her perspectives on identity formation. With this novel Mukherjee re- explores her basic engagement with Indian women in a foreign country and their distinct strategies to deal with the issues of cultural negotiations specifically concerned with their varied diasporic experiences. The novel recounts the life story of three sisters; Tara, Padma and Parvati who hail from elite Bengali, ‘bhadralok’ family of Motil Lal Bhattacharya, based in the heart of Kolkata. They are married and settled in San Francesco, New York and Bombay respectively. It is noteworthy that the novel reflects the autobiographical elements from the life of the author as does her first novel, The Tiger’s Daughter. Mukherjee in an interview with Dave admits: I am. I have to. And as someone pointed out in Iowa City two nights ago on NPR, Tara was also the name of the protagonist in my first novel [The Tiger’s Daughter] and that character was very much me, too, so it’s obviously a kind of alter ego that I wasn’t totally aware of when I embarked on this. Other than the three sisters... I also have two sisters, and we’ve had our estrangements even though we’ve always pretended to be so close-knit. I’m playing with author-protagonist relationships in ways that I haven’t before. I think it’s because I want to write an autobiography, but I just can’t bring myself to. You create masks. It’s a story about three sisters following different paths, each somehow important to me (N.pag.).).). Rita Felski points out the blurring of the distinction between autobiography and fiction in feminist creative writing that the obligation to honest self-deception which constitutes part of the autobiographical contact is “mitigated by the feminist recognition that it is the representative aspects of the author’s experience rather than her unique individuality which are important, allowing for the inclusion of fictive but representative episodes distilled from the lives of other women” (94). The novel opens up with Tara’s mission to write a book on her sisters “Padma and Parvati and their growing up in Kolkata” but in due course she starts “on something new and strange” (TB, 22). Childhood bed time stories of her elders, experience of her earlier visits of ancestral house, Mist Mahal and a meeting with Dr. Victoria Khanna enliven her American impulse of ‘root-search’ which 143 ultimately leads her to ‘a mission of discovery’. She takes a journey to Mistigunj, her ancestral land for recovering the life history of Tara Lata, the Tree Bride, her namesake and maternal great grand- aunt. Structurally, both the novels move back and forth in different time zones and continents, making it challenging for the readers to connect some of the loose threads together. Mukherjee’s craftsmanship is only realized when both the novels are read cohesively in reference to each other. Tara’s exploration of Tree Bride’s life history though starts in The Desirable Daughters, throughout the novel she keeps on mapping the biographies of her own, Padma and Parvati in the context of India and America. In this way the novel ends where it starts. However, it is The Tree Bride in which Tara’s mission to explore the unexplored history of the Bride, gets accomplished. Desirable Daughters traces the diverging routes taken by three eponymous sisters, Tara, Padma, and Parvati as they come of age in a changing world. The three sisters carve out their separate destinations from the orthodox Brahmin patriarchal family in the late fifties. Nineteen years old Tara’s marriage was quickly arranged by her father. She is married off to Biswapria Chaterjee, a software engineer with an IIT degree. She migrates with him to America and settles at Atherton where her husband makes a fortune in the Silicon Valley. Soon she is blessed with a son, Rabi. However, the husband- wife relation acquires a new dimension as the family honour comes as an obstacle in the way of Tara’s desire of affirming individuality and seeking freedom which eventually result in a divorce after ten years of their married life. After the divorce she lives independently with her son, sleeps freely with men and has a sort of live-in lover Andy in San Francisco. Rabi has been admitted to a school and visits his father occasionally on weekends. The father-son or the parent-child relationship in American cultural context appears both amusing and appalling to the Indians. This tension takes a momentum when a stranger comes to Tara’s house with Rabi claiming to be the illegitimate son of her eldest sister, Padma. She is shocked at his claim and tries to check out his history with her sisters. The appearance of the fake Chris Dey gives rise to many complications, revealing the past and the present of the sisters as well as their love affairs, flirtations, and hypocrisies. Angered by Tara’s decision to contact the police against his advice, Andy desserts her for good. Tara visits Padma and the mystery of Chris is 144 solved by the police officer Mr. Jasbir Singh Sidhu, revealing the plot of the gangsters and the murder of the real Chris Dey who was the actual illegitimate son of Padma by Ron Dey. This leaves Tara and her son vulnerable to violent attack. Tara comes back to her house in order to alarm Rabi and Bish about the potential threat as soon as they return from vacation in Australia. When Bish comes to drop Rabi there, Tara tricks him into staying for meals, prepares special dinner, and has sex with him. There is a sudden explosion in the house when they were in the midst of a serious discussion on the deck in the early hours of the morning. Bish saves Tara from burning but is badly injured. He is admitted to the hospital where he is often visited by Tara who informs him of her plans and her urge to write; write about her experiences, about her past memories, about her roots, her family and sisters. She is compelled by her American impulse of ‘root-search’ that leads her to ‘a mission of discovery’ of recovering the life history of Tara Lata, her namesake and great grandmother. She uses the history of Tara Lata as a template for her own search for identity in America. Tara’s assimilation in American culture has provided her an opportunity to reinvent herself according to cultural norms of the adopted country. However, she is conscious of the fact that in India men and women are bracketed under different social, economic and linguistic markers. The identity is fixed and predetermined. She gives a description of her ‘Ballygunge park road’ identity as she says: That dusty identity is as fixed as any specimen in a 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 ancestral origin (Mistigunj, East Bengal), education (postgraduate and professional), and social attitudes (conservative) (DD, 82). She compares her life to her American friends and ironically concludes that they should have been thankful to their identity crisis. Tara grows up with a consciousness that she along with her sisters is being prepared to get married. Her description of early childhood that she spent in Calcutta shows that her whole education and upbringing were aimed at making her a prospective and deserving bride. She recalls: I was nineteen years old, holder of a B.A. Honours and M.A., 145 first class from the University of Calcutta, committed to gathering more honours and scholarship and to take up the graduate school offers that had already come from Paris, London and New York, when my father said the magic words: “There is a boy and we have found him suitable. Here is his picture. The marriage will be there in three weeks” (23). The passage shows that the traditional system of education for women in India is far from being a source of their emancipation from the orthodoxy of traditionally deified gender-role; rather it is used as an instrument to reinforce the patriarchal dominion. Even Tara’s elite background does not offer her any respite from the futility of education. However, convent education for girls in such a wealthy and elite minority is perceived important for its ornamental value and a means to showcase elitism: For girls of our class, only a convent school education would do. This meant that until we reached the age of marital consent, we would be certified (of course) as virgins, but also as never having occupied unchaperoned confined space of any kind with a boy of our own age who was not a close relative. For Hindu girls, entry to an exclusive catholic convent school depended upon exhibiting flair without flash, class without pretension, a society name with notoriety. In return, convent education guaranteed poise, English proficiency, high level contacts, French language skills, and confident in whatever future the gods or communists might dole out. Parvati, her second sister raises the pertinent question regarding the education of women: Where does our kind of convent education get us? I’m not putting down Loreto House College or Mount Holyoke, but I didn’t learn any skill I can put to use to earn money. Please don’t think that I’m criticizing Daddy’s ideas of education for us. He didn’t expect us to ever want to work, let alone to have to work for money. Only middle class women went to co-educational classrooms and studied useful things like law or medicine or engineering (105-106). It is evident that the elitism coupled with traditionally fixed gender roles in Indian society with regard to Tara and her sisters’ access to education, renders their positions unfavourable to seek professional and economic independence. Tara and her sisters were never supposed to put the knowledge they imbibed in the schools 146 in pragmatic utilization as they knew it very clearly that once they got married, it would be the duty of their husband to provide for them. The arranged marriages are common practice in India and the partner’s compatibility is determined by the parents on the basis of certain fixed criteria such a class, caste, language and values. Moreover, the prospect of groom’s financial success is also taken into account. Any deviation from the system of arranged marriage was out of question for Tara since she “didn’t have adolescence” her “body changed but not behaviour” and love for her was indistinguishable from duty and obedience. Being a product of a patriarchal household, Tara went by the dictates of her father’s choice in accepting her wedlock with Bish Chaterjee when she was nineteen year old. She recalls, “I married a man I had never met, whose picture and biography and bloodlines I approved of because my father told me it was time to get married and this was the best husband on the market” (26). She could not dishonour her father’s decision because father is traditionally considered to be the head of the family and is looked at as someone who is venerable and his decisions/ choices are to be respected: The qualities we associated with our father and with god were not notably divergent from the respect we accorded the president of the country, the premiere of the state…of course—the boys our fathers would eventually select for us to marry (28). However, it can be argued that Tara did not have any concept of rebellion against her father’s choice at the time of her marriage; rather it was something that she was waiting for long. She kept a very romantic notion of marriage which would promise her all comfort and liberty and a possibility to enter into the world of fairy tale: For ten years I kept the graduation photo of Bishwapriya Chatterjee, my husband—Indian institute of Technology, Kharagpur—on our nightstand. Last icon before falling asleep, first worshipful image of the morning…. He had that eagerness, and a confident smile that promised substantial earnings. It lured my father into marriage negotiations and it earned my not unenthusiastic acceptance of him as husband. A very predictable, very successful marriage negotiation (7). While she is in India, she basically fulfils the obedient and passive roles of daughter and sister. However, it is in America where 147 she is exposed to different forms of women’s behaviour and liberal feminist discourse of the West through her interactions with friends and American media and subsequently she starts assessing, adopting and challenging her status as an Indian wife. She conceives the notion of untraditional gender-roles that were previously forbidden to her. “Those magazines encourage women to talk over their problems, to share their disappointments, to experiment with hair colour, sexual positions, and pointedly meaningless one nightstands” (83). She and her friend Meena Melwani amuse themselves on the audacity of American publication: …Does Your husband know how to satisfy you? ( “First time I have heard ‘husband’ and satisfy in the same sentence,” giggled one of us) Are you his breakfast, his smack, the main course— or the dessert? (“Definitely his Alka-Seltzer!” we giggled again. These American magazines and American marriages were not geared to the lives we led.) Do women marry the best lovers they ever had? (“I think, unfortunately, we can all say yes”) (83). Apparently, the American magazines cater the need for the Western women but Indian women placed in a diasporic situation get themselves informed and inspired to challenge the traditionally assigned gender though, tacitly. Although, there is an emphatic claim of Tara that she “will never be a modern woman” in accordance with liberal ideas disseminated from the American magazines, she slowly starts acting out minor transgressions such as calling her husband by his first name or nicknames which lead to her major act of subversion, asking her husband for divorce: By twenty-two I had satisfied all my ancestral duties. I was married; I had a son, material comfort, an admired husband- what else is there? Eight years later, feeling myself privileged prisoner inside the gated community, I listened to all voices yammering around me and all the stories on television and in the magazines and did the right California thing and struck out my own (TB, 16). Katherine Miller rightly points out that the mobility generated by diaspora allows the women characters to move beyond the traditional boundaries of female identity. She says, “although, she claims that she is not a modern woman, Tara inhabits a world that her more traditional sisters criticize and reject” (N.pag.). Tara’s acceptance of Bish as her husband, even if there was no 148 choice for her, was purely based on her assumption that she would lead a more liberating life and would get an opportunity to travel around and expand her horizons as well but her dreams shattered. Reaching there she realizes that Bish has become more traditional and he seems to be interested in “showing off for his mother” that he has transformed her in a “well trained good cook attentive wife, daughter in-law and ideal mother” (DD, 82). Staying in America and getting influenced by the liberal feminist magazines, gives her an impetus to challenge the subservient gender roles that she is playing and emboldens her to ask Bish for a divorce. Divorce in the life of an Indian woman is always an unsettling event and it exposes her as vulnerable in a patriarchal society. Tara knows that “some men find divorced women extra attractive” and “[t]he divorced Indian lady combines every fantasy about the liberated, wicked Western woman with the safety net of basic submissive familiarity” (188). Her knowledge seems to be masked with her desire of availing herself an opportunity to lead a life of liberty. It is so because she is exposed to different forms of gender relations and experiences a certain freedom in that geographical and social space that she feels that she has the option of asking for a divorce. By seeking divorce she confirms that she is open to a more suitable relation which would be based on a concept of love and it has more to do with feeling and freedom rather than duty and tradition. After her divorce Tara experiences a different paradigm of love relationship that she had never thought of. She gets the opportunity of freely dating with men which was unthinkable as dating was something out of question for girls of her caste and class back in India. Tara in a rehearsed conversation with her eldest sister, Padma reveals the several relationships she has after her divorce: I may be alone right now, this week, but these past three nights are the first I’ve been without a man or the attention of many men, most of it unwanted, in seventeen years! You thought my world ended when I left Bish? You think I’m so unattractive, so uncomplicated, and so unadventurous that I’ve been sitting at home alone for five years just raising a son? I never told you about Andy, or Pramod or Mahesh or Donald—but could you have not guessed? (184). Her assertion exudes her new found confidence in her persona as she breaks the codes and laws which she as a Brahmin, Hindu girl had to follow. She does not only destabilize the role of a wife by 149 divorcing her husband but also enact cultural transgression by dating with many of her boyfriends who were not Indians. Although she mentions several former boyfriends, it is her affair with Andy, “her balding, red bearded, former biker, former bad boy, Hungarian Buddhist contractor/yoga instructor” which is described in detail in her narration (25). Her childhood impression of love which is associated with duty and obedience is experimented upon in her relationship with Andy. She becomes aware of the differences between her lover and husband so far as their understanding of love is concerned. She discovers that for Andy “love is having fun with someone, more fun with that person than with anyone else, over a longer haul” in contrast with Bish’s concept, in which “love is the residue of providing for parents and family, contributing to good causes and community charities, earning professional respect, and being recognized for hard work and honesty” (27). Tara’s divorce and her subsequent relations with men further destabilize her position as a traditional mother. She has trouble raising her only son, Rabi in accordance with Brahmin traditional ways. Despite being pressed by her ex husband and family members, she fails to provide Rabi with conservative education and upbringing. Bish often complains of Rabi’s careless appearance and his slouching posture. To Bish Rabi is too dependent and fanciful. He is of the opinion that America makes their children “soft in the brain as well as in body”. Whereas Bish wants that his son should go to a conservative British school, Tara does not force Rabi to go to a conservative Atherton school; instead she sends him in a more liberal school in which he can develop his artistic flairs. The conflict between mother and son comes to fore when Rabi asks her why she hates her sisters. Tara considers this question uncalled for and feels like slapping him: “Shit!” I scream, and that gets his attention. Is it a parent-child thing I never went through, a teenager, single-mom scenario. I never thought I’d have to live through, or something every immigrant goes through, so much we went to communicate, so much that they don’t want to hear? So much we can’t let go of. Shit, shit, Shit! (40). Generally, the conflict between mother and son is seen as a matter of generation gap but in Tara and Rabi’s case it foregrounds the cultural conflict as well. However, Tara assumes the role of an understanding mother when Rabi reveals his altered sexual 150 orientation that he is a gay. She reacts on it without prejudice which is again a serious challenge to the role of a traditional mother. Owing to her exposure to the liberal ideas of feminist discourse, she is able to unlearn the conservative gender roles that she was subjected to while staying in India. Tara’s case of assimilation into American culture is not a simple process as it appears to be. She is undoubtedly a transgressor if seen in the light of traditional gender roles assigned to women in countries like India but each of her acts of transgression creates a rift in her personality and at times leaves her confused over her own position. She often feels guilty when she puts her acts of subversions in her Brahminical, Hindu girl perspectives. For instance, after her divorce with Bish and ensuing love affair with her Hungarian lover, Andy, she feels ashamed of herself, “ [i]ts one of those San Francisco things I can’t begin to explain in India” (25- 26). She keeps it concealed from her parents in India. However, she is bold enough to face the criticism of her sisters. Khandelwal’s remark upon the relationship between Indian culture and sexuality can be useful to understand the conflict which is building up in Tara’s mind as she suggests such a relationship is based upon the desire to retain cultural values: Indians’ widespread belief that sexual freedom was a hallmark of American society placed them on guard with Americans, as it did with their own U.S.—reared children, particularly their daughters. Their fear and disapproval of sexual openness extended to progressive Indians who supported equality between men and women or the right to proclaim a gay or lesbian sexual identity. For most Indian immigrants this was not an issue of an individual’s democratic rights but an essential departure from ‘Indian’ value (138). Tara’s reunion with her husband, getting back to wifely duty and paying a visit to her parents after the bombing incident is a manifestation of her desire to strike chords with her roots though, reluctantly. The guilt consciousness is expressed in her following musing: I have crossed the Black Waters and my tradition, at least, I have lost my caste. I have mingled with casteless, I have eaten and grown fond of red and white meats. I’ve divorced, I’ve had lovers, and I’ve been drunk on some occasion. I’d be a little reluctant to join any club where a rigid Brahmin like Jai Krishna Gangooly sets the standards (TB, 284). 151 Stressed with the dichotomy of the situation she gives in to her project of root-search to alleviate her divided selves. Padma’s defiance of gender relation is also significant to plot of the novel around which story gets shaped. Her having a premarital affair with a Christian boy, Ronald Dey in her adolescent days is an act that radical subversion of both the patriarchal codes and cultural laws. Further, as it is alleged in the letter of Ronald Dey that their affair has manifested in the form of conceiving and giving birth of a son, Christopher, out of wedlock, is something which ‘was unthinkable” for an elite girl of her caste, class and status (DD, 32). Not only this, giving a son for adoption after his birth is again unnatural to a Bengali mother. Tara’s disgust comes out when the secret is unfolded before her—“How can a mother deny her son? It’s unnatural, especially a Bengali mother, whose possessiveness makes all Jewish and Italian mothers of books and movies as remote and bloodless as English mothers packing their children off to boarding school” (39). Padma’s transgressions are not limited to India, rather it continues in America as well. She marries Harish Mehta, an old widower with grown up children in America which can also be seen as an act in which she defies the notion of her obedient self which has been instructed through the patriarchal code because Harish does not share her caste and region and is not chosen by her parents. Tara acknowledges, “We’ve been practicing communal incest for five thousand years. Except for my oldest sister, who married a Punjabi, no relative of mine or Bish’s has ever married outside our caste and community” (TB, 10). As a wife she unsettles the image of a traditional wife. In Tara’s narrative it is Padma who has been shown as the earning member in her family. Her occupation as referred to by Tara is that of an actress who performs for local schools and community channel catering vicissitudes of American life from an Indian perspective. Padma materializes her childhood aspiration “to get an ambition to be, somehow, a performer, to act or to dance” (DD, 29) which was denied to her in India as she was forced by [her] father to turn down movie offers” (22). On the other hand Harish has been depicted as one who leads an unsuccessful life and often stays at home: Harish lived in Didi’s shadow, and he lived in the moment, and in this particular place and time, Didi was a television star. Her radiance helped him wipe out his past, her past, India, his former marriage, his children in Texas and California, and his multiple failures, and venture capitalist (183). 152 Though it is evident that Padma disrupts the traditional role of a daughter, mother and wife, she is an Indian celebrity in New York who represents the so called elite class’ Indian ways of life. She is an icon among the Bengalis of the Tristate area. Unlike Tara, she has conditioned her mind so well that it never appears to be at sea in fashioning her life with her choices. She keeps both of her selves equally poised. She very confidently downplays her act of assuming the role of a bread winner, “Harish was lucky, she said… Harish was so lucky, she repeated, louder than before.” How many Indian families do you know, Tara, where the wife goes out to work and the husband stays at home?” (182). Apparently, there is no conflict seen in the case of Padma as she at will negotiates with her roles whether to be disruptive or to go by traditional gender roles. At times she becomes a traditional sister in chastising Tara for her divorce with Bish and on other occasions, she assumes to be unconventional sister, for instance, she does not offer her house for Tara to stay when she visits New York. Tara observes, “The idea that I should have a sister within a hundred miles of the city and be forced to stay in a hotel is unimaginable in our culture, but somehow I’ve never found it bizarre” (94). Her position enables her to escape the traditionally assigned roles to a woman as a daughter, sister, wife and mother without any regret and makes her possible claim to be more at home with her choices than Tara. Parvati, the second elder sister of Tara is the least transgressive character among the three sisters. She does move to America to study like Tara and Padma, but her experience in America is short lived as she makes her early exits from there and returns home owing to her growing homesickness. Her immigration experience, thus, involves only temporary permanence. Interestingly, it is during her short trip to the United States that Parvati is able to commit the only transgression in gender terms that is to choose her husband, Auro and marrying him for love. Apart from this, she is depicted to have assumed the traditional roles prescribed for Indian women of her social class and cultural background. On the basis of our foregoing analysis of the novel it can be argued that the characters like Tara, and Padma do not overtly disrupt the traditional gender roles and relations that they were indoctrinated in India through different mechanisms such as education, family, caste, class and tradition nor do they simply assimilate to the liberal feminist discourse of the west. Their attitudes show the adjustments they make to alter perspectives of both the 153 United States and India so that they can fit their new necessities borne out of her varied experiences. Thus Madhulika Khandelwal is right in her assessment: The lives of these Indian immigrant women…were not monochromatic stories of bewildered traditional women adrift in the United States. Neither were their experiences simple linear transitions from Indian to modern Western society. Indian women’s experiences and viewpoints varied widely, running along class and generational lines. Significantly, few women were inclined to reject wholesale their cultural traditions for American social patterns and values. Instead, the sense prevailed that they faced the challenge of redefining their traditions and roles in the migration context. (Khandelwal: 124) References Carb, Alison. B., “An Interview with Bharati Mukherjee” in Conversation with Bharati Mukherjee, Bradley C. Edwards (ed.) Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2009. Print. Fleski, Rita, Beyond Feminist Aesthetics: Feminist Literature and Social Change, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1989. Print Khandelwal, Madhulika S., Becoming American, Being Indian : An Immigrant Community in New York City, New York: Cornell University Press, 2002. Print. Martin, Biddy, and Chandra Talpade Mohanty. “Feminist Politics: What’s Home Got to Do with It?” in Feminist Studies/Critical Studies (ed.) Teresa de Lauretis, Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1986. Print. Mukherjee, Bharati, Desirable Daughters, New Delhi: Rupa Publication, 2003. Print. —, The Tree Bride, New York: Harper Collins, 2004. Print. Miller, Katherine, “Mobility and Identity Construction in Bharati Mukherjee’s Desirable Daughters , The Tree Wife and Her Rootless Namesake, Studies in Canadian Literature/Études en littérature canadienne, 29.1 (2004). Web. 21 Nov. 2012. Weich, Dave, (Interview) “Bharati Mukherjee Runs the West Coast Offense, Web. 10 Oct. 2007. 154 191919 Ingrained Spirituality in Femininity: A Study of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions Dr. Bir Singh Yadav Contemporary women’s writings with their focus on feminism do have a powerful undercurrent of spirituality replete with deep ecological urge which is a boon for the peaceful coexistence as well as for the better, bright and happy survival of mankind on this planet. The ingrained spiritual sensitivity in women, which is in sharp contrast to a stark streak of egoistic domination rooted in male nature expressed through ‘bull charge’ and cruelty, conclusively gives inkling to the point that the ‘daughter of man’ and ‘Mother of mankind’ has more genuine and noble spiritual instincts than her male counterpart, ‘the son of God’. The male stands for all kinds of destruction and female for all creation as Fiona Tolan in her essay on “Feminisms”, commenting on the book of the American feminist theologian Mary Daly in connection with Ecology, asserts that “women had a natural tendency towards pacifism and nurture that enabled them to live in harmony with the environment, unlike men, who compete with nature, struggling to dominate the environment as they dominate women.”(Waugh, 325) Agreeing with Simone de Beauvoir that eco-feminism is the outcome of the peace movements of the 1960’s on account of womens involvement in anti-war and anti-nuclear protests, she also argues that “all kinds of violence—from rape to war to deforestation— were connected expressions of male colonial aggression” (Waugh, 325). Contrary to man , woman has a noble and spiritual instinct of self-sacrifice for love and peace as Henrik Ibsen in A Doll’s House making it clear through Torvold and Nora writes: “Torvold: No man would sacrifice his honour for the one he loves./ Nora: Thousands of women have” ( Ibsen, Act 3: 230). Divakaruni’s The Palace of Illusions, fundamentally designed to disrupt patriarchy in the light of feminist move, exhibits the potently ingrained seeds of spirituality always striving for sprouting offshoots of peace, progress and prosperity in the world with harmonious coexistence of the human and non-human communities as a whole. Woman, with her creative and spiritual instincts, is an unasked for divine gift to this world to give a righteous shape to the world’s history as Divakaruni, at the time of Draupadi’s birth, highlights it through the prophetic voices saying, “Behold, we give you this gift, 155 a gift beyond what you asked for. Take good care of her, for she will change the course of history” (4-5) whereas the patriarchal world takes her as the bone of contention and the root cause of all evils as Draupadi’s tutor’s thinks that “women were the root of all the world’s troubles” (24). Moreover, when her tutor tells that “A kshatriya woman’s highest purpose in life is to support the warriors” and “Instead of praying for their safe return, she must pray that they die with glory on the battlefield” (26); it is Draupadi who as a typical representative of womankind with ingrained spirituality articulates: I promised myself I’d never pray for their deaths. I’d teach them, instead to be survivors. And why was a battle necessary at all? Surely there were other ways to glory, even for men? I’d teach them to search for them (26). Therefore, as Patrocinio P. Schweickart in the essay “Reading Ourselves: Towards a feminist theory of reading” asserts that “Feminist criticism, we should remember, is a mode of praxis. The point is not merely to interpret literature in various ways; the point is to change the world” ( Lodge and Wood, 446). Divakaruni, through the character of Draupadi in Mahabharata, reshapes the whole story with her creative imagination as she thinks that “At the best of times, a story is a slippery thing” because it is cobbled “together from rumors and lies”(15) and it changes with each telling , “for a story gains power with retelling” (20). Krishna, the omniscient whom Draupadi believes in and takes his words for truth, has been used as a potent critical tool connecting the past, present and future, gives a beginning to the spiritual sprouting by stating that “We all have past lives. Highly evolved beings remember them, while lesser souls forget” and “We are nothing but pawns in Time’s hands!” (49, 88). Moreover, when Draupadi asks him of the kind of palace she wants to have, his curt reply, breaking her illusion of materialistic world, takes her to spiritual thinking as he tells her that “Already you live within a nine-gated palace, the most wondrous structure of all. Understand it well: it will be your salvation or your downfall” (113). Spirituality and science, to some extent, moves together in the world as science, being an empirical form of the spiritual knowledge, is a helping hand to spirituality. Science is confined to material world and can improve or change it up to a remarkable degree, but to wish for the grandeur of eternal nature by transcending the physical boundaries is beyond its power. Draupadi’s desire for a 156 palace with a stream “ with lotuses blooming all year,” “fire without fuel”, “towers that brushed the sun” are impossibilities which find their fulfilment in the illusive role of Maya who assures that “I do it” and even “I give you more” but this deceptive and tempting nature of the illusive world is comprehensible only to some people of great wisdom : “Only wise people see through Maya’s truth. But few so wise!....How great Maya, maker of palace!”(145) and this nature of life and the world which is the creation of Maya is called the Palace of Illusions, therefore, Krishna rightly asserts that “Maya is right. Everyone who sees this palace will want it for himself” (147). But he issues a strict warning in frowning mood: “Don’t be so attached to what is, after all, no more than stone and metal and asura sleight of hand. All things in this world change and pass away—some after many years, some overnight. Appreciate the Palace of Illusions, by all means. But if you identify so deeply with it, you set yourself up for sorrow.” And Draupadi draws conclusion from his words by stating that: Maya had promised us that no human would be able to harm our palace, no natural disaster lay it low. No one could wrest it from us. As long as we—or our descendents—lived in it, it was indestructible, and in turn, it would protect us (149). Taking an interior journey with psychological insight, Draupadi, realizing the true nature of the palace which is the creation of our inner magnetic desires, articulates that “We’d poured our hearts into designing this palace. It was an embodiment of our most intimate desires, our secret wishes. It was us” and wondering on the external attraction created by Maya she imagines, “had Maya laid a spell not upon the palace foundations but on us, so that the beauties we doted on had no existence out side of our own longing?” (169). Krishna’s idealistic spiritual vision is coupled with a pragmatic approach to cleanse this world from corruption as he suggests to Yudhisthir on the occasion of the Rajasuya that when the country is filled with corruption, a shaking up is essentially needed and a carefully controlled bloodletting can prevent a great carnage. His disc-chakra with serrated edges in his right hand is symbolic of the destruction of evil when it crosses all the limits as he used it in killing Sishupal. He also shows how the divine power feels obliged and pays in abundance for the petty human contribution to divine 157 will in eliminating evil from the world. When Draupadi tears a strip from her sari to bandage the wounded index finger of his right hand, how elated he feels and offers her endless mysterious sari at the critical juncture when the bounds of decency were being shattered by Dussasana. Eating from the cooking pot, offered by the sage Vyasa, a grain of rice, he gives the message of deep ecology by saying, “May all beings in the world be as satisfied as I am” (202). He also humiliates Bheema, Arjuna and even Draupadi for their personal feelings of hatred and vengeance as they have no place in the spiritually designed universe. Vyasa, in a smiling voice, also imparts a spiritual message by preaching that: “The life that you’re living today is only a bubble in the cosmic stream, shaped by the karma of other lifetimes. The one who is your husband in this birth was perhaps your enemy in the last and he whom you hate may have been your beloved Why weep for any of them, then?” (253). Vyasa also advises to see things with the ‘third eye’ and Krishna highlighting the spiritual nature of life also teaches that “Just as we cast off worn clothes and wear new ones , when the time arrives , the soul casts off the body and finds a new one to work out its karma. Therefore the wise grieve neither for the living nor the dead” and our spiritual self is such that “Weapons cannot harm it; fire cannot burn it; it is eternal, still and blissful” (258, 263). The same message is imparted by The Gita: Nainam chindanti sastrani nainam dahati pavakah Na chainam lkedayonty apo na sosayati marutah (Prabhupada, 2: 23). ( No weapon can cut soul into pieces, nor fire can burn it; nor it can be moistened by water, nor wind can wither or dry it.) Human psyche becomes perturbed with the breach of spiritual spontaneity and strives to regain it through repentance. When Draupadi realizes that her personal feelings of pride and vengeance are responsible for blood shedding, a deep sense of guilt and remorse starts from her unconscious as she finds herself in Lady Macbeth like condition about whom the doctor in Macbeth states that “Unnatural deeds/Do breed unnatural troubles; infected minds/ To their pillow will discharge their secrets;/More needs she the divine than the physician”( Shakespeare, Act V, Sc.1: 68-71) and further he asserts that “As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies,/that keep her from her rest” (Act V. Sc.III: 37-38). Draupadi 158 also narrates that “The girl told me later that I often wept or laughed, scaring her. Sometimes I chanted in an unknown language. I have no recollection of this. But for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t forget the images that came to me—those that I would try to find words for later, and those that were so terrible that I left them locked inside me” (260). Ambitious Duryodhana, like Macbeth, realizing his folly also recognizes this tragic waste at the fag end of his life when he tells the messenger giving a jewel from his headdress “Give this to Bhanumati. Tell her I’ll come as soon as I can” (261). Yudhisthir, as a true penitent with pale and drawn face, realizes that so many thousands have died in the war for his sake whereas Draupadi repeats the words of Krishna to other women: The pleasures that arise from sense objects are bound to end, and thus they are only sources of pain. Don’t get attached to them. And: when a man reaches a state where honour or dishonour are alike to him, then he is considered supreme. Strive to gain such a state (263). She deduces the conclusion from Krishna’s words that “Wisdom that isn’t distilled in our own crucible can’t help us”; and Krishna’s reply to Arjuna’s query, why man finds himself driven to wrong doings in spite of good intentions, that “Because of anger and desire, our two direst enemies” (264) is eye opener like Buddha’s sermons. Stressing on the philosophy of karma , Krishna tells to Bheeshma “O Vasu, by your own act you bound yourself. Therefore you alone can set yourself free’ (270). But Shakespearean message conveyed in The Merchant of Venice by Portia that “To do a great right, do a little wrong”(Act IV, Sc.1: 212) has also been encapsulated by Divakaruni in the words that ‘ a lesser evil to be endured for the sake of an ultimate good” (272). Moreover, Bheeshma, Arjuna, Bheema, Karna, Draupad, Drona and Draupadi all are the sufferer of their terrible vows which they consider their strength but Krishna makes each of them realize that such vows are insignificant and even harmful for spirituality as they come in the way of protection of dharma. Bheeshma does admit it by realizing that “How many times since then have I wished I hadn’t made that rash vow! But you know me. Once I make a promise I can’t break it. Call it my strength—or my weakness”(273). Draupadi also senses the futility of reckless vow and pride as thinking about Bheeshma and Karna she remarks “How a promise—made to another or to 159 oneself—could paralyze a life! How pride had kept them from admitting their mistakes—and thus from the happiness that might have been theirs”.(279) She also repents for her own lethal vow of vengeance that led Pandavas and Kauravas to enemity. She also takes anger and vengeance as something paving a way to hell as she envisions everyone caught in the web in the night sky. When she thinks of escaping from this web, in her meditative practices compassion appears as a revelatory way but simultaneously she concludes that “No revelation can endure unless it is bolstered by a calm, pure mind—and I’m afraid I didn’t possess that.”(282) Thinking how the subversive power of war turns a good man into a butcher, she also concentrates on Krishna’s pragmatic and situational ethics that he justifies in favor of ultimate good. When Duryodhan curses Krishna for suggesting the use of unfair trick, Krishna, pointing out to the ultimate power of justice in the universe, smilingly says that “I take care of my own—in whatever way possible. The moment when Panchaali gave up struggling with Dussasan and called on me to save her, in that moment your death warrant was signed. If there’s sin in what I did, I’ll gladly shoulder it for her sake.”(302-303) Therefore, in the spiritual system of thinking ,we see how an idealistic vision of ultimate justice is attained through pragmatic approach. No doubt, science has blessed us with god-like powers but on account of lack of compassion that sprouts from spirituality and due to the overpowering of anger, hatred, arrogance and vengeance, when this knowledge is conceived with malicious or sinister design devoid of compassion; and consequently used in an unrighteous way for destructive purposes against dharma, it fails leaving the user in the lurch as it happens with Karna who remembers these words of brahmin’s curse at the fatal juncture: “You will die when you are helpless” and his teacher’s words that “ Your knowledge will fail when you need it the most.”(296,297)Science without spirituality results into destruction converting the holy land into the waste land as Draupadi describes it: So the last battle took place at Samantapanchaka, a place once considered holy but now laid waste by war. Around my husbands the land stretched sick and discolored, great, gaping holes torn into its side by the blasts of astras. The few remaining trees were leafless skeletons. There was no sign of the many birds and beasts that had roamed here peacefully just a few weeks ago. Only vultures sat on dead branches, waiting in 160 eerie silence, this was what we had done to our earth (300). It is a scene of catastrophic destruction as Rachel Carson, touching deep ecology, presents in Silent Spring stating that “Some evil spell had settled on the community; mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was a shadow of death” (Carson, 21). One who sows vengeance must reap its bloody fruit as the chariot of vengeance “requires no horses or wheels” but automatically goes on rolling. Aswathama’s use of Brahmaseershastra with the command, “May the earth be rid of the seed of the Pandavas” (307), though Arjuna countered it by launching his own astra, strikes the peak of the misuse of science and technology for inhuman and destructive purposes without spiritual foundation. Therefore, a harmonious relationship must be maintained between science and spirituality as Albert Einstein observes that “I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame and religion without science is blind” (Einstein, 46). Taking it from ecocritical point of view, we see little hope for the earth, therefore, it is right what Pramod K. Nayar remarks “technology is bad, nature is good, humans are bad, animals are good” (Nayar, 248). Finally, it is Draupadi, symbolizing purified self with spirituality and creativity in the form of mother nature, intervenes to save the world as she describes: I stepped out between the flames and raised my hands. By the power of my penances, for a moment the astras were rendered immobile. I chided the two warriors for forgetting themselves and their responsibilities towards the earth goddess. I demanded that they recall their weapons (307). Arjuna did so but Aswathama, the tainted one (science without spirituality) in spite of pulling back his astra, aimed at the unborn child in Uttara’s womb wherein, Pariksit,the only hope of Pandava (a symbol of future generation) was dreaming. On Krishna’s advice, Bheema plucked out “Aswathama’s most precious possession, a fabled jewel that had been set in his forehead in the golden days of his life by the gods” symbolizing the inherent creative power of science. Draupadi delightfully thought of placing this unique object in the Palace of Illusions, but since it had lost its spiritual luster hence “it held no more meaning than a lump of clay”(308) whose shiny facets were reflecting the throes of death of her loved ones, therefore, when Draupadi gave it to Yudhisthir, he did not wear it 161 in his crown. This power game which is going on almost everywhere in the world and if it is won by blood shedding, exercising the destructive power of science, it won’t provide solace as Divakaruni, using Duryodhan as psychological tool at the time of his demise, externalizes the inner conflict going on in Yudhisthir’s soul when the echoing sound comes to him from Duryodhan who, after taking final departure from this world, says to Yudhisthir: I’m going to heaven to enjoy all its pleasures with my friends. You ‘ll rule a kingdom peopled with widows and orphans and wake each morning to the grief of loss. Who’ the real winner, then, and who the loser? (309). Repentance regenerates and strengthens spirituality. When widows and mothers from Hastinapur and Indraprastha come lamenting with sharp wordless cries to identify their dead and perform their final rites, Draupadi, filled with remorse, exclaims “What nature never required of bird or beast—for it is we humans that create such tragic duties for ourselves”(310-311). She confesses her guilt about the role she played in bringing about this war and begs their forgiveness. She assures them to take their sons as her own and weeps with them speaking as a mother among mothers. She also sees the dead body of her father with his eyes open in wishing to see the vengeance. Yudhisthir also feels paralyzed by guilt and compassion as he holds himself responsible for all widows and orphans. On being scolded by Krishna for the follies and sinful thinking, Dharitarashtra and Gandhari also weep with genuine regret. He also holds them responsible for the war and scolds her for not banishing her brother, Sakuni, who was an evil influence on Duryodhan. When Gandhari, taking Krishna as the mastermind behind the destruction of her sons, curses him by saying that “your own clan will destroy itself in the span of a single day”, Krishna, with his usual equanimity, smilingly says “All things must end some day. How can the house of the Yadus be an exception?” (316, 317). As Gandhari starts sobbing and requests Krishna to forgive her for the terrible curse which she wants to call back, Krishna, highlighting the spiritual law, consoles her by stating that Pandavas whom she takes as the destroyers of her sons “were merely the instruments of universal law” and “whatever you pronounced—even that was part of the law” (317). When the blind king insists on cremating his dead by himself, Krishna regenerates spiritual thinking with repentance in him highlighting his vicious discriminatory thinking by articulating: 162 “You call them mine, and you call the others theirs. For shame! Hasn’t this been the cause of your troubles ever since the fatherless sons of Pandu arrived at Hastinapur? If you’d seen them all as yours to love, this war would never have occurred” (317-318). Krishna takes Yudhisthir and Draupadi out of the morass of depression through his lesson of creative destruction reminding them their pious moral and spiritual duty that demands recreation after the destruction of the old undesirable structure. Draupadi with Uttra forms a separate court to listen sorrows and problems of women. Uttra, who was in the late months of an unwieldy pregnancy, peeping into the heart of the problem agrees with her highly perceptive remarks that “ Perhaps it was from these sessions that the unborn Pariksit, alert within his mother’s womb, learned his judicial clarity, so that in time he would be compared to Rama, the most impartial of kings” (323). She also shows her altruism replete with spirituality by donating her wedding jewelry for the women cause as she pleads that “I have no use for this anymore. Use it to help those who are more unfortunate than I” (324). Kunti also donates everything which were in her possession, consequently women start flourishing with the regeneration of moral and spiritual values even in this Fourth Age, i.e., Kali Yug as Divakaruni presents its reflection through Draupadi’s words: And even in the later years of Pariksit’s rein when the world had passed into the Fourth Age of Man and Kali the dark spirit had gripped the world in his claws, Hastinapur remained one of the few cities where women could go about their daily lives without harassment (325). Apart from women, Divakaruni also gives inkling towards the deplorable condition of the orphans and the destitute in the world as she reflects it through the color of her creative imagination when Kunti utters these words at the time of Pariksit’s birth when Uttra was in labour pain: “the sky wept because it knew how hard the world was to a fatherless child…the baby knew this ,too, and that is why it was reluctant to be born” (326). Education is the only tool that can give a right shape to the world through acquisition of knowledge and character formation, therefore, Draupadi’s husbands spend hours planning about Pariksit’s education, and Vyas also issues a warning note to her by saying; “Watch the boy’s temper. It’ll get him in trouble if he isn’t careful’ and “the boy’s temper might be his downfall” (327, 328). It is an indication to 163 shape the coming generation through education, moreover, the deviated course from the righteousness of the deportment may also lead the world to destruction as the Yadus having drunk a drugged wine went mad and turning on their own killed themselves—the situation viewed by Matthew Arnold in “Dover Beach” as he articulates “And we are here as on a darkling plain:/Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,/Where ignorant armies clash by night” (35-37). And Krishna, an embodiment of spirituality, who was killed in a copse by a hunter—all are the disturbing omens indicating that “the world order was falling apart” (337) with declining spiritual values. Here Divakaruni’s vision is identical to W.B. Yeats who reflects it in the poem “The Second Coming”: Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon can not hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world; The blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. (1-8) Disappearance of Krishna’s cosmic form from this land by the killing of a mere hunter and the devastation of the beautiful golden city of Dwarka by a tidal wave is symbolic of the waste land as T.S. Eliot describes it in the absence of spirituality. With this fall-apart, Arjuna, the great warrior and recipient of the great astras witnessing the crowning achievement of science and technology, couldn’t protect women when bandits fell upon them, and what to speak of shooting arrows to kill them even he couldn’t string his Gandiva as he himself describes: “ With the death of Krishna, my spirit—or whatever you ‘d call that which had made me great—had withered away. The bandits took the women and their gold—I couldn’t stop them. I who in my day have made an entire phalanx of warriors flee from a single arrow! The women cried, Save us, save us! I could do nothing. Truly, it’s time for me to die” (339). In the absence of dharma symbolized by Krishna, Arjuna’s strength gave way or without spirituality science cannot survive, and Yudhisthir’s purpose of dispensing justice was also over, therefore, realizing that their stay in the world would be 164 insignificant, he said to his brothers that ‘It is time for you—for all of us—to die’ (240). Draupadi’s illusion is broken with the realization of the mortal nature of things in this world and she thinks that in this mortal and illusive world one is not so important as one always assumes! And as she steps out to follow her husbands, a traitor wind reminds her the scent of parijat—”the old smell out of my garden in the Palace of Illusions—and with it a regret” (342) indicating that youth and beauty is not permanent, hence they are the illusions of our mind. Moreover, when she falls and none of her husbands turns back to support or to be with her, her illusion is broken as she realizes “the implacable law of this final journey” (343). Bheema wanted to turn back but Yudhisthir reminded him of the law, yet he (representing ignorance and attachment) was sobbing; therefore, observing this law, “she did not weep, but only raised her hand in brave farewell” (344). During this mahaprasthan, Yudhisthir asked her other husbands to lay down their weapons as they were a sign of ego which was a barrier in the path of spirituality and was sure to be broken at the final departure. Sahadev’s pride in learning, Nakul’s vanity for good looks, Arjun’s warrior ego and Bheema’s uncontrollable anger were the flaws for their fall. Draupadi, in the last moment of her life , realizes that like her every palace, her body—the final residing palace is also going to crumble as its different parts seem floating away. Concentrating on Krishna whom she finds her true friend and whose love is a balm in comparison to the earthly love, she thinks that how blind she has been not to recognize this precious gift in her life time. As the walls of the house crumble, she finds no body, no name, yet she is there forgetting everything of the mortal world and, in a dream-like state she sees her husbands, her brother and father with Bheeshma, Drona, Karna, Duryodhana and his brothers as well as countless others as the petals of one lotus in harmonious relation. On seeing it, she raises a query to Krishna by asking, “Is this real, or am I seeing things?” Krishna with a mock sigh says, “Skeptical to the last!” And further when she asks, “Am I dying?” He tells her that ‘You could also call it waking”. In response to her last question “Are you truly divine/” Krishna, breaking her illusion, tells her that “Yes, I am. You are, too, you know!” (359). Then, finding herself “beyond name and gender and the imprisoning patterns of ego” she witnesses the dawn of the ultimate reality as she articulates that “ Above us our palace waits, the only one I ‘have ever needed. Its walls are space, its floor is sky, its center everywhere. We rise; 165 the shapes cluster around us in welcome, dissolving and forming, and dissolving again like fireflies in a summer evening” (360). Thus the recognition of the identity of the self and the Divine Power of the universe ; and the relation between the two is the ultimate aim of human life which is possible only through spirituality that also keeps empirical knowledge of science within its fold for its better and fair understanding. References Arnold, Matthew, “Dover Beach”, Poetry of Matthew Arnold, London: O.U.P., 1997. Print. Carson, Rachel, Silent Spring, London: Penguin,1999. First published in 1962. Print. Einstein, Albert, “Science, Philosophy and Religion:A Symposium”, (1941) Ideas and Opinions, New Delhi: Rupa, 2009. Print. Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee, The Palace of Illusions, Replica Press, 2011. Print Ibsen, Henrik, A Doll’s House, Peter Watts (trans.) O.U.P., 1965. Nayar, Pramod K., Contemporary Literary and Cultural Theory, New Delhi: Dorling Kindersley, 2010. Print. Prabhupada, A.C., Bhaktivedanta Swami, Bhagavad-Gita: As It Is. Mumbai: The Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1986. Print. Schweickart, Patrocinio P. “Reading Ourselves : Towards a Feminist Theory of Reading”, Modern Criticism and Theory (eds.) David Lodge and Nigel Wood, New Delhi: Dorling Kindersley, 2010. pp. 442-63. Shakespeare, William, The Merchant of Venice. Macbeth. Shakespeare’s Complete Works (ed.) W.J. Craig. Bombay and Madras: O.U.P., 1983. Print. Tolan, Fiona, “Feminisms”, Literary Theory and Criticism (ed.) Patricia Waugh, London: O.U.P., 2009, pp. 317-39. Print. Yeats, W.B., “Dover Beach”, Poetry of W.B. Yeats, London: O.U.P., 1998. Print. 166 202020 “Immortality Ode”: William Wordsworth’s Insight Beyond Life Dr. Bir Singh Yadav “Ode on Intimation of Immortality” is the crowning achievement of William Wordsworth’s creative genius reflecting the apex power of romantic imagination crossing all cultural, religious and philosophical boundaries in the field of spirituality. Wordsworth, as a mature and perfect artist wearing the mask of a child with pure innocence recollecting and contemplating the divine glory of early childhood without any tinge of worldly materialism, peeps into those unfathomable mysteries which are beyond the temporal boundaries of the life we spend in this world and are still unintelligible to the empirical knowledge of the modern science.. Wordsworth’s poetry achieves the stage of sublimity from simplicity in which eternal infinite world of spiritual reality transcends the biological and temporal limitations, hence in his poetry everything is natural but apocalyptic as A.C. Bradley rightly observes that Wordsworth in his poetry “hungered for realities” (Bradley,196). This poem is the creative work of the highest kind containing an excellent blend of thought and feeling leading to the vision of truth— “the state of mind”, as Bertrand Russell thinks, “in which, after long labour, truth or beauty appears, or seems to appear in a sudden glory—it may be only about some small matter, or it may be about the universe” and further substantiating the point asserts that “the best creative work, in art, in science, in literature, and in philosophy, has been the result of such a moment” (Russell, 124). Highlighting the spiritual character of the poem, Bradley also states that the gist of the Ode may be described as “an intimation or assurance within us that some part of our nature is imperishable”. Through the motto “The Child is the father of the Man” taken from the poem “My Heart Leaps Up”, which has been prefixed as an epigram to the Ode, Wordsworth expresses his faith in the immortality of the soul and the after life. Observing this fact in Wordsworth’s poetry, R.D. Haven rightly suggests that “his chief concern is the progress of human soul rather than emotional or physical conflict” (Haven, 16). The Ode may be called a mini Paradise Lost as Alec King remarks that “Wordsworth’s poem is, of course, also a Paradise Lost; and it starts, unlike Milton’s work, with man bereft, bewildered by his loss” (King, 98). The “Intimations of Immortality”, as Alec King further remarks, “begins with our first experience of the timeless 167 world” (King, 99). C.M. Bowra commenting on the well-knit design and sublime theme of the poem rightly asserts: The poem is built on a simple but majestic plan. The first four stanzas tell of a spiritual crisis, of a glory passing from the earth, and end by asking why this has happened. The middle stanzas (v-viii) examine the nature of this glory and explain it by a theory of reminiscence from a pre-natal existence. Then the last three stanzas show that, though the vision has perished, life has still a meaning and a value. The three parts of the Ode deal in turn with a crisis, an explanation, and a consolation, and in all three Wordsworth speaks of what is most important and most original in his poetry (Bowra, 76). What Wordsworth has lost is variously called ‘celestial light’, ‘visionary gleam’, ‘the glory and the freshness of a dream’. In four stanzas of the first part of the poem he repeatedly speaks about: The things which I have seen I now can see no more. (Stanza 1, 9) That there hath past away, a glory from the earth.(Stanza II, 18) Whether is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream.? (Stanza IV, 57-58) With the passing of the childhood, Wordsworth realizes that he has lost something very special which was so clearly visible to him in the world of nature when he was a child. All natural objects, familiar scenes, trees, fields, birds, beasts, hills, rivers and flowers were pregnant with celestial meaning reflecting the divine design to his innocent and pure soul in childhood. S.T. Coleridge also faces the same crisis when he finds something of the greatest importance missing as he articulates in “Dejection”: “But oft I seem to feel and evermore I fear/They are not to me now the Things which once they were.” But as Bowra observes that “ There was in Wordsworth something tough and bellicose which Coleridge lacked” ( Bowra, 87). Being made of sterner stuff as well as endowed with the divine power of imagination, Wordsworth with his visionary outlook, in spite of lamenting, found a new philosophical richness in life to compensate the loss of the missing glory of the early childhood as Bowra suggests that “Nature might fail him in one way but it still supported him in another, and he was more than content with that” (Bowra, 83). With the help of his divine power of imagination, he transports himself into a more real world than that of the senses, a world not of sight but of vision wherein “he felt that he had passed outside time into eternity” (Bowra, 94) 168 Through his meditative practices from recollection of early childhood, he was convinced of the pre-natal existence of the soul. His holistic reflection on the world of nature made him realize the existence of the spiritual self within and the Divine power in the universe. This theory of recollection has its origin from Plato but Wordsworth, taking the idea of pre-existence from Coleridge, and from Henry Vaughan the concept of a slow decline in celestial powers as pure and innocent soul passes out from childhood, propounds his own original theory which he projects in these lines: Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life ‘s star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison- house begin to close Upon the growing Boy, But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees in his joys; The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature’s Priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day. (V) Wordsworth, in this stanza, has not only revealed the mysteries of birth, life, death and rebirth but also highlights the relationship between body and soul as well as the nature of a priori knowledge. Birth and death are the two aspects of the same coin inextricably connected to each other as birth comes out with the sleep of the previous life; and with rebirth we forget everything about our past life. “Death, says Socrates, is the separation of soul and body” which is “Plato’s dualism between reality and appearance, ideas and 169 sensible objects, reason and sense perception, soul and body. These parts are connected: the first in each part is superior to the second both in reality and goodness” and further believing in the principle that everything is generated from its opposite, according to which he asserts that “death must generate life just as much as life generates death”(Russell, 134, 139). Immanuel Kant in The Critique of Pure Reason and in The critique of Practical Reason, concentrating on the idea of moral law and justice, also believes that “there is a God and future life” (Russell, 644). Moreover, he is close to the philosophy ofThe Gita that, highlighting the relationship between the soul and body, gives confirmation to the immortality of the soul by articulating: Vasrnsi jiranani yatha vihaya navani grahnati naro parani Yatha sarirani vihaya jirnanynyani samyati navani dehi (1:22) Nainam chindanti sastrani nainam dahati pavakah Na chainam kledayanty apo na sosayati marutah (1:23) “Wordsworth also has Platonic notion at the back of his mind believing that when body sleeps, soul awakes and when body awakes, soul sleeps. In the state of meditation, he also finds himself in the same condition for a while as in “Tintern Abbey” he articulates that “…we are laid asleep/In body, and become a living soul” (24- 25). Our soul, which is our life’s star, after its setting some where, taking a new body starts a fresh life. During life time, it is always with the body but remains invisible. Wordsworth has presented it in metaphorical language by comparing soul to a star. Just as during the day, which is equivalent to our life time, a star remains invisible on account of the light of the sun but its existence in the sky can not be denied, similarly soul’s existence in body during life can not be denied though it remains invisible. When it descends into body from some afar and unknown place with the perished or forgotten worldly knowledge of the previous life, it does not come in ‘entire forgetfulness’ but it brings the imperishable a priori knowledge of spiritual nature in the form of innate ideas as ‘clouds of glory’ from God who is its real home, as Plato opines, “that knowledge is recollection, and therefore the soul must have existed before birth” (Russell, 137). It takes bodily garment, therefore, cannot be in ‘utter nakedness’ because without body she can not perform her dance as W.B. Yeats in the concluding line of the poem “Among School Children” argues by asserting “How can we know the dancer from the dance?” Plato’s Theory of Immortality, as Russell quotes, makes it clear that pure knowledge in a priori form is always with the 170 soul: It has been proved to us by experience that if we would have true knowledge of anything we must be quit of the body—the soul in herself must behold things in themselves: and then we shall attain the wisdom which we desire, and of which we say we are lovers; not while we live, but after death; for if while in company with the body the soul can not have pure knowledge, knowledge must be attained after death, if at all. And thus having got rid of the foolishness of the body we shall be pure and have converse with the pure, and know of ourselves the clear light everywhere, which is no other than the light of truth. For the impure are not permitted to approach the pure…. And what is purification but the separation of the soul from the body? …And this separation and release of soul from the body is termed death…. And the true philosophers, and they only, are ever seeing to release the soul (qtd. in Russell,136). Russell’s quote from Socrates further explicitly explains: The soul, when using the body as an instrument of perception, that is to say when using the sense of sight or hearing or some other sense (for the meaning of perceiving through the body is perceiving through the sense) …is then dragged by the body into the region of the changeable, and wanders and is confused; the world spins round her, and she is like a drunkard, when she touches change…. But when returning into herself she reflects, then she passes into the other world, the region of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives, when she is by herself, and she is not let or hindered; then she ceases from her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is unchanging. And this state of the soul is called wisdom (qtd. in Russell, 139). Wordsworth clearly projects soul in its four different stages— firstly, with God in its real home before coming into this world; secondly, as an infant or a new born babe of a few days even smiling in sleep in dumbness still concentrating on God from where it has come; thirdly, as a child after tasting some salt of worldly materialism but at times getting reflection of the self and the divine power in the world of nature; fourthly, as a youth or full grown man completely absorbed in materialistic world with no glimpses of divinity in nature. 171 In its first stage, before coming into human form in this world, soul enjoys bliss with the Ultimate Spiritual Power in its simplest elemental form which the recent discovery of the modern science calls God Particle. When born as an infant in this world, at the second stage, after having lost its original home it still sees the glory of its native place in its infantile sleep smilingly; and this stage continues as long as it does not taste the salt of materialism and knows no language of this world—by that time as Wordsworth says “Heaven lies about us in our infancy!” As a child at the third stage when the dark shadow of materialism shows its impact ‘upon the growing boy’ the direct visible communion with God is broken but still at times with childlike innocence away from the world of materialism reflecting upon the world of nature, he recollects the divine message and glory from there. At the fourth stage as the youth goes on drifting away from the ‘East’ or the soul goes away from God , a person eventually becomes a full grown Man grossly involved into the worldly affairs of materialism—a worldly wise person but spiritually blind, he finds this glory “die away/And fading into the light of common day.” Still he is ‘Nature’s Priest’ at this stage but his admiration is only for the physical beauty of the nature without spiritual insight which is a deviation from the ultimate goal of life. Wordsworth is an ‘original poet’ who “saw new things, or he saw things in a new way” (Bradley, 100). Besides being an idealist, he is also aware of the fact that growth in age is an inevitably natural process in this material world, therefore, presenting an excellent blend of pragmatic and idealistic vision full of optimism he takes us cheerfully to our ultimately desired goal of life. With the growth of the age, he stresses on the holistic growth of the mind through its wedding to nature because in his epistemological system the flow of knowledge comes out of the intercourse between the perceiving mind and the perceived object. He regards mind and nature as the two aspect of the same Divine Reality—mind is in thinking form and nature is in extended form attracting the mind for aesthetic contemplation, hence mind is active and energetic like the lover whereas nature has the wise passivity of a beloved which is essential for successful intercourse resulting into the offspring of knowledge. Moreover, nature with her natural kindness has ‘a Mother’s mind’ who, like homely nurse, looks after man (soul) who has come from heavenly abode. Her purpose is “To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man” (VI) and being a good nurse with no unworthy mind 172 she reminds her foster child “the glories he hath known/And that imperial palace whence he came” (VI). Wordsworth also explains how gradually a child with materialistic attachment shapes himself “with newly-learned art” passing through “A wedding or a festival/A mourning or a funeral” (VII) and ignoring the divine message embedded in nature he concentrates on “business, love or strife” (VII), consequently experiences ‘new joy and pride’ in his imitation of this material world that has its history ‘down to palsied Age’ In this way by abandoning spirituality and playing pure materialistic role, he turns manhood into a ‘humorous stage’ reflecting “As if his whole vocation/Were endless imitation” (VII). The innate divinity of a child is narrowed and shadowed with the growth in age; therefore, Wordsworth glorifies the child for his/her visionary power because “In children he sees this creative power in its purest form” (Bowra, 98). The external innocent appearance of a child with its dumbness and silence does hide ‘Soul’s immensity’ reflecting eternal truth, therefore, Wordsworth calls a child “Best philosopher”, “Eye among the blind’, “Mighty Prophet” and “Seer blest” who sees those great truth of life which remain obscure to the great learned men who devote their entire life time in contemplating them. A child constantly remains under the close watch of the divine power; and being ‘glorious in the might’ enjoys the heaven-born freedom which is above all, the customs, conventions, ritual and traditions of this shadowy world. But as he grows in years he, with blind strife, invites the inevitable yoke of worldly affairs that puts an end of his blessedness creating a thick layer of materialism on the pious soul, thereby he is burdened with the customs of this cold world which becomes “Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!”(VIII). In this way, purity and innocence of childhood coupled with divine truth and happiness go on disappearing in natural process as a child moves towards the alluring burden of manhood in this world as Russell observes: To the empiricists, the body is what brings us into touch with the world of external reality, but to Plato it is doubly evil, as a distorting medium, causing us to see as through a glass darkly, and as a source of lusts which distort us from the pursuit of knowledge and the vision of truth (Russell, 136). Wordsworth, being a cheerful optimist imbibed with deep philosophy of life, does not become dejected and disappointed with the vanished glory of the past childhood because he knows that 173 though this blessed state of soul under the impact of growing materialism has almost become fainted, yet some ‘embers’ of that pure knowledge are still in the mind which can kindle the fire coming into the contact with nature because he believes “That nature yet remembers/What was so fugitive!” (IX-4). Therefore, Wordsworth does not simply admire nature for her external beauty which he enjoyed as “the simple creed/Of Childhood” (IX-8-9) but he is the worshipper of the spiritual character of the nature revealing eternal truth through beauty and fear as he articulates in these philosophical lines: Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Falling from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a Creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts before which our mortal Nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised: But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain light of our day, Are yet a master light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make, Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, To perish never; Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, Nor Man nor Boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy,

Can utterly abolish or destroy! Hence in a season of calm weather Though inland far we be, 174 Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither, Can in a moment travel thither, And see the Children sport upon the shore; And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. (IX) Wordsworth begins where Milton ends. Milton brings man down from heaven to earth, Wordsworth picks up the injured man who has fallen from such a height and through the ambulance of nature takes him to his native place in paradise. He observes ‘high instincts’ in nature and thereby upholding and cherishing the mind with these reflection in nature enjoys the moments of eternal Silence with imperishable truth that can not be abolished by any means. He finds consolation pragmatically observing that, no doubt, we are far away from God in this world, yet again we can achieve our heavenly abode if our minds are honestly wedded to nature which is the authentic book of God containing true and genuine knowledge as he sings: “Though inland far we be,/Our souls have sight of that immortal sea.” The divine spark—a remain from the past childhood that still exists in the form of ember under the ashes of gross materialism will help us in taking an insight into the divine system of nature reflecting spiritual and eternal values elevating the mind. Wordsworth as a naturalist knows that change is the law of nature and past childhood can not be brought back as he writes: “Thought nothing can bring back the hour/Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;” but he does not grieve over it because the process of nature can not be reverted, therefore, he finds “Strength in what remains behind” (X-9-10, 12). As a realist he knows that human existence is full of sufferings and sorrows but as an idealist he finds solace that in the well-designed divine system soothing thoughts will emerge out of suffering with the growth of mind as we pass from one life to another ultimately moving towards ‘the philosophic mind’ about which he gives expression in the following lines: In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind. (X-15-18) Wordsworth’s concept of the philosophic mind also gets strength from the views of the leading French philosopher, Henri Bergson who in Creative Evolution opines that “The whole universe 175 is the clash and conflict of two opposite motions; life, which climbs upwards, and matter, which falls downward” and in the process of becoming, there is ‘a movement up and a movement down, when it is a movement up, it is called life, when it is a movement down, it is called matter’ (Russell, 715, 717) and Wordsworth is always for the upward motion of the mind for its philosophic growth in the creative evolutionary process passing through life and death. Wordsworth’s insight beyond life finds confirmation as he contemplates nature with his innate divine spark which reminds him of the eternal journey and immortality of the soul. The concluding lines of the last stanza of the poem provide a crystal clear picture of it wherein blending his high philosophical thought with the pious feelings of the heart he pours out the truth and reality of the human heart, the world and the eternal spiritual essence which inevitably touch the heart of everyone who reads or listens: The innocent brightness of a new-born Day Is lovely yet; The clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality; Another race hath been, and another palms are won, Thanks to the human heart by which we live. (X-8-14) ‘The innocent brightness of a new-born Day’ is the beginning of every new life when we are born as a child in this world. The sun as it rises in the morning in the east like a beautiful ball of red colour appears innocent and bright like a new born babe, but the same sun at the time of its setting in the west surrounded by cloud— lets reminds us of human mortality with sad thoughts giving inkling to the extreme old age with dotages when a person is on the death bed before leaving the world. One generation gives place to another coming generation, hence continuity with mortality goes on in this world. Taking beyond-life insight with the notion of immortality of soul, Wordsworth, pathetically and emotionally, also touches the mortal nature of life with the feeling of attachment when our soul leaves this body at the time of her departure from this world giving thanks to our human heart that remains constantly functioning through out the life without taking even momentarily rest, and through which the soul experiences all the joys and suffering of this world. 176 Works Cited Bergson, Henri, Creative Evolution, Dover Publication, 1998. Print. Bowra, C.M., The Romantic Imagination, London: O.U.P.,1950. Print. Bradley, A.C., Oxford Lectures on Poetry, London: Macmillan Publishers, 1909. Print. Coleridge, S.T., “Dejection”, The Complete Poems of Coleridge, London: Wordsworth Poetry Library, 2006. Print. Haven, R.D., The Mind of a Poet, Baltimore, 1941. Print. Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason (trans.) Norman Kemp Smith, London: Macmillan Press,1950. Print. King, Alec, “Two Childhood in the Immortality Ode”, Critics on Wordsworth (ed.) Raymond Cowell, New Delhi: Universal Book Stall, 1989. pp. 91-101. Print. Russell, Bertrand, History of Western Philosophy, London: Routledge, 2004. Print . The Gita (ed.) (trans.) Sri Madhusudhan Saraswati, Varanshi: Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series,1962. Print. Wordsworth, William, “Ode on Intimations of Immortality”, A Choice of Wordsworth’s Verse (ed.) R.S. Thomas, London, Boston: Faber and Faber, 1971. Print. Yeats, W.B., “Among School Children”, W.B. Yeats, London: Macmillan, 1992. Print. 177 202020 Systematizing Listening Skills for Creative, Self- Directed Autonomous Language Learners Dr. Neelanjana Pathak, Aditee Ranjan “Listening as an aspect of skills involves neurological response and interpretations of sounds to understand and to give meaning by reacting, selecting meaning, remembering, attending, analyzing and including previous experience.” —(Hirsch, “Defining Listening: Synthesis and Discussion”) One of the most challenging aspects of teaching a language in a foreign setting is to both provide the students with enough exposure to the real spoken language of native speakers and to give them opportunities to listen, comprehend, respond and learn from real communication situations. Anderson and Lynch (1988) point out that “listening effectively involves multiplicity of skills” (44). Listening lessons can break the monotony and make language teaching an animated interactive process. Research into LLS (Language Learning Strategies) which initiated in 1960s, bought about a paradigm shift within the field of language learning with the emphasis moving on learners and learning rather than teachers and teaching. The emphasis has moved from mechanical audio lingual methods to activities that engage the learner in more direct and meaningful use of language. If we observe post 2007 classrooms, we witness a tendency to use a lot of authentic listening and reading material in place of contrived texts illustrating grammatical form and isolated vocabulary building exercises. Teacher talking time is rapidly being minimized to optimize opportunities for proactive learners’ participation. To understand speakers’ emotions, perceptions, feelings, attitudes and reactions, the listener needs to possess some micro skills that enable effective listening. Intonation patterns in English play a crucial role in determining connotations. It is of prime importance to train learners in the attitudinal and syntagmatic functions of intonation to understand the grammatical mood, purpose and content of the listening material. In Pearson’s words, “Listening involves the simultaneous organization and combination of skills in Phonology, Syntax, Semantics, and knowledge of the text structure, all of which seem to be controlled by the cognitive process. Thus it can be said that though not fully realized, listening skill is essential in acquiring 178 language proficiency” (25). Efficient learners need to transcend the meaning of different structures and the content of the lexical words for which an efficient communicative framework needs to be designed for listening lessons. The core concern is to train the listeners to recognize discourse feature such as cohesive devices to disambiguate grammatical structures and lexical meanings and supplement their comprehension with previous knowledge of the context. Individual learning performance can be optimized by matching the learning resources with students’ needs, personality, personal learning styles, age and gender to focus sufficiently on cognitive and metacognitive strategies. A systematised framework of training in listening can draw the learners’ attention to the nuances in meanings, stemming out of variations in pause, pitch, stress, rhythm which are all interlinked. Some serious gaps in understanding creep in if there is misunderstanding of some core elements in the speakers’ speech like phoneme discrimination, e.g.—“I won’t go to Bombay” and “I want to go to Bombay”. Learners need to self check to diagnose their problems by saying what went wrong and why. Approaching listening as an active process rather than simply part of the chore of communication, experimenting with alternatives and varying exercises can lesson miscommunication setbacks and result in win win situations. This paper advocates the teaching of listening skills, word stress, vowel and consonant sounds (which do not exist in the mother tongue), sentence stress and features of natural connected speech to non native learners of EL. The implication is that students should mainly get their first input of a foreign language through active listening skills. Listening is the most important skill of learning a language. Modern linguists believe that listening activity has a pivotal role in the process of language learning. Learning how to become a good listener is an important step towards comprehension and successful communication. Listening is a process distinct to hearing as it occupies an active and immediate analysis of the streams of sounds while the latter only involves perceiving sound in a passive way. So, listening skill comprises of guessing, anticipating, checking, interpreting, interacting and organizing by associating and accommodating their prior knowledge of meaning and form. Rost points out, “Listening is vital in the language classroom because it provides input for the learners. Without understanding input at the right level, any learning simply cannot begin. Listening is thus 179 fundamental to speaking” (141-142). Consequently listening influences other learning skills too. For learners, listening presents a challenge for variety of reasons. Unlike a reading text that is at the reader’s control, a listening text is constantly moving that often cannot be controlled by the listener. One can always read again if the text is not understood by one reading but listening is an activity which one cannot by choice do twice. The next difficulty a listener faces is that in addition to dealing with vocabulary and structures of the language, he/she has to learn phonological aspects also. Moreover, listening involves the interpersonal and interpretive modes of communication. It requires the listener to assume either a participative role in face to face conversations, or non-participative roles in listening to other people speak or present. Because of all these factors, listening activities may create high level of anxiety among learners that can interfere with comprehension. It has been observed that even in the modern methods of second language teaching, listening skill is comparatively ignored in comparison with other skills. In our education system teachers usually teach how to read and write but not how to listen. They believe that learners can master listening skills on their own. But a learner is not able to decode the graphic images or recognize their meaning efficiently if their auditory processing skills are not well developed and problems like spelling and pronunciation errors may arise. Thus, for SL teaching it is essential to help learners develop their listening skills. Through listening skills SL learners can discriminate between sounds, recognize words, identify grammatical grouping of words, identify expressions and sets of utterances that act to create meaning and can recall important words and ideas using background knowledge. Learning strategies can be divided into three parts: cognitive, meta-cognitive and socio-affective. Coming to inferences or conclusions on the basis of existing knowledge in the learners mind is cognitive strategy. Meta-cognitive strategy refers to learners’ background knowledge which is used for selective learning. The most important of the three is socio-affective strategy which boosts their confidence and diminishes inhibitions that act as obstacles to understanding- herein they are encouraged to clarify, amplify and ask for clearance and doubts at every stage of misconceptions. Listening skills can be taught through listening strategies. Field defines strategies as, “those techniques which L2 listeners employ in order to compensate for their less than complete knowledge of 180 the syntax and knowledge of the target language… much second language listening is dependent upon the learner’s ability to compensate for the gaps in understanding” (111). Though strategy training is a much debatable issue as many linguists like White (1998), Vandergrift (1996), Field (2003) and Rost (2002) believe that these strategies should be taught to the learners while others like Ridgway (2000) think that it becomes difficult for learners to observe these strategies. Yet if one observes the benefits and the impact of these LLS on the SL learners, one can say that they can help language learners to compensate their lack of any skills required to achieve the goals of listening. There are two types of strategies for listening in practice; bottom- up (micro) and top-down (macro) skills. They are defined according to the ways of processing the text while listening. The micro-skills are the ones related to the recognition of the small parts or units of the spoken language like sounds, words, stress, rhythm and intonation. Learners link the smaller units of a language together to form the larger parts and it is a linear process where meaning is derived automatically in the last stage. It is different from macro skills which require learners to use their prior knowledge of topic, context and type of text as well as knowledge of language to reconstruct the meaning using sounds as clues. Teaching of the above mentioned listening strategies can help SL learners to become good listeners. These strategies should be designed so as to meet students’ needs and should also consider other factors as national origin, gender and course levels. With the help of strategy training, the teacher and the students can work together to expand the students’ ability to use new techniques and to strengthen existing ones. Teachers can also explore students’ reactions to their instructional approaches and can further use these strategies. These strategies help learners to shift their focus from ‘form’ of language and to learn ‘function’ of language. Thus, strategy training if designed carefully and sensitively with the learners’ needs in mind can become a key element in creative, self-directed language learning. Listening skills not only involve learning to comprehend the text, to interpret main ideas and disambiguate grammatical structures but also aim at achieving skills which can help to understand speech sounds, word accent and intonation patterns of SL. Learners often face difficulty in articulating certain vowels and consonant sounds, especially those which do not exist in their mother tongue. For example, English sound /3/ as in ‘vision’ does 181 not exist in Hindi language which results in the incorrect pronunciation by Hindi speakers. In the same way aspiration of English sounds like/p/as in ‘please’ is not to be found in Hindi which hampers the correct pronunciation by non-native speakers. SL teachers need to make sure that learners are aware of these characteristics of a language when they are learning. They can produce the proper sound themselves or by a recorded material which can be listened and later on practiced by the learners. There is also a need to raise learners’ awareness to the stress and intonation and rhythm of SL as they play a very significant role in determining meaning. Intonation is responsible for both attitudinal and syntagmatic function of a language. It also determines the grammatical mood of sentences (affirmative, imperative, interrogative, etc.). One can understand speaker’s purpose and the content of his/her utterances by attentive, guided listening. By changing the intonation of an utterance the speaker can change its meaning. Peter Roach offers four types of tones to which he allocates the following attitudinal functions: Fall: finality, definiteness Rise: encouraging Fall-rise: uncertainty, doubt Rise-fall: surprise, being impressed (167-168). Moreover, in English the grammatical elements such as prepositions, articles, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs, etc., have two forms: strong and weak forms. In isolation these grammatical elements are pronounced with stress and have strong forms whereas in connected speech they are usually in their weak forms and sounds are elided. For example, from -/frDm/(strong form) /frÙm/ (weak form) In this respect, it becomes very important for SL learners that they should not only possess the ability to discriminate contrastive sounds and know the meaning of structure and lexical items but also acquire some key abilities of knowing different aspects of segmental and supra-segmental phonology. SL teachers are required to train learners on these aspects of language as far as possible. Through some of the activities teachers can help them to gain knowledge of sounds, word stress and intonation patterns. They can make them listen and notice the most stressed word in a sentence, determine the pitch, speaker’s attitude, reaction and feeling. They can help learners to understand how the tone changes with each statement. For example, the teacher may produce some 182 sentences by changing stress on different words of the same sentence and can ask them to find out the difference. The sentences ‘I should 2 go’, ‘I 2 should go’ and ‘2 I should go’ with the stress falling on the three different words in each, are different from each other as each sentence shows the different attitude of a speaker. Similarly, a SL teacher can teach the difference between a noun ‘present’ and a verb ‘present’ by making them point out the difference in pronunciation. present (n) - /‘preznt/ present (v) - /pri‘zent/ These tasks and activities can make learners conscious of the vitality of phonological system for contributing meaning in spoken language. In the process of listening, other than the above mentioned phonological problems, SL learners face numerous other problems while deciphering the meaning of the text which is spoken. Clearly listening is a complex process. It involves the collaboration of the listener in the context, the intent and the topic. If a SL learner is not aware of contextual knowledge and only knows the topic then he/ she will not be able to comprehend the text. Moreover, some other reasons can also affect the listening process. Distractions and noise during listening is one of the main reasons. Sometimes equipments used for listening activities do not produce good sound quality which harms the interest of the learners. Also, the material prepared for the learners is often not interesting and appropriate enough to sustain the learners’ attention, which again hampers their listening skills. Therefore, the role of SL teacher is to help learners through Task Based Learning (TBL) activities. These activities should be designed keeping in mind learners’ age group, needs and level. Getting them to work together in a group can also diagnose their problems. Prior knowledge of the topic and content of the text used in the listening activity might also be helpful as learners face major comprehension difficulties because they lack background knowledge due to cultural differences. Use of visual supports like clippings, maps, diagrams, pictures, videos, can provide clues and be a great help while deciphering the meaning. Pre-teaching of vocabulary can build their confidence before the actual listening activity. Teachers should direct them towards some listening practice using headphones and speakers. Lastly, there is a need to extend the post-listening task and to make them more affective. It 183 includes checking of comprehension, review and evaluation of listening skills, use of knowledge gained to other contexts. Some other post-listening activities are using notes made while listening in order to write a summary doing a role play, practicing pronunciation, group discussion, etc. Listening skill is one of the foremost skills required for learning a language. Learners normally encounter problems in listening especially while learning a foreign language. Therefore, listening skills are essential for SL learners. Meaningful listening and communication activities can be effective in improving learners’ listening skills. These skills can enable learners to become autonomous and help in acquisition of SL. Systematizing listening framework can reduce anxiety of learners and provides a good foundation for becoming autonomous learners who can utilize listening process for acquiring SL. All discussions on listening lead one to conclude that listening is a lot more than just hearing. The weighty opinion of Rivers on the crucial function of listening may be quoted as the last word, Listening is a critical element in learning any foreign language. It helps the Learner to acquire competence in language and he can exhibit his competence if he is communicating at school, at work or in the community. In normal course of a day listening is used nearly twice as much as speaking and four to five times as much as reading and writing (47). References Anderson, A. and Lynch, T., Listening, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Field, J., “Skills and Strategies: Towards a New Methodology for Listening”, ELT Journal, 1998, pp. 110-18. Hirsch, R., “Defing Listening: Synthesis and Discussion”, Paper presented at the 7th annual meeting of the International Listening Association, USA, 1986. Pearson, P.D., Instructional Implications of Listening Comprehension Research, Urbana, Illinois: Centre for the Study of Reading, 1983. Rivers, W.M., Listening Comprehension: Appraoch, Design, Procedure, TESOL Quartly, USA, 1981. Rost, M. Teaching and Reasearching Listening. U.K.: Pearson Education Ltd., 2002. Roach, Peter, English Phonetics and Phonology, Cambridge: OUP, 1997. 184 222222 Heer’s Jehad against Her Lord in Tehmina Durrani’s Blasphemy Dr. Ram Sharma, Dr. Archana Inspired by a true story, Blasphemy is a blazing study of sin, an adamant look at the misrepresentation of Islam by greedy religious leaders. In prose of great power and intensity, the author tells the tragic story of the gorgeous Heer, brutalized and tainted by Pir Sain, the man of God, her Husband. The novel gives a horrific account of how the custodians of religion are using their ‘special knowledge’ to abuse the illiterate masses. The central character, Heer, is one such sufferer of this form of designed tyranny by the antagonist Pir Sain against whom Heer declares her Jehad. Jehad according to encyclopaedic index of the Quran by Syed Muhammad Osama is, “to strive or fight against evil for peace.” The story of Heer begins with fear of her dead husband, whom she thought could anytime come to life. She says, “I recall him walking through the door every morning regal as a king. Now worms awaited him” (Blasphemy, 15). She further illustrates her fear: Pir Sain was gone, but it was an idea hard to get used to while he lived, his presence had been so overwhelming that to us his absence had never been registered. We were always so unnerved by his departure from home that every moment was spent anticipating his return…. At home, the women quarters would be in state of restless anxiety. And I? I would withdraw into myself to listen for his footsteps. As they drew nearer, I would feel them trampling on my heart (Blasphemy, 17). Heer recalls the day when Pir Sain came to her place after their marriage was fixed. She recalls the very first time she set her eyes on him as her future husband, she says: …I saw my fiancé standing straight and tall like a tree. A starched black turban fanned out above his head. Black kohl rimmed his eyes. I thought I saw a strange light flicker and off in his pupils, and his eyeballs move, flicking ominously. I noticed frown lines, deep vertical slashes between thick black brows. An aquiline nose began with a stutter. 185 His lips barely visible. The rest of his face was covered with black hair. There was no sign of happiness (Blasphemy, 27). There was quite an age difference between Heer and Pir Sain. After the marriage when Heer was sobbing, she says: My husband bent down towards me and his words vibrated in the heavy silence of an unending voyage. His flesh seemed to touch me despite many layers of clothing. “Do not cry. Everything is good by the grace of Allah.” I could not make out if it were a consolation or a command (Blasphemy, 35). Pir Sain started his marriage with no sweet talks but with great sexual urge which he wanted to satiate even at the cost of his wife’s pain. Heer narrates her first night with her husband: Stripped naked, I felt a mountain of flesh descend on me…. The air was solid. There was no escape. None. With only the sheer will to be, I remained, alive, barely. He had commenced our wedding night with an animal haste for food and ended it satiated (Blasphemy, 39). Next morning she says: I howled. Washing and scrubbing in frenzy, I hated myself with madness and loved myself with sadness. …I dried and cried and dressed and painted to emerge as a bride again (Blasphemy, 40). Heer thought this madness would end but there wasn’t any such chance. In the afternoon he came and asked her to follow her. She couldn’t deny, she says: …I wanted to be somewhere else but I was walking behind him instead. In the grip of a nightmare again, I could no longer distinguish which part of my body was which. Under him I winced, and wondered why if all women went through this torture they still married off their daughters….He turned me over on my stomach and I stuffed the bed sheet into my mouth to control a thousand screams. Pain ripped through me. Every day of this and a whole week passed by. 186 I realized that my concept of love was wrong. It had been so different…. The contrast between what should have been and what it was, was too stark (Blasphemy, 42). One day a cousin of Heer comes to visit her with her six years old son and brings a few glass bangles for her, eying her wearing them, he ordered her to put her hands on the table, Heer says: …When Pir Sain’s order to put my hands on the table jolted me back. In a flash they were there. In another flash his hands went up in the air and down on them like an axe. The bangles splintered and scattered. Sharp shards of glass cut into my wrist. I heard a lion roar and registered fragments of a sentence about my wretched family and presents. My head reeling. Welts blossomed crimson. My first beating began in full view of everyone and ended inside. I had disobeyed Allah by not observing purdah from a male whom I could marry. But he was only six years old… (Blasphemy, 43). But again a series of punishment began which didn’t end— one day gripping her arm he pulled her into the courtyard and pushed her down. He kicked until she stood up. He pushed until she fell. Pushed and kicked, she reached the kitchen door. Humiliation weighed her down. Those who touched her feet every day now walked past her punishment chamber mockingly. So many truths, dawned, so many dreams shattered, so many old ideas vanished. Streams of tears ran down her soar cheek. Heer was punished for the offence of taking a bath—she was feeling hot and she went to bathe and for that she was beaten in front of the servants and was asked to prepare lunch, dinner and breakfast without any assistance. Pir Sain knew she was not capable of it yet she was asked to do it. Heer wanted her mother she asked Amma Sain repeatedly: “Can you speak to him about my mother now?” “Certainly not”, she snapped back, “your husband will decide when to let her come” (Blasphemy, 48). Heer learnt that Pir Sain’s first wife had died of a weak heart that collapsed in the middle of her wedding night. The second wife lived to see the day, but come dusk, she had a nervous fit that she 187 seemed to not to come out of. Two days later she shuddered and trembled to death. She says, “I also heard that my husband had not wished to remarry until he saw me under my desperate mother’s wing” (Blasphemy, 49, 50). It was her incomparable beauty that caught Pir Sain’s eyes at first. After abusing her body on the night of their marriage, Pir Sain set out to control her mind and soul as Heer under duress adapted to a life alien to her and unbearable to any human being. Blasphemy is a tale where day after day the body keeps yielding and the soul keeps rebelling as Heer searches for a moment of tranquility. When she became pregnant nothing changed for her except that her bearing became heavier, the risk of violence more frightening, and her duties even more unbearable. Many a times Heer was told by Amma Sain that, “when a wife has secured a hold over her husband’s bed, she can use it on everyone. It’s an art.” But Heer thought …It seems impossible to exploit a bed in which I was reduced to nothing (Blasphemy, 55). But nothing in this world happens without any reason when Dai told her what happened with Pir Sain as a child chill went down her spine. In his childhood Pir Sain was very fond of playing with stray dogs. One day his father locked him in a dark and airless room with seventeen stray dogs for three days and three nights. Dai even told her about the earlier Pirs. Once in order to show his importance one feudal lord made a man jump to death, another gave sons to barren mothers to breed an army of deformed beggars— chuhas. Dai even told her about the legendry Tara who was very much in love with a man who left her and married another woman. Dai narrated Tara’s plight when her lover married another woman, she went to every living soul pleading: … Tell him to make me his second wife. Tell him I will serve his bride and be her slave. Tell him not to vanish from my sight, for I cannot live without him…. But her lover was joyous at his marriage and brushed Tara aside as an old story…. He laughed shamelessly and retorted, “It’s time to leave other women to other men.” This ignited the love in her heart and revenge blazed in her eyes. … “I am married. The decision is made in heaven. Leave me and find another.” Heads turned him to her…. A seething Tara brought forward the bundle tucked into her waist. Her hand 188 plunged in, went up, swung around, and raw flesh flew like lightening through the air. Thick muck smashed on her lover’s face, splattered over his brothers and slithered down. They cringed, spat, and frantically brushed the sticky unformed foetus from their faces (Blasphemy, 67). Tara had returned what actually belonged to her lover; the child she was carrying was not only hers but even of that man—spineless man. Heer became very friendly with a maid called Kaali but soon she was married and when she returned to Haveli her sunny disposition had disappeared. She remained aloof; Heer was even asked to stay away from the servants. The maids misbehaved with Kaali but she kept mum, they called her kaali kutti still she remained mum and sooner than anticipated news of Kaali’s death arrived. After Kaali’s death Pir Sain questioned Heer that why she remains upset and misses Kaali so much? Heer had to say something because his question sounded like an allegation; as if Heer was having an affair with Kaali. The nightmare began, Heer narrates: … He roared, “whose child was Kaali carrying?” The fear that he might even suspect the child to be mine made me blurt out, “Her father-in-law’s sain. Her husband married her for his old father’s pleasure, sain.” By that I only exposed my intimacy with Kaali. He wanted to know more. I wanted not to break another promise to Kaali, but when the side of his hand hit across my throat like a knife, another promise broke. My throat in his grip, he squeezed out more confessions. Between coughing and spluttering for breath, I blurted out, “he let men loose on Kaali, sain.” “More”, he shouted. I told him more. He pushed me to the floor, his foot crushed my face. From under it I struggled to break another promise, “he watched them, sain. Hour after hour, day after day, sain.” “More, more. Tell me more”, he shouted. I could not tell him more. I could not dare to say, “you know everything, sain. You were always there, sain.” Pir Sain shouted for scissors. He sat on a chair, pulled me down between his legs and gripped my temples with his knees. My eyes bulged out at the ceiling. 189 Time stood like to the sound of snipping. He shouted for razor. Time froze to the sound of scraping. The razor ran across my scalp, then back and forth across my brow. Flung across the room, I saw him coil towards me like torrid lava. Flat on my back. Stomach protruded. Inside it, my baby kicked. Over it, the father descended. Night became day; day became night; another day blazed until another night came and went and blue broke through black again. My child pushed against his thrusts. Neither of them tired. He was still inside and the baby was coming out. It took an age for him to find out. I heard a warning. “No sound from you is to reach beyond the walls of this room.” Pain swallowed me and I swallowed it. Stretching and clawing and clutching the hands of my enemies, the maids, I thrust the baby out of my battered body. I did not hear him cry or die (Blasphemy, 70, 71). Even during her second pregnancy Pir Sain’s behaviour remained the same. Heer had no expectations, what she only had, was depression and uncertainty. About the birth of her first child Heer said, “When my first daughter was born, petrified of Pir Sain’s displeasure at the birth of a girl, I stuffed my mouth with a cloth to control a cry of anxiety” (Blasphemy, 78). One day Heer received a letter from Pir Sain’s fifth brother with whom he was angry as he caused damage to the cotton crop by cheating on the quality of the pesticide, ironically enough Sain was not furious with the other four brothers who indulged in incest. Heer kept the letter as it is and gave it to Sain when he came to know that Tehri, a maid passed on this letter to her. Tehri and wet branches from the date trees were summoned along with Heer. Tehri was blessed with old age and so her punishment was lighter than Heer’s. Ordered to lie down flat on her stomach, she obeyed instantly. Two maids held her outstretched arms above her head and another two grasped her ankles. A lightning swing made the khajji whip hiss and swish. It was always regulated by his energy, never by how much she could endure. Fabric slashed, the 190 flesh beneath tore, and she swallowed the pain through her pursed lips. Heer further adds: To avoid blood clotting, I was instructed to get up and walk immediately. Wondering what kind of mind could justify such a severe punishment for no crime, I paced the room on weak and shaky legs with my little bundle suckling on my breast (Blasphemy, 81, 82). It took weeks for Heer to recover from the wounds inflicted on her body though her soul suffered eternally. During the month of Ramadan everything went wrong as Pir Sain’s tolerance level fell even lower when he was hungry. Pleasing and appeasing both the master and God at the same time became impossible. Master and God fused together in him. Heer recalls: Straight after the month of fasting was over, I was pregnant and informed him. “Abort the child”, he barked. I was shocked that he allowed himself a sin he allowed no one else. When the foetus bled to death with quinine tablets, Dai explained, “men don’t like to deprive themselves of pleasure when they have had to abstain for thirty afternoons in Ramadan.” I wanted to ask her how my husband could observe the order of fast so strictly and conclude it with a sin (Blasphemy, 83). Heer refrained from asking Dai any such question. Through Heer’s experience the author brings out a blasphemous way of life, strange to the layman, accomplished not only by Pir Sain but also by his followers. Pir Sain’s self-restraint from going to his wife during Ramadan is the action of any orthodox Muslim. His beating of Heer for missing her prayers further secures his image in front of the extremists. But then there is his demand that Heer aborts their child so he may suit his carnal desires, demands instant vengeance. Despite all his vices, he is holy and almost divine by his followers. Blasphemy is a tale where Heer exposes the evils of these ‘holy-men’ —first to herself and then to the readers. Three months later she was again pregnant and this time there was no mention of abortion only Pir Sain lifted his hands in prayer for a son. Later when she comes to know about two sets of elaborate dowries to be dispatched to her mother from Amma Sain, Heer feels stumped at her husband’s magnanimity. 191 After Kaali, Heer comes close to a woman whom she named Toti as she spoke a lot to her about the things especially Heer was interested in knowing. Toti was actually a soul; she was Budrung whose fiancé was accused of picking the pocket of a guest of Pir Sain the third. He was a Baluch, he was dragged to the Pir, before he could deny committing his crime, and his desire to marry a woman Budrung became evidence against him. It was considered a way to have an access to their area. That the choice of marrying a reject like Budrung was based on compassion did not sell in a society devoid of the emotions. The punishment was thus inflicted: For a Baluch, his moustache is his honour. The pir ordered, “Pluck it off.” Two men rubbed their finger tips with bitter juice of neem leaves and tore the man’s moustache out from its roots, while he howled like a wolf. Pir Sain the third was not satisfied. He ordered his men to untie the Baluch, pull off his clothes and tie him up with his back exposed. Khajji whips slashed his bare flesh. They inserted crushed chilli into his rectum, he yelped like a mad dog and fainted. Untied, he slipped to the ground. Trembling like a fish, thrashed about with hundreds of red insects that infect the cotton crop running amok on his wounds and stinging like wasps. His cries for mercy made everyone, everywhere sit up (Blasphemy, 99). Budrung tried to save her lover but in vain. The Pir got angry and nothing the Pir could do to her was too much. The whip lashed across the soles of her feet, the agony shot into her head. Budrung’s father beseeched the Pir but he did not forgive Budrung. She was brought home on a charpai. When her old father placed a hand on his daughter’s head to comfort her, she looked up with pained eyes that had lost yet won. Dai added further: There was a storm that night, Budrung’s spirit ran into it with the wind, it swept her to the edge of a ridge and blew her off. She became the dust that never settled, for her love was never consummated and her desire never fulfilled… (Blasphemy, 101). Nobody condoled the death of a blasphemer and Budrung’s soul hovered around the Shrine forever and ever. She burned the holy pages, she blasphemed. Dai concluded that the Pir was the chosen one and he knew how to save the faith from blasphemers. Heer wondered how a great religion could be destroyed at the hands of a hapless girl craving love. She now understood—Toti (Budrung) was as good as they were evil. After the summer ended, Heer with her children, Amma Sain, 192 Cheel, and Pir Sain slept in the courtyard. Heer shared her childhood stories with her daughter Guppi. One such night Heer recalls: Pir Sain was walking towards us… Pretending to be asleep, I sniffed his musk to determine his distance. My heart tripped when I smelt him over Guppi. What did he want? Why did he not say anything? Had he discovered her flight? What had she done? I sensed him turning away and rising. My eyes opened and leapt behind them, but I was as helpless as Ma. They disappeared behind the bedroom door. Guppi screamed. Here women slept so soundly that many storms had come and gone without awakening them. Guppi screamed again. I held my heart as though it might explode (Blasphemy, 110). At last he yelled at Guppi to get out, she stumbled out of the room. At day break Heer gathered courage to question her daughter when there was no fear of being overheard. Heer asked her why was her father angry with her? She answered innocently that his anger was due to her screaming. When asked, why did she scream? She said: … “He put his hand inside my salwar. He also put it in my shirt and pressed me hard.” “Where?” I asked stupidly. Guppi touched her breast (Blasphemy, 111). Heer was not able to come to terms with this dirty truth, while contemplating on what she should do, her wandering gaze fell on a group of children playing. An orphan girl Yathimri, changing shape, just as her daughter Guppi caught her attention. She gave her a clean pair of clothes and instructed her to bathe properly. Heer left the girl in his room and relieved at his acceptance she smothered her guilt by consoling herself that—child rape was a lesser evil than incest. A thought flashed maybe her daughter misunderstood her father but an hour later she found the wounded baby deer lying on the floor with her mouth stuffed with his handkerchief, her torso was naked, and her child like breasts bore teeth marks. Heer knew there was no choice. It had to be this girl and not Guppi. She could not become another Meesni—a girl from 193 Pir Sain’s family who was sexually involved with her own father. Pir Sain started showing signs of interest in Yathimri. He asked his wife, what did she thought of her? To which she answered that she is too young. And that she knew her as a child. But he declared— “Youth has no substitute” (Blasphemy, 116), he left her numb. Earlier he used to summon Yathimri only during Heer’s periods but by the third month, he asked for her every few days and she willingly jumped to be with the madman. It was too obvious that she was master’s favourite and Heer the discarded wife. Heer got jealous with this maid and avenged on her when she misbehaved with other maids, in her presence. A week before Eid Pir Sain gave two identical sets of clothes to Heer for her and for Yathimri. But Heer gave her the clothes like other servants got. Over this Pir Sain got so angry that he flung her across the room and: … Lifting the charpai, he commanded, “Put your hands under it.” Heavy wooden bars descended on them. I winced my eyes rolled up. My lips pursed. I swallowed explosion after explosion of pain. “One sound and I’ll break your neck and crack your skull in two,” he warned (Blasphemy, 119). Every moment was insufferable. The slightest twitch created a current of excruciating agony. He sat on the charpai the wooden bars pushed deeper. Her bones crushed. He strained to hear a moan and increase the sentence, but heard nothing. He lifted his legs up, now flat on his back-made the wooden bars push deeper. Many soundless hours passed. At last he pulled over. The pain did not lessen when his weight lifted, nor did her pain cease when the wooden bars were lifted. Soon a corrupt mistress celebrated Eid. Later when Heer announced that she was five months pregnant. Amma Sain advised her that it was a wrong time to confine herself as Yathimri would possess him wholly. Pir Sain ordered her to abort the child. But the foetus didn’t drop despite the twenty tablets of quinine. Her skin dried up, and head became hard as a rock. When at last Heer bled profusely, she was hospitalized and the girl fully replaced her. By this time Guppi was married and Heer was left to worry about her other two growing daughters. But now she had two more young girls-daughters of a widow who had taken refuge in their household, to present to her husband’s ever awaiting bed. At Guppi’s wedding night, Pir Sain called for Yathimri but unable to 194 find her Heer offers him the widow’s younger daughter. But later through the widow she comes to know that Yathimri was no where found because she was with Chote Sain—a thirteen years old boy. Somehow for the time being that matter was settled but one day agonizing cries tore her from her prayer mat. Chote Sain was tied with ropes to the rebellious tree. Khajji whips slashed his bare back. Nobody saved him. Pir Sain shouted, “… ‘Heer’ … your son tried to rape Yathimri, he spat, and my heart sank” (Blasphemy, 137). Chote Sain remained in coma in the hospital for two months but that churail Yathimri got away scot-free. Though Chote Sain came home but now he was good for nothing; he stayed mum. Soon Chote Sain died. Heer his mother felt grateful for he found peace, he could now be free to speak and sing, like Kaali and Toti. Amma Sain froze; her silence was the loudest protest against her grandson’s murder. She turned her face from her world forever and faced Qibla. Heer wondered: It was said that Chote Sain had died of a snakebite in the fields. I wondered if it might not have been from his father’s poisonous heart. To me, my husband was my son’s murderer. He was also my daughter’s molester (Blasphemy, 143). Like a parasite he nibbled at the Holy Book, he was Lucifer. He was driving Heer to sin every night. He was her brother’s destroyer, Amma Sain’s tormentor; he had humbled her Maa and exploited people. He raped the orphans and was fiend that fed on the weak. Pir Sain asked his wife a thousand times, if she thought about other men. But she declined any such thing. But one night she felt the presence of a stranger, Heer says: An unfamiliar hand was creeping up my thigh. I strangled a scream and clutched the quilt. Pir Sain flung it off. I shut my eyes and strangled another scream. A body descended over me. … When the madness ended, I knew its odour would stay with me for ever. Ordering me not to move, Pir Sain took the boy out. In a flash he was back and drooling over me, whispering in my ear, “the boy was only eighteen. He left his youth with you, for me” (Blasphemy, 159). She was in Pir Sain’s oppression. Pir Sain forced Heer to submit 195 to the sexual demands of his clients. He supplied sex serum to the village youths so that they could boost their sexual prowess. A new crisis loomed over Heer as Rajaji (her younger son) wanted to marry Maharani against Pir Sain’s wish. But this didn’t concern Heer for the moment as Pir Sain’s madness was driving her crazy, one after the other men came and went—after the stale smelling man, came a black man and after many other Heer felt: … Layers of dead skin, calluses and corns, lumps and bumps, jagged elbows, and a lifetime of neglect descended over me. Every pore in my body cringed (Blasphemy, 161). But this torture was not enough, so Pir Sain filmed it all. He loomed over and around, above and below. He orchestred, directed, lost temper, repeated orders, and arranged their bodies, forcing every conceivable possibility on them. Day after day, night after night this sin settled well on Heer—she now understood that Allah was not stopping crimes against her so for her at least he was not there. And so Heer in presence of these men became Pyari the whore from city. While having sex with the sixth man, she justified her response, which thrilled Pir Sain. Heer recalls the man: …gloated over me with his tongue hanging out like a mad dog’s. Neither the smell bother me, nor did the sweat make me cringe. And the saliva? I just licked it up (Blasphemy, 163). Pir Sain wanted to know what kind of man Heer would fancy to abed with, now when she could differentiate among them all. Heer answered carefully those who don’t smell awful. From then she smelt every horrible smell possible from a man. But then next hero arrived who smelt of soap. Now this bothered Heer—for how will her husband conduct his punishment. Pir Sain watched all the movies he shot; bored with them he enjoyed the novelty of bedding two sisters, if this fed him up. Heer amused him for hours, if she failed, Yathimri succeeded. One night Pir Sain took his wife to the guest house where she met the jagirdar to whom she was introduced as Piyari the whore, he easily believed Pir Sain because nobody had laid eyes on the venerable wife of the Pir. The fat fingers of jagirdar ran like black rats over Heer’s naked body, the idea of purdah consumed her mind. She wanted to yell at jagirdar do you know who I am? I am master’s wife the mother of his children. But once she was compressed with a ton of flesh reason deserted her and she became brain dead. Again after a few days Pir Sain instructed Heer to become Piyari 196 and entertain his two guests from the capital. She stood once again under the same roof; she had shared earlier with jagirdar. A man like a bull charged towards her and took her in his arms. His greediness nearly fainted her, her gaze fell on the other man who was very handsome and who was staring at her intensely. Pir Sain instructed her to dance like a notch girl, saying that he had promised his friends that her beauty and charm can revive dead from the grave. The handsome man pulled away and left. After satisfying the bull’s horrid lust, Heer thinking walked back: When the truth dawned, I had jammed it deep into my heart. Now I let it out. The handsome face belonged to Chandi’s brother. To Ranjha (Blasphemy, 167). The same boy who had proposed to her through a letter sent by her friend and his sister Chandi the day her mother got the proposal from Pir Sain’s family. Corruption was now proven, but Heer could never explain the vulgarity when there was no evident sign of fear or coercion. Her black image in the eyes of her Ranjha made her a senile woman. Every night potion activated Heer for a while but aftermath made her limp like a rubber doll. In midst of lust she thought of love, of Ranjha. Once Heer was at the Shrine, at the grave of the Pir who killed Toti’s Baluch, she lifted her hands and prayed for her husband to suffer. Suddenly a figure in white robes with a muslin cloth draped over his head asked her—“What do you want? Heer said, ‘I want my husband’s death.’ Asking her to meet next Jumeraat the person left. But next Jumeraat Heer got her periods and it was bloody impossible to hide it from Pir Sain and she was not permitted to visit the Shrine during her menstrual cycle, which she desperately needed to visit. That same night he brought a girl so young that he must have found it difficult himself to think of her as a woman. He ordered Heer to bathe her and bring her to him. On the floor, the naked child huddled covering her flat chest with her arms. When Heer inquired if she should give the child potion, he answered— No. “The child began to yelp like a puppy. ‘Shut up,’ ‘or I’ll pull your tongue with a Chimta” (Blasphemy, 173). When the child looked at her for help, she gave a sign of pain and said to herself if you can keep him for today and tomorrow. I can save you. When he pulled away from her. The little girl opened her eyes to sigh and die and to vanish just like his sins. Cheel was called to take the dead child with her. Though Heer managed to go to the Shrine yet there 197 was no sign of the robed figure. Pir Sain’s health see-sawed but it seemed that he would live beyond forever. One night he brought a pink and white boy whose fingers made sensations Heer never knew. Pir Sain was so thrilled with Heer’s response that he brought the boy for a whole week. He nearly fell in love with Piyari. After a few days Pir Sain took Heer to the back veranda. He took her in a room where on the other side a victim was being tormented. He was on top of her. The victim’s torment fuelled Pir Sain’s desire. Later through Dai Heer came to know that a young boy was thrashed and castrated for raping a girl. When inquired how he looked like. Dai said, he was pink and white like an angel. That Jumeraat she wailed and wept uncontrollably at Babaji’s grave and from nowhere the robed figure appeared who gave her a set of instructions—leave the door that boys use open, leave three yards of muslin on the bed post and give your husband a double doze of sedatives. And on the first day of the coming month, in midnight he assured her that her work will be accomplished. Heer narrates: Hovering over him, I tried to seduce him to death to love him. When he swallowed food I prayed for it to stick in his throat. When he drank, I prayed that he choke. When he slept, I stayed awake; hoping his heart would stop. But I was only dreaming. Always he awoke with a shrill ring of the early morning alarm and the lights came on at break of a day (Blasphemy, 177). Rajaji came over every afternoon to spend sometime with his father and prepare tea for him, one day shortly after drinking tea prepared by him Pir Sain shook, trembled like a fish, and fell. But Pir Sain was too powerful for anyone to entertain attempts on his life, especially by those whose throats he gripped, a doctor was called but the idiot diagnosed epilepsy. Rajaji was desperately waiting for his father to die so that he could marry Maharani. Because Pir Sain was against this marriage; Maharaja -Waddi Malkani’s son and Maharani—Choti Malkani’s daughter was Pir Sain’s offspring. So Rajaji and Maharani were even brother and sister; born from different mothers but the same father. The impending murder of Pir Sain was troubling Heer a lot: Contemplating the murder of a religious leader of thousands of illiterate people needed supernatural courage. Transforming myself from a slave to master of my own destiny needed a miracle. 198 Pir Sain was a symbol of munafiqat. I was a soldier. This was a jehad. … The only thing truly in the name of Allah was Pir Sain’s death (Blasphemy, 181). Carrying three sedatives crushed in a glass of milk, she walked to her husband. When she entered her bedroom, the drunken Yathimri removed herself from Heer’s conjugal bed and retired on her mat on the floor. Pir Sain gulped down the milk, when he was under the influence of the drug and Yathimri was fast asleep, Heer hung the muslin on the headboard as the robed figure had instructed. She couldn’t sleep, she lied beside him and counted the snores of the man who was about to die, she felt a bit uncertain and prayed: “Save me from this world. O Allah”,…”its concept of justice is as wrong as Pir Sain’s. But in life, or in death freedom must come. This story must end” (Blasphemy, 183). Soon Heer felt a strange presence in the room, she dared not roll over, and she felt her husband’s weight lift off the bed and come down hard. Pir Sain was dead. The storm that had raged for twenty four years without respite or mercy had finally thrown Heer on the shore. Now Yathimri rose as a problem, she knew everything about Pir Sain’s murder as she was not fast asleep and she even made a shocking revelation that the murderer was no other but master’s most trusted Cheel. She again went to the Shrine and when the robed figure appeared asking what does she desire now? Heer said she wanted Yathimri dead. Heer and Yathimri came very close and her behaviour towards her mistress became too docile and submissive. Heer wanted to stop her from being murdered but to no avail and after the night set for her end, with break of dawn Heer came to know the orphan girl—Yathimri was murdered. Heer pondered: The murder of my husband was a jehad I had broken an idol. He was an imposter. But Yathimri? Her blood stained my soul. Pir Sain had not gone. He had gotten away with everything by burying himself deep in the earth, while every evil act of his was twirling like a poisonous snake deep inside my heart (Blasphemy, 192). Cheel died of great pain and misery but before leaving for 199 heavenly abode she made sure that Pir Sain was no more to hurt Heer. Heer felt a great pain for Cheel. In order to sweep away the deep rooted faith with the Shrine, she called Tara the tigress and appointed her as her tailor. Heer with the help of Tara met each and every hero she had abed, who had known her as Piyari the whore through Pir Sain now came to know about her real identity that of a Pirjadi—Pir Sain’s widow and mother of Rajaji. Tara suggested that they have met so many men and shattered the myth of the Shrine, now it was good for them if they refrained from jagirdar. But the profound desire to expose Pir Sain’s sins overwhelmed her. Jagirdar couldn’t control himself after the revelation and staggered to his chair. What her burqa concealed was now revealed to him and this fact didn’t sit well with him. But Heer was adamant upon making him commit the act he believed was sacrilege. After concluding her business with the jagirdar she went to Pathan who actually sold smuggled fabrics, hashish and heroin. While waiting for him to hand him over the films made by Pir Sain so that they can spread the truth like germs spread a virus. That night Tara told Heer about her life, how an orphaned girl at the age of six, she met Pir Sain as someone had left her at the Shrine: …Pir Sain held me by my hand and took me to his hujra. … Your husband pulled off my clothes. I tried to pull them on. He slapped me. I screamed. He stuffed a rag into my mouth and pushed me down on the floor. He was on top of me. His weight crushed me. The hair on his chest filled my mouth and suffocated me. I was trying to struggle out…cry out. He boxed my head, twisted my ears, pummeled me with both his fists…and it seemed as if my whole life passed by. Suddenly he jumped up. I saw a giant towering over me. His foot pressed hard on my face (Blasphemy, 201). Pir Sain threatened to kill her if she uttered single word about this to anybody. Tara couldn’t trust anyone until she found the man she had fallen in and later fallen out of love with. The thirst to destroy the myth of the Shrine became more intense in Heer’s heart. Soon the gossip of two vampires on the prowl reached Rajaji even before Pir Sain’s first death anniversary. He came to his mother, and she out rightly denied her involvement. If her denial had relieved him, her shameful story had shattered him; his father’s sin was told to him to the minutest of details he felt his mother violated at his father’s hands. But later Rajaji rushed into her room to spell her out as a serpent 200 living in his father’s sleeve. Heer was threatened that if she dares to malign his father’s good name again, he will make an example out of her. Along with that threat came a decision that Rajaji was marrying her own half sister Maharani. He instructed Heer to take her old position in the kitchen and slammed the door on her face. Heer had a fear that her son was capable of abusing her openly. His anger struck her on a deep wound that never healed. She felt uneasy and sick as, “The loudspeaker at the mosque blasted my husband’s praises on his first barsi. I could not bear to chant prayers for his soul to rest in peace” (Blasphemy, 204). Heer’s problems multiplied as the Pathan told her that Pir Sain was nowhere in the film and Heer was everywhere. Pir Sain only loomed as a shadow in it and it was solid evidence against Heer herself. Heer looking at her own reflection in the mirror felt: …the woman in the mirror had seduced the district. Piyari the whore had done what I, Heer, the pure could never have imagined doing. Ablaze in the flames of Pir Sain’s karma, I had run in all directions to burn my surroundings. God and Satan, wrong and right, black and white, had all become entangled in my life and in my mind (Blasphemy, 205). When at night Heer tried to leave through the back door as she always did in the past, to her utter disappointment it was barricaded with wooden boards. Nailed. Disgrace as she had imagined was not falling on the Shrine but on her. While confronting Rajaji, Heer said she never left the haveli, to her horror her son barked: “You liar. You did dare. You sneaked out like a bitch on heat through the back door exclusive to my father’s use. You shamed me in front of thejagirdar. You went to every door, announcing yourself as Heer, mistress of haveli, honour of the Shrine” (Blasphemy, 206). Heer attempting to defend herself retorted: …the jagirdar knew me before your father died. Ask him the woman you curse was born in your Shrine, not in a mother’s womb. I pleased your father beyond my duty. I owe nobody here anything (Blasphemy, 206). Rajiji went against his father’s wish and married Maharani; his own half-sister, not only this he got her first husband killed by thugs. She couldn’t stop her son; he was another link in the satanic chain. To her, burying the evil and preserving her reputation meant preserving the evil. No exposure meant maintaining the status quo. 201 That meant no change. She knew she did the wrong thing for the right reason. Rajaji barged in Heer’s room to inform her that now he knew the whole truth about her, Tara was dead and before that she led him to Pathan who was in turn beaten to pulp. He snapped at her mother insulting her and told her that she was everywhere in the films and his father was no where. When Heer questioned him on the presence of a constant shadow looming there, he stood still for a moment but walked away because shadows were insubstantial. Heer’s world became square again—with her children gone. Ironically enough she felt her life was better when Pir Sain was alive. Rajaji when came to know that Maharani was pregnant, he asked himself a delayed question—was he going to become a father or an uncle? When this sin turned in his brain, he screamed and shouted, and drank himself out of this horrendous reality. When he found no solace, he abed with any maid, he laid his eyes upon. Rajaji went to discuss the matter regarding his mother with his uncles. He told his uncles, his heart felt desire of killing his mother because that would only give him immense satisfaction. Neither Rajaji nor his uncles were interested in the truth especially when their divinity was being questioned in the dirty hovels of their kingdom. They decided to lock Heer up and declare her mad. The power of the Shrine was going to dissipate if it will be questioned even once. It pleased Heer that Shrine was collapsing but Heer would go down with it. Heer knew eternal hell awaited her as Rajaji had adorned upon Pir Sain’s role. She wanted to meet her Ranjha—her last resort. She wrote a letter requesting him to meet her at the Shrine at Jumeraat. She went there at the decided time: I heard the sound of the crunching leaves, or was it crisp cotton? My heart beat raced. I heard the sound of feet. They led straight into my heart and stopped…with its beats. Rajaji. His uncle? I was staring at all his uncles! It was time to die… (Blasphemy, 219). They locked her up, where she wrote and read her own letters. Heer felt totally blank. Her mother, brother, sisters and daughters arrived, in their presence; Rajaji growled at Heer proclaiming her a 202 curse and prayed that Heer could better die before she could sting them all like a snake again. Amma Sain died; Rajaji wanted Heer dead and told everyone that she will get no place in their graveyard and that her epitaph will be a black mark on the Shrine. He wanted no reminder of his mother. But Heer’s brother pressed upon taking his sister along with him to his place. They promised that they’ll give her a new name and identity. He could proclaim his mother dead. Heer’s children-Guppi, Diya, Munni and Rajaji all faded, she wanted to call them back. Heer heard her brother whisper softly that he won’t let anyone take her away and he’ll do anything to make up to her. At last she was home; it was like heaven for her. One year later Heer is found staring at a tombstone that read- Heer. There she heard a peasant woman pray, “O Allah, bless this soul for exposing the decadence of Shrine-worship, bless her for bringing us close to you” (Blasphemy, 229). Her eyes filled with tears, at least somebody understood, but it was again birth of another Shrine. Stunned, she walked back to Ranjha, waiting behind the steering wheel of his car. Pir Sain drove Heer’s life but Ranjha stood by her. Heer fought her Jehad bravely and at last she won. Her life became a circle again as per the law of the nature. Kuch pane ke liye kuch khona bhi padta hai. Heer lost her children, her honour but she didn’t give up the path of righteousness. After losing everything Heer got her Ranjha, unlike the traditional Heer-Ranjha tragic love story, Heer got her love—her Ranjha; as a reward for her righteous Jehad. Heer gallantly fought in the square world held hard by the satanic chains made by Pir Sain to achieve the rounded world of love. Poetic justice proved true. Durrani’s novel Blasphemy has touched delicate topics like incest, child abuse, prostitution and paedophilia. It has gallantly talked about women who appeared at the shrine childless, and were ‘blessed’ by the Pir and went back pregnant, and of deviances that few associate with a holy shrine. Blasphemy depicts the struggle of a Muslim Woman against all that is divergent to what Islam stands for. It is a perfect blend of fact and fiction, unifying to disguise and defend the victims of an atrocious human tragedy, while revealing the influential religious imposters who prey on abject and defenseless people. It’s an appalling tale of brutality, sex and sadism.Blasphemy is an enticing novel by Tehmina Durrani. Angry and courageous in outlook, it establishes Ms. Durrani among 203 the foremost writers in New Literature. References Durrani, Tehmina, Blasphemy, New Delhi: Penguin Publications, 2000. Prasad, Amar Nath, Ashok Kumar, Commonwealth Literature in English: Past and Present, New Delhi: Sunrise Publishers Distributors, 2009. Nazneen, Sohela, ”Gender Relations in Bangladesh. The Household and Beyond: Dowry, Women’s Property Rights and Salish”, Carebd, 2004. 7 June 2008 . Niranjana, Seemanthini, Gender and Space: Femininity, Sexualization and the Female Body, New Delhi: Sage Publications Ltd., 2001. Parveen, Nilufar, ”Non-Valuation of Women’s Household Work in Bangladesh: Some Observations”, Empowerment, 27 (1995): pp. 113-22. Hussain, Muzaffar, ”Blasphemy—After Taslima Nasareen’s Lajja Tehmina Durrani’s” Organiser. November 22 1998. Web http:/ /www.hvk.org/articles/1198/0036.html\ Goldenberg, Suzanne, ”Author Awaits Verdict on a Book called Blasphemy” The Guardian (London). Foreign Page. October 12, 1998. Pg. 12. Web. 20 February 2012. 204 232323 The Poetic Achievement of Sarojini Naidu Dr. Lilly Fernandes Introduction Sarojini Naidu is well known as someone who incorporates romantic imagery and English metrical forms in her English poems. Noted English writers Arthur Symons and Edmund Gosse recognized her work as one that incorporated difficult poetic constructs. Thus, impressed by her work, they sought Sarojini Naidu’s friendship. However, Sarojini Naidu was not just a poet but also was an active socialist (Munro, 1969). She took as in India’s freedom struggle and in women’s rights with just as much passion and determination as she did when she was composing her poems. She became a very close advocate of Mahatma Gandhi’s mission and lectured on behalf of Indian independence all over the country and also in some situations, international nations like Africa, America and Canada. In 1947, she was elected to the post of a Governor of the United Provinces. This was a notable achievement as it was the first time a woman had been elected to this post. This paper delves into the poetic work of Sarojini Naidu and her contribution to Indian poetic history. Early Life and Poetry Sarojini Naidu entered the world of poetry with the purpose of revolting against the autocratic rule at home and with a tune of self drama. Her parents wanted her to be a mathematician or a scientist but she chose to be a poet (Munro, 1969). Her involvement in poetry is strongly identified from the following lines in her poetry, “One day when I was sighing over a sum in algebra, it wouldn’t come right; but instead a whole poem came to me suddenly. I wrote it down. From that day my poetic career began” (ET, 1917). The early poetry of Sarojini Naidu displayed her innocence presenting simplicity, unaffectedness and a natural curiosity. She grew as a woman and created an identity for herself by moving beyond childhood fantasy and aspirations. This is clearly seen in the poem “Fourteenth Birthday” (1893), My joys were not what joys to childhood seem: Not on unthinking sports my soul was fed, But nursed it was on many a brighter theme 205 (Another Hindo Poet, 1916) Her wistful reveries of love are strongly perceived from her love poems to Dr. Naidu. In these poems the purity of love, the mystery of love and passion she feels are portrayed effectively. Her style strongly follows that of English Romantics. In all her early poetry Naidu portrays a sense of sensibility presented among amusing childishness who was able to draw a link between personal and poetic resonance presenting her emergence as a woman from the frails of innocence (Chaterjee, 1990). The first book of poetry by Naidu was The Golden Threshold. The reason for the publication of this book was the glowing review presented by Arthur Simons who was strongly impressed by the elusive personality of a young Indian woman whose poems presented “subtle, delicately wrought lyrics, self conscious with the poise of an accomplished educated woman”. Her traditional Brahmin upbringing and the Western influence on her can be seen in her early works. Most of the poems that she wrote in English had traditional English metrical forms in them and she mainly focused on Western themes and images in her English poems. Writer Edmund Gosse had read her works and was quite impressed with her talent. He encouraged her to incorporate more Indian subjects into her poems (Dwivedi, 1981). Sarojini Naidu decided to take Edmund Gosse’s advice to heart and so her next work—The Golden Threshold combined traditional poetic forms with beautiful vistas of Indian life. The book went on to become hugely popular and attained great success critically in England, where Edwardian readers acknowledged her work as something that combined good English with an exotic imageries of India. Sarojini Naidu went on to write further volumes. Her second work was a collection of poems, The Bird of Time which was released in 1912. However, she went in a different direction with this work and incorporated more themes like grief and death along with her views on religion (Naik, 1984). Once again Edmund Gosse provided a forward for this book and noted that it was also a wonderful piece of writing that included a rich exploration of complex issues in a delicate and romantic language. Sarojini Naidu went on to write a third volume—The Broken Wing which also focused more on Indian patriotism and vivid descriptions of Indian culture. The most important aspect in this volume is Naidu’s collection of 24 poems called as The Temple: A Pilgrimage of Love, which is considered by most people as the best work from her even today. In this collection, 206 Naidu explores the joys, pain, and vagaries of a mature love relationship in graphic, sometimes violent, imagery, and concludes in a meditation on death. The Broken Wing was the last volume of poetry published in Naidu’s lifetime (Gupta, 1975). Naidu: Inheritor and Imitator Sarojini Naidu was thus considered to be an Indo-Anglian poet who was simultaneously influenced by deep rooted traditions of India and was inspired by views in the West when she visited England. The poetry of Naidu is found to be a concoction which was sensibly controlled and modified by both presenting pressure of personality and experience. This effort presented a manipulative irony which showed signs of constructed intelligence. Naidu was one of the early generation Indo-Anglian poets who followed the style of the conventional English literary milieu but was modern in her themes. She presented the classic example of an inheritor and imitator. Naidu’s impression of Florence and her ability to reveal a mind open to flow and rhythm of the external world showed an imagination which was strongly sensitized. “God! How beautiful it is, and how gload I am that I am alive today!... win, golden and scented, and shining fit for the gods” (Symons, 1905: 11) From this poetry she drives myth and fantasy into the hearts of the reader by presenting an unerring instinct for capturing the picturesque. In her poetry the Cascine, Naidu was impressed by Western women, who are “profound artists in all the subtle intricacies of fascination” as observed from, “The beautiful worldly women of the West, taking the air, so consciously attractive in their brilliant toilettes in the brilliant coquetry of their manners” (Symons, 1905: 11). Naidu: Appreciation for Indian Tradition In 1896 Naidu’s poem “Eastern Dancers” was published in the Savoy. This poem presented Naidu’s deep love for tradition and her fascination with dancers and exotic imagery “Eyes ravished with rapture, celestially panting, what passionate spirits aflaming with fire, Drink deep of the hush of the hyacinth heavens that, glimmer around them in fountains of light” (Eastern Dancers, 1896) 207 Similarly another poem “Nightfall in the City of Hyderabad” also presents a very intense, and exotic image of the orient drawing readers from the West. A case in point is her use of imagery including: “speckled sky”, “burns like a pigeon’s throat/Jeweled with embers of opal and peridote” and “leisurely elephants”. From her poems a number of different celebrated Indian traditions are identified. Her works celebrate the Indian way of life in “Coromandel Fishers” , “Palanquin Bearers” and “Snake Charmers”. Naidu presents a sympathetic view towards the practice of sati in her poem “ Suttee”: “Life of my life, Death’s bitter sword Hath severed us like a broken word, Rent us in twain who are but one ... Shall the flesh survive when the soul is gone” ( The Golden Threshold, 46) In her poem The Soul’s Prayer, the metaphysical ruminations of Naidu and her effort to become one with God are clearly seen. She showed her inner quest for enlightenment on the laws of life and death as well as her desire for more faith in the Almighty. Sarojini Naidu might have taken interest in a number of activities that would have disturbed her spiritual thirst, but she had a heart of a true aspirant. Her devotion and passion were so great that even people who were spiritually devoted could not help but admire and imitate her self surrendering prayer: “Take my flesh to feed your dogs if you choose, Water your garden-trees with my blood if you will, Turn my heart into ashes, my dreams into dust— Am I not yours, O Love, to cherish or kill?” (The Golden Threshold, 71) Most of her views on Indian tradition are presented in a positive light. The Ode to H.H. the Nizam of Hyderabad” is the poet’s public offering. In this poetry Naidu celebrates the Mughal tradition and presents a positive light of royal ode. She presents the diversity and cultural harmony which existed during the Nizam’s rule. Her poetry strongly reflected the growth in togetherness and accord that existed among the people as observed from the following lines: “Deign, Prince, my tribute to receive, This lyric offering to your name, Who round your jeweled scepter bind The lilies of a poet’s fame 208 Beneath whose sway concordant dwell The peoples whom your laws embrace, . In brotherhood of diverse creeds, And harmony of diverse race.” (The Golden Threshold, 71). The interest Naidu showed in the cultural diversity of India is also strongly reflected in a number of her other material. In the poetry “In Praise of Henna” the importance of henna to the bride and the celebration of womanhood is strongly observed from the following lines, “Hasten maidens, hasten away To gather the leaves of the henna-tree. The tilka’s red for the brow of a bride, And betel-nut’s red for lips that are sweet; But, for lily-like fingers and feet, The red, the red of the henna-tree” Some of her other celebrated works on Indian diversity include works like “ Harvest Hymn” and “Festival of Serpents”. Naidu: The Nationalist Sarojini Naidu has been presented as an author who has shown very little evidences of crises in her growth as a poet in an Indo- Anglian context, however with her growth as a woman and a poet there was an accompanied growth in terms of a nationalist. There was a discernible growth of her as a political poet and discovered a possible new public role for her poetry. There was growing involvement of women in the Indian war for independence and Naidu formed part of this growing sphere. She entered politics in the year 1902. This was done by the popular leader Gopal Krishna Gokhale who felt that Naidu could influence the masses following the triumph of Sarala Devi. The poetry of Sarala Devi which linked millions of provinces together and made an attempt to show that despite various races and creeds the country was still one was a big hit and Naidu was inspired by the same to write her piece “ Ode to India” (Singh, 1912). At the 1904 Congress meet, Naidu read her “Ode To India”, “O young through all thy immemorial years! Rise, Mother, rise, regenerate from thy gloom, And, like a bride high-mated with the spheres, Beget new glories from thine ageless womb! 209 The nations that in fettered darkness weep Crave thee to lead them where great mornings break.... Mother, Mother, wherefore dost thou sleep? Arise and answer for thy children’s sake!” This poem presented a very strong nationalist message. In this poetry Naidu presents India in the image of a mother. This was a very strong and recurrent pattern which was found to be employed in the future works of Naidu. She strongly continued to present herself as a nationalist poet by linking her personal and political struggles. In “Ode to India” Naidu presents a traditional format of patriotic songs. Her inspirations in these songs were from the influential works of Bande Mataram by Bankim Chandra Chaterjee. In this song Naidu shows her command over the English language by presenting her work in a different sphere wherein English is used to transform Indian poetry from mimicry and colonial exotism to a language to express the pain and anguish of the country and people and their struggle for freedom. Sarojini Naidu gave a speech at the National Congress in Bombay in 1915 in which she extended her support to home rule. She never admitted her own political qualifications, however, she did use her position as a token woman to press for unity among the masses in various parts of India by appealing to a unified sisterhood. “since it is the desire of so many people here present that some woman from amidst you, some daughter of this Bharat Mother, should raise her voice, on behalf of her sisters, to second and support this resolution on Self-Government, I venture—though it seems presumption so to venture—to stand before you and to give my individual support as well as to speak in the name of many millions of my sisters of India” (Speeches and Writings of Sarojini Naidu, 1919) According to her, self-government without the help or supervision of the British was the best way to forge forward in relation to Indian unity. She also stated that “infinitely subtler and more dreadful and damning domination of your own prejudices and your own self-seeking community of race” (Speeches and Writings of Sarojini Naidu, 1919). Her last poem was titled “Awake” which was fitting to the occasion as it called for unity among the masses and it went in beautifully with her previous poem “To India”, and expanded the themes used in that poem. 210 “Waken, oh mother, thy children implore thee, Who kneel in thy presence to serve and adore thee! The night is aflush with a dream of the morrow, Why still dost thou sleep in thy bondage of sorrow? Awaken and sever the woes that enthral us, And hallow our hands for the triumphs that call us!” In “The Gift of India” the gift referred to in the title is both the gift of the material wealth of India, gifts of grain or gold; and, more importantly, the priceless gift of a mother India was celebrated. “The sons of my stricken womb To the drum-beats of duty, the sabres of doom& lifetime” (Tharu , 1990) The poem that was written in August of 1915 focuses on the Indian soldiers who were sent as part of the colonial forces to take part in oversees wars which were being fought to protect the colonial interests in Africa and the Middle East. “Gathered like pearls in their alien graves Silent they sleep by the Persian waves, Scattered like shells on Egyptian sands, They lie with pale brows and brave, broken hands, They are strewn like blossoms mown down by chance On the blood-brown meadows of Flanders and France.” (Tharu, 1990) Conclusion There have been a lot of speculations as to her move from a literary field to a political arena. Some of the speculations say that her move was due to her reduction in her popularity of her works in England after she moved away from her flowery, romantic style to more morbid and serious tones. Further speculation say that her involvement with the freedom struggles and other issues led to a loss of interest in her work by the people. This was proved when her daughter published some of her unpublished poems in 1961 and this work— The Feather of the Dawn, was not popular among the masses and the critics. However critics still consider her one of the greatest 20th century Indian poets. One of the highlights of her work was the references to Hindu mythology that accentuates the Indian culture in her works. Her 211 poems always managed to form a common bond between the Indian and the Western elements. Poetry is all about perception and her works have been perceived in many ways. However, there are certain themes that are universally acknowledged by everyone when it comes to Sarojini Naidu’s works. Some of the themes that her works are known for are her vivid pictorials, lush visual imagery and her ability to provide an Indian touch to her messages. References Another Hindoo Poet, New Republic, 1916, pp. 247-48. Symons, Arthur, Introduction” to Sarojini Naidu, The Golden Threshold, New York: John Lane; London: W. Heinemann, 1905, pp. 11. Dwivedi, N.A., Sarojini Naidu and her Poetry, Allahabad: Kitab Mahal, 1981, p. 54. Eastern Dancers, Savoy, 1896. Eunice & Tietjens, From India, Poetry, 1917, pp. 10. Gupta, Rameshwar, Sarojini, the Poetess, Delhi: Doaba House, 1975, pp. 14. Naik, M.K. Perspectives on Indian Poetry in English, New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1984, p. 215. Natesan, G.A., Speeches and Writings of Sarojini Naidu (2nd Edn.) Madras, 1919, pp. 174. Chatterjee, Partha, “The Nationalist Resolution to the Women’s Question”, Recasting Women (ed.) Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid, New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1990, pp. 246-47. Singh, Saint Nihal “The Patriotic Songs and National Poems of India”, Hindustan Review, 1912, pp. 580-81. Tharu, Susie, “Tracing Savitri’s Pedigree: Victorian Racism and the Image of Women in Indo-Anglian Literature”, Recasting Women (ed.) Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid, New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1990, pp. 261. The Golden Threshold, p. 46. The Golden Threshold, p. 71. 212 242424 Devotional Themes in Mira’s Poetry Dr. Lilly Fernandes Introduction The birth place of Mira, the Rajput princess was Kudki, a little village near Merta City located in Nagaur district of Rajasthan in Northwestern India (Kishwar, 1987). Mirabai was a devotee of Lord Krishna and was considered to be one of the greatest mystical singers in the Colonial era. She was a prominent person in the Saint tradition of ‘Vaishnava Bhakti’ movement. She has personally written more than 1,200 bhajan songs which are passionate praises of Lord Krishna and have today been translated into numerous languages. Women poets write consciously as women. Mira is one of those celebrated women writers who presents a theme which is completely devoted to Lord Krishna. Almost all of her works revolve around her complete devotion to God. The purpose of this paper is to delve into the writings of Mirabai and to identify the devotional themes associated with it. Poetry Most of Mirabai’s songs are composed in the form of a pada or verse. This term is typically associated with small spiritual songs that are often composed in simplerhythms with repeating refrain. The fully extended compositions can be found in Rajasthani and Braj dialects often found near the child hood home of Lord Krishna— Vrindavan. Mirabai’s poetry, her personality and her life became a shining example of devotion and a compelling story of struggle and perseverance to show continued adoration to Lord Krishna (Hirshfield, 2004). There has been a great deal of speculation as to how many of the padas or poem songs are actually genuine. In total, there is a consensus that there are about 200padas which are believed to have been sung by Mirabai herself. However, the language in which the padas were originally sung or written is not well known, as most of her work was presented as ragas or melodies that were passed on in an oral tradition. The few written records were actually presented after her death. Many scholars debate about the language that was originally used by Mirabai. Some say they were sung in the regional languages spoken in the provinces where she spent 213 her life. Since Mirabai’s father was a devotee of Lord Krishna, she was brought up in an environment that had a long and rich tradition of song-poems dedicated to Krishna. This tradition was put in practice by a poet called Jayadeva and the main language used for such songs were Sanskrit. Later poets such as Vidyapati, Narsi, and Chandi Das followed Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda as the model for their songs, written in Maithili, Gujarati, and Bengali languages. There has always been a tradition of praising one’s Lord through poems and therefore Mirabai also adopted a similar path. However, she never wrote down her songs of praise. The various padas that were composed by Mirabai is a direct reflection of her spiritual experiences at various stages of her life. Although Mirabai’spadas are not on diverse subjects, they are rich in spontaneity, imagery, and lyricism. Furthermore, all the padas can be classified under two categories, songs of love for Krishna and songs of entreaty and salutation to Krishna. When it comes to the category of salutation to Krishna, Mirabai also followed the path that was set by Krishna’s previous devotees and bhakta poets (Lorenzen, 1995). She followed their way of portraying oneself as a helpless, unprotected, and sinful being, begging the Lord to forgive them and to take them into His hold. Bhakta poets were generally considered as the lowliest of all the people and therefore the Lord’s kindness could be seen in their love for them (Lorenzen, 1995). Mirabai uses a number of exants to portray her love for the Lord such as: attraction, hope, longing, disappointment in separation, and joy in union. Mirabai’s padas are often an expression of her love and unity with the Lord and often ends with the words: “Mira’s Lord is none other than Giradhara (Krishna)” (Hawley, 2005). Mirabai is not just known for her poems but also for her devoted nature towards Lord Krishna and her religious practices. According to Ananth Nath Basu, Mirabai is a “poetess of rare gifts, who has left us her songs as a spiritual heritage.” David Halpern claims that although Mirabai “was not seeking literary acclaim, some of her lyrics have been called among the greatest of Indian literature.” Shreeprakash Kurl writes that Mirabai’s “majesty rests on the foundation of devotion” and that “a study of Mira’s poetry is a study of the phenomenon of the poet as a devotee.” According to Krishna P. Bandahur, “most critics are of the view that Mira did not deliberately choose her words to create an effect” but considered her poetry to be “the spontaneous outpouring of her heart” which “achieved perfection because of her artless and deep emotions.” 214 For Usha S. Nilsson, “Mirabai’s poems hold a very special place in medieval Hindi poetry.” Further, Nilsson contends that “few poets have surpassed the lyrical quality of Mirabai’s verses” and that “Mirabai is at her lyrical best when singing of her love for Krishna.” According to Sauna Ramanathan, “Krishna is once again present; we hear the flute; we rise and go.” Nancy Martin-Kershaw praises Mirabai’s padas as “exceptionally beautiful songs of love and longing for God.” Nilsson states that Mirabai’s “genius was especially suited to the form of the short lyric, in which a highly intensified mood was sustained.” According to her, the thematic content of Mirabai’s padas is the main reason for their appeal. In Songs of the Saints of India, John Stratton Hawley summarizes the power of her poetry and the story of her life as a saint: “Whoever she was … she fired the imagination with her fearless defiance.… [A]s the only one of her gender to have earned a place on the honour roll of north India Bhakti saints, she exerts a fascination that none of her male counterparts can match” (Hawley, 2005). When compared to the songs of Surdas and Tulsidas, her songs are determined to be different as they did not represent any theological arguments (Alston, 1985: 55). declared that the songs are considered to provide hearty emotions of happiness, wish, aggravation and depression. Ordinary men and women were highly attracted by her songs to a great extent. She invoked themes related to injustice, wealth, pride, gender discrimination and power. She decided and mingled with people of every caste and commented on various types of overwhelming institutionalized religious methods. The speech given by Mira was with passion and intensity that was intensely motivated by her untamed abandonment to the love of God. Mira’s Devotional Themes There is lack of theological texts in any of the poetry written by Mirabai. She has rarely written content on the meaning and nature of God and the importance of prayer. However, most of her poetry and writings present a consistent theme of her understanding of what God really is and portrays her devotion to the Lord. In most of her poetry there is a consistent theme of her portrayal of God as one who transcends all beings and is one who is beyond form. In her poem 58, Mira describes Krishna as one who pervades all (Alston, 1989). Hence the image of God being an all transcending and powerful being is strongly reflected in all of her poems. In almost all her poems she refers to Krishna being who is indestructible 215 (Alston, 1989: 29,194,195). She also identifies with Krishna being one who is the creator of all world from whom the existence of the world begun and is sustained (Alston, 1989: 14). She indicates that He is one who holds the answer to life and death (Alston, 1989: 75) and one whom the entire world worships and abides by (Alston, 1989: 143). Thus through her poetry an emerging theme of God as one who is beyond everything that is created and as one who holds the entire universe together strongly emerges. The primary premise behind Mira’s work was one that should encounter God. Her perception of God was that He was a supreme being who could be seen, felt and known. Mira considered God to be one who was worshipped in form. For Mira, the presence of God was manifested in the form of Krishna. Her love for the Lord and her devotion to Him was strongly presented in her visible image of God as Krishna. From the writings of Mira the complete devotion Mira had for the Lord was strongly identified. Powerful imagery of the Lord is a strong theme identified from the work of Mira. In some of her poems Mira gives an in-depth description of the features of the Lord including His hair, His eyes, and His limbs. In her poem (10) compiled by Alston 1989 she presents the Lord as My eyes are spell bound By the beauty of the angular pose of the Lord. On beholding the beauty of Madan, My eyes drink in the nectar and do not blink. Attracted by the lotus-petal beauty of His brows, It is as if they were now entangled In His curling, odorous locks. His body is bent at the waist, His hands curved over the flute, His turban is aslant and His necklace swinging. Mira is thrilled by the beauty of the Lord, Of the courtly Giridhara, dressed as a dancer. In this poem Krishna is presented as an image of would be lover, a beloved to whom she lost her heart. In a large number of poems of Mira there is the theme of Krishna being presented as one whom she adores. She presents the view of “being entrapped by His form” (Alston, 1989: 8). In her poetry it is observed that Krishna is one who makes her heart his home (Alston, 1989: 8) and is one 216 who presents an ever binding love for eternity (Alston, 1989: 40). From her writings a wide range of symbols and themes to describe God. What follows are some of her primary images. Image of the Beloved Image of Krishna as her beloved is the dominant image which is strongly seen in her poetry. A deep sense of attachment to the Lord is portrayed right from the childhood days of Mira. Legend says that from a very young age Mira was told by her mother that Krishna would be her husband. So right from her childhood Mira developed a deep bond with Krishna. Her love for Krishna was apparent even in her views as a child (Alston, 1989: 100). She portrays visions of being married to Krishna in a dream (Alston, 1989: 27) and talks of Krishna as her divine lover (Alston, 1989: 50) and her husband (Alston, 1989: 39, 151). Her image of Lord Krishna is also strongly presented in poem 42 where the anger of her family against her wishes to marry Lord Krishna and her stubbornness to not abandon her ‘ancient love’ is observed. O Sister, without Hari I cannot live. My mother-in-law fights with me, My sister-in-law scolds me, The King is permanently in a rage. They have bolted my door And mounted a guard outside it. Why should I abandon my ancient love Inherited from earlier births? Mira’s Lord is the courtly Giridhara And she will be satisfied with nothing else. Mira’s writings clearly indicate an exceptionally personal and intimate relationship with her Lord. Krishna as Jogi There is a very strong image of Krishna as Jogi in a number of her songs and writings. However, these are painful imagery presented by Mira. A large amount of Mira’s work is devoted to this theme of suffering from separation in love. The description of the terminology Jogi is presented in the text by Alston as ”A wandering ascetic of the Natha sect. As He is cut off from worldly attachments, He comes and goes like a passing cloud and nobody can get a hold on Him” (Alston, 1989: 126). From the writings of Mira the importance of understanding 217 God as a Jogi is strongly understood. From her views of God as Jogi, Mira presents a view that even God cannot be held as a captive no matter how much devotion an individual shows. In her writings a number of lovers of Krishna are presented which acted as a source of personal pain for Mira. Her love for the Lord was so intense that she experienced jealousy when she was unable to be one with him while others could (Alston, 1989: 181). The Path of Love All of the poems presented by Mira are a collection of love poems devoted to the Lord. In one poem Mira enamours her readers by presenting a breathtaking vision of a wild woman of the woods, who brings sweet plums to the Lord. In this poem the woman is presented as one who is from a lower caste uneducated, not beautiful and unclean. However, the Lord accepts the offering as they are given with love and sincerity. From this poem one can clearly observe the theme of salvation and union with God. In her poems it is quite clear that status, education, beauty do not matter when it comes to the Lord. but the intent of the heart. She emphasizes that knowledge cannot lead to devotion and salvation, but love. Not for her the learning of the Veda, She was transported to heaven on a chariot At a single stroke. Now she sports in Vaikunth, Bound to Hari by ties of love. Says servant Mira: Who so loves like this is saved (186) The love Mira writes about is not an occasional theme but an everlasting one. In her every poem it is observed that the love for the Lord is clear in her every day choice. She talks of God in every nook and every city and how she does not want to forget God day or night (106). However, one theme which is distinct in the work of Mira is that the love often originates from the Lord Himself. He is the one who initiates the relationship. In a number of poems Mira presents how the Lord captured her heart by playing the flute. She also presents imagery of falling for the Lord when the arrow of love sent by Him pierced her heart. Conclusion In her writings about Krishna she looks at God as one who is eternally distinct. She describes God as the sun and herself as the 218 source of heat. As indicated earlier she looks upon Lord Krishna as one who is omnipresent and elusive. She wants Him to be one with her but presents Him as one who is separate. Whenever she describes God she presents Him as one with grace and love and as someone who does not present Himself to anyone who demands to know Him. Works Cited Alston, A.J., The Devotional Poems of Mirabai, s.l.:Motilal Banarsidas, 1989. Hawley, J.S., Three Bhakti Voices: Mirabai, Surdas, and Kabir in Their Time and Ours, USA: Oxford University Press, 2005. Hirshfield, R.B.A.J., Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems, s.l.:Beacon Press, 2004. Kishwar, M.A.V.R., Poison to Nectar: The Life of Mirabai, Manushi, 1987, pp. 50-52. Lorenzen, D., Bhakti Religion in North India, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. Mittal, M., Meerabai—For Her Krishna was Love Supreme, s.l.: Manoj Publications, 2006. 219 252525 Wendell Berry: The Sense of Place and Placelessness ininin Ecological American Poetry Dr. Norah Hadi Q. Alsaeed Ecological poets offer a vision of the world that values the interaction between two interdependent and seemingly paradoxical desires, both of which represent attempts to respond to the modern divorce between humanity and the rest of nature, to create place which means making a conscious and concerted effort to know the more than human world around us, to value placelessness which means recognizing the extent to which that very world is ultimately unknowable. In fleshing out this vision, I will rely on the work of cultural geographer Yi-Fu Tuan in order to come to a clearly understanding of the concepts of place and placelessness, in Tuan’s term ‘space’. Also I rely on the work of the linguist Keith H. Basso and his theory of ‘place-making’ and the way these two concepts relate to the poetry of a contemporary American poet, Wendell Berry. In his landmark Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, Tuan thinks that “(w)hat begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value”(6). For example, a neighbourhood is at first a confusion of images to the new resident; it is blurred space out there. Learning to know the neighbourhood requires the identification of signified localities, such as street corners and architectural land marks within the neighbourhood space (17-18). Thus “enclosed and humanized space is place” (54). One way to apply Tuan’s definition of place to the work of Wendell Berry is to view the writer as similar to what Keith Basso calls ‘place-makers’, a phrase he uses to describe the Western story tellers whom he has lived and worked with. In his work Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache, he explains these place makers introducing to their audience imaginative ‘place worlds’ that serve as alternative conceptions of how the world could be (55). Those place-makers introduce images of the past that enlarge awareness of the present so they create places in the minds of their listeners. These old places will serve as models for their living in the present. For Basso: As places animate the ideas and feelings of persons who attend to them, these same ideas and feelings animate the places on which attention has been bestowed…when places are actively sensed, the physical landscape becomes wedded to the landscape of the mind, 220 to the roving imagination, and where the mind may lead is anybody’s guess (WSP, 55). Thus, as they create place-worlds, these place makers offer new visions of how things have been, and, implicitly might be. This role of the story tellers is similar to what Wendell Berry attempts to fulfil in his own. When viewed through the lenses of Basso and Tuan Wendell Berry is an ecological poet who is attempting to move his audience out of an existence in an abstract postmodernized space where we are simply visitors in an unknown neighbourhood into a recognition of our present surroundings as place and thus as home. Wendell Berry represents the next in a long line of thinkers attempting to overcome the modem split between human and non- human nature. Throughout his work Berry has addressed modern alienation by opposing the setting of culture and nature at odds, arguing instead for the importance of understanding the interrelation and interdependence between the human and non- human worlds. One of the two primary projects of this paper is to use the place-space framework to explore this aspect of Berry’s poetics. In his place- and space-conscious poetry Berry stresses on the need for people to recover an active, literal, sustainable relationship with the landscape around them and thereby to discover the extent to which we both depend on and ultimately fail to comprehend the trans-human world. Using the Tuanian framework as a lens to examine Berry’s work, with its focus on the interaction between the domestic and the wild, we discover a keen sense of place-and space-consciousness repeatedly emphasizing on the extent to which we are both a part of wild nature and disconnected from it. There is little question that Wendell Berry is a place-maker as I defined early in this paper, that is he attempts “to move his audience out of an existence in an abstract space where we are simply visitors in an unknown neighbourhood and into a recognition of our present surroundings as place and thus as home.” Critics have extensively discussed this aspect of Berry’s writing. Most prominently in regards to his prose work. Scott Russell Sanders, for instance, compares Berry’s fiction to that of writers like Hardy, in whose novels “landscape is no mere scenery, no flimsy stage set, but rather the energizing medium from which human lives emerge and by which those lives are bounded and measured” (183). Sanders contrasts Berry to another Kentucky author, Bobbie Ana Mason, for whom “nature suppsanoccasiona1 metaphor to illustrate a character’s 221 dilemma—a tulip tree cut down when it was about to bloom, a rabbit with crushed legs on the highway—exactly as K-Mart or Cat Chow or the Phil Donahue Show supply analogues” (191). For Berry, on the other hand, “no matter how much the land has been neglected or abused, no matter how ignorant of their environment people may have become, nature is the medium in which life transpires, and prime source of values and meaning and purpose” (191). Scott Slovic makes a similar point regarding Berry’s essays, explaining that “Berry manages to suggest that both the language and the ideas of his essay originate somehow in the natural place and in his family’s long association with the place rather than in his own mind. Rather than making the land part of him. He and his essay grow out of the land” (127-28). The same goes for Berry’s verse, where he aims for the type of poetry can be described as a healthy speech. Berry comments on this description, interpreting it to mean “speech that is not only healthy in itself, but conducive to the health of the speaker, giving him a true and vigorous relation to the world” (CH, 14). This concept of “a true and vigorous relation to the world” is crucial to Berry’s poetry, for he holds that “Nothing can be its own context. Meaning and value are not generated by parts, but are conferred by the whole” (SBW, 167). Thus, “When we include ourselves as parts or belongings of the world we are trying to preserve, then obviously we can no longer think of the world as “the environment— something out there around us. We can see that our relation to the world surpasses mere connection and verges on identity” (“OC”). To recognize our relationship to nature as one verging on identity is to feel ‘in place’. A good example of Berry’s connection to his place can be found in “The Strangers,” a poem about travelers who stop to ask directions of the speaker: “Where are we? Where I does this road go?” The speaker explains to the readers that these strangers have lost a connection to the land and are consequently unable to see the places they visit, knowing only the names on the map: They have followed the ways By which the country is forgot For them, places have changed Into their names, and vanished. In attempting to direct the travellers, the speaker finds himself at a loss: 222 My mind shifts for whereabouts. Have I found them in a country they have lost? Are they lost in a country I have found? How can they learn where they are from me, who have found myself here after an expense of history and labor six generations long? How will they understand my speech that holds this to be its place and is conversant with its trees and stones. We are lost to each other. The poem concludes with the strangers waiting an answer I know too well to speak. I speak the words they do not know. I stand like an Indian before the alien ships. (CM, 37) This poem conveys a concept that Berry’s work returns to again and again: that it is possible to know a place truly, and that this knowledge may separate a person from those who not to know that place. Notice also the theme that numerous ecological poets take up, the inadequacy of language. The speaker associates himself with pre-colonial American Indians, comparing his place- knowledge to theirs and implying, hyperbolically, that the language barrier between himself and the strangers is similar to the one between Native people and the ‘alien’ Europeans. He hasn’t the means to articulate the knowledge acquired through years of living in and with his place. Berry also works with this idea in a more recent poem, ”The Record,” in which a “young friend” asks the speaker to record the voice of an “old friend” who has gathered a lifetime of knowledge of Cane Run, his place. The youth explains that that knowledge “is precious” and “should be saved.” The speaker’s response is sympathetic—”I know the panic of that wish to save/ the vital knowledge of the old times, handed down”—but also 223 admonishes the young friend for believing in a royal road to place— knowledge: Because it must be saved, do not tell it to a machine to save it. That old man speaking you have heard since your boyhood, since his prime, his voice speaking out of lives long dead, their minds speaking in his own, by winter fires, in fields and woods, in barns while rain beat on the roofs and wind shook the girders. Stay and listen until he dies or you the, for death is in this, and grief is in this. Live here as one who knows these things. Stay, if you live; live and answer. Listen to the next one like him, if there is to be one. Be the next one like him, if you must; stay and wait. Tell your children Tell them to tell their children. As you depart toward the coming light, turn back and speak, as the creek steps downward over the rocks, saying the same changing thing in the same place as it goes. (E, 9-10) As in “The Strangers,” in this poem we see the affirmation that place matters, and that its experience and appreciation transcend our ability to communicate it or to save it in some simple way. The way to know “and save” place is to live it, and to live it fully. One of Berry’s favourite place-making metaphors, therefore, is marriage. In his poems matrimony refers to a life-long commitment not only to another person but to the land, the connector of all things past, present, and future. Marriage for Berry is an analogue for a person’s devotion to his or her place and all that comes with it. In “The Current,” for example, Berry renders a profound bond with the land, a sustainable relationship that also connects him to the past and to people who have come before him. as well as to those who follow: Having once put his hand into the ground, 224 seeding there what he hopes will outlast him, a man has made a marriage with his place, and if he leaves it his flesh will ache to go back. His hand has given up its birdlife in the air. It has reached into the dark like a root and begun to wake, quick and mortal, in timelessness, a flickering sap coursing upward into his head so that he sees the old tribes people bend in the sun, digging with sticks, the forest opening to receive their hills of corn, squash, and beats, their lodges and graves and closing again He is made their descendent, what they left in the earth rising into him like a seasonal juice. And be sees the bearers of his own blood arriving, the forest burrowing into the earth as they come, their hands gathering the stones up into walls, and relg, the ones crawling back into the ground to lie still under the black wheels of machines. The current flowing to him though the earth flows past him, and he sees one descended from him, a young man who baa reached into the ground, his hand held in the dark as by a hand. (CF, 119) The current in the poems title obviously refers to a metaphorical river flowing from past to future, with the man in the poem representing the current present-moment existence. The poem also asserts that what takes place now, that which is current, is not isolated from what has come before or will appear in the future. The ‘marriage’ the man has made with his place thus weds him to ‘the old tribespeople’ who preceded him by generations, as well as to the young man, most probably a son or grandson, who will touch hint by reaching into the same dark ground, taking part in the same union. Another way Berry attempts to make place is by constantly reminding his readers that ultimately, we are all literally and biologically connected to everything else, for we all die and our bodies nourish the rest of nature. We see this time and again in 225 Berry’s poems. In “Enriching the Earth” the speaker, presumably a farmer, says that to serve the earth, not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness and a delight to the air, and my days do not wholly pass ……………………………………………….. After death, willing or not, the body serves, entering the earth. And so what was heaviest and most mute is at last raised up into song. (CP, 110) Similarly, in “The Farmer Among the Tombs,” the farmer says that he is “oppressed by all the room taken up by the dead”; he therefore declares, “Plow up the graveyards Haul off the monuments” so that the dead may “nourish their graves I and go free” (CP, 105). A poem that connects the marriage theme with this celebration of death is “The Clear Days,” where Berry writes that Until the heart has found Its native piece of ground The day withholds its light, the eye must stay unlit.

The ground’s the body’s bride, who will not be denied.’ (CF 165). Here Berry makes explicit the eternal commitment between the land and the body. And obviously, this insight is cause for delight rather than regret for Berry, who prays elsewhere that his life might be “a patient willing descent into the grass” (“The Wish to Be Generous,” CF: I 14). One of the poems that best expresses Berry’s devotion to the relationship between humans and the land is ‘where’, a long poem from Clearing that Berry extensively revised and condensed for his 1984 Collected Poems. This poem narrates the passage of Lane’s Landing, the 50-acre farm Berry and his family purchased in the late 1960s, from wilderness to productive farm to the scarred and ‘mined’ land that he now owns and work After describing the fecundity of the land before it was bought by one who neglected it (due to his “mind cast loose/in whim and greed”), the poet renders the tragedy of that loss: 226 Given a live, husbandly tradition, that abundance might have lasted. It did not. One lifetime of our history ruined it. The slopes of the watershed were stripped of trees. The black topsoil washed away in the tracks of logger and plowman. The creeks, that once ran clear after the heaviest rains, Et ran muddy, dried in summer. (CF, 178) As Andrew Angyal says of this poem: “Berry presents the history of his farm as a parable of the American frontier and an indictment of the reckless habits that quickly exhausted the land’s natural richness and abundance “Where” is both a personal credo and a contemporary ecological statement of the need to change both land management practices and cultural attitudes toward the land” (126). As Berry puts it elsewhere, “The mistakes of old/I become the terrors of the young” (‘Handing Down’, CF: 38). “Where” is reminiscent of an episode in Berry’s verse play “The Bringer of Water” from Farming: A Handbook. In this scene Nathan Coulter has met his fiancée, Hannah Feltner, to show her the run- down farm he has just bought. Hannah wonders why Nathan has bought land when his older brothers already own a farm. Nathan responds: Because I think everybody ought to have a little land of his own, or ought to belong to a little land. To Hannah’s question “But is this what you wanted?” Nathan replies, It’s not what I wanted. It’s what was here to be had, 227 and what I could afford. It’s my fate, you could say. He continues, speaking out of a conviction obviously related to Berry’s theme in the passage quoted above from “Where”: Look at it. You’d hardly believe this was virgin ground so long ago, and poplars and white oaks and sugar maples thicker than two barrels stood on it, and the soil was deep and black under them. That’s gone, and here are rocks and the cedars and the weeds that love poor land. A place like this one ‘11 be hard to live on and take care of, more work than a better place, and you know why? Because for all those years the people who ought to have cared for it and done the work didn’t. Do you see what I mean by fate? There’s a life here for a man and a woman and family too, but not as much as there was once. And a lifetime won’t be enough to bring it back. A man would have to live maybe five hundred years to make it good again —or learn something of the cost of not making it good. But hard as it is, I accept 228 this fate. I even like it a little—the idea of making my lifetime one of the several it will take to bring back the possibilities of this place that used to be here. (FH 91-3) The fate Nathan speaks of has to do with this particular farm, this particular place. He must devote his life to caring for and understanding this specific plot of land. (As Berry says in “Rising”, the good farmer’s Life “does not travel along any road, toward/ any other place,/but is a journey back and forth/in rows (CF, 242). Nathan Coulter would understand the concluding lines of “Where”: And yet a knowledge is here that tenses the throat as for song: the inheritance of the ones, alive or once alive, who stand behind the ones I have imagined, who took into their minds the troubles of this place, blights of love and race, but saw a good fate here and willingly paid its cost, kept it the best they could, thought of its good, and mourned the good they lost. (CF, 179) Again, we see the land marrying itself to its current inhabitors and to those in the past. But in this case the relationship is based not only on a devotion to the land but also on a mournful recognition of its defilement. As John Elder explains, “To perceive in the contemporary abuse of natural cycles the end of processes on which our Life has depended is also to experience the precious wholeness at every point of the process, beginning and end alike” (58). Berry’s poems thus repeatedly challenge and encourage their readers to view “the precious wholeness” around them as a place, and as their fate. For 229 “To love a chosen place truly,” as Elder paraphrases Berry, “is to learn that earth and mankind are one” (53). This does not mean that everyone must become a farmer but rather that all of us should view the world in a way that “verges on identity” and enjoys “the idea of making I my lifetime one of the several lit will take to bring back/the possibilities of this place/that used to be here.” Farming, in Berry’s work, serves as both a literal subject for his poems and a metaphor and model for place-making of all kinds. For him, farming means remaining in one place long enough to know and care for it well. It means, in Tuanian terms, place-making. Clearly, Berry’s work corresponds nicely to the place component of the Tuanian binary. Along with this place- consciousness comes a keen appreciation for the wilder aspects of the natural world; throughout Berry’s writings he asserts the fundamental human need for interacting with the wildness Thoreau claimed was necessary for the preservation of the world. This appreciation of wildness leads to an acute space consciousness that harmonizes with and counterbalances Berry’s place- centredness. Just as the farm takes on both literal and figurative connotations for Berry as he attempts to demonstrate its role in making place, so wildness represents the actual wilderness beyond human domestication (in the form of the farm), as well as a more metaphorical wilderness that presupposes elements of the world that remain beyond our ability to know them. One of the primary roots of many of our ecological and epistemological problems, according to Berry, is that we lack “the humbling awareness of the insufficiency of knowledge, of mystery” (SEW, 50). Therefore, we must preserve wilderness because “we need it. We need wilderness of all kinds, large and small, public and private. We need to go now and again into places where our work is disallowed, where our hopes and plans have no standing” (HE, 146). Berry essentially argues that we all too often fail to comprehend just how much we do not know. “[T]he system of systems is enclosed within mystery,” he writes, “in which some truth can be known, but never all truth” (SBW, 49). Berry combines the known and the unknown truth in his four-line poem “For the Explainers”: Spell the spiel of cause and effect, Ride the long rail of fact after fact; What curled the plume in the drake’s tail 230 And put the white ring round his neck? (E, 3) Regardless of our acquisition of “fact after fact,” implies Berry, when it comes to the fundamental workings of the world, we are practically illiterate. Comprehending the ultimate unknown ability of the wildness beyond civilization has the power to lead us to a healthy realization of our own insignificance in the world. As Berry explains in his essay “A Native Hill”, to understand one is to know the other; to know the world’s mystery is to recognize our own smallness: To walk in the woods, mindful only of the physical extent of it, is to go perhaps as owner, or as knower, confident of one’s own history and of one’s own importance. But to go there, rnindful as well of its temporal extent, of the age of it, and of all that led up to the present life of it, and of all that will probably follow it, is to feel oneself a flea in the pelt of a great living thing, the discrepancy between its life and one’s own so great that it cannot be imagined. One has come into the presence of mystery. (LLH, 204-05) This unknowable mystery is what leads us to notice our “flea— like quality in the grand scheme of the universe which, as Berry puts it in one of his Sabbath poems, is constantly “[o]utreaching understanding” (S, 7). Berry continues this thought later in the same essay: Until we understand what the land is, we are at odds with everything we touch. And to come to that understanding it is necessary, even now, to leave the regions of our conquest—the cleared fields, the towns and cities, the highways—and re-enter the woods. For only there can a man encounter the silence and the darkness of his own absence. Only in this silence and darkness can he recover the sense of the world’s longevity, of its ability to thrive without him, of his inferiority to it and his dependence on it. Perhaps then, having heard that silence and seen that darkness, he will grow humble before the place and begin to take it in—to leran from it what it is. As its sounds come into his hearing, and its lights and colors come into his vision, and its odors come into his nostrils, then he may come into its presence as he never has before, and he will arrive in his place and want to remain. His life will grow out of the ground like the other lives of the place, and take its place among them (LLH, 207). 231 Notice here that this awareness of space, of the world’s wildness that is beyond human knowledge, leads not to alienation for Berry, but to relationship. The same idea appears in his Sabbath poem “The intellect so ravenous to know,” where Berry offers the familiar image of “an old field worn out by disease/of human understanding” and encourages us to realize that we exist within an “order we are ignorant of” (S 3 5-6). This insight, that cognizance of our own insignificance leads to an awareness of relationship with the trans-human world, appears throughout Berry’s poetry and is usually related to what he calls our “obligation to care.” Instead of viewing nature “as a machine or as the sum of its known, separable, and decipherable parts,’ Berry insists on our responsibility to care for the world around us, asserting that doing so prevents us from imposing our own will, based on our own limited knowledge, on the natural world. For “care allows creatures to escape our explanations into their actual presence and their essential mystery. In taking care of fellow that they are not ours; we acknowledge that they belong to an order and a harmony of which we ourselves are parts” (“OC”). Thus Berry presents poems like ‘To the Unseeable Animal,” addressed to an unknown creature who represents a manifestation of the world’s beauty and mystery: Being, whose flesh dissolves at our glance, knower of the secret sums and measures. you are always here, dwelling in the oldest sycamores. visiting the faithful springs when they are dark and the foxes have crept to their edges. I have come upon pools in streams, places overgrot with the woods’ shadow, where I knew you had rested, watching the little fish Hang still in the flow; as I approached they seemed 232 particles of your clear mind disappearing among the rocks. I have waked deep in the woods in the early morning, sure that while I slept your gaze passed over me. That we do not know you is your perfection and our hope. The darkness keeps us near you. (CF, 140-41) The darkness of the wild, the fact that ‘we do not know’ it, is what keeps us close to the non-human world that surrounds us. Berry therefore revels in his ignorance and insignificance. He says, along with his Mad Farmer (a jeremiadic persona the poet often adopts), Give your approval to all you cannot understand. Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed (“Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” CF: 151) Humility is the chief reason for maintaining awareness of the mystery of the wild. For “[to] be divided against nature, against wildness, is a human disaster, because it is to be divided against ourselves. It confines our identity as creatures entirely within the bounds of our own understanding, which is invariably a mistake because it is invariably reductive. It reduces our largeness, our mystery, to a petty and sickly comprehensibility (HE, 141). This humility contrasts sharply to the mind that, as Berry quotes Gurney Norman, “belieyes there is no context until it gets there’ (SBW, 115). To be humble, for Berry, is to realize our own unimportance and that in that unimportance lies our relationship to the more-than- human world. References Angyal, Andrew J., Wendell Berry, New York: Twayne, 1995. Basso, Keith H., Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache, Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 1996. Berry, Wendell, Entries. New York: Pantheon, 1994. 233 —, Sex, Economy, Freedom, Community, New York: Pantheon, 1992. —, Home Economics, San Francisco: North Point, 1987. —, Collected Poems: 1957-1982, New York: North Point, 1984. —, Standing By words, San Francisco: North Point, 1983. —, A part, San Francisco: North Point, 1980. —, The Country Marriage, San Diego: Harvest, 1973. —, A Continuius Harmony, San Diego: Hartcourt Brace, 1972. —, Farming: A Handbook, San Diego: Harvest, 1970. —, Long-legged House, New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1969. Elder, John, Imagination the Earth: Poetry and the Vision of Nature, Urbana: U of Illinios P, 1985. Pinches, Charles, “Ecominded: Faith and Action”, The Christian Century (August1998): pp. 755-57. Phillips, Dana, The Truth of Ecology: Nature, Culture, and Literature in America, Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003. Sanders, Scott Russell, “Speaking a Word for Nature”, The Ecocriticim Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology (eds.) Cheryll Glotefelty and Harold Fromm. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1996. pp. 182-95. Solvic, Scott, Seeking Awareness in American Nature Writing: Henry Thoreau, Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, Wendell Berry, Barry Lopez, Salt Lake City: U of Utah P, 1992. Silko, Leslie Marmon, “Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination”, The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology (eds.) Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm, Athens: U of Georgia P, 1996, pp. 264-75. Tuan, Yi-Fu, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977. Turner, Frederick, “Cultivating the American Garden”, The Ecocriticism Reader: Landmarks in Literary Ecology (ed.) Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1996, pp. 49-55. 234 262626 Selfishness versus Socialism in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons Suman Lata Sharma, Dr. Arvind Kumar Sharma Arthur Miller, the Theatre Guild National Award winner, has been a strident critic of contemporary American society and its values. All My Sons, his first commercial successful play, has received New York Drama Critics Circle Award. The play was written after the Second World War so various effects of world war are depicted by the playwright. Thematically Miller appears to be arguing strongly in favour of a certain positive relationship between the individual and society, against injustice, exploitation, competition and vested private interest. He also exposes the human tendency to put one’s self above all else, which causes confusion and suffering. Arthur Miller’s principal characters are motivated by an obsession to justify themselves. They fix their identities through radical acts of ego assertion. High rank or noble status does not distinguish them. Miller says in his Tragedy and the Common Man, ”... the tragic stature which is spuriously attached to the royal or the high born in our minds. The commonest of men may take on that stature to the extent of his willingness to throw all he has into the contest, the battle to secure his rightful place in his world.”1 “The tragic night is a condition of life, a condition in which the human personality is able to flower and realize itself. The wrong is the condition which suppresses man, perverts the flowing out of his love and creative instinct. Tragedy enlightens and it must, in that it points the heroic finger at the enemy of man’s freedom. The thrust for freedom is the quality in tragedy which exalts. The revolutionary questioning of the stable environment is what terrifies. In no way is the common man debarred from such thoughts or such actions.”2 According to Miller conflict between father and son prefigures tragedy’s revolutionary questionary when the child affirms his independence after confronting an intolerant parental authority. Later the mature hero in life and in art, directs his protest against restrictive forces more potent than the father’s. The author’s moral bias is clearly evident in these divergent 235 reactions. Individuals can buttress their own and society’s stability by resisting hatred and exclusiveness or individuals can upset social equilibrium by enforcing the exaggerated demands of a narrow egoism. Joe Keller adopts popular standards but becomes estranged from both family and society because of his uncompromising self will. Extreme ego-centralism inevitably thwarts a man’s constructive energies; the only way to acquire dignity is to respect the dignity of others. Joe Keller cares only about himself and his family. Though he is an aged and responsible (only for his family) person yet being uneducated he does not care for the society. He is too occupied with the thoughts how to make more money that he does not and cannot understand the feelings of all other members of the family and never admits his mistakes. Due to the money earned by cheating or illegal ways he becomes overconfident, irresponsible and unsocial. On the other hand, Chris who is a pilot, unlike his father, is completely social and patriot. He gives more value to the society and blames his father for earning money through foul ways. All My Sons, a tragedy, is about the lies and immorality of a man and the resulting actions and consequences. In this play the laws and the morals are the main concern that a man follows through his conscience. The morality and the principles become the main theme when related to Keller’s family, where a conflict between the morality and the loss of it, takes place. Joe Keller, father (head) of the Keller family, is responsible for supplying defected cylinder heads during World War II, which results in the death of 21 fighter pilots. He justifies these deaths because he keeps his business so that his family may be fed and healthy. He explains “You lay forty years into a business and they knock you out in five minutes, what could I do….”3 Her wife Kate Keller also supports him as she has not complete information about the scope of his crimes. Joe’s justification and Kate’s ignorance of murder for the benefit of the family causes the loss of morality. While unlike their parents, Chris and Larry Keller favour and follow the morality and principles. They treat the society as their family. When Chris finds out his father’s crimes, he demands an explanation for his actions and declares in the conversation with his father “Then you did it. To the others…you killed twenty- one men…you killed them, you murdered them!”4 When his father tries to justify, he is shocked and furious. His morality and love for society is revealed thoroughly through his indignation against his 236 father. “For me!- I was dying every day and you were killing my boys and you did it for me? What the hell do you think I was thinking of, the goddam business? …You’re not even an animal, no animal kills his own, what are you? …I ought to tear the tongue out of your mouth, what must I do?”5 Miller’s experimentation with expressionistic, realistic and rhetorical styles has been conditioned by his over-riding desire to declare objective truths about man in society. A playwright’s object should be to merge the objective and the subjective with the analytic, i.e., surface of experience should be merged with cogent emotional life and philosophically or socially meaningful themes so as to make known the public significance of private engagements. Drama is akin to the other inventions of man in that it ought to help us to know more and not merely to spend our feelings. The ultimate justification for a genuine new form is the new and heightened consciousness it creates, and makes possible a consciousness of causation in the light of known but hitherto inexplicable effects. In this play the current direction of teaching values or moral education is contrary as generally the elders or experienced persons inculcate the values to the young ones but here Chris and other family members, who are younger, teach values or socialism to Joe who is or should be the most responsible person for the family as well as for the society. This opposite current of educating also proves that values like patriotism and socialism cannot be achieved by only experience or elderliness but by the society in which one resides. Steven R. Centola regards All My Sons as a play of ‘bad faith’6 By ‘bad faith’ he means selfishness, self-interestedness and irresponsibility. According to him, almost all of the characters lend dramatic credence to Miller’s ideas on bad faith. Joe is Bacon’s ‘crafty man’ (Of Studies) as he does not believe in social welfare or patriotism not because he is unpatriotic but because he has earned much money fairly or unfairly. So he is always with the thought how to earn more and more money anyway. He does not like the idea to be only dead honest as he wants to cash the chance by being blameless. He thinks that such opportunities do not come again and again in one’s life so one should not miss this kind of opportunity. He justifies it as a wise step taken for the welfare of the family. He convinces Chris as well as other members of the family by saying that family is the first priority and the dearest unit 237 for a responsible person and a favourable situation should be cashed if it is for the benefit of the family. He declares, “Chris...Chris, I did it for you, it was a chance and I took it for you. I’m sixty-one years old, when would I have another chance to make something for you? Sixty-one years old you don’t get another chance, do ya?”7 Joe runs a factory where cylinder heads are manufactured. This is the time when more cylinders are required for the planes engaged in the war. Once some cylinder heads are manufactured with a defect and these cylinders are supplied to Army Air Force and twenty-one pilots have to lose their lives in the plane crash. Craftiness or cunningness of Joe can be revealed at that time when he utters a lame excuse to Steve Deever, equal partner of the factory, on phone and allows him to supply the cylinders. It is innocence of Deever and wickedness of Joe that causes the imprisonment for Deever. Joe becomes too selfish that he cannot think about the consequences of his misdoing and for materialism and selfishness he forgets humanity. Joe’s image of keeping his fatherhood reminds us the theme of Japan. Traditionally in Japan the children, specially the sons, follow their fathers blindly. Besides it, they are very hard working, loyal and honest. Undoubtedly Joe is also very diligent and devoted to his family. That’s why he works hard to earn money. He leaves no stone unturned to make his family reach to the crest of popularity and eminence, though his method is somewhat different. The reason behind this method/mentality is his being uneducated and isolation from his family as he is always busy in his business and no time for the family. This is also one of the reasons of their misunderstanding. Joe wants to take all the benefits of the situation created by the world war. He does not think about his own comfort but does everything for his family. All his family members along with Ann and George, his next door neighbours, have a good opinion about him. In spite of being main convict for supplying defective cylinders, the blame goes on his partner, Steve Deever and all believe it true. Though Joe commits two sins/crimes here, one he allows Deever to supply the defective cylinders and second he imposes the whole responsibility of supplying the defective cylinders on Deever in court. Miller admires his hero’s obsessive claim to a given right and he sorrows at his frustration. At the same time he realizes that total self concern can lead to total self defeat. Conscience, if not tempered by humility and informed by reason may degenerate into a savagely 238 destructive faculty, when opposed by force of disintegration. Miller’s major figures react in either of two ways; depending upon the flexibility of their ethical posture, they may re-examine their criteria or they may persist in their assertation, even though persistence brings catastrophe to themselves and to those for whom they care. Chris, the younger son of Joe, who is a pilot by profession is very social. Undoubtedly he loves every member of his family. Even he worships his father like a god. It is the blind faith of Chris and everyone that they cannot see the reality. Besides it Chris does not ignore the society or the nation. He knows that family is the part of society so society should be treated as a family. He never thinks of any foul way of earning money. He has a feeling of nationalism. He is a pilot not to earn money but to serve his country. Larry, the elder son of Joe, also a pilot, dies in a plane crash not due to the defected cylinders supplied by his father but by the shame of his father’s evil doing. The selfishness and cunningness of Joe can also be seen clearly by this fact that Joe knew that the cylinders were being supplied to P-40 planes while his son Larry worked in P-20. When Larry came to know that 21 pilots died due to the carelessness of his father Joe, he felt so insulted and gloomy that he committed suicide with a suicide note to Ann Deever, his fiancée (though this secret is disclosed in the end of the play). Though all believe that Deever is accused for supplying the defected cylinder heads but when after visiting his father George returns to Chris, he tries to convince Chris that Joe Keller, not Steve Deever, is real convict as it is Joe who allowed Steve Deever to supply the cylinders. When Chris is not ready to rely on George, he reminds Chris Steve’s inefficiency of taking decisions. “And my father, that frightened mouse who’d never buy a shirt without somebody along- that man would dare do such a thing on his on?”8 Joe is described as a bad character with no sense of morality or honesty but he once was a good and honest worker and a very friendly person. His flaw is tragic because it turned a good and honest person into a killer. This is known as tragic flaw, present in the tragic hero in the tragedies. Miller believes that tragedy does not only befall a hero, but the common man as well. “I believe that the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as kinds were!”9 Joe’s unwillingness to let his company go bankrupt forced him to decide whether his family’s wealth or the lives of pilots was more important to him. Unluckily he chooses the wrong as he loves his 239 family too much. This is his tragic flaw because due to his decision his son commits suicide, which in turn, causes Joe to commit suicide realizing his guilt. Finally he realizes and accepts- “Sure he was my son. But I think to him they were all my sons. And I guess they were. I guess they were.”10 Chris makes a transition in his mentality due to his personal predicament and the nature of the society in which he lives. Chris is actually aware that capitalist society emphasizes on competition over cooperation, which it tends to overlook the need for human solidarity, mutual support and cooperation for the weak and poor based on egalitarian principles. Talking to Ann Chris bitterly utters- “We used to shoot a man who acted like a dog, but honour was real there, you were protecting something. But here? This is the land of great big dogs, you don’t love a man here, you eat him! That’s the principle; the only one we live by—it just happened to kill a few people this time, that’s all. The world’s that way, how can I take it out on him? What sense does that make? This is a zoo, a zoo!”11 Miller’s characters fervently defend ego-centric attitudes, and the futility evokes a genuine sense of terror and pathos that indirectly but powerfully reinforces his thesis on the necessity for meaningful accommodation in society. On the other hand, his characters also intelligently reform and their self knowledge remains only a rhetorical promise. Joe Keller’s intention is never bad for the nation or the society, though it is the fact that he is too devoted only for his family. Sometimes his devotional attitude for the family confines him from thinking widely. The greed for money (earning) for his dear ones checks him to think about others. When he allows Deever to supply the defective cylinders, he never thinks about the tragedy. He considers only the welfare of his family that’s why he does not think of himself as guilty. He professes, ”Who worked for nothin’in that war? When they work for nothin’, I’ll work for nothin’. Did they ship a gun or a truck outa Detroit before they got their price? Is that clean? It’s dollars and cents, nickels and dimes; war and peace, it’s nickels and dimes, what’s clean? Half the goddam country is gotta go if I go! That’s why you can’t tell me. Chris- I know you’re no worse than most men but I thought you were better. I never saw you as a man. I saw you as my father.”12 240 The proverb ‘society moulds the man’ is proved to be true as it is the society of businessmen (capitalists) which is responsible to the avarice of Joe Keller. The effect of society can be seen at the time when Joe comes in the contact of his family. Chris blames his father for killing Larry and makes realize his mistakes and responsibilities towards the society. “You can be better! Once and for all you can know there’s a universe of people outside and you’re responsible for it, and unless you know that, you threw away your son because that’s why he died.”13 Joe is much disturbed and repents for the mistakes committed. He is so regretful that he shoots himself. This proves that he had never been unpatriotic or cheat but due to detachment of the family (where the persons are full of patriotism and socialism), he just becomes careless for the patriotism and society. His repentance (which turns into suicide) proves that his inner person has been loyal, honest and nice but his avarice makes him forgetful towards his duties and responsibilities for society. If he were totally unpatriotic and cruel, he would never repent for his carelessness, mistakes and irresponsibility. Steven R. Centola concludes, “The collapse of the Keller family is not just a private affair; it is emblematic of a deeper, broader disintegration of humanistic values that could spell disaster to a world trapped in its own bad faith.”14 Notes 1. Arthur, Miller, ”Tragedy and the Common Man”, 1949. through http://vccslitonline.cc.va.us/tragedy/ milleressay.htm. 2. Idem. 3. Arthur, Miller, All My Sons (ed.) Nissim Ezekiel), Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 74. 4. Ibid., pp. 73-74. 5. Ibid., pp. 75-76. 6. Centola, Steven R., “Bad Faith and All My Sons” in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, pp. 123-33. 7. Arthur, Miller, All My Sons (ed.) Nissim Ezekiel, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 75. 8. Ibid., p. 58. 9. Arthur, Miller, ”Tragedy and the Common Man”, 1949. through http://vccslitonline.cc.va.us/tragedy/milleressay.htm. 241 10. Arthur, Miller, All My Sons (ed.) Nissim Ezekiel, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 89. 11. Ibid., p. 86. 12. Ibid., p. 87. 13. Ibid., p. 89. 14. Centola, Steven R., “Bad Faith and All My Sons” in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, p. 133. 242 262626 Old Temples and Cinema Theatres: Still Throbbing with a Sense of Marginality for Some Dr. Praveen Kumar Anshuman I have been into the fact about marginality. Some of my papers have been published in journal and a chapter in a book. And every time I did not fail to write from my own point of view. My views don’t reside much on the criticisms done and ideas proposed yet. I simply inscribe what I feel like saying. To begin with the issue of marginality in Indian society, I would like to make it clear right from the very first instance that the discrimination is a necessary evil. It can never be avoided. But that does not mean one should discriminate and give life to exploitative nuances. The only thing that can be done is be aware of it and avoid it. I have brought here a story woven around a movie Shudra: The Rising by Mr. Sanjiv Jaiswal with the release of which he has to face the same discriminatory angst of thousand year back history. Let me first irradiate the Varna stratification first. Shudra is the fourth Varna, as prescribed in the Purusha Sukta of the Rigveda, which constitutes society into four varnas or Chaturvarna. The other three varnas are Brahmins (priests); Kshatriya (those with governing functions), and Vaishya (agriculturalists, cattle rearers and traders). According to this ancient text, the Shudra perform functions of serving the other three varna. The varna system became rigid in the later Vedic period. In modern Indian society, the government is taking steps to end the differences between various castes. Varna is the term for the four broad ranks into which traditional Hindu society is divided. Varna as a whole was four in number: the Brahmins: priests and scholars. æthe Kshatriya: kings, governors, warriors and soldiers. the Vaishyas: cattle herders, agriculturists, artisans (1) and merchants. (2) the Shudras: labourers and service providers. This quadruple division is the ancient division of society into ‘principal castes’; it is not to be confused with the much finer caste system in India based on occupation as it emerged in the medieval period. Though only laid out in detail in post-Vedic Brahmanism (in 243 the Manusmriti, the oldest of the Dharmashastras, compiled during the time of the Kushan Empire), the varna division is alluded to in the late Rigvedic Purusha Sukta, and it has been theorised to reflect a much more ancient tripartite society, ultimately cognate with the western “estates of the realm” (viz., division into a priestly class, a warrior class, and a class of commoners or free farmers, apart from a population of unfree serfs excluded from society proper). Varna is a Sanskrit term varGa. It is derived from the root v[, meaning “to cover, to envelop” (compare v[tra). The meaning of the word as used in the Rigveda has the literal meaning “outward appearance, exterior, form, figure, shape, colour” besides the figurative “colour, race, kind, sort, character, quality, property”. In the Rigveda, the term can mean “class of men, tribe, order, caste”, especially expressing the contrast between the âryas and dâsas. The earliest application to the formal division into four social classes (without using the term varna) appears in the late Rigvedic Purusha Sukta (RV 10.90.11–12), which has the Brahman, Rajanya (instead of Kshatriya), Vaishya and Shudra classes emerging from the mouth, arms, thighs and feet of the primordial giant, Purusha, respectively: In the post-Vedic period, the division is described explicitly and in great detail in the Dharmashastra literature, later also in the Puranas and other texts. The Manusmriti is the oldest of the Dharmashastra texts, reflecting the laws and society of Gupta period India. Rigvedic evidence of such a quadruple division of society has been compared to similar systems, especially with a view to reconstructing hypothetical Proto-Indo-European society. Such comparison is at the basis of the trifunctional hypothesis presented by Georges Dumézil. Dumézil postulates a basic division of society into a priesthood (Brahmins), warrior class or nobility (Kshatriyas) and commoners (Vaishyas), augmented by a class of unfree serfs (Shudras). In Hinduism, the concept of dharma deals mainly with the duties of the different varnas and ashramas (life cycles) and the first three varnas are seen as ‘twice born’ and they are allowed to study the Vedas. The occupations of the Vaishya are those connected with trade, the cultivation of the land and the breeding of cattle; while those of a Kshatriya consist in ruling and protecting the people, administering justice and expounding all dharma. Both 244 share with the Brahmin the privilege of reading the Vedas. To the Brahmin belongs the right of teaching and expounding the sacred texts and other knowledge. Shudras provided services and labour to all the society. Manusmriti assigns cattle rearing as Vaishya occupation, however, there are sources in available literature that Kshatriyas also owned and reared the cattle and cattle-wealth was mainstay of their households. The emperors of Kosala and the prince of Kasi are some of many examples. Separate and shunned by higher levels of ritual society, including the Shudras, were the ‘untouchables’, now known as Dalits, who had to deal with the disposal of dead bodies and similar menial tasks and are described as dirty and polluted. There was a belief that one’s Karma in the past, resulted in one’s condition in this birth. The terms varna (theoretical classification based on occupation) and jâti (caste) are two distinct concepts: while varna is the idealized four-part division envisaged by the above described Twice-Borns, jâti (community) refers to the thousands of actual endogamous groups prevalent across the subcontinent. A jati may be divided into exogamous groups based on same gotras. The classical authors scarcely speak of anything other than the varnas; even Indologists sometimes confuse the two. Critics point that the effect of communities (jatis) inheriting varna was to bind certain communities to sources of influence, power and economy while locking out others and thus create more affluence for jatis in higher classes and severe poverty for jatis in lower classes and the outcaste Dalit. In the last 150 years Indian movements arose to throw off the economic and political yoke of an inherited class system that emerged over time, and replace it with what they believed to be true Varnashrama dharma as described in the Vedas. Besides all this intellectual gymnastics, the reality of a section of Hindu society which has been suffering the atrocities of upper sections of society since time immemorial can’t be ignored. The consciousness of the director of the movie resides in the fact that how humanity could be so brutal and cruel. It’s this awareness that compelled him to express the agonies of the downtrodden before the world. It’s not an awareness of a Dalit, for he doesn’t belong to a Dalit caste. His impressions are genuinely humane. 245 As far as the movie Shudra: The Rising is concerned, it is a Hindi language film with a storyline based on the caste system in ancient India, and more specifically the Hindu Varna system. It is directed by Sanjiv Jaiswal and dedicated to Bhim Rao Ambedkar. Shudra is based on about 250 million people born outcaste in Hindu Varna system. They were treated as unclean and impure, so much so that nobody ever even touched them or even allowed their shadow to fall on upper cast. They were called by the names of Chandaal, Antyaja, Black Caste, Harijan, Chamar. An out caste Man ‘Shudra’ died for want of a sip of water, a child is publicity violated for uttering Holy Mantras, a pregnant woman is forced in the physical submission, a wounded man dies in need of medicine, all for one crime only. It is believed that nature took ages to make man out of animal, but it took moments for certain men to make their fellow human animal again. They were named differently across the globe like—‘Blacks’, ‘Red Indians’, ‘Dasyu’, ‘Das’ Chandala, Antyaja, Black Caste, Out Caste, Schedule Caste & ‘Shudra—The Untouchable’. Shudra—The Rising highlights the depth of evil human mind can succumb, to cling on to power and supremacy. A historical reminder of the danger of division and segregation, issues which are as relevant today as it was then. Shudra: The Rising is set in the time of the Harappan civilization and has a storyline that concerns the caste system of ancient India. The film depicts the four basic units of the caste system—the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and the Shudras. The initial part narrates the invasion of the people of west Asia to India. They were of the Aryan race and they take over the local tribe and start controlling them. Finally a learned scholar, Manu Rishi, creates a caste system which classifies the local population as Shudras, who then suffer from cruel social rules. They are suppressed and exploited at every level of their lives by the upper caste people. The film shows various rules imposed on the Shudras such as waking with a bell around their ankles and a long leaf behind their back, and a pot hanging around their neck. The first promo of this film was performed at Nashik (Tri-reshmi Buddhaleni at Dadasaheb Falke Smarak) on 26th January 2012. In October 2012, two Hindutva organisations—Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrag Dal—demanded that the film not be shown. They claimed that its portrayal would foment rivalry between castes and that its depiction of events was anachronistic. The star cast along with the Sanjiv Jaiswal, Writer Director of 246 the hard hitting bold the film turned up to Nagpur Buddha Fest, especially to showcase the movie to the audience present there. The Festival had almost 50,000 people crowd. The overwhelming response for the first look of film Shudra—The rising, the trailer of the film was soul stirring and the response from the crowd was very encouraging. The star cast and also the Music Director-Jaan Nissar Love performed there. As the Main theme of the movie is based on the revolution brought by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar so the ambience was perfect for the first look. The lead actors of the movie Gauri Shankar, Shahji Chaudhary, Ganesh Pandit all showered good compliments for the movie to the director. Performance was so much touching that it bought tears in the eyes of the audience and delegates. Says Sanjiv Jaiswal, Writer-cum-Director of the hard hitting bold film that freedom of man and mankind is always bigger than freedom of a country and that’s why Mahatma Gandhi played the most integral role in India’s freedom struggle. But it was Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar who wrote the Constitution of India that runs the Independent India. Babasaheb’s forevision was always ahead of its time ensured that we had a constitution that will run this nation even century down the line. On the other side, almost all leading politicians then failed to see even the extent of aftermath of division of the country and put millions of innocent people to get slaughtered. Hundreds of years ahead of his time, Baba Saheb had written a constitution that has managed to keep the country united and progressive centuries down. Unlike almost any other politician in the country, Baba Saheb was absolutely non-controversial and unblemished throughout his political career. He struck a chord equally with all sections of the society, with his followers from every single religion, caste and state in the country. Jaiswal says—A few people, by wearing Gandhian caps today are trying to emulate Mahatma but not a single one is willing to stand up & fight for the basic issues that Babasaheb fought for social equality, fundamental rights and justice for all. We don’t need pseudo people wearing Gandhian caps but socialists like Babasaheb, a bhagirath who can bring the change by changing the thinking of the masses. For basic problems like corruption, terrorism. etc., no lokpal or law can bring about a change, only a change in our ideologies can, which Babasaheb worked towards. India’s a land of Rishis and observing fasts is a way of life for us. To sit on a fast is the easiest way to get attention, but to fight 247 for the rights of millions of empty stomach is the real challenge which no one stands for today. Jaiswal further added—it all began a couple of years back when I was watching a film on Babasaheb on this very day, Ambedkar Jayanti, that an old man came forward and shared with me the extreme levels of atrocities a particular section of the society has been exposed to for centuries. Old man further shared how people of a particular section of the society were made to live like animals, with a look that is frightening even to imagine. They were made to wear a broom like a long tail, so that their footprints would be swept away while they walked, hang a pot around the neck so that they don’t make the earth unholy by even accidently spitting on the ground, wear bells so that no one crosses their path and so on. When imagined, the whole visual was hair raising and never heard, seen or imagined before in the history. Jaiswal began an extensive research work on the project, and with two years of extensive hardwork, for the first time on silver screen, a mega Tri-lingual project called Shudra—The Rising has come into existence. With never heard, seen or even hard to imagine visuals, Shudra—The Rising will probably remain my most bold & daring attempt at Hindi Cinema. When asked why such a film in this era of commercialization, Jaiswal says—Cinema must not be like a drug that gives you a momentary kick & then fades away. If used well, it could be a powerful tool for bringing a revolution. I have an inspiration from some of the greatest works of the likes of Achhut Kanya, Bandini, Neecha Nagar, Saransh, Ardhsatya, Bandit Queen, etc. and my film covers all aspects of a society divided by colour, caste and creed, rampant with corruption and atrocity. The film is being acclaimed worldwide at a lot of leading International film festivals. Legendary film maker Govind Nihalani, who happened to catch up with the film at Int’l Film Fest at Goa says—Shudra—The Rising is a powerful cinematic expose of the centuries of inhuman oppression and violence inflicted upon the ‘lower castes’ by the upper castes of the Indian society. The film makes a strong case for restoration of dignity to the lives of Dalits in India today. Sanjiv Jaiswal has directed this film with sincerity, courage, and conviction. Behind all this remains covert the actual face of the society and its fanatical people. It is the team of the movie which could really 248 experience the problem from the ruthlessly corresponding axiom. They knew how the movie was also an untouchable among the Bollywood movies and the movie goers were also seen as alien to the common mass. And in this post modern society which seems to be far more advanced and refined, the lacuna of stereotypes has its abode at some corner in absolute persistence and it’s not ready to leave its imprints at any cost. The movie becomes a phenomenon that brought the old-ridden face of Indian society again at fore front. References Goodwin, K.L. (ed.) A Comment on Attitudes to the Past in West African Poetry: National Identity, London, Heinemann, 1986. Theroux, Paul, A Study of Six African Poets, “Voices Out of the Skull’—Introduction to African Literature (ed.) Ulli Bier, London, Heinemann, 1986. Soyinka, Wole (ed.) Poems of Black Africa, London, Heinemann, 1975. Ojaide, Tanure, Poetic Imagination in Black Africa: Essay on African Poetry, Durhan, N.C., Caroline Academic Press, 1996. Walse, William, Commonwealth Literature, Oxford University Press, 1973. 249 282828 Shifting Identities of Shakespeare’s Characters in Hamlet: Tom Stoppard’s Inversion Dr. Praveen Kumar Anshuman We all are very well aware of William Shakespeare’s very famous play Hamlet. It’s the well read play and it can be said that there will be no one who hasn’t read this play if one belongs to the domain of literature. Shakespeare has done a great job by portraying Hamlet’s dilemma that represents the common man’s dwindling state. His famous utterance To Be Or Not To Be has successful depicted the human suffering with inner turmoil of the state of the mind. This is where Hamlet also seems to pronounce the Arjuna’s state of confusion and bewilderment when he saw all his relatives standing before him in the Kurukshetra. My reason of bringing Arjuna in here is that the way Arjuna expresses his state of utter confusion and also the way he was meticulously responded by Lord Krishna would never have found expression anywhere else in world’s literature as it could happen in the Gita. Shakespeare did it in the 16th century with exuberant brilliance. But in the 20th century with the advent of many theories in existence, he has also been questioned. Feminists raised the question about the identity of the female character Ophelia, the beloved of Hamlet by alleging Shakespeare of having marginalized her. This is possibly an inference about Shakespeare as patriarchal. In the similar vein, I am going to bring one of the current Post-War British dramatists Tom Stoppard who stands on the last step of the descending stairs of the school of Existentialism. Stoppard has written many plays to his credit but the world theatre got eclipsed with his debut play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1967). Before going to this play, let me remind you of the fraction of the story of Hamlet which caused the genesis of Stoppard’s play. All we know is when Hamlet in the play was suspected of his erratic behaviour by his uncle Claudius and mom Gertrude, the two of his childhood fellows Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were appointed to spy on him in order to know the cause of his madness. In process of utter frustration with the schematic death of his father by his uncle, he accidently kills Polonius, father of Laertes and Ophelia. For this act, he was immediately deported to England with these couple of fellows Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. They were given a letter with the text “Hamlet be put to death” to be handed over to 250 the King of England. But on the way to England inside the boat, Hamlet comes to know about the letter being carried away by both the characters. Consequently he changes the letter with the text that “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern be put to death.” From here is taken the genesis of Tom Stoppard’s play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in which he has shifted the identity of these two characters. According to Stoppard, these two minor characters have no identity of their own. Shakespeare did not explore them at all. They were nothing but stuffs made up of dreams. They were good for nothing. They meet their death unnecessarily. So what Stoppard does here in this play is to give them the central roles and all other characters including Hamlet were shifted on the periphery or to the background. Not going in details about the storyline, I would rather pinpoint the grounds where Stoppard puts forth his ideas regarding the identity of these two marginalized characters. In the tragic comedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tom Stoppard retells the story of Shakespeare’s Hamlet through the viewpoint of two of the famous play’s most insignificant characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. 1. Puppet Identity of these Minor Characters: The play’s plot contains the identical story line with a similar outcome as Hamlet. In this tragic comedy, however, the two ordinary men get caught up in numerous inevitable events they can neither understand nor control. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are the epitome of ridicule and idiocy because they are logically unaware of their own identity and their motives in life. 2. Identity in Crisis of All the Characters: Stoppard’s play is a fine example of a Theater of the Absurd tragic drama. The play’s central characters are thrown into a world where they cannot comprehend various situations. It is a matter of understanding life and hoping to find anything that might help one to recognize oneself, one’s purpose, or one’s place in society. Even the protagonist’s identity is problematic. In Stoppard’s play, the reader perceives this specific scenario in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. 3. Inadequacy of Comprehension of the Two: The two troubled men are ordered by Hamlet’s parents, King 251 Claudius and Queen Gertrude. Their mission is to diagnose Hamlet’s peculiar behaviour. On their journey to Denmark, the reader sees them attempt to understand the complex world. They appear desperate for some assurance that there is help because both are incompetent of helping themselves. Equally, they do not even know the direction to their destination. Ros: Ah. Which way do we—— Which way did we——? Guil: …We have not been…picked out…simply to be abandoned… set loose to find our own way…. We are entitled to some direction…. I would have thought (20). The scene represents Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as individuals who are perplexed and unable to be independent. They need someone or something to provide them direction or identity and meaning in life. 4. Identities of the Two as Intertwined: Additionally, they hold no memory of past happenings. They cannot even familiarize themselves and their present situation to what they once were; they are unsure of who they really are. When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern introduce themselves to the Player, this trait is illustrated. “My name is Guildenstern, and this is Rosencrantz...I’m sorry- his name’s Guildenstern, and I’m Rosencrantz” (22). Even in the scenes were they are just together, they habitually ask each other, “What’s your name?” (43). 5. Lack of Confidence of the Two: Of course, this situation leads the reader to wonder: are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern being foolish? Are these actions just a silly game of stupidity? In Stoppard’s play, the protagonists entertain the reader by playing a lengthy verbal tennis game and flipping coins to pass the time. Before encountering Hamlet, they play at questions even though the questions do not lead to anything; the question-and-answer game is worthless. However, it seems they do this because they do not want to comprehend what is going on in the absurd world. In reality, one usually covers up how he or she feels by smiling or being comedic. He or she does not want to dig within their innermost feelings and thoughts. That is what Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are doing; they do not want to reveal how they feel. 252 6. The Failure of the Theory of Probability: The play itself contains an emphasis on hilarity and wit. It is one of the distinctive characteristics of the Theatre of the Absurd. While one is engaged with a time-consuming activity, the other is concerned of the other. This feature is shown in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. While they flip coins in the beginning of the play, their two different personalities show. Rosencrantz seems carefree when the coin always appears heads whereas Guildenstern questions the constant result. Ros: I’m afraid it isn’t your day. Guil: I’m afraid it is. Ros: Eighty-nine. Guil: It must be indicative of something, besides the redistribution of wealth... (15-16). When the turnout of the coin keeps coming up as heads, it was Guildenstern who always is highly concerned of the probability. On the other hand, Rosencrantz demonstrates a light-hearted attitude towards life and is not worried about the unknowns in the world. 7. Unawareness of Their Identities: Despite their distinct personalities, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern attempt to find an explanation of their identities and their purpose in life. They encounter the Player who only tells them that their names only give them an identity. Like a facet of the Theatre of the Absurd, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern still struggle and try to understand the world around them. Guil: But we don’t know what’s going on, or what to do with ourselves. We don’t know how to act. Player: Act natural. You know why you’re here at least. Guil: We only know what we’re told, and that’s little enough. And for all we know it isn’t even true (66). Conclusion The world is a complex planet so they can never fully comprehend life or find an identity. They just remain in one place, waiting for a resolution. Answers never come to them and unfortunately, they plummet to something they were initially sent for their mission in Hamlet, i.e., death. Together, they follow King Claudius’s orders to send Hamlet to England for his execution. 253 However, their inability to be aware or understand their surroundings during the ordeal causes them to be trapped. And in the end, fate leads them to a tragic end and they are forever at loss of themselves. Identities shall remain enigmatically a phenomenon to be discovered incessantly. But the possibility at maximum could only be in version or aspects never a full representation. Be it a Shakespeare or a Stoppard, they can only present one aspect or many aspects but never all. The all shall remain a fictional truth which will invite people always for discussions and debates and hence the beauty of all our gatherings we ever have in our lives. References Delaney, Paul, “The Flesh and the Word in Jumpers,” Modern Language Quarterly XLII, 1981. Pawha, Minakshee, The Dramatic Art & Vision of Tom Stoppard, T. B. Sapru Marg, Lucknow, 2007. Stoppard, Tom, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, New York, Grove Press, 1968. Baraham, T., Tom Stoppard: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Jumpers & Travesties, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Whitaker, Thomas, Fields of Play in Modern Drama, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977.

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