Indraprasth 2016-17
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ISSN 2278 - 7208 VOL. V & VI, 2016-17 An International Journal of Culture and Communication Studies Contents 1. Note from the Editors 2. Sites of Memory in Beloved: Navneet Sethi 1 A Postcolonial Perspective 3. Black Nationalism and the Problematic Sameer Chopra 9 of Sexual Otherness in James Baldwin’s Another Country and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple 4. Political Representation of Mumbai Shaival Thakkar 22 in Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance 5. Saadat Hasan Manto’s “Kali Shalwar” Navdeep Kaur 33 and “Hatak”: A Reading in the Light of Slavoj ŽiŽek’s Theory of Ideology 6. Photographing the Sound and the Fury: Ved Prakash 44 War Photography and New Media 7. Embedding the Male in Ankita Rathee and 54 Female Body: A Qissa Rekha 8. The Prawah and the Prabhav: A Hardeep Kaur 68 Critical Study of the Inner and the Outer Travel Quests in Select Travelogues on the Ganga 9. Stopping at Old, Familiar Stations: Somrita Ganguly 79 A Review of Seamus Heaney’s 1975 Anthology 10. The Metaphor and Matrix of Mysticism Neeti Singh 86 in the Verse of Guru Nanak and Fernando Pessoa: A Comparative Overview 11. Virtual Reality, Cyberspace and Ketaki Datta 106 Adolescent Dissipation: A Close Reading of Kirsten Krauth’s Just a Girl 12. Fantasy and Historiography: Ranjita Pati 115 Dymystifying Cromwell 13. The Personal Forever at War with Navdeep Kaur and 121 the Public– A Study of the Patient(s) Nikhilesh Yadav in Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient 14. From Margin to Centre: A Study Nakul and Renu 128 of Gem of the Ocean 15. Inclusions, Exclusions and Shruti Sharma 139 Interpolations in the Critical Edition of Mahabharata: Debates and Dilemmas 16. Pash, Peasantry and the Lakhvinder Singh Bedi 148 Green Revolution 17. Delhi, a Postmodern Vessel of Priyadarshini Yadav 158 Consumerism: A Critical Study of Maneesh Sharma’s Band Baja Barat 18. Beyond the Anthropocentric and Gurleen Kaur 167 Mythopoeic: Representation of Animals in Post-90s Indian Poetry in English 19. Chaos and Literary Aesthetics: Mahim Sharma 182 Stitching the Indian Myth 20. Debriefing Social Conditioning Saptarshi Mallick 193 and Subjugation: A Review of Sanjukta Dasgupta’s Lakshmi Unbound 21. List of Contributors 198 Note from the Editors Literature in its varied forms has produced diverging, often antagonistic, attitudes towards life, language and thought. This double-issue of Indraprasth, accordingly, attempts to capture the variegated spectrum of responses that literature makes available for critical scrunity. Cutting across academic profiles and institutions, the papers contained in this issue deal with critically less researched areas, texts, or perspectives, and seek to understand and decode texts from new dimensions and angles. In Navneet Sethi’s “Citing Sites of Memory in Beloved: A Postcolonial Perspective”, the representation of the experiences (of Pakistan) lodged in memory are put forward through writing, and memory is thus concretised through the medium of language. Sethi also puts forward the idea of resistance in the postcolonial practice of naming the places and substantiates it with the characters in the novel who engage in appropriating the synergy of memory in order to preserve it for posterity. Sameer Chopra in his critique of Black Nationalism looks at nationalism and ‘being black’ from the eyes of the marginalised. He sees nationalism as a homogenous entity, which fails to encompass the aspirations and requirements of the marginalised sections of the society, especially those which do not appear ‘normal’ to the mainstream. Only the black man, who comes at the top of the hierarchy of the sexual and gender differences, enjoys the benefits of Black Nationalism, and thus, the paper critiques it as a ruptured idea with a narrow vision which is non- inclusive. Shaival Thakkar in his article “Political Representation of Mumbai in Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance” studies Mumbai in the light of A Fine Balance. Perspectives of the characters are taken into account, and the times in which such characters, themes and ideas come into existence are delved into. Thakkar also writes about the impact of violence on the lower castes in the city and highlights the representation of Mumbai as a cityscape through its crowded trains, the restaurants and the court houses. (i) Navdeep Kaur’s “Saadat Hasan Manto’s “Kali Shalwar” and “Hatak”: A Reading in the Light of Slavoj ŽiŽek’s Theory of Ideology” examines the two short stories of Manto in the light of Zizek’s idea of false consciousness. The theoretical part of the ideology is elaborated first followed by its application to the characters in the stories. The postcolonial terms of interpellation and ideology are used to further explain the stance. The distorted image of reality in terms of imagination and symbolic subjectivity forms the background of the study of Manto’s characters. Ved Prakash’s “Photographing the Sound and the Fury: War Photography and New Media” delves into the concept of war photography and examines the role of new media in proliferating the images of war across people and cultures in order to satiate their curiosity. The portrayal of violence on the TV screens and the internet has contributed towards a demand for such documents of war and thereby the photographers risk their lives to feed the technological economy. “Embedding the Male in Female Body: A Qissa” by Rekha and Ankita Rathee analyses the film Qissa from the socio-cultural aspect of body politics that asserts maleness onto the female body. The confusion between the biological female (which is subdued through clothes and mannerisms) and the imposed male hood on Kanwar are negotiated only at the cost of incurring social exclusion. The partition of India is likened to this confusion between the accepted and the imposed acceptance that marred the lives and dreams of millions. Hardeep Kaur’s “The Prawah and the Prabhav: A Critical Study of the Inner and the Outer Travel Quests in Select Travelogues on the Ganga” examines the quest of the travelers exploring the river Ganga. It reads the traveler as an active agent, in the pursuit of unraveling the mysteries of the spiritual and sacred Ganga. The impact of the river on the travelers is analysed at two levels, i.e. at the level of prawah and prabhav. They become two ways of interacting with the river which have their own problematics. Somrita Ganguly in “Stopping at Old, Familiar Stations: A Review of Seamus Heaney’s 1975 Anthology” studies the anthology of Heaney by bringing (ii) into focus the personal and the political in terms of Irish history. The metrical structure of the poems and the technique of writing including the poetic form are studied too. Neeti Singh’s “The Metaphor and Matrix of Mysticism in the Verse of Guru Nanak and Fernando Pessoa: A Comparative Overview” endeavours to compare the writings of Nanak with that of Pessoa. The paper examines the aspects of spiritualism within the parameters of paganism and Sufism. The binding similarity between the works of two mystics is that they chose Nature as their subject and were opposed to any conventional rules or rituals in this path. “Virtual Reality, Cyberspace and Adolescent Dissipation: A Close Reading of Kirsten Krauth’s Just a Girl” by Ketaki Datta studies the impact of virtual media on the human relationships and the emotional conditioning of a girl. The paper portrays the detrimental ramifications of seeking relationships outside the immediate surroundings of the family and points out the problematics of the situations where the families do not bond together and become vulnerable by seeking love and validation from external sources. Ranjita Pati’s “Fantasy and Historiography: Dymystifying Cromwell” reads two novels by Hillary Mantel, and locates the figure of Thomas Cromwell, the ancestor of the famed Oliver Cromwell, within his historical and political contexts. The role and progress of the character from the humble origins to influencing the king forms the major part of the novel’s plot, and the subject is intriguing as this portion of history has not been studied much, something which this paper aims to redress. “The Personal Forever at War with the Public – A Study of the Patient(s) in Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient” by Navdeep Kaur and Nikhilesh Yadav negotiates the idea of disease and explores it with reference to The English Patient. English Nationalism excludes whatever does not comes under its umbrella of normality; analysing the characters of the novel, the paper puts forward its argument with a nuanced understanding of the roles played by the different characters. (iii) In the paper “From Margin to Centre: A Study of August Wilson’s Gem of the Oceans”, Nakul and Renu interrogate the relationship between the centre and the margins. The complexity of black man’s survival is constantly being rebuffed; this paper tries to highlight the collective consciousness of the black people whose struggle goes beyond the individual self and are still given the status of being marginals. Shruti Sharma’s “Inclusions, Exclusions and Interpolations in the Critical Edition of Mahabharata: Debates and Dilemmas” studies the nuances arising out of the excision of an episode (read as an interpolation by the Critical Edition) and its influence upon the modern critical scholarship of the epic (which largely relies upon the manuscript tradition). It tries to unearth the specifics of how an episode came to be inserted (and/or redacted) in Mahabharata and the ramifications, problematics and politics of such an action thereof. Lakhvinder Singh Bedi’s “Pash, Peasantry and Green Revolution” portrays the negotiation of a poet during the times of turmoil and suffering. The impact of political and ideological unrest during 1970s made Pash use poetry as an artistic medium to approach social issues in an empathetic way.