Table of Contents Articles: Premchand through Satyajit Ray's Cinematic Eye: Film Adaptation of Shatranj Ke Khiladi - N D Dani 5 Realism in Mitra Phukan's The Collector's Wife - Nityananda Pattanayak 13 (St)Uttering Caste in Another Tongue: A Critique of volte-face in Sundaram's Poetic and Political Ideologies - Hemang Desai 18 Constructing Female Identity in Consanguineal and Affinal Relationships: A Study through Select Assamese Proverbs - Mandakini Baruah 28 Journey of a Woman through Home, Hearth and Heart: A Reading of Jaishree Misra's Ancient Promises - Soumya Jose & Sony Jalarajan Raj 33 Self-Reflexivity in John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse -Sambit Panigrahi 39-45 Ecocriticism: Return to Hinduism - R K Mishra 46 Against Barbarism: A Very Brief Survey of Holocaust Poetry - Pinaki Roy 52 Tom Stoppard's Play as Playful Intertextuality - Nelly Vanlalliani Tochhawng 61 The Decentered Subject: Memory Plays of Harold Pinter - Mufti Mudasir 69 The Need and Importance of Translation and the Role of English Language - Vijay Kumar Roy 76 Portrayal of Gandhi in Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel - Pritam Thakur 82 Multilingualism As A Teaching Resource In An Esl Classroom - Ravi Bhushan 86 Female Body: Site Of Culture-A Study of Manju Kapur's The Immigrant - Asha Saharan 93 Diasporic Dimensions in Damodar Mauzo's Karmelin and Bharati Mukherjee's Wife: A Comparative Study - Rajashri Barvekar 99 Mysterious Silence, Brutality and Sense of Irreparable Loss – Dominant forces in Chaman Nahal's Azadi - Saikat Banerjee 105 Fractured Self of Jaya in Shashi Deshpande's That Long Silence - Divya Walia 111 Assessing G.C. Tongbra's Taj Mahal - AJ Sebastian sdb 116 Peace and Spirituality in Stephen's Gill's The Flame - Neelam K. Sharma 123 Constructing and Reconstructing Homeland Spaces in African American Writing - Bhumika Sharma 127 Interpersonal Conflict in Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place - G Saravana Prabu 133 Ethical Purgation in Manju Kapur's Difficult Daughters and Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things - Amit Purushottam 137 Dalits and the Literature of Protest: An Overview - Shivaji D. Sargar 143 The Subterranean Life: Mother-Daughter and/or the Shadow of the Other - Baisali Hui 152 Murder in Mahesh Dattani's Three Plays: Seven Steps around the Fire, The Swami and Winston and Uma and the Fairy Queen: A Study - Abhinandan Malas 160 Muzzafar Ali's Umrao Jaan: The Life of a Courtesan as a Form of Cultural Representation - Rani Rathore 168 Buddhist Normatives and A. K. Ramanujan's Radicalism - Sarangadhar Baral 173 The Dark Glass: Role of the Narrator Serenus Zeitblom in Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus - Arindam Maitra 184 Self to Cosmic Consciousness: Transformative Journey of Shiva in The Immortals of Meluha and The Secret of Nagas - Lata Mishra 191 Short Story: Chawngchilhi -Trans. by - Margaret L Pachuau 204 Book Review: Eds. Geoffrey Davis and Henn Mass-Jolinek: Crisis and Creativity in The New Literatures in English/Cross Cultures 1 - Albert Russo 207 Albert Russo: Embers Under My Skin- Lata Mishra 210 Ed. Vijay Kumar Roy: Contemporary Indian Spiritual Poetry in English: Critical Explorations - Tribhuwan Kumar 211 Ed. Vijay Kumar Roy: Teaching of English: New Dimensions - Upendra Gami 213 Poetry: Rosaline Jamir: This Cosmos, Children 17,27 Jasmine Anand: Storm and Urge, Yards Responsibility 38 Incomplete Memories, Un(met) Twains 104, 110 Silkworms 190 Jaydeep Sarangi: Peace in No Man's Land 60 P. Raja: I Know and Do Not Know 92 Itishri Sarangi: Hope 115

Our Esteemed Contributors 215 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 5-12

Premchand through Satyajit Ray's Cinematic Eye: Film Adaptation of Shatranj Ke Khiladi - N D Dani

Abstract: This paper is a serious study of India's most awarded filmmaker of world stature, namely, Satyajit Ray's adaptation of Premchand's well known short story Shatranj Ke Khiladi. Ray goes beyond Premchand and presents before us the clever and crooked colonial moves that were being played by the British Resident of Avadh to annex the province of Wajid Ali Shah's kingdom although there was a treaty between the nawab and the East India Company to the effect that the kingdom of Avadh will not be annexed. Keywords: Satyajit Ray, Colonial Moves, Avadh, Annex, Lord Dalhousie, Wajid Ali Shah, Treaty, East India Company, Misrule,. In this paper I propose to look at Premchand's famous short story Shatranj Ke Khiladi and its film adaptation by Satyajit Ray. Although adaptation of books into films has been very popular with both film makers and filmgoers, for any number of reasons, the opinion on adaptation is divided. There are people who think that films should be copies of books on which they are based and there are people who champion the freedom of the film maker to stamp his work with his own vision. The latter hold the view that it is the singer not the song that makes the splendour of communication successful. So we have faithful adaptations, literal adaptations and loose adaptations. Dennis Lehane, contemporary American novelist and screenwriter, some of whose books have been very successfully adapted into films once remarked tongue in cheek that literature and film, movies and books compare like apples and giraffes. But, he maintained, that they do compare. They do interbreed. Although literature and movies are distinct forms of communication umpteen solutions and accommodations have been found so that they can get along and have fruitful relationships. The number of adaptations from historical or literary sources into films is indeed very large. In fact, we now have a new term 'litflicks' on Internet which means literature adapted into flicks, the flickering medium of the motion pictures. But the question is: How and why literature and movies fruitfully nourish one another? When apples, giraffes, and other exotica interbreed what results? My paper shall try to answer this question by showing why and how Ray created another work of art, in another medium, turning a great

5 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 13-17 Realism in Mitra Phukan's The Collector's Wife - Nityananda Pattanayak Abstract: Realism in literature is real thing happening in and around the society as depicted in literary works. In reality novel, the novelist creates a convincing environment and personae that picture his world- view and interpret his experience. Mitra Phukan's novel The Collector's Wife is a realistic novel for it depicts social, political life of a people in a particular juncture of its history. Ms. Phukan captures the certainties, troubles and tribulations in the life of individuals both born and to be born, through the characters like Rukmini, her husband Siddhartha, Manoj who helped her to bear child. To throw the colour of realism, Ms. Phukan uses resisters and some local words. Keywords: realism, insurgency, terrorism, subalternity, obsessions Realism in literature is real thing happening in and around as depicted in literary works. The writer while embodying realism in his work uses common conventions of representation. Realism implies “truth of detail, the truthful reproduction of typical characters under typical situations.” (Engel 313). In reality novel we can transfer our own identity to some of the characters portrayed in the work and while continuing to live our own life we share to the full experiences of characters. In such novel the novelist creates a convincing environment and personae that picture his world-view and interpret his experiences. As Weimann says, “… literature and society are seen to be inter-related in the sense that literary values are social values and that social values, if they are to be values will in the last resort come to terms with the workings of the imagination and the telling of the stories” (57). Should we take realism as naturalism? There is a difference between the two. Naturalism is that where the outside world is only perceived. But realism is perceived as well as it is thought. As Gary Zukav has observed, “Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based on our perception. What we perceive depends upon what we look for. What we look for depends upon what we think. What we think depends upon what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we believe. What we take to be true is our reality” (328). So the narrated events in a narrative when taken to be true since they are objectively experienced in the real world and also believed existent in the inner world they constitute elements of social realism. This kind of narrative gives us a vicarious pleasure that is more pleasing than the pleasure derived from romance or detective novels. “The pleasure of reading a realistic novel is certainly, more mature, sophisticated and lasting than the one derived from the reading of a romantic novel. It has been compared to an intelligent person's listening to symphony of Beethoven, or sitting quietly in a great cathedral, or 13 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 18-27 (St)Uttering Caste in Another Tongue: A Critique of volte-face in Sundaram's Poetic and Political Ideologies - Hemang Desai Abstract: Sundaram (1908-1991), the winner of prestigious awards like “Padmabhushana” (1985) and “Shri Narsinh Mehta Award” (1990), claims a special attention in Gujarati literature because he defies all critical attempts at putting him into ideological or literary pigeonholes. In spite of being an extremely versatile litterateur ploughing into almost all literary forms and being instrumental in ushering in what is called New Poetry in Gujarati literature, Sundaram's oeuvre is informed with a continual conflict between progressive and regressive tendencies, fluctuations between the zenith and the nadir of creative excellence and, most importantly, convictional oscillation between fiery activism and ideological autism. Keywords: Dalit, Gujrati Literature, Gandhism, Identity politics. As an articulate progressivist, a febrile communist and a committed Gandhian, Sundaram, in his early work, remarkably accomplished a conscious engagement with socially tabooed and hitherto unacknowledged issues like casteist Indian society and nature of human sexuality. He remarkably endowed Gujarati literature with attributes of radicalism and modernity as well as democratized the language of poetry. Explicating this dimension of the poet's writing, Mansukhlal Jhaveri rightly notes, “…the writer of Gandhian Era, unlike his predecessor, tried as best as he could to reach the masses. The odd situation created by the economic inequity made him feel uneasy. He could not bear to see the lot of the poor, the exploited and the underdog. Being inspired by Gandhiji's activity in the fields of service of the poor, village uplift, and eradication of untouchability, he wrote about the unsophisticated rural folk of the lower strata instead of the rich or the educated of the upper strata of the society.”(Jhaveri,History of Gujarati Literature)To the poets of Pandit Era(1885-1915 AD), only the lofty and sublime elements like the cloud, the moon, the stars, the lotus, the cuckoo, the sea could appropriately and exclusively form the subject of poetry but due to his fascination with the square view of reality, the poet of Gandhian era deemed a scavenger girl, a latrine fly, a garbage dump etc. as fitter focuses than those of his predecessors. Apart from being influenced by Gandhism, Sundaram admits of having been profoundly influenced by his reading of Karl Marx's Das Kapital during his stay in jail in late twenties and early thirties. Art for life's sake was an international literary credo after the October Revolution of Soviet Russia in 1917.Consequently, on the substratum of social realism and class-consciousness was located a kind of literature which sought to achieve autonomy, equality and social justice for all, irrespective of class, color and creed and the world literary firmament 18 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 28-32

Constructing Female Identity in Consanguineal and Affinal Relationships: A Study through Select Assamese Proverbs - Mandakini Baruah

Abstract: The paper intends to study how the stereotypical role of women is constructed in society and how it is represented in Assamese proverbs. Construction of womanhood is accepted as a natural fact through the patriarchal lens and nobody rejects such phenomenon. Such kind of construction can be seen in terms of kinship. The paper intends to study such representation in the context of kinship and it tries to make a comparative study of women's representation as Consanguineal kin and Affinal kin. For that matter, the paper deals with select proverbs in Assamese which have relevance with the Consanguineal and Affinal relationships. Keywords: Femininity, consanguinity, affinity, Assamese proverbs. Female identity always seems to be subjugated and dominated by the male members of the society. Women have been given a second position in society. The biological male and female are constructed by patriarchy as masculine and feminine as if these concepts were natural given in society. In the words of Philippa Gates: Masculinity, like femininity, is a product of culture, not of nature: it is constructed and performed. There remains an assumption, even in contemporary society, that gender differences are innate and reflect an underlying dichotomy between men and women based on sexual difference. The assumption arises from conflating biological sex with gender: sex - male/female - is biologically determined; conversely, gender - masculinity/femininity - is a social construction (28). Women do not have voice not only in the public sphere but also in the private sphere. They do not have the decision making power and they are categorised as the 'other'. The marginalized position of the women can be seen in every dimension of society and kinship is one of such examples. In kinship relationship, women have been observed as an oppressed group in comparison to their male counterparts. But it is interesting that apart from such divisions between male and female status, there are divisions between different women in their different roles. It is seen that women having blood relation generally gets a higher stature than that of women having marital relationship. Such type of divisions is well-represented in various genres of both oral and written literature along with the day to day practices. Folklore is one of the important mediums through which such kind of comparison can be expressed. The present paper deals with the images of women that are projected in verbal folklore and for that matter, it concentrates only on select proverbs in Assamese. The paper deals with 28 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 33-38 Journey of a Woman through Home, Hearth and Heart: A Reading of Jaishree Misra's Ancient Promises - Soumya Jose & Sony Jalarajan Raj

Abstract: This paper endeavours to render a feminist reading to Ancient Promises. The article analyses how Janaki, a woman moulded according to the dictates of Manusmrithi emerges as a new empowered woman who controls her destiny. Janu disrupts the mould in which she has been created by the patriarchal society. The novel ends optimistically and the author's note in fact reveals the ultimate gift that Janu receives at the end as an ancient promise fulfilled. Keywords: subjugation, liberation, woman, patriarchy, empowerment “Women's revolution is... an ontological spiritual revolution pointing beyond the idolatries of sexist society and sparking creative action in and toward transcendence... It has everything to do with the search for ultimate meaning and reality, which some would call God”.(Beyond God the Father,6) The status, treatment and role of woman in any society come from the worldview of its philosophy/civilization. There are two principles in the creation of universe itself. There are male and female principles underlying our entire philosophy, seen as the essence and the manifestation, root and the spreading. These two principles are inseparable and complementary. Essentially both are same, but they are two aspects of the reality. Thus if principle of existence is seen as male, then principle of creation, pervasion is the female principle (the Siva- Sakti symbolism). They are inseparable like seed and the tree, word and its meaning, energy and its potential to work. These two qualities are represented by two colors, white and black. The former symbolizes pure existence, the latter pervasiveness. In fact the entire universe is a play of the duals - consciousness and energy. And at different levels duality governs the entire creation - eternal-phenomenal, manifest-un manifest, mass-energy, life-non life, male-female.(Hindupedia) Manu Smriti talks of three stages for a woman: 1. As a child protected by her father: Traditionally, girls did not receive a formal academic education. A woman's role, considered essential in preserving social and cultural values, was learned in the home. 2. As a married lady, protected by her husband: Hinduism places great value on pre-marital chastity and this has significantly influenced practices. Girls were betrothed and married at a very young age. In married life, the wife's roles were centred on the home and she was not burdened with contributing towards the family 33 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 39-45

Self-Reflexivity in John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse - Sambit Panigrahi Abstract: John Barth's Lost in the Funhouse is an exemplary exposition of the theme of self-reflexivity and the metafictional nature of postmodern writing. Barth experiments with a new mode of narrative in all the stories in Lost in the Funhouse. The narrators of these stories do not merely tell stories but reflect on them and provide the readers with a detailed account of the thought process involved in the creation of the stories. Exploration of the self-reflexive and metafictional modes of narrative involves a straightforward dialogue between the author and the reader where the author becomes a character in the story and duly shares his creative experiences with the reader. Keywords: Self-reflexivity, metafiction, literature of exhaustion, literature of replenishment, fictionality of fiction In his two remarkable essays “Literature of Exhaustion” and “Literature of Replenishment,” John Barth discusses the 'used-up-ness' of the existing literature and suggests that the exhaustion of the existing literature should augur a new kind of writing - experimental, self-reflexive and metafictional. Talking about his essay “Literature of Exhaustion,” in retrospect, in his latter one “Literature of Replenishment” (written twelve years after the first one), John Barth, gives a clarification about his newly introduced Postmodern narrative style. He says: The simple burden of my essay was that the forms and modes of art live in human history are therefore subject to used-upness, at least in the minds of significant numbers of artists in particular times and places; in other words, that artistic conventions are liable to be retired, subverted, transcended, transformed, or even deployed against themselves to generate new and lively work. (Barth, LOR 205) What Barth means by such a declaration is that the “aesthetics of high modernism” is “essentially [a] completed program” (Barth, LOR 205) and hence, there is an urgent need for the invention of a new and innovative technique that was to be introduced in the form of Postmodern writing. According to Brian McHale: “The emphasis fell, rather, on the possibility of artistic conventions being 'deployed against themselves to generate new and lively work'” (26). Susana Onega rightly points out: “For Barth, the truly creative writer is one capable of giving birth to a new literary form out of the ironic absorption and rejection of the “exhausted” form preceding it” (143). This new and innovative technique is what Barth himself terms as “self-reflexivity” - a technique which involves providing the reader a probing account of the very process 39 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 46-51

Ecocriticism: Return to Hinduism - R. K. Mishra

Abstract: Ecocriticism as a conscious-raising movement argues for environment-safety. It is a multidisciplinary approach. Numberless development programmes are being executed not alongside ecology instead at the cost of ecology. Ecocriticism as a literary ecological philosophy provides a reliable framework or mechanism to analyze cultural and literary texts which directly/ indirectly engage ecological concerns and contexts. Moreover it looks at the depictions of natural sights and landscapes along with people's attitudes and attentions towards nature; may be favorable or unfavorable. In fact this sort of attempt negotiates between literature and ecology. The present author by this paper appeals to the world scholarship to go by Hinduism. Hinduism believes in oneness of God and all other worldly manifestations. Only it can provide safe solution to whole world maladies pertaining to art, life, culture, and moreover today's burning problem- global eco-crises. Keywords: Ecocriticism; Hinduism. Today entire world is facing new and newer challenges posed by eco- imbalances ranging from food, fashion, technology to race, class, gender, sexuality, mentality, nationality, law, religion, economics etc. It is most pressing need to keep our environment safe so that we can live and let other beings live and survive too. Eco-imbalance is not specific (one nation, one place, or one city) problem. It is a global phenomenon. Hence whole world unanimously whether partially or fully affected, should come forward and launch a global campaign with honesty for the service of environment and the restoration of healthy environment. In wake of global ecological crises and resultant life-threatening effects prompted literary thinkers to formulate an eco-oriented approach called 'ecocriticism'. It came off as a new feather to the field of literary criticism. Today the world peace is threatened especially by our blind exploitation of nature. If racism was 20th century disease, ecological problem is 21st century trouble. We have several eco-philosophies and organizations for the sake of environment. Some of them are Deep Ecology, The Environment Justice Movement, Earth First!, Ecocriticism etc. These are solely intended “to find ways of keeping the human community from destroying the natural community, and with it the human community. This is what ecologists like to call the self-destructive or suicidal motive that is inherent in our prevailing and paradoxical attitude toward nature. The conceptual and practical problem is to find the grounds upon which the two communities- the human, the natural- can coexist, cooperate, 46 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 52-60 Against Barbarism: A Very Brief Survey of Holocaust Poetry - Pinaki Roy Abstract: This paper proposes to attempt a very limited survey of select Holocaust writers and their poems written during and after the 1939-45 Second World War to show how through the poignant verses, the predominantly-Jewish litterateurs had tried to commemorate their own sufferings at the Nazi-organised concentration camps for their posteriors so that they could safeguard themselves against the dangers of ultra-nationalism, xenophobia, and racism. Keywords: Holocaust, Shoah, World War II, Jewish, Nazi, German. Any essay about the subgenre of Holocaust/Shoah poetry is expected to begin a reference to Theodor Adorno's terse comment in Prisms, “To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric” (34). According to the German literary critic, who regarded the Holocaust as the most fatal of socio- political cataclysms to have ever occurred, no metrical language would ever be potent enough to capture the sufferings and horrors of the millions of Jews during the atrocious European days of the Shoah, and so intellectuals should conscientiously avoid such attempts. However, in spite of Adorno's observation, many poems were written about the genocide especially by people of Jewish or ethnic-Polish descent. Several concentration-camps inmates commemorated their sufferings in short and poignant verses scribbled on torn notebooks, spoiled pamphlets, soiled notices, discarded newspapers, and other paper-based mediums. Understandably, whereas almost no Holocaust novel written in concentration camps exists, poems – that require short space and time and give vent to emotions more artistically than prose-works – are available in considerable proportions. Human desires to record sufferings and castigate tormentors led to such mellifluousness of Shoah poetry during the days of anti-Jewish pogroms and post-Second World War that Adorno was forced to retract his oft-quoted statement, and state instead, “[P]erennial suffering has as much right to expression as the tortured have to scream […] [.] [H]ence it may have been wrong to say that no poem could be written after Auschwitz” (Negative 362). This essay proposes to attempt a very brief overview of the Holocaust poems (in English translated forms) and their writers. In “Theories of Trauma”, Lyndsey Stonebridge puts importance to all such poems as being parts of the “literature of testimony” (The Cambridge 202). Sara Horowitz further comments, “Holocaust poetry mediates on the nature of memory and testimony, and its special use of language gives expression to what falls outside the boundaries of ordinary speech” (The Oxford 437). In the 'Preface' to Images from the Holocaust: A Literature Anthology (from where many of the poems referred to in this essay have been quoted), Brown, Stephens, and Rubin state that 'there was no standard Holocaust 52 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 61-68

Tom Stoppard's Plays as Playful Intertextuality - Nelly Vanlalliani Tochhawng

Abstract: The article is an exploration of Tom Stoppard's plays examined in the light of the postmodernist view of intertextuality. Stoppard transcends the limits of subjectivity with his own inventiveness questioning radically notions of stability and rejecting modernist paradigms. The plays have been discussed touching on the Bhaktinian dialogic amidst different views and consciousnesses. Derrida's crucial reading of language and neologism or 'Dogg' language as invented by Stoppard incline towards the playfulness and ambiguous nature of life dethroning ideological biases, since signifiers no longer point at their accepted signifieds. The absence of final truth towards entity brings forth a blending and clashing of ideas and world views making the world and life more open and meaning more plural. All these notions of intertextuality supplemented by Stoppard in his plays have made humanity sympathies more expansive and life more tolerant. Keywords: Postmodernist, Intertextuality, Paradigms, Dialogic, Consciousnesses, Parody, Travesty, Transposition, Centripetal, Centrifugal, Playful, Parody, Diversity, Discourse, Neologism, Presocial. Intellectually provocative plays of Stoppard are philosophically postmodern. As works of literature these plays take on the pre-existent plays, texts or traditions, and attempt to diacritically respond to established notions of meaning, cultural codes and philosophical absolutes. The postmodern is designated by Lyotard as a rejection of the modernist “metadiscourse” signifying “some grand narrative, such as the dialectics of Spirit, the hermeneutics of meaning, the emancipation of the rational or working Subject, or the creation of wealth.” He defines the spirit of the postmodern age as “incredulity towards metanarratives.”(Lyotard XXIV) The post-World War-II situations expose scientific progress, the laissez faire and free market economies, Salvationist faith, socialist ideals and the nuclear family as illusory lullabies. The empty and illusory stabilities of these grand narratives do increasingly indicate the fact no text is uniquely placed to hold the absolute meaning. It is a fact that Stoppard's play is felt to be an intertext. The Stoppard reader feels thus obliged to consider the network of textual relations as well as their meaningful significances that arise out of such perspectives of intertextuality. As a poststructuralist thinker Julia Kristeva introduces the idea of intertexuality in her “The Bounded Text” as constructed out of already existing discourses. She has her conviction 61 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 69-75

The Decentered Subject: Memory Plays of Harold Pinter - Mufti Mudasir

Abstract: The present paper attempts to explore the treatment of memory by the Nobel laureate and one of the most prominent postmodern playwrights, Harold Pinter. It tries to situate some important plays of Pinter, also known as memory plays, against the theoretical background of postmodernism and the concomitant shift in the conceptualization of human subjectivity. A close textual reading of these plays is carried out to show how Pinter succeeds in laying bare the condition of decenteredness of characters by departing radically from the conventions of realistic drama. In fact, as the paper demonstrates, Pinter should be seen as one of the first playwrights to treat the idea of memory in a characteristic postmodern manner. Keywords: memory, human subject, monologue, postmodernism. One of the most remarkable features of postmodern theatre and now a familiar feature of narration on stage is the treatment of past through the memories of characters. This exceptional preoccupation with memory finds expression in various dramatic techniques which exploit the structures of repetition, regression, amnesia, simultaneity and deliberate evasion. In an important critical examination of the treatment of memory in postmodern drama, Memory Theatre and Postmodern Drama (1999), Jeanette Malkin has the following insight to offer: Within postmodernism, I contend, there has occurred a shift in the way we remember, and hence in the way culture, and for our purposes, the theatre, represents and reenacts remembering. Where once memory called up coherent, progressing narratives of experienced life, or at least unlocked the significance of hidden memory for the progression of the present, this kind of enlightenment organization has broken down in postmodernism and given way to nonnarrative production of conflated, disrupted, repetitive, and moreover collectively retained and articulated fragments. This shift in the workings of memory is reflected in plays shaped through fragment, recurrence, and imagistic tumult. (1999:4) Harold Pinter is certainly one of the earliest playwrights to deal with questions of memory in a characteristic postmodern mode stated by Malkin above. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Pinter wrote some powerful memory plays. Whereas Pinter's earlier plays dramatized situations of menace, struggle for power and the dominance of hegemonic discourses, the memory plays reveal a growing interest in the 69 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 76-81 The Need and Importance of Translation and the Role of English Language - Vijay Kumar Roy Abstract: Translation is an act of expression of ideas and feelings from one language to another. Translation of a text is meant to spread the knowledge available in one language to the readers of another language. English, being an international language, plays a vital role in this context. English is a language in which almost all literary and scientific works need to be first translated. In whole of the world, the books translated into English are mostly read and digested. English has given wide scope to the writers, translators and readers of the whole world. It is general curiosity of the wise readers to read the books written in the languages other than their reach. English fulfils this desire of the readers. This curiosity and interest have necessitated the translation work in global scenario. English translation has given rebirth to the literatures written in other languages. The paper intends to focus on the importance of translation and the role of English language in depth and detail along with illustrating some great classics of India. Keywords: Translation, English, Language English language plays a vital role in providing the translated books to the wide readers by bringing them to the global platform. English is known as a 'window to the world' as well as a 'library language', so fortunately the mission of translating books into English has been successful. The popularity of books and availability of them in English have proved translation work as a source of creating a knowledge bank for children, youth and old alike. It is the magic of translation that the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bible, Kuran are available in all major languages of the world and the people of all religions and races imbibe the knowledge from them. It is translation that day to day causes increase in number of the readers. The readers find the books of their choice of language in market and enhance knowledge of the world literature.The literary works of Shankaracharya, Kalidas, Tulsidas, Kabirdas, Surdas, Meerabai, Tukaram and Vidyapati are available in English. Not only the readers of Sanskrit language but of the English too, know well the themes of Vivekchuramani (of Shankaracharya); Raghuvansham, Meghdutam and Kumrasambhavam (of Kalidasa). They know well the devotional love and sacrifice of Tulsidas, Kabirdas, Meerabai, Tukaram and Vidyapati. The famous novels and stories of Premchand and influential poems of Ramdhari Singh Dinkar have been translated into English. All major works of the above writers are unparallel in the world literature. They have been prescribed in the schools, colleges and universities in English translation. They have been the immortal treatises for all generations. English translation has given 76 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 82-85

Portrayal of Gandhi in Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel - Pritam Thakur Abstract: The Indian English novel is indebted to M. K. Gandhi. Gandhi emerged as a powerful force in Indian writings in English. Gandhian philosophy and ideology lent the novels a frame of reference. The present research paper tries to explore the image of the father of nation in Tharoor's The Great Indian novel and Tharoor's remaking style of caricature through the magical use of blending diverse genres like parody, sarcasm, irony, allegory etc. through Indo-nostalgic portrayal of the novel. Keywords: parody, paradox, gimmickry, sarcastic, non-violence, truth, magnetism, ideology. One may ask what was it in Gandhian Philosophy that left so abiding an impression on Indian English novelists. Gandhian ideology lent these novels a frame of reference. It linked them to the roots of Indian culture. It created in them a social awareness and helped them to interpret the social reality creatively and indiscriminately. It made them look at man as a social animal, an individual with his responses and reactions. It sent them searching for a national identity. It enabled them to share their intellectual journey through modern and western ideas back to the reinterpretation and renewal of rich Indian tradition. His philosophy and ideals not only recharged the political life of India but also to reorient Indian literary values. Gandhian ideas and ideals continued to dominate the Indian English novelists even beyond the 40's of the century. In Kamala Markandaya's Nector in the Sieve, and A Handful of Rice we see the Gandhian concern for the lowly and the lost. In Nayatara Sahgal, Gandhian values are more omnipresent and less overt. A Time to be Happy embodies India's bright eyed optimism after independence. Manohar mangaonkar's A Bend in the Ganges paradoxically exhibits Gandhi, an upholder of the Hindu-Muslim unity, an advocate of non-violence, an inspiration behind the partition of India. Chaman Nahal in Azadi explores the meaning of India's independence accompanied by the tragedy of partition. He shows Gandhi as an architect of freedom and as a martyr of communal harmony. In the Crown and The Lion Cloth Nahal fictionalizes the life of Gandhi from 1915 to 1922. Gandhi appears as a character in Anand's The Sword and the Sickle and Untouchable, R. K. Narayan's Waiting for the Mahatma, K. A. Abbas's Inquilab, K. S. Venkat Ramani's Kundan The Patriot. These novels in an epic demarcation of the first phase of the Indian freedom movement under the magnetic leadership of the lion-clothed Gandhi shook the century-old pillars of British rule in India. Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel explores a parody of both the Mahabharata and contemporary Indian society. The chief characters of Mahabharata are parodied in the contemporary 82 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 86-92 Multilingualism as A Teaching Resource in an ESL Classroom - Ravi Bhushan Abstract: Notwithstanding a number of language teaching methods like grammar translation, direct, audio-lingual, and the latest communicative language teaching (CLT) being used for teaching of English, the debate on effective English language teaching continues. In fact we have reached the stage of “beyond methods”. My paper would emphasize on the fact that ELT pedagogy needs to be oriented towards using multilingualism as a framework and consider mother tongue as an important asset as far as teaching of English is concerned. Keywords: Multilingualism, Language awareness, ESL, Culture Multilingualism, which is defined as speaking two or more than two languages, is a growing worldwide phenomenon. Due to globalization and interdependent economies, many countries including India have significant multilingual population in their workforce and educational systems. In fact due to an increasing scope of international commerce & trade, the demand for multilingual education and training has increased considerably leading to unprecedented establishment of socio-cultural contacts. English as the major language of international business is spoken as a second or third language in many countries around the world. In fact English can be considered an important factor in creating multilingual societies. That is why educational programmes in English are in high demand. Students who study English as a second language often speak two or more other languages too. In fact knowing more than one language is a necessity for most of us. Knowledge of more than one language helps in learning subsequent languages. It quite often happens that students take the knowledge of their mother tongue for granted and do not take full advantage of what they already know. The teachers of English, teaching English as a foreign language can make great use of their students' familiarity with multiple languages. Engaging in the activities based on multilingual experience is of immense help to students, teachers and anyone who wants to add a new dimension to language teaching and learning. The aim should be to relate the learning of English with the students' previously known languages and make this multilingual approach a part of oral discussions, written assignments and projects in the classroom. Research evidence shows that acquiring more than one language creates different kinds of connections in the brain, which gives multilingual students an advantage in some respects compared with monolingual individuals. Multilinguals are more aware of sociolinguistic variables and functions then those who speak one language and are adept at switching between different regional varieties, registers, formal and informal 86 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 93-98

Female Body: Site of Culture-A Study of Manju Kapur's The Immigrant - Asha Saharan

Abstract: Manju Kapur in her novel The Immigrant depicts- What happens in the case of Immigrant female who is uprooted from her home country and finds herself in a new host country? How does she balance the tightrope of maintaining her culture of origin while at the same time seeking a sense of belonging and acceptance in the host country? Keywords: Exile, Marriage, Cultural Solitude. Bodies are not only gendered but also racialized, marked by class relations, and embedded in sexuality hierarchies and global asymmetries. The identity of an individual is shaped by his/her self- perceptions of the world surrounding him/her based on the religion, race, class, economic and social status of family, cultural and religious beliefs shared by the society in which the individual lives. When a person migrates from the society of his/her birth and bearing, most of these beliefs follow the migrant to the country of migration the concept which is named in the apt phrase of sociologist N. Jayaram as, “the socio- cultural baggage” (Jayaram 2004, 22), carried by an immigrant. Once in a foreign land, the migrated people “find in their culture a defense mechanism against a sense of insecurity in alien settings” (Jayaram 2004, 49), and they try to stick to their identity of home and nation. This leads to the formation of diasporic and ethnic identity of the diasporic communities. Thus the immigrant occupies a space of exile and cultural solitude which can be called a hybrid location of antagonism, perpetual tension and pregnant chaos. Here the reality of the body, a material production of one local culture, and the abstraction of the mind, a cultural sub-text of a global experience, provide the intertwining threads of the immigrant existence The becoming self namely, the immigrant, struggle to construct and negotiate his/ her identity and to evolve into confident and independent individual after undergoing a process of adaptation and assimilation. In the works of women writers the focus on women seems to be worked upon in the light of globalization. Woman's role defines the greater sociological matrix of the society. Through the image of a woman the writers construct and deconstruct her identity vis- a vis the family and society. In her work on the body in feminist discourse, Elizabeth Grosz argues that post-structuralist feminists such as Luce Irigaray, Helene Cixous, and Judith Butler conceptualize female bodies as: "crucial to understanding women's psychical and social existence, but the body is no longer understood as an ahistorical, biologically given, a 93 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 99-104

Diasporic Dimensions: A Comparative Study of Damodar Mauzo's Karmelin And Bharati Mukherjee's Wife - Rajashri Barvekar

Abstract: The present paper is a modest attempt to compare the trauma of displacement faced by the women protagonists of Damodar Mauzo's Karmelin and Bharati Mukharjee's Wife. Damodar Mauzo, a significant Konkani novelist unfolds the tragic life of Karmelin in his novel. He focuses on the tragic theme of Diaspora in Karmelin and derives its strength from the regional Goan identity. The study of these two novels provides meaningful variations on the diasporic theme. Keywords: Diaspora, Bharti Mukherjee, Wife, Damodar Mauzo. The present paper is a modest attempt to compare the trauma of displacement faced by women protagonists of Damodar Mauzo's Karmelin and Bharati Mukherjee's Wife. Karmelin, the protagonist represents many Goan migrants going to the Gulf countries and Dimple, the protagonist of Wife represents the transition of Bengali woman from the relatively close society to relatively open multicultural permissive society of America. The main contention of the paper is however offered in terms of the theory of diaspora. It is argued that Karmelin (2004) and Wife (1975) provide the substantial and meaningful variations on the diasporic theme and that these variations on the part of regional creative sensibility provide the alternatives to the current Indian English Diaspora fiction. The first section of the paper discusses the theory of diaspora, where as second and third sections provide analysis of the selected novels by using diasporic framework, while last section concerns with comparative perspective. As has been said earlier, this paper is an attempt to explore the dilemmas of displacement as faced by Karmelin; and Dimple. As diaspora is about migration, about transmuting realities and transforming one's sense of identity, it is necessary to discuss the theory of diaspora in Indian English literature in general and Karmelin and Wife in particular. The origin of the Indian diaspora goes back to 19th century during the colonial period. It is one of the byproducts of colonization. All colonial masters found Indians skillfull, usefull, hard working, and as a result Indian labour is transported by British, French, Dutch and the Portuguese masters. Some migrate in search of the better opportunities in Gulf countries. Some educated elites of India who seeks economic betterment in the more advanced countries of the world. Both the Indian blue collar workers as well as professionals are well placed in the Arab world. There are various instances of economic, cultural, and political diasporas. These diasporic experiences of migration for various causes have 99 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 105-110 Mysterious Silence, Brutality and Sense of Irreparable Loss: Dominant forces in Chaman Nahal's Azadi - Saikat Banerjee

Abstract: The term Partition is normally used in the sense of division or separation. But historically it refers to a dark and ugly event of the Indian history, which took place in the wake of India's freedom. This paper focuses on mysterious silence, brutality and sense of irreparable loss, the three parts – The Lull, The Storm and the The Aftermath as depicted by Chaman Nahal in his novel Azadi. Keywords: Partition, Indian history, Human Values, Brutality, Loss. Partition was the defining event of modern, independent India and Pakistan, and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that partition continues to be the defining event of modern India and Pakistan. The partition was traumatic to those people who, having faced physical violence, humiliation and sexual assault, were compelled to leave their homeland. The story of the making of nations and their histories can be told in many ways; for there are obviously differing, and changing, points of view both within and outside the nation, and differing degrees of access to the rights of citizenship (and of history). It is one way of telling this story of Partition which Chaman Nahal another Post-Partition novelist has beautifully recreated the theme of the partition in his most celebrated novel Azadi (1975). This novel presents a lively and detailed account of the happenings which took place about mid 1947. Azadi is divided into three parts – The Lull, The Storm and the The Aftermath. Keeping this in mind, the present article would intend to capture the tone and nature of reminiscences of a few uprooted people in the novel Azadi . For the sake of our analysis of the nostalgic analysis of these uprooted people the present article would be divided into three parts – mysterious silence, brutality and sense of irreparable loss. The first part of the novel , The Lull mentions the mysterious silence gripping the minds of Hindus and Muslims living in the city of Sialkot, just before the announcement of the partition i.e. on June 3, 1947. Lala Kanshi Ram an affluent businessman is the central figure of the novel. He is a man of modest education, but experiences of life have made him much wiser. Prabha Rani is his wife. His conjugal life is quite but happy. He has a son Arun. His daughter Madhu is married to Rajiv. Like other freedom fighters and nationalists, Lala Kandhi Ram too earnestly craves for India's freedom. In the heart of his heart he hates the British and wishes that they should leave India as early as possible. To him, the usurpers of Indian freedom were the British. So when they are defeated at the hands of Germans, he feels elated. He is an ardent supporter of freedom fighters like Gandhiji, 105 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 111-115 Fractured Self of Jaya in Shashi Deshpande's That Long Silence - Divya Walia Abstract: Shashi Deshpande in her novel That Long Silence, through the character of Jaya, brings forth the emotional and psychological clashes that any middle class married female experiences when confronted with a choice. The paper is an attempt to analyse and explore the fractured female self on account of disharmony that exists within one's inner self and the outer self with reference to Jaya of That Long Silence. Keywords: Shashi Deshpande, That Long Silence, identity. But I know that I shall move. The door will open slowly, and I shall see what there is behind the door. It is the future. The door to the future will open. Slowly. Unrelentingly. I am on the threshold. There is only this door and what is watching behind it. I am afraid. And I cannot call to anyone for help. I am afraid. – Simone De Beauvoir Shashi Deshpande is a popular Indian novelist who has brought out the various aspects of female psyche through her novels, mainly the conflicts of the self with the cultural and social dimensions defined by the patriarchy. Her novels are characterized by the struggle of an Indian middle class female trying to work out her ways in order to establish her own identity within the male dominated social set up and the cultural construct. Shashi Deshpande is considered as the author of the 70's and the 80's. Her contribution to the world of literature is the presentation of the reality of the middle class woman: I realize that I write what I write because I have to. Because it is within me. It's one point of view, a world from within the woman, and that I think is my contribution to Indian writing. (Deshpande interview) In her novel That Long Silence, through the character of Jaya, Deshpande brings forth the emotional and psychological clashes that any middle class married female experiences when confronted with a choice. About That Long Silence, Deshpande remarks: And then I wrote That Long Silence almost entirely a woman's novel nevertheless, a book about the silencing of one half of humanity. A lifetime of introspection went into this novel, the one closest to me personally; the thinking and ideas in this are closest to my own. (Prasad, 58) The protagonist Jaya belongs to the post independence era and as such carries and nurtures values different from the mythological symbols of womanhood Sita and Gandhari who chose to follow and be whatever the patriarchy represented by their husbands wanted from them and in this 111 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 116-122 Assessing G.C. Tongbra's Taj Mahal - A J Sebastian sdb

Abstract: G.C. Tongbra's Taj Mahal is a study in human relationships between Ranimamta and her two lovers Yadav and Rajmohan. The play probes into the life of slum dwellers who live a state of constant migration and utter poverty. Poverty denies man his fundamental human needs for food, shelter and clothing. When he is unable to get it, he is forced to a life of thieving and crime. The central characters in the play being caught in the grip of extreme poverty, become victims of such social maladies. Keywords: Existential, destitute, subaltern, philanthropy, migration. G.C. Tongbra, the well known Manipuri dramatist has written some very powerful plays exposing conflicts in the lives of people. He is known to have exposed the anomalous condition in society for man to become conscious of it and rectify the wrongs for a better life. His later existential position led him to centre his attention on man's need to free himself from bondages for a better life. The underdog in society needs to assert his identity and fulfil himself in a world of haves and have-nots. In their quest for identity, the underdogs need to challenge all impediments in the form of conventional morality, law and justice. Some of his popular plays include Lupa Sana (Silver and Gold) 1940; Judge Masabu Jailda (Jailing the Judge himself) 1940; Mani-Mamou (Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law) 1945; Taj Mahal (1972); Ngabong Khao (The Flesh trap) 1975; and Changyeng Manja (Experimental Husband) 1984. Taj Mahal has been very successful in presenting his strong views, attacking conventional morality and concepts of justice (Prakash 37). In Taj Mahal, the dramatist centres around the relationship between Ranimamta and her two lovers Yadav and Rajmohan. The play opens at dawn at a shack in the slum where, Kebal, a blind man is ready to begin his daily begging trip with his teenaged foster daughter, Ranimamta. Kebal begins to chant the Lord's name: “Hare Krishna, O immortal! Bhagawan, if you've got real ears it's already time you heard us – the hungry and half-clothed wretched of the earth…Are you transformed into earless, eyeless, wood or stone? You're hiding yourself carefully somewhere. For, you are afraid that the beggars of this earth will surround you and strip you bare How evil you are!” (Tongbra 40). As he calls Ranimamta out to take him out, she remonstrates with him as she feels herself a grown up girl to go begging daily. Since the man is dying to have a cup of tea at the tea stall, she leads him out grumbling at her lot. They both exit singing: You are Kooda, You are Allah/ You are Bhagawan/ …/ You who can get more of everything/ Destroy us – the cataracts of your eyes/ If you will not, then help up/ With a square meal everyday, if possible (41).

116 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 123-126

Peace and Spirituality in Stephen's Gill's The Flame - Neelam K. Sharma

Abstract: The present paper aims at searching spirituality in Gill's The Flame. Peace and spirituality are the two connotations, which, to some extent, are complementary to each other. Keywords: Peace, Spirituality, Stephen Gill. I believe that the life after death will be blissful if an individual does not destroy the legitimate peace of others. Those who maintain their lives on the path of good, their life after death will also be good. Those who promote peace on earth shall enjoy peace after death by destroying the peace of others. Hindu scriptures call God peace. Jesus says that peace-makers shall be called the children of God. God is the king of peace in the scriptures of both the Hindus and Christians. (The Flame 19) These spiritually motivated lines form a part of Stephen Gill's Preface to The Flame. Gill, a multiple award-winning Indian writer, who resides in Canada, has set himself to undertake a journey full of painstaking efforts for the welfare of mankind. He has authored more than 20 books. The Flame is one more feather to his previous writings. It is his master-piece creation as it reveals Gill's ambition for the quest of peace, destroyed by the maniac messiahs. Lord Buddha, Swami Vivekananda, Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther king, Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and the like have been significant personages who contributed a lot to spread peace and harmony all over the world. Their mission for the world peace was propelled and boosted by Stephen Gill through his writings. He himself admits that poetry is to present his vision and concerns, and to conceive peace in a peaceful way. The compelling influence for his crusade is the peace that is beauty, the peace that is creative, the peace that makes life meaningful, he attempts to illustrate that peace in its myriad forms on the rocks of his words. (Songs Before Shrine) Stephen`s eternal flame is an inspiration, an inexhaustible power, an undying, unending burning lamp, with which, he has, very boldly and courageously taken a vow to dispel the darkness of human souls. This shows that the more he gets spiritual, the more he becomes stronger to complete his mission – Peace. He invokes the flame thus: You are/ the distinctive fount/ that feeds the ever growing pangs/ of the sages/ in every age./ you bind the earth and the sky/ and rule to relieve/ the rusting monotony. (The Flame 33) Gill's effort to shape his poem as an epic, is praise-worthy. As far as, its subject matter and style are concerned, by every way, it is epical. And in its support, so many critics have stood. Sudhir K. Arora, a scholar and critic of Stephen Gill, has made a virtuous contribution in this sphere and he has critically and very dexterously examined The Flame and it has 123 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 127-132 Constructing and Reconstructing Homeland 'Spaces' in African American Writing - Bhumika Sharma

Abstract: African American writing is epitomized for the literary articulation that portrays the struggle of a dispossessed and dismissed man from non-entity to entity. The idea of homeland is widely conceived in African American writing not only as a geographical region but as a mental construction that ranges from actual to virtual, to imagined and re-imagined, and from past and present to futuristic spaces. Keywords: Cultural metamorphosis, Decolonization, Homeland, Memories African American writing is epitomized for the literary articulation that portrays the struggle of a dispossessed and dismissed man from non- entity to entity. A black man, at his arrival in America, as an immigrant African slave, was deprived of even human status. African American writing portrays him as a representative of an uprooted community which had to travel a long way to regain his human status in the new world. His attainment of identity was not merely a combat against the inhuman institutions like slavery but was also characterized by his own cultural metamorphosis. Since a current allows forming and deforming, shaping and reshaping, blending and segregating, and also moulding and adapting amass, the things are bound to transform in the process. The socio- artistic history of Black authorship presents a paragon of such constructive, as well as deconstructive synthesis. The cult of African American authorship is considered as a sub stream of American mainstream. It might have sprouted in a definite region, but has universal appeal that consists in its involvement with the fundamental instinct of emotional and ideological protest against the negation of human dignity. Its representation of a black man's attempt to search for their roots constitutes the idea of 'homeland'. It is inherent in their endeavours to recuperate history and regain lost cultural heritage. But where is the forgotten and forlorn Homeland? Claude Mc Kay's Home to Harlem (1928) introduces one of these familiar themes in Black fiction. It evinces a desire to discover or return to one's home. As in the case of Afro-Americans, the difficulty of feeling at home in America combined with an ignorance of the historical home of one's people, adds agony to the sense of loss and disorientation. Different Black characters react to this quirky situation differently, but most of the time, when they search for home their experience is peculiarly chaotic 127 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 133-136 Interpersonal Conflict in Gloria Naylor's The Women of Brewster Place - G Saravana Prabu

Abstract: Conflict in a piece of literature doesn't always involve people swinging axes or firing weapons, but it does explain or describe the way characters interact with each other, themselves, or their environments. The Women of Brewster Place defines the black experience and illustrates the strength of friendship among women, never once suggesting that often-accepted view that women cannot be friends to other women. Men are shown as base. Keywords: African Americans, lesbians, love, mother, oppression. Conflict is a struggle between two or more forces that create a tension that must be resolved. Conflict is important to literature because it provides the basic materials for the construction of the plot. Without conflict nothing would happen, the conflict within a piece may be central to the author's view of life or the point he or she is trying to make. A conflict results in heated arguments, physical abuses and definitely loss of peace and harmony. Man and woman relationship is subject to conflict. In our day to day life, we can see the fight between father and daughter, brother and sister, husband and wife and lovers. In Women of Brewster Place, Naylor brings out the fact that women face some disheartening circumstances that are usually caused by men, who are seen generally as malign forces. Throughout the book Gloria Naylor portrays male as causing the adverse condition of women. Naylor narrates the story through the stories of the women characters in her novel. The stories are woven in such a way that each woman character is subject to suffering because of her relation with men and she gets peace and solace with the company of other woman. Mattie Michael was a pleasant, God-fearing church going woman with moral strengths who without the support of other women might not have survived. At the age of twenty three Mattie Michael was seduced by Butcher Fuller, a hand some young nigger. When she became pregnant, her father beat her to reveal her unborn child's father. Mattie knew very well that if she reveals Fuller's name, for sure her father will kill him and her father would be behind the bars. Mattie loved her father and knew his great love towards her, so she moved from home in Rock Vale, Tennessee to North Carolina, where her friend Etta Mae Johnson took her in. Butch, when he impregnated her, he not only destroyed her relationship with her father but also changed the course of her life, possibly for the worse. After Mattie's son was born, Etta Mae moved on to a different place in search of good fortune. She also invited Mattie to come with her so that she could also search for a wealthy man, but Mattie suggested that her son 133 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 137-142

Ethical Purgation in Manju Kapur's Difficult Daughters and Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things - Amit Purushottam Abstract: This paper delves deep into the purgation of emotions through fiction reading and analyzes the deeper impact of necessity of psycho-moral cleansing in Manju Kapur's Difficult Daughters and Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. Keywords: Psycho-moral cleansing, transgression, patriarchy, Set in the early part of the twentieth century, Kapur's novel, Difficult Daughters chronicles the history of a middle-class Hindu family whose oldest daughter chooses to study beyond the accepted high-school education that even the most reform minded middle-class families deemed quite sufficient for most women at that time. The educational revolution for women was a function of the nationalist movement that envisaged education as empowering for women, in that it would enable them to have a voice at least in the matters of the household, where, until, that time, they did not have one. The paper also examines the ideas of women's education with its rhetoric of monolithic empowerment, and the spaces in which this education was imparted, in the context of the nationalist movement, through Manju Kapur's Difficult Daughters. This paper also explores within the framework of the text, issues of female identity as concerns the body and sexuality, and how this ties in with the nationalist movement. Also, there is an examination of the above in the light of the nationalist movement because this disconnect between the drive for women's education and the social displacement that it caused was the most perceptible effect of the move towards an expanded vision of women's education. There was no context provided by these nationalist-educators for the translation of this education into empowerment for the women, in practical terms and every day life. Manju Kapur's first book is heavily populated with women. There is Virmati, the protagonist: Kasturi, her mother; Shakuntala, her cousin and the initial role model: Ganga, the first wife of the man she marries, and Virmati's own daughter, Ida, the narrator. The structure of the book mirrors Virmati's life itself: calm periods in her life are harshly interrupted by the unease caused by the Professor lurking in the background. These abrupt interjections are similar to the switches in narrative, from accounts of the exploration of her mother's past by Ida to the recounting of Virmati's life in third person. While the narrative voices are mostly representative of the women's side of the issue, the book itself is set up as a series of binaries that contradict each other at some point in 137 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 143-151

Dalits and the Literature of Protest: An Overview - Shivaji D. Sargar Abstract: Protest in all its variety and degree of intensity has been a buzzword in cultural studies all over the world. Naturally, literature is not an exception to it. Literature as a reflection of socio-politico- cultural milieu of the artist is definitely an area that enables to explore the life and times of a man who created it and his ideology in relation to various aspects of his life. That is why, this paper attempts to trace the aesthetics of protest in subaltern literature with special reference to 'The Branded', a brilliantly decoded life-story of a man who, along with hundreds of similar communities, was branded as a criminal by the socio-religio-political structure of India. Keywords: Protest, Laxman Gaikwad, autobiography, caste. Protest in all its variety and degree of intensity has been a buzzword in cultural studies including literature all over the world. Literature is definitely an area that facilitates to explore the life and times of its creator and his ideology. Being a sensitive member of his society, writer's personality is definitely influenced by various socio-politico-religious institutions of his life. Naturally, all these influences are actively involved in the creation of his work. These socio-politico-religious institutions have been responsible for the unimaginable sufferings of many backward communities including women in the hierarchical structure of Indian society. This acute sense of exploitation has led these writers to express their sufferings in the form of literature. While creating their works, they have developed their own literary principles which govern their literary output. That is why, this paper attempts to trace the aesthetics of protest in subaltern literature with special reference to Laxman Gaikwad's Uchalya. Attempts are also made to perceive how the narrator develops his story as a paradigm to illustrate his concept of aesthetics and how it contradicts with the aesthetics of mainstream literature thereby enabling the researcher to draw attention of the intelligentsia towards the new aesthetic principles underlying the literary output of the marginalized sections of the society and pass on a judgment on its aesthetic qualities. Uchalya is Laxman Gaikwad's Sahitya Academy Award winner autobiography written in Marathi. Afterwards it was translated into English by P.A. Kolharkar and published by Sahitya Academy with a title The Branded. It is a brilliantly decoded life-story of Laxman, a member of Uchalya community. Uchalya community was a notified criminal tribe as per the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871. In addition, the members of this community have been deprived of equal social status by the peculiar socio-politico-religious structure of India, which forced them to lead a 143 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 152-159

The Subterranean Life: Mother-Daughter and/or the Shadow of the Other - Baisali Hui Abstract: This paper discusses Sunlight on a Broken Column by Attia Hosain and Difficult Daughters by Manju Kapur and attempts to trace the complex process of the growth of an independent female agency within the close-knit patriarchal framework of the late 19th and early 20th century colonial India. The question of choice, of tell-tale silence, of the need for freedom and communication are raised and addressed within the circuit of the family itself and most often in the presentation of the mother-daughter relationships. These two novels lend themselves to an interesting reading of the mother-daughter relationship vis-à-vis the rising socio-political crescendo of the last years of the British Raj and the Partition of India. Times have changed since, but how much of the outlook? Are we still ready or even willing to hear the voices from the margins? The history of silence consolidated with studied ignorance and negligence is teeming with voices and experiences awaiting an outlet. There had been attempts made and failed, of course. But in them lie the germ of future initiation. Keywords: silence, patriarchy, partition, women's agency, resistance. Rights are interests—interests of a particular kind, but interests nonetheless. And whatever the nature of these interests, respecting persons means giving the appropriate weight to their interests of the appropriate sort. People's concern about the respect given them is in part a concern about having their interests respected, so that they can be fulfilled and protected. (Margalit38) Women's writing has, oftener than not, attempted to locate the questions of rights, interests and honour within the framework of social justice, family protectiveness and interpersonal understanding as available within the norms of society. Women's experience of life, in and out of her 'home', has been problematised by an overarching presence of patriarchal dominance as is her creative endeavour that has always been placed beneath strict male scrutiny. What a woman can or cannot write about, what depth of experience she might delve into, what realisations and recollections she may utter and what not have always remained the chief concern of a society that has fixed its gaze upon all threatening movements on the horizon—from women, from the subaltern, from the outcast and the outnumbered, from the defeated and the derecognized. Naturally enough, the discourse on the Indian nation and nationalism within the patriarchal ideological framework of (post)colonial India has mostly ignored the guiding principle and active agency of women participants therein—of women activists, women authors and the women characters depicted in fiction—who, through a complex 152 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 160-167

Murder in Dattani's Three Plays: Seven Steps around the Fire, The Swami and Winston and Uma and the Fairy Queen - Abhinandan Malas Abstract: In my paper I intend to focus on how the theme of murder has been presented in Mahesh Dattani's three plays, Seven Steps around the Fire, The Swami and W inston and Uma and the Fairy Queen. Keywords: Murder, religious fanaticism, international relations, Dattani 'Murder' has continued to be a powerful thematic motif since time unknown in the history of world literature which has played a major role in the development of the action of the story or the plot. The tragedies produced in Europe, including the classical and the English plays, have put forward the theme of murder as an important source of the main action that leads to the struggle and sufferings of the protagonist which ultimately leads him or her to climax accompanied with catharsis and the restoration of the old orders. In the last couple of centuries the theme of murder has become an indispensable part of a whodunit. It has proved to be the easiest way to construct the plot of a thriller. Dattani's plays include the emotions of the world class tragedies and also the agility of the modern detective fictions. Murder is an important theme in Dattani's thrillers and the uniqueness about it is that apart from involving human psychology and modern society murder in Dattani's plays also brings into consideration several other issues of modern India that are related to its national politics, government, corruptions and matters relating to international levels that concern India seriously. In Dattani, murder is politicized and sometimes is given a religious colour. Dattani has also shown how a high profile murder can become an origin of a possible Indo-Pak conflict. The serious issue of international terrorism has also made its way into the dramatic plot of Dattani's thrillers. Dattani has also presented the murder on a symbolic level as well. It involves the murder of human values, relationships, love, hope and social harmony. The murder of Kamla, a eunuch, in Seven Steps around the Fire, shows the symbolic murder of a whole community. Mr. Sharma, the minister, acts as an agent of the oppressive society which is not ready to accept the existence of the eunuch community which is a marginalized section. In The Swami and Winston communal craze becomes a camouflage under which religious fanatics, like Sitaram Trivedi, use religion for their personal gains. But, in doing so, the communal harmony, which is an important characteristic feature of the Indian nationalism, is murdered. This also gives rise to the symbolic murder of faith and tolerance that must exist among different communities and religious sects in society. Uma and the Fairy Queen gives rise to a number of national and international issues. While, on the one hand, it deals with 160 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 168-172

Muzzafar Ali's Umrao Jaan: The Life of a Courtesan as a Form of Cultural Representation - Rani Rathore

Abstract: Courtesan culture in India is as old as its history. It originated in the courts of Hindu kings and later became the life of the courts of nawabs. Muhammad Hadi Ruswa in his novel Umrao Jaan Ada(1905) narrates the story of Umrao in the backdrop of rich Muslim culture. The film based on this novel revolves around Umrao, an epitome of beauty and grace. The present paper tends to focus on the her life as a powerful expression of cultural representation. Keywords: Courtesan ,Muslim Culture, Cinema, Customs. For centuries the authors of fiction as well as cinema directors have been influenced by the cultural aspects of a society and have presented the same in their respective works. Cinema, being a very potent medium represents diverse areas that are closely associated with our lives. It is that aspect of art which concerns its relationship with the world around it and communicates the social and cultural expressions of the time. The films of various kinds have become the archives of cultural records. There have been a wide range of period films that have tried to showcase the culture of the bygone days. One such film is Muzaffar Ali's Umrao Jaan (1981), derived from Mohammad Hadi Ruswa's novel Umrao Jaan Ada (1885) based on the life of a courtesan Umrao Jaan. It is rightly assumed, "Behind each artist stand the cathedral, the library and the museum. Behind each form is a conquest, a taking over, an incorporation a further development of another previously existing from whose traces it bears"1. Undoubtedly, behind cinema stands literature whose traces it bears since its inception. Surely there are certain differences in the narration of a novel and the production of a film. But the aim is to present a picture of a society and both are the authentic mediums of representation. In the movie Muzaffar Ali uses the cinematic technique to recount the story of Umrao Jaan, the famous courtesan of Lucknow in the mid-nineteenth century. The movie can be class as one of the most popular 'courtesan films' .With the certain amount of freedom he chooses and selects some of the details that reflect the culture of that time. And it takes the reader to see the life of courtesan in the social and cultural context. To begin with, the first scene of the film is Ameeran's (Umrao's) engagement which brings out the rich Muslim tradition alive. Ameeran dressed in red colour shalwar kameez, with traditional Muslim jewellery, head covered, rose garland tied around her wrist. The presentation of the engagement ceremony here manifests the Muslim tradition at large. Firstly the purdah culture that dominates the lives of women of those times is shown, as the house is separated into mardana and Zenana. The songs sung by the women on this occasion mirror the Muslim tradition and 168 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 173-183 Buddhist Normatives and A. K. Ramanujan's Radicalism - Sarangadhar Baral

Abstract: Ramanujan's voice emerges from the Indian intertext, rather with an observant eye consistently moving on radical and alternative lines of our plural society and multi-cultural India. To read Ramanujan, the poet, is to discover and experience certain ignored vistas of our complex and great culture beyond the consumerist practices of the self. Keywords: Buddhism, Ramanujan, Radicalism, Identity. Reading Ramanujan's poetry and prose leaves often an elusive trail of impressions bordering on Buddhist philosophy and practices. In exploring traces and intertexts available, one would perceive, these are but closely and intricately interwoven with the ideas and concepts in poems that have been treated as Hindu or Western things obviously in the first place. Before coming to deal with Ramanujan's Buddhist consciousness in detail, an attempt is made to gain insights from his poetic dimensions that subtly conceal and reveal simultaneously a Buddhist in him. Ramanujan's poetic is marked by observation of the detail. The poet is comfortable in his modernist attitude toward the object he describes, or the experience he attends to. He is equally aware of sudden terrifying dislocation of life or identity. This suggests that Ramanujan accepts the process of detail and that of dislocation or death as necessary entangled phases of being. He rejoices in both, but celebrates the detail with a tendency toward the undetermined and startlingly new state as a kind of creative evolution, howsoever without evolution's mechanistic idea of progress or finalist future. In the poem “Elements of compositions” (Second Sight) he writes of the self as it develops from past bearings: 'composed as I am of… father's seed and mother's egg.' This evolution is not to be the biological imperative alone; and the poet would come up with a philosophic grace, but not rushing into a mystifying lyric: And even as I add, | I lose, decompose | into my elements, | into other names and forms, | past, and passing, tenses | without time, | Caterpillar on a leaf, eating, | being eaten.' (123) In this, his poetic vision comes close to Bergson's concept of creative evolution, which Bergson explains of the self in the following manner: (...) our personality shoots, grows, and ripens without ceasing. Each of its moments is something new added to what was before. We go further: it is not only something new, but something unforeseeable. Doubtless, my present state is explained by what was in me and by what was acting on me a moment ago. (8) In Ramanujan this shift from identity to identity in an unceasing fluidity is also aptly characterized by Kulashrestha as “the plurality of identity.” 173 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 184-190

The Dark Glass: Role of the Narrator Serenus Zeitblom in Thomas Mann's Doktor Faustus - Arindam Maitra Abstract: Narrative is the way a story is told and that very 'telling' implies a narrator. The role of the narrator is quite crucial in fashioning the simple elemental materials of a story into a new meaningful totality that is ultimately conveyed through that 'telling'. The voice, personality, angle of viewing and judging any event as well as even various limitations of the narrator, all become parts of what is being told, and as such leave contribution in shaping its meaning. In stead of simple representation of a mere sequence of various happenings thus what we get through a narrative is rather a strongly subjectivised version of the story, always betraying new perspectives and specific patterns. This is more so when the narrator himself becomes a character of his story and as such an inseparable part of what he tells. This paper seeks to study the role of the narrator Serenus Zeitblom in Thomas Mann's last major novel Doktor Faustus. Keywords: narrative, narrator, mimesis, diegesis, homodiegetic novel, intentional and unintentional narration, interpolated narration. Doktor Faustus, the last major novel of Thomas Mann, is often claimed to be his most overtly political novel, exploring the depths of the German psyche. But reading it, as anyone would confess, can hardly be called a very smooth and simplistic experience. It is both long and highly complex in structure. On the face of it, it is an attempted biography of a very talented composer Adrian Leverkühn. But the very phrase 'Mitteilungen über das Laben des ...' (9) itself, which literally means 'report on the life of ...', betrays that it is reported by someone and thus can hardly be a neutral objective account of events that occurred in the life of the hero. We witness the action, but only through the eyes of the narrator Serenus Zeitblom. He may himself apologise for bringing his own personality in the foreground (9), but we are to take him always as an integral part of what he narrates. Even the strange nexus between the life of the protagonist and the traditional figure of Faust, put forward by the very title of the novel, could not be established without the voice of the narrator. Thus to gain an access to the troubled personality of the protagonist, we must rely on what his biographer says of him, how he is seen by the narrator. This certainly demands due attention to be paid also to the role of the narrator. The narration begins after the story ends. Zeitblom begins to write on 23 May, 1943, more than two years after Adrian's death. Naturally, what he does is nothing but to traverse back down memory lane, to pick up different images as he can remember them and showcase them laboriously as well as his ability permits (on which, he repeatedly confesses, he himself has little trust), thereby presenting us a detailed picture of his venerated friend Adrian. But the 184 Labyrinth: Volume-3, No.4 October-2012 ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 191-203 Self to Cosmic Consciousness: Transformative Journey of Shiva in The Immortals of Meluha and The Secret of Nagas - Lata Mishra Abstract: Present paper is an attempt to explore identity, reality, knowledge and the dichotomy of the order/chaos axis in context of a universal understanding of consciousness. The paper in its first section, analyses the childhood memory and consequent dreams of Shiva under the lens of Carl Jung's On the Nature of Dreams (1967). The brief introduction of the two selected novels is followed by the study of the various Vasudevs, whom Shiva meets on his transformative journey to the kingdoms/cities in the novels that exist as organic entities. These cities can thrive and grow, but they also age and decline, as if they have the life of their own. The journey begins from Mt. Kailash in Tibet to Meluha and Swadeep. Shiva then marches to Brangaridai and Dandak Forests near Narmada. The second section focuses on Shiva's meeting with the second Vasudev. In the third section the Vasudev of Magadh Temple gives Shiva insight into the masculine and feminine principle operating in the universe. Plurality of truths contained in scriptures formed by blend of history, folklore and empirical knowledge is limited by finiteness of human mind as well as culture of the time. Amish Tripathi delves deep into this great Shiva myth of India and employs it as vehicle of a new vision and interpretation. Keywords: Shiva mythology, order/chaos, masculine/feminine, Indian philosophy Debutante author Amish in his two novels namely, The Immortals of Meluha and The Secret of Nagas (Shiva Trilogy- Part 1 & 2, the third part yet unpublished), provides integral analysis on the modern world. Amish's potential to create myth for our modern times that makes pertinent points about the real world is marvellous. The work combines the narrative excess with philosophical debate. Amish recreates the myth of Shiva, Ganesh, Sati and Kali through his study of all spheres of Indian life and literature. He makes Shiva myth appealing and intelligible to the modern mind. Those who still keep the oral tradition alive through chanting and singing of hymns and folk songs deserve gratitude and admiration of young generation. At the same time there is also a need to understand and reinterpret its meaning. Recitation without a knowledge of its meaning does not enlighten one. Amish insists to engage oneself in action because actions purify as knowledge liberates. Through recreation, 'The Shiva Trilogy" becomes living inspirational scripture capable of providing spiritual direction in the modern world. Meluhan order in the novel is perceived as masculine attitude, that reflects the authoritative, vertical, hierarchical order of being and knowledge, while Swadeepan chaos as Feminine attitude that contains the seeds of order within. While chaos initially may mean confusion but as will be inferred it 191 215 Our Esteemed Contributors Ÿ Abhinandan Malas, Lecturer, Dept. of English, Ramananda College, Bishnupur, Bankura, WB. [email protected] Ÿ Amit Purushottam, Head of Dept. of Humanities, University College of Engineering and Technology, Vinoba Bhave University, Hazaribagh, Jharkhand. [email protected] Ÿ Arindam Maitra, Research Scholar, Dept. of English, The University of Burdwan, West Bengal. [email protected] Ÿ Asha Saharan, Associate Professor, Government P.G. College, Hisar, Haryana. [email protected] Ÿ Baisali Hui, Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Kalyani, Kalyani, West Bengal. [email protected] Ÿ Bhumika Sharma, Assistant Professor, Dept. of English, Central Univ. of Rajasthan, Ajmer, Rajasthan. [email protected] Ÿ Divya Walia, Assistant Professor, Dept. of English, The IIS University, Jaipur, Rajasthan. [email protected] Ÿ Hemang Desai, Head of English Dept., Shri NV Patel College of Pure and Applied Sciences, Vallabh Vidhyanagar, Gujarat. [email protected] Ÿ Itishri Sarangi, Assistant Professor, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. [email protected] Ÿ Jasmine Anand, Assistant Professor, MCM DAV College for Women, Chandigarh. [email protected] Ÿ Mandakini Baruah, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Cultural Studies, Tezpur University, Assam. [email protected] Ÿ Margaret L. Pachuau, Associate Professor, Dept. of English Mizoram University Mizoram. [email protected] Ÿ Mufti Mudasir, Senior Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, Jammu And Kashmir. [email protected] Ÿ ND Dani, Associate Professor, Dept. of English, JNPG College, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. [email protected] Ÿ Neelam K Sharma, Dept. of English, GSPG College, Surjannagar, Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh. [email protected] Ÿ Nelly Vanlalliani Tochhawng, Research Scholar, Mizoram University, Aizawl , Mizoram. [email protected] Ÿ Nityananda Pattanayak, Associate Professor & Head, Department of English, A.D.P. College, Nagaon, Assam. [email protected] Ÿ Pinaki Roy, Assistant Professor, Dept. of English, Malda College, Malda, West Bengal. [email protected] 216 Labyrinth | Vol.3 No.4 (October 2012) Ÿ Raj Kumar Mishra, Lecturer, Dept. of English, Jagatpur PG College, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. [email protected] Ÿ Rajashri Barvekar, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Shivaji University, Kolhapur, Maharashtra. [email protected] Ÿ Rani Rathore, Assistant Professor, Department of English, IIS University, Jaipur, Rajasthan. [email protected] Ÿ Ravi Bhushan, Head of Learning Resource Centre (Language Labs), Bhagat Phool Singh Mahila Vishwavidayalaya, Khanpur Kalan, Haryana. [email protected] Ÿ Rosaline Jamir, Professor, Dept. of English, Assam University, Silchar, Assam. [email protected] Ÿ Saikat Banerjee, Assistant Professor Department of English School of Languages, Literature and Culture Jaipur National University Jaipur, Rajasthan. [email protected] Ÿ Sambit Panigrahi, Lecturer, Dept. of English, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, Odisha. [email protected] Ÿ Sarangadhar Baral, Associate Professor, Mizoram Univesrsiy, Aizawl, Mizoram. [email protected] Ÿ Saravana Prabu, Research Scholar, Dept. of English, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. [email protected] Ÿ Shivaji D. Sargar, Associate Professor and Head, Post Graduate Dept. of English, Mahatma Phule College, Panvel, Mumbai. [email protected] Ÿ Sony Jalarajan Raj, Asst. Professor, School of Arts and Social Science, Malaysia Ÿ Soumya Jose, Research Scholar, Department of English, Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu. [email protected] Ÿ Thakur Pritam Indarsinh, Lecturer, Vidya Pratishthan, Vidyanagari, Indapur, Pune, Maharashtra. pritamkumar05@ gmail.com Ÿ Vijay Kumar Roy, Head of Dept. of English & Foreign Languages, SRM University, NCR Campus, Modinagar-201204, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. [email protected]

The other esteemed contributors are at the Editorial Board of Labyrinth.