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ISSN 2319-7684 MIDDLE FLIGHT SSM JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE UGC Approved National Level Peer Reviewed Journal NOVEMBER 2017 VOL. 6 NO. 1 SPECIAL VOLUME: Peripheral Identities in Literature, Film and Performance Middle Flight ISSN 2319-7684 Middle Flight SSM JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE VOL. 6 2017 DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH S. S. MAHAVIDYALAYA KESHPUR, PASCHIM MEDINIPUR PIN: 721150, WEST BENGAL, INDIA Middle Flight SSM JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE UGC Approved National Level Peer Reviewed Journal Editorial Board: Bill Ashcroft, Australian Professorial Fellow, School of the Arts and Media, UNSW, Sydney Krishna Sen , Professor , University of Calcutta Tirthankar Das Purkayastha, Professor, Vidyasagar University Sankar Prasad Singha, Professor, Vidyasagar University Mahadev Kunderi, Professor, Mysore University Binda Sharma, Associate Professor, C.M.D. College (PG) Satyaki Pal , Associate Professor, R. K. M. Residential College (Autonomous), Narendrapur (PG) Goutam Buddha Sural , Professor, Bankura University Sudhir Nikam, Associate Professor, B. N. N. College (PG) Dinesh Panwar, Assistant Professor, University of Delhi Advisory Board: Jawaharlal Handoo, Professor, Tezpur University & President, Indian Folklore Congress Parbati Charan Chakraborty , Professor, The University of Burdwan B. Parvati, Professor, Andhra University Angshuman Kar, Associate Professor, The University of Burdwan Simi Malhotra, Professor, Jamia Millia Islamia University Shreya Bhattacharji, Associate Professor, Central University of Jharkhand Ujjwal Jana, Assistant Professor, Pondicherry University Subhajit Sengupta, Associate Professor, The University of Burdwan Guest Editor : Jaydeep Sarangi Editors : Debdas Roy Pritha Kundu Associate Editors : Joyjit Ghosh Indranil Acharya Published: November, 2017 ISSN: 2319 – 7684 Published by : Sukumar Sengupta Mahavidyalaya Keshpur, Paschim Medinipur, Pin: 721150 Ph: 03227-250861, Mail: [email protected] / [email protected] © S. S. Mahavidyalaya Rs. 500.00 (INR) Editorial The focus of the present volume of Middle Flight is on cultural production of the peripheral identities in literature, film and performance. The term ‘peripheral’ envisages centre-periphery relation which might give rise to unnecessary militant polarization leading to belying of the complex ground realities if not used with this caveat that it is a ‘way of reading’ – not a ‘way of being’. (Ashcroft) The recent debate around the release of Padmavati , a film directed by Sajay Leela Bhansali in which the alleged inclusion of a dance sequence by Padmavati , an iconic goddess-like figure of the dominant Rajput culture should be an eye opener for those of us who nurture culture- inhibitions and tend to divest art of the freedom to look at history from different perspectives – perspectives that look beyond the ‘enshrined’ and ‘established’ annals of history into hearsay, folk-lore, popular orally transmitted alternative tales, scandals, customs contrary to prevailing convention and the likes. Even if we are bent on flying with the term ‘peripheral’ it is good to maintain that awareness of multiple centres and peripheries help one understand the real nature of cultural eddies. There has been inclination to look at literature and art in terms of relations of inequality because they suggest crucial areas of difference which are often useful and offer a sense of belonging to one’s cozy culture. One writes from the periphery because one’s concerns are different, one’s themes are different and one does not often conform to the ‘placed’ canon. While awareness of differences is not something to be trumpeted about, it is, nevertheless, a potent means to counter subjugation effected by interlocking system of power and a means of rejuvenating the hitherto neglected moribund cultural systems. It helps in the shift of literature and culture from ‘mono-systems’ to ‘poly systems’. (Paranjape) Indeed, literature and culture needs to construct alternatives which involves a bit of resistance, but resistance need not necessarily be ‘reactive’, locked in a ‘prison of protest’ (Ashcroft) , but can be ‘pro-active’ (Paranjape) too. Moreover, there are discourses which neither ‘write back’ nor ‘react’ to the dominant culture. There are societies that simply ‘do their own thing’ although in the process they implicate themselves in a larger world. This is what Bill Ashcroft has termed as engagement of local community with global culture. The emergence and consolidation of Dalit and tribal literature in India is not an isolated phenomenon; it is an offshoot of the reversal of the centre-periphery relationship triggered by post-modernism, post-colonialism and identity-war. (Joseph Mcwan) With modern and postmodern developments in performative and cinematic semiotics, the conflict between the centre and periphery has now been a pregnant area of critical discourse which engages with issues such as postcolonialism, psychoanalysis, partition and Diaspora studies, gender and queer studies, Dalit and tribal studies, engagement with cultural outputs of the slaves, indigenous people, Chicanos and Chicanas, criminals, eunuchs, transvestites and other kinds of interdisciplinary ideas. Peripheral literatures in India have been mirroring social changes, conflicts and cultural shifts of society. They are connecting the vignettes to present a big canvas and are also attempting to broaden the frontiers of literature by introducing some novel images supplanting the stereotypical ones. The focus is indeed shifting from the centre to the periphery. Peripheral literature and culture is engaging readers in many different and new ways. The articles, book reviews , interview and meager translations included here address – as far as feasible within the middling flighty compass of our journal – some of the issues mentioned above. We have arranged the entries in separate sections, thematically conceptualized. The first section focuses on ‘Postcolonial Discourses’, which includes Professor Bill Ashcroft’s seminal discussion of Postcoloniality beyond ‘grand theories’. Appended to the paper are two reviews by Prof. Krishna Sen and Prof. S. P. Singha, in response to Ashcroft’s views. Their astute observations triggered by Ashcroft’s paper have made the section truly discursive. In the second section, we have included papers referring to the ‘mainstream’ literature, or, lesser-known texts, with an eye to locating and critically examining the notions of peripherality within such texts. Prof. Prodosh Bhattacharya’s paper takes the modern reader back to the days of heroic halls and monstrous lairs in the Anglo- Saxon epic, Beowulf. It is also to be noted that Old English literature has now been reduced to an almost peripheral status in the present academia; so Prof. Bhattacharya’s original and engaging approach to the representation of monstrosity in Beowulf offers a refreshing revival of the vigorous Anglo-Saxon spirit. Dr. Siddhartha Biswas has dealt with the question of ‘otherness’ in terms of sexuality and master-servant relationship in Harold Pinter’s play, The Servant. Anindita Bhowmik’s article discusses the representation of the ‘racial other’ in Wilkie Collins’ sensation novels. The creation of ‘textual peripheries’ through a Beckettian game of language has been discussed in Sambuddha Ghosh’s paper, which takes into account Samuel Beckett’s short prose- pieces as interesting resources. By using the Transformation and Materialist paradigms identified by Karen Kline, Abhirup Mascharak has studied two Hindi film adaptions of Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim– one is Yash Chopra’s Kaala Patthar (1979) and Vishram Sawant’s Risk (2007) the other - concentrating on the extent to which they replicate on screen the isolation and peripherality that is central to Conrad’s oeuvre. The third section is concerned with the emergence of autobiography - narratives of pain, resistance and historical truths hitherto neglected and usually glossed over – as a vehicle to express sub-human living conditions of Dalits. The status of ‘autobiography’ as a peripheral genre has been explored in Dr. D. Murali Manohar’s insightful article. Dr. Murli has chosen three texts such as - Kamala Das’ My Story, Bama’s Karukku and P. Sivakami’s The Grip of Change– to prove how they have posed challenge to the genre called autobiography. In their joint paper Dr. Ujjwal Jana and Vinutha P Kunderi have appositely observed that besides occupying a space through identity based narrative, Dalit autobiography provides an occasion for Dalit writers to gain constitutional rights and understanding of Dalit self. Having discussed Aravind Malagatti’s (an eminent Dalit writer from Kannada) autobiography Government Brahmana, they have opined that Dalit autobiography has contested elitist representation of identity, society and culture. The fourth section includes papers dealing with the representation of resistance, peripherality and marginality in Indian English writings, though some of these papers obviously incorporate issues of colonial/postcolonial history and gender. In her touching paper Shreya Bhattacharji has unearthed how in her debut short-story collection An Unrestored Woman and Other Stories (2016) Shobha Rao has delved deep into the collective subconscious of a deeply wounded subcontinent. Prof. Bhattacharjii observes that Shobha Rao’s “little histories” of the “peripheral people” seek to foreground an intentional/unintentional conspiracy of selective amnesia indulged in by all — perpetrators, victims,