Department of English and Cultural Studies Panjab University, Chandigarh dialog: a bi-annual interdisciplinary journal
No. 30 (2017) ISSN 0975-4881
Editor Deepti Gupta
Editorial Board Pushpinder Syal RanaNayar ManjuJaidka Lovelina Singh Ani! Raina Pratibha Nagpal Rumina Sethi Akshaya Kumar SurbhiGoel MeenuGupta Sudhir Mehta
Advisory Board M. L. Raina, Panjab University Harish Narang, Jawahar La! Nehru University Rajesh Sharma, Panjab University
Editorial Assistants Komi! Tyagi, MCM DAVC, Chandigarh Renuka Dhyani, PGGC, Panchkula Harpreet Kaur Baweja, PGGC, Panchkula
All inquiries pertaining to dialog should be addressed to: Email: [email protected] Website: http://dialog.puchd.ac.in
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NUMBER30 2017
CONTENTS
- ARTICLES ··
SREELAKSHMI SURENDRAN, Ancient in the Popular: A 1 Study of Parallel Narrative Manoeuvres in Somadeva Bhatta's Kathasaritsagara and Vikas Swamp's Q&A
ASHMA SHAMAIL, (Re )Dressing the Cultural Wounds: 16 Memory, Healing, and Survival in Prais_esong fbr the lU'dow
PRAVEEN SHARDA, Interplay of Perspectives in Ted 32 Hughes' Hawk Roosting and Daruwalla's Hawk: A · Stylis_tic Analysis
MADHU SHARMA ~EE,SHORI, Space ~d Identity: . 47. Mapping the N~tion in Khaled Hosseini's And the Mountains Echoed · . AMANDEEP..KAUR, Absence of~he Progressives and 59 - the Strange ·case of Arun Kolat~ar
YASHVEER, Bollywoodization of Space: A Study of , 78 Two Films on .the 'Red Corridor'
MAiii YOGESH, Decoding the Postmodem Narrative . 99 through Shashi Thatoor's Riot . · LAKSHMISREE BANERJEE, World Women Poets: Sisters 110 ofthe Soil
JASLEEN SAHOTA, The Dialectics of Image and Text: 125 Anthropological Photo Essay
SUMANDEEP KAUR, Rethinking the Community with 142 Jean-Luc Nancy
BOOK REVIEW
Sengupta Hindol, Ibe Modern Monk: lWJa t Vivekananda 163 MeaJJs To U.s Today. Penguin Random House, 2017 Pages 207. Rs. 399. ISBN 978-0143426646
Gandhi an Googly Kaushik Bandyopadhyay, Mahatma on the 169 Pitch: Gandhi and Cricket in India. New Delhi: Rupa Publication, 2017. Pages 184. Rs. 278.
Notes on Contributors Editor's Note
Another issue of Dialog is ready to read and the rolling days serve up another set of questions. One begin~· to wonder whether life really is an act of negotiating questions or questions are an act of negotiating life. Editors come and go, while life.continues and the · questions continue. Of course, the usual questions of everyday survival are a part of the trajectory of life and they will carry on with their set routine ofwriting the boundaries ofour daily existence. The emotional and he~-inclusive quiz ofhuman existence will run its course in every .biography. The ongoing drama of living and dying will pose its usual existential riddles. We will all run after these chimeras and keep performing our litt;le circus. . One question that keeps plaguing us aU is this whole conundrum ·of evaluation a~d assessment. And this is not just the unwieldy paradigm -of student examination .. With the implementation of - benchmarks for all kinds of actiyities in the field of teaching, one begins to w.on4er about the competence of a group of people to comment upon and judge the wor:k of another-group of people. Just based o:p the fact that one group happened to take bi~h before another. One can hear the usual rationalist argument of~it has to be done and someone has to do it' and also the pragmatic refrain of 'getting a task done in time'. All that is justified in its own time and space but, with the tremendous evolution ofthe human mind, there is no harm in expecting a gentler and happier way of accomplishing certai~ tasks, or is there? An onerous task is the task of selecting and rejecting the work ofyour own colleagues in the profession. Within the past few weeks: many times the issue of creative writing had to be faced. Often the question arose whether creatiye writing should be considered for career advancement and wheth~r teachers can be creative writers too. While reviewing contributions for this is~ue, one came across well-written pieces that couldn't be considered for the same reason. And there popped up another question: is all literature creative writing? And then a series ofquestions initiated by a first one: when and how does creative writing become Literature \Yith a capital 'L'? The idt?a that all the great names of literature also started their careers as "creative writers who were not recognized" does bring its own consolations but one does hope that vezy soon, th~se dilemmas will be taken by the horns and dealt with adequately. Meanwhile, one hopes that the readers of this issue would enjoy the reading it offers with its mixed bag of themes and styles. Do remember that these writings are .the ones that were hand-picked from a big file. It is a rather diverse set of ideas and one can hope that there is something for everyone here!
DEEPTI GUPTA
ii SREELAKS~ISURENDRAN
Ancient in tllne Popular: A Study oflParaBieB Narrative Manoeuvres in Somadleva Bhatta 's Kathasaritsagara and! Vikas Swarup's Q&A
The novel in India, to use Meenakshi Mukherjee's phrase is a "borrowed genre" (2002:viii ). The early Indian English novels were judged according to their adherence to the Western Jiterary canonical standards. Raja Rao, Sudhin N~ Ghose and G V. Desani were the
Research Scholar, Dept. of English, Indian Institute of Technology. Kanpur earliest Indian Eng1ish writers to experiment with ancient Indian storytelling techniques. Ancient Indian storytelling methods still imbue and get manifested in Indian English novels, both structurally and thematically. In this regard, the paper aims to map the narrative similarities between the Kathasaritsagara, an eleventh century compilation of tales by Somadeva Bhatta, and the popular Indian English novel Q&A (2005), by Vtkas Swarup. The narrative pattern of Q&A fits with the structural features of the Kathasarithsagara, such as, frame and embedment, multiple character narrators and listeners, cyclisation, mirroring, non-linear time and riddling method, as well as thematic aspects such as storytelling as curse redemption technique and the all pervading power of stories. The Kathasaritsagara is a maze of stories within stories with the main frame being that of the adventures of King Naravahanadatta who attains the status of a vidhyadara, semi divine beings with superhuman prowess. To borrow from N.M. Penzer, "The Ocean of Story, or to give its full Sanskrit title, the Kathasaritsagara, is, for its size, the earliest collection of stories extant in this world ... This is the Ocean of Story; this [sic] the mirror of Indian imagination that Somadeva has left as a legacy to posterity" (1924: xxxi). It incorporates the already then existing tales of the Panchatantra, the Jataka tales, the Vikram Veta/ tales and some tales from the Indian epics. The Kathasaritsagara is a cycle of tales of eighteen books. To quoteArshiah Sattar, "In many of its formal and structural features, the Kathasaritsagara conforms to Indian literary conventions, with its framed narratives, its semi divine author and its tales of the interaction between the gods, mythical creatures and human beings" (1994: 15). The "Kathapitha" or the first cycle of metafictional stories, that deals with the making of the Kathasaritsagara, is an overarching frame that contextualizes the whole text. Here, it is a prodding goddess Parvathy who requests a "delightful story" from lord Shiva, which is "quite new" (Bhatta I 1880: 2). The storytelling begins as Parvathy is seen giving orders to Nandin to not to allow any body inside when the story telling session is on. One of the favorite attendants of Siva, Pushpadanta, being curious as to why he was
2 deniea entry, enters invisible and hears the stories. He narrates it to . his wife, who in turn narrates it back to goddess Parvathy. It is for eavesdropping to a story not meant for the right listener, that the angry Goddess curses Pushpadanta, and also another attendant Malyavan for speaking for Pushpadanta, to be born as mortals, and curse redemption form the present mortal state entails narration of the heard stories by Pushpadanta, reborn as Vararuchi, to predestined listener Kanabhuti and, by Kanabhuti to Malyavan reborn as Gunadhya, and its transmission by Gunadhya. The framed context ofVikas Swarup's Q&A (2005) is the protagonist facing a jail term for allegations of cheating in a quiz show. The "Prologue" of Q&A, with its situatipg of the female character listener prodding to the character narrator for the story of his truth, and hence bringing about the birth of the embedded stories, can be considered as the contextualizing overarching frame, similar to the "Kathapitha." If compared with the. framework of Kathasarithsagara, in Q&A "telling" with the presence of a speaker and a listener takes place to get redemption from his present condition, that is, sentence in jail akin to a curse (Genette 1980: 30). This redemption can happen only if there is story transmission from the character narrator to the character listener, that is, Smitha Shah, his lawyer. The different "metadiegetic" narrations in Q&A are about the various experiences of the narrator protagonist himself, they are "autodiegetic" or life stories of the protagonist, and throw light on the primary event in the main frame, the winning of the quiz show by an uneducated youth from the slums ofMumbai, and hence "explanatory" in nature (Genette 1980: 231, 245, 232). Smitha Shah says to the narrator protagonist "I want you to explain to me exactly how you came to answer all those questions" (Swarup 28). Most ofthe "metadiegetic" narrations in the Kathasaritsagara constitutes of ''analepsis" that ~re "explanatory" in nature by attributing the present cursed conditions to actions in past ~irths and the consequent narration of past lives leading to redemption (Genette 1980: 231, 49, 232). For instance, in the cycle "Ratnaprabha" there ·are "autodiegetic" and "metadiegetic" narrations, or simply embedded past stories of the self, wherein the narrator and the protagonist are the same (Genette
3 1980: 245,231 ). The "Story of Somsvamin," in the cycle "Ratnaprabha," is an "analepsis" that is "explanatory" (Genette 1980: 49, 232). It throws light on the events that lead to the narrator protagonist's present state of being a mo~key, '"I am a man, a Brahman transformed into a monkey ... I will tell you all my story, excellent sir"' (Bhatta I 1880: 339). The Kathasaritsagara bases itself on the structuring principle of frame and embedment. This results in the text having "serialization," characterized by digressions and episodes (Paniker 2003: 6). "Serialisation implies the structure of the typical Indian narrative, which seems to prefer an apparently never-ending series ofepisodes to a unified, single-strand, streamlined course ofevents, centering around a single hero or heroine and whatever happens to the central character" (Paniker 2003: 6). This structuring principle can encompass within it multiple character narrators and multiple character listeners. These factors account for the non-linearity and episodic looseness of the text. In a frame narrative, an outermost story frames aiJ the embedded or emboxed or nested stories, and contextualizes the events that leads to other stories. The frame and embedment, a very ancient narrative technique, can be seen as part ofthe "context-sensitive" Indian culture'(Ramanujan 1999: 41 ). To quote Ramanujan, "No Indian text comes without a context, a frame, till the nineteenth century ...They relate the text of whatever antiquity to the present reader-that is, they contextualize it. .. Texts may be historically dateless, anonymous: but their contexts, uses, efficacies, are explicit ... And within the text, one tale is the context for another within it" (1999: 42). The events of the frame are only a pretext to encompass character narrator- character Iistener dynamics of the diegetic universe or the story world. At the slightest provocation by the character listener in the frame, the character narrator immediately springs into storytelling, hence the frames become a device to create context for this storytelling. The frames are de facto, by its metafictional incorporation of the coming of a story through the character narrator- character Iistener dynamics, a "self-referential" device (Ramanujan 1999: 21 ). For instance, in the course of the interaction between the character Kanabhuti and
4 the character Gunadhya, after listening to the life story ofGunadhya, the prodding ofthe character listener Kanabhuti leads to such stories as "The Story of Satavahana" and "Story of Pushpadanta" from the character narrator Gunadhya. One story has the power to incite the curiosity ofthe character listener of the main frame and lead to more narrations, and hence the infinite generation of stories in the Kathasaritsagara. In this manner, the contextualizing frame becomes a device to foreground the character narrator, pushed to telling mostly by a prodding character listener, and hence the "telling" aspect, or the orality of the text (Genette 1980: 30). This telling leads to single layered or multi layered mode of chain embedment in the Kathasaritsagara. The single layered mode of chain embedment is characterized by single "metadiegetic" narration in the "second degree," by a character turned narrator from the main frame, and that narration returns to the main frame (Genette 1980: 231 ). The cycle 'Saktiyasas" in the Kathasaritsagara, with its storytelling by different character narrators such as Marubhuti, Gomukha, Harishika and Tapantaka from the main frame, has this mode of narration. For instance, when Naravahanadatta from the main frame falls into moods ofdespondency over a "slave-girl," the minister Marubhuti narrates the "Story of the Merchant's Son, the Hetaera, and the wonderful Ape Ala" to warn Naravahanadatta of the fickle character of courtesans (Bhatta II: 4). The main fr~me continues after the storytelling by Marubhuti~ and in a simi Jar fashion follows the tales of other ministers. Single Layered Mode of Chain Embedment Main Frame/Main Narrator
Character Narrator (CN) The multilayered mode of chain embedment further proceeds to embedments in third degree, fourth degree and so on. Some of the stories in the cycle "Vishamashila" in the Kathasaritsagara, such as, "The Story of Vikramaditya" to which is emboxed "The Adventures ofAnangadeva," to which again is em boxed the "Story
5 ofMadanamanjari," and so on wherein each successive narrator is a character of the preceding embedded frames and the innermost embedded story returns to the outermost one through the successive narratorial voices of the preceding frames in the reverse order, is an instance of the multilayered mode of chain embedment. The chain method of embedment in the Kathasaritsagara with one story within another with changing narrators can be classified in the "vertical" method of embedment, "with a shift of both narrator and narrative level" (Nelles 2002: 343-44).
Multi Layered Mode of Chain Embedment
Main Frame/Main Narrator
CNI
CN2
CN3
The technique of frame and embedment enables the characters to become both narrators and listeners. For instance, the curiosity of the initial prodding listener, Katayayana in the "Kathapitha" leads to .the narration of Kanabhuti 's life story, and then, the character narrator Kanabhuti turns prodding listener,.and character listener Katayayana turns character narrator narrating the story of his life, "Story ofVararuchPs Teacher Varsha, and His Fellow-Pupils Vyadi and Indradatta." In this story, the character narrator Vyadi narrates his life story and the character listener of that story, Vararuchi's mother turns narrator speaking ofVararuchi's incredible memory
6 to character narrator turned listener, and so on, it goes in this fashion. This again, makes the text foreground "diegesis" or ''telling" wherein stories constitute the essence of life, that is, life perceived and understood in terms of a story through the act of narration ( Genette 1980: 30). The events ofthe story and the lives of the characters, sometimes even the dramas oftheir mindscape unfold in the narrative through the voice of the narrator. A comment on the structure of the Kathasaritsagara that is relevant to this context can be drawn,· "In the process of reading the Kathasaritsagara what at first appeared to be a mere 'boxed in' format, turns into a maze, a honeycomb and more. . . . What transpires in the process ·of continuance of a story within a story is a gestalt of alternation. A character of the opening tale assumes the role of the narrator in the next" (Sheikh 1994: 254). In Q&A, too, the frame encompasses the character narrator character listener dynamics. In this context, it is the curiosity ofthe prodding listener, Smitha Shah, ofthe main frame; that induces the protagonist narrator to narrate his life story, "'I want to 1isten to your memories. Can you begin at the beginning?'" (Swarup 2005: 30). This makes the text a "diegetic" or a "telling" one (Genette 1980: 30). Q&A has the single layered mode of chain embedment, wherein all the stories are narrated by the protagonist narrator. The exception is three stories in the multilayered mode of chain embedment, wherein characters of preceding frames, tum narrators. Examples of the multilayered mode of chain embedment are, story of Prakash Rao in chapter "Hold On to Your Buttons," Balwant Singh in "A Soldier's Tale" and Salim in "A License to Kill." In the mentioned inset stories, the primary protagonist narrator was a prior listener. In the typical method of chain embedment, as in the Kathasaritsagara, in Q&A too, the innermost story returns to the outermost one through the preceding narratorial voices 9f _the previous frame, in the case of multilayered· mode of chain embedment; and the inner story directly returns to the outer one in the case ofsingle layered mode ofchain embedment. The preceding · inner story with its replication of the character narrator-character ·listener dynamics becomes the contextualizing "self-referential"
7 frame which brings into being the new inner story (Ramanuj an 1999: 21). For instance, the story within the story within the story by the character narrator Prakash Rao in the chapter "Hold On to Your Buttons" begins with an interaction, situated in the previous embedment, between the character narrator, Ram Mohammad Thomas, who is the character of his own life story, and another character Prakash Rao, whom he happened to meet in a bar. The inner narrative sustains with the curiosity of the character Jistener, of the previous embedment, evidenced by such statements like, "What happened to your brother, Sir?' I ask," and "And your brother, what is his name?" (Swarup 2005: 160). This inner story after the narration by the 'l' character narrator, Prakash Rao, returns to the previous 'metadiegetic' narration in the 'second degree', by the protagonist character narrator, "The police jeep... arrives after half an hour," and finally to the "diegetic" level of the outermost protagonist character narrator narrating stories to his lawyer Smitha Shah, "Smita is looking at me with amused expression on her face" (Genette 1980:231 ,233) (Swarup 2005: 170). In the multilayered mode of chain embedment in the Kathasaritsagara, the pattern of character narrator-character listener dynamics contextualizing the outer frame for the birth of the inner story is a mirrored motif that recurs in the inner stories. This makes the latter the framed context for the ensuing embedded one. "Reflexivity takes many forms: awareness of self and other mirroring, distorted mirroring ... Reflexive elements may occur in various sizes: one part of the text may reflect on another part; one text may reflect on another; a whole tradition may invert, negate, rework, and revalue another" (Ramanujan 1999: 9). Similarly, this mirroring of character narrators and listeners in the outer and consequent inner frames happen in Q&A, Ram Mohammad Thomas and Smitha Shah in the outermost frame; Prakash Rao and Ram Mohammed Thomas, and Balwant Singh and the children in the inner stories respectively. Q&A also has implicit mirroring. From the main frame, it is the questioning of the quiz master, Prem Kumar, to Ram Mohammad Thomas, that in a way leads to narration of stories by the latter. In this regard, PremKumar can be considered
8 as the prodding listener, in the contextualizing frame, who brings · about story telling by the narrator. Hence, again, this makes the text of Q&A, a diegetic one. The cyclic structure is inherent within the frame and embedded mode of narration in the Kathasaritsagara. lt is this cyclicality, this return to the original voice of the contextual main frame, that foregrounds the act of narration and reminds one that a story is being told. The innermost story narrated by a character turned listener ofthe penultimate frame returns back to the originary voice through the successive inner character narrators in the reverse order, from the innermost to the outer initiating voice and events of the story, makes the frames in the Kathasaritsagara, by default microcyclic. Cyclicality in the Indian narrative tradition, according toAyappa Paniker becomes a useful tool: "Whether this is primarily an aspect of religious belief or philosophical concept, for the Indian narrator it has become a handy device for stringing together any number of tales in a particular narrative formula" (2003: 10). The narration in Kathasaritsagara reaches a full circle, beginning in the divine spheres with the narration by lord Shiva, descending into the earthly spheres, resulting in the multi vocal narration by Vararuchi, Kanabhuthi, Gunadya and numerous other narrators, redemption after narration into the divine spheres, and finally returning to the narration by lord Shiva. Thus the whole of Kathasaritsagara can be conceived ofas a macro cycle constituted of various mini cycles. Q&A too has implicit cyclisation which comes with its overt use of the frame and embedded narrative structure. The contextualising "Prologue," that sets the events of storytelling into action, "I have been arrested. For winning a quiz show," can be considered as the frame that continues into the different chapters and to which there are returns by the embedded stories (Swarup 2005: 11 ). Each storytelling session returns to the "Prologue" with the event ofSmitha Shah listening to the story by the narrator, "Smitha nods her head and presses 'Play' on the remote" (Swarup 2005: 45). Thus here the frame and embedded structure has implicit microcytic aspect of . cyclisation even though the plot progresses linearly.
9 Ayappa Paniker speaks of most Western narratives as linear and streamlined but he observes that ancient Indian texts are "decentralized" with a non-linear narrative owing to "serialization" and cyclisation (2003: 8, 6). In Q&A, the different stories the protagonist narrates are "analepsis" or "subsequent narrations," but are non chronological (Genette 1980: 48, 217). The different stages ofhis childhood are not arranged progressive·ly, but rather as answers to the questions asked. Hence the novel too does not follow the linear progression of time. Thus, these are "anachronies" of the narrative with respect to "order" of the story (Genette 1980: 35). Ordering ofevents in a narrative is based on temporal duality, which is characterized by the difference of story time and narrative time based on the time of ordering of events in the story and the narrative. The treatment given to time in the Kathasaritsagara is that of "elasticisation," (Paniker 2003: 4) it can be stretched forward and pulled back at the convenience of the narrator or character narrator, maybe primarily because the narrating instance is given prominence and the dominance given to story telling situates them in timelessness. Stories begin with such phrases as "Long ago when all things had been destroyed at the end of a kalpa", "So in former times there was a king named Sivi,"or "Once on a time there lived in the country ofMalava a Brahman named Yajnasoma," (Bhatta I 1880: 6,45,56) suggesting an unspecific remote past or timelessness or complete doing away with the concept of time. To q~ote Genette:
One of the fictions ofliterary narrations-perhaps the most powerful one, because it passes unnoticed, so to speak- is that the narrating involves an instantaneous action, without a temporal dimension .... subsequent narrating exists through this paradox: it possesses at the same time a temporal situation ( with respect to the past story) and anatemporal essence (since it has no duration proper). ( 1980: 223).
As in the Indian narrative tradition, in Q&A (2005) too, time is undermined, rather the contextualization is foregrounded. The "Prologue" starts thus, "I have been arrested. For winning a quiz show"(Swarup 2005: 11 )~The chapter "How to Speak Australian" begins as such, "Name, sex and age, please, Sir" says the timid looking census man standing in the porch wearing thick, black-
10 rimmed.. glasses. He carries a sheaf offorms with him and fiddles with a blue felt pen" (Swarup 2005: 123). Similarly the rest of the chapters begin in this fashion. In the Kathasaritsagara, goddess Parvathy is posited as the celestial listener, ever yearning for stories and lord Shlva as the eternal narrator. In the Kathasaritsagara, goddess Parvathy requests lord Shiva, "My lord, if thou art satisfied with me, then tell me some delightful story that is quite new" (Bhatta I I 880: 2). Many ancient Indian narrative texts posit lord Shiva as the archetypal narrator and goddess Parvathy as the archetypal listener. On similar lines, in the popular novel, it is the prodding of the female listener Smitha Shah which leads to bouts of narration from the protagonist. Goddess Parvathy's wrath is responsible for the birth of the ganas or attendants of lord Siva into the cursed situation of earthly life, and at the same time provides means for redemption from the cursed situation. Goddess Parvathy, in this respect can be viewed as the Mother Goddess or the mother as protector. A parallel with this female figure as mother protector can be drawn in Q&A. In Q&A, there is the recurring motif of this uncanny female figure, "[A] tall woman, with flowing black hair," who is the unseen and unknown mother ofthe protagonist, a supernatural being mostly appearing in his dreams and rescuing him from the curse of a situation (Swarup 2005: 24 ). This female figure of his mother is the reason for his birth into the cu.rsed situation in an earthly sphere and at the same time the supernatural form which saves him from danger. For instance, in the chapter" A Thought for the Crippled," the protagonist dreams twice of this female figure after he realizes that he and his friend were trapped in a dreadful begging racket which thrived on crippling children:
I see a tall woman, clad in a white sari, holding a baby in her arms .... But the baby reaches out his tiny hand, and with gentle fingers smooths away her tresses, prises open her face. He sees two haggard, cavernous eyes, a crooked nose, sharp pointy teeth glistening with fresh blood, and maggots crawling out ofthe folds of her lined and wrinkled skin which sags over her jaw. He shrieks in terror and tumbles from her lap. (Swarup 2005: 115)
11 This dream confirms to him the dread of the situation and he gets convinced that he should escape. Similarly, in the chapter "Murder on the Western Express," it is again this apparition which induces the protagonist to kill the dacoit who outrages a female co passenger's modesty while in a train, and escape. In the Kathasaritsagara too, divine interventions through dreams, informing "prolepsis" (Genette 1980: 67) to the characters concerned, is a recurring motif. Of the numerous dreams, there are dreams in which _goddess Gauri appears. For instance, in the cycle "Ratnaprabha," Alankaraprabha has the prolepsis that she will give birth to a daughter destined to be the wife ofNaravahandatta through the divine agency ofGauri, "And by telling his dream he gladdened his wife Alankaraprabha, who had been told the same by Gauri in a dream, and dwelt on the agreement of the two visions" (Bhatta I 1880: 324). Q&A has riddling method similar to that used in the Veta/a Panchavimshati, situated in the "Sasankavati" cycle in the Kathasaritsagara. The very anchoring frame that holds Veta/ Panchavimsathi is characterized by a riddle: if the king answers the riddle and breaks the silence, the veta/, flies away. If the king knows the answers and chooses to remain shut, his head will break into a thousand pieces. The stories embedded within this anchoring frame are also marked by riddles towards its end. To cite an instance, in the story "Story of the Three Young Brahmans who Restored a Dead Lady to Life", the narration ends with a poser by the veta/ to Vikramaditya, "Now king, give judgement to decide their dispute; whose wife ought the maiden to be? If you know and do not say, your head shall fly in pieces" (Bhatta II 1880: 244). Similarly in Q&A, each question posed by the quiz master to Ram Mohammad Thomas can be construed as a riddle which is answered or solved by the latter. The latter's chances are either of winning the money progressively with each correct answer, or risking the loss of the whole with a wrong answer, "You will be asked twelve questions, and if you answer each one correctly, you stand to win the biggest jackpot on earth: one billion rupees! You are free to quit at any point up until question number nine. After
12 that it is either Play or.Pay" (Swarup 2005: 46). This primary riddle gives rise to the secondary riddle ofhow a slum dweller from Mumbai can answer the questions ofan educated elite, merely by relating to the stories of his life, "He's never been to school. He's never even read a newspaper. There's no way he could have won the top prize" (Swarup 2005: 18). The answer to this secondary riddle is the different stories of his life which he narrates to his lawyer. Every embedded narration in Q&A, meant to clear the riddle of how an uneducated slum dweller won a quiz show, is punctuated by replaying of that particular portion ofthe quiz show at the end ofthe narration. The riddles are structured in Q&A in such a way that the secondary riddle of how the protagonist won the quiz show is placed at the beginning in the main frame, as the master riddle, and the primary riddle of the quiz show is placed at the end of the protagonist's embedded narration, but in the same main frame. The "analep[tical]" quiz show is situated outside the story time of the "analep[ti"cal]" recountings of the hero (Genette 1980: 49): The recounting of the hero is situated in the "second degree," "metadiegetic" level, and the Quiz show is situated in the diegetic or intradiegetic level, in the main frame (Genette 1980: 231 ). Thus there are two levels of "analepsis" to solve the master riddle (Genette I 980: 49). Both the riddles in Q&A are situated in the same diegetic level or the main frame. Similarly in the Veta/a cycle, the veta/, poses a riddle at the end of each story, situated outside the story time ofthe told stories in the metadiegetic level, in the previous level ofthe anchoring frame. This anchoring frame also harbors the primary riddle of conditions given to the king by the veta/ to answer the secondary riddle. Thus both the riddles are situated in the same narrative level. The secondary riddles in the Veta/a cycle, gives a closure to the embedded stories as well as infonns the primary riddle by actualizing it, that is each time when the king answers, the veta/ flies away and the last time when the king doesn't, he remains. Similarly in Q&A, the replaying of the quiz show or the primary riddle at the end ofthe embedded narration, ascertains the embedded narrations which in tum informs the outer riddle of how a slum dweller won a quiz show. In the Veta/a cycle, the different embedded stories are devices
13 to obstruct the death and destruction of king Vikramaditya by the mendicant, a delay technique apparently posed as means to while away time. This falls within the ambit of Genette's notion of storytelling with "a function of ... obstruction" (Genette 1980: 233). The different embedded narratives in Q&A too obstruct the protagonist's destruction, a jail term. In the Veta/a cycle, the primary riddle of conditions to the king can be considered as a macro riddle within which the different embedded stories with its riddles towards the end are micro riddles. Similarly, in Q&A, the outer riddle of a slumdweller winning a quiz show can be considered as a macro riddle, and the playing of the different portions of the quiz show after the embedded stories can be considered as micro riddles within the macro riddle. As in the Kathasarithsagara, each person in Q&A (2005)is a story, the protagonist himself understands his whole life as a story and finds the answers to various questions by remembering these stories, and the listener and the narrator themselves reveal their identity through storytelling as in the Vararuchi-Kanabhuthi exchange. Vararuchi and Kanabhuthi were gana Pushpdantha and gana Malyavan in their former births who were cursed to be born as mortals. Their curse would terminate when they recognize each other and tell the stories they overheard to each other, with each taking turns as listener and narrator respectively. In Q&A (2005), again, only telling stories of his life can gain the protagonist redemption from his pr~sent circumstances. Smitha Shah, after ascertaining his identity through the narrations of the protagonist, confirms, "I am Gudiya. I am the girl you helped in the chawl" (Swarup 2005: 356). To the protagonist's query as to why this was not told before to him, she replies, "Because I wanted to hear your stories and find out the truth. Only when you narrated my own story, without realizing that I was in front of you, did I know for sure that you were telling me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" (Swarup 2005: 360). The frame and embedment technique of story-telling is thus used innovatively and effectively in Vikas Swarup's Q&A. Q&A is a popular culture replication of often overlooked ancient Indian
14 narrative techniques, and a case which evidences to the continuation of the ancient past to the popular present. ,
Works Cited Bhatta, Somadeva ( 1880) The Katha Sari/ Sagara or Ocean of the Streams of Story. Trans. C.H.Tawney.Vol land Vol 2 (Calcutta:BaptistMissionPress). Internet Archive. 7 October 2007.www.archive.org/details/kathsaritsga01 somauo ft,https ://archive.org/detailslkathsaritsga02somauoft. (accessed 5 Jan 2017). Genette, Gerard ( 1980) Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Trans. Jane E. Lewin (New York: Cornell University Press). K. Paniker, Ayyappa (2003) "The Theory and Practice ofthe Narrative in India." Indian Narratology (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers): 1-17. Mukherjee, Meenakshi (2002) "Introduction." Early Novels in India. Ed. Meenakshi Mukherjee (New Delhi: SahityaAcademy): vii-xix. Nelles, Williams (2002) "Stories within Stories: Narrative Levels and Embedded Narrative." Narrative Dynamics. Ed. Brian Richardson (Ohio: Ohio State University Press): 339-353. Penzer, N.M (1924) "Introduction." The Ocean of Story Being C. H. Tawney s Translation of Somadeva Katha Sarit Sagara (or Ocean of Streams of Story). Vol. I. Ed. N. M. Penzer. (London:ChasJ.SawyerLtd):xxxi-xli.lnternet Archive. 12 April 2007. https://archive.org/details/oceanofstorybeinO I somauoft. (accessedl8 Apri12017). Ramanujan,A. K. (1999) "Where Mirrors Are Windows." The Collected Essays of A. K.Ramanujan. Ed. Vi nay Dharwadker (New Delhi: Oxford University Press): 6-33. --- (1999) "Is There an Indian Way ofThinking?" The Collected Essays ofA. K. Ramanujan. Ed.Vinay Dharwadker (New Delhi: Oxford University Press): 34-51. Sattar, Arshia (1994) "Introduction." Tales from the Kathasaritsagara. Trans. Arshia Sattar (Gurgaon: Penguin Books India): xv-xli. Sheikh, Gulam Mohammed ( 1994) "Story ofthe Tongue and the Text: The Narrative Tradition." Narrative: A Seminar. Ed. Amiya Dev (Delhi: Jeevan Offset Press): 251-72 Swarup, Vikas (2005) Q&A (London: Transworld Publishers).
15 ASHMA SHAMAIL
(Re)J[)ressing the Cultural Wounds: Memory, JH[ealing, andl Survivall in Praisesongfor the Widow
It is Africa your Africa that springs up again Springs up patiently obstinately And whose fruits ripen with The bitter flavor of freedom (David Diop). The collective wounds and memories, ancestral spirits and ghosts have constituted an aesthetic and cultural paradigm for diasporan Africans. Addressing racial or gendered injuries on black bodies is extremely difficult, for tracing its contours in all its complexities
Assistant Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, College of Education, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Jubail, Saudi Arabia.
16 never seems to end. For the wounds or scars on their bodies and in their minds, often unnamed, are still persistent. Foregrounding the injured black body living in two continents stretching from coast to coast, witnessing horrific ruptures inwardly and outwardly, is not an easy task. The psychic wounds inflicted by forced migration, the pain of being displaced, fragmented and fr~ctured, and the motif of longing and return, embodied a range of voices that float from afar, crying for the need to redress. (Re) dressing those "points of entanglement" deep with scars, recollections, histories, traumas, and haunting memories, necessitates healing and change (Glissant 1989: 26). Rituals, tnyths, beliefs, folklore, social structures, art, and storytelling legacies have in many ways redressed and healed multiple injuries ofpeoples ofAfrican descent living inside and outside their ancestral continent. Indeed, the very idea of diasporic unity, integration, and solidarity are the key factors reconnecting diasporans to their imagined homelands. This ethno communal consciousness simultaneously recognizes artistic celebrations of Africans, their endurance, spirit, and survival. Building (lived) communities out oftheir imagined communities, the scattered African populace created a gateway for remembering and· commemorating an incredibly African world filled with marginalized and submerged voices embedded in the dense structures of their memory. Re-reading the submerged voices unleashes those psychological and physical forces-that constitute communities in the present. The immersion is a necessary engagement, for not just knowing and reading the imperialistic design, but all the more for reliving into a distinctly African world consisting of suffocated, traumatized and injured bodies. Each black body has a painful history and story to be addressed that transcends theoretical meditations and articulates massive intersections built on the collective memory of experience. Their stories move beyond an A4 size paper, as the diasporic author reinvents characters through acts of remembrance. For the story itself, relives and narrates the whole spectacle of the Middle Passage. It, in fact, is "much too powerful to be 'owned' by any one person or group of people; rather the words 'own' those who
17 speak [or write]them" (Stoller 1997: 25). In essence, the author _evokes the spiritual essence of the text in a manner that belongs to self and the larger African communities. African American novelist Gloria Naylor astutely believes that the truth (in the stories) need to address the psychic wounds "as painfully and minutely as [one] know[ s] how ... ultimately it can lead someone as psychologically scarred ... to look at [the] story and say, 'Oh my God 1 see parts of myself in her story, let me try to do something about that' in that way [fiction] can affect change without the book preaching to people" (Ashford 2005: 86). Likewise, Toni Morrison in her novel Beloved remembers and reflects on the slaves' painful stories as she states in an interview with Amanda Smith:
Beloved was also ... those black slaves whom we don't know, who did not survive that passage, who amounted to a nation, who simply left one place, disappeared and didn't show up on the other shores. I had to be dragged, I suppose by them, kicking and screaming, into this book, because it is just too much. ( 1987: 51)
Morrison asserts in Inventing the Truth that her job as a writer is to "rip that veil drawn over, proceedings too terrible to relate." She continues, "The exercise is ... critical for a person who is black, or who belongs to any marginalized category, for, historically, we were seldom invited to participate in the discourse even when we were its topic" (1987: 110-11 ). Memory is not merely recalling the past; it also helps heal from the past. In fact, memories give shape to identities fragmented by immigration, displacement and diasporic living. Hence, Morrison makes re-memory central to the experience of that novel. It not only acknowledges history, but involves re membering or bringing back all the parts together. In a broader sense, Morrison's views have been shared by many writers who are unraveling w_omen's histories and memories in new and exciting ways. Beloved, in many ways has invoked those ancestors who were "unburied, or at least unceremoniously buried," and she attempts to "properly, artistically, bury ... them" (Rushdy 1999: 39). Morrison's focus on the embodied memory of slavery is an invocation to all those countless other ghosts of the African diaspora who wish to be heard and healed. Apart from Morrison,
18 many African American women writers have· created such profoundly bold characters whose tremendous roleas healers cured the physical and psychological illnesses of women in their communities. Critical documents like Gay Wilentz's Healing Narratives: Women Writers Curing Cultural Disease, and Cassie Premo Steele's We Heal from Memory: Sexton, Lorde, Anzaldua, document healing, change, and reshaping history. Wilentz "examines women writers from diverse ethnic backgrounds as cultural workers who aim, through their writings, to heal self and community from ... socially constructed diseases" (2000: 3). Wilentz rightfully acknowledges, and likewise shares many inspirational thoughts on healing by contemporary black women writers. Ntozake Shange's Sassafrass Cypress and Indigo, Alice Walker's The Color Purple, Gloria Naylor's Mama Day, Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow, and a host of works addressed the deep psyches of black women providing a rich corpus of healing narratives. A great deal of interest in the African American past by these writers has guided readers towards a better understanding of wounding (physical and psychic) encountered by black female characters in their daily lives and the examination of a network of female healers on their journey towards reconstituting the individual self, relationships, and the community as a whole. Women are significantly the thematic and structural focus in these narratives, and healers assume the responsibility of nurturing, and, by extension, heal and influence characters experiencing dislocations and disruptions. In essence, such texts have joined the growing feminist landscape, influencing diverse organizations, communities, social networks, and institutions creating a whole new world of women I iterary healers and activists. As such, women healers in their mission towards personal and cultural healing awaken characters from their embodied alienation from African diasporic communal stru.ctures. As healers, transmitters and preservers of culture, they have upheld African ancestral traditions maintaining unity among black diaspora populations. Black women writers demonstrated that awareness and knowledge ofcultural history is important to heal the fractures
19 in the contemporary times. A major region which effectively illustrates this point is evidenced in the Sea Islands, a location where African derived practices are highly visible. The majority of people inhabiting these Sea Islands are the Gullahs, the most distinct groups of African Americans living in the United States, who retained their unique cultural heritage in South Carolina and Georgia. Marshall, Naylor, Julie Dash, Carrie Mae Weems and a host of ·other literary and visual artists have addressed the emergence of these Sea Islands as a repository ofAfrican based traditions. These writers felt that cultural anchoring and diasporic connectedness to regions like these is vital for healing the fractured psyches among African- American communities. African diasporic women writer's monumental texts burst into those tough routes of coercive physical, cultural and spiritual dislocations emphasizing on each character.'s personal odyssey and their process of healing. The characters in their narratives demonstrate a fuller understanding of wounds or injuries, and legacies of trauma, pain and suffering - bodily, emotionally and psychologically from which they seek healing. In a sense, the writings showcase both the achievements and challenges of women who struggled with issues of imperialism, racial and gender injury, sociopolitical forces, displacement, and language. Ultimately, by reweaving history through their works, they delineated a common ground of cultural retention as well as continuities for multitude of wounded bodies. Embedded within the powerful acts of storytelling by numerous historical re-engagements and re-visioning, accounts of reconciliation and reparation are narrated. The acts of remembering, storytelling, healing, and reconstructions of history (allied to redressing), all function as nurturing grounds and signifying practices linking the Diasporan and Continental Africans within the space of Homeland (imagined or lived), centering on the subject of transatlantic kinship. This paper, however, leaves behind the networks of violent identity formations, gendered/ racial ones, and diasporic experiences. It casts how healing narratives or healers helped black women to redress their wounds with reference to Paule
20 Marshall's novel Praisesong for the Widow ( 1983 ). Born in the United States to Barbadian parents, Paule Marshall's homeland includes both Barbados and Brooklyn. Her narratives document issues of migration, displacement, home, 'return' and community bonding that largely influence cultural identity formations. Marshall is commended for synthesizing both "African Caribbean" and "African American" heritages, as she claims, "I am embracing both these cultures and I hope that my work reflects what I see as a common bond" (Russell 1988: 15). She emphasizes on 'return' to sources, and advocates acceptance of the past as she states in an interview "you have to psychologically go through the chaos to overcome it" (De Veaux1979: 128). In addition to unleashing the submerged voices, Marshall calls for remembrance of cultural practices, necessary for constructing the female self, through women, since they have been the oral transmitters of histories for centuries. Marshall portrays black women achieving wholeness through usage ofcollective past, African family traditions, community building, and responsibility. Healing is crucial in the lives of these black women, at certain junctures, particularly for renewal and regeneration. Marshall's third novel Prais'esongfor the Widow is a text filled with West African spiritual and cultural icons and codes. The process of healing works best in this wonderful narrative. Avey Johnson, the protagonist of this novel experiences the loss of being culturally dislocated and the price she had to pay was far beyond imagination. Little did she realize that her vacation cruise with her 'upper-middle' class friends would pull her involuntarily to her past and awaken her spiritually. This sixty-three year old widow subconsciously recognizes the denial of her heritage which is manifested in a strange dream (on the cruise) that arouses her memory of the Ibo Landing. In· the dream, her dead Great-Aunt Cuney attempts to pull Avey back to her abandoned heritage:6iulia Scarpa asserts that "the dream and her hallucinated reveries bring her archetypal memory _of Africa and of African-American myths to the surface ofher recalcitrant consciousness" ( 1989: 99). Actually, the dream allows her past to emerge from a long absence, as it got lost in Avey's su~cessful pursuit of material security. Years ago
21 when Avey was a child, her great-Aunt Cuney narrated to her the story of Ibo Landing at Tatem Island, a black enclave in South Carolina. The tales recalled the endurance of the African slaves who arrived in chains to America, but walked on the water back to their homeland leaving the white folks "with they mouth hung open" (Marshalll983: 38-39). Avets childhoodjourneys,and the story of the Ibos' walking across the water encod~s the crucial lesson of African-American psychic survival in a hostile culture. The "dream sequence" and ''the Creole cultural tradition allows for an alternative sequence, where the sleeper is patient and there is an external agent, usually an ancestor from the world of the spirits" (Pollard 201 0: 28).The dead ancestor's influence on the life ofthe living in African derived cultural practices and belief systems incorporates vital threads, and abandoning them leads to serious offence as it occurs to our protagonist. The dream or the spirit motivator pulls Avey into the cultural landscape forcing her to remember those threads long forgotten, or lost due to materialistic individualism, thereby casting her as a cultureless being in the present. Avey's initial cultural bond comprised of her regular summer visits from the North to the South (from New York to the sea island of Tatem, South Carolina), and her early marital life (on Halsey Street in Brooklyn) where the couple journeyed to the Ibo Landing. However, Avey never tried to maintain he.r cultural ties with the past and felt content with the trappings of the middle class. In fact, this very rejection of her heritage cast her as a culturally displaced figure. In the dream, Avey resists the memories of her past, and opposes her great aunt's desire in afierce battle about choices. Ultimately, the dream experience disorients her and propels her to abruptly leave the cruise forcing her to spend a night in a Grenadian hotel before flying back to her home in New York.ln the hotel room, Avey confronts the ghost of her husband in yet another disturbing dream indicating the alienation the couple had faced in the name of acquiring a better status in the American society. The price they paid towards this goal was abandonment ofAfrican American rituals, their journeys to the Ibo Landing each summer, rituals of poetry recitation (of Langston Hughes), music, dance, and other cultural
22 practices. As such, they lost grip on the cultural ties that sustained and kept them connected. As Marshall says, they lost "the most vivid, the most valuable part ofthemselves" (1983: 139). Avey grieves over all the losses in her life in the Grenada hotel room, and realizes that the separation from those sacred moments in her life made the couple behave "as if there had been nothing about themselves worth honoring" (Marshall1983: 139). The sense of reclaiming one's lost heritage proceeds to a point where it's too late for Jerome Johnson, but Avey still stands a chance to restore it. Accordingly, resolutions Avey makes. largely depend on the paths she would choose. Either to reject the path of cultural or spiritual connections or accept the path laden with cultural materials. The latter one can only be acquired by the involvement of an ancestral spirit, either dead or alive. The involvement is of utmost necessity, for Avey's wounds or scars-bodily, emotionally, or psychologically need to be heale_d and dressed. Significantly, it's here at this juncture that Marshall introduces Lebert Joseph as the healer, whoaidsAvey in reclaiming and re-establishing her cultural heritage and awaken her consciousness amid her journey toward perSonal and cultural healing. Avey encounters the old man Lebert Joseph, who is an:
[l]ncamation of the African deity Legba - trickster, guardian of the crossroads where all ways meet ... a lame old man in ragged clothes. Intensely personal and _ beloved, Legba is the liaison between man and the gods. He is vital to numerous rituals, both in West Africa and in the New World. Thus Lebert Joseph, in his implied role ofLegba, contains many linkages: Africa.and the Diaspora; the carnate and the spirit worlds; the present generation, the ancestors, and the yet unborn. (Collier 1984: 312) ·
Lebert Joseph invokes Papa Legba, the mythic trickster figure, also _ considered as the messenger of gods in the Fon and Yoruba belief system of Africa. Henry Louis Gates Jr. projects ·him as one who, "functions as a sign ofthe disrupted wholeness of an African system of meaning and belief that black slaves recreated from memory, preserved by oral narration, improvised upon in ritual ... and willed to their own subsequent generations, as hermetically sealed and encoded charts of cultural descent" (1988: 5). 23
-·- The second half of the novel opens with Lebert's entry with the epigraph of the section stating: "Papa Legba Ouvri Barrie repoumwe" (MarshaJI 1983: 148). It denotes that he wi11 "open the gates to the world of ancestors for Avey so that she can articulate · and move towards reconciliatio·n of the conflicting aspects of her African-American" heritage (Wilentz 1992: Ill). As Avey wanders aimlessly along the beach, she spots a rum shop where Lebert Joseph "lives beyond all bounded communities and is not confined to any designated space" (Babcock-Abrahams 197 5: 15 5). He's described as a "stoop-shouldered old man ... close to ninety ... with one leg shorter than the other" (Marshall 1983: 160-61 ). He closely resembles the trickster Papa Legba who is "bent or twisted into the shape of a crippled old man" (Cosentino1987: 265). He takes Aunt Cuney's place and from here guides and leads Avey to her forgotten origins. He appears to be human and at once mythic representing the wisdom of the living and the ancestors. Folklorist Barbara Babcock Abrahams notes that tricksters tend to be "ambiguously situated between life and death" ( 1975: 160). Lebert Joseph anticipates that Avey is experiencing a crucial point in her life as religious historian Robert Pelton states that Legba has the ability of"reaching outward to the details of daily routine and inward to the patterns of feeling, thought, and identity" (1980:96). Lebert views Avey's spiritual disconnection, estrangement from her black community and quickly seizes the role of guiding her to the African world. He registers the actual reason for Avey's presence in that place (Grenada): the need for reunification with family and ancestors, but only after being healed in the first place in order to establish a coherent self-identity. Lebert's "penetrating look" at Avey "went beyond mere-sight and ways of knowing" (Marshall 1983: 172). As Pelton explains, "in becoming.the personal gu~rdian of each m'an and woman, Legba penetrates human consciousness itself. He reveals that most hidden and dangerous limen ofall-the one inside each person. His ubiquity is synonymous with human life because he is identified with the inmost processes ofthat life" (1980:92). Lebert'sLegba like quality to look within Avey allows him to see "how far she had come since leaving the ship and the distance she had yet to go" (Marshall
24 1983: I 72). Transcending time and space, t~e visionary and healing powers of this trickster enabled him to adopt a different outlook of life. Joyce Pettis explains:· [B]oth he [Lebert Joseph] and Aunt Cuney connect African-American, Afro Caribbean, and African cultural retentions. The ancestors represent a generation · reliant on the oral culture and more conversant with cultural behaviors and practices linked with West Africa. Under their influence, the symbolic internal purging of the blockage that has obscured Avey's communal identification occurs. ( 1995: 127)
Both Aunt Cuney and Lebert Joseph act as facilitators and ancestral forces leading and navigating Avey's spiritual and cultural journey toward wholeness. Acting as the spiritual parent, he feels the necessity ofAvey's incJusivity and interconnectedness in African cultures. To save her from being culturally displaced, he invites and persuades Avey to accompany, observe, witness and participate in the Big Drum ritual ceremony in his home island of Carriacou. Displaying some ofthe sexual and comical traits of old papa Legba of voodoo, he performs the Juba dance for Avey. Transforming into a woman, he performs the dance that. Carriacouan women do. Avey notices him to be "one moment masculine, the next feminine" (Gaudet1992: 67). She enjoys the dance as she "heard herself laugh, and it didn't seem as if she had anything to do with it, but that the man had reached a hand inside her and pulled the weak, short-lived laugh from somewhere out ofthe numbness there" (MarshaJI 1983: 179-80). As Lebert observes Avey being physically invigorated, he uses his deceptive power to persuade her to join the excursion to the island of Carriacou, where local people gather to dance and sing to the memory of their "old parents" and "give them their remembrance" (Marshall 1983: 165). The annual excursion to Carriacou Island off the coast of Grenada encompasses people of African origin representing many nations, all excited to participate · in a shared diasporic culture. Though Avey resists initially, she's ultimately drawn by Lebert's convincing words. The journey on which Lebert Joseph guides Avey facilitates in restoring her past and her nation by immersing her in the spirituality of African and African-American religious rituals. The first step towards this process occurs when Avey experiences seasickness ·
25 by the rough waters en route to Carriacou, which evoke African rituals of purging. As Avey vomits, "a strange oppressive fullness ... some mass of overly rich undigestible food ... needed to be expelled" (Marshall1983: 207). Gay Wilentz says, "Avey expels all the toxins of her past life, and as her body·purges itself, her mind goes through a similar painful healing through the reopening of a collective wound- the Middle Passage" (1992:107). As she lay recovering in the boat's cabin, the ancestral memory of the Middle Passage severs her tie with her adopted White middle class standards and reconnects with her ancestors. She realizes and remembers her ancestors' "suffering- the depth of it, the weight of it in the cramped space-made hers of no consequence" (Marshal I 1983 :209). As Androne says"(Re )membrance is the process within which ethnic cultural memory, spirituality and mythology collide to pilot the female subject toward wholeness" (2005:48). The painful history of suffering of her ancestors with visions of the middle passage, mark her sense ofconnection to her community, demanding the necessity to locate and access a co11ective past. Lebert watches Avey attentively and believes she must cross the water, this middle passage, all by herself. The next step towards the process of Avey's awakening after the boat trip is carried by Lebert Joseph's daughter, Rosalie Parvay. She heals her by restoring her memory, allowing her to progress toward spiritual reintegration by performing the literal cleansing of her body. The ritual generally performed by women referred to as spiritual agents (emphasis added), and their effort to heal the body reflects a cultural tradition preserved by black women through ages. Joanne V. Gabbin recognizes such contact as a "[S]ymbolic act of blessing, healing, and ordination ... that bestow[ s] some gift" ( 1990: 247). As Parvay bathes and massages her body performing the healing ritual, Avey recollects a similar bathtub in Tatem to Parvay's tub. Marshall triggers similar rituals from Avey's past enabling her to remember who she is, as well as signifying the unity of African rituals from different geographical borders. The cultural landscapes ofCarriacou intimately connected to Avey's cultural landscapes on Tatem Island, function as the most concrete sites of identity
26 formation. The religious ritual the laying on of hands performed ceremoniously, combining the sensual with the process of spiritual rebirth brings Avey closer to claiming her identity as a Black woman. Avey's reconnection to her heritage is guided by Lebert even through his daughter. After Avey's body and spirit have been purged and cleansed, she stands poised for the last and most crucial journey of . acceptance into the community. Under slavery, the traumatic scars have been carried for generations rendering an indelible imprint on the psyche of the African American women; and the necessity to be healed. For African Americans, the healing systems include folk medicine/magic, spiritual practices, medications, that responded to their medical and psychic conditions as well as circumstances. The enslaved community practices forged healing for survival and for retention of African traditions in the New World. Many of these African descended customs and beliefs have remained alive and culturally distinct, despite the Africans forced uprooting from their native lands. The perpetuation ofthese African customs and rituals, aid in the restoration of communal health thereby, bringing solace and wholeness to their bodies and hearts. An intrinsic part of healing is a ritualized process underscored in this text. The rituals on the Carriacouan Island- The Big Drum/ .Dance of the Nations connect the black West Indians and their African ancestors socially, spiritually, culturally and psychologica11y. The rituals, traditions, and myths recall past memories, and re establish Avey's connections with a diasporic community. Black West Indians, black Americans symbolically join blhck Africans in the dance. Frantz Fanon sees dance in the colonial world as the place where "[T]he most acute aggressivity and the most impelling violence are canalized, transformed, and conjured away. The circle of the dance is a permissive circle: it protects and permits ... [It reflects] the huge effort ofa community to exorcise itself, to liberate itself, to explain itself' (1963:57). In the Beg Pardon ritual, the Carriacouans petition the ancestors (the Big Parents) for forgiveness for offenses committed against them during the year, intentional or not. They petition not only for themselves and their neighbours but
27 also for relatives known and unknown scattered throughout the world. As Christian points out, the final ceremony:
[C]ornbines rituals from several black societies: the Ring Dances of Tatem, the Bojangles ofNew York, the voodoo drums of Haiti, the rhythms of various African peoples... also specifically the embodiment of the history and culture of New World blacks ... [in the notes that distinguish] Afro-American blues, spirituals and jazz, Afro-Caribbean calypso and Reggae, Brazilian music.( 1985: 157)
Avey's participation in the dance of Nations along with the Carriacouan elders triggers memories ofthe Tatem elders from her childhood. Her self-reflection allows her to view her identity for: [R]itual is a bridge by which those of us who have a'lmost forgotten and-those of us who know can cross over into remembering who we were, who we are, and who we are intended to become. Ritual can assist us by naming and validating the essential worth of our e~perience. (Hyman 1993:174)
If Rosalie healed Avey physically, the rituals heal her psychologically linking her to an extended family of diasporic kin. Paulette Brown Hinds characterizes Avey's dance as "an expression which builds bridges to connect seemingly unconnectable spaces" ( 1995:1 08). In other words, Avey's dance demonstrates the value of intercultural exchange between descendants ofAfricans throughout the diaspora. The process of healing consists of "[S]elf-questioning, self examination, both for the individual and the group, seeking to locate and expel the negative force that has entered, to re-establish a unity, new order, universal equilibrium. This process leads to a heightened level of knowledge of self and the forces in the universe" (An drone 2005:40)". Healing helps in reflecting, (re)-memberiqg, and aiding in the formation of one's identity through recovered pasts connected to present realities. African-American female subjects undergo transformation by the recognition oftheir connection to a communal culture and protect themselves from the loss of cultural memory and assimilation. The memories of their communal pasts reunified African Americans to their ancestral identities, and spiritual paths that facilitate their healing. Customs inherited from African cultural roots act as a means to cure and heal fragmented psyches and
28 "Black healers draw their authority from a collective understanding of health and healing integral to African American culture under slavery" (Fett 2002: 6). Avey mends all those ruptures caused due to abandoning her African history, heritage and past. After experiencing communion with the black community guided by her spiritual parent in the form of Lebert Joseph, Avey gains an understanding of her African lineage and vows to pass it over to the future generations in much the same way as her Great- , . aunt Cuney and Cuney's grandmother did. Avey's memory of the rituals and the story of the lbos on Tatem are integral to her self development, for remembering the tale fosters Avey's rediscovery of her true identity and reconnection with her ancestral land. She takes on a messianic role at the close of the novel to continue t~e storytelling legacy to her grand children, and young members ofher U.S. black community. The ritual~ demonstrate transformation in Avey from being a member of a localized community to a diasporic one. Avey is able to weave the disconnected/ fragmented parts of her past into a new fabric of life. Through these rituals, Avey not only locates her place amongst the black Americans, acknowledges "the need to stay globally connected and maintain relationships locally, but also uphold cross-generational ties strongly" (Shamail 2015: 436). . Lebert Joseph with his healing powers, his use of folk practices developed as strategies of cultural survival, rescues Avey from spiritual and psychological death. Lebert Joseph and the Carriacouan people keep the traditions alive by narrating and reteiJing them every year. Praisesong, is a powerful narrative ''joining the diasporic homeland embodied in [the] dance" (Thorsson 2007: 644). Lebert perpetuates these rituals through his performative and oral act stressing on the importance of rediscovering one's cultural roots. In one way, his role as a ritual perpetuator and transmitter of communal oral traditions serves the necessity of saf~guarding traditions against the effects of materialism. Avey's healing occurs through reconciliation, continuation and embracing of the rituals as well as forging connections to Africa in her recounting of the legend
29 of the Ibo Landing. Avey's cleansing processes in Carriacou symbolically dress her wounds; enable her to survive through the identity crisis, recognize her strengths and promote the rituals. The collective history ofthese ritual performances unites the individuals both in their islands and cultural spaces manifesting diasporic consciousness. Avey attains spiritual maturation in her journey toward reclamation of self. Community-building forces heal her body and spirit, rekindling her connection with her cultural roots, thereby attaining wholeness.
Works Cited Androne, Helane Adams (Spring 2005)"Reading Untamed Tongues: Salpic6n Analysis for Reading Intersections Between Fiction by African-American and Chicana Women." Phoebe17. 1:35-57. https://qjs.geneseo.edu/index.php/ praxis/article/download/ I 0211670 (accessed 3 December 20 16). Ashford, Tomeiko R (Winter 2005) "Gloria Naylor on Black Spirituality: An Interview." Me/us 30.4: 73-87. Babcock-Abrahams, Barbara(l975) "A Tolerated Margin of Mess: The Trickster and His Tale Reconsidered." Journal ofthe Folklore Institute 11.3: 147-86. ProQuest Web .(accessed5 May 2015). Brown-Hinds, Paulette (1995) "In the Spirit: Dance as Healing Ritual in Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow." Religion·and Literature 21.1 :I 07-17. Christian, Barbara T. ( 1985) "Ritualistic Process and the Structure of Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow," Black Feminist Criticism: Perspectives on Black Women Writers. New York: (Pergamon Press): 149-58. Collier, Eugenia (1984) "The Closing ofthe Circle: Movement from Division to Wholeness in Paule Marshall's Fiction." Black Women Writers: A Critical Evaluation (1950-1980). Ed. Mari Evans. (New York: Anchor Press): 295- 315. Cosentino, Donald (July-Sep 1987) "Who is that Fellow in the Many-colored Cap?: Transformations ofEshu in Old and New World Mythologies." Journal ofAmerican Folklore 100): 261-75. DeVeaux, Alexis (1979) "In Celebration of Our Triumph." Interview in Essence10.1 :126-13 I. · Fanon, Frantz (1963) The Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Constance Farrington. (New York: Grove). Fett, S. M. (2002) Working cures: Healing, health, and power on Southern slave plantations. (Chapel Hill, NC : U ofNorth Carolina P). Gabbin, Joanne V. ( 1990) "A Laying on ofHands: Black Women Writers Exploring the Roots ofTheir Folk and Cultural Tradition." Wild Women in the Whirlwind: Afro-American Culture and the Contemporary Literary Renaissance. Eds.
30 Joanne M. Braxton and Andree Nicola McLaughlin .(N.J: Rutgers UP): 246- 63. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr.(1988)The SignifYing Monkey: A Theory ofAfrican-American Literary.Criticism. (New York: Oxford UP). Gaudet, Marcia (Winter 1992) "Bouki, the Hyena, in Louisiana and African Tales." The Journal ofAmerican Folklore. 105.415 :66-72. Glissant, Edouard (1989) Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays. Trans. J. M. Dash. (Charlottesville: UP of Virginia). Hyman, Amitiyah Elayne ( 1993) "Womanist Ritual". Women and Religious Ritual. Ed. Lesley A. Northup.(Washington: Pastoral):, 173-82. Marshall, Paule (1983) Praisesongfor the Widow.(New York: E.P. Dutton). Morrison, Toni (1987) Beloved. (New York: Knopf). - (1987) "The Site of Memory." Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft ofThe Memoir. Ed. William Zinsser.(Boston: Houghton): 103-124. Pelton, Robert D. ( J980) The Trickster in West Africa: A Study ofMythic Irony and Sacred Delight. (Berkeley: U of California Press). Pettis, Joyce ( 1995)Toward Wholeness in Paule Marshalls Fiction.(Charlottesville and London: UP ofVirginia). · Pollard, Velma (March 20 I 0) "The World of Spirits in the work of Some Caribbean Writers in the Diaspora."Changing English. 17. 1: 27-34.
31 PRAVEEN SHARDA
Interplay of Perspectives in Ted Hughes Hawk Roosting and Daruwalla 's Hawk: A Stylistic Analysis
This paper carries out a comparative stylistic analysis oftwo poems on the same subject but by different poets. A famous poem by Ted Hughes is Hawk Roosting and a similar poem Hawk has been written by the Indian poet Keki N. Daruwal1a. There are vital linguistic and cognitive clues which link the interpretation of the poem Hawk with Ted Hughes' Hawk Roosting.The linguistic analysis would help in the identification ofboth common and distinct features of style. Besides the analysis of these external features,
Professor at the Department of English, University School of Open Learning, Panjab University, Chandigarh.
32 readers would also be prompted to look for the conscious and unconscious intentions behind the use ofthese stylistic devices. While analyzing these poems, questions such as of one poem being informed by the other or being in a dialogical relationship with it may also arise in the reader's mind. The analysis would attempt to bring out the dialogical overtones that one poem has in the other. Style originated from the Greek and Roman word 'Rhetoric' which is an emotive and cognitive drive in people to use language in a manner to impress others and to persuade them to adopt or reject a certain view-point. In both the poems the persuasive force of what the poets want to convey Iies in not only what is being said but also by how it is being said. Style thus resides as much in content as in form. The formal aspect is referred to as the phenomenal element and the conceptual element refers to the content. Both are inseparable and the phenomenal element does convey the conceptual element too. However, it was cognitive stylisticians who added something more to the meaning of style by saying that style lies not just in its linguistic manifestations but in "[T]he conceptual or mental representation of some earlier relevant experience which can be aroused in the mind of readers" (Verdonk 2010: 87). Paul Simpson too regards the experiential function as an important marker of style "[A]s language is used to represent patterns of experience in spoken ·and written texts in many ways thereby proving the concept of style as choice" (Simpson 2004:22). Al1 experiences, whether of poets or readers are influenced by socio-cultural and historical contexts and the interpretation of a poem as discourse or a communicative act rests largely in the subjective interpretations by readers. This article would emphasize upon the cognitive .structures that readers employ when reading texts. The domains of knowledge which are brought into play while "[P]rocessing and understanding of textual representation~" would also be the focus of analysis (Simpson 2004:40). It is the stylistic tool-kit used h9' readers which enable them to identify common as well as distinct features which are fore grounded against the background of the rest of the text. Thus, the interpretation of Ted Hughes Hawk Roosting and Daruwalla's Hawk lies in how the stylistic features of both the
33 poems distinctly convey their conceptualized and contextualized knowledge. The analysis would seek to reveal not only the differences but also the comparative aspects between the two. If style is to be understood by numerous readers as representing some earlier experience stored in their minds, then they will not find it difficult to recognize that in both the poems the hawk has anthropomorphic qualities. IfTed Hughes hawk is egotistic and self obsessed, then Daruwalla's hawk is a rapist and a predator. Daruwalla's tamed hawk is like a tortured being that is all set to take revenge on those who kidnapped and tormented him. The idea of a hawk being vested with human like qualities is not far removed from our childhood experience of having played with toy animals having human like faces, arms or legs; of having read about fables and allegories featuring them and of having watched films which feature speaking and thinking animals. Thus, it is "adjustable experiential knowledge" which enables us to grasp the idea of a hawk vested with human like qualities (Verdonk 201 0:87). Does that imply that both the poems are exactly alike? What then is the purpose of the stylistic analysis? Ted Hughes and Daruwalla being positioned in two entirely different contexts; there are bound to be stylistic differences despite some features of comparison. The very objective ofcarrying out a stylistic analysis of two such poems is to investigate the differences in their style; chiefly their perspectives which could be rooted in their contextual or cultural aspects. However, such similar themes also persuade readers to enquire if past use and meanings from the previous work are found in the latter work too. While comparing the two poems stylistically, Bakhtin's ideas can be useful to the reader. His seminal idea is that words are not taken from the dictionary but "[F]rom other utterances, and mainly from utterances that are kindred to ours in genre, thatis, in theme, composition, or style" (Verdonk 20 10). Bakhtin further elucidates that these words of others carry with them their own expression and evaluative tone which we assimilate, rework and re-accentuate. This stylistic analysis would try to investigate how the lexical term 'Hawk'used by Ted Hughes has been reworked and assimilated in the context ofn~ture's world by
34 Daruwalla. Both poets deal with the hawk's traits in its natural habitat though Daruwalla elaborates more upon the unnatural habitat in which the hawk is kept captive by man. In the poem, Hawk Roosting by Ted Hughes (see Appendix), the hawk is in an absolute position of power throughout; the perspeCtive remains all the time with the speaker, i.e., the hawk, holding us spell bound. There are no second and third person pronouns . used and hence there are no deictic shifts in the poem. The dominance of first person pronouns makes it an evident rhetorical pattern in the poem. The use of the first-person pronouns as many as twenty-one times shows how self-centered and obsessed the hawk is with himself. The conspicuous absence of deictic shifts in the poem shows that the reader's attention must be focused only on the hawk, who is the persona of the poet. There is absolutely no hint as to the poet's perspective on the hawk's over-stretched claims. The poet becomes conspicuous by his absence from a scene he has created himself. His presence is only felt by reading the title and significantly nowhere in the poem is his presence or perspective experienced. The poet's absence is a deliberate act meant to persuade readers to exercise their individual, emotional or moral response to the poem .. This further implies a totally objective attitude on the part of the poet as nowhere does Ted Hughes convey his own attitude towards the subject and by implication the pe~spective he wants his readers to adopt. The poet uses a device generally used by classical rhetoricians i.e. of wearing the mask of a hawk. Better known as 'prosopopoeia' meaning to make a face or a mask; the p~et can shift the responsibility for all unpleasant events onto this egotistical hawk. The anthropomorphic hawk is acceptable to readers as all of us have had childhood memories of playing with or reading about animals which had human like faces, arms or legs. These help in understanding animals such as the hawk personified as a human being. Daruwalla's verbal artifact Hawk does not have any definite determiner to qualify it or any adjective specifying its characteristics or traits. The title is a generic noun arousing expectations of a general description of the hawk and its habitat. The poem is constituted of
35 four parts (see Appendix) where besides the first person 'I' which opens the poem there are many instances of the use of the third person in the form of 'he' 'his' and 'they'. The first three sections are from the viewpoint of the poet who gives expression to the natural characteristics of the hawk, the unnatural traits of the captured hawk and finaiJy the first-person perspective of the kidnapped hawk. The last section of the poem is entirely from the perspective of the captured hawk. Thus, there is a shift in perspective in the poem unlike Ted Hughes Hawk Roosting. The first person is used once for the poet and then various times for the kidnapped hawk ~to len from the nest of the mother hawk by none other than man. The third person pronouns are used for the wild as wellasthe tamed hawk and 'they' includes the mother and son duo hunting the hare hidden in the grass (see Appendix). The poet wears the mask of the ensnared hawk which is worse than the wild one as he is tortured and trained by man for his own hun.ting pleasures. Daruwalla is referring to the hunters who took the services of the tamed hawks on their hunt. The ensnared hawk is referred to as 'trained for havoc'.While hiding behind this persona gives the poet the added advantage of escaping from the blame attributed to the acts of hunting and havoc indulged in by the tamed hawk. The use of third person pronouns for the wild hawk, the tamed one and the mother son duo does also lend credibility to the poet acting as the omniscient narrator watching everything that the wild and the tamed hawks do. The all-seeing narrator intelligently understands that in a period of drought, the wild hawk is frustrated even after indulging in parricide. His aggressive desires are nothing less than that ofa rapist and he is responsible for creating havoc in the sky. The focus is on the violent nature of the hawk which is made evident through lexical items such as 'parricide', 'kill\'burning','amok', 'scoop', 'dregs', 'hate' etc. However, the tamed hawk is trained by man to assist him in 'hawking' or "gamehawking" which is the practice of hunting with a conditioned falconry bird. The tamed hawk's 'skills' of killing the smaller animals becomes nothing short ofa ritual which by inference becomes the hawk's habit of bringing down whatever comes in its way. From Ted Hughes ego-maniac Hawk, there is the
36 wild hawk-king of the sky created by Daruwalla who after his training adopts 'hawking' as a ritual or daily practice. The idea of the 'hawk' as the king of the sky is appropriated by Daruwalla from the earlier poem Hawk Roosting which he reworks and transforms into a dangerous practice under the influence of man. The structural pattern that emerges in Daruwalla's poem is the contrast in the characteristics of the wild and tamed hawks. In addition to the general traits of the hawk which are violence and hatred, it is 'hawking' or killing which has now become a ritual. If the wild hawk is described as 'a rapist in the harem of the sky, the tamed one is worse, for he is touched by man'. It is the repetition of the first line of the second section (see Appendix) which makes it foregrounded and a key to the understanding of the poem. The wild hawk is not as dangerous as the tamed one who has been tortured and tamed by man and thus spells havoc and destruction over everything that he looms. Man's violence inflicted upon the hawk can be inferred to be helping the hawk to reveal its true nature. There are various lexical items spelling out the torture of the hawk 'snared', 'broken', 'blinded', 'scar', 'starved' etc. Proportionate to the methods oftorture, the tamed hawk's manner ofkil1ing is worse he is ferocious, strikes swiftly, kills for pleasure, is trained for havoc and weaves a circle of death over animals and humans alike. The tamed hawk is distinct as it feeds on human beings too and does not limit himselfjust to the sky. He behaves like a.human being seeking revenge on all those who subjected him to torture. The fact is that both man and the hawk are predators and it is man's violence which finds an echo in the hawk's violence. Thus, if the tamed hawk is worse, it is because of man's greed and passion to use the hawk as an aid in game-hunting. The use of third person pronouns to describe each action ofthe hawk is again deliberate in case of Daruwalla. Like the hawk lost in the momentum ofhis encircling round in the sky, the Indian poet is lost in the momentum of his poetic whirl and thus does not want to leave anything out. His omniscience persuades him to reveal everything- from the way the hawk kills to the way he is tortured to the struggle of the weak hare against the hawkish mother and son
37 team which diminishes the hare bit by bit. Daruwalla's detailed textual descriptions showing the struggle between the species in its totality are in fact an appropriation ofthe space and consciousness of the· hawk and its prey. Thus, a lot of space is devoted to the frightened hare whose heart .is described as 'a burning stable' and the struggle between the weak and the strong creates many stories for others to hear. This description of the eternal war between the species, so integral a part of nature's cycle, is fore grounded against. the background of the wild behavior of the hawk who is no less than the king of the sky. Thus, ifTed Hughes is successful in giving a very objective description of the hawk's arrogance, it is due to his restraint to be quiet and let the hawk do all t.he talking. Also, Ted Hughes' poem is much smaller in size than Daruwalla's because of the poet's apparent humility to realize that nature is inhabited by complex creatures and processes defying description. The structural architecture of Daruwalla'spoem parallels the inequality or the contrast between the wild and tamed hawks. Sec~ion one and three devoted to the wild hawk are smaller in size than sections two and four describing the hawk exploited by man for his own pleasures. The inference thus is that the relationship between man and the hawk acquires greater importance and needs to be studied in greater depth. Both the second and fourth parts describe the agony of the captured hawk who on his release acquires the destructive power of a storm. Hispassion is to spot and kill all those who nurture ambitions and wish to enjoy the bliss of life. His desire is to vanquish and destroy all those who have The right to dream The right to flesh The right to sleep .. ~ ,, These parallel structures are evocative of meaning as the tamed hawk's hit list is brought into the foreground by the repetitive and syffimetrical phrases which focus on the lexical items 'dream', 'flesh' and 'sleep' (see Appendix), the three characteristic features of the whole of creation and especially the Civilized. man who wants to train the hawk in falconry. He would hover around his victims; men,
38 women and animals, as he has been trained for havoc. The tamed hawk's behavior makes him a metaphor for man who is selfish and can go to any extent for the sake of his pleasure. The hawk by his actions is doing whatever was done to him by man. He becomes excessively aggressive and violent. Thus, he swoops down on not . just animals but all those who have the right to sleep, dream and copulate. He functions like a mirror in which humans are forced to recognize their beastliness. Man's disposition to recognize symmetries and asymmetries is stimulated by the recognition of such structures as are found in Hawk Roosting and Hawk. "Regularities dominate Ted Hughes poerri in the form of rhetorical patterns such as the consistent use of the first person and the. present tense implying a state or a habit without reference to specific time" (Verdonk 2010: 89). Lines fifteen and sixteen clearly prove this point (see Appendix). This implies that the hawk's perspective (the poet's persona) towards nature has remained unchanged through the decades. This is further supported by the absence of the second and third person pronouns. The hawk always refers to himself as I, me, mine etc. Additionally, there are no instances of tum-taking which is· a feature of ordinary conversation and shows the various addressees being addressed to. In the second last line, 'My eye has permitted no change' and the last 'I am going to keep things like this' (see Appendix), it is significant that the hawk regards nature to be in his service and hence_ it has allowed everything to be. according to the wishes of . the hawk. The poet seems to be in perfect hiding behind the persona of the hawk and this deliberate effort is not without a purpose. The readers are in fact left to their own emotional responses to the hawk's self-revelatory monologue which exhibits excessive seW confidence and pride. It is a usual practice of writers to guide · reader's responses but this unusual behavior of the poet can also be ·interpreted as his completely objective attitud~ in representing the hawk. The absence ofany interplay of perspectives thus becomes a positive feature of the poem. Daruwalla's poem is marked by the qualities of structural opposition and irregularities revealed at various l~vels. It is these
39 features of the poem's architecture which allow for interplay of perspectives. The first person is used for the poet persona as well as the captured hawk whereas the third person is used for both the wild and the tamed hawks. Besides the alterrtation of stanzas, the lexicon ofthe poem elaborates upon this contrast. The wild hawk is "the hawk-king" of the sky (Leech 1979:42). This is a lexical innovation or a nonce formation, made up for a single occasion only. Daruwalla's hawk even in a period of drought is not at a loss. He 'hovered above', 'went above' and the wind which carried him upward is an ascending wind (see Appendix). Nature helps Daruwalla 's hawk just as it helps Ted Hughes' hawk. The adverbials 'above' and 'up' reveal the hawk's position of supremacy in the sky. Lexical items used to describe the tamed hawk are 'snared' ,'sewn' ,'broken', 'blinded' and 'starved'. Trained in cruelty, he becomes a perfect exploiter. The structural opposition is also revealed in the struggle of the weak against the strong-the hare pitted against the mother-son duo. The mother hawk is teaching the baby hawk to hunt and therefore the hare is·kiJied slowly, bit by bit and its flesh carried in the talons of the hawk. The slow diminishing .is also revealed in the use of compound words like in the phrase 'one talon-morsel at a time' (see Appendix). The hare is diminished morsel by morsel, the quantity that can be carried in the hawk's talons one at a time. There is a structural contrast of size between talon and morsel. Lexical items and phrases which describe the frightened hare are 'stunned', 'burning stable', 'whinnying horses' etc. This vivid description of the violence unleashed on the hare is representative of a poet well acquainted with the world of nature. The structural opposition culminates in the contrast between the doves and the hawks. The poet has given a striking contrast of a peace-loving bird with a bird of violence to express the idea that the hawks will outnumber the doves because they would have already created havoc in the sky and killed many birds and creatures that came in their way. In a period of drought which the tamed hawk predicts is sure to come; the doves wi II look up to the sky for rain whereas the hawks will be there in plenty to feed upon whatever little is left of
40 creation. In both the poems, the hawk kills wherever he pleases as violence is an integral part of his nature. In the poem by Ted Hughes the absence of interplay of perspectives gives the message that even nature supports the tendencies of the hawk. In the poem by Daruwalla where the perspective often changes, the message is that violence begets more violence. If the hawk is tortured, he acquires a greater passion to kill all those who blinded and starved him. His perspective becomes primary and fore grounded in the poem. The kidnapped hawk admits that he would swarm around his tormentors like a cocoon of death because it is now his basic nature to create havoc wherever he goes. The perversion of the tamed hawk is a lesson for all those who interfere with nature's acceptable and established norms. The worse instincts of the tamed hawk are justified as he has been touched by man and becomes an example of his beastliness. Following from a stylistic analysis of both the poems, one is _persuaded to ask if Daruwalla's poem is informed by the earlier poem 'Hawk Roosting' penned by Ted Hughes. Can we put it in the category of Bakhtin's dialogism where a dialogical work "[D]raws on the history of past use and meanings associated with each word, phrase or genre" (Robinson 20 I I). Daruwalla's poem does to an extent have dialogical overtones of Ted Hughes poem. Bakhtin says that words are not original but taken from other utterances that are similar in terms of genre, theme, composition and style. · First, the subject of the poems being the same, there is bound to be natural resemblances between the two. The word hawk itself is a dialogical word having echoes even from other poems dealing with the hawk's basic instincts. Both poems begin with the idea of the hawk being predatory in its instincts but Daruwalla's poem elaborates upon the idea of man using the hawk as an aid in game hunting or Falconry. Man, in his greed and desire for selfish pleasure trains the hawk to help him in hunting. Thus, the hawk is tortured to draw out its ferocious nature. It is the blinded and starved hawk which lets loose· hell on both animals and humans.
41 It is inferred from the above analysis that in Daruwalla's poem there is an interplay of perspectives. From the perspective of the poet persona the reader is persuaded to move on to the perspective of the hawk. In the last stanza, the hawk can recount the result ofman's cruelty in seeking an explanation for its perversion. The inference is that from a bird of prey that killed for survival, the hawk is transformed into a bird which adopts killing as a ritual. The tortured hawk gets transformed into a total beast, much more dangerous than the wild one. In this interplay or dyJ?.amics ofchange of perspective, there is created a polyphony of narrative voices in Bakhtinian terminology. Here we find that the poet persona appropriates the space of the hawk by giving his own perspective in the first three stanzas. Ted Hughes is aware of the limitations of giving voice to the non-human consciousness ofthe hawk and hence refrains from using second and third person pronouns. Thus, in the poem Hawk Roosting, it is a unified perspective of the self possessed hawk. Everything that the reader sees is from the perspective of the bird of prey. As a contrast, in Daruwalla's poem there is too much space given to the perspective of the poet. The sparse or litnited perspective of the hawk shows that man is more powerful in exploiting and manipulating the powers of the hawk.
·APPENDIX:
Hawk Roosting by Ted Hughes I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed. Inaction, no falsifying dream Between my hooked head and hooked feet: . Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.
The convenience of the high trees! The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray Are of advantage to me; And the earth's face upward for my inspection.•
My feet are locked upon th.e rough bark. It took the whole of Creation
42 To produce my foot, my each feather:· Now I hold Creation in my foot
Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly - I kill where I please because it is all mine. There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads-
The allotment ofdeath. For the one path of my flight is direct Through the bones of the living. No arguments assert my right: The sun is behind me. Nothing has changed since I began. My eye has permitted no change; I am going to keep things Jike this. (Ted Hughes, 1960, To Sylvia Plath)
Hawk by KK Daruwalla
I saw the wild hawk~king this morning riding an ascending wind as he drilled the sky.
The land beneath him was filmed with salt: grass-seed, insect, bird- nothing could thrive here. But he was lost in the momentum of his own gyre, A frustrated parricide on the kill.
The fuse of his hate was burning still.
·But in the evening he hovered above The groves, a speck of ~arbed passion. Crow, mynah and pigeon roosted here While parakeets flew raucously by.
And then he ran amok, A rapist in the harem of the sky.
43 As he went up with a pigeon skewered to his heel-talon He scanned the other birds, marking out their fate, The ones he would scoop up next, Those black dregs in the cup of his hate!
2
The tamed one is worse, for he is touched by man.
When snared in the woods His eyelids are sewn with silk as he is broken to the hood.
He is momentarily blinded, starved. Then the scar over his vision is perforated.
Morsels of vision are fed to his eyes As he is unblinded stitch by relenting stitch.
Slowly the world re-forms: Mud walls, trees burgeon.
His eye travels like the eye of the storm.
Discovering his eye And the earth and sky With it, he leaps from earth to ether Now the sky is his eyrie.
He ferocious floats on splayed wings;
Then plummets like a flare, Smoking, and a gust of feathers Proclaims that he has struck.
The tamed one is worse, for he is touched by man.
Hawking is turned to a ritual, the predator's Passion honed to an art; As they feed the hawk by carving the breast Of the quarry bird and gouging out his heart.
44 3
They have flushed him out of the tall grasses, The hare, hunted now In pairs by mother hawk and son.
They can't kill him in one feH swoop.
But each time the talons cart away A patch of ripped fur.
He diminishes, one talon-morsel at a time.
He is stunned by the squall of wings above.
His heart is a burning stable Packed with whinnying horses.
His blood writes stories on the scuffled grass!
His movements are a scribble on the page of death.
4
I wouldn't know when I was stolen from the eyrie I can't remember when I was ensnared.
I only know the leather disc Which blots out the world And the eyelids which burn with thwarted vision.
Then the perforations, and yet The blue iris of heaven does not come through.
I can think of a patch of blue sky When shown a blue slide.
But I am learning how to spot the ones Crying for the right to dream, the right to flesh,
45 The right to sleep with their own wives - I have placed them. I am sniffing The air currents, deciding when to pounce.
I will hover like a black prophecy Weaving its moth-soft cocoon of death.
I shall drive down With the compulsive thrust of gravity, Trained for havoc.
My eyes focused on theni Like the sights of a gun.
During the big drought which is surely going to come the doves will look up for clouds, and it will rain hawks.
· Works Cited Daruwalla, K.K. ( 1992) "Hawk." In The Oxford India Anthology ofTwelve Modern indian Poets, edited by Arvind K. Mehrotra, 80-82. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press). Hughes, Ted. "Hawk Roosting." All Poetry. Accessed June 26, 2016. https:// allpoetry.com/Hawk-Roosting. Irvine, Martin. "Mikhail Bakhtin: Main Theories Dialogism, Polyphony, Heteroglossia, Open Interpretation." Communication, Culture and Technology Program (CCT) Georgetown University. Accessed June 10, 2016. http ://faculty. georgetown .edu/irvinem/theory /Bakhtin-Main Theory. html. Leech, Geoffrey. (1979) Varieties ofPoetic License. In A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry, 7th ed. (London: Longman). Robinson, Andrew. "In theory Bakhtin: Dialogism, Polyphony and Heteroglossia." Ceasefire Magazine. Last modified July 29, 2011. Accessed August 7, 20 16.https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-bakhtin-1/. Simpson, PauL (2004) "Introduction: key concepts in stylistics." In Stylistics: A resource book for students, 22. (London and New York: Routledge) Verdonk, Peter. (20 J 0) "A Cognitive Stylistic Reading of Stylistic Patterns in Ted Hughes' Hawk Roosting." In Language and Style, edited by Dan Mcintyre and Beatrix Busse, 84-94. (London: Palgrave Macmillan)
46 MADHUSHARMANEESHOru
Space and Identity: Mapping the Nation in -Khaled 1HI:osseini's And the Mountains Echoed
What is it to lose one's world? What is the relation between possibility and actuality, not between actuality and eventuality, as one finds a medium to portray the relation between the critical events that shape large historical questions and everyday life? Whether the rubric is transnational, multiculturalism, globalization and global citizenship, ethnicity, migrancy, border studies, or even a domain of post-diaspora
Associate Professor of English, GGDSD College, Sector 32-C, Chandigarh
47 interests and expression, formations of "seif~ and cultural identity remain, quite precisely, fabulations and acts of construct in a flux. New symboJic orders of experiencing, speaking, feeling and additional behavioural patterns are created. The upheavals and changes reverberate in reality- politically, economically, socially, psychologically and culturally. There emerges a predicament in establishing identity ensuing from an apparent disjuncture between the original or the traditional concept of identity and the oppressive lived experiences foisted upon individuals by unce11ain airs of their prevalent socio-political conditions. In a postcolonial world, the past continues to permeate the present. As the boundaries of a nation are crossed towards being global, the experiences become universal. The predicament of self definition then becomes even more enonnous as individuals are confronted in modern settings by the blurring demarcation of categories and the consequent physiological and psychological issues of a fast emerging borderless globe. However, individuals and human . societies continually seek to redefine, regenerate and advance themselves with varying degrees of achievement and updating. Through the reading ofKhaled Hosseini's third novel, And the Mountains Echoed, the paper explores how the characters define the·mselves over the years through the choices they have made between duty and freedom, familial responsibilities and independence, loyalty to home and their exile, which are corollaries of the conflict and dilemma with respect to one's perception of one's national identity and its extension to global existence. The aim is to explore, through the reading of the novel, how identity is constructed within the context of geographical territory that shapes out a cultural space. "Crisis of identity" is both the cause and effect of dislocation of central structures. Consequently, as Stuart Hall has also argued, practices and structures that, in a way, harbour our insecurities, are then undermined (1996). Nevertheless, the quest to endow the occurrences with a certain kind of meaning continues to be a constant concern of the being; even more so when the occurrences are an
48 attempt to define the self or attain a sense of identity. The occurrences then become all the more entangling and ambivalent.
[O]ur identity is partly shaped by recognition or its absence, often by the misre~ognition of others, and so a person or group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if people or society around them mirror back to them a confining or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves. Non-recognition or misrecognition can inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted, and reduced mode of being. (Taylor 1992: 25)
Culturat identity remains in a flux, no matter what the context. It has remained so from the period of colonialism to the time when nation came to be regarded as the foremost structure of collective identity and finally extending to the era that we call as the modern or the postmodern period, where exile has become an identity. In the contemporary world, group affiliations have not only become less fixed and confusing but are also challenged by the system of globalization. While the boundaries on ground facilitatecu1tural affiliations or rather cultural bonds to underscore the geographical demarcations and hence, a country becomes a nation; for the diaspora, nation and nationalism becomes a problematic concept. The concept of diaspora specifies a particular liminality or a sense of incompleteness. Thus, diasporic identities "are those which are constantly producing and reproducing themselves anew, through transformation and difference" (Ashcroft 200.1: 253).The diaspora might adopt a new political nation but it becomes hard to free oneself from cultural nationalism. Diasporic formation is an intersectionality, a process which has "already entangled histories" and "complex array of contiguities and contradictions; ofchanging multilocationality across time and space" (Brah 1996: 190). Afghanistan-born American writer, Hosseini left his native country when he was eleven. His father's work took them to Paris, and then, when the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan prevented them from returning 'home', they sought political asylum in the United States and settled in California.
49 In an interview, Hosseini says:
It was a culture shock. It was very alienating ... I was bompletely ignored. I felt on the periphery of highschool culture; one of those invisible creatures that walk the campus. I think it was a lot worse for my parents. My dad was- a diplomat and my mum vice-principal of a high school and now she's a waitress at Denny's, working the graveyard shift, and my dad is a driving instructor. (Hoby 2013)
While globalization, by and large, has certain positives in terms of dealings of varied nature, such as social, commercial, educational, it has an equally encumbering effect on human condition in terms of one's identity in a space that is defined by geographical, cultural and social factors. In case of a diasporic community, this effect is even more unsettling. In a diasporic space of conflicting individualities, past is deployed and counter-deployed for inscribing oneself in 'home' -could bethenation ofbirth atone point oftime and could be the nation of migration at another point of time-for a sense of identity. Even staking claims to a land or challenging and questioning intimate personal relationships, could be part ofthe power politics that are played on in a diasporic space. Individuals tend to become full human agents, capable of understanding themselves and, hence, defining their identity through socio-cultural and political mediums. However, as the boundaries of a nation are crossed towards being global, the experiences become universal but the dilemmas about one's home and identity remain. The exodus for them may answer less and leave more questions in its train which may challenge the very foundational myth of'imagined community', leading to a state of ambivalence. Nationalism becomes "act of affiliation and establishment as they are moments ofdisavowal, displacement, exclusion and cultural contestation" (Bhabha 1990: 5). Khaled Hosseini's novel, And the Mountains Echoed, mirrors the endeavour and the struggle of Afghanis to etch out a sense of identity and belongingness as they oscillate between home and exile-the nation they had left and the country they have adopted as home. Thus, nationalism and exile seem to feed on each other:
50 Nationalism is an assertion of belonging in and to a place, a people, a heritage. It affirms the home created by a community oflanguage, culture, and customs; and, by so doing; it fends off exile, fights to prevent its ravages. Indeed, the interplay between nationalism and exile is Hegel's dialectic of servant and master, opposites informing and constituting each other. (Said 2001: 176)
However, since exiles are removed from their roots, they seem to be holding on to their past and when that too begins to wane, they make an attempt to reconstruct it. Abdullah, shuttling between not just two cultures but also between past and present, has lived with the conviction: "If culture was a house then language was the key to the front door, to all the rooms inside. Without it he said, you ended up wayward, without a proper home or a legitimate identity" (Hosseini 2013: 362). That is the reason Abdullah takes out time to take his daughter for classes in Persian to a mosque even in California. It is within such cultural space that identity is represented and signified, offering a sense of subjectivity to the being. But for diasporic entities, the rupture and distortion of identity becomes a constant phenomenon, particularly when questions of nation and home, are tossed up. "While its boundaries transgress, its interiority is interruptive" (Bhabha 1990: 5). When borders are articulation of an identity and the same are breached, as in the novel, to subvert the unified subjectivity, what Bhabha argues seems true: "Nations, like narratives, lose their origins in the myths oftime and only fully realize their horizons in the mind's eye" (Bhabha 1990: I). Having been removed from a place of supposed origin and without emotional, political and cultural affiliations to territorially bound, static localities, the diasporic people move on, as indeed their homes do, like tortoises along with their shells; In the process, the sense of a unified identity is lost. In fact, it is the dialogical character that is fundamental to the idea of being: "We define our identities always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against, the things our significant others want to see in us" {Taylor 1992: 32-33). Discovering an identity does not mean that the same is worked out and formulated in isolation, but that the identity is negotiated through a dialogue, which is partly overt and partly internal, with others. The understanding and achievement of an ideal would lead to a
51 sense of fulfilment and complete self-realization. Of course, Home is a significant tool towards this realization and fulfilment of the being. In all possibility, the contours of identity are marked out in the space of Home-if one has a sense of identity; it is hard not to feel at home! It becomes essential to define Home in more concrete terms, rather than letting it remain an abstract. One fundamental attribute of diaspora writing is the fixation with location, culture, displacement and myths of identity. The novel may not be completely autobiographical, yet the underpinning of cultural anxiety and turmoil, which is common to - diasporic community of which Khaled Hosseini is also a part, becomes quite apparent through the characters. And the Mountain Echoed maps the lives of individuals who are connected to each other with a quest for meaning for the directions that they have chosen or have been destined to travel in. Their paths cross at the juncture where the writer seems to be voicing his own dilemmas: Who am I, What about my home and Am I displaced? In the novel, Nila, who adopts Abdullah's sister and moves to France, tries to explain her feelings in an interview when asked if she considered herself Afghan: "Let's say I have divorced myself from my more troublesome half' (Hosseini 2013: 180). As a young Afghan woman, Nila is expected by her father and the society to be obedient, silent, and compliant. However, Ni1a proves to be everything atypical Afghan woman is not. She is intelligent and she talks back, she does not care what people think about her, she expresses whatever is in her mind in her tradition-defying poems. Nila had tried to adapt to and adopt Kabul as her home, but it only pushed her away from acquiring a wholesome sense of identity, as she always found Kabul stifling and suffocating for her: "We had rows over what I wore, where I went, what I said, how I said it, who I said it to. 1 had turned bold and adventurous, and he even more ascetic and emotionally austere. We _had become natural opponents" (Hosseini 2013: 208). Though she says she didn't care about the cultural orientation of her surrounding yet they affected her. In fact, her father keeps hammering "why she found it so hard to be respectable" but she had "no desire to slip the leash around
52 my own neck" (Hosseini 2013: 211). She explains her non conforming behaviour by admitting that she was angry deep inside and _states: "I was angry... That I had to be protected from my own body. Because I was a woman" (Hosseini 2013: 212). Nila finds herself a misfit in her home country. For her, it is only exile that can bring some sanity to her life and offer a sense of being. She also doesn't want her adopted daughter to imbibe the cultural identity she detests:"I moved to France because I wished to save my daughter from a certain kind oflife .... l didn't want her turned, against both her will and nature, into one of those diligent, sad women who are bent on a lifelong course of quiet servitude, forever in fear of showing, saying, or doing the wrong thing" (Hosseini 2013: 182). On the other hand, there is Pari, Nila's adopted daughter whois not aware of her lineage yet is constantly tormented by a sense of being detached from her origins. She has grown up into a brilliant mathematician and when one of her friends questions her choice of subject, she reflects: "There was comfort to be found in the permanence of mathematical truths; in the lack of arbitrariness and the absence of ambiguity. In knowing that the answers may be elusive, but they could be found" (Hosseini 201.3: 204). Undoubtedly, a rift, a schism, is forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home and hence, sadness in case of Pari is insurmountable. When she. is trying to explore her connect, what she "[A]lways wanted from her mother was the glue to bond together her loose disjointed scraps of memory, to turn them into some sort of cohesive narrative" (Hosseini 2013: 218). Her life is taken over by her zeal to compensate the disorienting Joss by creating a new world to rule. A sense ofbelongingness gets mutated as well as reconstituted in the spaces and established notions of Home which are imagined over and over again in different ways across borders and boundaries. However, the loss of something left behind forever undermines the accomplishments in the newfound territory or home. This- i5- conspicuous in the demeanour ofldris, the doctor now settled in the US visiting his home in Kabul along wit~ his brother Timur.
53 Geographically, it is a homecoming for the two brothers, but each one looks at it from a different perspective metaphorically. The objective of visiting Kabul, Timur proclaims, is "[T]o reconnect, to educate themselves, bear witness to the aftermath of all these years of war and destruction. They want to go back to the States, he says to raise awareness and funds, to 'give back'. We want to give back he says, uttering the tired phrase so earnestly it embarrasses ldris" (Hosseini 2013: 136). The real reason however was "[T]o reclaim the property that had belonged to their fathers ... the property's worth is skyrocketing now that thousands of foreign aid workers have descended on Kabul" (Hosseini 2013: 136). While Timur is conveniently detached from the 'pain ofhome' or any pangs of identity, Idris is struggling to find a way out of identity crisis that he finds himself in on reaching Kabul. On their arrival in Kabul, ldris hears his brother introduce himself only as Timur, though he had changed his name to Tim since 9/11. Idris is left unsettled by this as he says, "It is a harmless enough duplicity, even a necessary one. But it rankles" (Hosseini 2013: 135). For most expatriates or diasporic community, the return, which would mean not just physically being transported back to one's homeland but feeling a bond with one's home, is not possible because it is not any longer what one thought it was. As a result, the option available is to make the discursive gesture towards home by way . ofwriting about/to or of/for the place and people who are imagined to constitute home, or ,as in the case ofldris, extending a helping hand to their suffering homeland. His meeting with Roshi arouses an alien emotion within him: "There is something exhilarating, intoxicating, euphoric even, in throwing.himselfheadlong into this commitment. He feels energized .. It nearly takes his breath away. To his own amazement, tears prickle his eyes" (Hosseini 2013: 187). It is the encounter with Roshi in the hospital that helps ldris contrast the two homes on his return to the US: the home he has made abroad and the homeland left behind. His sons' placid response is a disappointment: "He is annoyed with their lack of interest, their blithe ignorance of the arbitrary genetic lottery that has granted t~em.their privileged lives" (Hosseini 2013: 160). He perceives his
54 stay in the US more '~[A]ccusingly now as the locals must have looked at him when he had first arrived in Kabul" and his help as "stretching the neck" or "rubbernecking", which is rather frivolous in nature and is often expected by the natives from Afghans coming from the West(Hosseini 2013: 160).. While absolute return is impossible, tentative returns, through gazing back upon the past and a homeward discursive posturing, are always worth the attempt. This is what ldris is attempting. He tries to negotiate a relation between his new life abroad and his past. While in Kabul, fighting his pangs of guilt, ldris commits to procure funds, on his return to the United States, for Roshi, the small shelling victim hospitalized. However, once he crosses the borders, the priority changes again. The global life and entity that he has now acquired is not just a contrast but also in conflict with what he has experienced within and outside during his stay in Kabul. His dilemma about the Self is aggravated. This is unders.cored in . the conversation with his wife: "Do you think we should have all this ... you don't think this is too much" and Idris has pangs of guilt post Kabul visit, as he says "I just see things a little differently now" (Hosseini 2013: 164). The novel explores the connection between disappointing professional fortunes and mixed feelings about 'home' and 'return'. Although initiallyhe had followed the enactment of' giving back', ·when he receives a few e-mails from Amra, the nurse, and Roshi enquiring about the progress of the case, he starts ignoring them. Soon, he loses patience with the subsequent e-mails from Kabul and is "ashamed ofhow Amara's note had irritated him, how tempted he had been, for just a moment, to answer her, in capital letters, I WILL .. IN DUE TIME" (Hosseini 2013: 167). Having the mails left unread, he eventually begins deleting them without reading. During this phase, his thoughts metamorphose from remorse towards his homeland in turmoil to his justific~tion ofhis present lifestyle in the adopted home. In order to get rid of his guilt, he argues with · himself, saying, "he had judged himself harshly. He is not a criminaL Everything he. owns he has earned ... why should he feel badly? This is his family. This is his life" (Hosseini 2013: 170). Nevertheless,
55 it is hard for him to restore his peace and balance as is suggestive in the following lines:
In the last month, Roshi has become something abstract to him, like a character in a play. Their connection has frayed. The unexpected intimacy he had stumbled upon in that hospital, so urgent and acute, has eroded into something dull. The experience has lost its power. He recognizes the fierce determination that had ceased him for what it really was and illusion, a mirage. He had fallen under the influence of something like a drug ... distance between him and the girl [read homeland] feels vast now (Hosseini 2013, 170).
The episode ofRoshi had strengthened in Idris the sense of alienation that was first invoked when he stepped in his native country. The dichotomy ofhome and exile on the one hand and that of past and present on the other and the struggle of the characters in the novel make their existence both tragic and absurd. Pari, Abdullah's sister, quite rightly puts it when she opines that it is a matter of blessing "[T]o know where you came from ... to know your roots. To know where you started as a person. If not, your own life seems unreal to you. Like a puzzle. Like you have missed the beginning of a story and now you are in the middle of it, trying to understand" (Hosseini 2013: 356). Indeed, the quest for home is an assertion of innate human instinctto establish and stabilize one's identity. However, the interplay between home and exile is like the dialectic of servant and master, where opposites inform and constitute each other. Thus, it is hard for the diasporas to escape the oscillation between the two. As the Home takes concrete shape of a house, the novel, through it, debates the idea of claims on the past and how past continues in the present. For, the narratives of characters are so patterned that the past and present lives get entwined leaving the characters at the crossroads at different junctures. Even when we say that the origins are elusive, the novel explores the past, constructs gene~logies and traces the complex formations of the sites of subjectivity through ruptures, dispersal and mutations. As Markos, who is working in Kabul as part of aid organization, recollects: "Entering my childhood home is a little disorienting, like reading the end of a novel that I'd started, then abandoned, long
56 ago" (Hosseini 2013: 334). Markos is brought up in the absence of any peers and friends and so misses out on a normal childhood. He is acquainted with his background through implicit i.ncidents and the disclosures are not very comforting, for he puts in: "The revelations of what he now knew his father had done-first in the name of jihad, then for what he had called the just rewards of sacrifice- had left him reeling" (Hosseini 2013: 275). While trying to find meaning in his movement from one country to the other, Markos finds that people think "they 1ive by what they want. But really what guides them is what they are afraid of. What they don't want" (Hosseini 2013: 340). In fact, the two homes- one is the family home of Saboor, Abdullah and Pari which later is the home of Iqbal and Gholam in Shadbagh and the other is the grand house initially owned by Suleiman in Kabul - become the focal points around which the story revolves. However, all characters- including Saboor, Nabi, Abdullah, Pari, Nila-have no fixed coordinates of space and time; they have only some imaginary, fluid and contested locations to be constantly negotiated and constructed by memory. Idris, however, has to search for ·the right words to describe his Homeland, and when asked by his U.S. neighbours about his trip to Kabul and his views about the situation in Afghanistan, he can manage only these words: 'A thousand tragedies per square mile' (Hosseini 2013: 163 ). Stepping across borders and boundaries c·ould mean stepping into a secular and contingent world, but no sooner does one get accustomed to it than its unsettling force erupts anew. Hence, as the loss of identity and i.mposition of new identities takes place, the novel comes across as the hybridisation between the indigenous and the diasporic consciousness.
Works Cited Ashcroft, Bill (200 I) Post-colonial Transformation (New York and London: Routledge). Bhabha, Homi K. ( 1990) Nation and Narration (London and New York: Routledge). Brah, Avtar (1996) Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. (London and New York: Routledge).
57 Hall, Stuart, David Held, Don Hubert and Kenneth Thompson, eds. ( 1996) Modernity: An Introduction to .Modern Societies (Oxford: Blackwell Publications). Hoby, Hennione (2013) "Khaled Hosseini: 'lfl could go back now, I'd take The Kite Runner apart'."The Guardian, June 1. www.theguardian.com/books/ 20 13/jun/0 1/khaled-hosseini-kite-runner-intervi·ew (accessed on 16 September 2016) Hosseini, Khaled (20 13) And the Mountains Echoed. (Riverhead Books). Said, Edward (2001) Reflection on Exile (New Delhi: Penguin Books). Taylor, Charles ( 1992) Multiculturalism and the Politics ofRecognition (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
58 AMANDEEPKAUR
Absence of time Progressives anndl time §traimge Case ofArunim Kollatlkar
The terms such as 'resistance', 'politics', 'dissent', and 'revolution' are integral part of the progressive movement that has grown into one of the most extensive pan-Indian organizations; with chapters in many states, it has addressed the concerns oflanguages as diverse as Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam and Telugu etc. However, there is no formal Progressive school of poetry within the rubric of modem Indian English poetry. Does modem Indian English poetry, then, lack political consciousness? Is there a conscious evasion of ideological commitment among the Indian English poets? Why is ·it that when the poets in bhasa literatures have participated and written about the people's struggle and protest movements, the Indian· English poets hardly seem to record those
Research Scholar, Department ofEnglish & Cultural Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh.
59 struggles in their verses? Why is it that the Indian English poetry has failed to involve in a crucial function ofproviding concrete cultural and political critiques for a society undergoing rapid changes? These are the questions that the present paper seeks to address. I argue that English being the most preferred language of the ruling elite in the colonial period as well as thereafter, Indian literary works in English-be it in prose or in poetry, in fiction or in Iiterary criticism- appears to have articulated the interests of the ruling elite, and thereby failing in providing a social critique. It is in this context that I shall analyze Arun Kolatkar's Kala Ghoda Poems to discuss how his poetry, contrary to much of the Indian English poetry, reveals a range of possibilities within the aesthetics of resistance. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part presents a critical overview of the progressive movement in India along with an analysis of the early Indian English poetry and absence of resistance and protest quotient in it. The second part of the chapter focuses on the institutional domain of the Indian English poetry and political consciousness of the modern Indian English poetry. Basing my argument on Michel de Certeau's idea of everyday resistance, and Georges Perec 's notion of ordinary, I trace the political and progressive consciousness in Kolatkar's poetry.
I TheAll India Progressive Writers' Association (AIPWA) was formed in 1936 at Lucknow. It succeeded in bringing into its fold writers and thinkers, both established and upcoming, from different languages and regions. As the movement, from its beginning, bear out a clear propensity to Marxist ideas, the analytical categories of socialism, as noted by Mir & Mir, along with its attendant binaries--oppressor/ oppressed, exploj_ter/exploited, capital/labour, capitalist/worker, bourgeois/proletariat-find an easy and broad acceptance in its manifesto and constitution. (2006 : 13) The socialist poetry was produced in large number in different languages. Even before the PWA, the literary writings were not devoid of the social and political concerns of the time. However, the situation remains different in
60 Indian English poetry. Right from its beginning, the Indian poets writing in English and the newly emergent intelligentsia of the colonial period have been distancing themselves from the people's resistances like the 1857 revolt and the other peasant revolts of the time. It is the time when the native elites play an active role in strengthening the feudal structures with the assistance ofthe colonial rule. As Ranajit Guha puts it, "the indigenous bourgeoisie, spawned and nurtured by colonialism ... pliant and prone to compromise from their inception, lived in a state of happy accommodation with imperialism ... the destruction of colonia] state was never a part oftheir agenda" ( 1998: 214).
In fact, the native elites also play a crucial ~ole in influencing colonial education policies and ensuring the denial of education to the vast sections of people. 1Similarly, the Indian Eng Iish poets hardly express any covert or overt inclination to participate actively in the struggles or the resistance movements. The poets come from the privileged class background and the colonial ideology constructed by the Raj is evident in the writings of poets Iike Michael Madhusudan Dutta, Toru Dutt and others. These poets like the other Bengali intelligentsia are the first to adapt into the colonial mould and they embrace the superiority of colonialism and thereby indulge into mimicry of the colonial values, mentality and lifestyle. As Fanon suggests, "the first phase of culture that emerges from the colonial situation, is always marked by the native intellectual providing proof . that he or she has assimilated the culture of the occupying power" (1967: 178). And the intellectual representatives ofthe elite classes from among the aristocracy justify the domination of the British rule in India. The literaryactivityoftheearly Indian English literature is of an individual nature and the range ofpoytry is also extremely limited as M. Prabha argues,
In a land perpetually beset with famine and flood, poverty and disease, social injustices and exploitation, the entire corpus of the upper-class Bengali Indian writers in English verges on the escapist and is out of place. They scrupulously avoided issues which could bring them into conflict with the British. Far from any seditionist writing like that of Premchand, this clutch of litterateurs, including
61 Tagore, went out of their way to woo the British and even to visit England recurrently as though it were their homeland (2000: 14 ).
Interestingly, none of the poets writing in English in the colonial period at ign with the resistance and struggles ofthe common masses. Manmohan Ghose's poetry reiterates his strong belief in the superiority of the European culture. He gradually feels more and more alienated from the people of India and their culture. He considers himself "four fifths an Englishman if not entirely one" and laments that he feels "denationalized" (1970: 196). Both Sarojini Naidu and Toru Dutt rarely admit the real oppression of the women in the society. Eunice de Souza calls their poetry nothing more than a "sentimental pastiche" ( 1997: 1). In her poem "Savitiri", Toru Dutt vouches for the idea of pure Vedantic Hinduism as given to her through English translations of Sanskrit texts in the colonial transactions ofcoJlaboration between brahminical pandit and colonial scholar-expert, in which the social oppression and exploitation of women does not exist:
In those far-off primeval days Fa:ir India's daughters were not pent In closed zenanas. .
And Savitri she wandered where she pleased In boyish freedom. ( 1941 : 37)
Savitri is projected as "free woman" who can wander "with young companions of her age" and there are no sufferings in her life "to dim her prime" (1941: 37). Susie Tharu correctly points out that "Savitri's 'virtue' closely matches the strangely convoluted myth of sexual purity of woman" ( 1989: 342). The Victorian morals lay a great emphasis on the "sexual restraint" and moral uprightness in women and Dutt reiterates the same idea in her poem. The lyrical, passionate and sentimental mood ofSarojini Naidu's poems paints "the land of Romance and Mystery, the India of the common western imagination, with its colourful bangle sellers, graceful palanquin bearers, and princely Raj put lovers" ( J 958: 343).
62 Though she was present in one ofthe conferences of the Progressive Writers' Association, there was neither active involvement in its activities nor any imprint ofits ideology on her writings. For most of the part, the central focus in her poetic world is a cultured and refined upper class. Even when the labourers, the toilers and women do appear in her poems, she transforms them and their sufferings into a romance that fits the requirements of European taste. The 'Palanquin Bearers', 'Wandering Singers', 'The Snake Charmers', and Bangle Sellers in her poetry are neither common nor folk, but specially prepared specimens of Indian life, aestheticized ·and exoticized for display. Steeped in mystical and Vedantic ideas, the poetry of Sri Aurobindo also sets itself apart from the struggle of the people for liberation. His ideas are replete with Hindu religiqus symbols and he evokes a religious theory of nationalism to mobilize political support. The Swadesi movement led by Aurobindo and his associates is manifested through the sakta symbolisms of upper caste Hinduism. By virtue of such symbolism it is deliberately isolated from the Muslim people and the Hindu lower caste people who were more prone to vashnavism and other monist trends.2 Barbara Southard argues that Aurobindo has written of the necessity of mass participation in politics, but his own attitude towards the Bengali masses is quite ambivalent. In fact he is quite "conscious of his status as an upper caste Hindu" ( 1980: 3 65 ). The reality is that the early Indian English poets, rather than focusing on the squalor and depravity in the society, or engagement with the present reality in the larger perspective, simply withdrew. Their surrender to the colonial rule renders them incapable of allying with vast masses of peasants and tribal people.
II The modem Indian English poets, unlike their poet-predecessors, seek to forge a poetic voice that is more human and pragmatic. The pre-194 7 poetry is largely in traditional verse and generally fails to come to grips with the physical and social realities of India. R. Parthasarthy declares that much of the work of the early Indian
63 English poets is "only of historical interest" ( 1979: 1). In the transitional phase of the country immediately after 1947, the Indian English poets espouse, for the most part, a modern poetics and tend to engage with the process of transition in their own subtle ways. The poetics ofNissim Ezekiel, considered to be the pioneer of the Modernist revolution in Indian poetry in English, challenges the lyrical Romanticism of preceding generations of Indian poets as argues John Thieme, "Ezekiel and his contemporaries committed themselves to injecting a new seriousness into the writing of Indian verse, fo11owing European Modernist masters such as T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound in their dedication to finding objective correlatives for both subjective emotions and abstract ideas" ( 1989: xix). As with several other Indian poets of his generation who use English as a medium of expression, Ezekiel has fairly directly addressed the issues of secularism, and of racial identity using the modernist techniques and elements. In one of his essays Ezekiel writes, "Political points of view without cultural associations are futile" (2008: 48). The cultural associations in his poetry spring from his consciousness of being a Jew and his desire to cling to the Indian ethos. In the poems like' An Atheist Speaks', 'Jewish Wedding in Bombay', 'The Concluding Latter-day Psalm', he creates a highly personal Indian landscape, albeit one that "also has broader resonance as an embodiment of post-independence secularism" (Thieme 1989: xxi). In many of the poems, he documents some of the key formative influences that shaped his subjectivity. At one time, he represents himself as a 'frightened child' with all his insecurities:
I went to Roman Catholic school, A mugging Jew among the wolves.
They told me I had killed the Christ (Ezekiel 1989: I 79).
Yet, even as he chronicles his experience, the poem at another level, also depicts his consciousness of being a Jew. The poet struggles to maintain a balance between his Jewish sentiments and
64 his desire to be rooted in the Indian land. The cultural politics of Ezekiel's poetry needs to be understood against the post-1947 political scenario. The ruling urban elite, in · this phase, operates within the ideology ofinodern liberal-democratic state. Ezekiel's poetic prescriptions, as noted by Akshaya Kumar, "fit in the agenda of the post-194 7 ruling comprador intelligentsia. The pragmatic undercurrent of Ezekiel can be traced back to the Nehruvian oft-repeated argument that Indian metaphysics is alright, but that is not enough to fill the bellies of poor Indians ... and the Nehruvian brand of politics suits most ~fthe English educated Indian inte11ectuals ofthe post-1947 phase" (2009: 245-46). Though Ezekiel brings in the 'other' side ofthe city into his poetic landscape, there are no Marxist overtones in his poetry. He expresses profound sense of compassion, understanding and sympathy for the city, but the descent into the world of slums is rarely attempted. He is a votary of secular humanist discourse but carefully refrains from contemplating on the issues of class struggle. The articulation of social consciousness is more open, forthright and courageous in the poetry of Keki Daruwalla,. but his active intervention in the larger political and ·social scenario is limited. He relates himself to the Indian ethos and seeks to trace his own identity while embracing the idea of lndianness as he reflects, "Looking back I find that the compulsion to mark out an identity for myself must have been very strong. Since one was writing in English it should be all the more evident that it was an Indian writing. Just bringing an Indian sensibility to bear on a theme was not enough. The poem had to be securely fastened to an Indian setting" (2015: n. p.). His poetry is singularized by a certain masculinity, vigour and vitality not noticeable in other Indian English poets, articulating his idea of existence which is violence-ridden and hence tragic, for throughout his poetry, the images of death, terror, carnage, riots and genocide figure repeatedly. The incidents of communal violence propel him to evince a response that aims at addressing the larger questions of the society with a significant measure of responsibility.
65 From the partition to the Gujarat riots, the poet tries to engage with both past and present incidents. His resistance takes mostly a tone of deliberate and intended sarcasm, whereby he disapproves of the communal politics, corruption and violence in the country:
Gujarat is not just the corruption of an absolute. It has manufactured its own corrupt absolutes: 'If night fell on Godhra, we are within our rights to unload the night on innocence elsewhere.' (2006: 24-25)
There is, however, no engagement with the people on whom these sufferings are unleashed. In fact, most of the poems either seem incidents of succinct reportage or distant observation. The viewpoint of the poet becomes predominant whereby the resistance of the masses find no place. Although the poet questions the insensitivity of the forces of authority, there is scepticism about the utility of resistance. He seems to debunk the voices of defiance in 'A City Falls': "Was it any use, this mass tantrum of defiance?" (2006: 143). Unlike Ezekiel, he has exposure to the outer public sphere, social and political challenges and he turns significant events into incident poems. However, the incidents only lead to a sudden poetic outburst or mental action; there is no call for action or direct and immediate intervention as such. The modern Indian poetry in English has largely an academic character; engrossed in the theoretical perspectives it tends to defy any creative participation in the socio-economic and political realities of the time. Most of the poets have restricted themselves to the academic achievements as a result their praxis differs drastically from what the poets in the bhasa literatures have written. Rajeshwari Sunder Rajan posits that English literature has today become a part of the "academic establishment", and that there is a need to challenge this "status quo" (Sunder 1992: 1). Unlike other bhasa literatures, the Indian English writing enjoys a privileged site of poetry production. Most of the practitioners of Indian English poetry happen to be university professors and academicians, their approach and focus remains mostly on the critical theory emanating primarily from the western
66 academia. They end up being the products of the institutions rather than the poets of the people. The issue of readership is also important. John Oliver notes the peculiarity ofthe readership ofthe Indian English poetry:
The highly specialized Indian audience for Indian poetry, for the most part, is academically but narrowly trained in the language and related literatures and comes from a politically dominating cultural elite that is also undeniably isolated socially, complacently over privileged, and willing to exploit its neo-colonialist power for consumerist values not shareable with the eighty percent of the people. (1994: 265)
The domination of the academic practices is further aggravated when one looks at the peculiar nature in which the subjectivity of the Indian authors/poets in English has been formed, which in turn informs their worldview that gets articulated in the works they produce.
III Arun Kolatkar, born in I 931 in Kolhapur, comes from a traditional background. His poetry is different from the erstwhile pre-colonial and post-colonial poets in the sense that it brings the subaltern to the centre stage, which also provides a distinctive turn to his idea of resistance. Kolatkar and other poets of his generation respond to the social, cultural and political scenarios neither in the idiom of the erstwhile progressives nor the intellectual and precise verse of the other modem Indian English poets like Ezekiel who grapple with the question oflndianness and cultural nationalism as Zecchini notes,
The struggle for Kolatkar and others of his generation is not a question of content or ideology, nor of resistance to colonial rule, but rather a struggle to find an idiom, forge a means of expression and invent a modernity that is both distinctively "theirs" and foundationally connected to other modernities and avant-gardes across the world. They must be-distinguished from the earlier literary 'school' prevalent in the 30s and 40s and organized around the 'Marxist-influenced Progressive Writers' Association (PWA), which shifted the standards of criticism of literature towards 'social realism'. (2014: 20)
67 The erstwhile Progressives seize on the changing literary and intellectual milieu to engage with the 'real' in their writings; the 'real' aims at bringing into focus the proletariat and his struggle for freedom, economic justice and a democratic culture. However, Kolatkar belongs to a generation of poets who seem to provide a liberating alternative to both the spirit of academic and social realism and the inhibiting British traditions by adopting the American idiom, diction and style. 3What emerges in the poetry of Kolatkar must also be seen in the larger context of the artistic scenario in Bombay of the 60s and 70s that imbibes a large number of influences. The poetic scenario in Bombay was different from other places of India because of its cosmopolitan and bohemian character, and the poets living there were subjected to all kinds of traditions and influences. If the bhakti and folk tradition had a considerable presence, the surrealist and the imagist influences were equally strong. If the countercultural 'little magazine' fraternity established their dominance in the Sathothari period, the Beat poetry, jazz and American blues also enjoyed. the equal popularity. Kolatkar and other poets of the 'little magazine' movement, rejecting the conventions of the earlier periods, recreate their own tradition. The Kala Ghoda Poems, first published in 2005, underlines the idea of everyday resistance. The poet, a passionate lover of crowds and incognitos, like Baudelaire's Constantin Guys, sits in the cafe at the Wayside inn, pleasurably absorbed in gazing at the crowd outside, taking interest in the most ordinary things and marginalized figures, hitherto excluded from the poetic landscape of the Indian English poetry.4 The book chronicles the everyday street and ordinary life, encompassing its varied population-the workers, the labourers, bums and lepers, the slum dwellers, the lavatory attendant, the municipal sweeper, the kerosene vendor, the cellist, the drug pusher, the beggar with his tambourine, the idli lady, the rat-poison man, and the lawyer, dogs and cats, rubbish, old tyres, birds, and the unanimated things-abandoned on the sideways and the margins both of society and our ordinary perception. The everyday chronicles of the Kala Ghoda Poems come close to Michel de Certeau's theory of everyday resistance. In his book
68 The Practice ofEveryday Life, he writes about how the everyday acts of walking, talking, speaking, eating etc. challenge the already established narratives of power that are structured from top to down. The ordinary practitioners of the city make "use of the spaces that can't be seen" (Certeau 1988: 92). Like Certeau, Kolatkar, in his poetry, focuses on those activities of the everyday existence that are usually foreign to "the 'geometrical' or 'geographical' space of visual, panoptic, or theoretical considerations" (Certeau 1988: 93) Georges Perec in his article 'Approaches to What?' questions the importance that human beings accord to the extraordinary and the unusual things in everyday life:
What speaks to us is always, seemingly, the big event, the untoward, the extraordinary: the front-page splash, the banner headlines .. Behind the event there has to be a scandal, a fissure, a danger, as if Ii fe reveals itself only by way of the spectacular... what's really going on, what we're t?Xperiencing, the rest, all the rest, where is it? How should we take account of, question, describe what happens every day and recurs everyday: the banal, the quotidian, the obvious, the common, the ordinary, the infra-ordinary, the background noise, the habitual? (1997: 209-10)
The importance that Kolatkar places in his poetry is on this ordinary and commonplace, on the marginalized and the sidelined. Like Perec, taking down notes from the smallest and the most ordinary object in the streets of France, Kolatkar also observes the common people and their daily activities from a restaurant in Kala Ghoda. The collection ope.ns with the monologue of a mangy street dog who sits at the "exact centre of the traffic island" and replaces the "equestrian statue" ofKing Edward V n, yet it scoffs at the process because the substitution of the dog with the colonial master fails to bridge .the economic, social and cultural gaps between the rich bourgeoisie and the poor commoners (2004: I 5). Kolatkar turns the whole process ofwriting of history upside down for it is through the monologue ofthe pi-dog that he traces the history and development of Bombay where the so-called masters turn out to be faceless presidents totally unconcerned about the general public. The tone of inappropriateness towards the moral, social, religious and ritual practices takes over the narrative as the pi-dog recites the sacred
69 mantras, reserved for the upper castes. By placing the lepers, beggars and slum dwellers at the centre, Kala Ghoda Poems brings forth the point that the impure outsiders and untouchable 'refuse' can neither be overlooked nor discarded "since a good bit of the city stands/ on sweepings such as these" thus highlighting the notion of "financial apartheid" prevalent in the society - "one wants the poor near at hand as servants but far away as humans" (Appadurai 2000: 637; Kolatkar 2004: 28). Therefore, the cleanliness drives chase the poor out of the city spaces to the margins but the island is actually an open and unrestricted space where the migrants and outsiders continue to flourish despite the state's attempts to control those spaces: more and more of Bombay keeps mushrooming on the land wrested from the sea with the result, that the more you clean Bombay, the more Bombay there is to clean (2004: 31 ).
The poet makes poetry out of everything that is 'far too insignificant/ for any observation on earth/ to record' that is why the 'rubbish' and the discarded take the c~ntre stage and the poetry challenges the moral and linguistic, cultural and religious proprieties of the society along with the Brahman ical ideas of puri-ty, expressed by the systematic behaviour of disgust and loathing towards every kind of leftovers. In fact, there is celebration of excremental and the leftovers:
Dry leaves and melon rinds, breadcrumbs and condoms, chicken bones and potato peels start giving of their essence, exude the wine ofworthlessness. (2004: 33)
The tone of exuberance in the poem is far-reaching. It concedes a
70 sense of reality, which is not acceptable to the society because its otherness is threatening. By doing this, the poet perpetually blurs the frontiers between what is pure and impure, acceptable and unacceptable, ugly and beautiful, ordinary and extraordinary. Meera, in his poetry, is not the bhakti devotional poet Meerabai but an ordinary woman who loads the garbage trucks in a kind of ecstatic trance, "like a Meera before a Lord/ a Meera with a broomstick for a lute" (Kolatkar 2004: 32). There is a temporal shift, and the sacred invocations supposed to praise and celebrate the almighty become, through an ironic subversion, th~ material invocation not only of rubbish but also of those who deal in it. The rubbish, symbolically, stands for the poor, migrants, dalits and the dispossessed whose survival depends on the garbage itself, away from the luxury, affluence and abundance of Bombay that belongs only to the rich. Confined to peripheries, these outcastes of modernity do not fit anywhere in the "cement-eating blood-guzzling city/ pissing silver, shitting gold" that David Sassoon describes, rather they are subjected to spatial, cultural and discursive exclusions, insecure social relations, poor sanitation, robbed of a humane existence and forced to live on the st~eets that also constitute specific forms of public space. (Kolatkar 2004: 148) And in this public space, there is a near-total lack of privacy: for the voyeur world revolving/ around her/ wants to ogle (Kolatkar 2004: 79). The private and public space being so scarce at their disposal, these outcastes of Bombay pavements can be at "home only in their bodies" (Appadurai 2000: 637).lfthe rubbish, literally, means, filth, waste and junk that is to be discarded, symbolically, it connotes~ to the removal and eviction of the rag pickers, abattoir workers, manual labourers and indigents from the urban landscapes and centres of finance capital, and also cleansing of space to make way for the big bourgeoisie, corporate houses and firms. However, the poetics of Kolatkar, as noted by Zecchini, overturns "the habitual processes ofexclusion and stigmatization" (20 14: 163 ). It transforms the politics of eviction and exclusion into a "poetics of hospitality", thus also chaHenging the elitist hangovers that are often associated with Indian English poetry in general (20 14: I 63).
71 While giving a descriptive account of the everyday existence ofthe migrants and the pavement dwellers, he also alludes his poetry to the larger meanings ofcultures and connected histories and opens up a new terrain for the Indian English poetry by consigning "history to the scrap-yard" and by bringing "the scrap-yard into history" (Chaudhuri 2008: 234). Though he challenges the official discourses, histories and narratives, Kolatkar, unlike the progressive poets of the pre-1947, emancipates himself from the ideal ofnation building and from a form of cultural nationalism. He approaches the local life of Bombay in ways that are distinctive from those of the progressives; his relationship to it is more oblique, more ironic, and more in doubt. In the poem 7 of 'Breakfast Time at Kala Ghoda', the recognition of the cultural heterogeneity in the social formation of society is pitted against the enforced homogeneity, language chauvinism, and regional primordial ism of the Hindu fundamentalists. It aims at reclaiming history with all its perversions and excrescences. In the poem 'The Rat-poison Man's Lunch Hour' the rats also stand for the marginalized others and outsiders who must be eradicated and wiped out to keep the city clean. The poster is filled with the feelings of hatred and extermination of the "other". Ironically, the ideas of violence and scorn are turned upside down when poster is contrasted with the wall which bears the imprint of different memories and stories which are part of the larger history of the city. Kolatkar also attempts to underline "the multiple trajectories of social and economic relations that construct the space of the city" by giving both a panoramic view of the place that connects it to the other temporal and spatial zones. (Nerlekar 2012: 10) Thus, the monolithic notions of superiority and status-quo are challenged as the poet chooses to celebrate the cosmopolitan spirit of the city by connecting the beggars and pavement dwellers to the events and people in Peru, Texas, Alaska, Poland, Seoul and Andhra Pradesh. The pi-dog, with its seven black patches like seven different islands is the real mongrel commensurate to the cosmopolitan Bombay that his poetry celebrates. The old idli woman sits on the concrete blocks,
72 which is compared to Sri Lanka. Again, the present temporal existence of cosmopolitan 'Man of the Year' and David Sassoon is connected to the other times and spaces, and other histories and countries. The litt)e vamp, the grandma, the blind man, the ogress, the rat-poison man, the pinwheel boy, the queen of the crossroads, the Knucklebone champ gather at one place in 'Breakfast Time at KalaGhoda' to enjoy the only meal of their day, and the ordinary food of the poor pavement dwellers, in the process, is given an extraordinary treatment: ldlis pair off, lie gasping belly to belly or hump each other like turtles in the mating season (2004: 103 ).
The scene becomes poignant as it reveals how the subalterns survive in abig city like Bombay. The description of minute, the marginal, the invisible and the ordinary takes precedence over the whole in his poetry, this ordinariness is discernible in his language, and the poet exposes the secret history of the city in a very demotic, anti style idiom. He refuses to anesthetize or sanitize the uncouth and coarse language that he uses, since it exposes the violence, systematic oppression of the subaltern at the social, cultural and religious level. His conversational poetic language interspersed with both a cinematic and pictorial style, contains an anti-style colloquial simplicity. Even when he differs from the other Indian English poets in his approach and technique, subject and form, and expresses his longing for a greater intimacy with Bombay and its people yet, in spite of the empathy, his poetry remains the product of forms of distant intellection and observation. Kolatkar chooses not to interfere, but to record and watch patiently and unsentimentally, but he is also conscious of how ineffective and heartless all writing can be: i'm afraid, people like you and i i was looking at a picture 73 of a man being lynched i 'm just an innocent bystander· i'm not taking any sides i'm not picking any fights i will not give my name and even my head's outside the picture frame (qtd. in Nerlekar 2016: 184)
The poet attacks his own role as impassive documenter of the real, even if that real world is as brutal as he describes it here. The self reflexivity that he shows in his work is missing in the work of the progressive poets. Moreover, the language and style of his poetry, unlike those of the progressives, comes close to the surrealist and beat poetry. He also shows affinities with counterculture of the 60s and with the anti-establishment artistic scene in India. The early verse of Kolatkar in English often seems surreal, highly imagistic and also anti-poetic as represented by the well-known 'Three Cups ofTea'. He does not restrict himself to a single ideology or tradition of poetry; rather wants to reclaim various traditions and genres of the modernisf phase. His poetry is political but it does not take an overtly militant or partisan stance. It is political because his poetic vision does not miss the familiar details and elemental realities of a micro logical everyday but his description, as·a way of being true to the visible reality, provides what the Barefoot Queen and the Idli woman look and sound like, not what they feel. He describes about the rat poison man, the Ogress, and the lepers but the real contact is never made. He is progressive but he does not adhere to the Marxist principles of dial,ectical materialism and this differentiates him from the erstwhile progressives. Whereas the progressives would seize an opportunity to mobilize the peasants, the labourers and the proletariat class to bring a radical transfonnation in the socio-political structures, Kolatkar in his poetry, although celebrates their distinctiveness, vibrancy, and vividness, but unlike the progressives, there is absence of the discourse of revolution or commitment to the Marxist ideology. He lays claim to an e.xperimentalism of his own that comes close, at times, to subversion and anarchism. The poem 5 of'The Shit Sermon' is exemplary in thisregard:
74 Shit city
I shit on you. You were a group of seven shitty islands given in dowry to the Shit King of Ing to shit on. (119)
It can be observed from the above analysis that the Indian English poetry, unlike the bhasa literatures, has entirely different affiliations and commitments. More than the people's movements in the country, they have responded to the theoretical and poetic traditions popular in the Anglo-American literary circles. There is subdued anger and resistance in the Indian English poetry, but the voices of militant struggle and revolution are absent. The poetry ofKolatkar also has cultural and political significance and its idiom turns bold~ brusque and belligerent, endorsing the aesth.etics of the ugly and coarse which helps him establish a different aesthetic of resistance in his poetry.
Notes
In his essay 'Bengali Bhadrolok and Educational Development', Poromesh Acharya delves deep into the issue to prove how the native elite denied the education rights to the vast masses. He reveals the collaborationist and comprador nature of the bourgeoisie in which they actively participate as the apologists ofthe British imperial power (1995: 676). Barbara Southard in her essay argues that instead of leading to mass mobilization in the nationalist cause, the religious appeal had serious divisive consequences in Bengal. She Claims, "Although the upper castes in Bengal were generally followers of the Sakta cult of Kali worship, the masses were Muslims or followers of the Hindu Vaishanava cult of Radha-krshna worship. Given the religious divisions between the upper castes and the masses, the choice of sakta religious idiom for a nationalist agitation would suggest that the major motivation of the leaders was not mass ~obilization ( 1980: 354)." Arvind Krishan Mehrotra, Dilip Chitre, and Adil Jussawalla also belong to the same generation. "We were both surrealists of sorts already, and self consciously so." writes Dilip Chitre, recalling that in the mid- 50s both he and Kolatkar were in the process of discovering modem western art and
75 poetry "to get out of the inhibiting English tradition that colonized the minds of our immediate Marathi-speaking forefathers (2005: 6)." Constantin Guys is the protagonist of Baudelaire's The Painter of Modern Life. Virtually every word that Baudelaire uses to portray Constantin Guys also corresponds to Kolatkar. ln his introduction to Arun 1(o/atkar: Collected Poems in English, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra recollects Kolatkar's response to Eunice D'Souza about his interests and reading habits, "l want to reclaim everything l consider my tradition. lam particularly interested in history of all kinds, the beginning of man, archaeology, and histories of everything from rei igion to objects, bread making, paper, clothes, people, the evolution of man's knowledge ofthings, ideas about the world or his own body (20 10: 32)"
Works Cited Acharya, Poromesh (1995) "Bengali 'Bhadrolok' and Educational Development 1 in 19 h Century Bengal." Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 30, No. 13:670- 673. Appadurai, At:iun (2000) "Spectral Housing and Urban Cleansing: Notes on Millennia! Mumbai." Public Culture, Vol. 12, No.3: 627-651. Baudelaire, Chari es ( 1995) The Painter qfModern Life and Other Essays (London: Phaidon Press). Brouillette, Sarah (2007) "South Asian Literature and Global Publishing." Wasafiri, Vol. 22, No.3: 34-38. Certeau, Michel de ( 1988) The Practice ofEveryday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press). Chaudhuri, Amit (2008) Clearing a Space: Reflections in India, Literature and Culture (New Delhi: Black Kite) Chitre, Dilip (2005) "An Introductory Footnote from the Editor's Desk." New Quest, No. 162: 4-7. Daruwalla, Keki. N (2006) Collected Poems: /970-2000 (New Delhi: Penguin). --- (20 12) "The Deco1onized Muse" Poet1y International Rotterdam. 15 September. http://www. poetryi nternationalweb. net/pi/site/cou _ arti cle/item/2693/ The-Decolonised-Muse/en (accessed on 22 October 2015). De Souza, Eunice ( 1997) New Indian Women Poets. (Delhi: OUP). --- (2005) Ear~v Indian Poetry in English: An Anthology, 1829-/947 (New Delhi: OUP). Dutt, Toru ( 1941 )Ancient Ballads and Poems ofHindustan (Allahabad: Kitabistan). Ezekiel, Nissim (2008) "The Cultural Vacuum."Nissim Ezekiel Remembered. ed. Havovi Anklesaria (New Delhi: SahityaAkademi). --- (1989) Collected Poems (New Delhi: OUP).
76 Fan on, Frantz (200 1) The Wretched ofthe Earth (London: Penguin Books). Ghose, Manmohan ( 1970) "Letters" Collected Poems, vol. I: Early Poems and Letters (Calcutta: Calcutta University). Ghose, Aurobindo ( 1972) Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo Ghose. Vol. 5 (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publications). Guha, Ranajit (I 998)Dominance without Hegemony: History and Power in Colonial fndia(Delhi: OUP). Kolatkar, Arun (2004) Kala Ghoda Poems (Mumbai: Pras Prakashan). Kumar, Akshaya (2009) Poet1:v. Politics and Culture: Essays on Indian Texts and Contexts (New Delhi: Routledge). Mir Raza and Mir, Ali Husain. (2006) Anthems of Resistance: A Celebration of Progressive Urdu Poetry. (New Delhi: lndialnk) Mehrotra, Arvind Krishana (2010) "Introduction." Collected Poems in English: A run Kolatkar (Northumberland: Bloodaxe Books). Naidu, Sar~jini ( 1958) The Sceptered Flute (Allahabad: Kitabistan). Nerlekar, Anjali (2012) "The Cartography of the local in Arun Kolatkar's Poetry." Journal ofPostcolonial Writing, Vol. 1, No. I: 1-15. --- (2016) Bombay Modern: Arun Kolatkar and the Bilingual Literary Culture. (11linois: Northwestern University Press) Parthasarthy, R. Introduction (I 979) ed. Ten Twentieth Century Indian Poets (Delhi: OUP). Perry, John Oliver ( 1994) "Contemporary Jndian Poetry in English." World Literature Today, Vol68, No.2: 261-271. Perec, Georges. ( 1997)" Approaches to What?" Species ofSpaces and Other Pieces. Harmondsworth: Penguin). Prabha, M (2000) The Waffle of the Toffs: A Sociocultural Critique of Indian Writing in English (Delhi: OUP). Southard, Barbara ( 1980) "The Political Strategy of Aurobindo Ghosh: The Utilization of Hindu Religious Symbolism and the Problem of Political Mobilization in Bengal." Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 14, No. 3: 353-376. Sunder Rajan, Rajeshwari ( 1992) ed. Lie ofthe Land: English Litermy Studies in India (Delhi: OUP). Tharu, Susie (1989) "Tracing Savitri's Pedigree: Victorian Racism and the Image of Women in Indo-Anglian Literature." Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History. Ed. Kumkum Sangri and SudeshVaid (New Delhi: Zubaan): 335-353. Thieme, John ( 1989) Introduction. Nissim Ezekiel: Collected Poems (New Delhi: OUP). Zecchini, Laetitia(2014)Arun Kolatkarand Litera1y Modernism in India: Moving Lines (New Delhi: Bloomsbury).
77 YASHVEER
Bollywoodization of Space: A Study of'fwo Films on the 'Red Corridor' 1
I With the rise of postcolonial scholarship, the Bollywood has invited 2 critical response from various quarters of academics • From the perspective of production, distribution and exhibition as well as consumption, the space of Bollywood is kaleidoscopic. Scholars and critics have tried to define, redefine, compare, contrast, and position the Bollywood among other cinematic forms. It has historically been relegated to a "B-grade status as it is seen as crude imitation of Hollywood production" (Gehlawat xiv). The viewers of the Bollywood films are thereupon seen as naiVe and
Research Scholar, Department of English & Cultural Studies at Panjab University, Chandigarh.
78 immature. Within this context, Satyajit Ray posits, "If you think in terms of tired untutored minds with undeveloped tastes needing an occasional escape through relaxation, the best prescription becomes the Bollywood film precisely as it has been formulated, namely, as simple, escapist fare for simple-minded audiences" (1976: 73). Sudhir Kakar compares Bo1lywood film to 'daydream'iii. He claims that the success of Bo11ywood film relies upon its ability to penetrate the naive and immature psyche of Indian audiences. In other words, Indian viewers have a tendency to regress temporarily in childhood modes. He writes, "In India the child's world of magic is not as far removed from adult consciousness as it may be in some other cultures" (Kakar 1989: 28). These claims are further solidified in the works of Marie Gillepsie and Ananda Mitra. They have proposed the Bollywood films as 'fantasy'4 reading via theory ofdarsand, or devotional viewing. This synthesis ofthese theories of infantilizing and darsana culminates in Madhava Prasad's Ideology of the Hindi Film. Prasad invokes psychoanalytic film theory of Christian Metz by positioning the Bollywood film within a 6 theatrical model • The essential Bollywood is all about technicolor fantasies7 which 8 cater to the voyeuristic demands ofthe rising middle class • Satyajit Ray defines popular Hindi film as "a well-mixed potpourri of popular entertainment" (1976:73 ). The abstract space of Bollywood produces films that are spectacular, full of romance, melodrama and melodious music. A typical Bollywood film is all about a blending of theatrical and cinematic elements.lt is also about a mixing-up of genres such as dance, drama and music. Such an amalgamation is also known as masala or tadka (a spicy mix) in popular Hindi cinema. A mainstream Hindi feature film is often lavishly produced with a multi-star cast and a pre-release prom o-bi itz. It has an estimated length of 2-3 hours, and a market-oriented dramaturgy containing five-six songs with a total time-length of.forty-fifty minutes. Apart from this, 'love-triangle' has been most favored geometry ofthe popular Hindi films. Also, in terms ofsubjectthese films revolve aro~nd the relationships such as 'bimaar baap' or 'absent father', 'deceased mother', 'benevolent patriarch',
79 'kunwaari behan' (unmarried sister), 'cine-maa' (mother), the 'sidekick' or the 'sacrificer friend', 'munna bhai' (mafia) and 'dynamic horse' as well as a 'bonus pet' (a pigeon and a dog or a monkey). The thematic strings are exercised in terms of phrases such as 'andhaa kaanoon' (blind law), doodh ka karz (gratitude of milk or upbringing), 'zindagi na milegi dobara' (life is precious), 'dil se' (from the heart), 'dil chahta hai' (heart desires), 'deewangi' (ultimate love), and 'qurbani' (sacrifice) as well as 'lakshaya' (mission). The 'Bollwoodization' is a cultural process that surcharges 9 realism with spicy stuff • The conventional Hindi cinema recycles the cultural narratives with a high degree ofperformativity. Critics and scholars of film studies understand the process of the Bollywoodization which involves "poor imitation of art, evincing a lack of social realism, and merely spectacle of music, fantastical settings, melodrama and glittery aesthetics" (Desai and Dudrah :2- 3). Bollywoodization can also be understood in terms of a strategy ofadaptation, accommodation, indigenization and amalgamation. The induction of songs and dance is also an important part of the process. Besides, Bollywoodization also includes -a touch of glamour, romance, action, thrill and gory content. So, it is a process that transforms 'realism' into 'fantasy' and vice-versa. It works out through the strategy of adaptation, adjustment and remake of a cultural narrative.
II Before mapping out the ramifications of the 'Bollywoodization' on the 'red corridor', through a close analysis oftwo popular Hindi films, let us have a brief profile of the volatile space. The 'red corridor', in geographical terms, is a forest and mineral- rich landscape of India. It is also a 'passage' infamous for 'Naxal' activities that stretches from Jharkhand to Andhra Pradesh, covering in the process large tracts of the states of Chhatisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and West Bengal. In literature, the terrain represents a 'clash of cultures' -the tribal versus the civiL In terms of demography, it is a
80 very backward are consisting of uneducated, employed and poor people. Most of the Naxal-infested states have a 'crumbled economy' and thus are called 'bimaru states'. Much of the area is possessed by tribal population. Jn its social formation, the geographical stretch has stratified societies with class, caste and feudal divisions. Despite the availability of natural resources in plentitude, the economic situation in the red corridor is slump. In the absence of economic opportunities, the youth is bewildered. At the same time, an influx of a new class or outsiders such as traders, moneylenders and entrepreneurs is .taken as a threat by the local population. Even, government is not able to stop tribal alienation from their lands and resources. Perhaps, this is the reason why 'Naxalism' makes intoads in the red corridor. Naxalism attracts people who are dissatisfied with the system. The poor people and oppressed communities do not have access to government's policies devised for their development; consequently, they find themselves sympathetic towards the cause of Naxalism. In fact, Naxalism thrives in the areas where development has 1iot reached yet. Sanjay K Jha, a research fellow at Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA), conceptualized the term 'red corridor' for 'compact revolutionary zone' ofNaxalites in his report 'Left- Wing Extremism in 2004: An Assessment'. After the merger of People's War Group (PWG) and Maoist Communist Center (MCC) in the year 2004~ the influence ofNaxalites in the tribal belt of India has acquired almost a parallel system. A geographic terrain has thus been mapped out as Naxal-infested 'red corridor'. Today the space of this corridor covers around 220 districts- about 40% area of India.lt has acquired over the years marked political and ideological underpinnings. The ideological brandingofthe space of'red corridor' appears as a handiwork of not only the insiders but also of the outsiders. Nevertheless, the attendant discourse of tribal darkness and underdevelopment lends legitimacy to the actions of the Indian government to deal with Maoists heavy-handedly. Also, the government finds it a suitable site of promise to fulfiJI its rhetoric of security-deficit. The politically marginal 'Left' perceives the space
81 of 'red-corridor' as an existential space. In spite of 'red-corridor' being called a Naxalite dominated area, there are ideological clashes between the communities and political-groups. There are parties like CPI (M), CPI (ML), CPI and PWG as weH as Radical Youth League. Even the movement is disjointed. The space of red corridor is like a 'Chinese Box' -a story within a story.
III The complexity of 'red-corridor' thus provides a fertile ground for its nuanced narrativization in the BoJJywood films. In the realm of desire, entertainment and escare, the reality of red corridor acts as merely a backdrop or setting. The issues of representation remain the grey area. Within this context, the primary aim of the proposed paper is to map out the impact of 'Bollywoodization' on the social . reality of red corridor. The present study undertakes an investigation into the process of how Naxalite discourse is accommodated to the needs of the Bollywood films. Does the Bollywoodization of red corridor offer any solution to the problem? Does it contribute to the debate of 'Naxalism'? Does it serve as a safety valve to the public discontent with the development rhetoric of the state? Whose perspective or ideology is offered the popular Hindi cinema? To explore these questions, attempt will be to study the correlation of ideology with the content and style of select two films on red corridor. The primary text for the analysis will be Raavan (20 10) and Chakravyuh (2012). It is no longer a hidden fact that social-political movements and filmmaking often tend to inspire or conspire each other's domain. There are evidences across the world where films seem to raise a debate against the social injustice and discrimination. At the same time, there are cases when social movements inspire production of great films. Understandably, there is a considerable film literature on holocaust, Marxist revolution and social movements in Japan, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, Uruguay, Chile, France, Germany, Mexico and Russia. To name a few acclaimed films 'Night and Fog in Japan' (1960), 'La Chinoise' (1967), 'The Confession' (1970),
82 'State of Siege' (1972), 'Missing' (1982), 'The Great Debaters' (2007), 'Defiance' (2008) and 'Django Unchained' (2012). So it can be said that the Naxalite movement has acquired a significant space on the silver screen. Mrinal Sen's Calcutta trilogy - 'Interview' (1970), 'Calcutta 71' {1972), and 'Padatik' (1973); Satyajit Ray's -'Pratidwandi' (1970) and 'Seemabaddha' (1971); Shyam Benegal's -'Ankur'(1974), 'Nishant' (1975); Gov:ind Nihalani's 'Aakrosh' (1981) 3:nd 'Party'.(1984). We also see the explicit reference to Naxalite movement in the films -Khwaja Ahmad Abbas' 'The Naxalite' (1980); Nihalani's 'Bazaar Chaurasi ki Maa'(1998); Sudhir Mishra's 'Hazaroon Khwaishein Aisi' (2005); Kabeer Kaushik's 'Chamku' (2008); Mani Ratnam's 'Raavan' (2010) and Prakash Jha's -'Chakravyuh' (2012). Although the figure of a Naxalite does not exactlyproliferate in the Bollywood films yet it tends to raise a debate about Naxalism whenever the issue is represented on celluloid. The Bollywood films revamp the political violence ofred corridor 10 for masala-films • The 'Bo11ywoodization' of red corridor bespeaks the subservience of ideological issues to the market norms. Also, the cinematic scape of red corridor is either homogenized or oversimplified. For instance, the movement broke out in West Bengal, but it was never confined to that state only; it is a vast geographical stretch in varying degrees. For instance, Nihalani's attempt in Hindi cinema 'Hazar Chauras i ki Maa', contextual ized an urban setting in West Bengal. The film Hazar Chaurasi ki Maa tends to portray the dynamics of the movement but ends up in revealing the psychological growth of its central character Sujata. Within the same context, Sudhir Mishra's 'Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi' takes Naxalism as its central basis but finishes to highlight the traumatized psyche of a failed revolutionary Siddharth Tyabji. Therefore, it appears that the Bollywood films display the slightest · regard towards the idea of movement. They yield to the idea of Bollywoodization.
83 IV Reading Raavan (20 1 0)
The film Raavan (20 10) is directed by Mani Ratnam. A majority of his films testify to the grammar of Bollywood. His films are a fine combination of art and commercial viability. He is an expert in reworking ofthe Indian epics in tenns ofcontemporary socio-political concerns. The present film Raavan (2010) is an 'adaptation' of 11 Ramayana by Hindu sage Valmiki • So, the filmic adaptation of the image ofRavana is used in the both ways- on the one hand, to appropriate the image for commercial gains, and to salvage the same image, on the other hand. In terms of adaptation, film Raavan has its own aesthetics. The plot of the film revolves around the theme of good and evil. This film is highly symbolic as it has an allegorical meaning. At the outset, Beera is cast in the image of Ravana while Dev Pratap Sharma is cast into that of Rama. Ragini, a prototype of Sita, is kidnapped by Beera to avenge his sister's disgrace. Here, one should notice that the motif of 'vulnerable sister' is introduced in the film through Beera's abused sister which is a trademark of popular Hindi films. Dev Pratap Sharma (Ram) tries to s~t Ragini (Sita) free from the bondage of. Beera (Ravana). Beera is a noble character despite the fact that he has abducted Ragini. He is shown to maintain the dignity of his character. He saves Ragini when she tries to commit suicide. He also spares Dev Pratap Sharma's life in a duel. To the contrary, Dev Pratap Sharma ki11s him by using Ragini as bait. So, the filmmaker has tried to subvert the negative image of Ravana.ln due course of the film, audiences also realize that Beera is a moraiJy upright character and he is not at fault despite his heinous act of kidnapping Ragini. The very title of the feature film Raavan is culturally a loaded one, which is drawn from Indian mythology. The choice of the title seems deliberate. It might be used as an archetype in the narrative of red corridor which smells of a communal adulteration at ideological level. The image of Raavan represents evil in the mainstream popular culture. Therefore, according to the requirement of a Bollywood film, a story needs a villain and the
84 image of Ravana is a ready embodiment of the villainy. So, the film re-enacts the conflict between good and evil through the rarified images of Ram and Ravana. It foregrounds the image of Ravana, keeping in view Bollywood's passion for the anti-hero, of 12 late • Ravana is demonized and perceived as a villain in the mainstream Hindu culture but he is worshiped as a revered king of wisdom in minority cultures oflndia. There are tribes who worship Ravana the great mythological king of Lanka: "The Korku tribe call themselves as Ravan Vanshi and worship Ravana, his son Meghnad and his brother Kumbhakama. However they also worship Hindu Gods like Hanuman, Shrikrishna, Shri Ram, Ganesh etc." (Deogaonkar2003: 13). Apart from Korku, Gonds and Munda are other dominant sects that worship him. As the majoritarian culture of Hindus in India burns the effigy ofRavana, the filmmaker Prakash Jha has tried to re-read the image ofRavana. Valmiki Samaj also worships the idol ofRavana. Mani Ratnam's handling ofthe image ofRavana is an innovative and aesthetic choice as the role played by Beera (Ravana) is antithetical to his image in the 'sacred imagination'. On the level of aesthetics, the image ofvillainous Ravana is cleverly painted in contrast to benevolent Ram. The character ofBeera is appreciated by the audience, despite the fact that he is 'wanted' by the administration. According to film theory of adaptation, "A film has to convey its message by images and relatively few words; it has little tolerance for complexity or irony or tergiversations" (Hutcheon 2013: I). Also, a film has a short time span in contrast to novel or epic. Therefore, it seems to succumb to over-simplification of the s~bject. Within this context, it can be said that a popular Hindi film like Raavan cannot afford the tenets of realism. To understand this we have to understand the use of mise-en-scene technique. The mise-en-scene is one of the most prominent set oftechniques which is employed in the filmic-text. The literal meaning of mise-en-scene is 'scene on the stage.' It is important for an analysis of film to discuss the elements of mise-en-scene one by one, sequence by sequence and
85 shot by shot. The first element is setting. The setting of the filmic space is located in the state ofKerala nearby Athirappilly falls which invites the gaze of tourists. This in turn, damages the image of realistic cinema incurably as here false anthropology of the adivasi is served through an artificially constructed spectacle of the red corridor's atmosphere. The glittery portrayal of landscape creates an urge into the audience to watch the film . The deductive logic is that the director could not afford to give it an actual setting due to the fear of financial unattractiveness.
Figure I (a) Raavan dir. Mani Ratnam
Bollywood is known for its innovation and discovery of new spaces of economy because the cinema industry survives on profit-making scripts. Whether an action is staged melodramatically with the loud sound, colour and costume, is directly linked with the commercial aspects of a film as director keeps in mind what is going to fetch him more money and acclaim with least budget. The obvious reason behind branded star-cast is to cash in the surplus value of an image or icon. Needless to say, function of the Bollywood films has been to serve sensationalism, excitement and melodrama; but recently it is not as crude or uncouth; it is couched in aesthetics.
86 For illustration, the opening shot of the film describes an image of Beera in dark colour scheme which gives an ambiguous impression of his personality. The way he is projected through low camera angle, shows his stature. He is shown a larger than life figure. At the outset, Beera is described as a mowgli like boy invoking the image of unadulterated, uncorrupted and flawless son 13 of the 'red soil' • He is deceived by the state. The very purpose of introducing this shot is to create an image of the 'other'. So, technical aspects of a film are also responsible for the sense-perception. Perhaps the optimism associated with the artistic character of technology, makes Walter Benjamin to believe that 'cinema' might 14 serve as a socialist device to break the power structures • A viewer can develop an understanding that' lighting effect' is deliberate and whatever is on the screen is constructed through the magic of technology or spectacle. Simultaneously, a heavy show of sound and bright colors lend an escapist touch to the reader's eye. Just before the intermission, Beera tells Ragini how he has become an outlaw. The director uses the techniques of flashback to highlight the events. He emphasizes upon Beera's perspective of the events. Thus, through point of view technique, the director tends to reconcile the 'other' side of the Beera's story. Beera tells Ragini the story of his sister's abduction and sexual harassment by the local police. The audience can see how the tribal memory is fractured and traumatized. Although filmmaker makes a serious attempt to delineate the plight of people yet he fails to address the cause which is overshadowed by the showcase of technology. If we compare Mani Ratnam's treatment of emotion, he. falls behind ofthe precision of emotion proposed by legendary artist and filmmaker Satyaj it Ray. Mani Ratnam's treatment of tribal characters underscores the lack of humanism in the present day Bollywood. It is very ironical that the humanistic character of Bollywood is seriously compromised under the impact of market forces. The film Raavan is rich in symbols. In the figure 2(a), Mani Ratnam introduced a symbol of'burning bridge' which is burning form the both ends. Symbolically, the 'burning bridge' negates the possibility of reconciliation between the culture (state) and nature
87
.- Figure 2(a) Raavan dir. Mani Ratnam Figure 2(b) Raavan dir. Mani Ratnam
(native people). In Figure 2(b), it is shown that Beera is shot JY Dev Pratap Sharma, SP, but Beera's death is not confirmed. Tins, decoding the scene would reveal that there are three possibilities of such a shot selection for 'ending-shot' of the film. First, Beera does not follow the law; he is punished by the system. Second, Beera is forced to retreat in the nature. Third, it has a commercial viability. It hints at a probable remake of the film. The last interpretation of the ending-scene fits well in the Bollywood scheme.
v Reading Chakravyuh (2012) The film Chakravyuh (2012) is directed by Prakash Jha who is usually associated with the production of socio-political drama films . Although Chakravyuh is an artistic representation of Naxalism and political violence of red corridor yet it succumbs to masala format of the Bollywood films. It has action, bloodshed, po litics, poverty, and lush-green landscape capable of inviting viewers' gaze. The most important aspect of the film chakravyuh is the trap of emotions and morality. Since the Bollywood films are about 15 heightened emotions and melodrama • So, the availability of gory images in the narrative account of red corridor makes it a fit subject for the spectacle. The plot of the film revolves around the relationship of two friendsAdil and Kabir. At the outset of the film, Adil and Kabir are close friends. As soon as the plot unfolds, the violence of Left 16 Wing Extremism (LWE) creeps in • Adil represents authority as he is an SP. Kabir is a sensitive student and his heart bleeds for the
88 have-nots. According to the plot, the violence of extremists has become a headache for the administration and corporate houses. Adil is asked to cleanse the Naxalites. He then persuades Kabir to work as a secret agent for the police. The plot takes a narrative twist just before the intermission. Kabir spends time with the Naxalites and comes across the life style of comrades. He finds it ironical that tribal population has a life of hardships in the absence of basic amenities -food, shelter and cloth. Eventually, he is transformed into a comrade. He starts identifying with the people who are victims ofmis-governance, economic deprivation, sexual harassment and unauthorized detentions as well as absence of rule oflaw. He tries to explain all this toAdil, but his friend is helpless as his moral responsibility to his duty does not allow him to take side with the Naxalites. Both the friends are trapped in the chakravyuh of emotions and morality. The very idea of adopting a mythologized title Chakravyuh falls within the cultural mindset ofBollywood's films. It is a fit choice to the norms of the Bollywood formula of blending realism, mythology and fantasy. Chakravyuh literally means a trap. The symbol signifies a warfare technique in which there is no exit though one has the ability to enter into it. It is a lexical combination of two words 'chakrcr' and 'vyuh' which means a 'cycle of strategy' or 'formation that is impenetrable'. Filmmaker Prakash Jha seems to have deliberately used this title to underscore the impenetrable reality of red corridor. At the same time, the title is vindictive or a tactical metaphor to highlight the helplessness of those who are caught in the political violence of red corridor. The title has its reference in 17 Mahabharatcr -the great Indian epic • It appears that the filmmaker Prakash Jha has tried to capture the 'bewilderment of youth' through the analogy of chakravyuh. The significance of the title lies in treatment of the characters in the film chakravyuh. The reality of the red corridor is inaccessible as official representations 18 ofNaxalism simply make it a tricky subject •
89 Figure 3. Chakravyuh dir. Prakash Jha
Figure 3 is a shot selected from the movie Chakravyuh. In this shot, Prakash Jha has captured and tried to unfold the origin of Indian Naxalism through multiple sources of ideological formulation of red corridor. 1n this shot, there are four iconic faces of Marxism -Stalin (Russian, extreme left), Lenin (Russian, second from left), Mao Tse Tung (Chinese leader, second from right) and Karl Marx (German, extreme right in the picture). Prakash Jha's art is subtle and nuanced.
Figure 4(a) shot from chakravyuh Figure 4(b) chakravyuh dir. Prakash Jha dir. Prakash Jha; Figure 4(a) shot from Chakravyuh (SP and his attendant looking , at the bridge which leads to embattled zone). In Figure 4(b ), a broken bridge is shown (which becomes an un-crossable bridge as the presence of police-action is perceived intimidating to locals). The metaphor of'bridge' is often used in films and literature to explore the possibility of negotiation between two cultures, events and parties. It has a symbolic value. The symbol of bridge reflects
90 upon the strategic value of landscape which lies on cultural cusp. This bridge which is shown in the above shots points towards the position of in-betweeness or liminal space. The Iimina Iity of space has vast possibilities of dialogue as it belongs to both sides. In the figure 4 (a) there is a red banner as a warning facing the audience and authorities that states that the encroachment of primitive landscape which is rich in resources but is restricted and conditional. There are certain demands from the Naxalites. If the demands are acceptable to the authorities, peace is possible. The color of the flag is red which has an explicit relation with the ideology of Left. This also marks an emphasis on the penetration of color red, deep into the primitive space of tribal communities, Filmmaker Prakash Jha's subtlety of introducing the theme with the metaphor of bridge creates an aesthetic appeal.
Figure 5 Ending scene-shot from the film Chakravyuh. Dir. Prakash Jha
The shot in the above figure reveals that Naxalism is the pressing theme of the film. This is evident in the setting of the shot. The crimson color of the background tends to establish it as a 'red zone'. In fact, the color 'red' is associated with the idea of revolution in Marxist tenns. There are anonymous and countless faces that appear in the background. This shows that movement is above any individual or his identity. The overall impression of the shot reveals that the filmmaker has tried to establish the significance of color red against the background of forest and mountain which symbolizes a fiery
91 revolution, blood and passion are inherent features ofthe landscape. At the same time, the technique of 'fade-out' underscores that the movement is fading with the time. People are moving towards an unknown destination which might stand for movement, migration or displacement; their faces are not clear. Perhaps, the fi 1m maker does not give primary importance to the portrayal of individuals and their individuality rather he has marked upon the event of collectivity for which they stand united and organized. Their identification is neither revealed nor required. Prakash Jha has tried to explore the penetration of color 'red' into the 'space' of 'jungles'. This 'establishing shot' states that the locality is caught in a ferocious war and bloodshed between the natives and the intruders. To come to the characterization, Kabir 's individuality is shown in conflict with the society. He is positioned in harmony with the marginalized society. The metamorphosis in Kabir's character, if highlighted significantly, would bring change in the attitude of the society.The film has failed to highlight that grey area of transformation as he is killed by the police as a punshiment for his militancy. The film has a strict message that comes out with the death ofKabir: the state is absolute and supreme. The filmic-space ends up in asserting the authority of the state while denying the room for dissent and dialogue. Here, the ending of the film takes off on a high emotional pitch as the issue of morality creeps in. These are strategies in the Bollywood films to dilute the substance with melodrama. The Bollywoodization of red corridor does not offer a true account of the tribal landscape. Instead it exploits the aura of a primitive landscape. The idea of nation-state runs through the film as a 'cultural code' .. It is very ironical that the Bollywoodization of space allows rebel images to fall in the fantastic spectacle.
VI The issue of red corridor in its realistic manifestation is so volatile that if any director or producer exhibits any sort of fidelity to the realistic portrayal, he will have to face heavy financial losses, cuts
92 and editing from the censor board; apart from life-threats. The fact finds its suitable expression in the words of K. A. Abbas: "I'm making the Naxalites -a very dangerous film. l feel scared of being shot at from both sides, though I think it is neither a glorification nor a denigration of the Naxalites. I only hope that the film is not misunderstood as my story 'sardarj i' was" ( 1970: np ). However, since the emergence of the Naxalite movement, the Bollywood has produced many films on the theme. It seems that the Bollywoodization of 'red-corridor' creates new spaces of economy while popu Jar Hindi films lack nuances of representation. It also appears that conventional Hindi films do not present any real or virtual threat to the idea ofthe authoritarian state. The present day Bollywood films fail to endorse or invoke the strident militant radicalism which could be seen in the popular Hindi films of 1950s and 1960s.lt is ironical that in the entire Bollywood industry no filmmaker dares to speak about the red corridor as a space of political consciousness. The Bollywoodization of space works in the ambit of the formal determinants of the mainstream Hindu culture in order to retain its traditional cultural syncretism. Within this context, Prasad has rightly summed up the ideology of Hindi film: "It is a modem cultural institution whose unique features can be related directly or indirectly to the specificity of the socio political formation of the Indian State" (Prasad 2010: vii). Whether it is social-drama, formula film, Mumbai noir, or art movie, Bollywoodization appears to find or create new spaces of capitalist economy while constantly annihilating the space of story in the age of multiplex culture. 19
NOTES 'Red Corridor' is a term used by Institute of Defense and Strategic Analyses, for naxal-affected area. It is spread across the south-east and central India. Although the geographical terrain is portrayed in terms of static details, it is vivid and full of complexity. It has diversified societies, economy and resources. It has become a 'site of promise' for various stake-holders viz. Naxalites, CPl, CPI (M), CPI(ML), corporate mafia, activists and government. According to Rajinder Dudrah, "Bollywood is the 'monikar' for popular Hindi cinema from Mumbai (formerly Bombay). The 'name' has become an
93 important catchword in the vocabulary ofglobal South Asian popular culture" (Dudrah 13 ). The title Bollywood has become a subject of debate. 'Bollywood' as a term is derived from 'Hollywood', which postcolonial critic dissent. While some scholars see it as a derogatory term, in terms of imitation of Hollywood, others see in this 'monikar' a mimicry that is 'both a response and a resistance' to Hollywood. So, whether this term is subversive or pejorative is a matter of argument. For further details, please refer to Dudrah's Hollywood: Sociology Goes to the Movies (2006). Sudhir Kakar writes in his book Intimate Relations: Exploring Indian Sexuality that Hindi cinema represents a collective fantasy - a group daydream, containing unconscious material and hidden wishes of a vast number ofpeople. It is not overly complex - the producers and directors, etc are strongly motivated by the very reasonable goal of making a lot of money. The daydream they develop is not idiosyncratic. They must appeal to those concerns of the audience which are shared; if they do not, the tilm's appeal is bound to be disastrously limited. 4The use ofthe tenn 'fantasy' percolates the ordinary sense of the word that is 'eccentricity', 'whimsy' or 'trivial'. Here, it is used as another name for 'world of imagination' which is charged with desire. In the Bollywood tilms, the fantasy represents the desire to escape in another world which is unreal. So, fantasy is the situatedness of desire or the dramatization of desire in a visual form on the stage. As a literary genre, cinema is close to drama; therefore, darsana theory in the Bollywood films refers to 'visual' form of the film. Darsana is a Sanskrit word which means 'sight', 'vision' or 'appearance'. In Hinduism, it represents an act of beholding a deity, divine figure or sacred object. Hindu discourses view images as ways of getting acquainted with the 'Other'. It is transtormative experience. In the present context, darsana refers to the desire of the people to interchange their position with the actor in the film. Uttara AshaCoorlawala writes that a mutually complicit merging of subject-o~ject positions is a necessary requisite to darshan. Please refer to the. article "Darshan and Abhinaya". Also, Marie Gillespie undertakes a study of'devotional viewing' or 'sacred soaps' such as Mahabharata, Ramayana and family videos of rites of passage to propose her theory of darsana in Television, Ethnicity and Cultural Change (Routledge, 2002). The central argument ofthe book Ideology ofthe Hindi Film revolves around the relationship of spectators to the Bollywood film. Prasad tends to explore the darsana paradigm in the Bollywood films. He posits that the Bollywood films follow a certain 'narrative code' which is familiar with the audience. He also finds it problematic in Bollywood to screen 'Hindustan' as equivalent to 'India'. Obviously, he has some reservation over the concept of'being Indian' and 'being Hindu'. He proposes in his analysis that being 'Indian' does not mean being 'Hindu' and vice-versa.
94 Technicolor fantasies designate color-films in Bollywood (as the paper deals with the Bollywoodization). These are films that are not happened to be in color but they have exploited the color scheme to· make the substance more glittery and eye-catching. In fact, they have replaced stark-realism and reality. Voyeurism is the practice of achieving sexual pleasure through watching others when they are naked. The concept is explored in detail by Laura Mulvey in the essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". The Bollywood films are essentially seen as having voyeuristic tendency in their content. Bollywoodization is a process in which things are adapted, re-adjusted or reproduced according to the needs of the Bollywood industry. IU Masala (spice) is used to refer to a particular kind of film genre that uses a formulaic plot, the stipulated number song and dance sequences, action, melodrama, and all other staples of commercial Hindi Cinema that work extremely good for box-office collection in multiplex culture. II Linda Hutcheon posits in her book A Theory of Adaptation (2006) that adaptations are everywhere today. It is on the television and movie screen. It is also on the internet, in novels and comic books. She argues that adaptation is a reworking of the subject through a process of re-adjustment, alteration and accommodation: "An adaptation is an announced and extensive transposition of a particular work or works. This 'transcoding' can involve a shift of medium (a poem to a film) or genre (an epic to a novel), or a change of frame and therefore context; telling the same story from a different point of view, tor instance, can create a manifestly different interpretation [ ... ] the act ofadaptation always involves both (re-) interpretation and then (re-) creation; this has been called both appropriation and salvaging (Linda Hutcheon 7-8)". 12 Popular Hindi films revolve around a theme of conflict between good and evil. For decades, Bollywood films have exploited the aura of the image of a 'hero'. But, in recent times, it seems that the image of 'hero' is a spent force in Bollywood. So, the focus has shifted to the image of anti-hero. The first conventional Hindi film that seems to introduce the image of anti-hero is Mehboob Khan's classic film Mother India ( 1957). Bi~ju, (Sunil Dutt) who cannot bear with the corrupt system and stinging poverty, is credited with the epithet of tirst 'anti-hero' in popular Hindi tilms. Then, it has become a general trend in the Bollywood films to mark special emphasis on the image of'anti-hero': smuggler Vijay Verma (Amitabh Bachchan) in Deewar ( 1975); criminal Ballu (Sanjay Dutt) in Khalnayak ( 1993 ); Sultan (Ajay Devgan) in Once Upon a Time in Mumbai (20 I 0) and so on. Thus, the heroic thrill of anti-hero offers an action-packed drama. The image of 'anti-hero' is often introduced in Indian Hindi action-thrillertilms. The present film also belongs . to the same genre.
95 13 Colonial writer Rudyard Kipling invented the character of'Mowgli' in order to romanticize the native culture of the colonies. It invokes the image of an unadulterated, pristine and primitive man. The purpose of such representations is to create an image ofthe 'Other'. J 4 Walter Benjamin, a cultural theorist, contemplates over the use and impact of technology on our culture of everyday. He speculates on the role of technology in the production of art and vice versa. On the one hand, he elaborates that technological advancement has made 'art' accessible to common man; he wonders that it will wither away the 'aura' of the subject, on the other hand. Similarly, in his essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", he posits that cinema as an art form may lull you in a passive consumption of a text or may introduce you to the potential site of unrest, depending on your perspective. 15 Melodrama is a genre in Film Studies. It refers to musical drama or play with music. The function of melodrama is to cater to the entertainment needs of mass audience instead of an aesthetic taste for an educated class. A melodrama is replete with emotional plentitude. Most of the Bollywood films belong to this genre. 16 Official accounts of'red corridor' consider 'Naxalite' militancy as the greatest internal security threat of the country. Government perceives the problem of Naxals as a problem of law and order. Therefore, it has constituted a 'Left Wing Extremism Division' w.e.f. 16 October 2006. The LWE Division monitors the LWE situation. It also takes counter measures to wipe out Naxalites from the forests. It works under the Ministry of Home Affairs. The primary purpose of LWE Division to implement various. development schemes in LWE affected areas. For more details, please refer to: http://mha.nic.in/ naxal new 17 In the classical Hindu text of Mahabharata, there appears a story about Chakravyuh with reference to the 'Great War of Kurukshetra' which is also known as Dharam l'z1dh. According to the story, on the thirteenth day of the war of Mahabharata, Dronacharya, the commander of Kaurava army, planned to divert Atjuna and Krishna to chase away so that in the absence he could capture Yudishthira to avoid the prolonged war. So, he created a giant discus formation. Nobody could break that formation except warriors A~juna and Krishna. At this conjecture, Abhimanyu offers himself in the service of his king. He was the son of A~jun and Subhadra and nephew of Lord Krishna. He didn't know how to break the formation and got into the trap. Likewise, people in the red corridor do not how break the narrative discourse of red corridor and stuck into that. Perhaps, the filmmaker had this in mind and wanted to convey the same idea through the analogy of chakravyuh. The ideological significance of chakravyuh is that discourse on red corridor is a trap. In the present film, the theme of chakravyuh is adopted to highlight the problem of red corridor where most of the youth is fascinated with the
96 'romantic idea of war'. Naxalites as well as security forces use 'disillusioned' youth as human shield. 18 Official discourse of red corridor varies time to time. At the offshoot of Naxalism, it is considered an agrarian crisis due to the unequal distribution of land and resources. By the time, movement enters into the era of emergency it is regarded as a problem law and order. Later on, in 1990s, it is seen as a development problem. Again, post-2000, it is viewed as Left Wing Extremism. Therefore, there is a shifting stand of government on the issue ofNaxalism. For more details please visit., http://mha.nic.in/naxal new and the report "When State. Makes War on Its Own People" and "Development Challenges in Extremist Affected Areas". 19 The idea of 'multiplex culture' is essentially linked with the increasing 'urbanization of space'. After making of a tilm, it comes to how to sell it and where to seJl it. Therefore the search tor a suitable 'place' leads to 'urban landscape' which owes a strategic surplus from the point of view of the target audience. The term multiplex stands for multiple screens. In the contemporary era of the popular Hindi films, there has been witnessed a transition in the exhibition of films from 'single screen' to multiplex display. The driving force of'multiplex culture' is the 'cultural economy of urban leisure'. Watching a movie in a multiplex with its 'cozy surroundings', has transformed the idea of'audience'. For further reading, please consult., The Multiplex in India: A Cultural Economy ofUrban Leisure (20 I 0).
Works Cited
Abbas, Khw~jaAhmad. (2011) "An Evening in Lucknow".lndian Literary Review Ed. Suresh Kohli. New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2011. Print. n.p. I 8112.
Desai, Jigna and R~jinder Dudrah ."The Essential Bollywood". Web Access: 12 June 2017. Deogaonkar, S G and Shailaja S Deogaonkar (2003) Tribal Dance and Songs. (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company) Ganti, Tejaswan (2012) Producing Bollywood: Inside the Contemporary Hindi Film Industry. (New Delhi: Orient Black Swan). (Gehlawat xiv) Hutcheon, Linda (20 J 3) A Theory ofAdaptation. (USA: Routledge) Jha, Prakash. (2012) Chakravyuh: A War You Cannot J:.scape. Perf.Arjun Rampal, Esl)a Gupta, Manoj Bajpayee, Om Puri, Anjali Patil and Abhay Deol. Film. Kakar, Sudhir ( 1989). Intimate Relations: Exploring Indian Sexuality. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). Prasad, M Madhava (20 10) Ideology ofthe Hindi Film: A Historical Construction. (New York: Oxford University Press).
97 -. (2003) "This Thing Called Hollywood". Seminar Magazine 525 . Web Access: 10 May 2017. Ratnam, Mani. (20 10) Raavan. Perf. Vikram, Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Govinda and Ravi Kishan. Film. Ray, Satyajit. (1976). Our Films, Their Films. (New Delhi: Orient Longman). Ziarek, Krzysztof(2005) "The Work ofArt in the Age ofits Electronic Mutability." Walter Benjamin and Art. Ed. Andrew Benjamin. (New York: Continuum).
98 DR. MAHI YOGESH
ll))ecodling the postmodern. narrative tlllroungh §has hi 1rbaroor's Riot
Postmodemism was not another literary era to follow modernism. Postmodemism was a response to the hopelessness that modernism had brought with its enlightenment, reason, science and progress. The Holocaust ofthe Second World War had shaken the stability of the world. The progress that science had promised to bring had also brought devastation at an unprecedented level. The dominant postmodemist themes involved fractured, shifting, multiple-conflicting realities that deliberately broke down our allegiance and faith in a single world. Me Hale in his book Postmodernist Fiction uses the
Lecturer, Department of English.~ Govt. College, Kullu, H.P.
99 term "flicker" for postmodernism whose readers experienced anomalous, disorienting shifts in the presented fictional world ( 1987: 32). Reality flickered and the readers grappled for the truth. Gone were the days when the reader could take a novel in hand and be immersed in the linear narrative stance that it produced. Now you couldn't sit back as a passive reader listening to an omniscient narrator who knew everything and controlled everything. Postmodemists did not conform to the perfect beginning, middle and end concept, now they knew of indeterminacy. With the onset ofthe twentieth centwy novel with authors like Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and William Faulkner a new trend of 'stream of consciousness' technique emerged. This was enough to baffle the readers who were shaken offtheir comfort. The meaning had to be found and one had to strUggle in dofng so. The post war period brought with it disillusionment with science, progress, reason, universal truths and teleological history. The postmodemists made fun ofall that had been written and shocked the world with the new narratives they produced. The narratives hurled the information at the readers who had to now buckle up to begin a new task of giving meaning to the absurdity. Postmodemism celebrated fragmentation, disjointedness and indeterminacy. Postmodemists combined parody and pastiche which further changed the narrative form and took away from it the omniscient authority. Works by postmodem writers like Beckett and Burroughs challenged the readers as they no longer allowed them to remain passive consumer$ ofthe text. The postmodemist texts did not give their meaning easily over to the readers; rather the meaning had to be dug out after a struggle of disentangling of the textual web. For Teny Eagleton postmodem literature is "arbitrary, eclectic, hybrid, decentred, fluid, discontinuous, pastiche Jike" and he feels that postmodem literature "spurns metaphysical profundity for a kind of contrived depthlessness .. .its fonn is ironic and its epistemology relativist and sceptical" ( 1996: 201 ). Shashi Tharoor's Riot is a love story set amidst a north Indian town Zalilgarh which is blazing with violent communal tension among
100 Hindus and Muslims. The murder mystery of an American doctoral student Pricilla Hart passionately in love with the district magistrate Lakshman, holds the· centre stage in the n9vel. Pricilla genuinely cares for the women she is trying to help in the town. Through her conversations with Lakshman and her work in the ghettos, Pricilla is exposed to a number of issues pervasive in the society that she is unaware of. Her parents arrive a few days after her murder to find out the reasons oftheir daughter's mysterious death. They try their best to comprehend what might have happened but have to return unsatisfied with the belief that her death had a lot of political and personal connections behind it. The title of the novel Riot has its foreboding on the lives of various characters. The brutal killing of Pricilla during one such mayhem is a result of one such case of fanatics running amuck. Gurinder the Superintendent ofPolice remembers with pain losing two members of his family in a riot that followed the assassination of the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her own sikh security men in 1984. Even though some very serious issues concerning the Indian polity have been discussed, the love story ofPricilla and Lakshman doesn't lose its grip on the narrative. The present paper attempts to analyse the novel closely, to look for the literary characteristics that qualify the text as a postmodem work.
I The first page ofthe novel a newspaper article about Pricilla's death raises a few pertinent questions in the minds of the readers. The investigation begins right there and then. In about 78 sections different voices make themselves heard. The date on the top of each section conspicuously points out that the narrative moves in an un-chronological manner. The narrative in Riot is in form of newspaper reports, diary entries, cable written entirely. in bold, transcripts, poems, letters, conversations, and interviews. Precisely you can read the novel from anywhere and one thing leads to an~~ .
101 Riot's narrative comes very close to the ·innovative cut-up technique developed by Burroughs and Brion Gysin. Burroughs acknowledges T. S. Eliot's work The Waste Land as "the first great cut-up collage" and he also emphasizes that Gysin developed the innovative cut-up method which was later reshaped by him ( 1978 : 3). Riot is not a perfect cut-up of one text but a collage of various forms of written pieces, public and private that have been sliced and· randomly put together to complete the narrative of the novel. Pages from Pricilla's diary, newspaper cuttings, transcripts, have all been rearranged. Robinson explains:
As such, we can see that a new generation of writers are finding that the cut-up method is a useful tool for grappling with questions of identity and narrative in the digital age. If anything, given the fragmentation of information disseminated by means of the internet, and the pace with which it is circulated in which "virtual" . identities can be constructed and dissolved instantaneously, the cut-up is closer to our actual perception than ever (2011 :263).
The various sections in the novel have an individuality of their own but their coming together to give meaning to this tale destroys this uniqueness which makes the following statement sound true- "the experimental cutting edge ofmodernity'' has "historically given itself a double task: to destroy and to invent" (Calinescu 1987: 275). The sections which together make up the narrative can be seen as two set of entries. First set is made up of letters and the diary entries which bring us closer to the characters and help us to know them better. The sec~nd set comprises of interviews, conversations and transcripts that assist the reader cum sleuth who is also trying to solve the murder mystery. · In one of the diary entries Lak~hman expresses his passion for. writing and he declares with exhilaration- "Down with the omniscient narrator! It's time for the omniscient reader. Let the reader construct her own novel each time she reads it" (Tharoor, 2001 : 13 6). There is no authorial voice that guides the readers in the novel. We the readers are constructing and deconstructing the text each time we choose to read it from beginning to end or in any manner that suits us. Turning the pages ofRiot and skimming through the multi-layered narrative that unfolds before us : 102 We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single 'theological' meaning· (the 'message' of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety ofwritings, none ofthem original, blend and clash ... Thus is revealed the total existence ofwriting: a text is made ofmultiple writings, draWn from many cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue, parody, contestation, but there is one place where this.multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader, not, as was hitherto said, the author (Barthes, 2007:167-168).
II Tharoor has based the plot of the novel on two incidents - first an unpublished account of a riot in Khargone, Madhya Pradesh by his lAS friend Harsh Mandar and second, the news of ~illing of an idealist Fulbright scholar Amy Biehl in South Africa by a violent black mob. He has also mentioned that "the research by Professor Mohammed Sarwar on Ghazi Miyan is based on the actual work of Professor ShahidAmin ofDelhi University... The efforts ofRudyard Hart on behalf of Coca-Cola in India were in fact undertaken by Kisan Mehta" (Tharoor 2001: 2 71 ). All these incidents and people bear no relation to each other and they appear in the novel anachronistically. Tharoor has diligently brought all the bits and pieces of information to fit in the frame. · There are more inter-textual allusions that can· be traced in the plot of the novel that Tharoor has not spoken of. Pricilla's coming close to Laxman can also be seen as West coming close to the East and we are reminded of Adela QueSted coming to India in E. M. Forster's famous novel Passage to India. Adela wanted to see the real India and was not just satisfied by the bridge party organised for her. Pricilla is also not a tourist who wants to take souvenirs back home, she is here for a serious purpose ofhelping and bringing a positive change in the lives of Indian women living in slums. Just like Adela, Pricilla is unaware of the intricacies of a foreign culture that she wants to penetrate. The east and west combination does not end up so well and it appears to cast a shadow on our present day heroine who is playing with fire. Adela is humiliated, rejected and despised by the Indian masses and has to return home with a broken heart.
103 Pricilla too is disillusioned and shattered in the end and couldn't even afford to return home. She writes about it to her friend in a letter, "He's married, he's Indian, I'm far away and lonely and don't know what I'm doing. If I were you, I'd worry about me too!..Am I crazy, Cindy? Don't bother replying to that question-by the time your answers arrive I' II know whether I've just been really dumb or whether I've simply found Mr. Right in the wrong place at the wrong time"(Thaoor 2001: 69). Lakshman on the other hand differs from her as he feels that there is nothing as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He believes "We are where we are at the only time we have" adding "perhaps it's where we're meant to be" (Tharoor 200 1: 267).
III According to Patricia Waugh: Metafiction is a term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality. In providing a critique of their own methods of construction, such writings not only examine the fundamental structures of narrative fiction, they also explore the possible fictionality of the world outside the literary fictional text (1984:2).
Lakshman who often quotes Wilde has a deep desire to write a novel and he reveals it to Pricilla how he plans to do it. He says: I'd like to write a novel... that doesn't read like a novel. Novels are too easy-they tell a story, in a linear narrative, from start to finish. They've done that for decades .. .I'd do it differently... why can't I write a novel that reads like-like and encyclopaedia? .. You pick up chapter 23, and you get one thread of the plot. Then you go forwards to chapter 37, or backwards to 16, and you get a thread .. .It's like each bit of reading adds to the sum total of the reader's knowledge, just like an encyclopaedia (Tharoor 2001: 135-136).
Lakshman doesn't want a traditional narrative style to narrate his story; he wants to change it all. Tharoor has accomplished the arduous task of writing a novel in such a manner. The novel can be read back and forth or in any manner the readers choose to approach the text to decipher the riddle that they are assiduously trying to do.
104 Tharoor prefers using a fractured narrative style to tell the story of a fragmented society which is somehow holding on to itself nonetheless its variegated stigmas. For knowing the past we are dependent on the interpretations of the historical records by the historians. The historian interprets these facts from his biases, prejudices and position he chooses to take. A lot goes into the writing of history which is a narrative of what has qeen heard and reported of. The historians employ metaphorical, rhetorical and ideological strategies to understand and explain the recorded facts. Postmodernists are interested in the literary and the aesthetic aspects of the historical accounts. Postmodernists challenge this tenet of history as a grand narrative and deny the idea ofundisputed historical truth and objectivity. Tharoor deviates from the traditional historical novel in his representation of the various historical accounts in the text. On the contrary, he mocks at the dominant, hegemonic power structures which are completely responsible and decisive in creation of these situations in which the masses become a victim of political venality. History serves the purpose of associating our present with a past memory and thus also giving us a 'deep sense of identity. By giving voice to new interpretations-the mini narratives and by discarding the metanarrative postmodemists subvert the status quo of the homogenised historical truth. Tharoor gives space to multiple historical facts. Many voices are heard which vehemently express their understanding ofhistory in their way. The multiple voices that speak to the reader with equal authority make Riot a polyphonic and a dialogic text. For Bakhtin all speech utterances are polyphonic and this many voicedness is the imperative condition "governing the operation of meaning in any utterance" ( 1981: 428). The local Hindu leader Ram Charan Gupta claims to own India's history. He believes and asserts that: Lord Rama was born in Ayodhya many thousands of years ago .. .In olden days a great temple stood there ... But a Muslim king, the Mughal emperor Babar, a foreigner from Central Asia ... knocked it down. And in its place he built a big mosque ... the Babri Mosque ... Naturally our community was very much hurt by this ... We thought then that after independence, everything would change ... But would the courts
105 listen? They are all atheists and communists in power in or country, people who have lost their roots ... They said no, neither Hindus nor Muslims could worship there .. .l ask you, is this fair? Do·we Hindus have no rights in our own country (Tharoor2001: 52-53)?
Prof. Sarwar answers him elsewhere by questioning his claims over India's history. He asks: "But who owns India's history? Are there my history and his-history, and his history about my history? This is, in many ways, what this whole Ram Janambhoomi agitation is about -about the reclaiming of history by those who feel that they were, at one point, written out of the script. But can they write a new history without doing violence to the inheritors ofth~ old (Tharoor 2001: 11 0)? Manoj Kumar Jha warns us against the likes of Ram Charan Gupta, who only spew hatred at Indian Muslims. Lakshman and Prof. Sarwar also disagree with this vague and prejudiced notion of history which to them is more a myth. Prof. Sarwar argues:
Isn't it amazing how these Hindu chauvinist types claim history on their side? The precision, the exactness, oftheir dating techniques are enough to drive a mere professor like me to distraction ... Their own beliefs are that Rama flourished in the treta-yuga of Hindu tradition, which means their historical exactitude goes back, oh, about a million years. What is a mere historian like me to do in the face of such breath-taking knowledge (Tharoor 2001: 180)?
Explaining the implications ofthis multi voiced- polyphony Bakhtin states that "each word tastes of the context and the contexts in which it has lived its socially charged life; all words and forms· are populated by intentions" ( 1981 :293). The various conversations that take place in the novel whether in the presence ofthe characters or in their absence are well intentioned. Even though all the utterances are not direct conversations among various characters most ofthem bear a dialogic relationship between them. In absentia the dialogue continues, asserting oneself and defying the other. Prof. Sarwar who downrightly refuses to be battered by the likes of Ram Charan Gupta proudly states\ "I am a Musulman and proud of the fact.. .In addition, I am proud of being an Indian. I am part of that indivisible unity that is Indian nationality.. .I am indispensible to this noble edifice. Without me this splendid structure
106 ofIndia is incomplete" (Tharoor 2001: 108). Lakshman also seconds Prof. Sarwar's opinion. He states, "Hinduism that I know understands that faith is a matter of hearts and minds, not bricks and stone 'Build Ram in your heart', the Hindu is enjoined; and if Ram is in your heart, it will matter little where else he is, or is not. Why should today's Muslims have to pay for what Muslims may have done four hundred and fifty years ago" (Tharoor, 2001: 145)? He also strikes at his detractors stating:
I am proud of my Hinduism: I take pride in its diversity, in its openness, in religious freedom ... But that's not what .Mr. Gupta is proud of when he says he's proud to be a Hindu ... The rage of the Hindu mobs being stoked by the bigots is the rage of those who feel themselves supplanted in this competition of identities, who think that they are taking their country back from the usurpers of long ago. They want revenge against history, but they do not realize that history is its own revenge ( 146-14 7).
Tharoor also purports that the stability ofthe Indian society is nothing more than a myth, a mere construct which we love to mislead ourselves into. He prefers to call it myth-history. Sathayaraj. V. aptly states'that, "The more fundamental question perhaps explored in the text is the question of what exactly constitutes history. As far as Hindu fanatics like Ram Charan Gupta are concerned they are clear in the view of Hindu myths and legends associated with texts like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata as part of mainstream historical discourse". (2006: 61). A lot of hypocrisy and ugliness in the society is surfaced in the novel which threatens to denigrate the established myths in the Indian society. Hindu Muslim conflicts in form of riots attack the secular status of the nation; Lakshman 's looking for an escape in Pricilla uncovers the sham of his happy married life; Professor Sarwar's distress and shame on being questioned about his true identity also reveals the pretence of acceptance for all; women being tortured in ghettos and burnt alive for dowry also brings out the grotesque picture of our society which promises to protect its women.
107 IV Tharoor suggests that just like there can be multiple representations ofhistory, a possibility of multiple truths cannot be denied. The novel is strewn with clues which we need to pick and use to investigate. There are multiple voices which are making themselves heard adding information to the investigation ofPricilla's murder mystery we as readers are trying to solve. Pricilla being a foreigner penetrates a culture she little understands. She is not liked for her ways and her ideas. Ram Charan Gupta the orthodox Hindu leader who has been insulted and belittled by Lakshman on several occasions is looking for an opportunity to strike back. He has become well aware ofLakshman and Pricilla's affair and even sends goons to their hideout at KotlL Ali who lives in a ghetto is also offended by a foreigner who penetrates his house and brainwashes his wife to practice family planning and even he threatens Pricilla to stop interfering in his life. Even Lakshman 's wife Geeta thanks God for listening to her prayers and vows to make an offering after she hears of Pricilla's murder. For Lakshman also Pricilla is nothing more than an escape from realitY and he believes that her magic cannot survive too much realism. He knows he cannot give it up all for Pricilla who is more a dream turned into reality. He cannot but will have to get rid ofher ultimately. Pricilla has been writing to her mother about the man in her life without actually giving away his identity. When her mother comes to India to collect her things after her death she meets Lakshman. Pricilla had talked of an overworked, overweight and married man she is seeing. Lakshman is curt and acknowledges his meeting Pricilla only a few times officially, but Mrs. Hart comes close in her observation of identifying him as Pricilla's lover. After listening to the multiple voices and their multiple truths about the entire situation, we as readers cum authors come very close in solving the case but the ultimate truth still remains hidden. For Lakshman "truth is elusive, subtle, many-sided" (Tharoor 2001:13 7). In one ofhis meetings with Pricilla's father, Mr. Rudyard Hart refuses to believe in one truth. He says "Truth Alone Triumphs." It's on all our letterheads- and on this visiting card I've given you.
108 Truth Alone Triumphs. But sometimes I'm tempted to ask, whose truth" (Tharoor 2001 :236)? Tharoor has used mini narratives and multiple points ofview to bring out the truth which he as well as his characters believe, is many sided. Lakshman and Sarwar out refuse to be guided by the myth history that claims India's past. The home spun myth history is rejected, that denies Indians their right to be a part of kaleidoscope, which like a postmodem text celebrates differences.
Works Cited Bakhtin, M. M. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist Ed. Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press). Barthes, Roland (2007) "Death of the Author." Modern Criticism and Theory: A Reader. Edn. 2. Eds. David Lodge and Nigel Wood (New Delhi: Dorling KindersJey Publishing Inc.) Burroughs, WilliamS. and Brion Gysin (1978) The Third Mind (New York: The Viking Press). · Calinescu, Matei (1987) Five Faces of Modernity (Durham: Duke University Press). Eagleton, Terry (1996) Literary Theory:An Introduction. Edn. 2. (Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers). Hutcheon, Linda (1988)A Poetics ofPostmodernism (London: Routledge). Jha Manoj, Kumar. (2001) "Riot by Shashi Tharoor."New Quest, No 146: 506- 512. Me Hale, Brian (1987) Postmodernist Fiction (London: Routledge). Robinson, EdwardS. (2001) Shift Linguals Cut- Up Narratives from WilHam S. Burroughs to the Present (Amsterdam: Rudopi). Tharoor, Shashi (2001) Riot: A Novel (New Delhi: Viking Penguin India). V, Sathayaraj (2006) "History in Shreds: A Reading of Shashi Tharoor's Riot." Indian Writings in English Eds. Binod Mishra and Sanjay Kumar (New Delhi: Sarup). · Waugh, Patricia. (1984) Metafiction: the Theory and Practice ofSelf-conscious Fiction (London: Routledge). 1 J,. White, Hayden. (1987) The Content ofForm: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (London: The John Hopkins University Press).
109 LAKSHMISREE BANERJEE
Worndl Women Poets: Sisters of the §oil
In the context and ambit of Postcolonial Studies as an area of interrogation, rejection and resistance against various forms of hegemony and dogma, Women's Poetry has often been stereotyped as a Literature of Exclusion and of acerbic protestations or merely as an extension of a belligerent Feminist agenda. However, it is necessary now to arrive at a revisionist and more holistic approach towards Women's Poetic Writings, Texts and Feminist Historiography. The Comparative Study of World Women Poetry (a loosely coined generic term for mapping such significant creative output across vast stretches of Time and Space), facilitates us to move away from a specific and narrow Poetics of Gender to one
Sr. Fullbright Schoku: Poet and Projess01; Department of English & Cultural Studies, Ex-Vice Chancellor, Kolhan University. India.
110 of a wholesome & balanced Naturalistic Humanism, which permeates quintessentially the larger fabric of Women Poetry. It must be admitted that the continuous displacement of women, the suppression of their authentic voices of Nature and Truth and the systematic marginalization of Female Creative Texts, has led to an . aberration of History, not only in the Postcolonial world but also in First World Nations. This has led to the imbalance of critical judgements and virulent reactionary historical movements, giving birth to such constricted 'phallic criticism' as evident in the Western parameters of Mary Ell mann's Thinking about Women (1968), Kate Millett's Sexual Politics ( 1970), Ellen Moer's Literary Women (1976) or Elaine Showalter's A Literature of Their Own (1977). The time has come to outgrow such separatist ideologies, women oriented literary cultures, discourses, histories and restrictive Western critical models for a better understanding of Women's Poetry the world over. Hence, there is a need to cross borders and re-discover the connectivities and interlinks between various segments of the Female Poetic World at the variegated intersections ofGender, Race, Class and Ethnicity. A literary effort for the centralization of Women's Creative Writings across the globe, would facilitate the goalsofGioballnclusion, Equality, International Understanding and Reformation through Creativity and Cultu~e. Such investigations would also unravel the relevant points ofdiversity and ofcommonality in the growth and progress of nations and cultures. One must admit however that (due to the constraints of space) only a symptomatic survey and a methodological classification of these female poetic compositions have been necessarily used as indices for the purposes of simply opening up a complete sphere of possibilities for exploring the Comparative Study of Global Women Poets over a very extensive temporal and spatial realm. It is important to note that Women's Poetic Writings are, more often than not, unclouded and untarnished by inhibitive, patriarchal traditions, artifice or norms ofconventional themes, diction and styles of poetic constructions. Such poetic writings become relevant for interrogating patriarchy and various forms of invasive dominations as well as enlisting the voices of liberation, surging across the world
11 ] in newly formed post-war, post-imperialist, independent societies. Hence, in the Postcolonial-cum-Feminist Discourse, Empire and Patriarchy become naturally synonymous and often this leads to a very restrictive interpretation ofWomen's Poetry within segregated terms of reference, excluding the deeply embedded Human content. The very perception of this poetic sisterhood for effecting radical redressal against earlier imbalances is also the constituent of a larger creative whole. The natural rhythms of life become integrated into these female poetic texts, n~t only to metamorphose social patterns of thought and practice, but also to afford complete artistic, humane and empathetic pleasurable transformations. These poetic creations are to be understood and appreciated as emanating the light and warmth of the sun, the freedom of the air, the smooth liquidity of the ocean and the touch and scent of the living soil. Kamala Das' ecstatic assertions about her Poetic Language: "the language I speak becomes mine, mine alone I ... it voices my joys, my longings, my hopes I it is useful to me as cawing I is to crows ... -it is human speech", is almost like the natural, indigenously flavoured creative metaphor of the Black American Woman Poet Nilene Foxworth (Das 1993: 48). She flaunts her African heritage:
Yes, I am an African woman, And like the rainbow, I have embraced the world, And given it my PRIMARY HUMAN colors-- 1 have fought many wars Plus untold battles- Standing tall, as a cypress tree I am fearless. (Foxworth 1887:160)
Florence Howe, the American poet and scholar, extols Contemporary Women Poetry as having opened itself "to the dailiness of housework and gardening, to the joy and grief of caring for family, to explorations of sexuality, to the politics of a starving world and to the pleasures of a creative life"( Howe 1993 xxxvii). The trends of naturalism, nature-bonding and humanism apparent in such poetry, create a global sisterhood, which unifies in re-locating a bridge between diverse areas of the human civilizational process.
112 Thus, such a study becomes ari important instrument for redeeming historical inequities, social/gender justice and distortions through a Return to Nature and to the Feminine/ Creative Principles of Life. It also becomes a significant index for expansive literary and cu It ural mappings. The necessity for the formation of a counter-canon or a separate literary genre arises, not out of a deliberate gendered approach but a negative response against continuous chauvinistic attempts at stifling voices of female freedom. The earlier tendencies of disparaging women's writings as invalid, delirious outpourings of the Mad Woman in the Attic, to be relegated to the margins of Mainstream Literature, have given way to the recognition of this emancipator Poetic Corpus as a significant and continuously evolving discipline of study. The locating of the major sites of poetic ·constructions of Indian-English vis-a.;vis ·Euro-American Women Authors at the pivotal point of the study, generates noteworthy correlations, comparisons and contrasts for contributing to trans cultural, literary re-configurations. It is important, however, to avoid the tendency for over-simplified homogenizations and to focus upon the regional specificities of poets and their identities as definitive pointers for the study of their variegated cultures while analyzing the innate flow between Gender and Genre. With the dissolution of imperialist regimes and the democratization of societies across the globe, Women's Poetry and Literature has acquired an undeniable validity for reflecting comprehensive and progressive developments of societal processes and artistic norms. The sensitive transparency and intrepid originality of such Poetry around the world has made it an honest mirror ofboth particular and universal human experiences. A major remedial change and paradigm-shift in such literary thought and practice, has contributed to the bridging ofyawning gaps created by gender-discriminations. The reading ofWomen's Poetry facilitates a wide range of literary, linguistic, cultural, philosophical, epistemological, anthropological and socio-scientific studies. The narratives, texts and sub-texts of such poetry also delineate distinctive forms of social and creative experiences in varied constituencies of specific as well as general inheritances, ethos,
113 lineage in traditional and changing cultures, their varied spheres of references, historical revolutions, humanistic dimensions and intersections of gender and genre. At this point of time, in a Global World Order, it is necessary to re-discover, appropriate, examine and connect the dots between different ethnicities and communities which emerge as culture-specific as well as generic within the larger Human canvas of the Female Poetic Experience. The Global Literary Study of Women Poetry (other than the compositions of Classical Antiquity) yields to three broad chronological categories for purposes of critical study: (a) the First Wave Poetry of Grandmother-Poets writing during the latter half of the nineteenth century and following primarily traditional patterns of writing, (b) the Second Wave Poetry of Mother-Poets writing during the first half of the twentieth century in an innovative mode and lastly (c) the Third Wave Poetry of Contemporary Daughter-Poets writing during the present Postcolonial I Globalization era, in a highly radical, empirical and confessional mode. Though such categorization may sound simplistic, it becomes technically germane to a discerning assessment/ overview of Women's Creative Writings across the globe, with only basic samples having been cited in. this paper primarily from India, USA, UK and Scandinavia. For purposes of meaningful study, the writings of Indian-English Women Poets such as Sarojini Naidu and Toru Dutt of the First Wave may well be comparable with those of Euro American poets like Emily Dickinson, Amy Lowell, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti and with the writings of the Scandinavian poets Edith Sodergran and Karin Boye.ln the Second Wave Poetry, the writings of Kamala Das, Lila Ray, Gauri Deshpande of India may well be compared with those of Marianne Moore, Adrienne Rich, Muriel Rukeyser and Stevie Smith of USA and UK and with poets such as Inger Christensen and Inger Hagerup of Scandinavia. Among the youngest generation of contemporary Women Poets, the writings of Eunice De Souza, Imtiaz Dharker, Sun ita Jain and Sujata Bhatt of India are comparable with those of Denise Levertov, Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop and Penelope Shuttle of USA and UK and with those of Sonja Akesson, Agneta Pleijel
114 and PiaTafdrup ofScandinavia(in Translation, for including a wider Eurocentric group vis-a-vis India).
~ · Nature,and·Hum'an·Relationships:,have always played a predominant role in enlivening the richness a~d depth of Women's Poetry. The poetry of Sarojini Naidu, embodying the soul of renascent India during the pre-Independence era of the British Raj, is also replete with a certain oriental flavour of Humanism, which becomes curiously reminiscent of the Nature-Poetry of Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson. Though, often downgraded as a plagiaristic replica of English Romanticism, Naidu's poetry undoubtedly signals the distinct beginnings of a new avant-garde Indian National Literature in English led from the front by Women. Her poetry is an open statement and a fervent ratification of Indian life in all its multi-facets, with the Indian woman vibrantly and deliberately placed right at its centre. Her 'Bangle Sellers' with a world as colourful and as multi-hued as the Indian bangles, has a lush nature-based setting:
Who will buy these delicate, bright Rainbow-tinted circles oflight? Lustrous tokens of radiant lives, For happy.daughters and happy wives. Some are meet for a maiden's wrist, Silver and blue as the mountain-mist, Some are fleshed like the buds that dream On the tranquil brow of a woodland strearh.(Naidu 1974:130-31)
The submerged cadences of the joys and gloom of womanhood seem to be interwoven with the various moods and hues ofNature, with a clear aligning ofthe body ofNature with that ofthe Woman. This Eco-Feminist reading may also be valid in the muted glow of Rossetti's and Barrett Browning's poetry. A certain lonely languor and silent acceptance of the chequered undulations of a woman's life as a part of the natural process of things, marks such First Wave Poetry across geo-spatial borders. Despite the partial adherence to patriarchic norms and techniques of writing during this period, a certain veering towards the primacy of Womanhood is noticeable:
115 Mother, mother, thou art kind, Thou art standing in the room, In a molten glory shrined, That rays off into the gloom ! But thy smile is bright and bleak (Browning 1996:279)
In this First-Wave category, the uniformity of lyricism and conventional poetic harmony is interpenetrated with a deep nature mysticism, a spiritual ardour blended with a particularly seething, subterranean female spark. Amy Lowell's The Garden By Moonlight breathing in the mellowed luminosity of a certain kind of nature-love which is in continuity with the human scent of a Woman, may very well evince a similarity with other poems ofthis genre: The garden is very sti II, It is dazed with moonlight, Contented with perfume, Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies - -water is broken by the falling of a leaf: Then you come, And you are quiet like the garden,- And beautiful as the silent sparks of the fireflies. Ah, Beloved, do you see those orange lilies? They knew my mother. (Lowell 1993:7)
There seems to be a perfect disseminatio~ of a spiritual light smoothly combined with the glowing wealth ·of a corporeal nature imagism and female sensuality. The Swedish poetry of Edith Sodergran reflects a similar aura, which David McDuff, Sodergran's translator, interprets as her "spiritual quickening and curative mission rather than any social or anti-social crusade"(Mac 1992:3 1). Hence, the problematizing of women's creative strategies as an aggressive crusading zeal, often, does not lead to the final deductions. It rather helps us to move beyond and perceive its truth in its easy alignment with the core of such Human/ Natural Feminism. Sodergran's Nature-symboli~m embraces dual shades of light and darkness of the tangible as well as the intangible world. Her poetry has unmistakable affinities with the poetry of Rossetti, Dickinson and Toru Dutt. Her spiritual fervour is blended with a certain passion, a
116 natural plenitude, a specific joy in the bounties of life and fortitude for the celebration of womanhood in a male-dominated social order. This immersion in a total experience _of life, unburdened by any creed of resistance, results in a spontaneity and natural bonding, so characteristic of Women's Poetry through the ages: The day cools towards evening -' Drink the warmth out of my hand, My hand has the same blood as the springtime. Take my hand, take my white arm, Take the longing of my narrow shoulders - You threw the red rose of your love Into my white lap -- I hold fast in my hot hands Your love's red rose that quickly fades- You looked for a flower· And tbund a fruit
You looked for a well And found a sea You looked for a woman And found a soul You are disappointed. (Edith 1992:31)
It is evident that the woman has moved out of the idealized zone of playip.g roles of merely 'happy daughters and happy wives' to a more candid, aware and sensualised assertiveness of her womanhood. Despite the culture-specificity of So'dergran 's Swedish poetry, it is ·replete with the same kind of sensitivity, knowledge, sexuality, rebellious woman-power and empathy with human relationships, that we find in generations of Women Poets across the globe in several climes. This all-pervasive lyrical charm has a bedrock of female strength that enhances the paradoxical, pioneering realism and rejection of established nonns. McDuff quotes Sodergran speaking of"the inner fire", "the mother-cell which must be sustained" and of"the individual's construct ofher new world" (Me Duff, 1992: 33). Such poetry seems to be .Pulsating with a certain natural vitality as though the Universe is registered as awakening through the clarion-
. 117 call of Mother Nature singing in union with Humanity. This totality of complex undercurrents of Nature versus Culture and Gender versus Genre, automatically erases such time-worn artificial binary constructs to reach a completeness beyond any disruptive, Feminist ghettoization. Woman power and their Poetic power blend in this naturalistic framework to spin out both microscopic details and a panoramic view of our developing Human situation. The reductive frameworks of such critical discourses as Luce lrigaray's theory of Women's alienation through language, obscures the deepest nuances and resonances of Women Poetry in all its intricacies. Denise Levertov's poem Credo manifests this broad vision of the immutable connections between the operational spheres of Man and Woman, ofNature and Culture, of the Spiritual and the Physical Ordinary:
I believe the earth Exists, and In each minim mote Of its dust the holy Glow- Lover of making, of the Wrought letter, Wrought tlower - The ordinary glow Of common dust in ancient sunlight.(Levelov 1987 : 160-161)
Pia Tafdrup's contemporary Scandinavian (Danish) poetry resonates with the same pulse of Woman-power, primeval Nature-power and a certain inexplicably strong spiritual omnipresence in our Everyday world. She talks of herself as:
"made of that matter I that glows in the sun I I'm reflected I by a long shadow I that whispers in a thousand tongues I so close to a presence I that quivers when I quiver I dances when I dance I without taltering I follows me·in everything I yet not be seen"(Tafdrup 1989: 40-41 )
It is worthwhile to take into account the fiery spontaneity of female poetic constructions, which enhance the larger canvas of global sisterhood. Partho Chatterjee, like many Postcolonial theorists, explores the importance of the Women's Movement in translating
118 narrow nationalisms and nationalistic identities and interests into broader avenues ofModemization. Hence, the conservative attitude that consigns women to home, family and an institutionalized sphere gets ext~nded and transformed into the progressive energies of radical change. The analysis of Female Poetry and its narrative strategies leads to the revelation of National Culture and Identity merging smoothly with the wider cultural processes in other parts of the advanced World. Chatterjee expostulates: "A renewal of the struggle for the equality and freedom of women must, as with all democratic issues, include a struggle against the false essentialisms of home/world, spiritual/material, feminine/masculine propagated by nationalist ideology"( Chatterjee 200 I :65) Through this integrated approach, we are able to appreciate Female Creativity and Feminist Historiography as both specific and multi-dimensional, as non totalizing as much as universally relevant. Though, in the Colonial and Postcolonial contexts, Women's Literature has been projected as a tradition of antagonism and a collective mode of writing and "reading for resistance"( Castle 200 I: xi), employing a certain "continuity of preoccupations for literary resistance", this may well be viewed today, as an incomplete approach( Ashcroft 1989: I 08). The marginalisation and displacement of women, women writers and their texts is merely "an allegorical name for a historical failure" . which has been open to constant atonement and remedy (Radhakrishnan 200 I: I90). As Ms. Jan Montefiore ( cf. Introduction to Feminism and Poetry, 1987) acknowledges the fact that "to read the women poets of the past and present for their covert or declared awareness of themselves as women, is to lay a kind of grid of feminism over the map ofpoetry ... but if we stick exclusively to this grid, the method makes for a very limited critical practice"(2004 3-1 0). Through this revisionist mode, we need to look anew at wolnen poetry, not as an esoteric, bellicose and anti male propagandist writing but as an all'-embracing naturalistic and humanistic aestheticism. The theme, idiom, epistemological and ontological content of Women Poetry manifests a certain bonding withNature, raw natural feelings, with matrilineal communities and with Eco-Feminist
119 thought-processes which advocate spontaneity and breadth of vision in conducting Human Affairs. In this context, Frantz Fanon's co11cept of spontaneity in rural and female realms becomes a pointer to the implicit alliance ofNature and the Female Consciousness as a unified voice of Truth and Egalitarianism against a.ll forces of artificial colonization, dogma and coercion. Fanon comments: "The memory of the anti-colonial period is very much alive in the villages, where women still croon in their children's ears, songs to which warriors marched when they went out to fight the invaders"(Fanon 1963:247). The inten1alization caused by the isolationist ideologies of earlier generations of Feminists, are now being recognized as deterrents to Women Empowerment and to Global Sisterhood in this new Post-Feminist age. Nira Yuvai-Davis accentuates this stance with regard to "the community and coalition building" energies and skills of Women as cultural embodiments of collectivities ( 1997:79-81 ). The vigorous, natural language of female poetry, often fruitfully severed from synthetic social moorings, to establish vital linkages between the inner and outer landscape, allows a continuous comparability between creations of women poets from varied countries, groups and ages. For example,. Emily Dickinson's "Inebriate of air am I I And debauchee of dew I Reeling through endless summer days I From inns of molten blue" (Nineteenth Century Women Poets: 1996) with its iconoclastic abandon and intoxication with the warm rhythms of life, looks forward to the impassioned, Nature-poetry of Marianne Moore, Eliz3;beth Bishop and Indian women pqets like Sujata Bhatt. This organic intertexture and curious fusion of a rustic vibrancy with a sophisticated craftsmanship, permeates the depth and range of female creative texts across the international panorama. Sujata Bhatt's "green coconut uterus--I and the hunger of taw obsessions beginning with the shape of asparagus--· I so jauntily capped that even the smell pulls her in"( 1993:62). Tara Patel's "aquamarine in his eyes I hanging as a pin-up in my mind I- gone to share the sun's wine with him"(91-92) or Vi mala Rao's "morning mist-swirled I by a panting breath I the sun
120 an immortal wound between light-torn rays I-(rising) from dream sheeted sleep, stirring with Iife" (Rao 1993:21) have resonances in ·many such poems of Euro~American authors. These inherent associations of the physical, vegetable, emotional and spirituaJ planes are found in the poetry of, for example Adrienne Rich, Penelope Shuttle, Paula Meehan and others. Rich's "Your body will haunt mine -I Like the half-curled frond I Of the fiddlehead fern in forests" demonstrates the process through which Gender-Orientations and Nature-Cu1ture parameters get diffused into a larger humane, androgynous and artistic sphere (Rich 1993 :202). _, The alignment of the outward socio-cultural with the inward emotional plane, the interplay ofbrilliant, melodic and muted poetic re-creations, the mingling of an abrasive outspokenness with a suffused and fragile grace, contributes much to the impact and splendour of Women Poetry. The stuff of women's I ives and experiences, though distinctively different, become recognizably valid as extensions of larger human experiences. The Indian poet Eunice De Souza says: "What 1 am as a poet is a result of what I am in all the asp_ects of my life-_-· Though all poets take risks, only women cart really talk about their lives. The battle is to validate the material to begin with"(De Souza 1993: xix). This battle 'to validate the material' for revolutionizing actual lifestyles, thoughts, practices and value systems, has been waged persistently and unobtrusively through women's poetic activism. The cross currents of life and literature have blended through the years, as a celebration of the unity, credence, multiplicity and harmony of these poetic weavings. Within the vast Temporal and Spatial range of this poetry, we often find an interesting similarity between poems as varied and widely spaced-out as Sylvia Plath's "Mushrooms", "nudgers and shovers-I (taking) hold on the loam I acquiring the air-/ and by morning (inheriting) the earth"(Piath 1987:233) and Rajlukshmee Debee Bhattacharya's Punarnava, the ever-renewing "velvet green medicinal creeper-'-/ climbing up the lichened wall, to reach I the rusty tin roof, transforming I its shabbiness into velvet-green
121 -I sprouting leaves, I growing in greenness I eternal companion on the rooftop"( Bhattacharya 1992: 21-22). It may safely be stated that the regenerative force of Women Poetry continues to cure, heal and transform the 'shabbiness' of society and social practices into the 'velvet-green' richness of I ife. We have reached an age in which World Women Poets have successfully transcended the limiting barriers of hardened, static viewpoints, fragmentations and identity-conflicts and arrived at a balanced ideal of amalgamation, assimilation and an identifiable strength for aesthetic completeness. In evoking this new consciousness of these Sisters ofthe Soil, we also take stock of a new female Historiography and Trajectory, which registers all identifiable groupings, particularities and generalities for defining a wholesome but multi-dimensional Poetic Vision in a real conflict ridden world. The pendulum of this Poetry does not swerve mechanically between Victimhood and Virulence or Victory but reveals deeper, ingrained layers of affirmative and critical discernment of the world around. This well-defined approach leads to a greater understanding of literary readings vis-a-vis socio-political changes, powerful impacts and inter-cultural transactions. The full circle of this universal sisterhood comes alive in the lines of Muriel Rukeyser:
When I wrote of the women in their dances and wildness, it was a mask, On their mountain, god-hunting-- Fragmented, in exile from myself----- There is no mountain, there is no god, there is memory-- No more masks ! No more mythologies ! Now, tor the tirst time, ---- The fragments join in me with their own music.( 1993:1) This naturalized, frank, unbroken poetic rhapsody ofconvergence beyond recognizable fissures, reinforces the truth and necessity of a transformative poetic re-unification. This, however, is not a part of any grandiose dream but a genuine effort towards a non prejudiced unraveling ofa densely textured fonn ofPoetry. It is of extreme urgency today, during the progress ofthis new millennium, that we realize and recognize the indisputable potency ofWomen's
122 Poetry for changing our lives and creating natural Human Bridges for a better and more peaceful World-Order.
WORKS CITED Ashcroft, Griffiths & Tiffin ( 1989) The Empire Writes Back: Theory & Practice in Postcolonial Literatures (London: Routledge). Barrett Browning Elizabeth, "Bertha In the Lane" (1996) Nineteenth Century Women Poets, Ed. Armstrong, Bristow & Sharrock (Oxford :Clarendon Press). Bhatt Sujata, "White Asparagus", (I 993) Sixty Women Poets, Newcastle upon Tyne, Bloodaxe Books. Bhattacharya Rajlukshmee Debee, "Punarnava"( 1992) Poetry India: Emerging Voices (New Delhi: Hind Pocket Books).
Chatte~jee Partho, "The Nationalist Resolution ofthe Women's Question" (2001) Postcolonial Discourses, Ed. Gregory Castle, (Oxford & Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers). Das, Kamala( 1993) In Their Own Voice, Ed. Arlene Zide (Penguin India) De Souza Eunice & Pereira Lindsay, Women s Voices, Delhi, OUP, 2002 De Souza Eunice, In Their Own Voice, Penguin Anthology, Ed. Arlene Zide, 1993, pg. XIX. Ed. Castle Gregory, "Editor's Introduction : Resistance and Complicity in Postcolonial Studies", ibid., pg. XI. Edith Sodergran, ibid. pg. 54-55. Fanon Frantz, "Spontaneity", The Wretched of the Earth, Trans. Constance Farrington, New York, Grove Weidenfed, 1963, pg. 247. Foxworth Nilene, A in i I a Woman, Ed. Ilion a Linthwaite, New York, Peter Bedrick Books, 1987. pg. 160. Gilbert Sandra & Gubar Susan, The .Mad Woman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth Centwy Literary Imagination, New Haven & London, Yale Univ. Press, 1979. Howe, Florence, No More Masks, New York, Harper Collins, 1993, pg. XXXVIJ. Levertov Denise, "Credo", A in~ I a Woman, Ed. 1.1lona Linthwaite, New York, Peter Bed rick Books, 1987. pg. 160-161. Lowell Amy, No More Masks, New York, Harper Collins,.l993, pg. 7. McDudtfDavid, Complete Poems ofEdith Sodergran, Bloodaxe Books, 1992, pg. 31. Naidu Sarojini, Indo-English Poet1y in Bengal, Ed. K.C. Lahiri, Calcutta, Writers Workshop, 1974, pg. 130-131.
123 Patel Tara, "Calangute Beach", Nine Indian Women Poe!s, Ed. DeSouza, OUP, pg. 91-92. Plath Sylvia The Faber Book of Twentieth Century Women s Poetry, Ed. Fleur Adcock, London & Boston, Faber: 1987, pg. 233. Radhak.rishnan R, "Nationalism, Gender and the Narrative ofldentity", Postcolonial Discourses, Blackwell Publishers, 2001, pg. 190. Rao Vi mala," A Scene", In Their Own Voice, Penguin, 1993, pg. 191. Rich Adrienne, "The Floating Poem", No More Masks, New York, Harper Collins, 1993, pg. 202. Rukeyser Muriel, "The Poem as Mask''. No More Masks, Ed. Howe, New York, Harper Coli ins, 1993, pg 1. Tatarup Pia, Spring Tide, Tr. Anne Born, London & Boston, Forest Books, 1989, pg. 40-41. Yuval Davis Nira, "Women, Ethnicity and Empowerment", Who s Afraid of Feminism, Ed. Oakley & Mitchell, New York, The New Press, 1997, pg. 79- 81.
124 JASLEEN SAHOTA
1rhe ][)iallectncs of llmage and Text: A~mtHnropollogicaB Photo Essay
It is said that a picture is worth a thousand.words and this phrase reflects the disproportionately complementary relationship between these modes of communication.The combination oftext and images in a photo essay can provide for a wide range of representational modes. In his book Image, Music, Text, Roland Barthes analyses photographs used in advertisements and argues that "the two modes through which photographic message unfolds are denotation and · connotation" (1977:20). These messages are revealed within a photograph or a sequence of photographs. Barthes' reflections on
Assistant Profoss or, University ofJammu, Bhaderwah Campus & Research Scholar, Panjab University, Chandigarh.
125 the subject reflect the subordination of text to image as seen in the post-war pictures published in newspapers where "[T]he image no longer illustrates the words; it is now the words, which structurally are parasitic on the image ... and in the relationship that now holds, it is not the image which comes to sublimate, patheticize or rationalize the image" (Barthes 1977: 25).Thus, the addition of a text in the form of a caption only adds a redundant description to the photograph and in other cases a photograph is added to authenticate the information. Following Barthes formulations on the relationship of image and text, I propose ·a categorization of image-text relations which is evident itself in the photo essay genre.There are many formats in which these two mediums interact with each other. These range from purely photographic works to photographs with captions or small notes to full text essays with a few or many accompanying photographs. Concurrent with this proposition is the fact that the usage of visuals has undergone a metamorphosis as it refuses to be just a supplement and support to the written text. Bracke and Kersten have argued that the "tension between image and text leads to a possibility ofcross-pollination and mutual inspiration" (2014:2). However, this raises the question that if the photographs authenticates or corroborates the facts of the written text, does it become subordinate to the verbal that comprise the photo essay. The paper argues that the visual rather than being subservient to the text, takes the leadto advance the argwnent. This is achieved through the narrative design, sequencing and juxtaposition of photographs. Photo essay is a composite form combining the written literature and the pictorial elements to raise questions of politics, philosophy and anthropology. Richten argues that in our post photographic age where digital photography has replaced analog photography, it is easier to embed digital photographs in verbal media to produce unique narrative combinations that push the readers to develop new modes ofvisualliteracy better suited to accommodate the "fluid, evanescent digital image" (2009: 76). Images are extraordinarily powerful as we get our basic orientation in the world with our eyes. As Berger argues that we
J26 are "visual animals who see before we learn to read, the study of ways of seeing becomes crucial to the humanities project" ( 1972:7). Mitchell argues that the although Rorty has characterized history as a series of turns where the final stage is the Linguistic turn which had its resonances in the field ofsemiotics and linguistics, humanities is undergoing a paradigm shift, as we are moving from linguistic to visual as the primary mode of inquiry. This turn has been defined as the 'Visual Turn' by Mitchell, which "manifests itself in the current cultural paradigms where old arguments over the medium are being reinstituted and more and more studies which make dominant use ofthe visual in argument and analysis are being produced" ( 1994:11- 18). This is exemplified by the rise of the photo essay in Germany. Tracing a history of photo essays in Germany, Jennings argues that early forms of the photo essay had very little or no text and were often centered on a specific theme or an object, with examples like automobiles and parliamentary debates. In the 1920s, a more advanced form of the photo essay was inaugurated where "images had a primary signifying role" and major arguments were presented· through sequence of photographs (Jennings 2008: 24 ). As a parallel development, first published in 1939, Life Magazine emerged as the dominant mode to carry out journalistic photo essays in America. The publishers worked around the idea that photographs could advance arguments through the sequencing and juxtaposition of visuals. It is also pertinent to study the photograph because of the methodological shift that has occurred; the critical position which viewed the photograph as an objective representation of reality, in itself has become quite suspect. 1 Questioning the assumptions surrounding the unbiased nature of images, Flusser pointed out "that the objectivity of technical images is an i11usion" (2000: 15). The photograph is a message without a code, argues Barthes, where a photographic image is an analog of reality and because reality does not need a code, Barthes calls this relay between the object photographed and the photograph itself as "a message without a code" (Barthes 1977: 17). He argues that this is so because of the mechanical process of photography that guarantees objectivity.
127 However, connotations are added to the message of the photograph at the level of production and reception. Thus, the objectivity and neutrality of a photograph can be questioned on these very premises. Photographs and language are considered opposites and paradoxical and Mitchell argues that "Photography both is and is not language" ( 1994: 284 ). The contemporary visual researchers across various disciplines in social science agree that the common research agendas should be reflexivity, co11aboration, ethics and the relationship between the content, social context and materiality of images. Rose defines reflexivity as a "kind ofautobiography", which tells us how the author's social position has affected what they found" (200 1: 130). The importance of reflexivity in anthropology was realized in the wake of theories by Foucault about the relationship between power and skewed knowledge production. Also, this issue of reflexivity was developed after critiquing the so caJied objective methods which were in vogue at the time of Margaret Mead. Gillian Rose has given a number of methodologies propounding the theory of the image; what Barthes has termed "the rhetoric of the· image", the way images reflect and propagate certain ideologies (1997: 33).As the photograph is not an objective representation of reality, therefore they must be analyzed for their technological and compositional aspects. In case of data collection, an ethical approach would entail the consideration ofpositionality of the photographer vis-a-vis the subjects, and the building of trust and consent between them. The contribution of the photo essay to the field of anthropology and ethnography is at the core of such photo essays. The paper analyses the various ways in which the two selected anthropological photo essays advance arguments through the visuals but they are able to achieve self-reflexivity through their reliance on the relationship between the image and the written text. The paper will focus on two photo essays namely "Sikh Families in Darlington, U.K"and "Beautiful People". These texts contain textual elements in the form of captions or written text but their presence is not dominating or overbearing, which in turn allows the photographs to become the primary signifying structures where the
128 photograph itself has a language. Ever since the invention of the camera, photographs have been used as supplements in ·anthropological documentation. The first major use of photography in anthropological field work was in Bateson and Mead's 1946 photographic ethnography titled The Balinese Character. In the past, there have been attempts to understand the visuals in anthropology but not many sustained attempts have been made to understand the photo essay as a mode of anthropological inquiry vis-a-vis the imbrication and negotiation of photographs and text. 2 The central and most important criterion for analysis is the relationship between text and image. In this the shortcomings of one medium are mediated and supplemented by the other medium. The visual documentation in the form of still photography allows the viewer to revisit the event repeatedly, but when left without captions, the narrative of a photograph can lead to multiple interpretations as Barthes argues that all images have multiple meanings which is termed as the "polysemous" nature of the image whereas the addition of a text limits the range of interpretation of · an image, thus preventing hyper-personal interpretations which has been defined as anchorage ( 1981: 39). According to Ranciere,the relationship of text and image should be a "positive complementarity" (Stafford 2008: 189). Zamir and DiBello suggest that their juxtaposition should engender a "third something", which implies that a photo essay should be greater than the~ sum of its parts (1998:2). It is pertinent that the juxtaposition of image and text must entail a compelling argument which could take the form of a narrative montage where the relationship of the sequenced images elaborates on the themes being pursued by the photographer, thus giving a predominant place to photographs. An anthropological photo essay entails "the study of various aspects of humans within past and present societies" through the melange of the visual and verbal modes of communication (Ingold 1994: 330). The first essay comes under the rubric of social anthropology and the second one would. be part of cultural anthropology which studies the norms and values of society.
129 Sikh Families in Darlington, U .K The urban Indian Sikh family is the subject of this photo essay titled"Sikh Families in Darlington, U.K"which was published in the IIC Quarterly in the year 1996 by celebrated visual artistDayanita Singh. This journalistic work envisions a diachronic study of Sikh families residing in Darlington where the photographs work as primary documents for the representation and analysis of the material conditions of these families. The text precedes the images, and as opposed to certain photo essays which are written in collaboration, here the text is also written by the photographer. In the absence of captions, the process of the production of meaning is proliferated through collaboration and negotiation between the photographs and text, and also through the dialogue between the sequences of images. In this particular photo essay, the photographs given are incomplete without the text as the latter anchors them to avoid multiple significations, and secondly, the photographs do not engage in a dialogic encounter with each other to an extent where text becomes a redundancy. Thus, both the images and the text have their relevance, contributing to a much more holistic medium. This photo essay provides a provocative melange of text and image which compels us to analyze notjustthe condition of families in Darlington but also on the photo essay as a mode ofjournalistic inquiry. She explores the themes of women and children whose lives and experiences are circumscribed by their social milieu. The photographer represents through photographs the borders between tradition and modernity, man and woman, text and images, retrograde and forward looking. Photographs of family have been an important source ofanthropological information since the inception ofthe genre of photography.3 This photo essay was commissioned to document the lives ofSikh families in a city of England. Dayan ita Singh explains in the verbal anecdote that she was among those photographers from different parts of the world who were invited to document the migrant families in Britain. She also reveals that she was "[S]~ocked at the violence, control and manipulation of women" (Singh 1996: 82). Here, she assumes the role ofa participant and observer which elicitsajudgmentdictated 130 by her own cultural background and upbringing. She labels these families as orthodox. She mentions in the text that these families seem to be living in the India ofthirty years ago. Her understanding of their condition is inflected by her liberal upbringing and her preconceived idea that women in England would be free to make their own decisions. The immigrants "[S]till had the outdated image oflndia and the photographer, single with all my opinions and points of view, representing an aspect of India's modernity" was at odds with their retrograde mindset (Singh 1996: 82). The women were not allowed to go out on their own, the photographer mentions the sociological reasons for the repressed family structure, the anguish of being second rate citizens in a country, and the fear of losing their children to a foreign land. In another situation the girls were expected to acquire western cultural capital by taking ballet and piano lessons. Singh's anecdote in the text on the apparatuses of production of her images criticises her own work and makes her reconsider the approach she had when she made them. Thus, although photographs in themselves are able to convey the main ideas through the juxtaposition ofphotographs, reflexivity is achieved through this statement. In hindsight, the author understands that the oppression is due to their own fears and insecurities. This in turn allows the text to subvert the images by questioning their methodology of production.
Figure I
131 A man and woman managing a small shop are photographed at its counter (Figure 1). While the introductory text explains the content ofthe photograph, it is not possible to decipher the photograph alone. The text says, "Women help at shops, but are not allowed to go out alone" (Singh 1996: 82). She seems to be burdened with work whereas the man seems to be overlooking or merely overseeing the work being done. Thus, the photograph subtly comments on the condition of women, and the double bind ofboth working at home and outside. Another feature of visual interest is the woman's expression and her shyness which is evident from the photograph. This recalcitrance on the part of the woman to be photographed can be seen as a lack of understanding and dialogue between the observer and the subject which is an important aspect of data gathering in ethnographical practices. The images are not captioned; urging the reader go back and forth from the images to the text, thus leading to a heightened negotiation between the two diverse mediums.
Figure2
The theme of parents and children continues in the next photograph (Figure 2) which showcases a mother and a daughter. The image itself gives plenty ofanthropological detail about the living conditions ofthe family. This photograph is visually heavy in terms of the data the reader can cull out from it. In the photograph, we see a family
132 ofthree- a married couple and their daughter. The father is cropped out of the photograph; the mother and the daughter wear Sikh turbans. The photograph puts forth the image of a religious family. Apart from their attire, there are religious symbols - a large photograph ofthe golden temple and other religious images- in the background. There is also a small souvenir of the Eiffel tower symbolizing the family's metropolitanism. No information is provided in the text, and one must contextualise the meaning from the negotiation between the image and the text. Figure 3 depicts a metaphoric clash oftradition and modernity in the form oftwo young women who wear 'western clothes' while another woman in traditional clothes talks on phone in the background. The presence of liquor on the table and the western attire of these women show inklings of modernity. The relegation of cultural practices to the background and the imminent tensions resulting from them are embedded in the photograph .through its composition. One of the girls looks back which could be a symbolic gesture oflooking back at the roots, to the identity of a Sikh and at the same time it represents the state of being caught in a crucible of modernityand the influence exerted by their western education. The theme of' overworked children' has been elicited through the next set ofphotographs. Figure 4 shows an Indian couple admiring their young girl aged around fifteen years, playing violin. The parents' expression is one of pride and approval. This image brings to the
Figure3
133 fore a different kind of childhood where the parents after being exposed to 'western' ideas introduce their children to the way of life which they did not have access to. In the next photograph, while the children are exposed to books and music - showing the inclination of parents to make them cultured and well versed in the western ways of living - the mother works in the kitchen. The photograph allows the observer to understand that the parents are providing their children with the best of opportunities. The photo essay depicts that the Sikh women are not treated at par with men. Howe~er, their voiceless existence mirrors the author's representation of women. None ofthese women have a voice which confirms that they shared these sentiments of being treated as 'second rate citizens'. The photographer failed to become an insider, establish trust and rapport with the families. The photo essayist does not question or disturb the hierarchies by giving these women a voice in the text or the photographs. However, the author acknowledges the ethical issues of not allowing the women to express themselves through additional dialogues and conversations. Thus, the photographs through sequencing and juxtaposition of images are able to achieve a visual narrative, but reflexivity is only achieved through author's textual comments. One might argue that the use of words cannot be negated and image and text relationship is fully exploited to make the photo essay an example of reflexive ethnography of the Sikh families.
Figure4
134 Beautiful People The second photo essay under analysis titled "Beautiful People" is a visual ethnography documenting the cultural aspects and material conditions of the tribals ofNamibia and Kenya. It was compiled by Greg du To it and published in the year 20 13. The text is an example of photojournalism with its focus on questions ofanthropology, laying bare the conditions of living of tribal people; accompanied by an appeal to protect their old ways oflife and culture. Thus, the author takes a moral stand on the issue which also brings it closer to works of documentary photography which has its antecedents in social reform movements. Each photograph in the sequence is accompanied by one paragraph of text which contextualises the minute details about the embedded lives of the tribals. The photographs reveal and document those aspects of visual culture which cannot otherwise be represented appropriately through words. Thus, this text can also be subsumed within the rubric of visual anthropology which according to MacDougall deals with the study of visible cultural forms and which also use the visual media to describe and analyse culture. The change in the semi-nomadic existence of the tribals in the wake of globalization forms the central argument of the written text. Jn contrast, the photographs aim at documenting those aspects of culture which have been a part of their heritage for centuries. Visual objects as products of culture have raw power to influence the understanding of societies. As these objects cannot be segregated from the individuals, the photographer has contextualised the objects by capturing them in their setting. Additionally, he has made use oflanguage to provoke reflection on a series of related issues like the cultural heritage and its diminishing importance in the age of globalization. The photographic sequence does not follow a narrative arc but foregrounds those aspects of culture which are important from the anthropological perspective. It is the written narrative which makes us return to the political and economic context in which these tribals struggle for an identity and also for a movement away from it. Thus, the exchange between the written text and the photographs is fraught with tension. On the
135
.b one hand the photographs are beautiful abstractions, which represent the bodies of the tribals as aesthetic entities. On the other hand, the text complimenting the images shows a capacity for the photograph to go beyond the aesthetic and achieve reflexivity. This prevents the tribals from being seen as objects frozen in time, but as agents who are also caught in the flux of changes.
Figure 5
Text can explain the cultural confusions and the flux in which the tribals are situated, but the photographs convey a paradox as they bestow a timeless quality to their lives. Figure 5 shows an old female memberofthe tribe ofMaasai people of Kenya. The old lady wears a red and white printed garment, and layers of white beads around her neck and arms. The photographer mentions that she had asked for her permission to be photographed, thus ensuring that the ethics of representing subjects in local settings are not sidelined. Although the photograph is taken from a lower angle, making the figure a towering presence, she was only four feet tall. The angle from which the photograph was taken and the close shot makes the elderly woman a prominent figure. The low angle endows the woman with dignity and stature and conveys the high regard for elder members of the clan. The photograph stands as a testimony to the fact that hundreds of years of progress have not changed her; the woman ·stands outside of time. In the text accompanying the photograph,
136 the author reveals that the woman did not remember her age as the Maasai people have no regard for time. Thus, they really stand outside of time; another indicator of this is the fact that they only speak their mother tongue of Maa.
Figure6
Figure 6 shows two siblings in their ethnic attire standing against a mud wall. The photograph is heavy in visual detail. Costume and personal adornment become part of the field of visual objects used for self expression. The young boys wear a lose cloth around their torsos, their hair are cut in identical ways and both of them wear neckpieces made of leather. The text foregrounds the dilemmas of Himba tribe of Namibia after the influx of tourists from the western world. The author mentions that many Himba children drop out of school because they do not find suitable employment and thus have to fall back on their traditional livelihoods. Figure 7 shows a close up image of a man holding the calabash with the cow blood spilling out. In this representation, the photographer refrains from passing any judgment on the cultural practice of drinking blood. Therefore, the photographer shows a deep understanding of the ethics and politics of representation.
137 Figure 7
This photo essay combines the genre of documentary and art photography. The photographs throw light on important aspects of culture of the tribal communities. In doing so, the photographer actively employs camera angles and techniques sentient of art photography. He purposely uses different angles, zooming in on one ofthe objects, playing with exposure and aperture levels, using abstractions to give his photography a particularly aesthetic and artful color. However, this artfu l presentation according to Nair acquires not only provides agency in post modernity, it also becomes indispensible in terms of the impact of the image. In fact, the aesthetic becomes a metaphor through which photography speaks. The photographer effectively combines documentary with aesthetic, form with content, emotion with reason to effectively portray the ethnography of the Himba and Maasai people.
Conclusion The two photo essays make extensive use of recorded images. The images are deployed to represent how a particular culture and social life looks in particular strata and that information - visceral and concrete- can only be provided via images. The photograph can be seen as a text and thus this textuality of a photograph is laid bare through the narrative practices like the photographer's choice of subject, camera angle and the issue of reflexivity. The visual
138 data is presented to us through sequencing and juxtaposition, through particular frame and setting. These two photo essays posit a keen awareness of the ethics and politics of representation so that their subject positions do not skew the nature of reality. They are instrumental in uncovering a wide range of issues like the lived experience of Sikh women in England and the troubled tribal identity in an increasingly globalised world. The photographs begin arguments and offer gainful insights, and add a layer of viscerality to the narrative. ln each of these photo essays, much stress has been given to the scientific recording of photographic data bearing in mind the self-reflexive research method. The photographs in all the photo essays gp beyond illustration; sequenced images provide the core argument for each of these photo essays. Photography is of great relevance to the discipline of visual anthropology and the developments and the usage of photographs and its critique has affected the more general reading of photographs based on the subject of anthropology. Above all, the texts provoke discussion on the changing nature ofthe relationship between verbal and visuaL The two photo essays incorporate linguistic material but rely heavily on photographic montage, thus pointing to the photograph's ability to replace language and the dynamic and complex relationship between the visual and the verbal. Photographs are the privileged modes of storytelling in these anthropological photo essays, but at the same time the reflexive is foregrounded through the text, which leads to a deepened negotiation between the image and text. One can argue that cross-disciplinary engagements of photography, for example the use ofthe photo essay to represent anthropological issues are changing the contours of the photo essay as a genre. There is a demand. for photo essay in all fields of inquiry which has expanded the use of the form in research, photojournalism and documentary modes.
Endnotes I. According to Pink, the uses of photography in the field of anthropology has , shifted from an emphasis on realist and objective recording of reality to , contemporary theories that engage with subjectivity and reflexivity, and the
139 idea that the visual is a source of knowledge and a critical "voice" (2003: 180). 2. Christopher Pinney argues in a paper titled, Classification and Fantasy in the Photographic Construction ofCaste and Tribe that the anthropometric and photographic cataloguing of ethnic and occupational types was an extension of the larger anthropological and imperialist expansion pr~ject ( 1990: 261 ). 3. Visual anthropology is expanding its scope and embracing indigenous media production as a component of cultural representation, and among academic anthropologists, it is paying attention to cultural forms which did not receive much attention in the past like historical photographs, sports events, body decoration, indigenous painting, architecture, costume and personal adornment, "in short any of the expressive systems of human society that communicate meanings partially or primarily by visual means" (Rose 283).
Woa-ks Cited Abbott, Brett (20 I 0) Engaged Observers: Documentmy Photography Since the Sixties (California: Getty Publications). Barthes, Roland ( 1977) Image, Music, Text. Trans. Stephe:n Heath (London: Fontana Press). - ( 1981) Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Bateson, Gregory, and Margaret Mead ( 1962) Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis (New York: New York Academy of Sciences). Becker, Howard S ( 1995) "Visual Sociology, Documentary Photography, and Photojournalism: It's All a Matter of Context." Visual Sociology. Vol I 0 ( 1- 2):5-14. Bello, Patrizia De, and Shamoon Zamir ( 1988) "Introduction" The Photo Book: From Talbot to Ruscha and Beyond (New York: I. B. Tauris): 1-15. Berger, John ( 1972) Ways ofSeeing (London: Penguin). Bordieu, Pierre ( 1990) Photography, A Middle-brow Art (Stanford, CA: Stanford U Press). Bracke, Astrid and Dennis Kersten (2014) "Worth A Thousand Words: At the Intersections of Literature and Visual Arts." Image{&} Narrative. Vo1.15 (3): 1-4. Flusser, Vilem (2000) Towards a Philosophy ofPhotography (London: Reaktion). Ingold, Tim ( J 994) "Introduction to Culture. "Companion Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Ed. Tim Ingold (Routledge: London): 249-329.
140 Jennings, Michael W (2008) "Agriculture, Industry and the Birth of the Photo Essay in the Late Weimar Republic." The MIT Press. Vol. 93 (MIT Press): 23-56. Linfield, Susie (20 I 0) The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence (Chicago: U of Chicago). MacDougall, David (1997) "The Visual in Anthropology."Rethinking Visual Anthropology. Ed. Marcus Banks, Howards Morphy (New Haven: Yale University Press): 276-95. Mitchell, W.J.T (J 994 ) "The Photographic Essay: Four Case Studies."Picture Theory. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press): 281-322. Nair, Parvati (2012)A Different Light: The Photography of SebastiaPo Salgado(Durham: Duke U Press). Nelson, A.J (2007) "Visual ising History: Narrative Montage and the Photobook." Narrative Montage and the Construction of Modern Visual Literacy (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press): 1-54. Pink, Sarah (2003) "Jnterdisciplinary Agendas in Visual Research: Re-situating Visual Anthropology." Visual Studies. Vol. 18, No.2: 179-92. Rich ten, Fred (2009) After Photography (New York: W. W. Norton). Rose, G (200 I) Visual Methodologies: An Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials (London: SAGE Publications). Singh, Oayanita (1996) "Sikh Families in Darlington, U.K." India International Centre Quarterly Vol.23.3/4: 82-92. Stafford, Andy (2008) "Non parei lie? Issues in modern French Photoessayism."The Modern Essay in French: Movement, Instability, Pe1formance (Peter Lang, Oxford): I 01-18. Toit, Greg Du. "Beautiful People." Gregdutoit.com. https://www.gregdutoit.com/ index.php?page=beautiful_people_ftf (accessed 2 February 20 J 4).
141 SUMANDEEP KAUR
Rethinking the Community with Jean-Luc Nancy
Community means the presence of a being-together whose immanence is impossible except as its death work. (Nancy 1991: 80)
The desire for community founded on shared consciousness, intimacy, and communion is evident in both everyday discourses and academic debates. With the fragmentation of societies under the impact ofcolonialism, modernization, and globalization, concerns over the fate of the community have started coming to the forefront.
Research Scholar, Department of English, Punjabi University, Patiala.
142 The concept of the commtrnity has accumulated a special resonance in the current social and political situation which appears to.have produced a worJdwide search for roots in terms of identity and belonging. Moreover, in recent years new conceptions of the community have appeared which challenge its conventional conceptions. The renewed interest in the community manifests itself in several disciplines, including politics, .philosophy, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies and literature. A number ofthinkers, such as Maurice Blanchot, Georges Bataille, Jacques Derrida and Roberto Esposito have engaged with the concept of the community in recent times. Among these, Jean-Luc Nancy's (b. 26 July 1940) work also stands as a significant contribution. Nancy revisits the question of the all-pervasive yet critically unexamined notion of the community. His works The Inoperative Community ( 1986; trans.199 I) and Being Singular Plural (2000) are particularly significant for reopening the debates about the nature ofthe community. The English translation of Nancy's work in 199 I was marked by important changes at the global level- the demise of communism (with which he starts the argument), the end of cold war and the r-ise of globalization, neo-liberalism and new market values. The context confers special importance on Nancy's work as he offers novel ways of considering the political and philosophical aspects of the community. He rejects the idea ofa unified and immanent community and points out that so far the community has been envisioned in metaphysical terms, which must stop now. He argues that the community can never be the idealized fantasy of"common-being" (Nancy 1991: xxxviii). In the following pages an attempt has been made to outline and assess Nancy's contribution to a critical understanding of the community. The focus is on Nancy's concepts of immanentism, singularity and being-in-common. Nancy critically engages with the construction ofthe community and poses significant questions: How is it possible to envisage community today without relapsing into the old metaphysical ground of an essence? How can we escape reducing the community to a collection of individuals only? In other
143 words, community cannot be defined in terms of "people", "nation", "destiny", and "generic humanity" (Nancy 1991: xi).Nancy also deals with the question of how we can be receptive to the meaning of our multiple and dispersed identities which nonetheless make sense by existing in common.
Diverse Uses of the Term "Community" To start with, let us bring out the different ways in which the term 'community' is used. 'Community', which derives from the Latin com (with or together) and munus (responsibility), has been traditionally understood, by sociologists, to be "embedded in the village or small town where human associations are intimate, familiar, sympathetic, mutually interdependent and reflective of a shared consciousness" ("Community" 362). Though community . has not been understood in a single way, it has generally been viewed, according to David Jary and Julia Jary, in terms of a "set of relationships operating within certain boundaries, locations and territories" (97). Jary and Jary further argue: "[I]t may refer to social relationships which take place within geographically defined areas or neighbourhoods, or to relationships which are not locally operative but exist at a more abstract, ideological level" (98). Anthropologists have defined community in terms of minorities. Nicholas Abercrombie observes that," A community has three main elements: it necessarily has a social structure, a sense of belonging or community spirit, and a geographical area" ( 1994:75). Delanty notes that community is essentially social. It is expressed in the communicative contexts and he considers it the basis of the social recognition of the other. However, he argues that under the conditions of modernity, the community relations have become rather fragile. In his entry for"community" in Keywords, Raymond Williams relates community to "a sense of common identity and characteristics", and "body of direct relationships" ( 1983:75). A community, according to him, is "relatively small" with a "sense of immediacy and locality" ( 1983:75). J. Hillis Miller explains:
144 A common notion of a human community sees it as the constitution of a group living and working together. They have made the community over time. It is the · product of their combined and cooperative work, as well as the result of a social contract they have explicitly or implicitly signed. Their collective work has constituted their community, sometimes on the basis of an explicit "constitution" (201 J:J3).
Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities was an important intervention in this debate of the community. Although he primarily focuses on the formation of nation-state and national consciousness, his definition of nation as imagined community, "the members of the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.", opened the way for understanding the community as "imagined", rather than being limited to a social space (Anderson 2006: 6). This further paved the way for understanding the community in terms of trans nationalization. Miranda Joseph looks critically at the accepted meaning of the community and says:
Community is almost always invoked as an unequivocal good, an indicator of a high quality ofli1e, a lite ofhuman understanding, caring, selflessness, and belonging. One does one's volunteer work for and in "the community". Communities are frequently said to emerge in times of crisis or tragedy, when people imagine themselves bound together by a common grief and joined through some extraordinary effort (Miranda 2002: vii)
In the light of the above, it may be said thatin a community, the individuals are oriented towards a totality of which they see themselves as parts, though community also presupposes the individuals as pre-existing subjectivities. As such, it is constituted by a collective sharing of stories and myths, customs and rituals, laws, the institution of marriage, gender roles, religious leanings, etc. The experience of living and working together binds the people into a close-knit community. However, these elements appear to be more pertinent in the context of pre-industrial, pre-modern communities. The modernist discourse of the community is mainly associated with the theme of loss. Gerard Delanty describes that the idea of
145 the loss of organic community has been prevalent in the modern thought from the Enlightenment onwards . With the advent of industrialisation, urbanisation, modemisation and secularization, the traditional community undergoes a process of change and may even disintegrate. Many sociologists such as Ferdinand Tonnies, Max Weber and Robert Nisbet argued that the break-up of the institutions of the middle ages have led to the loss of the community. As Linnell Secomb remarks:
In the media, on the streets and in cafe discussions there is talk of the destruction ofneighbourly relations and communal sharing as a result of the encroachment of industrialization, modernity and post-modernity. Community, it is said, has been shattered or consumed by the metropolis, by the mass extermination of the World War, Death Camps, and Colonization and by the isolation engendered by advanced transport communication, media, and entertainment systems. (2000:133)
In view of the changes in the very nature of the community, there is a historical need to reconsider and interrogate its received and conventional notions. The earlier notions of the community as something based on closed association have to give way to a critical understanding of its historically determined complexity and even multiplicity. "Postmodern community" addressed these concerns and a shift can be seen from "identity to difference, from certainty to contingency, from closed to open communities" (Delanty 2012: 103-1 04). William Corlett, Scott Lash and Michel Maffesoli are major contributors to this thought. The understanding of the community as related to the nation-state was also challenged. Here the poststructuralist intervention cannot be overlooked, since it posed a challenge to the traditional categories of metaphysics, logocentrism, foundational assumptions and concepts about truth. It destabilized the stability of meaning. From a poststructuralist view point, logocentric claims to knowledge and truth cannot provide space for difference and multiplicity. These ideas greatly influenced the understanding about the community also. However, the domin~nt discourse remained confined to the idea ofloss. In response to the current understanding, Nancy presents a different view of the community.
146 Deconstructing the Nos~algia for the Community Nancy initiates his inquiry into the community against the backdrop of the failure of communism 1.Commentin.g on the failure, Alain Badiou writes:
We are witnessing the ruin ofthe great collective enterprises that once we imagined carried within themselves the seeds of emancipation and truth. We know that there are no such great emancipatory forces, that there is neither progress, nor proletariat, nor any such thing. We know that we are not caught upby such forces and that there is no hope tor us of sustaining our desire by simply incorporating ourselves into such a force, or by being a member of such a force ... one cannot hide behind .any great collective configuration, any supposed force, any metaphysical totality which might take a position in one's stead. (2005:40)
The failure of communism also brought to the centre stage the debate between two camps, communitarians and liberals. The communitarians considered this a period of crisis in which the social ties were disintegrating. They vehemently appealed for a return to a form of community where people had strong relations with each other: Michael Sandel, Alasdair Macintyre, Cl)arles Taylor, Amitai Etzioni, Robert Bellah, Michael Walzer and Daniel Bell were some of the well-known communitarians. Liberals, on the other hand, advocated the freedom of the individual. They feared that the call for a return to the original community would lead to totalitarianism. The thinkers like John Rawls, Richard Nozick, and Richard Dworkin advocated this view and emphasized on the freedom of the individual. Nancy says that this has provided a new impetus to the debate on the community which becomes even more important in the current social and politica !conditions. Indeed, the destruction of the community in the present time is a central concern for him:
The gravest and most painful testimony of the modern world, the one that possibly involves all others testimonies to which this epoch must answer ... is the testimony of the dissolution, the dislocation, or, the conflagration of community. (Nancy 1991: 1).
For Nancy, the term 'communism' historically signalled the desire to discover, or rediscover, a community 'beyond social divisions and beyond subordination to techno-political dominion' and a desire
147 to defy subjugation to the hierarchical order implicit in a capitalist organization of society. Despite these positive values/ideals, communism was marked by a fundamental and serious flaw, according to Nancy: 'Human beings defined as producers' and most significantly 'as the producers of their own essence in the form of labor or their work'. Consequently, communism turned all its energies to reducing everything to production, management and control. Nancy argues that any community thought to be constituted by the labor/work ofhumari beings is likely to be problematic. Understood as 'work', the community appears to be something which can be produced and objectified as a 'common being'. This confers on the community a grand essence and the human beings are, consequently subordinated to that grand essence. As Ana Luszczynska says:
The ties or relations between individuals within this context are characterized by a lack of being-with and rather institute and expose the will to essence. Everything is understood in terms of the accomplishment ofthis essence. which becomes the work of all relations. (2005: 171)
This essence is presented through 'economic ties, technological 3 operations and political fusion ' • However, Nancy calls this essence 'totalitarianism', which is better termed as' immanentism' because the members of such a community are wedded to the goal of a totalizing community. He points out that this essence can be noticed not only in totalitarian regimes but also in democratic societies. The desire to find the essence becomes the core of nostalgia. That is why the response to the insecurity resulting from disintegration and the dislocation ofthe community is usually sought in a nostalgic return to the times when communal ties were supposedly very strong. This nostalgia has become a common and easily recognizable paradigm. lgnaas Devisch observes that, "the longing for a lost community is actually a sign of this thing that the question of the community has not been sufficiently thought out" (2000:2). Nancy argues that it is supposed that modernity has engendered this breakdown of the community. He deconstructs thenostalgia for a lost, transparent,small-scale community-a gemeinschajF that is
148 supposed to hold the power to free us from at ienation in the modern society. He points out that in the modern era there is a deep longing for an "organic communion with essence" (Nancy 1991: 9). This longing. comes from the vague belief that we once lived in a harmonious and intimate community, which has somehow vanished with the passage of time. In fact, a consequence of this is that even history is sometimes viewed on the basis of a lost community- one to be regained and reconstituted. Nancy writes:
The lost, or broken, community can be exemplified. in all kinds of ways, by all kinds ofparadigms: the natural family, the Athenian city, the Roman Republic, the first Christian community, corporations, communes, or brotherhoods - always it is a matter of a lost age in which community was woven of tight, harmonious, and infrangible bonds and in which above all it played back to itself, through its institutions, its rituals, and its symbols, the representation, indeed the living offering, of its own immanent unity, intimacy and autonomy. ( 1991 :9)
He adds that it is usually supposed that community is made up principally of sharing and of the diffusion of identity such as aU members identify themselves with an imaginary living body of the community. The community is thus seen in terms of the binarism of theindividual and thetotality, ofidentity and the particular, of origin and end, of unity and absoluteness. In short, "[l]n the motto of Republic, fraternity designates community" (Nancy 1991: 9). Nancy warns that it is at this point that we should become suspicious of the "retrospective consciousness" (Nancy 1991: I 0) of the lost community. This 'retrospective consciousness' constructs an ideal image of the past and seems to have dogged the western world from very early times. It is as if there has always been nostalgia for a "more archaic community, a community which has disappeared: this is evident when they deplore a loss of fraternity, . offamiliarity, of conviviality" (Nancy 1991: 10). Nancy points out that in reality the notion ofthe ideal community and the desire for it could be nothing other than an invention in response to the harsh reality of modern experience. However, the fact is that "community has never taken place along the lines of our projections of it according to different social forms" (Nancy 1991: 10). Nancy out rightly rejects the position thatsodety has replaced
149 community and that it was built on the ruins of a community. It did not emerge because of the ruin or loss of the community; rather it appeared because of the disappearance of certain tribes and/or empires. The community is not something_which has been crushed or lost; on the contrary, "[l]t is something which happens to us in the wake of society" (Nancy 1991: 11 ). In other words, Nancy's point is that the community has not been lost because it never existed in an essential form; we have only invented the idea of a lost community to cope with a crisis. Nancy thus advanced an argument against Ferdinand Tonnies and says that no gemeinschaft has been destroyed with the emergence of agesellschaft3 with state, industry and capital.
Questioning the Idea of Immanence Nancy further argues that when we regret the loss of the community, we are actually expressing a displaced desire for immanence. The term 'immanence' signifies total self-presence, a state of being entirely closed up in oneself -which is the opposite oftranscendence. When Nancy speaks of immanentism, he suggests the way communities, nations or ethnicities try to protect their identity from the influence of others, so that they can be united around an imaginary undivided selfhood. This totalization is what results in an immanent community. Nancy is suspicious of the belief in a community with immanent identity, with a specific essence and character, because this often leads to the suppression of the actual community based on communication. Significantly, Nancy argues that the attempt to think the community on the basis of an essence implies the foreclosure of the political because the attempt assigns to the community a common being4. He does not deny that the community is related to the common, but he emphasizes that community does not let itself be absorbed into a common substance (Nancy 1991: xxxviii). This is a subtle distinction. He associates community, instead, with being in common, which he explains thus: "[B]eing in common means no longer having, in any form, in any empirical or ideal place, a substantial identity" (Nancy 1991: xxxviii). The community cannot
150 be fused into a single body, into a unique and ultimate identity that is not exposed towards others. The notion of being in common highlights both connection and differences among the members, whereas the notion of the common being destroys the sense of a singular being. Nancy further explains that any community that becomes a single thing (body, mind, fatherland, leader ... ) loses the in of being-in-common. This 'in' is thesiteofthe play of difference, of the political. Devisch describes this in as: "The in as such is a sort of resistance to a fusional being-together and at the same time the un-working ofthe metaphysical horizon in which the community has been thought" (2000: 14 ). Nancy also does not advocate complete individuation since it detaches and closes off the singular beings from one another: only communication constitutes the being of singularities. Communication gives a singular being the possibility of reaching outside oneself; nevertheless, this does not mean that the existence of singular beings in their singularity is sublated in the community~ Nancy regards the collective political enterprises dominated by a will to absolute immanence as possessing only the 'truth of death'. Immanence and communal fusion, when both the individual and the community dissolve, embody no other logic than that of the suicide of the community because to realize the so-called pure immanence, every factor threatening the imaginary purity has to be eliminated. Nancy invokes the example of the Nazi Germany:
The logic of the Nazi Germany wao; not only that of the extermination of the :other, of the subhuman deemed exterior to the communion of blood and soil, but also, effectively, the logic of sacrifice aimed at all those in the "Aryan" community who did not satis(y the criteria ofpure immanence. (Nancy 1991: 12)
Robert Bernasconi states that Nancy understands the political form ofthis immanentism as totalitarianism. However, it should be always remembered that this phenomenon is not confined only to the totalitarian regimes; it serves equally well for democratic societies. Devisch also makes it clear that "This retrospective consciousness is not the privilege of totalitarian regimes" ~2000:2). The striving for immanence, whether under totalitarianism or in democracy,
151· rapidly takes the form of violent suppression. This is so because such a community requires not only that its members embody this immanence ;it demands thatthey actively strive for immanence. So it even requires the sacrifice of its own members. Nancy reminds us that death is the finite reality of human life; however, in the case of an immanent community, death becomes the source of fulfillment of immanent life. Paradoxically, this immanent life is not life at all; rather death devours everything in it. "Generations of citizens and militants, of workers and servants of the states have imagined their death reabsorbed or sublated in a community, yet to come, that would attain immanence" (Nancy 1991:13). However, as history bears witness, this kind of community can never be achieved in reality; This kind of immanent community has never a reality and can never be, though millions of deaths have been sought to be justified in the name of such a notion of the community. Italian thinker Roberto Esposito aptly argues that the political space must allow the alterity to exist. The community should not be envisaged as a possession or property. History demonstrates amply that the longing for a pure community has resulted in violent conflicts. Miranda Joseph in Against the Romance of Community explains that "[F]etishizing community only makes us blind to the ways we may intervene in the enactmentof domination and exploitation" (2002: ix). Several genocides in recent times, like the Armenian genocide in Turkey, that in the Balkan states ofBosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia in 90s, that which accompanied the conflict between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, the violence arising from a desire for establishment of pure Islamic state based on the laws of shariya and the suppression of Hazaras4 in Afghanistan under the Taliban, and the genocide of2.5 million Hindus in East Pakistan are sad examples that show what happens when an imaginary essence of the community is the criterion for distinguishing between good and evil, between us and them. J. Hillis Miller explains that in such discourse, the idea of the community is strategically deployed to construct the other as other. The distinction between good and evil depends on a politics of exclusion: "You are either
152 with us or against us, and if you are against us, you are evil doers", as George W. Bush warned the world after 9111 and after America's invasion ofAfghanistan (MiJJer 20 1_1 :25). Tarek Fatah in his book Chasing a Mirage explains how the desire to relive and bring back the glorious past has unleashed immense violence; the phantom of· the perfect Islamic state has haunted the Islamist Muslims throughout the ages. The pursuit carries the desire to "[E]radicate and crush with full force all those evils from which Islam aims· to purge mankind" (Fateh 2008: 35). The Bosnian war resulted because of the dreams and quest of two Balkan powers, namely Serbia and Croatia, to re-establish their ancient frontiers. In this clash of two powers, there existed the third frontier also, Slavic Muslims, which did not fit into their dreams. Their 'clearance' was necessary to establish racially pure Serbian republic. (Vulliamy 1994:86). The urge to 'eradicate'~ 'crush' and 'purge' actually shows the real obsession with an imaginary, pure community. Farahnaz lspahani has argued how the Ahmadi community in Pakistan was declared non-Muslim through an amendment in the Pakistani Constitution.: Ahmad is are forbidden to regard themselves as Muslims, and even to use the term 'mosque' for their places of worship has been denied to them (2005:2). This idea of the community has haunted the world again and again. Such traumatic experiences of the community have really generated some very significant efforts to rethink the community. Nancy's interrogation and rethinking of the idea of the community, thus, has implications far beyond the post Holocaust Europe. Indeed, it resonates with special urgency in the post-9/11 west, contemporary Asia, particularly South and South west Asia.
Singularity and "Ciinamen" After explaining the dangers inherent in the notion of an immanent community, Nancy turns his attention to the individual. He points out that after the demise of communism, many people have been inclined to see in the cuJt of the individual a possibility of emancipation. The void )eft by communism has often sought to be filled by the cult of the individual and most collective and
153 communitarian projects are analyzed, measured and examined against the individual. However, Nancy is also very skeptical of the idea ofthe absolute individual. He remarks, "The individual is merely a residue ofthe experience of the dissolution of community" (Nancy 1991 :3). The reason is that he sees the absolute individual as a figure of immanence, the individual as no more than a manifestation of the community. By nature, the individual is indivisible and absolutely detached from others. The individual in this context is also accordingly perceived in absolute terms of origin and certainty. It can be explained in the words of Ana Luszczynska, "Strictly speaking, the relation in this context is an impossibility; it would be a connection devoid of relation, a side-by-side existence with no attachment" (2005: 169). He breaks down the word absolute as ab-solute; and explains it as perfectly detached, distinct and closed, as something which does not have any relations. The absolute can appear in any form in the form of idea, history, science, state, work of at1, and so on. Wherever the absolute exists, its logic will be of no relation. Its assumed logic implies that the absolute not only includes the separation from the other but also an enclosure around itself, which can be very stifling and self-destructive. Nancy calls this double enclosure because the enclosure includes both the individual and the enclosure itself. He says, "to be absolutely alone, it is not enough that I be so; I must also be alone being alone- and this of course is contradictory" (Nancy 1991: 4 ). This contradiction explains a relationship between two entities even in the sphere of alone. This goes against the logic ofthe absolute because relationality is inherent in the logic of the absolute. Even the outside of the absolute is also determined by the fact that the absolute gains a separate entity from somewhere other than itself. Thus, the inside and the outside of the absolute are marked by a relationality which cannot be denied and violated. Hence, he says that beyond the question ofthe individual there opens the question of singularity. Singularity does not have the structure or nature of the individual. Nancy explains that we do not have to see a body, a face, a voice, a death and a writing being
154. indivisible as this indivisibility will force us to find some essential character. However, their singularity demands that we see them in particular as well as in totality. In other words, it refers to their non absoluteness and non-essential character. Nancy argues for treating persons as singularities, not as individuals. He says that the question of singularity is the reverse of the absolute. Individuation closes off an individual from its surroundings, but singularity does not carry out with such a detaching of the individuals. It also does not result from a collective process or work. In fact, it is made up of networks the interweaving and sharing of singularities. It contains a space which enables a singular being to move outside herself and share the confines of other singularities. Thus one can see the relation of singular with community. Explaining the nature of singularity, Nancy says that it does not take place at the level of atoms but at the level of"clinamnen". By "clinamen" Nancy means ':an inclination, or an inclining from one toward the other, of one by the other or from one to the other" (Nancy 1991: 3). According to Nancy, Clinamen cannot be materialized through the individual. Thus, community is characterized by inclination and sharing and there is in the corrimunityno being without another being. Nancy argues that for Heidegger, for example, being is not immanent, total or absolute; rather in his works, being is defined as relational and non-absolute. In this way, Nancy deconstructs every form of self-enclosure. The relational and non-absolute being constituted of singularities is what Nancy defines as community.
Singularity and Finitude At the same time, the community is also an experience of limits. The salient feature that Nancy ascribes to the singularities is their finitude, their mortality. Each singularity is defined by the fact that it will die. Significantly, even when Nancy says that singularity is marked by finitude, it does not present itself as a substance and an essence. It exists as communication between individuals. Singular being has existence only when it is extended towards the outside of being. This outside of the being relates the other of one singularity to the other of other singularities. This is called "exposing-sharing"
155 by Nancy, which is not an artificial construct, rather it constitutes the being. Nancy notes that communication should not be understood as a bond. The metaphor of bond contains the quality where we try to attach one thing to another. Nancy prefers the word compeare.The nature of compearance is that it signifies the quality of"between" as in: "you and 1", where and does not imply juxtaposition but exposition (Nancy 199 I :29). There is no fusion in this kind of communication; insteadit exposes the singularity to the outside. Hence, the finitude to which every singularity is exposed does not fuse the singular beings into one another and so into a community, but simply presents the being-together (compearance) of singular finite beings. According to Nancy, "Community does not weave a superior, immortal or transmortal life between subjects, but it is constitutively calibrated on the death of those whom we call, perhaps wrongly, its members" ( 1991 : 14 ). Each singularity is exposed to the limitless outside that it shares with other singularities by way of their common mortality; in other words, community is marked by the imminence of death. We do not ourselves experience this death; we experience death in the death of others - our loved ones, our neighbours, our relatives. It is the experience of the death of others that forces us to realize our own mortality. In death, each singularity is driven out of itself and forced to touch the confines of other singularities. Hence, as Nancy writes, "A community is the presentation to its members of their mortal truth (which amounts to saying that there is no community of immortal beings)" ( 1991: 15). He suggests that it is the community that forces a singularity to move outside itself. However, in this process, it does not sublate itself into communal existence because it is also the exposition/expression of limit or finitude. That is why he calls it 'finite community'. Such a community, characterized by sharing and the experience of limits, cannot be a substantial, immanent entity. He repeatedly makes it clear that the community is not a subject or a work to be completed. The way Nancy describes sharing makes his definition of the community even clearer. He says:
156 Sharing comes down to this: what community reveals to me, in presenting to me . my birth and my death, is my existence outside myselt: Which does not mean my existence reinvested in or by community, as if community were another subject that would sublate me, in a dialectical or communal' mode. Community does not sublate the finitude it exposes. Community itself in sum, is nothing other than this exposition. ( 1991 :26; emphasis in original)
In fact, community is a sharing that is never completed. The incompleteness does not imply a lack but suggests an ongoing, never completed activity of sharing. Nancy says, "lt is a matter of incompleting its sharing. Sharing is always incomplete or it is beyond completion and incompletion" (Nancy 1991: 35). A complete sharing implies the disappearance of sharing at some point. The incompletion, on the other hand~ signifies the presence of difference and fragmentation in the community. If the activity of sharing goes on always and remains for ever incomplete, one cannot visualize the community as something lost at some point in the past. Indeed, it is obviously impossible to lose the community so conceived. Nancy says that a society may be as Iittle communitarian as possible, but it cannot happen that there would not be sot~e form of community. However, the problem, according to Nancy, is that community has not yet been thought sufficiently but requires rethinking.
"Unworking" the Community As Nancy views it, the community is not a common project or a joint production. "[It] cannot arise from the domain of work," he says (Nancy 1991: 31 ). Understood as work, the community appears to be a common being, something which can be objectified and produced. This confers on the community a grand essence, which pre-empts communitarian existence. Significantly, Nancy speaks of the 'unworking' of the community. What he terms as the 'unworking' denotes the absence of unity, fusion and self-sufficiency in an absolute sense. Community, thus understood, does not have anything to do with production and completion, but is a site of interruption, fragmentation and suspension. Naticy notes that community is not a work of singular beings; it is simply their being. Through the concept of 'unworking', Nancy challenges the
157 conventional view of the community which assumes that we construct it through our collective work: this work puts together roads, buildings, houses, institutions, laws, conventions offamily life, subjects and discourses to make a whole that we call community. . Nancy thus rejects the idea that the community has any metaphysical foundation. The reason is that any attempt to seek some metaphysical foundations (religion, people, race, of region) leads to problems. Obviously, 'Unworking' also implies that one cannot really speak of an origin or an identity ofthe community. The place of an origin in the community, according to Nancy, is nothing other than the sharing of the singularities, and that is always incomplete and in the making. This means that the origin of community is, in fact, the limit because the experience of the singularities is marked by finitude and limits. In fact, the concept of 'unworking' implies a resistance to totalization and immanence. Before it is anything else, community is related to our being; it enables us to communicate with one another. Hence, it is incorrect to conceptualize it as a work to be done or an object to be produced.
Taking a Critical View of Nancy's Concept oftbe Community One can say that Nancy's concept of the community essentially resists any attempt to pin it down in some immanent substance. Nancy's attempt to de-totalize the community gains new resonance in the present time of aggravated nationalisms and ethnocentrisms. He tries to analyze the conventional narratives of the community based on race, region, religion, etc. In this sense, his conceptual de totalization is a response to the monolithic notions ofthe community. However, there is a gap between the ontological position taken by Nancy that rejects the common being on the one hand and the several empirical instances of social and political groups trying to construct an immanent community on the other hand. In fact, with reference to the problem of Bosnia, he himself says: And with the problem of Bosnia and Serbia ... what do we have to say? One can say, of course, that what the Serbs are doing in Bosnia is fascist. But who can answer this question of why these people are struggling for national and cultural
158 identity? Why are there such nationalist forces and needs? These forces and needs for identity exist. But of what they are inade? This is a question, I would say, which escapes our political tools. I am ashamed sometimes, when like many other people, I say that politically we must be against this and for that, because I am immediately aware that this doesn't get us very far. (1999:220-21)
Nancy views the community as an ongoing activity of sharing but one cannot deny that in reality the community is constituted by persons. Though the members of a community are mortal beings, they are oriented towards a totality (even if it is imagined), which survives them and can be, hence, described in a sense as immortal. Moreover, they believe that they construct their community through their collective work. Their language, institutions, laws, customs, etc. appear to them as evidence of what may they prefer to see as an immanent community. From this point of view, it is difficult to accept without reservations Nancy's claim that it is possible to demolish, step by step, the conventionally accepted conception of the community. His concept of the community seems more of a theoretical intervention which is divorced from the practices of production and consumption. Moreover, his concept also elides the material processes that have transformed social relations. It is because the community has not been understood sufficiently through its constitutive material processes, that the romantic discourses of the community wield such fascination. Nancy's treatment of the community also lacks a historical perspective. He remarks that there is nostalgia for a more archaic community that has supposedly disappeared and the loss of which evokes mourning, but he does not attempt any historical account of it. Again, in a sweeping gesture he says that nostalgia has accompanied the western world from the very beginnings, but he does not offer instances of the specifichistory and the context in which such nostalgia arose. One cannot claim that the Athenian . city, the Roman Republic, the first Christian community, etc. can all be sufficiently explained by means of a generalized reference to nostalgia. Further, in emphasizing the 'un-working' of the community, Nancy argues that the concept offers a resistanc~ tv the totalization
159 ofthe community. However, he does not explain how this un-working may concretely take shape. One can also observe when he points out that communion and communication provide to the singularities a space to reach outside themselves, he overlooks the likelihood of disagreement which may hinder or undermine communication with the other. At places, his conceptualization itself seems to fall into the trap of metaphysics. However, to be fair to Nancy, one must acknowledge that heformulates the question of how we can speak of "us" as a plurality without having to reduce it to an exclusive identity. He emphasizes the uniqueness of each singularity, while at the same time bringing out the importance of plurality. He presents a different perspective on the community as compared to the communitarians and liberals.
End Notes Like Jean-Luc Nancy, Italian thinker Roberto Esposito also starts his argument against the same backdrop. He emphasizes that the failure of communism and the "misery of new individualisms" (Communitas l) has provided a new significance to the debate on the community. He also challenges the contemporary philosophy which, according to him, remains within the horizon of "unthinkability of community" ( 1). He also emphasizes the non essential character of the community and firmly says that the idea of the community has nothing to do with any idea of property collectively owned by a group of individuals. Gemeinschaft, a sociological term given by Ferdinand TOnnies, is found in small social structures such as the family, tribe or village where the social ties are based on personal social interactions, and the roles, values and beliefs based on such interactions. There is a sense of togetherness in such a small scale community. Ferdinand Tonnies considers real and organic life as essential features of gemeinschaft whereas gessellschaft encompasses mechanical structure. He argues that with modernity, gesse/lschaftreplces gemeinschaft. Such thinking constitutes the closure of the political because the political space cannot be dissociated from community. In fact, the political provides that space where community is brought into play. Thus, the political, according to him, is not something related to the power relations only; it also decides the space of the collective. The Hazaras are a Persian-speaking people who live mainly in central Afghanistan, in Hazara town in Baluchistan and Pakistan. They are Shia
160 Muslims and make up the third largest ethnic group in Afghanistan after the ruling Pashtuns and Taziks. Khaled Hosseini in his novel The Kite Runner (2003) brought to light the continued and brutal persecution inflicted upon the Hazara minority in Afghanistan. They have been viewed as a constant threat to Pashtun dominance.
Works Cited Abercrombie, Nicholas (ed.) (1994) The Penguin Dictionary ofSociology. Third Edition. (London: Penguin). Anderson, Benedict. (2006) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread ofNationalism. Revised Edition. (London: Verso). Badiou, Alain. (2005) .Infinite Thought: Truth and the Return to Philosophy. Trans.& ed. Oliver Feltham and Justin Clemens. (New York: Continuum). Bennet, Jonny. (2016) "The Reality of the Hazara Minority, Afghanistan"
(Footnotes)
162 BOOK REVIEW
Sengupta :Hindol, Tlze Modern Monk: What Vivekananda Means To Us Today. Penguin Random JH[ouse, 2017 Page.s 207. Rs. 399. ISBN 978-0143426646
Among the spiritual gurus or spiritual sermonizers who have often been projected as icons of Indian spiritual wisdom, the name of Swami Vivekananda figures pre-eminently. Before Vivekananda comes to the fore, the Indian nationalist discourse exploited the images of Buddha, Kabir, Nanak and other Bhakti saints and gurus to the hilt to consolidate its claims to spiritual modernity. After Vivekananda, the trend continues unabated as Mahatma Gandhi, Gurudev Tagore, Acharya VinobaBhave and also a host of post Independence brahamcharis embodied the same spiritual leadership that India as a spiritual super-power always needed for guidance and moral upliftment. Saints have been deployed within the discourse of nationalism not only to assert and underline the religious past but also to highlight thevalues of dynamic critical
163 thinking that informs this past. The saints, thus, enigmatically become the torch-bearers ofm
164 ·his life in a linear progression, the argument in the book focuses more on the fallibility of his character. The moments of Vivekananda'sself.;.doubt, performance anxieties,and inconsistencies .find adequate space in the book to chart out his journey from .childhood to maturio/. The patten1 ofthe narrative dilutes the earlier iconographic itnage of the saint and tries to reinvent his persona with modern sensibilities.Right from his fluency in English, photographic memot)', graduation report card to his lecture at the Parliament of Religions, the narrative structure modernizes his persona to a large extent. · Drifting away from the ovenirching claims, exaggerated narratives of the earlier biographies, the present biography does not transfix his identity as a born saint btit gradually develops his persona as an enlightened being.The monk's elevated extraordinary (magical) powers have been subsidized and presented as having "[N]othing miraculous about these, nothing unobtainable" (11 ).· .· Without escalating the supra-sens.ual, awe-inspiring and larger than life childhood of the saint, the present biography foregrounds the image ofa pers6n who "[I]nhis passions, his troubles, his illnesses, his victories,and defeats remained ~oinprehensively, COI1Vincingly human'' (I 0). Rather than reinforcing Vivekananda's early life as · ·an ideal life of a holy man, it foregrounds the image of a boy who . .~ndulged in mischief-making and causing trouble to his parents. His · interest in gillidanda, flying pigeons, and fight with his playmates · over ·sweetmeats showcase images of an errant boy .. Furthermore, th~ narrative showcases the pragmatic self ofthe writer who "(W]as not dismissive of material prosperity" ( 15). The engagement of the saint with the issues such as education, space ofwomen, metaphysics · within the framework ofscience andrationality shows his persona to be an ascetic activist.· Fr01n the untimely death of his father to his constant involvetl1ent in the Ia wsuits, the argum~~ntdel ves deep into the interior Iandscap\!s of his lite. However, his drinking habits, visits to the brothel and doubts·on the existence of God are inexorably linked not with his losing· self or moments of self-doubt but with the unfm1unate situations or selfish friends. Theargwnentreveals the inconsistencies
165 of his character but in a very subtle manner.Owing to his entanglements in myriad financial and legal problems, he continued to steer between asceticism and the familial bonds. The narrative structure shows that " ... during the most intensive preaching period ofhis life-the nine years from the time he spoke at the Parliament ofReligions to his death, constantly worry about money" (Sengupta 29). The simultaneous attachment, as well as detachment from the materialistic world and its delicacies, makes his character more fascinating as well as intriguing. The structure of the biography reinstates the position of the monk both as a person who was struggling to find his own self and a dutiful son who was prepared to sacrifice everything-ambition, leadership,and fame- for his mother. The biography gradually refurbishes his persona as a saint which is easily accessible to the masses. The narrative does not spin the conventional image ofthe monk, rather, showcases his culinary habits, jovial nature,and litigation issues.For instance, "One moment, he would read the Holy Scriptures to them; the next moment, he would cook them delicacies" (Sengupta 41 ). Without establishing Vivekananda as a consistent and cohesive entity, the writer brings out his inconsistencies and imperfections which make him a man of our times. He neither forsakes the material world to attain the ascetic ideals nor deviates from attaining spiritual yearnings. The trajectory of the biography situates him as a person whose philosophical ideas, social and moral beliefs are more suited or attuned to our conflicts in ultra-modern society. The biography establishes Vivekananda among the Indian thinkers, especially in the nineteenth century, who tried to establish and justify their religious views on the premises of rationality and logic.Apart from spiritual yearnings, the trajectory ofthe biography serves to establish the lines of succession from themaster (Ramakrishna) to the chosen disciple (Vivekananda). The narrative structure touches upon the complex relationship between Ramakrishna Paramhansa and Swami Vivekananda, their different outlook on religion and social service, but ends up representing them as the crusaders of modernity. It also establishes the encounter
166 between the two as the most definitive instances of modernity in religious discourse of India. Their relationship is being portrayed not only as the beacon ofBengali Renaissance but also as a decisive moment which shaped the cultural identity ofHinduism both in India as well as abroad.· The encounters of Vivekananda, during his journey as a wandering monk, tend to be replete with the elements of Bildungsroman~ His adventurous encounters, especially during his life as a wandering monk, mould his outlook and approach pertaining to the prevailing socio-cultural situation in India. Throughout· his life, he suffered from one disease or the other and his letters reveal his deteriorating conditions. Sengupta refers to Sankar,who lists outa number ofdiseases that traumatized the sage"[ A]migraine, tonsillitis, diphtheria, asthma, typhoid, malaria, indigestion, liver diseases, lower back pain, upper back pain, fatigue,· seasickness, diabetes" which continued to haunt him throughout his life (1 00). · On the contrary, the same person has been hailed as an embodiment of masculinity, strength,and virility. Vivekananda became an essential cultural cog in the nationalist imaginations to challenge the colonial stereotyping of Indians as we II as to re-define the Indian masculinity. His rhetoric of spiritual masculinity provided the much-needed counter-discourse to disrupt the violent and aggressive colonial hegemonic masculinity. However, the biography never probes into the cultural necessity for the re-defining of Indian masculinity. The persona that emerges out is a "(T]ussle between the monk and the man~ .. there is a tension in his story and failure. He even has his moments of fatalism" (104). · · Without getting into the intricacies involved in the Vivekanand.a's d~sire to setup an institutional framewock in the Western countries, the narrative positions Vivekananda as the brand ambassador of Indian spiritual wisdom to the West. The yoga sutra, universality of religion, and scientific explanation ofreligious ideals find enough · space in the biography. The monk disseminated Vedantic philosophy and fostered the notion that all religions are essentially in agreement. The lucid technique presents Vivekananda's philosophy being materialistic and ascetic at the same time. Though he remained
167 aloof from politics yet considered political freedom as an essential element in the spiritual fulfillment ofmankind. Rather than probing into Vivekananda's moves of founding the institutional framework, the narrative reinforces his image as a revivalist of Hinduism. The narrative judiciously appropriates certain events from his life to merge his ascetic identity into the discourse of modernity. The skillful structural pattern along with lucid language recreates the identity of the sage within the garb of modernity. The idea is to project him as an entity who is capable of engaging between "temporal and ecclesiastical" at once (160-61). However, the . argument stopsshort irt explaining the shift in his philosophical and ideological thought processes during his stay in India as well as abroad. It focuses more on constructing and shaping his identity as a modem monk and does not question the discursive processes involved in it. The reduction of Vivekananda as an icon or a photograph to be displayed in the offices, along with politicization of his identity has been excluded from the core argument ofthe book. Despite some reservations, the book reveals the lesser known aspect of his life and presents him more as a human than a saint.
Gaurav Kalra Research Scholar Department of English and cultural Studies Panjab University, Chandigarh (India)
168 BOOK REVIEW
Gandhian Googly' Kaushik Bandyopadhyay, Mahatma on the Pitch: Gandhi and Cricket in India. New Delhi: Rupa Publication, 2017. Pages 184. Rs.278.
The phenomenon ofcricket and Gandhi in India occupies a significant space in the field of popular culture. Ranging from bollywoodisation to the iconography, cricket and Gandhi respectively have served as a minefield ofsemiotic study. The cricketing metaphor is well sutured to its cultural makeup. Its cultural appropriation in the Indian psyche makes Ashish Nandy quip, "Cricket is an Indian game accidently discovered by the British" (2000: 1). Similarly, Ramchandran Guha,. a renowned cricket historian depicts Indian cricket within an ambit of a "[R]elational idiom, a sphere of activity which expresses in a · concentrated fonn, values, prejudices, divisions and unifying symbols of society" (1998: 157). The sporting discourse in India is closely aligned to the creation and assertion ofcolonial modernity, identity, caste and class mobility,
169 nationalism and decolonisation. It i~ both unifYing and exclusionary and, elite and popular at the same time. Kaushik Bandyopadhyay's Mahatma on the Pitch: Gandhi and Cricket in India delineates cricket through the prism of Indian nationalism. It is the social history of India's engagement with cricket and a probing analysis of its political and cultural engagement, in the pre-independence India. Bandyopadhyay's intriguing account ofthe book is set in motion by referring to the class IX social science textbook in Tripura that featured a chapter entitled, 'Cricketing Gandhi'. With the historian's keen eye, Bandyopadhyay embarks on to explore the uncanny relationship between cricket and the Gandhi in colonial India. The racy account of Gandhian nationalism and cricket depicts how game did not influence Gandhi as much as Gandhi influenced the game of cricket. The fascinating account _of the book revolves around the points of convergence and conflict between Gandhi's moral athleticism and Victorian sporting ethics. The book sets out some intriguing questions concerning" the fascinating relationship between Gandhi and cricket: Did Gandhi ever play cricket? Did cricket ever figure in the Gandhian world of thought? Were there any connections between Gandhi and cricket during the high tide of the national movement? These strikingly unconventional notions are unravelled through Gandhian tryst with cricket, two of the most enduring phenomenon ofmodern India. The account threads through Gandhi's sporting pursuit in his childhood/ schooldays in Rajkot vis- a vis cricket's evolution and its political economy in the pre-independence India. Kaushik Bandopadhyay is no strange name in the field of sports literature. Historian by profession, his most recent works include, Sports Culture and Nation (20 12), Perspectives on Indian Football and South Asian Cricket (20 15). He is currently the editor of the International Sports Journal, Soccer and Society. Trough this book, he moves away from the dominant hagiographical modeL The capsule account of Gandhi's early schooling and career through 'South African Sojourn' (4 ), to 'Satyagraha in Action' ( 11 ), all the way to freedom struggle is given too quick a glance.
170 Nevertheless, the narrative sweep could be well perceived when · proposed that cricket and Gandhi needs to be "understood in the broader context of Gandhian ideas on modem civilization and his philosophy ofleisure" (36). Gandhian cricket conundrum at the helm oflndia's freedom struggle, makes him throw a cheeky possibility: "Had the British been overthrown out of India in the violent, revolutionary way proposed by the Indian nationalist Subhas Bose ( 1897 -1945), rather than agreed to withdraw peacefully, football rather that cricket would have become the major game" (xi). Sports and other physical pursuits in colonial India were played out as an instrument of imperial moral persuasion. Gandhi in colonial India built up a cryptic allegiance towards the playing ethos or 'games ethic' which went in common with the notion of 'muscular Christianity' propagated by the moral missionaries. The chapter, 'Story of Sporting Gandhi', traces how Gandhi was not completely averse to British sporting ethics. He had a temperamental dislike · for modern "boisterous games" but his favourite. recreational exercise were. "long walks" (37,38). The avocation served as a political metaphor for his long walk to freedom struggle. The close readings suggest how Gandhi an moral. athleticism offers an alternative form of physical culture and modernity. Instead ofplaying tennis or cricket, he wanted the students to "[S]hare the daily core of manual labour and thus go sturdy" and "[S]tressed the importance ofindigenous physical culture ingrained in simple manual labour : such as agriculture" (48,51 ). Bandyopadhyay depicts how Gandhi selectively appropriates sports as a level playing field. The fresh and fascinating account.of · Gandhi's sporting encounter is charted through the subtitle, "The young barristers sporting aspirations in South Africa".. Gandhi's sporting .ethos takes a different spin here. A football field gets re appropriated through his newly formed Indian diaspqric football dubs; both named as 'Passive Resisters' (47). It mainly constituted of traders and indentured labourers from India. Eponymously, the clubs served as a tool for the political philosophy of non-violent resistanc~, racism and above all for the socialladdering ofthe Indian co~munity. The emancipatory dribble delineates how, "football
171 stadiums were popular venues for Gandhi's political rallies" ( 4 7). However, when it came to sports like boxing, he fails to give any cultural valence to it. The account in the book suggests how for him a pitched battle between White, Jim Jeffries and Negro Jack Johnson was a mere "barbarous" pursuit ( 48-49). The analysis of cricket in colonial Bombay reflects the fissures and tension~ of a deeply divided society. The chapter, 'The Story of Gandhian Cricket' revolves around the issues of caste, cricket and Gandhian nationalism at play. The narrative thrust centres around the fascinating account of the pre-independence 'community' based domestic cricket tournament, the Pentangular series. It traces the subsequent rise of da1it cricketers, the Pwalwankar brothers. Among the Palwankars, Baloo's bowling prowess made him win the greatest social acclaim and was an inspiration to B.R. Ambedkar. Gandhi's astute choice of fielding Baloo againstAmbedkar in an electoral battle in the city of Bombay is a telling comment on his popularity. Equally captivating for the invested reader would be to mull over, whether one can single out Baloo's rise as. an outstanding first dalit cricketer? Or, was it "Gandhian Baloo" (76) at play? Similarly, can Baloo's younger brother, Vithal's captaining the Hindu side, hitherto an exclusive preserve of Hindu, be taken as nothing short of a social revolution? Or, was it inaugurated by Gandhi's attack on untouchability? Is he again a mere apogean of Gandhian nationalism? Badyopadhyay captures Vithal's rise and crowd hailing: "Hurrah! Captain Vithal! ·Hurrah Hindus who forget caste prejudice! A1ahatma Gandhi /ri jai'' (72). Pushing on further, can Vithal's accomplishment be paralleled with C.L.R. James's account of Frank Worrell as the first black captain of the West Indian side, the role which was again an exclusive preserve ofthe whites (2000: 79) these are the complex facets ofthe game within the nationalist historiography which require deliberations more than it has received. The centrepiece of the. book draws out how Gaildhi comprehends the Pentangular toumamentas a communally divisive competition detrimental to the unity of India. However, one cannot read it as a straight jacketed narrative of the rise, spread and
172 flowering of anti-communal sentiment in Bombay, which eventually resulted in the stoppage ofthe Pentangular. The penultimate chapter, 'The Pentangular Pandemonium and Last Rites ofthe Pentangular', succinctly unfold how the spirit of cricket fell to the anti-pentangular wave fostered via "commercial and political interest of the BCCI, ·ru1d the Ranj i Trophy promoted by the princes, a group of cricket administrators and factions of congress" ( 114 ). The public response and reaction to Gandhi's stand against the Pentangular makes for a compelling reading in the politics of sport in India which the narrative tries to unravel. The authors' final note of requiem recorded via The Bombay Chronicle emphatica11y interrogates the game's tag from 'community' to 'communal' cricket. The account fends for the Pentagular tournament's larger cultural valence: Had it not been for this Pentangular could Deodhar a 'pacca .·Brahmin' have ever launched or dined out or taken tea on the same table with Vaziralli, a pacca Mussahnan'- call this nothing- call this n~ communal Harmony" Could you have ever expected P. Vithal (untouchable now belonging to schedule classes) to move freely with so-called high caste Hindus, in the team not only that but even lead them? .... call this communal disharmony? ( 126) Nevertheless, the eventual discontinuance was the outcome of prolonged agitation against the communal organization ·of the· tournament. However, beneath this politically correct rhetoric what aligned was the broader vision of a secular nation state at play. The ideas and impacts ofcolonial modernity, imperial ethic, nationalism, racialism, caste, regionalism, urbanity and commercialism come in to play in the weaving tluead of the story. Not all facets of cricket, Gandhi and nationalism in India can be .covered in a single stroke but the writer does make a fine balance with melJow ease. The attempt makes vital forays through the social history of cricket in pre-independence India. The thought process it opens up can yield critical perspectives in the burgeoning field of sports historiography in particular and cultural studies in general. Best of all, it serves as a significant addition to the social history of
173 cricket available in India which largely is an attempt to overcome the traditional domination ofAnglo- American historical studies in sports literature. Discounting such a work as a mere enquiry in the field of recreation and play through the Gandhian prism would be a sign of academic myopia.
Works Cited Gulla. Ramachandra (1 998) '"Cricket and Politics in Colonial India" Past and Present, Vol.6, No. 161: 155-190. James, C.L.R(2005) Beyond a Boundary (London: New Jersey Press). Nandy, Ash is (2000) Tao ofCricket: On Games ofDestiny and Destiny ofGames (New Delhi: Oxford University Press).
Raj Thakur Assistant Professor, Central University of Jammu.
174 Notes on Contributors
s1telakshmi Surendran is a Research Scholar at the Department ofl)nglish, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
)i.Shma Shamail is an Assistant Professor at the Department of English Language and Literature, College of Education, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Jubail, Saudi Arabia.
Praveen Sharda is a Professor at the Department ·of English, University School of Open Learning, Panjab University, Chandigarh.
Madhu Sharma nee Shori is an Associate Professor, Department of English, at GGDSD College, Chandigarh.
Amandeep is a Research Scholar at the Department of English & Cultural Studies, Panjab University Chandigarh.
Yashveer is a Research Scholar at the Department of English & Cultural Studies at Panjab University, Chandigarh.
Mahi Yogesh is a Lecturer at Government. College, Kullu, Himachal Pradesh.
Lakshsmishree Banerjee is a Senior Fulbright Scholar, Poet and Professor ofEnglish & Cultural Studies & Ex-Vice Chancellor, Kolhan University, India.
Jasleen Sahota is an Assistant Professor in University of Jammu (Bhaderwah Campus) and a Research Scholar at Panjab University. Sumandeep Kaur is a Research Scholar at the Department of English, Punjabi University, Patiala.
Gaurav Kalra is a Research Scholar at the Department ofEnglist 1 and Cultural Studies Panjab University, Chan.digarh.
Raj Thakur is an Assistant Professor at The Central Univer~ity of Jammu. ·
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EDITOR'S NOTE
ARTICLES SREELAKSHMI SURENDRAN, Ancient in the Popular: A Study of Parall el Narrative Manoeuvres in Somadeva Bhatia's Kathasaritsagara and Vik:a§ Swarup 's Q&A ASHMA SHAMAIL, (Re)Dressing the Cultural Wounds: Memory, Heali ng, and Survival in Praisesongfor the Widow
PRAVEEN SHARD A, Interplay of Perspectives in Ted Hughes' Hawk Roosting and Daruwtzlla sHawk: A Stylistic Analysis MADHU SHARMA NEE SHORI, Space and Identity: Mapping th e Nation in Kbaled Hosseini 'sAnd the Mountains Echoed AMANDEEP KAUR, Absence of the Progressives and the I Strange Case ofArun KolatJ