Illuminati A Transnational Journal of Literature, Language and Culture Studies ISSN No. 2229-4341 Illuminati A Transnational Journal of Literature, Language and Culture Studies Volume 6 – 2015-2016 Chief Editor Neeru Tandon Bio-Note Eiko Ohira is Professor of English and Assistant to the President at Tsuru University in Japan. She has worked on British fiction of the 19th and 20th centuries, with particular reference to Wuthering Heights and A Passage to India. She is the author of A Study of Wuthering Heights (1993). Her research interest for the last 14 years is Indo- Pakistani partition novels and women’s writing, and her book on Indian writing in English will be published in 2015. Recent publications include essays on Rabindranath Tagore’s writing in English and Japanese writing in English in the early 20th century. From Editor’s Desk Literature of the New Millennium “I found this to be one of the most powerful literary experiences I’ve ever had. For anyone who gives a whit about writing or the human condition, New Millennium Writings should be required reading.” —Kane S. Latranz “By the way, I really love NMW. The content is some of the most ‘rockin’ ‘awesome’ stuff that isn’t shy and crosses boundaries, pushes the envelope, winks at the nun—you know what I mean. I read LOTS of literary journals, and honestly NMW is up there in my top 5.” —Shela Morrison, Gabriola Island, British Columbia I feel privileged to offer the Sixth edition of ILLUMINATI, focusing on Literature of New Millennium, containing articles of academic criticism that explore the various issues, questions and debates raised by the contemporary literature. This special issue was designed to help the readers (research scholars in particular) in assessing and formulating their point of view about the bright possibilities and dark contour of literature written in the last one and a half decade. Contemporary writings mainly deal with various issues: alternative sexuality (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender), Crime fiction, Chick lit, Campus Novel, Short story, Graphic novels, Diaspora novels, postcolonial novels and feminist novels. It also contains plays written and translated into English dealing with the social issues like hunger, transgender, eunuchs, Gay and Lesbian, Crime, etc. vi I admit that it was not possible to assimilate all distinguish literary trends and paradigms in this one volume, but I am sure that through it scholars will be in a better place to identify the changing face of the contemporary literature. The 12 articles in the volume examine the issues like Japanese Immigrant Women, Broken family, postcolonial dilemmas, New women in chicklit. Hindi short stories, essays, campus novel, theme of identity crisis, etc. Article by Dr. Sudhir K. Arora titled “Indian Poetry in English in the New Millennium: A Tour” is a must to go through, if you have least interest in development of Indian English Poetry. Research article on English language by Dr. G.A. Ghanshyam, “Revitalizing the English Classroom” gives food for thought. Besides insightful articles, there is an interview followed by three poems and five book reviews. I have realized that one emerging genre-often called interactive literature, or new electronic literature breaks the bonds of linearity and stasis imposed by paper. It is because in this form the reader can interact with it. He is not a passive entity, rather he becomes the partial writer. Such prominent writers as William Dickey, Thomas M. Disch, and Robert Pinsky have tried their hand at interactivity for example when you go through Victory Garden, a hypertext fiction by Stuart Moulthrop you find a different experience. By the process of choosing which links to follow, readers determine the order—and therefore also the contexts—in which episodes of a story or poem appear. “They assemble their own versions of a fictional world in much the same way that they piece together unique, personal versions of the real world from the fragments of their own experience. The text becomes a real environment that the reader can interact with.” Happy Reading! Neeru Tandon Contents Nagai Kaf and Okina Ky in and the Literary Portrayal of Japanese Immigrant Women in the U.S. 1 Ikuko Torimoto Indian Poetry in English in the New Millennium: A Tour 19 Sudhir K. Arora Revitalizing the English Classroom: Are We Ready for the Change? 49 G.A. Ghanshyam Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland: A Narrative Pattern of a Broken Family 58 Binod Mishra Postcolonial Dilemmas in Laurence’s This Side Jordan 67 Neera Singh New Millenium Women in Chick lit 75 Neeta Shukla The Subversion of Panopticism in Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Anandamath 85 Panchali Mukherjee Forty Rules of Love: Mundane or Divine? 94 Shyam Samtani Translation: A Social Fact and Practice (Hindi Short Stories by Ravi Nandan Sinha) 105 Jayshree Singh The Essence of Worldliness: A Reading of Rita Joshi’s Campus Novel The Awakening: A Novella in Rhyme 112 Swati Rai viii Making Essays Palatable: An Analysis of Ramesh K. Srivastava’s Views and Expressions in Read, Write and Teach: Essays… 122 Smita Das Theme of Identity Crisis and Self Discovery in Bharti Mukherjee’s Desirable Daughters 131 Shraddha INTERVIEWS: Neeru Tandon in Conversation with Robert Masterson 140 Neeru Tandon BOOK REVIEW: The Mahabharat Quest: The Alexander Secret 145 Written by Christopher C Doyle, Reviewed by Supriya Shukla BOOK REVIEW: Two-Minute Silence 149 Written by C.L. Khatri, Reviewed by Rajendraprasad Shinde BOOK REVIEW: Surviving in My World: Growing Up Dalit in Bengal 153 Written by Manohar Mouli Biswas, Reviewed by Jaydeep Sarangi BOOK REVIEW: Scion of Ikshvaku 155 Written by Amish Tripathi, Reviewed by Nivedita Tandon BOOK REVIEW: Panacea for All What Ails India— Making India Awesome 158 Written by Chetan Bhagat, Reviewed by Lalima Bajpai POEM: Death—The Living Truth 161 KumKum Ray POEM: Heart o Art 163 Jeffrey Herrick POEM: Trust Me 166 Neeru Tandon Contributors 167 1 JAPAN was still in a period of national isolation (1639-1854) during the Tokugawa shogunate, whereas California, which became a state in 1850, already was attracting immigrants from all over the world. The California Gold Rush (1848-1855) marked the beginning of the history of Asian immigration to the U.S.: Chinese coolies—many of them against their will—arrived in North America, the so-called “land of opportunity.” On June 8, 1869, the first contingent of six Japanese immigrants arrived in Gold Hill near Coloma, California, under the leadership of John Henry Schnell, a German soldier of fortune and an ardent follower of Matsudaira Katamori, the last feudal Lord of the Aizu Domain. The Pollack Pines Press Congressional Record mentions that the Schnell party arrived at San Francisco aboard the side-wheeler China of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company on May 27, 1869. These Japanese pioneers proceeded to Sacramento by riverboat and then by horse and wagon to Gold Hill, where John Henry Schnell bought 160 acres of land for $5,000.00 from Charles M. Graner. In the fall of 1869, sixteen more Japanese followed (including It Okei, nursemaid to the Schnell household, which consisted of Matsu and Kuni). The colonists brought with them silk cocoons, 50,000 three- year old Kuway Trees (of the Mulberry family) for silk farming, tea plants and seeds, grape seedlings, five-foot long bamboo roots, and sapling wax trees. The colonists hoped to transform the arid California soil in order to grow tea and silk cultures, treasured in their native Japan. Okei was brought to the Wakamatsu Colony by Sakurai Matsunosuke, a middle-aged former samurai from Aizu-Wakamatsu, who arranged for her passage from Japan to serve as a nursemaid in the household of the Schnells several months after their daughter Mary’s birth. In 1870, after the Wakamatsu ILLUMINATI VOLUME 6 • 2015-16 Nagai Kaf and Okina Ky in and the Literary Portrayal of Japanese Colony failed, its members disbanded. Some stayed in the U.S., but we do not know what happened to most of them. Okei stayed at Gold Hill even after most of the colonists had left, hoping that one day in a not too distant future, someone would come to get her; sadly, the following year, in 1871, she died from malaria and never saw her home country again. The Meiji government was the first to authorize emigrants, known as Kanyaku Imin literally, “government contracted Japanese immigrants,” to travel to Hawaii, a practice that began in 1885 and ended in 1894. As a consequence of terminating the Kanyaku Imin program, the Japanese government lost control over the Japanese immigration population; government-licensed private agencies soon took over the recruiting of Japanese immigrants, and a large number of self-contracted immigrants started arriving in Hawaii. After 1895, one can see a rapid increase of the number of Japanese emigrants to Hawaii, and before long they began arriving on the American West Coast. For the next thirty years, the Japanese population in the United States steadily grew, reaching a peak in the early 1920s. But, by 1924, it began to decline rapidly. Looking at the evolution of the number of Japanese immigrants in Hawaii and on the Pacific Coast during the periods 1885-1907 and 1908-1924 reveals the evolution of Japanese immigration and its relationship with such factors as the 1908 Gentlemen's Agreement, various land laws, as well as immigration acts and laws periodically enforced during this period until the Japanese Exclusion Act was enacted in 1924. Japanese emigrated to the U.S. to find work and to make a better life for themselves and their children. Japanese were willing to engage in manual labor at near-subsistence wages.