Future of Postcolonial Studies

Hello, I am Emisha Ravani. Writing this blog for the essays “Future of Post-Colonial Studies”. Which is given by Dr.Pro. Dilip Barad sir for the unit 4. Here we have to discuss the essays summaries and all the things. 

1.Conclusion: Globalisation and The Future of Postcolonial Studies

This book ‘Colonialism and Postcolonialism’ is by Ania Loomba. In this book she has discussed many things like, key features of the ideologies and history of colonialism, the relationship of colonial discourse to literature, challenges to colonialism, including anticolonial discourses, recent developments in postcolonial theories and histories, issues of sexuality and colonialism, and the intersection of feminist and postcolonial thought, debates about Globalisation and postcolonialism. Postcolonial scholarship now has an even more urgent role to play in making these links visible in the contemporary world.

The conclusion of the book is start like this,

Since the events of 11 September 2001, the so-called global war on terror, and the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, it is harder than ever to see our world as simply ‘postcolonial’. Like the wild tone of Globalisation Ania Loomba has given here. And she has mentioned many names of the critics who is related to the Globalisation.

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire argues that the contemporary global order has produced a new form of sovereignty which should be called ‘Empire’ but which is best understood in contrast to European empires: In contrast to imperialism, Empire establishes no territorial center of power and does not rely on fixed boundaries or barriers. It is a decentered and deterritorializing apparatus of rule that progressively incorporates the entire global realm within its open, expanding frontiers. Empire manages hybrid identities, flexible hierarchies, and plural exchanges through modulating networks of command. The distinct national colors of the imperial map of the world have merged and blended in the imperial global rainbow. (Hardt and Negri 2000: xiii–xiii)

By this argument one can get the understanding of the new Empire is better compared to the Roman Empire rather than to European colonialism, since imperial Rome also loosely incorporated its subject states rather than controlling them directly according to Hardt and Negri.

Arjun Appadurai’s Modernity at Large,

catalogues of ‘multiple locations’ and new hybridities, new forms of communication, new foods, new clothes and new patterns of consumption are offered as evidence for both the newness and the benefits of globalisation.

Simon Gikandi gave the terms of postcolonial studies such as ‘hybridity’ and ‘difference’,

‘It is premature to argue that the images and narratives that denote the new global culture are connected to a global structure or that they are disconnected from earlier or older forms of identity. In other words, there is no reason to suppose that the global flow in images has a homological connection to transformation in social or cultural relationships’ (Gikandi 2001: 632; emphasis added).

Atienne Balibar - Racism and Nationalism

For Balibar, the new racial ideologies are not less rigid simply because they invoke culture instead of nature; rather, we see today that ‘culture can also function like a nature’ and can be equally pernicious (Balibar 1991a: 22). Phobia about Arabs today, he writes, ‘carries with it an image of Islam as a “conception of the world” which is incompatible with Europeanness’ (24)

Samuel Huntington - Clash of Civilization

Here they talk about the Jews and Muslim people or countries. it is no accident that it is Muslims who are regarded as barbaric and given to acts of violence and Asians who are seen as diligent but attached to their own rules of business and family, both modes of being which are seen as differently incommensurate with the Western world.

P. Sainath – ‘And then there was the market’

Market fundamentalism destroys more human lives than any other simply because it cuts across all national, cultural, geographic, religious and other boundaries. It’s as much at home in Moscow as in Mumbai or Minnesota. A South Africa – whose advances in the early 1990s thrilled the world – moved swiftly from apartheid to neo-liberalism. It sits as easily in Hindu, Islamic or Christian societies. And it contributes angry, despairing recruits to the armies of all religious fundamentalisms. Based on the premise that the market is the solution to all the problems of the human race, it is, too, a very religious fundamentalism. It has its own Gospel: The Gospel of St. Growth, of St. Choice… (2001: n.p.)

An Indian research group’s argument

The great range of actual measures carried on under the label of globalization … were not those of integration and development. Rather they were the processes of imposition, disintegration, underdevelopment and appropriation. They were of continued extraction of debt servicing payments of the third world; depression of the prices of raw materials exported by the same countries; removal of tariff protection for their vulnerable productive sectors; removal of restraints on foreign direct investment, allowing giant foreign corporations to grab larger sectors of the third world’s economies; removal of restraints on the entry and exit of massive flows of speculative international capital, allowing their movements to dictate economic life; reduction of State spending on productive activity, development and welfare; privatization of activities, assets and natural resources, sharp increases in the cost of essential services and goods such as electricity, fuel, health care, education, transport, and food (accompanied by the harsher depression of women’s consumption within each family’s declining consumption); withdrawal of subsidized credit earlier directed to starved sectors; dismantling of workers’ security of employment; reduction of the share of wages in the social product; suppression of domestic industry in the third world and closures of manufacturing firms on a massive scale; ruination of independent small industries; ruination of the handicrafts/handloom sector; replacement of subsistence crops with cash crops; destruction of food security. (Research Unit for Political Economy, 2003: n.p.)

Point can be noted that globalisation has given new divisions as well as new opportunities to the global level.

‘Globalization is just another name for submission and domination’, Nicanor Apaza, 46, an unemployed miner, said at a demonstration this week in which Indian women … carried banners denouncing the International Monetary Fund and demanding the president’s resignation. ‘We’ve had to live with that here for 500 years, and now we want to be our own masters.’

Here is a report from The New York Times (Friday October 17, 2003) speaking of huge demonstrations in La Paz which defied military barricades to protest a plan to export natural gas to the United States.

Joseph E Stiglitz, has point out that how the idea of ‘Market Fundamentalism’ is working in a way. The words are here,

The international financial institutions have pushed a particular ideology—market fundamentalism—that is both bad economics and bad politics; it is based on premises concerning how markets work that do not hold even for developed countries, much less for developing countries. The IMF has pushed these economic policies without a broader vision of society or the role of economics within society. And it has pushed these policies in ways that have undermined emerging democracies. More generally, globalization itself has been governed in ways that are undemocratic and have been disadvantageous to developing countries, especially the poor within those countries. (2002: n.p.)

Also, here we find the problematic tone of imperialists,

Niall Ferguson proclaims that he has been openly championing the idea of a US empire for many years now, because ‘capitalism and democracy are not naturally occurring but require strong institutional foundations of law and order. The proper role of an imperial America is to establish these institutions where they are lacking, if necessary … by military force.’

Talks by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Talks by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, (born September 15, 1977, Nigerian author whose work drew extensively on the Biafran war in Nigeria during the late 1960s. Early in life Adichie, the fifth of six children, moved with her parents to Nsukka, Nigeria. A voracious reader from a young age, she found Things fall apart by novelist and fellow igbo chinua achebe transformative. After studying medicine for a time in Nsukka, in 1997 she left for the United States, where she studied communication and political science at Eastern Connecticut State University (B.A., 2001). Splitting her time between Nigeria and the United States, she received a master's degree in creative writing from John Hopkins university and studied African history at Yale university.

Dangers of single story

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's "The Danger of a Single Story" Ted Talk, in July 2009, explores the negative influences of a “single story”. By sharing her personal experience of being a trap of single story she pressures on having more than one perspective for looking towards the world. She grew up reading American literature and later her works also had blue- eyed characters and later when she went to white land for education she realized the single story of Americans towards Africans.

This idea can be or must be experienced by everyone, in a fight between two when we hear a story of only one we start making prejudices for the opposite person and without having any personal grudges we start hating them.

Taking an example of literature. Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brontë hasn't grown a character of Bertha Mason and so we feel like what's happening with her is to happen because she is made. But then Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso sea (1966) gave readers a new perspective. It broke the prejudices towards Bertha and her single story got new perspectives.

Reading characters is the novel or meeting people from different communities, groups, schools, streams etc . We have a habit of generalizing a single person for the whole group/ community/ or nation.

Adichie also tackles the effect of political and cultural power on stories. Power controls “how [stories] are told, who tells them, when they're told, [and] how many stories are told”.

In 20112 when petrol prices were hiked, various Bollywood actors tweeted about it, following the orders of political power. At present, when the same political power is ruling and prices are increasing, touching 100 they are deleting their tweets. This is how stories and told and controlled by power.

Saturday, 29 October 2022

Chimamanda Njogi

Hello everyone,

This blog is a response to the task assigned by professor Dilip Barad sir as part of a thinking activity in which I would like to share my understanding of the given videos.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian writer whose works include novels, short stories and nonfiction.She was described in The Times Literary Supplement as "the most prominent" of a "procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors which is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature", particularly in her second home, the United States.

Adichie has written the novels Purple Hibiscus , Half of a Yellow Sun, and Americanah, the short story collection. The Thing Around Your Neck , and the book-length essay We Should All Be Feminists. Her most recent books are Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions , Zikora and Notes on Grief.

In 2008, she was awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant. She was the recipient of the PEN Pinter Prize in 2018.

Second Video:-

She started with her friend and then she talked about one journalist who gave advise to her that she should never called herself a feminist because "Feminist are women who are unhappy because they can not find husbands- so she decided to called herself 'happy feminist'. Then academic Nigerian woman told her that feminism wasn't our culture and that feminism wasn't African and that she was calling herself a feminist because she had been corrupted by 'western books' .

We have different hormones, we have different sexual organs, different biological abilities, women can have babies, men can't. 52% of the world population is female but most of the positions of power and prestige are occupied by men.

The late Kenyan Nobel peace laureate wangari mathai put it simply and we'll when she said,

'The higher you go, the fewer woman there are'

The physically strong person was more likely to lead and men in general are physically stronger, but today we live in a vastly different world. The person more likely to lead is not the physically stronger person. It is the more creative person, the more intelligent person, the more innovative person and there are no hormones for those attributes. A man is as likely as a woman to be intelligent, to be creative, to be innovative.

"Gender matters everywhere in the world".

But she thinks about a utopian society where we must have raised our son differently. Our daughters are different. We do a great disservice to boys on how we raise them. We teach girls to shrink themselves to make themselves smaller. We says to girls

'You can have ambition but not too much'.

'You should aim to be successful but not too successful, otherwise you would threaten the man.'

In talking about marriage and relationship- the language is often the language of ownership rather than partnership. We used the word 'RESPECT' to make something a woman shows a man but often not something a man shows a woman. We teach females that in relationships compromise is what women do. We raise girls to see each other as competition not for jobs or for accomplishments which could be a good thing But for the attention of men.

She gave some solutions and idea about how one should raise child:-

What if in raising children we focus on ability instead of gender? What if in raising children we focus on interest instead of gender? What if parents from the beginning taught both the boy and the girl to cook food?

We should unlearn many lessons of gender that internalised when we were growing up.

'GENDER MATTERS' Men and women experience the world differently. Gender colours the way we experience the world.

'CULTURE DOES NOT MAKE PEOPLE,

PEOPLE MAKE CULTURE'

Chimamanda- I AM FEMINIST - 'A PERSON WHO BELIEVES IN THE SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC EQUALITY OF THE SEXES'

A feminist is a person man or women who says 'YES THERE IS A PROBLEM WITH GENDER AS IT IS TODAY AND WE MUST FIX IT, WE MUST DO BETTER'.

Thank you!

Midnight's Children

Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981)

Hello, I am Emisha Ravani, Writing this blog as a thinking activity for the novel 'Midnight's Children' by Salman Rushdie. Which is assigned by Dr. Prof. Dilip Barad sir. You can visit the teacher's blog for the more information. Here we have to discuss the certain questions which are there to be discussed.

1.Narrative technique (changes made in film adaptation - for eg. absence of Padma, the Nati, the listener, the commenter - What is your interpretation?)

When we going to talk about Narrative technique of any text we first think about the concept of “HOW” rather than “WHAT”. How the story is told in the specific way. Not what has been told here.

When we see the text ‘Midnight’s Children’ we got the clue that here the author Salman Rushdie has used very unique style like Western Postmodern Devices And Indian (Eastern) Oral Narratological Methods.

There are many metaphors for it like,

Russian Dolls  

Russian Dolls we can see that these dolls are doll within the doll and it is going with like story within the story so it can be apt metaphor for it.

Chinese Boxes

This style is well known in literature to use in the story telling and it can help to find various perspective. It is called ‘A Chinese box Structure’. A novel or drama that is told the form of a narrative inside a narrative. We can find many stories in this structure like Plato’s dialogue Symposium, Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein. The core stuff is here that it is not used for telling the story but used for changing the perspective.

Indian Oral Narratological methods Panchatantra

In the Panchatantra, there are the stories of animals (Fables) to teach the princes of the King Sudarshan and Amarshakti like three sons named Bahushakti, Ugrashakti and Shakti.

Vishnu Sharma (Brahmin) is there to teach them the morals and lessons to helping them to build up the ability of ruling because they were the dumb by their early childhood. Here the story is told by in the frame and within the frame.

Kathasaritasagar

In Kathasaritasagar there are the stories in wide horizons and multiple layers of story within a story and it is said to have been adopted from Gunadhya’s Brhatkatha. It is by Somadeva in Sanskrit.

Baital Pachisi

Twenty-five stories are there. These are the stories of legends within the frame story, from India. Basically, this is the story of Vikram Aditya promises a sorcerer that he will capture the Vetala. And this story is going like Vetala tell to the king that I will tell the stories and an end of the story you have to answer to my question and if you will not know the answer then it is good but if you know the answer and though you are not giving the answer then I will fly away and at the twenty fifth’s story Vetala ask very hard question to the king and he is not able to answer and Vetala say that I will come with you to a sorcerer and tell him his story. And we feel story is going on with so many stories.

There is also the story of Sihasan Battisi and in that also many stories exist. As all thirty-two dolls tell the stories.

Alif Laila – Arabian Nights

In the novel there is the reference of the Arabian Nights that is one thousand and one. Here we can find the very apt example and connect it with our narrative because here the speaker Shahrazad is telling the stories to the listener Shahryar same like in Midnight’s Children, the speaker Saleem and the listener Padma.

There are the thousand stories which are told by Shahrazad to the king in nights. When we look at the outer frame, we can find the king is very evil in the sense of selfishness and full filling his own desires. Once the daughter of court man is getting her turn to be marry to the king and next morning, he would kill her so she was very intelligent and keep continue the act of telling the stories and in an exact manner she could change the perspective of the king towards the women afterwards.

Ramayana and Mahabharata

There are many references of Ramayana and Mahabharata. Valmiki’s Ramayana, when we see the Ramayana at very beginning of it, we can see that there are stories at a time. Main focus is to the Ram but excepting that there are other many stories revolves around it.

The same way in the Mahabharata, so many stories are there. This is the story which was going to mouth to mouth. And that is why the stories are within the story.

Hayavadana (A Man with Horse’s Face) by Girish Karnad

In this the same way the narrative technique going on and this story is at various places in the various texts. In this, two men are there named as Devadatta and Kapila. The Devadatta is a brahmin and he is powerful by mind. And another is Kapila, who is having body powerful. The same way the qualities we can find in our story in the characters of Saleem and Shiva like they have some qualities in special way.

And then story goes on with many stories by vivid characters. Like Padmini’s story is having hybridity of western and eastern.

Now, we come to the Midnight’s Children. Its use of pickle jars to get narrative style very uniquely. Let’s have a look to the original line from the novel,

Thirty jars stand upon a shelf, waiting to be unleashed upon the amnesiac nation. (And beside them, one jar stands empty.) pg.456

It means that thirty jars are ready with stories, with its history and this is for the people who are having amnesia of own nation. Last jar is empty. These are the names of the chapters and last is not there.

In the end, We can see that here the list of whole concepts which this novel contains. we can see the all shades of Western Postmodernist Devices and Eastern Narratological Devices.

2. Characters (how many included, how many left out - Why? What is your interpretation?)

Characters are the thing which we observe at the first sight. And also we always eager to see what is their stories. Let's have a look to the characters of the novel. You can have a look to the all characters of this novel.

Satya Bhabha as Saleem Sinai

Shriya Saran as Parvati

Siddharth Narayan as Shiva

Darsheel Safary as Saleem Sinai (as a child)

Anupam Kher as Ghani

Shabana Azmi as Naseem

Neha Mahajan as Young Naseem

Seema Biswas as Mary

Charles Dance as William Methwold

Samrat Chakrabarti as Wee Willie Winkie

Rajat Kapoor as Aadam Aziz

Soha Ali Khan as Jamila

Rahul Bose as Zulfikar

Anita Majumdar as Emerald

Shahana Goswami as Amina

Chandan Roy Sanyal as Joseph D'Costa

Ronit Roy as Ahmed Sinai

Kulbhushan Kharbanda as Picture Singh

Shikha Talsania as Alia

Zaib Shaikh as Nadir Khan

Sarita Choudhury as Indira Gandhi

Vinay Pathak as Hardy

Kapila Jayawardena as Governor

Ranvir Shorey as Laurel

Suresh Menon as Field Marshal

G.R Perera as Astrologer

Rajesh Khera

Salman Rushdie, narrator

The main thing we find is in the novel there is the character of Padma who is the Nati and listener wherein the movie there is the absence of this character. And the main focus is on the character of Parvati the witch.

Here is the list of the characters which are not in the movie,

-Padma

-Sonny Ibrahim

-Commander Sabarmati

-Lila Sabarmati

-Homy Carrack

-Alice Pereira

-Nalikar Women

-Ramram Sheth

3. Themes and Symbols (if film adaptation able to capture themes and symbols?)

When we see the Indian English writers, we find such major names and how they have used such themes like Raja Rao's novels the usual theme is the superiority of vedantic, spiritual India over the materialistic west. In R. K. Narayan's novels, the clash is between the traditional Indian values and the values from the west, and the choice of the protagonist to modernize Indian values by borrowing eclectically from the west. In the novels of Anita Desai - the novelist who hit the Indian writing scene in the 1960s - the definition of a person's identity as an individual (not as an Indian) prevails.

HISTORY AND THE INDIVIDUAL

In Midnight's Children, Rushdie establishes a strong connection between the history of India and the life of Saleem. Saleem is described as being "mysteriously hand-cuffed to history, my destinies indissolubly chained to those of my country. For the next three decades, there was no escape." Rushdie sets the scene for us to believe a strange tale, if true, that Saleem Sinai by being born in Bombay on 15'th August 1947 at the stroke of midnight, becomes the first child born in independent India, and that his story is the history of free India.

COLONIALISM AND NEO-COLONIALISM IN INDIA

What has set apart writers from former colonies has been among other things a desire to set right the record of their country's history, traditions and cavillations ' through their work. This has been specially so in the case of migrant writers. Most Indian migrant writers - and Rushdie is one of them -are what I would like to call activist writers. They carry their political challenges to alithority into their books and simultaneously connect the books with the world outside. most migrant writers tend to write books which are political acts and constitute, in my view, true postcolonial works, if by postcolonialism one means the. ‘Decolonization of the mind". That's what freedom is and not just political independence - (which could be merely a physical gesture of handing over power to the original natives of that county). In Midnight's Children, Rushdie attacks British colonialism and its representatives symbolised in characters such as Methwold with a ruthless clarity and makes every attempt to link up many of the ills in independent India to the mischief played by the British during their reign. The moral of his representation is that had the foreigner never come here to plunder and colonize, India would have been a beautiful country. This is the typical migrant writer's standpoint.

FRAGMENTATION, MIGRANCY AND MEMORY

in Midnight's Children, Rushdie found himself writing "a novel of memory and about memory," which is why perhaps, he made Saleem into an unreliable narrator. Saleem make mistakes of memory, and his vision. which is affected by his personality and circumstances is fragmentary. Here we can see that migrant writers can justice much better to these kind of stories inventions.

4. The texture of the novel (What is the texture of the novel? Well, it is the interconnectedness of narrative technique with the theme. Is it well captured?)

The texture of the novel is mainly going like “flashback” method. Because it has those different kinds of threads. Like the protagonist Saleem is telling the story to the Padma and it is not going on the one track but there are so many stories which are going on one track. When he remembers other things, he would add those even in the flow of story. In the film adaptation, also there is use of this technique to tell the story.

When we see the time line, we can find the outer frame of it like 1915 – 1978. But it jumps into the various times like 1915 – 1947, 1947 – 1965, 1965 – 1978.

5. What is your aesthetic experience after watching the screening?

We had a screening of the movie which is directed by Deepa Mehta and screen writing by Salman Rushdie. When we watch the movie, we can find it good and somehow it can justice to the novel even but there is the lack. That can be picturization not in a film but better if it can be in the web series. So, every incident can be capture in a better way. Although all characters played very good role individually in a movie. Movie is containing very significant point is that, it is not going in chronological way same like the novel.

In the movie, I like the performance of Jamila (Saleem’s sister). And there is the special jam of the story itself.

THANK YOU!

(1800 words)

The Curse or Karna

Tyagraj Paramasiva Iyer Kailasam, was a playwright and prominent writer of Kannada literature. His contribution to Kannada theatrical comedy earned him the title Prahasana Prapitamaha, "the father of humorous plays" and later he was also called "Kannadakke Obbane Kailasam" meaning "One and Only Kailasam for Kannada". Kailasam's life was dedicated to local theatre and his contributions revolutionised it. His humour left an impression on kannadigas. He opposed the company theatre's obsession with mythology and stories of royalty and shied away from loading his plays with music. Instead, he introduced simple, realistic sets. Kailasam chaired the KAnnada Sahitya Sammalana held at Madras in 1945. He spent almost 10 years in a place he called 'NOOK'. It was a very dirty place, yet he loved it and wrote many dramas in there. He dictated his stories to his students at the 'NOOK', usually starting after 10 pm. He was a chain smoker. Kailasam was initially criticised for modern use of the Kannada language in his plays, but his work became very popular and is considered among the best in Kannada theatre, known for wit and satirical commentary on society.

1)Interpret the 'end' of all Acts and scenes. (We discussed this while reading the text)

“The Cuse or Karna” is the play which is based on the character of Mahabharata’s ‘Karna’. And it is written by the famous Indian writer T.P. Kailasam. It is divided into five acts. When we see the ends of the acts T.P. Kailasam has out the tragic tone of the character Karna very successfully.

Act one, scene two:

Raama: Forgive my choler, child! But then in grasp of thy child’s hands doth lie the power to raze to very ground my ancient vow to venge My father’s cruel death at hands of Kshatriyas! I cannot, even if I would, recall the CURSE! That stands Karna! My love for thee reveals to me that Fate hath wove thy life and death in threads of tragedy! And yet, for all eternity thy name shall stand for VALOUR, BOUNTY, PURITY! Adieu, my child! May HE that watches over all this world, may HE in all HIS love and MERCY, grant thee strength of mind and soul to combat stormy life before thee, UNSULLIED OF MANLINESS, despite this BRAHMIN’S CURSE! (Kisses Karna on the brow. Karna prostrates; kisses the Guru’s feet and rises; With great effort restraining a fresh spasm of sobs mutters.

Karna: God bless you for your kindness, Gurujee.

(Walks to the path in the foreground, shoulders his belongings and walking along the path fades out of sight. Raama, sighing deeply, watches the departing pupil with wistful eyes mumbling to himself.)

POOR KARNA! POOR, POOR KARNA!

When we go further, we find it in Act two Scene one:

Anga:(with eyes welling with tears of anger and impotent agony)

It is a curse, my lord of Gaandhaara,

That robb’d mine arms and trunk of strength and life:

A mighty Brahmin’s potent curse that rules:

Whensoe’er my lowly birth is flung at me,

And made to cross my mind, my brain refuses thought

My heart refuses beat! Mine arms remain inert!

Pray pity me, my lord, a helpless, hapless victim of

A BRAHMJN’s CURSE!

(Collapses into Gaandhaara’s arms. Gaandhaara gathers him in his arms and half carries him out, muttering tearfully:)

POOR ANGA! POOR POOR HONEST ANGA!

Furtherly, Act three scene two:

Anga:(In abject agony)

Forgive me, Sire, but ‘twas that woman! Her Voice!

Her haughty words deriding me, my blood,

My birth! You know it not, my liege! I am

Accurs’d! The curse that numb’d my limbs today

It is my Guru Raama’s potent curse!

It rules that whensoe’er my lowly birth

Is made to cross my mind, my limbs, my mind,

My heart, they all are paralys’d! And I

Am stricken dead to sense of shame; of love,

Of honour, loyalty! Without a peer

In use of every weapon of war, I’m yet

A victim of Dread Jaamadagni’s Curse!

Forgive me, Sire, and in thy generous heart

Find room for pity for a friendless waif,

A helpless victim of A BRAHMIN’S CURSE!

(Anga collapses forward;

The king catches him from falling and gathering him up in his arms, carries him out—muttering ‘neath his breath:)

The King: POOR ANGA! OUR POOR GREAT ANGA!

Again, when we go ahead, at the end of the play, act five scene two:

Anga: (Raising his head with great effort:)

“Happy man” forsooth! You fool! You fool!

Take back thy curse! Take back thy curse!

WHY, THOU HAST SWORN BUT TO EXTIRPATE

MY OWN… MY OWN… MY VERY… (Sinks back, mustering the very last few driblets of strength in his frame from which his life is fast ebbing away, Anga raises his head for the last time:)

WOE BE THE HOUR I SAW THE LIGHT OF DAY!

WHILST ALL MY LIFE A BRAHMIN’S POTENT CURSE

HATH HOUNDED ME AND MADE ME FATAL TO

MY LOVERS AND MY FRIENDS….E’EN THIS,

THIS VERY MOMENT OF MY DYING FINDS

ME STARTING YET ANOTHER BRAHMIN’S CURSE!

(Anga ‘s head drops and he falls back DEAD. Aswattha and Maadra bury their heart bursting sobs in the bosom of the Dead Marshal Anga whimpering:)

“OUR ANGAI” “OUR GREAT ANGA!” “OUR POOR POOR ANGA!”

So, these are the ends of acts and scenes that we find very tragic itself and the other characters are feeling pity for the Karna.

2) Is 'moral conflict' and 'Hamartia' there in Karna's character?

What is ‘Hamartia”?

Hamartia arose from the Greek verb hamartanein, meaning "to miss the mark" or "to err." Aristotle introduced the term in the Poetics to describe the error of judgment which ultimately brings about the tragic hero's downfall. As you can imagine, the word is most often found in literary criticism. However, media writers occasionally employ the word when discussing the unexplainable misfortune or missteps of celebrities regarded as immortal gods and goddesses before being felled by their own shortcomings.

When we look into the character of Karna, for definitely we find here hamartia cause his entire life was totally tragic and fated. He was the disciple of Parasuraman and from the there to his death we see that Karna was having curses from his Guru and for that he was suffering in various ways. Even at the end of his life, for his mother Kunti he decides to die and died by his own promise.

3) Karna - The voice of Subaltern

A person holding a subordinate position specifically: a junior officer (as in the British army)

Whenever, we get the subaltern in the literature we get the name of Gayatri Spivak. Who has contributed a lot in this literature. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” this is the Spivak’s work and in this she has talked about the subaltern theory and they can speck or not, how they are marginalized, how they have to suffer. In this the author has used the ideas of other philosophers even.

The historiography of Indian nationalism has for a long time been dominated by elitism - colonialist elitism and bourgeois-nationalist elitism . . . shar [Ing] the prejudice that the making of the Indian nation and the development of the consciousness-nationalism which confirmed this process were exclusively or predominantly elite achievements. In the colonialist and neo-colonialist historiographies these achievements are credited to British colonial rulers, administrators, policies, institutions, and culture; in the nationalist and neo-nationalist writings - to Indian elite personalities, institutions, activities and ideas. (Guha 1982: 1)

This is how she has talked about elitism that Indian nationalism has dominated by elites only and they did it entirely.

1. Dominant foreign groups. 2. Dominant indigenous groups on the all-India level. 3. Dominant indigenous groups at the regional and local levels. 4. The terms ‘people’ and ‘subaltern classes’ [are] used as synonymous throughout [Guha’s definition]. The social groups and elements included in this category represent the demographic difference between the total Indian population and all those whom we have described as the ‘elite.’ In this, first two are elite groups and she put it in her work.

Now when we see the Karna’s character, we find that he was the sutha’s son and his identity was at the edge. He was even suffering from his identity. Even many times we see that he is more capable than the other characters who were against him in the battlefields or in any things. But because of his tragic identity he could never raise his voice for his own justice.

THANK YOU!

Foe by J.M.Coetzee 

Hello, I am Emisha Ravani, Writing this blog for the novel which is Foe by J.M. Coetzee. And it is the thinking activity given by Yesha Madam, Here we have to give answer the questions which are asked by teacher.

John Maxwell Coetzee is a South African–Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, translator and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is one of the most critically acclaimed and decorated authors in the English language.

Coetzee continued to explore themes of the colonizer and the colonized in Foe (1986), his reworking of Danial Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Coetzee’s female narrator comes to new conclusions about power and otherness and ultimately concludes that language can enslave as effectively as can chains. In Age of Iron (1990) Coetzee dealt directly with circumstances in contemporary South Africa, but in The Master of Petersburg (1994) he made reference to 19th-century Russia ; both books treat the subject of literature in society. In 1999, with his novel Disgrace, Coetzee became the first writer to win the Booker Prize twice. After the novel’s publication and an outcry in South Africa, he moved to Australia, where he was granted citizenship in 2006.

Q. 1 – How would you differentiate the character of Cruso and Crusoe?

This Robinson Crusoe is much more in tune with his own reality and interested in his own accomplishments than Foe's Cruso. This is also evident in the number of tools and objects that Robinson Crusoe makes in comparison to Cruso.

Robinson Crusoe’s name is changed to “Cruso” which marks the first in a series of differences between the character of Cruso(e) in Foe and Robinson Crusoe. The Cruso that Susan describes in the quote is one who is completely disconnected from reality and confused about his own past. When Susan questions Cruso about his history on the island the details in his stories vary wildly each time they are told. When asked if Friday was a child when he came to the island Cruso would sometimes exclaim, “Aye, a child, a mere child”, but other times Cruso would say, “Friday was a cannibal whom he had saved from being roasted”. This uncertainty about events could stem from the fact that in Foe, Cruso is very against keeping written documentation of his days on the island; proclaiming,

“Nothing I have forgotten is worth remembering”.

Cruso’s lack of journaling is a stark contrast to Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Robinson Crusoe is much less passive and senile in regards to his own development on the island. Crusoe kept a painfully detailed account of every action he does on the island in a journal he updates daily. Robinson Crusoe fills his multiple homes with various types of pots, tables, chairs, fences, and even a canoe. All of these items Crusoe builds are to improve and aide in his growth on the island, and he must be mentally sharp in order to build these items. Cruso in Foe has not put any effort towards building tools, as he only has a bed when Susan arrives at the island, and from the quote, it seems like he may not have the mental capacity to build these tools. Although Cruso does builds many terraces, he exclaims that they are for the future generations and not himself.

The difference in mindset and mental stability in the two Robinson Crusoe’s may be that in Robinson Crusoe, Crusoe felt that his island life had more value than Cruso did. Before becoming stranded on the island, religion wasn’t a focus in Robinson Crusoe’s life, and he frequently sinned; such as when he disobeyed his father. After becoming stranded on the island, Crusoe began to read the bible and incorporate God into his daily thoughts and actions. Crusoe expressed deep regret for his sinful past, and often attributed hardships to a lesson from God. This newfound lifestyle gave significant meaning to Crusoe’s daily actions as they represented growth in his faith, and a positive change in character. For Cruso, the island did not lead him to make any significant changes in his character or ideals. Therefore, his daily actions had less significance to him, and when his reality and sense of self began to slip away from him he was not concerned.

Q.2 Friday’s characteristics and persona in Foe and in Robinson Crusoe.

Friday doesn’t need help, in reality, he’s a more complete and complex character in both Robinson Crusoe and Foe than any other character. Even Daniel DeFoe and J.M. Coetzee creates the illusion that the white European heroes in each of the stories know better than Friday and that their stories are more compelling than his, it can be argued, neither story's protagonists know best; in spite of the rampant white saviour complex and promotion of colonisation ideology.

Friday slowly emerges as the heart of the novel. He is a slave who lives on the island with the man who is ostensibly his master. Cruso says that a slaver cut out Friday's tongue many years ago and Cruso never taught Friday any language beyond the most rudimentary instruction. This inability to communicate leaves Friday trapped in a silent world. Friday leaves the island and travels to England but it is only at the novel's end that he comes close to being able to express himself. The journey toward this act of self-expression emerges as the narrative of the novel. Friday attempts to express himself in a number of different ways. He ritually scatters petals on the sea, he plays music on his homemade flute, and he performs frenzied dances. Friday imbues these actions with a private meaning that is unknown to the rest of the world. Susan is the only person who attempts to glean meaning from these actions but she fails to understand their significance. Friday is shut inside his silent world even when he is trying to communicate. Friday eventually learns to write. Though he can only write a single letter over and over, it is the first step toward a shared understanding of Friday's pain. Foe and Susan provide Friday with a voice by teaching him to write. Meaning no longer has to be projected onto Friday's actions. He finally possesses the tools to make the world understand his pain.

Q. 3 Is Susan reflecting the white mentality of Crusoe (Robinson Crusoe)?

Through the words of J.M. Coetzee, the character of Susan Barton describes her life during and after her time on the desolate island with Cruso. Barton’s time on “Cruso’s island” is spent in preoccupation with Cruso’s way of life, and life after her rescue is spent in reflection of her relationships with Cruso, Friday, and Foe. This female voice is presented through the words of a male author, J.M. Coetzee, who presents Barton as a submissive supporting actress to the extremely dominant character of Robinson Crusoe.

Susan Barton, the narrator in Foe, finds herself shipwrecked on a desolate island with a man named Robinson Cruso. It does not take long for Barton to recognize her status on the island after she tells Cruso her story of being washed ashore. She says,

“I presented myself to Cruso, in the days when he still ruled over the island, and became his second subject, the first being his manservant Friday”.

Throughout the novel, even long after Cruso’s death, she describes the island as “Cruso’s island.” She finds herself as the mere female companion to the king and his manservant, Friday. Barton rationalises Cruso’s role of king as she sees him “on the Bluff, with the sun behind him all red and purple, staring out to see…I thought: He is a truly kingly figure; he is the true king of the island” . Coetzee makes Barton the woman behind the man, defining her as a “free and autonomous being like all human creatures that finds herself living in a world where men compel her to assume the status of the Other”. Barton is quick to assume the submissive role on the island as the assertive character of Robinson Crusoe takes the lead on the island and in her story.

Q. 4 Traces of white mentality in all the characters. (Master-slave, savage- Christian (white - civilized), giver – taker, shifting of power position – One is always

ready to take place of Master)

Susan Barton is Foe's protagonist and storyteller. The story is written in quotation marks, which further emphasises Susan's role in retelling her tale first with Cruso on the island and later with Friday in England. Susan struggles for voice and gradually that voice is rendered voiceless. Although she is European and essentially part of the hegemonic power structure, once she becomes a castaway on Cruso's island she becomes a subaltern character like Friday, both colonised others adhering to Cruso's authority and lifestyle.

Old Man Cruso, although once part of the elite class, becomes far removed from social conformities and expectations. He was at peace with the solitude the island brought him and he had no desire to leave it. Ultimately by the end of his life Cruso represented otherness even if it was by his own choice. His last fever came on at the time of the rescue by Captain John Smith.

Even in this weakened state Cruso resisted leaving his island: But when he was hoisted aboard the Hobart, and smelled the tar, and heard the creak of timbers, he came to himself and fought so hard to be free that it took strong men to master him and convey him below.

Susan's narrative voice is initially strong on Cruso's island. She is inquisitive and implores answers from Cruso. At one point Susan asks him why he had not built a boat:

"Why in all these years have you not built a boat and made your escape from this island?".

Cruso responds,

"And where should I escape to?"

Susan realises it is a "waste of breath to urge Cruso to save himself". Susan cannot get through to this man and it is the first glimpse of her struggle for voice. Later in the story, Susan struggles with Foe as she did Cruso:

"Finding it as thankless to argue with Foe as it has been with Cruso, I held my tongue, and soon he fell asleep".

Mr. Foe is the only character that has elite or patriarchal power. He realises Susan is hiding or denying something from her experience in Bahia. As the novel escalates, Foe tries to persuade Susan to disregard her story and envision the possibilities that are in his mind. In doing so. Foe marginalises Susan's voice by insisting on writing the 'other' story that Susan resists telling. Susan struggles to regain control over her own story, persisting that the island tale is significant in and of itself. Her refusal to tell her 'other' story begins to discredit her character and her credibility starts to wane. The emergence of the little girl and the nanny strike a chord with Susan. A dark undercurrent becomes prevalent in the novel and Susan's denial of these characters questions her authority:

But if these women are creatures of yours, visiting me at your instruction, speaking words you have prepared for them, then who am I and who indeed are you?

Friday's voicelessness permeates through the story with a resounding silence that transforms into a voice of its own. Susan attempts to teach Friday his letters by drawing words on a slate. Soon after, Foe and Susan find Friday at the desk making 'rows and rows of the letter o. This exemplifies Friday's voicelessness. Like his mouth, the letter is open in suspended silence, Friday's silence is his choice; a victory of resistance against his postcolonial oppression and it becomes the most significant voice in Foe. Friday's defiance is evident in the last pages of the novel. The narration in the last section of Foe departs from Susan and Mr. Foe to an unidentified narrator that culminates in a pivotal display of metafictional literature. The narrator dives into the wreck and finds Friday.

Thank you!

The Final Solutions

 Final Solutions

Hello, I am Emisha Ravani, Writing this blog as a thinking activity for the play "Final Solutions" which is written by the very well known literary figure Mahesh Dattani . 

Mahesh Dattani is an Indian director, actor, playwright and writer. He wrote such plays as Final Solutions, Dance Like a Man, Bravely Fought the Queen, On a Muggy Night in Mumbai, Tara, Thirty Days in September and The Big Fat City. He is the first playwright in English to be awarded the Sahitya Akadami Award.

The theme of gender discrimination is all dominant in the drama. It circles around the grave and traditional issues of gender bias. The issue of cultural discrimination and injustice with women has been elaborately and comprehensively dealt by Dattani in the play.

Mahesh Dattani's Works :

His plays deal with gender identity, gender discrimination, and communal tensions. The play 'Tara' deals with gender discrimination, '30 Days in September' tackles the issue of child abuse head on, and 'Final Solutions' is about the lingering echoes of the partition.

Basically, this play Final Solutions is based on the communal riots and there are many stuffs which can be examine under the various aspects like minority vs majority, Hindu vs Muslim, past vs present, liberality vs bigoted etc. And it has story of a Gujarati family.

Here I would like to put some observations of the play by various literary figures.

In her analysis of the play, Deepali Agarwal observes:

Mahesh Dattani puts the eternal question with his play Final Solutions that every now and then rankles our consciousness – are the human beings real humane. It propels us to perennial problems as to what’s that we should have priorities – our religion, our perennial ideals or our compassion for other human beings. (Agarwal, Deepali: 81)

Alyque Padmasee (Directed of the play) comments:

As I see it, this is a play about transferred resentment. About looking for a scope goal to hit out when we feel let down humiliated. Taking your anger on your wife, children, or servants is an old Indian custom. This is above all a play about a family with its simmering undercurrents.” (Padmasee: 161)

1.)What is the significance of the subtitle "The Final Solutions"?

When we see the title of the play “Final Solutions”. We find that at the very first look we can assume that it could be the solutions of some issues or it can be the interpretation of salvation of souls even. But it is about hatred and bitterness of Hindus and Muslims against each other. In the play we can see that there many issues around the characters and the plots its selves. Communal crisis happening there and it has started and it is still going on so there was no final solution to stop it and flawlessly it will go on. So we can say that author has given the title in the paradoxical way like we find that there must be a solution but in the play we see there is no such finalized solution to get rid of these kind of crisis.

2.)Do you think Mahesh Dattani’s “The Final Solutions” makes any significant changes in society?

“The Final Solutions” is the dealing with the burning social and communism riots. There are the characters and they representing various aspects of it. The mob or chorus are representing the hatred towards majority and minority. Or somehow it is symbolizing the whole society and it’s psyche towards one and another. The play has come into the year of 1993 but when we look at the present time scenario, we still feel the same things but in the different ways may be. So, if people are having courage to change the society and the way to treat each other, to behave in a such manner, to learn from the literature then only it can be helpful to the society in the better way. Because this the attempt that can make us aware that how we are threatened and having hatred in people’s hearts.

Hardika, in her diary entry, she mentions:

After forty years … I opened my diary again. And I wrote a dozen pages before. A dozen pages now. A young girl childish scribble. An old man’s shaky scrawl, yes, the things have not changed that much. (Act I) .The dialogue itself speaks a lot.

3.)How are the beginning and the end of the movie? Do you feel the effect of communal disturbance in the movie?

An innovative narrative technique + The major dramatic events

It starts with the recalling the past within the present. We can say the third act is the climax of the story. When it witnessed the truth behind everything. There is the dialogue of Chorus also shouts, “Our future is threatened. There is so much that is fading away. We cannot complement about the glorious past seeing us safely through.” (Act III)

So there is communal disturbance we feel at the both points.

4.)The movie comes up with many different symbols and colors. Write about any two symbols which caught your attention. What does it signify?

The movie comes with in a very unique way. It was the play performance more than the movie. And directed has used very minutely ideas to symbolise the things on the stage. Like the colors, equipment, props and the very interesting was the chorus as mob. The setting was even in a very proper way when characters use the whole setting in the very good manner of play performance. Here the symbols which has caught my attention and how the author or directed wanted to signify such thoughts.

The diary:

In Final Solutions, Dattani projects multilevel stage to represent multiple layers of context involved in the issue of communal violence. In Daksha’s reflections and recollections of Diaries, Dattani exposes inner world of individuals encountering tensions and conflicts of personal relationships. She recollects the memories of her husband Hari and the friend Zarine. She also feels nostalgic for the melodious songs of Noor Jahan.

The cap and idol of lord Krishna:

These are the stuffs we can interpret it to take help of the religion symbols. In the play there is incidence of the cap when those young characters are having. And another incident of the idol of lord Krishna when Aruna is worshiping and bobby touched that idol so she was very disappointed for that cause she is the character here who is very rigid and conservative towards the religion and society.

5.)Is Ramnik a liberal thinker? If yes then why? If not then why?

At certain points we feel Ramnik is a liberal thinker and at some points we don’t agree even to our own arguments. Like when we became ready to rescue these both the Muslim boys and even the family members were his against so at that time, we feel his liberality but when the truth reveals at the end we feel very opposite of that same person. When there is the revelation period we find him not liberal rather then we feel him as selfish because ultimately he was doing this kind of help to these boys for himself only cause he only knew the truth so he wanted to be free from that prison of thoughts and acts.

6.)Does education make any difference? Comment with the reference to the women characters.

In the “Final Solutions” we find three major women characters like Smita, Hardika or Daksha, and Aruna, Dattani admits that women have greater consciousness and deeper realization of communal and religious identities.

Smita, Gandhi’s daughter talks to her friend Tasneem whose hostel was the center of blast. Smita, a girl of liberal ideology views the whole situation as an individual and constructs an ideology beyond the ideology of religious and racial prejudices. She reveals her feeling to her mother:

It stifles me! yes! Maybe I am prejudiced because I do not belong. But not belonging makes things so clear. I can see so clearly how wrong you are. You accuse me running away from my religion. Maybe I am embraced, Mummy. (Act III, 57)

Education makes the differences like:

1. Independent thinking
2. Individual identity
3. Think beyond their physical conscience
4. Retain their awareness in society
5. Aware about their position, desires and dreams
6. Quest for the improvement of social status
7. Accept the challenges of Inter-community

These are the differences we can found in the educated people with reference of this play and its women characters. By the observation we can find different qualities or mindsets of women which Dattani has portrayed here to make difference.

We can put these three characters in different kinds of categories. Like Daksha and Smita both are educated but not behaving in the same way. In other had we have Aruna’s character, in which we can see very narrow mind set’s qualities.

So, this is my interpretation of the play “Final Solutions”. I have done it with various perspectives like Social, Communalism, Feminism as Dattani has successfully used his pen for women characters in his works.

Thank you!

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