🥀The MInistry of utmost happiness 🥀

Hello !!

Here is my response to the activity given by dr.Dilip Barad sir in the google classroom related to the novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy one of the Contemporary fiction works published in 2017. This novel is about a Hermaphrodite Person named Anjum and how his life is surrounded by Gender biasedness, Caste discrimination, myths, Naxalites, etc..

To know more about the novel let's try to give answers of the following Questions..

Points to ponder while writing a blog -

1) Read -

The Reader’s Digest Book of English Grammar and Comprehension

for Very Young Children

By

S. Tilottama - Give answers to the questions asked regarding any three stories. Questions are given at the end of each story.

2) Three points mentioned in the photo of board-work.

3) Write about any one theme or character of the novel with the help of Chat OpenAI GPT. Ask to Chat GPT and put screenshots as well as copy-paste the answer generated by this response generator.

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is the second novel by Indian writer Arundhati Roy Published in 2017, after her debut, The God of Small Things. The novel weaves together the stories of people navigating some of the darkest and most violent episodes of modern Indian history, from land reform that dispossessed poor farmers to the Bhopal disaster, the 2002 Godhra train burning, and Kashmir insurgency. Roy's Characters run the gamut of Indian society and indulge an intersex woman,a rebellious architec,t and her landlord who is a supervisor in the Intelligence service. The narrative spans decades the locations but primarily takes place in Delhi and Kashmir.

Arundhati Roy

Suzana Arundhati Roy (Born 24 November) is an Indian author best known for her novel The God of Small Things, which won the booker prize for fiction in 1997 and became the best-selling book by a non-expatriate Indian author. she is also a political activist involved in human rights and environmental causes. 

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness 

About Novel : 

Genre: Fiction 

Publication 2017

Cover Artist: Mayank Austen Soofi

1) List of characters

Mulaqat Ali(Father of Anjum ,hakim )

Jahanara Begum(Mother of Anjum)

Alham Baaji (Midwife of Mulaqat Ali)

Aftab/Anjum (Protagonist)

Ziauddin (Blind Imam)

Kulsoom Bi (UStad of Khwabgah)

Bombay silk, Saeeda, Mary, Gudia & Bulbul (Living in Khwabgah)

Razia,Bismillah(Bimla) (Living in Khwabgah)

Zainab - A child {who later on marries Saddam Hussein}

Zakir Mian

Contractor Gupta

Dr.Azad Bharatiya(One of the Protestors )

Saddam Hussein (Dayachand)

Sherawat(Allegedly wanted to take revenge for his father's death)

Biplab Dasgupta (IB)

Chitrarupa(Wife of Bilpab)

S.Tillotama (Friend of Musa,Nagaraj Marries, biplab )

Nagaraj (Journalist)

Musa Yeswi(Involved in Naxalite activities)

Arifa Yeswi(Wife of Musa)

Jebeen The First(Died)

Captain Amrik Singh(Officer)

Jalil Qadri(Human Rights activist)

Acp Pinky Sodhi(Brutal interrogator)

Balbir Sodhi(Pinkey's brother)

Revathy (Mother of Udaya, Raped)

Udaya( Jebeen the Second)

2) Summary 

Aftab is a hermaphrodite born in Old Delhi and raised as a boy. However, Aftab is never comfortable with this and when he reaches adulthood, he opts for gender reassignment surgery. Aftab is reborn as Anjum, a glamorous woman whose affectionate, outgoing manner quickly ingratiates her with many members of the community.

Anjum finds a home with the residents of the place called Khwabgah, meaning "House of Dreams." This is a community of non-conformists, many of who are either intersex or transgender like Anjum. Calling it home, she remains there for thirty years, during which time she becomes a mother figure to a little girl named Zainab and raises her to adulthood.

However, when she is forty-six, she survives in the 2002 riots in Ahmedabad and decides to leave the Khwabgah She moves into a local cemetery transforming it into a guesthouse that she names Jannat, or "Paradise.

She opens a funeral services company catering to marginalized and persecuted groups. One day, a baby is found at an observatory in Delhi. Anjum takes the child in, but she disappears one day. Anjum tracks the baby down to the house of the woman who took her.

Saddam Hussein, an untouchable, awaits the day when he can avenge his father’s lynching.

The narrative then shifts to the story of S. Tilottama, called "Tilo" for short, the woman who took the baby. The story flashes back to her college days, her narrative spliced together with the stories of two men who loved her during these years. One is an old bureaucrat called Garson Hobart, and the other is a mainstream journalist named Naga whom she eventually marries.

Tilo, a dark-skinned, smart woman, had been close to architecture student Musa Yeswi at university. After university, Musa and Tilo reconnected shortly after his wife died. However, Musa became involved with the Kashmiri separatist movement advocating for independence for the Muslim región at the border of Pakistan.

Musa and his friend, Commander Gulrez, raise the attention of Indian bureaucrats led by the ruthless Major Amrik Singh. Singh, known for torturing his suspects brutally, captures Musa and Gulrez.

Musa manages to escape, but Gulrez is killed as Tilo watches. Shaken and realizing how close she came to being caught up in an extremely dangerous, plot, Tilo decides to play it safe and marry Naga. Fourteen years later, they divorce, and Tilo rents an apartment. They reconnect, but she soon disappears again with the baby from the observatory. She has named the baby Miss Jebeen the Second, after Musa's slain daughter. Anjum finds her and invites both of them to move into the Jannat guesthouse With her.

The narrative then flashes back to show how Miss Jebeen the First died, in the conflict in Kashmir. She and Musa's wife, Arifa are shot by soldiers.

Although Major Singh later tries to make peace with Musa by paying him off, Musa angrily rejects him and goes undercover. We also see more of the night Gulrez died, and it is revealed that Tilo was pregnant (with Musa's child) when she escaped Kashmir and married Naga. However, she chooses to have an abortion.

Back in the present, the residents of Jannat celebrate Zainab's wedding to fellow resident Saddam. One day, they receive a letter written by Miss Jebeen the Second's mother.

A member of communist Comrade Maase Revathy was raped, and although she could not care for her child, she reveals she named her Udaya. The residents of Jannat agree to name the child Miss Udaya Jebeen. The book ends as Garson Hobart reads through Tila's documents, realizing that he now sides with her on Musa arrives at his apartment, and they talk about Kashmir, with Musa saying that the conflict will make the country explode one day.

Musa joins Tilo at Jannat for the night but leaves to rejoin the fight in Kashmir, where he's killed. Anjum takes Miss Udaya Jebeen for a walk around Delhi in the last scene, while a small dung beetle observes the world around them.

Narrative Style

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is written in a non-linear narrative style, using multiple perspectives and jumping back and forth in time. It is a complex, multi-layered story that interweaves the lives of different characters and their experiences and struggles in contemporary India. The novel also employs elements of magical realism and surrealism.

3) Fact&Fiction

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, written by Arundhati Roy, is a novel that combines elements of both fact and fiction. The novel is set in contemporary India and deals with real-world issues such as caste discrimination, political corruption, and the ongoing conflict in Kashmir. However, the novel also incorporates elements of magical realism and surrealism, blurring the line between fact and fiction.

The novel also deals with the lives and struggles of a diverse cast of characters, some of whom are based on real people, while others are purely fictional. In this way, the novel uses both fact and fiction to explore the complexities of life in contemporary India and to convey the author's political and social commentary.

Socio-Political Events 

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, written by Arundhati Roy, deals with a variety of socio-political events and issues in contemporary India. Some of the key themes and issues addressed in the novel include:

Caste discrimination: The novel explores the ongoing caste-based discrimination in Indian society and the ways in which it affects the lives and experiences of different characters.

Political corruption: The novel also deals with the theme of political corruption and the ways in which it undermines the functioning of democracy in India.

Conflict in Kashmir: The novel deals with the ongoing conflict in Kashmir and the human rights violations committed by Indian security forces in the region.

The rights of marginalized communities: The novel also deals with the rights of marginalized communities such as the transgender community and the struggles they face in India.

Environmental destruction and corporate greed: The novel also deals with the theme of environmental destruction and corporate greed, and how it affects the lives of the people living around it.

Overall, the novel uses a variety of literary techniques to explore the complexities of these socio-political issues and to convey the author's political and social commentary on them.

🠊 ChatGPT

Character Sketch of Anjum

Anjum of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness in Detail

Anjum is a character in the novel "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness" by Indian author Arundhati Roy. She is a hijra, a term used in South Asia for people who identify as a third gender. Anjum is born as a boy named Aftab, but identifies as female and eventually becomes a hijra.

Anjum is a central character in the novel and her story is interwoven with the other characters and their stories. Through Anjum, the novel explores themes of gender identity, marginalization, and the search for acceptance and community. Anjum's story is also a commentary on the treatment of hijras in Indian society. The novel shows how Anjum's experiences reflect the broader social and political issues faced by hijras in India.

Anjum is a complex character, she is tough and resilient, but also vulnerable and sensitive. She is both a victim of society's discrimination and a powerful voice for change. Throughout the novel, she struggles to find acceptance, both from society and from herself.

Anjum's story is one of the most memorable and powerful parts of the novel and showcases the author's ability to create a character that is both relatable and unique.

Q 1: Why was Mattoo shot?
(a) Because he was a Hindu
(b) Because he wanted Azadi
(c) Because he won the Nobel Prize
(d) None of the above
(e) All of the above.

Answer : (a) Because he was a Hindu

Q 2: Who could the unknown gunman have been?
(a) An Islamist militant who thought all kafirs should be killed
(b) An agent of the Occupation who wanted people to think that all Islamist militants thought that all kafirs should be killed
(c) Neither of the above
(d) Someone who wanted everyone to go crazy trying to figure it out.

Answer : (a) An Islamist militant who thought all kafirs should be killed

KHADIJA SAYS …
In Kashmir when we wake up and say ‘Good Morning’ what we really mean is ‘Good Mourning’.
THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’
Begum Dil Afroze was a well-known opportunist who believed, quite literally, in changing with the times. When the Movement seemed to be on the up and up, she would set the time on her wristwatch half an hour ahead to Pakistan Standard Time. When the Occupation regained its grip she would reset it to Indian Standard Time. In the Valley the saying went, ‘Begum Dil Afroze’s watch isn’t really a watch, it’s a newspaper.’

Q 1: What is the moral of this story?
Answer : May be the act of doing her wristwatch half an hour ahead to Pakistan Standard Time, And reset it to Indian Standard Time can be considered that how Kashmir is surviving under the fear of both the countries and it's pressure.

NOTHING

I would like to write one of those sophisticated stories in which even though nothing much happens there’s lots to write about. That can’t be done in Kashmir. It’s not sophisticated, what happens here. There’s too much blood for good literature.

Q 1: Why is it not sophisticated?
Answer : Kashmir is the land where people live under the fear and with the militants so the there are many incidents happen everyday which become the reason of bloodshade. As it is the land of Mourning. So it cannot consider as sophisticated one.

Q 2: What is the acceptable amount of blood for good literature?
Answer : According to me, there is nothing like any amount of blood to create good literature.

The Mechanics of Writing

 

The Mechanics of Writing 

Research may start for one of many reasons: someone sees a problem with a business practice, has the desire to innovate and create something new, seeks to understand some natural process, or seeks to know more about an issue in order to make things work better or mitigate a condition. All these and more are reasons to conduct research. Good research starts with selecting a researchable problem.

Once you have your research question solidified, start your literature review as soon as possible. One reason to search the related literature right away is to make sure that someone else has not already researched the same topic. Keep in mind that if someone has already done the study you would like to do, you can still check their conclusions to see if they have recommended an area of further research. Also, check the date of their study. If it was quite some time ago, replicating their study with a few new twists just might expose some interesting conclusions. There are several other reasons to conduct a thorough literature review:

- It will increase your confidence in your topic….

- It can provide you with new ideas and approaches….

- It can inform you about other researchers whom you may wish to contact….

- It can show you how others have handled methodological and design issues….

- It can reveal previously unknown sources of data….

- It can introduce you to new research tools and techniques tested by other researchers….

- It can reveal methods of dealing with problem situations….

- It can help you interpret and make sense of your findings.

1) Academic Writing: Kalyan Chattopadhyay

Formal vocab and informal vocab

Academic writing is a formal style of writing used in universities and scholarly publications. You’ll encounter it in journal articles and books on academic topics, and you’ll be expected to write your essays, research papers, and dissertation in an academic style.

Academic writing aims to convey information in an impartial way. The goal is to base arguments on the evidence under consideration, not the author’s preconceptions. All claims should be supported with relevant evidence, not just asserted.

To avoid bias, it’s important to represent the work of other researchers and the results of your own research fairly and accurately. This means clearly outlining your methodology and being honest about the limitations of your research.

The formal style used in academic writing ensures that research is presented consistently across different texts so that studies can be objectively assessed and compared with other research.

Because of this, it’s important to strike the right tone with your language choices. Avoid informal language, including slang, contraction, clichés, and conversational phrases.

Kalyan sir starts his lecture with a very good explanation of what is formal vocab and informal vocab with examples.

Subjective, objective

The problem of using subjective terms and objective terms. How one can use both the term at the specific place and time.

Contradicts

The contradictions can be used to put arguments that are opposites.

perspective (Hardy’s nature study with a new fresh idea of ecology concern)

In this point, the discussion is like when we do research we are responsible to give a new argument or direction by our perspective.

Examples of formal and informal texts

1. These findings are replicated.

2. the discussion in this paragraph will be confined to a general description of the problem.

Both are formal because passive and objective language is a feature of academic writing.

A couple of techniques for academic writing

1. Divide your texts into paragraphs. these paragraphs develop a particular aspect. Causley related. topical sentences. Supported sentences. Concluding sentences(summary). Findings.

2. Sudden(signalling) expressions. Therefore, usually, generally, etc.

Indicate the breakup or turn of the argument.

The introduction and conclusion should not be the same. That should be passive.

Using questions – self-asking questions.

Careful thought – analysis- comparison- decision making.

Writing critically

By this point, Sir made clear that academic writing and critical writing are so different from each other. Further, He has given the definition and how these differ that also.

‘Padding’

The argument, comparison, accepted, rejected, and supported sentences.

Remove Irrelevant sort of details.

Critics' argument – why their arguments are important to our research.

Academic writing and critical writing are different. Seminal thinkers of the research area.

Established own voice

When we do research we are doing that to find new and fresh gaps or ideas so we can use scholars' findings or arguments to support our findings or arguments but we must put or establish our own voice in our work.

You can not use all the read materials

Hit the main thing of your research

In our introduction, we have to specify our main quota of research so the readers of our work can find it easily and they do not find it boring to read.

Importance of Defense

Emotive, (with emotions)

This is how in this video Kalyan sir explained things very precisely and also how people, scholars, critics, and researchers can look at our work. What can be their problems that are discussed very well?

🌹Petals of Blood🌹

🎕Hello Everyone!!🎕

“He carried the Bible; the soldier carried the gun; the administrator and the settler carried the coin. Christianity, Commerce, Civilization: the Bible, the Coin, the Gun: Holy Trinity.”

Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Here is my blog on Petals of blood written by Ngugi wa Thiong'o Set in Kenya just after independence, the story follows four characters – Munira, Abdulla, Wanja, and Karega – whose lives are intertwined due to the Mau Mau rebellion. In order to escape city life, each retreats to the small, pastoral village of Ilmorog. As the novel progresses, the characters deal with the repercussions of the Mau Mau rebellion as well as with a new, rapidly westernizing Kenya.

About Writer 

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o born James Ngugi on 5 January 1938 is a Kenyan author and academic who writes primarily in Gikuyu and who formerly wrote in English. He has been described as having been "considered East Africa’s leading novelist".His work includes novels, plays, short stories, and essays, ranging from literary and social criticism to children's literature. He is the founder and editor of the Gikuyu-language journal Mũtĩiri. His short story The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright, is translated into 100 languages from around the world.

In 1977, Ngũgĩ embarked upon a novel form of theatre in his native Kenya that sought to liberate the theatrical process from what he held to be "the general bourgeois education system", by encouraging spontaneity and audience participation in the performances. His project sought to "demystify" the theatrical process, and to avoid the "process of alienation produces a gallery of active stars and an undifferentiated mass of grateful admirers" which, according to Ngũgĩ, encourages passivity in "ordinary people".Although his landmark play, Ngaahika Ndeenda, co-written with Ngũgĩ wa Mirii, was a commercial success, it was shut down by the authoritarian Kenyan regime six weeks after its opening.

Ngũgĩ was subsequently imprisoned for over a year. Adopted as an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, the artist was released from prison and fled Kenya. In the United States, he is currently a Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and English at the University of California, Irvine. He has also previously taught at Northwestern University, Yale University, and New York University. Ngũgĩ has frequently been regarded as a likely candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He won the 2001 International Nonino Prize in Italy, and the 2016 Park Kyong-ni Prize. Among his children are the authors Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ and Wanjiku wa Ngũgĩ.

Works of Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

About Novel

To go through the text here is a presentation by @yeshaBhatt ma'am. This presentation will help you to know about the text in easy language, as given in the thinking activity by Ma'am. Here is my response to the question asked in google classroom.

Petals of blood from yeshab68

1) Neo-colonialism: with reference to Petals of Blood

During the age of imperialism, European powers conquered African lands and ruled them as colonies. As African nations began to throw off their colonial rule and become independent in the mid-20th century, they began to form their own governments and seek to establish control over their economies. However, most of them became almost immediately privy to neocolonialism, which is where foreign investors and local ruling elites partner to "invest" in the country, but instead return said country to an almost colonial type of relationship. They are now subject to market forces, loans, transportation changes, and local corruption. Ngugi chronicles Ilmorog's experience with neocolonialism, showing that all of the new modern developments merely hid the fact that the people were losing any power of their own.

Africa is considered to be the most affected continent by European imperialist aggression, it suffered from long years of eventual conquest and colonization. This later fought and resisted all forms of domination and get its independence; however it still suffers from what we call neo-colonialism.

Neo-colonialism is known to be the last stage of imperialism39 which is the control of less-developed countries by the developed ones without any physical presence of the colonial 15 forces in the country. Although the country has gained independence its politic, economy, and educational system is directed from outside, usually from the rejected colonialist or from other empowered states.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o's 1977 novel Petals of Blood, however, takes a slightly different tack: it depicts the postcolonial African nation as a complex and multifaceted entity, and it represents this nation in three ways. First, Petals of Blood reveals that there are many ways of viewing the postcolonial African nation: examining the official national structure created artificially by colonialism. or looking at the various locally created harmonious and not-so-harmonious communities within the official nation. Second, the novel presents several different locally created communities, which I will term, following Timothy Brennan, nations. It also espouses an ideal natio based on communal harmony and socialist economics, in which wealth is based on the amount of labor put in, and the peasants, the main labor force, control the means of production. Ngugi implies, in the course of the narrative, that this ideal nation can only be created through armed struggle, which would bring an end to the existing official nation and replace it with his ideal one. This ideal ratio would eventually be led by farmers, workers, and intellectuals, and would result in a more or less classless society. Third, although the novel idealizes the natio just described, it also presents its argument through a series of contrasts in which the official national and the various nations are played off of each other, suggesting that Ngugi ultimately endorses a view of the nation that is multiple and diverse, with structures of complicity and resistance contained within it. In the novel, then, there are four kinds of contrasts that Ngugi sets up for us: the contrast between several ideal nations and the artificial nation; the contrast between political betrayal and social justice; the contrast between an ironic narration and a "murder-mystery" narrative structure; and the contrast between many different commentaries and narrators of the action who frequently contradict each other. Since all of these contrasts suggest that there are many different ways of conceiving the ideal nation, most of the focus of this paper will be on describing and analyzing these contrasts.

Words: 1050

Reference:  

View of "Flowers in All Their Colours": Natios and Communities in Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's Petals of Blood | International Fiction Review, https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/IFR/article/view/7768/8825. Accessed 8 January 2023.

R{ƎVO⅃}UTION TWENTY20

“Don't be serious, be sincere.”

Little light on Writer's Introduction

Chetan Bhagat

Born on 22 April 1974 is an Indian author, columnist, and YouTuber. He was included in Time magazine's list of the World's 100 Most Influential People in 2010. Five of his novels have been adapted into films.

Chetan Bhagat's writing style is very different from other authors. He is known for making books readable for the average Indian. He has constantly been an inspiration to aspiring writers.

He believes in keeping it simple which helps him engage with the audience, who don't really want to refer to a dictionary while reading books. The audience also finds it easier to relate to his books as the context of his books is usually based on actual events from their lives.

Bhagat also invests a lot of time in creating the characters of his books so that his target audience can relate to them in a better way. His stories usually have an Indian touch to them which makes them even more interesting. With his vivid and humorous way of depicting stories, he has inspired reading habits in many young Indians.

Works of C.Bhagat

⁕Five of his novel adapted into films.

1) Hello - One night at call center

2) 3 Idiots - Five point someone

3) Kai po che! - 3 Mistakes of my life

4) 2 States - 2 States

5) Half-Girlfriend - Half Girlfriend 

As this novel is in our syllabus of Contemporary Literature in English. We are asked to do in a detailed study of R{ƎVO⅃}UTION TWENTY20 by Chetan Bhagat.

About the Novel

1) Social realism in the novel

The various ingredients that make contemporary Indian society seem despicable were pointed out by Bhagat in his fifth novel, Revolution 2020. Chetan Bhagat delves deep into a very serious malaise of Indian society – corruption. Corruption has existed since time immemorial and has pervaded every facet of Indian society, from getting a certificate, to getting a government job or getting approvals to start a school or college. The bribes paid could run into many lakes of rupees. The despicable and uncouth reality of Indian society has been laid threadbare in this novel. The novel talks about how the basic inception of corruption in modern times can be traced to opportunistic leaders, who are consumed by ambition and use corruption as a means to fuel their ambitions. The bleakness existing in Indian society, according to Bhagat, is due to political bankruptcy, social sins, malpractices and crimes of various hues. Revolution 2020 discusses in detail how the Indian government aids in corruption. Bhagat's book talks about how government employees and political leaders actually operate, which lead to untold corruption everywhere. Corruption, the dark side of Indian society that Indians are generally accustomed to, manifests itself in the rotten educational system, coupled with the dishonesty and bribery that exist in public life forms the essence of this novel.

The protagonist comes from a humble background that faces tremendous pressures in life. The novel describes him as an ordinary person with a slight paunch. It goes on to add that the “rest of him was whitish complexion, modest five feet seven-inch height, and his side-parted hair was reassuringly normal. His father didn't give him any pocket money and he didn't have much in his own pocket.” The protagonist lost his mother at the age of four, and his father owned only disputed agricultural land. Like Samir in Five Point Someone, the protagonist of Revolution 2020 is forced by his father to pursue engineering. Bhagat points out those students in India are not encouraged to opt for careers or studies based on their passion or choice. Rather, it is the will of the parent that is forced down upon their throats. The protagonist says, "I would be one of those unfortunate cases who had done well, but not well enough". They become distraught when they are not able to fulfill their parents' desires that were imposed upon them. As a result, students have to lie to their parents when they don't do well, for they wouldn't want to see their parents getting hurt. Parents on the other hand are also insensitive, who tend to scold them rather that reassuring them when things don't go as planned. Bhagat infers that this could be one of the reasons why young people contemplate suicide. The plot revolves around the protagonist, his friends Raghav and the local beauty Aarti who is a District Magistrate's daughter. The three of them belong to middle class backgrounds. The protagonist's father is an ailing retired teacher, who is not inclined to spend all of his money on his medication, as the well-being of his son; the protagonist occupies a higher priority. The protagonist wants to enter one of the prestigious IITs. He has to do the JEE, the entrance test, in order to get into one of them. But he is not successful. His father sends him to Kota, Rajasthan, which is renowned for institutes that impart training for one to clear the JEE. Yet, the protagonist fails in his subsequent sitting for the JEE. His father passes away in the meanwhile. He starts to live by himself. His relatives do not seem very interested in taking him under their wings.

2) Significance of the title 'Revolution Twenty20'

As given in this cover page of the book we can see background image of Varanasi as holy city of india and there's love triangle within it and one thing to be noticed here is in the original one RƎVO⅃UTION is written as it highlights love within REVOLUTION.

We can find Three major concerns given here is Love.Corruption.Ambition in the characters of Raghav, Gopal and Arti.

As novel opens up we can see the newness of relationships and the love triangle of contemporary era. As we just passed through the pendemic 2020 there were lot of corruption and scandles were on n on going Revolution Twenty20 by chetan Bhagat comes with the concept of Corruption in education , how holy place of India is reflected here , how love becomes an ambition and turns into corruption later on.

3) Do you think that an opportunity of a good novel is wasted because the story is told from Gopal's perspective? Can it be better if narrated from Raghav or Aarti's perspective? How would it be better if it was narrated from Raghav or Aarti's perspective?

Well i don't think so that story told by Gopal's perspective is wasted because in a way we don't find much of politicians do speak about their things out in public though it was all wrong what Gopal was doing but none can help in that as we'll have a lot of Gopals around us what we see is one sided tale what here Gopal is telling is his story throughout his life and how he ended up in corruption. Judging the story only on the bases of his scandles is wrong in a way. If it was narrated by Aarti then it would be more about love than corruption and it could have turn into a feminst prspective if aarti would have narrated.

The Joys of Motherhood

 Here is my blog on The Joys of Motherhood Written by Buchi Emecheta.

It's a story about the life of Nnu Ego, a Nigerian woman whose life revolves around her children. It explores what it means to be a mother in Nigeria where traditions and customs are changing, marriage, colonialism, and women's societal roles.

God, when will you create a woman who will be fulfilled in herself, a full human being, not anybody’s appendage? I was born alone and shall die alone.What have i gained from all this?

This quote is said by Nnu Ego which I've tried to elaborate here in this blog.

Much of the written scholarship on Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood (1979) focuses on the novel's critique of traditional Ibo society.Specifically, such articles read Emecheta's text as a denunciation of the reproductive practices of the Ibo people, practices that do harm to women by promoting the idea that a proper wife should seek only to beget and care for her offspring.As critical texts that recognize Emecheta's attempt to expose the gender politics operating within indigenous Africa, these readings are important. They collectively validate The Joys of Motherhood as a work of sociohistorical import, as a novel that fills noticeable gaps in the historical record of African women's experiences. Nevertheless, the scholarly consensus that valorizes this work obscures other thematic threads that are equally important in the recovery of African women's history. As S. Jay Kleinberg discusses in his introduction to Retrieving Women's History, the effort to rectify women's erasure in history entails not only an analysis of their work and their role in the family, but also an analysis of "both formal and informal political movements and ... their impact upon women, women's participation in them and the ways in which they shape male-female interactions and men's and women's roles in society."

Kleinberg's call for an analysis of the way in which women's experiences are impacted by local politics encourages us to return to Emecheta's text to analyze a question that most critics of this book raise but do not fully explore: to what extent does colonialism impinge upon the lives of Ibo women? One compelling answer to this question is introduced by Rolf Solberg, who suggests that the lives of the Ibo women in The Joys of Motherhood are determined by the tensions of a "culture collision" between the institutions of traditional Ibo society and the institutions of western Europe.  The focus of this paper will be to develop this suggestion and to argue its validity. In particular, I will demonstrate that the hardships endured by the women of Emecheta's novel do not emanate from an oppressive cultural practice regarding women's role in Ibo villages, but from a historical moment of political and economic transition, a historical moment in which the values and priorities of British culture clash destructively with the values and priorities of indigenous Africa. 

The Joys of Motherhood bears out the fact that this transitional period was particularly disadvantageous for African women. As the plight of the novel's key character reveals, colonialism was a costly reality for those who were forced to walk a fine line between that which was demanded of them by their village communities and that which was demanded of them by the rules of a European political regime. This paper will demonstrate that the Ibo women of Emecheta's novel find themselves in this very predicament: specifically, they are subjected to new forms of exploitation as they are asked to assume traditional duties and responsibilities under a newly imported economic system that-unlike their native system-fails to validate or reward them for such work. In essence, this paper traces the destructive influence of Western capitalism and its associated ideologies on the relative power and autonomy of Ibo women. Colonialism, I hope to show, was a far greater threat to their collective well-being than the strictures of village patriarchy.

Set in the British colony of Nigeria in the 1930s and 1940s, The Joys of Motherhood details the life story of an Ibo woman named Nnu Ego who escapes the ignominy of a childless first marriage by fleeing to the distant city of Lagos to start anew with a second husband. Nnu Ego's simple dream of becoming a mother-a dream rooted in the cultural values of Ibo society, where motherhood is the primary source of a woman's self-esteem and public status-is happily realized several times over in this new setting. The pleasures associated with motherhood that the protagonist so eagerly anticipates, however, are ultimately negated by the difficult economic conditions of her new urban environment. In short, there are so few job opportunities for her husband to pursue (and so little ambition on his part to pursue them) that Nnu Ego spends her entire life alternately birthing children and working day in and day out as a cigarette peddler to stave off the hunger and poverty that invariably haunt her household. The novel focuses on this grueling battle, a battle that ends in a loss for Nnu Ego, as she witnesses her beloved sons grow up and leave Nigeria for good and her daughters marry and move away. Nnu Ego's hopes of living out her final years in the company of her grandchildren disappear before she turns forty, and she dies at the side of a country road, alone and unnoticed.

The title of Emecheta's novel is patently ironic, for it would seem that there are few joys associated with motherhood after all. And yet while that reality is certainly one message the novel imparts, there is far more to the text than a critique of motherhood. The fact that Emecheta's novel moves beyond this critique to explore the costs of colonialism for women in urban Nigeria is summarized in a crucial passage midway through the novel in which Nnu Ego pauses to assess the injustices of her life in Lagos: "It was not fair, she felt, the way men cleverly used a woman's sense of responsibility to actually enslave her.... Here in Lagos, where she was faced with the harsh reality of making ends meet on a pittance, was it right for her husband to referto her responsibility? It seemed that all she had inherited from her agrarian background was the responsibility and none of the booty."  This excerpt is key in locating the source of Nnu Ego's anguish not in her position as a mother per se, but in her position as a woman who is asked to assume the same obligations of her "agrarian background" within a new cultural setting that confers "none of the booty" normally associated with such labor. Nnu Ego is able to interpret the inequity of this exchange as something that "enslaves" and "imprisons" her. She is also able to identify, at least on some level, the political economy of colonial Lagos as the Western construct of "the new" that proves to be unaccommodating of her traditional role as wife and mother: she notes, for example, that it is the "harsh reality of making ends meet on a pittance" that secures her thralldom.

Before discussing in further detail the political dynamics underwriting this thralldom, it might be useful to review the role women played in Ibo society before the widespread influence of British rule. As Kamene Okonjo points out, the popular belief that African women were impotent and/or trivial in the male-dominated communities of Ibo culture is a gross misconception.  While men's labor was widely considered to be more prestigious than women's labor, and while the practice of polygamy and patrilocal domicile (married women dwelling in their husbands' villages rather than in their own) secured men's power over women in general, Ibo women still wielded considerable influence both within their marriages and within the larger community. Women, for example, were a major force in the society's agrarian economy: they planted their own crops, sold their crop surplus (as well as that of their husbands), and exerted exclusive control over the operation and management of the village market, the site where all local commerce took place.In addition, women were active participants in the dual-sex political system of Ibo society, a system in which Ibo men and Ibo women governed themselves separately, both sexes selecting their own set of leaders and cabinet members to legislate issues relevant to the members of their respective constituencies.

Conclusion

The novel revolves around the life of Nue ego and how she goes through the Chaos she faces in her life. 

Here is a video on how working mothers manages everything TeDx talks about how difficult it is for a working mothers

Plagiarism

 

Let's start today's blog with little light on What is Plagiarism ?

Plagiarism is presenting someone else's work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgment.

Plagiarism is the fraudulent representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work. While precise definitions vary, depending on the institution, such representations are generally considered to violate academic integrity and journalistic ethics as well as social norms of learning, teaching, research, fairness, respect and responsibility in many cultures. It is subject to sanctions such as penalties, suspension, expulsion from school or work, substantial fines and even imprisonment.

As given in our blog task here is my response to the question...

1) What is Plagiarism and what are its consequences?

Plagiarism is sometimes a moral and ethical offense rather than a legal one since some instances of plagiarism fall outside the Scope of copyright infringement, a legal offense.

Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement. All published and unpublished material, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form, is covered under this definition. - Oxford

Consequences of Plagiarism :

In this let us see the various consequences of plagiarism. That how people have to suffer after they do plagiarism knowingly or unknowingly. Research has the power to affect opinions and actions, responsible writers compose their work with great care. They specify when they refer to another author's ideas, facts, and words, whether they want to agree with, object to, or analyze the source. This kind of documentation not only recognizes the work writers do; it also tends to discourage the circulation of error, by inviting readers to determine for themselves whether a reference to another text presents a reasonable account of what that text says.

The charge of plagiarism is a serious one for all writers. Plagiarists are often seen as incompetent-incapable of developing and express- ing their own thoughts-or, worse, dishonest, willing to deceive others for personal gain. When professional writers, such as journalists, are exposed as plagiarists, they are likely to lose their jobs, and they are certain to suffer public embarrassment and loss of prestige. Almost always, the course of a writer's career is permanently affected by a single act of plagiarism. The serious consequences of plagiarism re- flect the value the public places on trustworthy information.

Students exposed as plagiarists may suffer severe penalties, rang- ing from failure in the assignment or in the course to expulsion from school. This is because student plagiarism does considerable harm

Plagiarism betrays the personal element in writing as well. Discussing the history of copyright, Mark Rose notes the tie between our writing and our sense of self-a tie that, he believes, influenced the idea that a piece of writing could belong to the person who wrote it. Rose says that our sense of ownership of the words we write "is deeply rooted in our conception of ourselves as individuals with at least a modest grade of singularity, some degree of personality" (Authors and Owners: The Invention of Copyright. Gaining skills as a writer opens the door to learning more about yourself and developing a personal voice and approach in your writing. It is essential for all student writers to understand how to avoid committing plagiarism.

Why Academic Integrity is necessary? Write your views.

What is academic integrity?

Academic integrity is: 'the expectation that teachers, students, researchers and all members of the academic community act with honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility. '

Academic Integrity defines as a commitment to five fundamental values

Honesty is a necessary foundation of teaching, learning, research, and service, and a prerequisite for the full realization of trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility.

Trust in other people and in our community strengthens our working relationships and is built on a foundation of actions more important than words.

Fair treatment is an essential factor in the establishment of ethical communities. Important components of fairness include predictability, transparency, and clear, reasonable expectations.

Respect, scholarly communities succeed only where there is respect for community members and for the diverse and sometimes contradictory opinions that they express.

Responsibility for upholding the values of integrity is simultaneously an individual duty and a shared concern. Every member of an academic community - each student, faculty member, and research scholar responsible for safeguarding the integrity of its scholarship, teaching, and research.

Apart from these five, the sixth value that can be added is: Courage requires translating the values from talking points into action - standing up for them in the face of pressure and adversity. Courage is the capacity to act without fear.

Academic Integrity is important and necessary because when we do not insist to practice it in our work then our way will lead towards plagiarism. And after that the consequences one has to face in all ways. People always examine the ethical level and moral levels by academic integrity.

Comparative Literature & Translation Studies Unit - 4

 Hello Readers!!!

Here is my blog on Comparative Literature and Translation Studies. As part of the Master's syllabus in our final semester, we are studying articles related to comparative literature. For detailed reading here I've attached the link to the article here and also embedded the video link below the blog.

1) Introduction: History in Translation by Tejaswini Niranjana

In a post-colonial context, the problematic of translation becomes a significant site for raising questions of representation, power, and historicity. The context is one of contesting and contested stories attempting to account for, to recount, the asymmetry and inequality of relations between peoples, races, and languages. the discourses of philosophy, history, anthropology philology, linguistics, and literary interpretation, the colonial "subject constructed through technologies or practices of power/knowledge is brought into being within multiple discourses and on multiple sites.

Western philosophical notions of reality, representation, and knowledge. Really is seen as something unproblematic, "out there"; knowledge involves a representation of this reality; and representation provides direct, unmediated access to a transparent reality.

Her concern here is to explore the place of translation in contemporary Euro-American literary theory (using the name of this "discipline" in a broad sense) through a set of interre- lated readings. I argue that the deployment of "translation" in the colonial and post-colonial contexts shows us a way of questioning some of the theoretical emphases of poststructuralism.

Chapter 1 outlines the problematic of translation and its relevance to the post-colonial situation. Reading the texts of different kinds of colonial translators.

In chapter 2, she examines how "translation" works in the traditional discourse of translation studies and in ethnographic writing. Caught in an idiom of fidelity and be- trayal that assumes an unproblematic notion of representa- fion, translation studies fail to ask questions about the histor- icity of translation; ethnography, on the other hand, has recently begun to question both the innocence of representation and the longstanding asymmetries of translation.

In chapters 3, 4, and 5, my main focus is the work of Paul de Man Jacques Derrida, and Walter Benjamin (an earlier critic who is becoming increasingly important to post-structuralist thinkers). My analysis shows how translation functions as a "figure" in all three thinkers, becoming synonymous or associated with a major preoccupation in each: allegory or literature in de Man, the problematics of representation and intentionality in Derrida, and the question of materialist historiography in Benjamin. Pointing out the configurations of translation and history in Benjamin's work, she describes the kind of reading provided by de Man and Derrida of Benjamin's important essay "The Task of the Translator." Her argument is that Walter Benjamin's early writings on translation are trapped in significant ways into his later essays on the writing of history, a trope that goes unrecognized by both de Man and Derrida.

The word translation not just to indicate an interlingual process but to name an entire problematic. It is a set of questions, perhaps a "field," charged with the force of all the terms used, even by the traditional discourse on translation, to name the problem, to translate translation. Translatio (Latin) and metapherein (Greek) at once suggest movement, disruption, displacement. So does Übersetzung (German).

Her study of translation does not make any claim to solve the dilemmas of translators. It does not propose yet another way of theorizing translation to enable a more foolproof "method" of "narrowing the gap" between cultures; it seeks rather to think through this gap, this difference, to explore the positioning of the obsessions and desires of translation, and thus to describe the economies within which the sign of translation circulates. Her concern is to probe the absence, lack, or repression of an awareness of asymmetry and historicity.

The post-colonial distrust of the liberal-humanist rhetoric of progress and of universalizing master narratives has obvious affinities with post-structuralism.

That translation became part of the colonial discourse of Orientalism is obvious from British efforts to obtain information about the people ruled by the merchants of the East India Company.

As translator and scholar, Jones was responsible for the most influential introduction of a textualized India to Europe, Within three months of his arrival, the Asiatic Society held its first meeting with Jones as president and Warren Hastings. the governor-general, as patron. It was primarily through the efforts of the members of the Asiatic Society, themselves ad- ministrators and officials of the East India Company's Indian Government, that translation would help "gather in" and "rope off" the Orient.

Grand Jury at Calcutta, his letters, and his "Oriental" poems to show how he contributes to a historicist, teleological model of civilization that, coupled with a notion of translation presupposing transparency of representation.

The most significant nodes of Jones's work are (a) the need for translation by the European, since the natives are unreliable Interpreters of their own laws and culture; (b) the desire to be a lawgiver, to give the Indians their "own" laws; and (c) the desire to "purify" Indian culture and speak on its behalf. The interconnections between these obsessions are extremely complicated.

In Jones's construction of the "Hindus," they appear as a submissive, indolent nation unable to appreciate the fruits of freedom, desirous of being ruled by an absolute power, and sunk deeply in the mythology of an ancient religion. In a let- ter, he points out that the Hindus are "incapable of civil liberty," for "few of them have an idea of it, and those, who have, do not wish it"

The idea of the "submissive" Indians, their inability to be free, and the native laws that do not permit the question of liberty to be raised are thus brought together in the concept of Asian despotism.

Indians thought of liberty as a curse rather than a blessing, since they certainly could not rule themselves or administer their own laws, these laws had first to be taken away from them and "translated" before they could benefit from them.

William Ward's preface to his three-volume A View of the History, Literature, and Mythology of the Hindoos is instructive for the virulence with which it attacks the depravity and im- morality of the natives.

Ward does not see the present state of the Hindus as a falling away from a former Golden Age. Instead, like James Mill, who quotes him approvingly and often, Ward sees the Hindus as corrupt by nature, lacking the means of education and improvement.

Macaulay did not think it necessary for the entire Indian populace to learn English: the function of anglicized education was "to form a class who may be interpreters between us (the British) and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian.in.blood.and.colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect."

A Gauri Viswanathan has pointed out, the introduction of English education can be seen as "an embattled response to historical and political pressures: to tensions between the English Parliament and the East India Company, between Parliament and the missionaries, between the East India Company and the native elite classes. Extending her ar- gument, I would like to suggest that the specific resolution of these tensions through the introduction of English education was enabled discursively by the colonial practice of transla- tion. European translations of Indian texts prepared for a Western audience provided the "educated" Indian with a whole range of Orientalist image) Even when the anglicized Indian spoke a language other than English, "he" would have preferred, because of the symbolic power conveyed by En- glish, to gain access to his own past through the translations and histories circulating through colonial discourse. English education also familiarized the Indian with ways of seeing, techniques of translation, or modes of representation that came to be accepted as "natural".

The construction of the colonial subject presupposes what Pierre Bourdieu has called "symbolic domination." Symbolic domination, and its violence, effectively reproduce the social order through a combination of recognition and misrecogni tion (reconnaissance and méconnaissance)-recognition that the dominant language is legitimate (one thinks again of the use of English in India) and "a misrecognition of the fact that this language.

The notion of auto colonization implicit in the story about the "native boys" begging for English books could be ex- plored in greater depth through Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony.

My central concern here is not to elaborate on the battle for "history" now being staged in Euro-American theory but to ask a series of questions from a strategically "partial" per- spective that of an emergent postcolonial practice willing to profit from the insights of post-structuralism, while at the same time demanding ways of writing history in order to make sense of how subjectification operates.

History in the text of Post-structuralism is a repressive force that obliterates difference and belongs in a chain that includes the meaning, truth, presence, and logos.

If representation stands for the reappropriation of presence, translation emerges as the sign for what Derrida would call "dissemination"

The point is not just to criticize these characterizations as "inadequate" or "untrue"; one should attempt to show the complicity of the representations with colonial rule and their part in maintaining the asymmetries of imperialism.

Clearly, the notion of hybridity, which is of great importance for a Subaltern critique of historiography as well as for a critique of traditional notions of translation, is both "ambiguous and historically complex."" To restrict "hybridity," or what I call "living in translation," to a post-colonial elite is to deny the pervasiveness, however heterogeneous, of the transformations wrought across class boundaries by colonial and neocolonial domination. This is not to present a meta- narrative of global homogenization, but to emphasize the need to reinvent oppositional cultures in non essentializing ways. Hybridity can be seen, therefore, as the sign of a post-colonial theory that subverts essentialist models of reading while it points toward a new practice of translation.

Introduction: History in Translation .pptx from BhavnaSosa

2. Sifting Centres and emerging Margins : Translation and shaping of the Modernist poetic discourse in Indian Poetry

This chapter examines the role played by translation in shaping a modernist poetic sensibility in some of the major literary traditions of India in the twentieth century, between 1950 and 1970.

The chapter will study examples from Bengali, Malayalam and Marathi, to understand how such translations of modern Western poets were used to breach the hegemony of prevailing literary sensibilities and poetic modes. Many of the major Indian poets - such as Buddhadeb Bose, Agyeya, Gopalakrishna Adiga, Dilip Chitre, and Ayyappa Paniker - were also translators. Their translations were 'foreignizing' translations that disrupted cultural codes that legislated regimes of reading and writing poetry. Little magazines played a critical role in opening up the poetic discourse.

Poets such as Neruda and Parra were widely translated into Indian languages during this phase. In this context, translation enacted a critical act of evaluation, a creative act of intervention, and a performative act of legitimation, in evolving a new poetic during the modernist phase of Indian poetry.

The translation was integral to the project of modernism in Indian languages, in assimilating a new poetic into the horizon of the 'native' reader's expectations as well as in contesting the claims of prevailing aesthetic norms by breaching its autonomy and authority.

The communal riots and killings that followed the Partition, the perceived failure of the Nehruvian project of modernity and the consequent erosion of idealism which had inspired an earlier generation of writers committed to socialist realism and Romantic nationalism.

André Lefevere's concept of translation as refraction/ rewriting, the chapter argues that 'rewritings' or 'refractions' found in the 'less obvious form of criticism..., commentary, historiography (of the plot summary of famous works cum evaluation type, in which the evaluation is unabashedly based on the current concept of what "good" literature should be), teaching, the collection of works in anthologies, the production of plays' (2000, 235) are also instances of translation. Hence, an essay on T. S. Eliot in Bengali by Sudhindranath Dutta, or a scathing critique in Malayalam on the poetic practices of Vallathol Narayana Menon by Ayyappa Paniker, can also be described as 'translational' writings as they have elements of translation embedded in them.

Modernist writers were responding to the internal dynamics of their own traditions in selectively assimilating an alien poetic that could be regressive or subversive depending on the context and the content.

An elaboration on the relation between 'modernity' and 'modernism' in the Indian context will need a separate chapter. For the purpose of our discussion, it may be broadly stated that 'modernity' designates an epochal period of wide-ranging transformations brought about by the advent of colonialism, capitalist economy, industrial mode of production, Western models of education, assimilation of rationalist temper, the resurgence of nationalist spirit and emergence of social, political, legal, juridical and educational institutions that constituted a normative subjectivity embodied with cosmopolitan and individualist world views.

The project of modernity in India was implicated in colonialism and imperialism. This colonial modernity informed literary and cultural movements, beginning from the reformist movement of the nineteenth century to the modernist movement of the mid-twentieth century.

When ideologies like nationalism and spirituality become apparatuses of the state, a section of the intelligentsia has no option other than to seek refuge in bunkers of individualism'.

The term 'modernism' implies a literary/artistic movement that was characterised by experimentation, conscious rejection of the nationalist/ Romantic as well as the popular, and the cultivation of an individualist, cosmopolitan and insular world view. In the European context, it signified a set of tendencies in artistic expression and writing styles of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through a new aesthetic that was iconoclastic, insular and elitist.

While the modernism that emerged in Indian literatures shared many of these defining features, its political affiliations and ideological orientations were markedly different. Due to its postcolonial location, the Indian modernism did not share the imperial or metropolitan aspirations of its European counterpart. It invested heavily in regional cosmopolitan traditions. It was oppositional in content and questioned the colonial legacies of the nationalist discourse. It was elitist and formalistic and deeply distrustful of the popular domain.

How are we to evaluate the modernisms that emerged in the postcolonial phase in India? Critics such as Simon Gikandi, Susan Friedman, Laura Doyle and Laura Winkiel, and Aparna Dharwadker have argued that non-Western modernisms are not mere derivative versions of a European hegemonic practice.

The Eurocentric nature of the discourse on modernism can be laid bare only by documenting the 'modernisms that emerged in non-Western societies. This will enable us to reimagine the centre-periphery dialectic in terms of a dialogic between peripheries.

The emerging problematic will have to contend with issues of ideological differences between the Western modernism and the Indian one, the different trajectories they traversed as a result of the difference in socio- political terrains and the dynamics of the relations between the past and the present in the subcontinent, which has a documented history of more than five thousand years. The problematic that informs this argument is manifest in the critiques of Eurocentric accounts of modernism by Gikandi, Friedman, Doyle and Winkiel, and Rebecca L. Walkonwitz, in different ways.

In the context of Bengali, as Amiya Dev has observed, 'It was not because they imbibed modernism that the adhunik [modernist] Bengali writers turned away from Rabindranath; on the contrary, Modernism was the means by which they turned away from Rabindranath and they had to turn away, for their history demanded it' Commenting on the role of Kannada modernists, R. Sasidhar writes,

If European modernism was drawn between the euphoric and the reactive, in Kannada the precipitate modernism was drawn between the Brahminical and the non-Brahminical. Just as the euphoric and the reactive modernisms were part of the internal dynamics of modernism itself, so also the Brahmanical and the non-Brahmanical modernisms in Kannada were part and parcel of a modernism that came as a reaction to the Nehruvian environment. (in Satchidanandan 2001, 34)

Translation enables us to delineate the complex artistic and ideological undercurrents that shaped the course of modernism in Indian literatures. To discuss this, we will look at three representative modernist authors from three separate Indian literary traditions - Sudhindranath Dutta (1901-60) from Bengali, B. S. Mardhekar (1909-56) from Marathi and Ayyappa Paniker (1936-2004) from Malayalam. These authors help us see the chronological trajectory of modernism across Indian literatures.

The translation is central to the modernist poetic as it unfolded in these literary traditions. Each of these three authors was bilingual and wrote essays in English as well as their own languages, outlining their new poetic, thus preparing the reader for new poetic modes.

Buddhadeb Bose, another Bengali modernist, rendered 112 poems of Charles Baudelaire's The Flowers of Evil into Bengali, apart from translating Rainer Maria Rilke, Friedrich Hölderlin, Ezra Pound, e. e. cummings, Wallace Stevens and Boris Pasternak. Ayyappa Paniker translated European poets into Malayalam, while B. S. Mardhekar's Arts and the Man (which was published in England in 1937) was a treatise on formalist aesthetics that legitimated modernist practice.

Their profound understanding of Western philosophy and artistic/literary traditions equipped these three writers with the critical capacity to see the significance and limitations of the West.

The case for the modernist poetic is argued in a persuasive manner in the context of the everyday world and its needs. In another essay, 'The Highbrow", he observes, 'I agree with Virginia Woolf that creative artists must from time to time seek shelter within the much-maligned Ivory Tower'.

Dutta highlights Eliot's commitment to tradition as 'revolutionary in the fullest sense of the term'. He adds, "But I am convinced that if civilization is to survive the atomic war, Mr. Eliot's ideal must become widely accepted, so that in the oases that may escape destruction it may be cherished through the interregnum' (55). Obviously, Dutta's endorsement of Eliot's worldview has to be seen in relation to his critique of contemporary Indian society. Modernism in India was part of a larger decolonizing project. It was not a mindless celebration of Western values and the European avant-garde.

Kurkshetram is a poem of 294 lines in five sections. The opening lines of the Bhagavad Gita are cited as the epigraph of the poem, thus setting a high moral and critical tone in relation to contemporary life and society. As in Eliot's The Waste Land, Kurukshetram's opening lines communicate a pervasive decline of moral values and a disruption of the organic rhythms of society:

The eyes suck and sip The tears that spurt;

The nerves drink up the coursing blood;

And it is the bones that

Eat the marrow here

While the skin preys on the bones

The roots turn carnivore

As they prey on the flowers While the earth in bloom

Clutches and tears at the roots. (Paniker 1985, 14-15)

The title, 'Kurukshetram', signifies the place where the epic battle that forms the…

The second section of the poem retreats into a private space, away from these public images. The inner movement of the poetic structure signifies the undercurrents of a conflict that cannot be paraphrased in moral terms. In this sense, the poem defies the representational structure of the mimetic type. Lines such as, 'Rose of my dream, why do you wear the fevered look? / Singer of my vision, why do you droop and wilt!" (18), invoke subterranean depths of the mind from where memories of an organic community speak to the poet. But this vision of harmony is short-lived, as the self once again relapses into its infernal vision of collapse and disruption. The torments of dream, desire, and despair interrupt the existence: poem and the poet recognizes the futility…

The third section returns to the public world of conflicts. The mythical characters of Sugriva, Vibhishana, Vashistha, Lord Ram, Arjuna, and Oedipus are invoked in this section. The wisdom encoded in myths is now inaccessible to modern men and women, who are diminished into fragmented dehumanized figures. Since the self inhabits a violated space, it lacks the power to know itself.

sem4 comparative study.pptx from Khushbumakwana3