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Feminist Movements through the Ages in India: An Empowering Voyage from Prehistoric Age to the Period of Nationalism
Get PDFThe paper makes an effort to trace the status of women from the prehistoric period to the contemporary period to explore how the status of women changed in Indian society over the ages and patriarchy evolved to assume a complex structure. Indian women experienced a severe form of subordination as religious tradition and caste hierarchy shaped social practices. It not only unearths the history but also makes textual analysis of the prominent feminist texts and theories to show how women writers penned down their experiences and resisted the ideology and structure of patriarchal society. The period of the colonial period has been dealt with extra emphasis as in that phase history witnessed the rise of women’s movement and nationalism, and these two movements somehow expressed contradictory core values. In order to comprehend the struggle of women to liberate themselves from the bondage of patriarchy, the pieces of literary works written by female writers are indispensable. It is often blamed that in the Indian feminist movement there is a theoretical paucity. The attempt has been initiated to present the principal ideas of Indian feminist scholars and connect the missing links
Adaptation of the Mahabharata, the Myth and Metaphor, into Animation for Children
Get PDFAnimation provides a unique window for children through which they could absorb the culturally superior Hindu epic in existence, the Mahabharata, the greatest myth and metaphor of life, and seek wisdom while entertaining themselves simultaneously. Concocting elements of fiction into the great myth in the form of animation gives a completely different perspective to children and show them a world of their own. The main motivation is to introduce them with the great heritage of India, the Mahabharata, in a lighter way through animation
Cultural Awareness in Nirad C. Chaudhuri’s The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian
Get PDFThe early part of the nineteenth century, the Indian cultural movement reached its climax and then began to break up. The sign of decay starts to come in perception in the years between 1916 and 1948. So the first hand sense of build up modern Indian culture started by the great Bengali reformers like Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Raja Ram Mohun Roy, Swami Vivekananda and Rabindra Nath Tagore. In the beginning of twentieth century, the attempt of these social reformers created a sense of literary, humanistic, religious and ethical values of Indian culture. After the independence, Chaudhuri confirms that the attempt of them made the sense of cultural equality. The native culture realized that it should not imitate the traits of the alien culture any longer and began to cleanse itself of the contamination by the alien culture. But Chaudhuri observes that Hinduism and Indian culture has supernatural sense and it should be modify reasonably to make rich the ethical values. The literary works of Nirad C. Chaudhuri have generally presented him to be an anti-Indian writer. He considered as a communicator of the complexity of his native culture, embodies newness and describe the colonies as exotic perspective. This essay studies Nirad C. Chaudhuri’s attempt to write the output of Indian culture through an autobiographical non-fiction The Autobio-graphy of an Unknown Indian establishing his views and position detached from his countrymen. Here he expresses his views regarding the West and the East from a self-detached point of view. The critics and literary personalities related to him believe that he is a social observer more than a social writer. In this book, he gives an account of cultural, religious, and political aspect of society. In this paper, we will study how much relevant the book in respect of Indian cultural ethos
Culture and Identity in Contemporary Indian English Poetry
Get PDFIndian English poetry with a view to achieving modernity, tries to do different kinds of experiments. Rhyme and Stanzaic forms had replaced free verse. Verbal melody came to be evoked through the use of alliterative words. The tone was one of the intellectualized irony and sarcasm. The stance of the poets was one of the complete detachment and objectivity. The other innovation of the modern Indian poets is the use of symbolism. The poets use modern techniques used by the film industry and advertising industry besides the stream of consciousness and free association of ideas. There is much “word hunting” and “image hunting” which reflects the medium of consciousness on the part of the poet. The Indian, poets therefore borrows words from their regional languages. To be Indian, poets have to be rooted in Indian-geographically, historically, socially or psychologically. Poetry is the expression of human life from times eternal. India, in fact has a long tradition of arts and poetry from ages. Colonialism gave a new language, English for the expression of Indians. The poetry written by the Indians in English in the last 150 years may be said to have three phrases: the imitative, the assimilative and the experiment
Rama Mehta’s Inside the Haveli: Geeta’s Journey from Bondage to Liberation
Get PDFSince ancient time, women have been placed at the secondary role by the patriarchs in our society. They are given less important as compared to men. Our society always keeps women under their pressure because they have to do all the household chores, take care of the cattle, children and the other members of the family. Even the responsibility of the kitchen is given to them. In the modern context, women are doing jobs also but they have to do all the kitchen work of their homes apart from other duties. Men are generally given only one responsibility i.e. to earn bread for the family. Apart from that they usually play no significant role in the family. The present paper analyses the character of Geeta in Rama Mehta’s feminist novel Inside the Haveli in which Geeta faces many problems in her life in Udaipur city but finally she wins in her attempts
Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali: An Ecocritical Study
Get PDFRabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali is a garland of songs which adorns the Indian English poetry with its fragranced melodious strings sung by someone who experienced an ecstasy—a state of divine union of soul with the Supreme. Tagore’s philosophy of nature has wide range and variety. The imagery, pervasive but not startling, is taken from nature and from Indian classical mythology. Tagore was also bold enough to fight against the fineries that keep man away from mother earth. Tagore’s Gitanjali echoes in its cadence the essence of every religion, giving solace to the whole humanity in the heart of mother earth; the nature, resonating the ancient Indian mysticism. “To Tagore the world of nature is not an illusion but is rather a medium for accomplishing indivisibility with the infinite” (Nagar 77). Aridness is the result of drought and dried soul. The poet feels sorry for the causes of this aridness that he experiences both in spirit and body. Deforestation and urbanization has led the land to cry in anguish to save it from further destruction. It is there Tagore sang again on the fragmented land where the walls have separated man and nature and stopped God from dwelling amidst. Man separated man from his company and the nature is destroyed at the hands of technology. It is in this anguish Tagore says “Send thy angry storm, dark with death, if it is thy wish, and with lashes of lightning startle the sky from end to end.” (Gitanjali Poem No.40)The ecological world can be easily explored through literature in order to bridge the gap between science and literature. The poetical works of Rabindranath Tagore is imbued with ecological elements
Aju Mukhopadhyay’s Short Stories: A Multicoloured World
Get PDFAju Mukhopadhyay is one of the brightest stars in the firmament of contemporary Indian English Literature. He is a magnificent literary artist, in fact a versatile genius. As a visionary poet he has enraptured the hearts and minds of millions of poetry lovers, both in India and abroad. He is a profound critic, and his insightful critical studies are highly valued in the literary world. His essays on various subjects have made a mark in every field. He is a great storyteller too, both in English and Bangla, and the range of his short stories has baffled the fiction lovers. Like his previous volumes of short stories, the present collection too offers a large variety of subjects and feeds the craving of every set of readers. Aju’s world is so vast that you cross the national boundaries many times to peep into a new world. You open the window to a new story and step into a different world altogether. “In the Company of William, Samuel and Dorothy”, Aju takes us to the Lake District of England to enjoy the company of the great Romantic poets, William Wordsworth, S. T. Coleridge and Dorothy Wordsworth. His description is so vivid that you really feel you are watching everything happening before your ‘fleshy eyes’. In the next story “They Came Down from the Roof of the World”, the writer takes you indeed to the roof of the world, Tibet and the Tibetan Cause. Tibet and New York come alive before you and you partake in the stormy scenes, the rebellion, the persecution, the great Dalai Lama escape and the aftermath
The Self-Actualization of Indian Diaspora in the Select Novels of Bharati Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri
Get PDFThe migration of human beings into the various countries of the world, has been in the search of betterment of chances for their literary as well as the social contributions in the present era of the diasporic world for the second and the third generation of migrants communities. It has been a journey for establishing a new identity of self-actualization of any individuality in the context of Diaspora. The term self-actualization is coined and developed as the psychological term by Abraham Maslow to describe the growth of an individual towards the fulfillment of their highest social as well as the emotional requirements. Bharati Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri are the Indian Diasporic writers of novels as well as short stories, who write about the problems of Indian Immigrants, especially with the perspectives of feminine immigrant sensibilities. Very skillfully, both of them portray the struggle of Indian women for self- actualization and establishing new identity of Indianness with the self-fascination of foreignness through their novels as well as short stories. Their feminine characters are the representations of contemporary women who strive to live their life on their owns with the portrayal of full potential and capabilities and become an individual, they want to be. Most of their writings seem autobiographical to the extent that they reflect the diasporic experiences of the migrants as they writers are. This paper aims to bring out the journey of the migration to self-actualization of the some portrayals of Bharati Mukherjee and Jhumpa Lahiri in their works, Jasmine and The Lowlands, respectively that leads them to fluid identities of a diasporic life. Jyoti, the protagonist of Jasmine, is an Indian Immigrant who faces the problems of acculturation and alienation in the United States of America while the self actualization of Gauri in The Lowland seems to be destroyed in the hands of destiny in self-fascination of the diasporic lowlands. Both of these protagonists try to assimilate themselves into the foreign country as well as culture but Jasmine of Mukherjee seems to gain an independent identity towards the end of the novel while Gauri seems to be erased her Indian identity of motherhood in the self-fascination of Americanization. The readers can find in Mukherje and Lahiri, very successful presentation of the predicaments of The Third World women with all their frustrations, longings, hopes and aspirations in an alien land of migration
A Tiger for Malgudi: Representation of Cultural Deterioration
Get PDFThis research article concentrates on cultural deterioration as projected in R. K. Narayan's A Tiger for Malagudi. The author picturizes the pain of post-colonial India that was struggling to preserve her pre-colonial culture. The novel depicts how the colonizers injected their philosophies in the psyche of the colonized. The concept of “we superior” allured the society. The temptation of new culture grew more in India and that transformed the society into new hybrid culture. On the backdrop of colonial era, the novel demonstrates a tendency of new culture and its impact upon Indian society. Characters are placed to exhibit how colonized adopt new culture and so much so that they even converse their names to be incorporated in British culture. British culture and practice restructured Indian society. Postcolonial theory and theory of mimicry are applied in this dissertation as a framework for analyzing the condition of Indian culture. The colonial period established British cultures which by mixing with Indian culture turn out to be hybrid deteriorating the traditional Indian culture. With view of advanced culture, Indian society accredited new culture. Colonial period in India transformed social and cultural structure
From Xenophobia to Enlightenment amidst Transculturation: Rereading of Monica Ali’s In the Kitchen
Get PDFThe chronicle of human migration is as old as human civilization which goes back to prehistoric time when it started flourishing in ancient Africa. The main cause behind such migrations is to have a greater opportunity for life which enfolds economic, political, social and demographic factors. But, in the course of time, the immigration has gradually become a challenging issue since it has deep-rooted connection with culture and identity. The entire process involves alienation, loss, anxiety, insecurity in the minds of the immigrants as well as the indigenous people. The present study will showcase the effect of globalization and modernization on the nations and their subjects keeping in mind the burning issue of immigration across the globe. In order to have a better understanding of one’s individuation process, the present paper will address sociological, psychological, and multicultural issues against the backdrop of xenophobia as depicted by Monica Ali in her third novel In the Kitchen. But the main focus of the present study is to demonstrate how it affects and helps in rebuilding the identity of those belonging originally to the homeland