Clri oct2013 by Contemporary Literary Review India

CLRI

CONTEMPORARY LITERARY REVIEW INDIA â&#x20AC;&#x201C; journal that brings articulate writings for articulate readers

CLRI Print Edition ISSN 2250-3366

Arrival: Art by Durlabh Singh

October 2013

Rs.50.00 / $2.0

October 2013

contents POETRY ...................................................................................................................5 1. ALLABHYA GHOSH ............................................................................................................................ 6 The Great Recession .............................................................................................................................. 6 2. DR. CHANDRA PRAKASH SHARMA ................................................................................................. 8 When I Kiss You ..................................................................................................................................... 8 The Dawn ............................................................................................................................................... 9 3. GOPA NAYAK.................................................................................................................................... 11 Desire ................................................................................................................................................... 11 4. PIYA CHAKRABARTI ........................................................................................................................ 12 The Pink Velvet Plant ........................................................................................................................... 12 5. RIZVANA PARVEEN ......................................................................................................................... 14 Poems ................................................................................................................................................... 14 Choice ............................................................................................................................................... 14 She.................................................................................................................................................... 14 Garbage bins .................................................................................................................................... 15 Distance ............................................................................................................................................ 15

STORY ....................................................................................................................16 6. AMAN CHOUGLE .............................................................................................................................. 17 Stories ................................................................................................................................................... 17 It All Makes Sense ............................................................................................................................ 17 Gootlimama ...................................................................................................................................... 20 Changes ........................................................................................................................................... 22 7. GEETASHREE CHATTERJEE .......................................................................................................... 26 MY “TWILIGHT” FRIEND ..................................................................................................................... 26 8. KERSIE KHAMBATTA ....................................................................................................................... 34 A Fence of Ferns .................................................................................................................................. 34

CRITICISM ............................................................................................................38 9. JUNAID SHABIR ................................................................................................................................ 39 PSYCHOANALYTIC DIVING IN ATWOOD’S SURFACING ................................................................ 39 PSYCHOANALYTIC DIVING IN ATWOOD’S SURFACING ............................................................ 40

October 2013 10. MOHAMED KAMEL ABDEL-DAEM................................................................................................... 45 Fredric Jameson's Critical Theory Applied to Carol Ann Duffy's Poetry .............................................. 45 11. SHAILENDRA CHAUHAN ................................................................................................................. 55 A Thought on Theory and Criticism of Literature .................................................................................. 55

BOOK REVIEWS ..................................................................................................66 12. BOOK REVIEW BY VINITA AGARWAL ............................................................................................ 67 Vinita Agarwal Reviews Mamta Agarwal’s An Untold Story of a Pebble.............................................. 67

BOOK RELEASES ................................................................................................72 13. BOOK RELEASES ............................................................................................................................. 73

October 2013

editorial

Digital medium is not simply a medium, it is a space to our life. All its shortcomings stand tiny before its advantages. It is the best alternative to saving paper, thus to saving plants and forests. It is the fastest means of communication, you can fly your documents and files across the globe in no time and at no costs. You can share your heart and mind to the world without coming under any hammer. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Khurshid Alam, Editor-in-Chief, Contemporary Literary Review India

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October 2013

Editorial Self-Publishing is the Future Vanity Publishing versus Self-Publishing Vanity publishing has been around us from a very long time and the publishing industry has rated it as a drab clichĂŠ. Books published by vanity publishers are bared from entering in most of the literary prizes and awards. Self-Publishing ostensibly had the same beginning and it was not far from now that it was regarded as a sad people's last resort. But there is a big difference between both vanity publishing and self-publishing. Vanity publishers are frenzied money making mongers, they demand money before they pick up your manuscripts, do not care what material your manuscript offers including poor or no editorial work and lackluster post publishing sales promotions etc. etc. etc. Self-publishing is different in more than one respect. That's why it is gradually gaining recognition. Self-publishing draws the same parallel as distance education mode has. Once distance education was regarded as education of no worth but soon gained recognition and is now a very sought after medium among the academia and almost every third professional may be found feathered with a degree or diploma gained through distance education mode. Post the Internet era, self-publishing through digitization has razed the intermediary boundary of distributors and has the potentiality to permeate into the remotest markets where the books need not be sent physically, or open book stores with large investment, or face any inherent copyright issues. All hindrances razed down! To go digital is easier and faster. If you have your document ready, create an account with a digital publisher, upload the file and your book goes wild on sale worldwide in a few hours. Self-Publishing authors can meet the demand of the readers who want the books at a reasonably low cost and everywhere they are on the go. The price factor in digital publishing is controlled by the authors, they can even offer their books for free. Thanks to Amazon and others' amazing services to the aspiring writers. Digital publishing is coupled with the offer of POD (print-on-demand) with many self-publishing companies which makes the market of book more attractive and cost effective for everyone â&#x20AC;&#x201C; publishers, authors, and readers.

October 2013

Publishing and its Future From "the dawn of e-books" in 2010 amid mixed reactions, digital publishing registered a steady growth through 2011 and 2012 which means it has grounded its foothold and is poised to high growth in 2013 and ahead. According to a report on sales growth worldwide in print and e-formats published by Association of American Publishers, 3.4 million eBook units were sold in 2011, which is a growth up 303.3% from 2010 and will continue to fast growth in future. Factors for significant growth are manifold. More and more traditional publishers are converting their books in hard copies into soft copies and making them available in digital formats. Along with the books that appear solely in digital formats, the e-book repository is getting voluminous day by day. This has brought the selfpublished authors at parallel with those authors who are published with traditional publishers. A gain of self-esteem. New markets are opening up to digital publishing fast like Asia and Middle East. China, Japan, and India have already taken the leads. Hand-held Devices Growing According to Mary Meekerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s report "Internet Trends" about 2.4 billion people or in other words one-third of the world population is integrated with mobile network. Also, 1.1 billion consumers are using smartphones which help the users access the internet on the phones. Added to the already wide use of smartphones, tablets and e-books reading devices integrated with SIM, is widening the possibility of online shopping on such devices. Kindle (Amazon), Kobo (Rakuten), and Reader (Sony), and tablet computers such as iPad (Apple), Nexus 7 (Google) are witnessing high sales in the US markets for reading of e-books. Self-publishing Authors Check Self-publishing is largely an affair of the authors so they need to learn certain skills in addition to writing a book. When manuscripts get rejected with a couple of traditional publishers think your manuscript may need revamp. I mean developmental editing in many cases. Get your manuscripts edited by some good editors, sometime by more than one editor. Hand-held Devices Growing According to Mary Meeker's report "Internet Trends" about 2.4 billion people or in other words one-third of the world population is integrated with mobile network. Also, 1.1 billion consumers are using smartphones which help the users access the internet on the phones. Added to the already wide use of smartphones, tablets and e-books reading devices integrated with SIM, is widening the possibility of online shopping on such devices. Kindle (Amazon), Kobo (Rakuten), and Reader (Sony), and tablet computers such as iPad (Apple), Nexus.

October 2013

Get your book reviewed, whether you self-publish your book or it is published with a traditional publisher. Do not make it the head ache of the publishers only. Because hundreds of books are published daily, you should not be lost in the crowd. Publicize your book in various ways available to you. Create a website of your own, or at least a blog which comes for free. Post some of the writings, excerpts and create a group of writers.

Khurshid Alam Editor-in-Chief Contemporary Literary Review India

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October 2013

At one time poetry was a large part of mainstream readership. The public seemed to lose interest with the advent of gaming and the Internet, and now the Internet can be the avenue of restoration of this important genre of entertainment and enlightenment. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Jack Huber, Poet & Author, http://www.jackhuber.com

Poetry

October 2013

ALLABHYA GHOSH

The Great Recession

Paying huge medical bills? Waste away your scarce savings. Through These rivers — all polluting. Remember the Texan scoundrel millionaire JR in the TV series “Dallas”? His aspirations? The banks printed Quantity—paper money And leverage. Prostitutes and drug addicts — Creations of too much poverty and too much money. Forget that people care more about the Quality, of life and basic values of Honesty and Integrity in the early morning of Twenty-first century Growth for growth’s sake. The toxic products created — all financial. The toxic products created — all environmental. Greed and arrogance of the Wall Street Madoffs. The investment bankers thought that Golden parachutes were their birth-rights. Rather a privilege from the trust Of the people. Anger of the rural masses. Large white mansions with Roman columns and Gilded French furniture. Huge losses. What use these when News channels report suicides by stockholders. Sufferers — the publics. Mental and physical. I can feel. Ecocosm — so fragile. Economists and professionals prominent galore. Wanting at the corporate governance. 6

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The earth lost. Can we be far behind? Trust? Where it is now? Consumption resulting into â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Zero Sum gameâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.

Born in 1976, Kolkata, Allabhya Ghosh writes screenplays, stories and have worked as an Assistant Director in the short film "Amatir Katha" th which was screened at the 14 Kolkata Film Festival. He has worked as a screenplay writer for a Bengail Television Channel and acted in many Bengali films and serials. Now Allabhya works as a Director and Producer of Bengali films. His poems, novel and stories have been published in many national and international magazines. His favorite hobbies are clay modeling and drawing.

October 2013

DR. CHANDRA PRAKASH SHARMA

When I Kiss You When I kiss you, my whole being is vibrant with the music of the Alaknanda gushing down the Himalayas rounding the angularities of my mind to move in unison with you passionately eager to mingle into the oceanic depths of serenity. When I kiss you, I feel, I am a butterfly hopping in joy from flower to flower colouring my soul in your colour gathering honey from flower cups softening my soul in your arms feeling the bliss of eternity.

Note: Alaknanda is a Himalayan river in the state of Uttarakhand, India that is one of the two headstreams of the Ganges, the major river of Northern India and the holy river of Hinduism. The other headstream, Bhagirathi, which is longer, is the source stream.

October 2013

The Dawn With the dawn the sun emerges from the dark womb of the Universe through the golden window of the East bringing with it the heavenly glow that bathes the blue sky in its radiant hue. The soothing shades of light come with the cool refreshing breeze gently awake the world to celebrate the birth of the day, the birds fly in flocks in search of food singing sweet song of love and happiness. The green grass grounds bedecked with pearly dew, the colourful flowers tossing their heads in sprightly dance in glory of the new born dawn exuding their fragrant glee. During my morning walks in the Baraadri Gardens* its colour, music, freshness and fragrant air filtered through trees oxygenates my age old lungs for a new decadal race.

October 2013

Note: Baradari Gardens means the garden with twelve entrances. It was built in a Mughal style in 1876 by Rajinder Singh. Baradari Gardens is in the north of Patiala city and is situated in the outer part of Sheranwala Gate. Baradari Gardens were constructed near the Baradari palace, which was a residence of Emperor Rajinder Singh. He brought rare species of trees and flowers from different places and planted them in this garden. The big fruit trees the Fern House and the Rock Garden show his interest towards nature. Another name of Rajinder Kothi is Baradari Kothi because it is situated near the Baradari Garden. Today, the Baradari Palace is a warehouse of important historical documents.

Chandra Prakash Sharma (b.1941) worked as Head, Department of Economics at M. M. Modi College, Patiala (1970-2001). He was nominated to the Academic Council, the Board of Faculty and the Board of Studies of Punjabi University, Patiala several times during this period. After his retirement he worked as guest faculty at the Punjab School of Management Studies of the University. Prior to this, he was General Manager of International Medical Devices, Gurgaon, Company manufacturing ophthalmic devices in India that found its market in many countries the world over. He obtained his first Postgraduate Degree in English from the University of Rajasthan as student of Birla College of Arts, Pilani. After working as lecturer in English in a college in Haryana for a couple of years, he took his second Masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Degree in Economics from Punjabi University, Patiala in 1969, later his Ph.D. in Business Administration from the same University in 1987.

October 2013

GOPA NAYAK

Desire Desire nurtured Flows like an unbridled stream Washing away all inhibitions Embracing all entities Satiating all fascinations Desire chained Beats like the mighty ocean Tossing away all offerings Turning down all with fury Resenting all attractions Desire unleashed Erupts like a volcano Destroying all livingness Subsuming all extremities Arresting all predictiveness Desire, must you regale nurtured unchained and unleashed?

Gopa Nayak writes in both Odia and English on themes that vary from womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role in society to theft in London suburb. She has recently come back to her home town of Bhubaneswar after her long sojourn of thirty years outside Odisha. She has a DPhil from the University of Oxford and is currently teaching English in Bhubaneswar.

October 2013

PIYA CHAKRABARTI

The Pink Velvet Plant In yester-years, Heading in with arms stretched out, The rubicund petals, scattered all about, Peeping in, like a stranger strange, Tender spring in its greatest range. The pink velvet on our classroom floor, The whirring breeze hoping to implore the shoots to send'em on the rounds, And merge with the honeyed, bourdon sounds. The perfume of the velvet with passion fills, Brings out the artist, and the man it kills, Nothing of the scented drunkenness, To sip in the cup of intemperance. Today I saw, The barks of the velvet are slimy grey, The shoots slouch off with the fall of day, The fruits are ripened, and all worn out, That the tree is chafed, and old, and stout. The classroom floor is mopped all day, The acidic smell is done away, To shoo off the stranger strange, To welcome the season of the change.

October 2013 Piya Chakrabarti is a writer, poet and visual artist, and is currently pursuing a Master degree in Pure Mathematics from Jadavpur University. Her writings and arts have been published in Ken again, a literary magazine, cyberwit's “Taj Mahal Review” and “The Harvest Of The New Millennium”, Dyuti, The Telegraph, Child Rights and You (CRY) “Antilabour day Analysis Report”, Blood Lotus Journal, Youth Ki Awaaz,Eastlit magazine and many writings are under consideration by many journals of repute in India and abroad.

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October 2013

RIZVANA PARVEEN

Poems

Choice This world is not a utopia of dreams; dreams shatter here every day, sorrows never end emotions are shriveled, hope is an illusion, unknown is the divine design. To choose is the only choice left between right and wrong; love and fate; and duty and desire. She She sleeps in peace without any clue in the silence of her grave, she rests without any protests. Happily wedded was she and was carrying a baby, her days were in expectation of pleasure, pain and caution; she tripped and fell into the death-knell, her lifeless baby was blue so was her hue; together, they lie without breath in the arms of death.

October 2013

Garbage bins They are no longer filled with rotten vegetables, stale leftovers, torn slippers, plastic bags, dead rats or broken toys; but with discarded female fetuses and abandoned baby girls. Distance The depth of a sea the expanse of celestial horizon are beyond comprehension and anticipation; farther still are the spreading stretch of the earth and certain unreachable domains and orbits. A throbbing heart, a captivating fleeting glance uncovers distances.

Rizvana Parveen is an Indian poet based in the UAE. Her works have appeared in Taj Mahal Review, The Enchanting Verses Literary Review, The World Haiku Review, Asian American Poetry and Kafla Intercontinental (Forthcoming).

October 2013

It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story. â&#x20AC;&#x2022; Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

Story

October 2013

AMAN CHOUGLE

Stories

It All Makes Sense I’ve never seen a girl more feminine than this one, like out from an old Victorian painting. But she wasn’t that conventionally pretty: her face was odd shaped like an isosceles triangle, she almost looked like one those Vicks lozenges, and her features were not that beautiful: her nose and eyes were plain and she had a small dry mouth. Though she had an old time charm about her, and she carried herself well. She wore her hair short, was as pale as fog, and always dressed exceptionally well. Good sense for clothing is a rarity. It’s as rare as finding open spaces in any major city. When we were toddlers she would always hit me. There was this one incident my mother tells me where I and she were sitting on her mother’s lap and she tried to push me. Being the new baby on the block she was obviously jealous of me. I couldn’t help it I was one cute baby, and I was well behaved too. My mother tells me I rarely cried or threw tantrums. You wouldn’t believe that if you saw me now, but it might be true. She had an odd way of playing badminton. She would never strike the shuttle-cock but always give it a loving tap, like one does when he or she suddenly feels intimate with another. She was just too delicate. But then she’d never wait for it to come to her. She’d do this sort of desperate hop and tap it with a soft, ‘Woo...!’ coming from her lips. It looked quite silly and sometimes it would make me stop playing, and I’d just stand there laughing. But I guess there’s no end to the list of human quirks. I wish the same could be said about individuality as well. The quirk is at the fringe, I’m talking of the stem. I don’t know why but I always feel the modern way of life is solely, or at any rate is responsible a great deal for this narrowing down of individuality, so much so that you now even know all the clichés and stereotypes, me included. I don’t know why but again her overt delicateness is swirling in my head. Is the trait of being gentle a given in the female or is it because the way they’re raised, or is it both, like a ball bouncing against two narrow parallel walls with no way out? For she was always like that, I remember in the games-room even while playing carrom this same retrograde femininity persisted. She’d never strike the striker hard, even when required, say when hitting a rebound. A trait like that though at first might charm you can pretty soon become nauseating. For it is a weakness. And it even stinks of shallowness. Women today have to be strong, I don’t mean in a wrestler sort of way but you know what I mean. Otherwise they’ll perish under the stacks of chaos of this modern world like they did by way sexism in the old one, though not to say sexism

October 2013

has disappeared altogether. If anything things are still more or less the same, there’re just different things to be taken into account today, for society has changed, though not in its kernel. During our early and mid-teens she had a crush on me. It’s strange how her hatred as a baby then later on transmuted into fondness when it came to me. She’d always be hitting me and so I’d try and be on my best behaviour. And I guess that won her over, even though it took years and years. I’ve observed this through the years many times: where one person hates the other vehemently, but that other person for reasons only known to him sticks to the one hating like glue and eventually the situation flips. It’s as if the person receiving hate just wanted something from the other and when he receives it, he throws the other away like a prostitute. Her room window looked down at our play area, and if I were playing down she’d always be at the window staring at me. Even if I were to stare back she wouldn’t budge. You had to stop whatever you were doing, or rather playing, and just keep staring at her to stop her from doing the same. I don’t know what delight she experienced by staring at me like that. I wasn’t that great an athlete anyway. In fact I was jumpy and had no elegance, like you know how some sportsmen have elegance, like Roger Federer, it almost seems as if he’s doing ballet. From downstairs it looked kind of sad though, as if she was a caged princess wanting to break free, wanting something different but not knowing what. Like how some people see through the hypocrisy of their conventions or are simply bored with them. Her face projected exhaustion. She wanted to go against the order of her life. She was weary of it, so weary that she’d try anything, even the unknown black cesspool of me. For a teenager her pose was unusually that of melancholy, like a young socialite tired and weary of all the wealth and parties. And like it does to the rich, especially women, her weariness gave her elegance. Her parents aware of this always tried to get her to pursue some hobby, like Indian classical singing and dancing. But she’d get disinterested in few months time. Fortunately she was clever enough to always keep her grades well above average, despite her weariness. In the games-room if we were playing carrom, she’d always try and be my partner. And then she’d stare me in the eye. You’d have to stare back for she was very persistent. When our eyes would be locked, we’d be transported into some unknown world, and made aware of the possibilities that could’ve been between us. I’d feel the pull of her. I could feel her heart burning for me and she knew that mine had to burn for her too, and it did to a certain degree in spite of whatever rationalizing I did on the surface. Eyes truly are the windows of the soul, for in that stare we’d know more about each other than all the conversations in the world. So in some sense she was the new female of this modern world for she wasn’t afraid of asking the question. Why should men always play the lead, when in actuality women have a better intuition when it comes to our private lives? I feel women are closer to the centre, what I call the “all-essentials”, not men. The situation though reversed itself in our late teens. I distinctly remember this happening in one of our annual gatherings. Our building every January would’ve a dinner party for its residents. I was on the way out for a smoke with the guys after dinner when she suddenly appeared with a girl, a neighbour of ours, and she looked so dazzlingly pretty I would’ve asked her out then and

October 2013

there. She was wearing a white Shalwar-kameez with silver sandals, her dupatta a multicoloured affair was like a rainbow encapsulated in a kaleidoscope. But the thing that made most our heads turn was her make-up. She had made herself out to be like a Bengali-bride. Man…like they say, ‘My brain was in my butt and my butt was in my brain!’ I even distinctly remember getting angry when while smoking one of the guys had remarked that seeing her like that, he wanted to pick her up on his shoulder and take her to some place private. While returning back that anger reflected in few hateful comments against him making the others laugh at him, which were not about the girl of course, but something else. If there’s one thing you don’t do when among guys is censure some guy being explicit about his libido, for fear of being called a sissy. When we returned, finding her among others, it was obvious she had dressed herself up a bit too much for the occasion, which could also be seen in the other girl’s eyes but who cares, she looked great! They were a group: she, then the other girl who was at the party, and another one who I feel disliked me for some reason. I’d always want to chat with them, whenever I could, but the third one always made me awkward. If I get a sense of the fact that I’m not wanted, I try to jet ’cause I can’t bear thick tension between people, especially when I’m the cause of it. Girls like that, not her I’d say: the one whom these pages are about but the other two, after marriage mostly live for their families. I’d say they’re some of the most important people we need for if not for a good, stable home man has nothing. Girls like that on the whole are full to the brim with common decency. In short they can’t really cause anyone any serious harm, sometimes even if they want to. And that goodness is real like that of friendly dog, and not like the speeches of a vain moralist who in reality is as selfish and filthy a crook as any other. I don’t like it when “career” women look down upon such women, the excuse that, ‘It’s so shallow and old-fashioned,’ doesn’t hold true just because you’re too cold and detached to do it. In this day and age to raise a healthy, stable family is as difficult a job as having any career you can think of. These are the same kind of women who derive their complacency from the fact they’re now doing things that were only done by men few generations ago, regardless of how destructive or pointless those actions may be. Though returning back to our girl, when my turn came I couldn’t play the role of the chaser as she had few years ago, it wasn’t as obvious as hers anyway. Even though I knew she liked me a lot in the past, I couldn’t use that as a spring to her ask her out. Dating always requires a certain effort and I feel I’ve always lacked the vitality needed for it, even though I’ve had my share. Sometimes I was so clumsy in my efforts with her that they’d leave me puzzled and embarrassed for days on end. I just couldn’t do it. The cheese was right there but I just couldn’t reach it. I guess doubt is an instinct in man, not something external forced upon by circumstance. They say, ‘The chase is better than the catch.’ But I disagree. I say catch and see how it is. Even today I’m curious how it would have been. ’Cause I always felt she wanted something else than the usual humdrum of dating, something dark, unknown and potent: the unchartered waters, the deep-end of the pool where only few go. There was a definite need to break-away in her as if she thought she was above her surroundings, that it was a temporary muck she had to bear with till what she rightly deserved came to her. And maybe she sought that escape through me, for she pursued long enough.

October 2013

Anyway her intuition was right, for today, I’d do anything to bypass the usual way of life.

Gootlimama The title is a pet-name designed by yours truly. It was the Marathi period. I was seated near the last bench with a friend, and Gootlimama was seated right next to us on the left. Usually he was one those moping around kind of sort. He was very gloomy that way. But on that day during that period, he was unusually straight and attendant. This was of course till I had a look downstairs. His crotch was trembling, as if there was a big earthquake going on underneath. I showed my friend what I saw but even he couldn’t figure out what was going on. Then I bent forward and noticed his right-hand was in his pocket, and put the pieces together. The teacher was present, the children were present, but of course Gootlimama was in a world of his own with the girl of his dreams. His face was stiff. Caught in the orgasm it almost looked artificial, like a wax statue version of him, and his eyes were darted straight forward as if he were really concentrating hard. For once the teacher didn’t shout at him for moping around. I and my bench-partner were the first ones to catch him. On that day he was alone, his benchpartner was absent. But what we noticed very quickly was that she being absent or not around wasn’t necessary. If she were seated he’d put his haversack between them, and get on with it. His partner was really short. When seated she barely went over the haversack, but still if you were to constantly look at his face you’d easily understand something was going on. But then again they hated each other. One didn’t even glance at the other. They were like an old married couple: even though they live together, they sometimes don’t have a conversation for months. That was them through and through. They just tolerated each other with an empty hate. The teacher had made them sit together for the girl was a good student, and the boy was not. During the first few days it was only I and my friend, who was seated with me at the time, knew what he was doing, and we’d joke about what if he were to ejaculate, and the teacher were to call him to answer a question at the same time. That would’ve been something to watch, like they’ve those TV shows where goofy instances are caught on tape. Then it quickly spread around among our friends. After the first few weeks I came up with that pet-name. I had to call him that for he’d do it not once but many times a day, as if it were his refuge, or may be it really was for the frequency of it conveyed so. He’d even do it, believe it or not, while taking dictation, with his right hand holding the pen, and his left hand in his pocket; anyhow what he wrote was...I tell you about that in a minute. The name spread like wildfire, among boys and girls alike. Even the kids from the first-floor kindergarten called him that and ran away. They obviously didn’t know what it meant, but then again the one being teased finds that even more annoying. We even had song about it in which the chorus was just the pet-name repeated thrice. I didn’t expect it to be so popular, like how a talentless singer suddenly comes up with a chart-topping album, and then disappears after couple of years. In poor Gootlimama’s case, it was he who had to unfortunately disappear. When I had come up with that name I didn’t have the slightest clue that it might be used to completely ostracize him from the rest. That word later on wasn’t just a symbol for his 20

October 2013

masturbating in class. It was a symbol for his whole freakish persona. If non-conforming behaviour is not tolerated anywhere, it’s most definitely not tolerated among teenagers. He’d always be moping around, and then he had that one dreaded quality that no teen should ever have when among other teenagers: self-sufficiency, a boy who can be comfortably alone. Teenagers, most of them anyway, can interpret that as only two things, either he can’t find any friends because he’s a “loser”, or he doesn’t want to be friends, he has an “attitude” (how I hate that word) problem. It wasn’t that before the masturbating incident we didn’t make fun of him, we naturally did. He had an atrocious handwriting. He just wrote to fill his books. He wasn’t even a little concerned about what he wrote. I and another friend use to borrow his notebooks, sit behind him during a free period or during recess and read them out loud. His handwriting would make letters seem different than what they actually were, so “Europe” would look like “Eurape”, “Father” would look like “Potder” and so on. You can imagine when words like that read out loud in complete sentences, by two teenagers, what kind of ruckus it must be creating. Sometimes we’d actually have a crowd around us, even if there was no one around my friend and I laughing loudly was enough humiliation to bear with. But Gootli wouldn’t say a thing, in fact after the initial period he’d give us the notebooks on his own, without we having to fight for them, as if he wanted to be made mockery of. I know: teenagers can be real assholes sometimes. There was an incident after which he had to leave school. It was understandable for by then everybody saw him as stale food thrown at the side of the street. During P.E. periods the class use to be empty as all the children use to be down playing. On one such occasion though a girl was somehow late, and Gootli was there too. I don’t really know what exactly happened for I wasn’t there, but some kind of altercation took place between them because he bumped into her or something like that. The girl took the matter straight to the principal, and even brought her parents into the mix. She obviously knew about his masturbating in class, and she was one those “I fancy myself” kind of folk even though she wasn’t that sweet, bright or attractive. Strange how only people like that always fancy themselves. After a day or two when one of the teachers involved lectured the two, I was happy about the fact that the girl was put in her place (everybody needs that now and then), for there was obviously nothing there. Gootli was unfortunately reduced to a nervous buffoon, and so he behaved erratically, you would too if you were ostracized completely. Teenage boys I don’t think should be seen as sexual predators. That’s just another myth convention gives you so we can dice the world with ease, without ever touching its real complexity, which if experienced for real can leave your head open like a nutcracker. Yes they are horny, but they’re also extremely awkward about their sexuality, something that’s not always taken into account. When he was standing there being lectured I could feel his isolation, as if any minute he’d jump out of the window. He was then put into a military boarding-school. I guess to stop him from moping around, to bring back that vitality he never really had. He didn’t get along there well, though somehow he made himself a better student. Funny how he use to call me up from there; he saw me as a friend, ’cause even though I was always making fun of him, as I’d always be around reading his notebooks and all, the criterion for friendship was passed.

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Then when he finished school, his vacations had started earlier than us and so he’d come to meet me after school. The others also use to gather around. He having been away for two years that edge had been removed, between him and them. You could still hear the name, and by the way by then it had been reduced to “Gootlye”, but it was nothing like when he was in our school. Besides, he was use to it. You could see he wasn’t really bothered by it anymore. Maybe he had gone beyond it. He’d come there to a nearby arcade and we’d sit and have a chat. Naturally I was guilty to a certain degree, and so now I’d go out of my way to be polite to him. And since I’d stopped being a complete asshole with him for some time now, he finally opened up to me. Funny how insightful he was, for his outer persona always conveyed someone weary, like a young female with hefty inheritance, too jaded to bother about all such things as life, hope and freedom. But then pain does that to you sometimes. Pain is a positive element (up to a point ’cause every man has his breaking point) if one knows how to use it properly, like an artist taking inspiration from nature. It can really take you to a place of clarity and understanding. He now reminds of that phrase, ‘My situation is making me grow too fast.’ And all I learnt was: this name-calling can be risky business.

Changes I met him through other people at school. Back then, compared to the rest, he was exceptional in that, he had no pretensions as to being tough. In that early impressionable age, unlike others, he was happy being considered soft and harmless, and in that stood his likeableness. Like I heard someone say, ‘The real person is much more interesting than the fake image.’ At school he was known for bringing the best tiffin known to us. He’d actually have to run after boys, ’cause nobody would leave anything for him. He had a very peculiar run. He could form a mirage, tricking you into believing that he could run really fast, with his head bowed, and arms swaying rhythmically as if they were connected to an engine. He couldn’t run that fast, but it really looked as if though he could. He was pathetically goofy, when running away from someone after him, he’d make the most comical toddler-like noises, these odd squealing noises, and when caught he was the only boy I knew who’d beg himself out of a confrontation, even though it was just for fun. He’d do that laugh-begging, you know, ‘Ha-ha-ha, I don’t want to do this, Ha-ha, I really don’t, stop!’ At the annual school athletic meet we had an event called “Crocodile-race”, my friend and I were the undefeated champions of the sport (if it can be called that). It was quite simple: you had a group of two boys, one held the other by the feet, and the other ran on the track using his hands. My friend being short was the one who used his hands, though not to say he was light to carry. But he had powerful hands, you’d feel him pull if you were not at speed with him, and when finally we use to win, his tight hug squeezing the living breath out of me was another sign of how powerful his hands really were. Our secret was simple: unlike others I held him at the knees,

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most held at the feet, giving me and him better control. And then of course we had his hands, they were the chief weapon in our arsenal. At first he had a cycle to ride to school. Then when he shifted to an apartment nearby mine he bought one of those mopeds. He and I use to ride together to home after school. He’d always give me a lift when possible. During rains we’d sometimes have accidents, but nothing major, the usual skidding at turns and falling on your sides, though once while going to school we had crashed into a girl and that created a major scene. We were on our way to collect our results, when in the middle of the road he asked for the time, I a bigger fool than he, instead saying the time out loud, show him the watch on my left hand, and this guy, instead of shouting at me for my stupidity, takes a look. My watch had a complicated set of hands and by the time he figured out which hand was what, crash! The girl was just stunned, the bike slipped, and we both suffered leg injuries. I pulled a muscle, and he suffered nasty bruises on his knee, the kind that make you look away. A crowd had gathered, but seeing that it was we who were badly injured and not her, we were let go. We both had to limp from the school-gate to our class. Afterwards though we ended up spending the whole day together, it was one those kinds of experiences where you can find respite only with that particular person, for he’s experienced it too. At lunch we weren’t really talking, but after that when I tried leaving he wanted me to stay and I did. When he’d shifted nearby I’d go to his place to study. We’d never study, but that hardly mattered. We’d sit back, and throw fresh remarks at each other, sniggering if something were funny. It didn’t last long ’cause his mother was a nuisance. She’d always be spewing out clichés which would even vex her own son most of the times. Money breeds ignorance, or maybe it’s the other way round, either way the person so afflicted, is always tiresome. My mother and his didn’t get along too well. Their differences were petty, like they always are, but funny how even though we were kids we could see through them. But then as we grew even we started behaving like them. Does age really make you mature, or that “Oh, you’re too young” just an excuse for being aimlessly muddled? He also had an elder sister who was very loving and affectionate with him, which use to make me jealous, for I always wanted a sibling but never got one, though most of my friends tell me I’m better without. I don’t know why most siblings don’t get along well, if I had one, I’d sort of have a pact with him or her to save ourselves from our parents, but like they say, ‘Easier said than done.’ Later I’d only go to his place to play cricket. They had a beautiful ground, with a lush green coat of grass, and a well cut bush on its bound. We’d play till late dusk for being fairly open, the pale sky with its luminous grey, before it turned purple, was enough light to see the ball. We’d sometimes even cycle race in and around his vicinity for they had good roads, a rarity from where I come from. Once we went off road just for the thrill of it, and I ended up drowning my right leg shin deep in mud. There was no tap nearby, and so my friend had to go home to bring water. He came back with a small bottle of water and I smacked him on the head. When he asked why I did that, I smacked him again. The next time he came down, he brought three big bottles instead.

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In our last year in school, I’d mostly hang-out with a different set of boys. I’d hang with the old crew as well of which he was a part, but it was a side-dish order thing, when I felt sick of the new crew I went to the old one, which I guess they realized sooner than I expected them to. When such a thing happens your old friends think you’ve grown bored of them, which is partly true, people do take a toll on each other, like how two brittle objects grinded against one another eventually start to flake. I wanted to know the new crew so bad that I forgot about the old one, or because I already knew them, my curiosity for them had extinguished. He’d still ride me home sometimes, but I had to stop that ’cause it didn’t look good, coming back to him just for the sake of a lift. It’s funny how such an understanding is achieved better non-verbally, than say, if we were to have a talk about it. Then during first year of junior college the rift grew further, for I didn’t see much of him. The first few months of college always change you in some sense. Given a new environment you have to adapt yourselves to your new found freedom, freedom of wanting to attend college or not, and to the new peers you find around you. College changed both of us, and in such a way that we both started looking the other way. It was clearly marked when I was called to his birthday that academic year. At first I couldn’t point my finger at it, though it was there in its abstraction. When we were leaving he came close to me and asked me how I liked the party. Distant and somewhat lost I replied, ‘I would’ve preferred if there was some beer at the party.’ I don’t know from where he pulled out a sedan (I didn’t know he had one) and took me and some other guys to a nearby liquor store and bought few beers for me and the guys. He didn’t drink, but he drove around as we had ours. From the backseat I could hear him talk about clothes to the guy sitting next to him, and so I looked out and got lost in my beer and the outside view. His birthday came during September. Three months into the monsoon season all the trees, plants and grass were thick lush with growth. Though after about five minutes when my mind returned to them, I could still hear them talk about clothes. I thought it was one of those small talks you’ve about things, though obviously it was not, they were talking about brands, the expensive ones, and how they compared with each other, which I found very shallow and snobbish. Clothes have never really held any interest for me. I am always badly dressed, I always have one piece of clothing on which either needs a washing, or is just too old and should be discarded right away. Before going home, as everyone had left, he and I sat at the edge of the ground where we use to play cricket, and had a chat. He was very explicit in that he didn’t want me drinking, or even smoking for that matter. Even I wanted to tell him something about his new persona, but I just couldn’t figure out what to say, and so I kept my mouth shut. I remember he did most of the talking that night. Then during our second year, we’d joined the same tuitions for our boards. We were in different batches, but still I’d catch him around every once in a while. By this time around our friendship had moved into one of those stages, where when you see the other guy you crack a joke or a wisecrack and move along, you don’t any longer wait and have a chat like you would. By that time I had developed a bad habit of smoking after every lecture. After every period, say after economics, we were given a ten minute break, so in that ten minute break I and few other guys would rush down for a smoke. Now smoking makes one lose weight, I don’t know how, but I

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had surely lost a lot of weight during my junior college days. This friend of mine on the other hand had started going to a gym, and had pumped himself up like an action-figure. He had grown tall too, surprisingly as tall as me, ’cause of some Tele-brand product which we use to make fun of. I remember after tuitions me and the guys were smoking and I had some work with him so I called him near me. He didn’t come very near because of the smoke coming out of my lips and nostrils. There was a stare between us, and it was so obvious, we disliked the changes, he in me, and I in him. After having asked him for what he was called, there was a pause between us, and I noticed he was looking me up and down. He scolded...well scolded is too harsh, he lectured me on how weak I had gone. And in the middle of the street started flexing his muscles, showing me what he was up to in his free-time. I couldn’t believe my eyes ’cause in school he was the only kid who was free from all that macho pretentiousness. Where was that sweet boy whom I knew as a child? After that year I rarely ever met him, and even if I did it was mostly by accident. I’d like to meet him now ’cause it’s been awhile, but the way things had become estranged between us at the end, I don’t think it’s ever going to happen.

Aman Chougle is a sound engineer. He loves music, books, and collecting paintings. Besides art and reading, travel, nature, occasional cooking, and meeting the multifarious lives of this planet are his other interests. Currently he’s working on his first novel. These stories are from his anthology titled The Last Soul Children.

October 2013

GEETASHREE CHATTERJEE

MY “TWILIGHT” FRIEND “How on earth can anyone fall in love with a vampire?” Disgust was well writ in my tone. “Well! Love is blind”, was Mann’s usual sardonic reply. “Writers!” Sanjeev shook his head in amazement,” Their imagination knows no bound. Thank God it’s a vampire and not a Rakshasa.” “What difference would that have made?” I snorted. “Guys! Don’t criticise without reading.” Ritu was offended. She had read the book and was heading for the sequel. We were gathered in the Club after a hectic game of badminton. It was mid-December. The thermometer had touched an all-time low of the season – four degrees. It was a kind of crippling cold this year. But that wouldn’t prevent us from ganging up in the Club every evening for a game or two of shuttle and an after-the-match follow-up on the latest happenings in our lives and around. However, all our discussions had this disturbing quality of degenerating into vociferous arguments. This evening the apple of discord was Stephenie Meyer’s bestselling novel “Twilight”. Ritu had ventured to give us the outline of the story that had started off the debate. The heroine, a ‘normal’ specimen of the human species chooses to fall for a guy of the vampire clan. There was much brouhaha when the novel and its sequels hit the bestseller’s list and were later made into successful movies. Neither had I read the novel nor seen the movie as the theme itself repulsed me. Sanjeev, with his much flaunted fetish for Management Theories, hardly had any interest for fiction. “Vampires! Those nocturnal creatures surviving on human blood!!!” Mann scoffed at the very idea of their existence which Ritu was inclined to lay a wager on. She even supplied some dubious historical data in support of her claim. “How can you even think of believing such things?” I was incredulous. Ritu insisted that we lacked imagination and an innate sense of drama. We agreed that it wasn’t in us to let our imagination run riot and that even the most ridiculous should have some remote resemblance to realism. On this agreeable note of disagreement we parted for the day.

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In the middle of that night… An odd dream startled me up. Strangely, I remembered it later only in parts. A dark, dilapidated castle…its turrets almost tearing through the sky…cold floors and corridors leading nowhere…and then this squalid room full of gigantic cobwebs and a window with a broken pane drawing in the chill from outside…faded moonlight streaking in through cracked glasses…and this odd feeling that I had been there before…a long, long time back. After that blank… But the feeling stayed on even after I was wide awake. A hard-to-describe-uneasiness, something I had witnessed in that room but couldn’t recollect now…Deja vu? Next morning I was late for my tutorials. I pulled the strings of my hood in a tighter knot around my neck. Our maid, Malathi, had smugly predicted a snowfall in the Capital this winter. We had had a good laugh over it during dinner. However, the day next it rained preceded by a hailstorm. The temperature dipped to a degree less. Malathi had this grim satisfaction that her prediction was at last coming to pass. The days were somehow tolerable but the chill grew as the evenings deepened. A boisterous wind made things worse. I found the interiors of the over-crowded Metro cosier during these times. But with a shoulder bag straining with the weight of thick volumes and fat registers and two tomes precariously positioned on my arms, it was extremely difficult to maintain balance inside the coach. It was the peak rush hour. A tap on my back made me turn around. A dour, pale, almost anaemic face of indeterminate age with a pair of bulging eyes peering through thick lensed glasses, signalled me to the seat next to her. It was not vacant but she motioned the other occupants to shift and make space on the elongated berth so that I could squeeze in. I thanked her. She nodded in acknowledgement. The next station was a junction where the crowd thinned considerably. A station later, my considerate co-commuter got up to de-board. I noticed an emaciated frame which even layers of woollens and warmers could not disguise. The dark, old fangled cloak draped on her protruding shoulder blades looked positively outlandish. But in a city obsessed with individualized style statements I attributed her sense of dressing to her personal idiosyncrasy. She suddenly looked back sensing my eyes on her. Yuck! That crimson shade on her lips! It heightened her pallor - a ‘dripping’ red as though her mouth had just found way out of a bowl of sticky tomato ketchup. How could she even think of applying that regressive colour? Her choice of make-up seemed a little outmoded, summing her up, I instantly felt guilty. Here was I silently picking on her attire and looks while she had so kindly accommodated me next to her. Ungrateful! I castigated myself. With a shake of my head, to shoo away those wicked thoughts, I bent low to concentrate on the latest amendments to Company Law. In doing so, I missed her

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piercing gaze on me and the slow tantalizing way her tongue licked her lips in a lazy, circular motion. The train came to a halt at the next station. The door slid open, to admit out a swirl of black, and then closed with a soft thud. As the train moved on I looked up through the huge glass windows lining the compartments. Amidst the crowded platform the quaint figure had managed to vanish like a whiff of smoke. The Club was empty. Sanjeev and Mann had left early. Ritu was the only one available. But she was too engrossed in her book. Taking a chair beside her, I exclaimed. “Why, you haven’t finished reading that trash yet?” “Exams!” was the succinct reply. If she was angry at my retort she did not show it. I wanted to ask her what she was doing in the Club then. But she was too pre-occupied. I shivered involuntarily. The room felt a little cold. Perhaps one of the windows was not shut tight enough or one of the several doors left slightly ajar - a draught sneaked in through a truant slit. But Ritu seemed impervious to the environ around. So deep was her concentration that not once did her muscles twitched, limbs moved or gaze veered from the book. It was only the intermittent rustle of pages that warranted movement breaking the silence of the room. I decided not to disturb her any further. “Carry on girl,” my voice echoed in the emptiness. Ritu was reading at the table where usually the carom board would be placed. The overhead lamp hanging low from the ceiling was the only light that glowed in the room. It was a big room, nay, hall which on other evenings would be flooded with light and buzzing with cheers and chatters of the players and onlookers. Tonight shadows hugged the walls and an uncharacteristic, stifling calm prevailed. I looked over my shoulder. Ritu sat still, covered in a woollen shawl, head bowed and eyes glued to the book. A ghost under the spot-light!!!!! No, a phantom with a fancy for vampires! I grinned to myself and left. A blind alley flanked by tall white pillars….No, it was the winding corridors of the castle again. At the far end a light blinked. I moved towards it. There, I knew, would be all the answers to my query. Though I gathered speed the distance never seemed to lessen. “Run along! Speed along! It’s just a few paces away! Oh, yes I am almost there,” said a voice within. But just then, flapped in, out of the blue, a black drape of immense weight and settled on my face. I clawed at it ferociously but could not wrench it off me. I wanted to call out to my mother but was gagged out of breath. With flailing arms I tried to grab a support. There was none around. Blindfolded I fought with an invisible enemy. Somewhere, a train whizzed past. If only I could catch it. But my feet felt leaden. I had lost my way and was about to fall when a pair of clammy hands gathered me up. I wanted to thank my friend. At that moment the veil slipped off. And ten long, gnarled fingers closed in on my neck choking my breath out. I woke up to find that I had broken into a cold sweat. 28

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“Are you studying too late into the night?” My mother looked concerned, “ You have dark circles around your eyes.” “No! Just bad dreams and fitful sleep!!!” “You need a stress buster” said my father looking up from his Daily. “Yes, me think so too!” I agreed. I left the breakfast table with a hasty bye. I was late for the 7.30 train. Metro is the microcosm of urban-scape! The thought always struck me whenever I entered the building. The concourse and the platform pulsated with life. Crowds milling around with purposeful strides, minds focussed on their respective destinations. It would predominantly be an animated throng of students like me this early morning. There would be others too, nameless strangers. Not exactly, I corrected myself. As we travelled together for an hour and a half, each day, these anonymous men and women, boys and girls, children and the aged became very much an integral part of our lives. Just like the ‘woman in black’, yes, that was what I had secretly nicknamed her. I often wondered whether it was by coincidence, accident or a pre-ordained plan, that we bumped into a person, more than once, if not regularly, in the course of our life’s journey. It wasn’t always that we sat together. Our proximity depended upon how crowded the Metro was or which coach we were fortunate enough to jostle in. But mostly it was the Lady’s Coach where we spotted each other occasionally, no, I think almost daily, waved, said a casual ‘hi’, smiled or just briefly nodded at each other. Coming to think of it, it was I who smiled and mouthed a ‘hi’ more often. She preferred to nod. But her eyes always shined in recognition. She had once told me her name, a strange one, which I didn’t quite get at first and chose to forget as easily. She had explained to me the meaning too. Something like the Night Farer? I presumed she worked for an MNC. “Mostly night shifts” she had said. I had to stoop close to listen. An odd way of talking, she had, through pursed lips, and a hiss of a voice. She smelled a little musty too. But I was quite surprised when she said that she didn’t mind burning the midnight oil as her energy level was quite high after night fall. “Feel top in form as the moon settles down”, were her exact words. Day schedule did not suit her temperament. Usually, my friends in BPOs cribbed the night long work regimen. She was an exception! So, it was generally in the evenings, while returning home from the University, that I saw her in the Metro all perked up for work. Sometimes she brought her six year old daughter along – a miniature of the mother – right down to the scrawny built, high powered glasses, drooling eyes, unsmiling, colourless countenance and the signature black cloak (I often wondered what their summer uniform would be). Those were the days when her husband would be gone on

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prolonged official tours. His business made him tread on far flung soil. Moldavia she had mentioned once, I remember. A typical urban, nuclear set up with all its travails and triumphs, a little strange perhaps, but kind, friendly people was my personal conclusion. After a series of these meetings, I decided to include her in my list of regular acquaintances. It was a bad, bad day. I had had a disturbing dream again the previous night which still rankled. This time it was me and my acquaintance from the Metro at Coffee Café Day for a cup of piping hot coffee. But when the beverage was served there seemed to be a horrible mistake. The liquid, a blood red in colour, stank. When I complained, the counter boy said that it was red wine, a special order by my companion. I almost puked on the bed. I was late for my classes, had a splitting head ache and could not concentrate one bit on the intricacies of Forex Management. Later, helping Mrs. Bose, my lecturer, in the Library, I absentmindedly slashed my little finger with a paper knife. A small cut but the gush of blood would just not stop. As a result, I had to be rushed to the Medical Room, where having administered First Aid, our Medical-In-Charge, Doctor Rane, insisted that I left for home early for a good rest. Dr. Rane at times overdid her part but today… I gave in. Finding a seat in the 4.30 Metro I closed my eyes in sheer exhaustion. “I say hullo”, a cold touch on my arm made me jump. “Oh! Sorry to have woken you up.” My nose creased at the dank smell of her cloak. It was not her travel time. A ‘slight change of schedule’ she informed. “I too have called it a day.” I showed her my bandaged finger. She visibly cringed and then went deathly pale. “H…how?” She pointed a shaking finger, long and bony, with sharp well-filed nails. (The fresh quote of scarlet nail paint was quite expected) There was a tinge of blood on the bandage which felt wet to touch. It was bleeding again. I made a mental note to visit Doctor Uncle as soon as I reached home. My friend however seemed extremely distraught by the sight. The beads of perspiration on her forehead and upper lip and the way she kept on inhaling long and hard at the same time wetting her parched lips with her tongue worried me. “Are you okay?” I asked with concern.

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Without answering she got up, neared the door and turned sideways to stare at me intently through the glass partition bordering the seat – an ashen face but her eyes had an odd spark to them. She de-boarded abruptly at the next station which was not her usual stop. I found that decidedly funny. Thereafter, I saw very little of her. And wondered… “Ritu’s getting married,” announced Sanjeev. “Check the antecedents of the boy first,” said Mann. “Why?” I asked innocently “Could be a distant relation of Count Dracula” answered Sanjeev We broke into peals of laughter. However, the groom turned out to be more than human, an IITian, who smiled a lot and jelled with us well. He was highly amused when we filled him in about Ritu’s ‘Twilight’ addiction. In short, we had a rollicking time and wished the newlywed our very best. The ruins beckoned me once more. This time I stood right in front of the broken window staring at an ancient peepul tree. A thin human form in a dark cloak hung upside down from one of its branches. A shaft of moonlight illumined a pale face with red lips. I asked her what she was up to. She said she was in a yogic stance. I wanted to know the name of the posture. “Jatukasana” was the prompt reply… Au revoire to Winter… I got busy. Campus recruitment followed by exams. Erratic hours… Sporadic visits to the University… Spring, a hurrying guest, left no address behind… Time flew by… Having bagged my first job, a lucrative one at that, a new chapter of my life was just about to begin. Maa was a bit reluctant since the posting was outside Delhi but Dad ultimately got her around to give her consent. I mailed my acceptance to join the next month.

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I was super excited and had almost forgotten her till we ran into each other once again in the Metro. A shroud of black… She apologized for her last behaviour. The site of blood always made her sick. I told her not to worry as I had quite forgotten that episode. Her daughter was also with her. She was finding it difficult to take care of the household all by herself during her spouse’s long absences and had, therefore, made up her mind to shift base to Jaipur, her ancestral home. “We are a joint family and my daughter will be well looked after there” she said. Moreover, Delhi was too hectic and rowdy. They wanted some place quiet. It was a transfer in her present job. So the night shifts would continue. When I told her that even I had got a job in Jaipur, she suddenly became quiet, and then “Oh Good. If you need help contact me any time after ten.” Night, of course! “And don’t worry about accommodation. We have a sprawling haveli a few kilometres from the city.” I wanted to ask whether it had a dusty room with a broken window and a peepul tree brushing its dangling panes but changed my mind at the nick of time – it would require a whole lot of explaining – an unnecessary exercise, wastage of time, she might find me queer in the upper storey. She gave me her mobile number and got up to go. “Oh yes!” She stopped suddenly to add, “I am often bugged by network problem. But do try on. You might get connected, if you’re that much lucky.” An optimistic afterthought!!! The train took a curve. Mid-summer evenings were generally long in the Northern part of the country. The sun was still strong and at this point hit the snaking tube like a dart of fire. The blinding rays streaming in through the side windows refracted against the glass panes dazzling my sight. As she moved towards the door, drenched in that vast pool of light, her contours appeared almost ethereal, like a nebulous mass, which might evaporate into a curl of smoke any moment. I squinted hard to have a last look at her receding figure. At the exit, she turned around, one last time. Here the train took another turn just before entering the station. The sun was left behind. I could see her clearly now. Hardly any distance from this corner where I stood and the compartment wasn’t that crowded either. She raised her hand and slowly her lips parted in a “sayonara” kind of smile, yes, smile, baring a row of slender yellow teeth with sharp, jagged ends, the canines unusually slenderer, sharper and longer than the rest, grazed the corners of her mouth. The cheap, hideous, liquid-red of the lipstick, that she preferred so much, had smudged on these giving them bloody edges. I was sure her child would be having similar set of dentures. It probably ran in the family. She waved at me. But I forgot to wave back. I was too busy watching her toothy smile.

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A week later, I visited old Mr. Khatri’s second hand book shop and bought the entire “Twilight” series. Last night I Googled the word ‘Jatuka’ - it was the Sanskrit for Chiroptera - bat in simple English. And last but not the least, to the utter disgust and astonishment of my friends and family, I declined the job offer in Jaipur.

A graduate from Delhi University with many diplomas, Geetashree Chatterjee has worked in Petroleum & Natural Gas Sector for twenty five years. Her poems have been included in The Dance Of The Peacock, a recently published anthology of poems written by Indian poets in English. Her other short stories have been published in e-journals like Write Space and Induswomanwriting.com. Presently.

Get Your Book Reviewed by Contemporary Literary Review India — journal that brings articulate writings for articulate readers.

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October 2013

KERSIE KHAMBATTA

A Fence of Ferns If one were to view with a keen sense of acuity, the most unsuspecting and smallest of things, in life, are the most malevolent and the least one could overcome with ease. His extended family was spread all around him, at a respectful distance. He chose to ignore them. Two young ones were bored. They walked about a bit, and found a baby antelope. One sniffed at its nose, and the other pulled its back legs. It stood frozen in fear. They left it after a few minutes, then dug up the soft soil, gobbling the ants as they ran out. They made a meal of the abundant nettles (which they folded to avoid being stung), popping the leaves into their mouths. The female amused herself by catching the many flies, taking them apart, and examining every little part. They munched on the crisp wild celery sticks. They nibbled the fungus on the trees. As the sun was ready to leave, the troop got up slowly, one by one, and moved on behind their leader who had ambled his way to the fringe of the forest. The bamboo poles arched from a fence of ferns. There were wire nooses hidden in the dirt. They were not meant for them, though. The traps were set to catch antelopes. The troop leader was wise and experienced in the ways of man. He led them carefully around them, and emerged onto open terrain. They saw a challenger on the opposite side of the ravine. He hooted loudly. He pounded his cupped palms against his chest. He broke branches, and started towards the troop. They watched him silently. He stood on two legs, beat his chest again, and smashed the thick branches against the ground. The troop leader answered with a tremendous roar. Then he charged the younger male who dared to mock him. The challenger saw the huge shape come hurtling towards him, lost his resolve, and fled fast. Jill felt the rain pounding down upon her, the water trickling down her thick, khaki shirt, but she stood riveted.

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*** The streets were dark, filthy, twisted and broken. Like most of the men and women who lived there. Jill was born in one of the houses, the fifth child to parents who cared for none of them. Her father had charcoal skin, a black moustache, large fists and an ugly temper. He ran the pub on the corner, where the thugs and the crooks gathered. He made the liquor, putting into the pot whatever rubbish he could lay his hands on. He had a gun and a knife on him at all times. He did not bother to hide them under his clothes. He wanted everyone to see them clearly. Her mother looked like dry fungus. She did not talk. She screamed. She fought. She threw. She dodged. Jill was punished for speaking, and not speaking. She was beaten, kicked and nearly strangled. She had to cook, and to clean whenever the smell became unbearable. She was the eldest among the girls. Her brothers roamed the neighbourhood, imposing their will and fancy on the rif-raf. They went to the school of violence. The Honduras had many of those in the cities. Gangs fought over territory. Each area commanded a lot in protection money. There was no protection however. There were drugs. Plenty of that. Hard-core drugs like heroin. Jill lived in fear. She was the hub of the carriers. She had on a coarse, cotton dress. She went from hovel to hovel, lean with hunger, mean with anger. The police generally adopted a policy of laissez-faire. Sometimes though, to keep up appearances, they caught hold of the easiest, and dumped them in jail. The judges had families. They generally dismissed cases for lack of evidence. Jill was out on parole, after serving a short prison term. She was walking the streets when she got caught in a fierce fight between the Punks and the Pros. The Pros were in a majority, and were well-armed. They carried guns, swords and daggers. The Punks had strayed into their territory. It was a blood-bath. The Punks were fleeing desperately, and the crowd of them knocked Jill to the ground, as she turned a corner unaware of what was going on. She didn’t feel a thing. She just blanked out. When she opened her eyes days later, she found herself in a dark room with a distinct stink of alcohol. She had no idea of where she was. She just lay there in a daze. No one came in, and she dozed off. The probation officer talked discreetly to “fences” who led him, in disguise, to the room where she lay. They then disappeared. He saw the deathly paleness on her face, her paper-thin body. He was a kind man. His name was Pablos. He arranged her removal from there, and had her sent to another city, to a small, rest home manned by nuns. The nuns were part of an international sisterhood called “Love and Peace Always”. They worked with the homeless and the destitute. They were dedicated to pulling people away from alcohol, drugs and crime.

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Jill had never been treated well before. She had been slapped, bitten, kicked and punched. She knew no language but abuse. So she abused the nuns. She called them bad names. She spat at them. Yet they looked after her. They fed her, cleaned her, clothed her with clean cottons. They talked gently to her. They prayed for her. She slowly put on weight. She did not try to run away, because now she liked the food they gave her, and she realised that she would not get such good food anywhere on her own. They took her to the chapel. But she just sat there sullenly. She refused to pray. They took her for walks, and she dragged along. They taught her that there was a God in the sky who looked after everyone. She just laughed at them, and told them that they were stupid. Time passed. They wanted her to embrace a new life. Maybe in the Honduras; maybe elsewhere. They were determined to pull her away from an existence of vice, drugs and crime. They had been successful in other cases. They had branches all over the world. The branch in Africa was starting out on an experiment called “Gorilla Good”. They talked to Jill about it. They told her what that was. They showed her photos. They said that they were prepared to spend a lot of money on her in sending her to Africa, to the wild, where animals were the therapists, and there were no drugs. It was a unique rehabilitation programme. She resisted. They persisted. She went. She had never sat in an aeroplane. She liked the tasty food, and the movies. She landed in Africa. *** Jill read about Dian Fossey who had gone to the Virunga mountains in 1967 to study gorillas, and when Dian first saw them, they fled. She followed them, but couldn’t find them, because the thick vegetation hid them. She climbed a tree clumsily, and then looked down. They were sitting below, staring up at her, wondering how anyone could be so slow in climbing. Jill was fascinated with the gorillas. She went to watch them day after day. They got used to her. She learnt to distinguish individuals. She gave them names. She made notes, and took photos. She fell in love with Africa. She made it her life’s mission to fight the poachers. She petitioned the Government. Her pleas for armed guards to protect the gorillas against poachers first fell on deaf ears. But “Love and Peace Always” took up the matter, and asked the United Nations to step in, and persuade the local government to protect the gorillas from extinction.

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Jill got what she wanted. She accompanied the armed guards on their patrols. The poachers noticed her. They found out that she had been the cause of the armed patrols stepping up. Jill was killed by a bullet!

Kersie Khambatta is a semi-retired lawyer practising in New Zealand. He is also a part-time writer of articles and short-stories. His writing is recognizable by his simple style, with short sentences and carefully-chosen words. He has a diploma of Associateship of the British Tutorial Institute, London, in English, Modern Journalism, and Journalism in India, and a Certificate in Comprehensive writing awarded in October 2005 by the Writing School (Australia and New Zealand). His pieces have appeared in Senior Living (B.C., Canada), Her Magazine (New Zealand), The Rusty Nail magazine (U.S.A.), and many other publications.

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I criticize by creation - not by finding fault. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Marcus Tullius Cicero

Criticism

October 2013

JUNAID SHABIR

PSYCHOANALYTIC DIVING IN ATWOOD’S SURFACING Abstract Margaret Eleanor Atwood, (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honored authors of fiction in recent history and is a winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Literature. She has been short listed for the Booker Prize five times, winning once, and has been a finalist for the Governor General’s Award seven times, winning twice. Atwood’s feminist influence is felt in Fiona Tolan’s book, Margaret Atwood: Feminism and Fiction (2007), which goes through each of her books and breaking them down. For example, The Edible Woman was published in 1969 which coincided with the early second wave of the feminist movement. The themes in the book were much like the ones discussed through the movement but Atwood goes on to deny that the book is feminist and that she wrote it four years before the movement. Atwood believes that the feminist label can be applied to writer’s who consciously work within the framework of the feminist movement. Atwood’s contributions to the theorizing of Canadian identity have garnered attention both in Canada and internationally. Her principal work of literary criticism, Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (1972), is considered outdated in Canada but remains the standard introduction to Canadian literature in Canadian Studies programs internationally. In Survival, Atwood postulates that Canadian literature, and by extension Canadian identity, is characterized by the symbol of survival. This symbol is expressed in the omnipresent use of “victim positions” in Canadian literature. These positions represent a scale of self-consciousness and selfactualization for the victim in the “victor/victim” relationship. The “victor” in these scenarios may be other humans, nature, the wilderness or other external and internal factors which oppress the victim. In Surfacing (1972), the female narrator blurts out, “This is above all, I refuse to be a victim”. The victim position assumed by the characters in her novels will be studied intensely in the Paper. This Paper intends to reread Atwood using the psychological prism and will find out does she really emerge as a feminist “other” or not. Besides this, the want for Canadian identity in her novels will be analyzed minutely against the backdrop of Psychoanalysis. The temptation is to run the Paper through various categories, like the theories that have influenced her: identity politics, the body, the Gothic, the environment, Canada, the post-colonial, science fiction and, of course, Psychoanalysis.

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PSYCHOANALYTIC DIVING IN ATWOOD’S SURFACING Psychoanalytic literary criticism refers to literary criticism which, in method, concept, theory or form is influenced by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by Sigmund Freud. This paper will attempt a Psychoanalytic study of Surfacing, a complex novel by Margaret Atwood with multidimensional themes. As the novel contains evidences of unresolved emotions, psychological conflicts, guilts, ambivalences and so forth. Within the framework of psychoanalysis, the actions of the protagonist will be decoded and appreciated. The unnamed narrator of Surfacing (1970), has been living in the city, an unnatural construct of concrete and steal, a symbol of rigidity and control. Her victimized spirit identifies itself with the lifeless logged woods, the hanged heron and the frog used as bait in fishing. The expression of self through the medium of symbols is the delineation of psychological material as stated: Psychological material will be expressed indirectly, disguised, or encoded (as in dreams) through principles such as “symbolism” (the repressed object represented in disguise), “condensation” (several thoughts or persons represented in a single in a single image), and displacement (anxiety located into another image by means of association.

— (Online) The symbols of heron, baited fish etc represent the inner chaos of the protagonist. She fails to speak about the conflict she is going through and gives a vent to them through symbols. The protagonist is going through severe conflict between Id, Ego and Superego. Bressler (150) says in this regard: ID is irrational, instinctual, unknown unconscious, containing secret desires, Wishes, fears. It houses the libido, source of psychological desires and psychic desires and psychic energies; pleasure principle resides in ID.

It is the sheer doing of “Id” principle in the protagonist which makes her to plunge in the marriage which is sans love. The protagonist feels baffled about the institution of marriage and feels as if she is just playing the part of bride. She says: He coiled his arms around me, protecting me from something, the future, and Kissed me on the forehead. “You’re cold,” he said. My legs were shaking so much I could hardly stand up and there was an ache, slow like a groan. “Come on”, he said, “We’d better get you home”…He was talking to me as if I was an invalid, not a bride.

— (1972:82) And about “Ego” Principle, Bressler says: Ego is rational, logical, waking part, corresponds to the reality principle, it regulates desire from Id.

— (150-151)

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“Superego” comes into play,when the narrator feels inwardly that the act of abortion was a fatal blow that made her head droop down in shame of her powerlessness. She is a party to the crime and must punish self for the ruthless murder of fetus. So, She disconnects herself herself from society, turns into a primitive being and ponders over the past. She says: I walk to the hill and scan the shoreline, finding the place, opening when they disappeared: checking, reassuring…It’s true, I am by myself; this is what I wanted, to stay here alone. From any rational point of view, I am absurd, but there are no longer any rational points of view.

— (1972:165) For Freud, the unresolved conflict that give rise to any neurosis are the stuff of literature. Coming to the protagonist, there are several instances in the novel where in she emerges as a Schizoid patient.Sczephernia is defined as: Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder characterized by delusions, lhallucinations, incoherence and physical agitation; it is classified as a “thought” disorder while Bipolar Disorder is a “mood” disorder.

— (Online) The protagonist experiences hallucinations, mingles past and present. Even the ambiguity of what she has seen and their influence upon her has been explained by Atwood. When she says that Surfacing can be termed as a ghost story of Henry James kind, “in which the ghost that one sees is infact a fragment of one’s own self which has split off, and that to me is the most interesting kind and that is obviously the tradition I am working in” (Atwood 29) and in another interview Atwood observes: She is obsessed with finding the ghosts but once she found them she is released from that obsession. The point is, my character can see that ghosts but they can’t her. This means that she can’t enter the world of the dead, and she realizes, o.k. I’ve learned something; Now I have to make my own life.

— (Atwood, Linda 43) And, her final acceptance of life with these words: I drop the blanket on the floor and go into my dismantled room. My sphere clothes are here, knife slashes in them but I can still wear them. I dress, clumsily, unfamiliar with buttons; I re-enter my own time.

— (1972:185) The act of intercourse with Joe can be looked at as an act to sublimate the repressed desire and get rid from the guilt of abortion. After all, its only the feel of fetus surfacing within that brings her back to life and saves her from getting lost in the labyrinths of guilt. She says: But I bring with me from the distant past five nights ago the time traveler, the Primeval one who will have to learn, shape of goldfish now in my belly Undergoing its watery changes…It might be the first one, the first true human; It must be born allowed.

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— (1972:185) Not only this, the glimpses of “sublimation” which is defined by Charles Mauron as “ A basically unconscious sexual impulse is symbolically fulfilled in a positive and socially gratifying way. And sublimation acts are present in the text when she reveals her love for paintings and drawings. Even his father leaves for her a painting to decode. I concur with the many critics who insist upon the invalidity of father fixation evidence due to the lack of empirical data and the demographically restricted samples of individuals on which Freud based the majority of his ideas. I also find it hard to accept that all mental problems stem from issues concerning aspects of sex, such as unresolved. Oedipal and Electra complexes. Though it appears a gross exaggeration and overgeneralization but there are prominent traces of “Electra Complexes” in the novel. There are obvious symptoms of “father fixation” in the novel: But they must have missed something, I feel it will be different if I look myself. Probably which we get there my father will have returned from wherever he has been, he will be sitting in the cabin waiting for us.

— (1972:18) So much is her obsession with her father that she cannot take him dead and is sure that she will find him alive somehow. There is further implication of “father fixation” in the novel: All at once I’m furious with him for vanishing like this, unresolved, learning me with no answers to give them when they ask. If he was going to die he should have done it visibly, out in the open, so that they could mark him with a stone and get it over with.

— (1972:52) Not to forget that her search for her father acts as pivotal part of the novel and its this journey that acts as a medium for her redemption and salvation. She says: My father will have the island to himself; madness is private, I respect that, However he may be living its better than an institution.

— (1972:52) There are almost no references in the novel where she is projecting her mother as an affectionate figure. She is delineated as a lone, cold and morbid lady. My father explained everything but my mother never did, which only convinced me that she had answers but wouldn’t tell.

— (1972:68)

The father fixation ends only when the death of father is confirmed which culminates into her transformation. As, she now understands, she re-enters the cabin and wears her dresses and eats normal food once again. Now she slowly comes back to reality and states, “In my case, I cann’t stay here forever, there isn’t enough food…, they will never appear to me again…now on I’ll

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have to live in the usual way, defining them by their absence”( 1972:189). This transformation is aptly summed up by Salat: Hence when the protagonist surfaces from the depths of the lake, she surfaces with a new knowledge about herself that entails a re-assessment of herself in relation to the world. The psychological/spiritual journey towards self-discovery finds its culmination in a ritualistic re-alignment with the primitive world and a subsequent realignment with the lived-world with altered perspective and a new vision.

— (1993:82) To sum up, the alienation, initial victimization, guileness, immaturity and decadence of the narrator results from her psychological trauma and it is the breaking up of the mirage of the illusions that brings her back to normality and hence to life. The dive in the labyrinths of self cleanses her from all the dross of psychological disorders and hence she ceases to be a victim and comes up with the assertion: This above all, To refuse to be a victim!

— (1972:185)

Bibliography Primary Source 1.

Atwood, Margaret. Surfacing. Great Britian :Virgo press,1972.

Secondary Source 1.

Rigney, Barbara Hill. Women Writers: Margaret Atwood. Houndmill: Macmillan, 1975.

Salat, M. F. The Canadian Novel: A Search for Identity. Delhi: B. R Publishing Coorporation, 1993.

Interview with Linda Sandler. “A Question of Metamorphosis.” M. Atwood Conversations .ed. Earl G. Ingersoll. Ontario: Ontario Review Press, 1990.

www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/psycho.crit.html

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/schizophrenia

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Miss Junaid Shabir, M Phil and B. Ed, is currently pursuing Ph D from Department of English, University of Kashmir.

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October 2013

10.

MOHAMED KAMEL ABDEL-DAEM

Fredric Jameson's Critical Theory Applied to Carol Ann Duffy's Poetry Abstract The present article is partly intended to pinpoint the critical theory laid by Fredric Jameson. In fact, his dialectical critique is nothing but a re-writing or a development of the hypotheses based upon the work of earlier philosophers such as Hegel, Adorno and Althusser, treated inside a Marxist frame. Then, the study aims at criticizing Carol Ann Duffy's poetry from a dialectical point of view, as put by Jameson. The applied part of the study will mainly depend upon analyzing certain collections by Duffy: Standing Female Nude (1985), Mean Time (1993), The World's Wife (1999) and Rapture (2005). The study examines the impact of Duffy's context on her verse, how her dramatic form reflects an ideology, and the repressed facts in her poetry revealed by her symbolism and psychologizing; since dialectical criticism assesses the works of a writer as one whole text, references to other poems will be inevitable. Fredric Jameson's Critical Theory Applied to Carol Ann Duffy's Poetry Both Fredric Jameson (1934 - ) and Carol Ann Duffy(1955 - ) have had anti-Capitalist beliefs; Jameson has absorbed Marxist formulae, and Duffy's work matters for Marxist criticism as her poetry often criticizes the capitalist climate of contemporary Britain, and ''articulates her frustrations with a nation that has traded its traditional values for 'Mo-ney. Pow-er. Fame' ''( Duffy,2004 121) . Also, Marxism matters for us today as the recent ( present-day) world financial crisis has led to a compulsive questioning of capitalist globalism and created '' fertile ground for the growth of interest in genuine socialism and Marxism''* As founded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Marxism, in its traditional form views that capitalism has led to the oppression of the proletariat, or the poor majority, who work for the benefit of the bourgeoisie, or the higher class in society. Marxism advocates a proletariat revolution which may implement reforms for the good of their class. The working classes form a society's economic base. The upper classes form a superstructure which has political and legal power. The base complies with the social consciousness, and it controls the superstructure and the social consciousness. The base decides the superstructure, in the beginning, and remains the support of a form of social organization which then can act again upon both parts of the base and superstructure, whose relationship is dialectical, not literal (Marx 265-9). According to M.H. Abrams, Marxist criticism is based on certain rules: 45

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1) the evolving history of humanity, of its social relations, of its institutions, and of its ways of thinking are largely determined by the changing mode of its ' material production' â&#x20AC;&#x201C; that is, of its overall economic organization. 2) historical changes in the fundamental mode of production effect changes in the social class structure, establishing in each era dominant and subordinate classes that engage in a struggle for economic, political, and social advantage. "The Great Implosion". Socialism Today. Issue 122( Oct 2008): 6 secs * 3) human consciousness is constituted by an ideology â&#x20AC;&#x201C; that is, the beliefs, values, and ways of thinking and feeling through which human beings perceive, and by recourse to which they explain, what they take to be reality. An ideology is the product of the position and interests of a particular class. The dominant ideology in a certain era embodies, and serves to legitimize and perpetuate, the interests of the dominant economic and social class (Abrams 241). The present study tries to highlight Fredric Jameson's critical theory based on the concept of dialectical criticism, and use it to assess Carol Ann Duffy's verse. Fredric Jameson belongs to the Post-Althusserian ( or Neo-) Marxist critics who reject the '' so-called vulgar Marxist view that works of art are wholly determined by socio-economic forces and argues that they have relative autonomy and are overdetermined '' ( Newton 241). In his literary criticism, Jameson has '' pursued such politically oriented cultural work â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the disengagement of the seeds of the future from the present both through analysis and political praxis" ( Davis 372). The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms defines dialectic as: 1. the art of formal reasoning, especially the procedure of seeking truth through debate or discussion; 2. the reasoning or logical structure that holds together a continuous argument or exposition; 3. the interplay of contradictory principles or opposed forces, as understood in the European tradition, a philosophy influenced by W. F. Hegel and including Marx and Engels. Some schematic versions of dialectical philosophy speak of a unification of opposites in which the thesis is opposed to by the antithesis but united with it in a higher synthesis (Baldick 62). Fredric Jameson's theory assumes that all kinds of critique are used, as tools, or aids to a comprehensive Marxist framework of literary judgment. A dialectical critic can explore and interpret all sides in a work of art: gender, race, class, character, myth, symbol. He can put all this on a Marxist ground by virtue of having historical and socio-economic totality. Jameson sees that commercialist capitalism has controlled the cultural and literary arena during the 20th century and afterwards. He has embedded many critical trends into his unconventional theory: structuralism, post-structuralism, psychoanalysis, formalism. He makes use of a twofold meaning of ideology and utopia in order to lay focus on the ideological aspects in a literary work, which 46

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look forward to a utopian world, and thus help in criticizing the contemporary capitalist society. This is provided by different types of artistic work: realistic, imaginative, popular. Jameson's canon urges a critic to contextualize a literary text in history, i.e., to show its historical and cultural background. Jameson thinks that literary categories may well reflect their historical or political environment. The capitalist environment in which a literary text is created imposes on the writer, intentionally or unconsciously, ' hidden history ' or ' buried narrative ' that clashes with his surrounding reality. The missed parts may be evident through literary form or style, or the artist's treatment: subjective or objective. Dialectical theory, then, has enabled Jameson to bring together hardly harmonious critical methods in a co-operative whole (Best 182-4). The French Marxist philosopher, Louis Althusser, has had a big influence on Jameson. Althusser avoids the traditional Marxist ( or Hegelian) terms such as 'social system' and 'order' because they suggest a structure with a centre which determines the form of all its findings. Being attracted by structuralism and post-structuralism, he regards the 'social formation' as a 'decentered structure' which has no governing principle, no originating seed, or overall unity. The various elements (or levels) within the social formation are not treated as reflections of one essential level (the economic level for Marxists); the levels possess a 'relative autonomy'. The social formation is a structure in which the various levels exist in complex relations of inner contradiction and mutual conflict. This structure of contradictions may be dominated at any given stage by one or other of the levels, but which level it is to be is itself determined ultimately by the economic level, only in the last instance. Althusser refuses to treat art as simply a form of ideology. He locates art somewhere between ideology and scientific knowledge. A great work of literature does not give us a properly conceptual understanding of reality but neither does it merely express the ideology of a particular class. Following Engels, Althusser declares that art ' makes us see, for a distance, the ideology from which it is born â&#x20AC;Ś , from which it detaches itself as art, and to which it alludes'. He defines ideology as ' a representation of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence' (Selden 39). The imaginary consciousness helps us to make sense of the world but also makes or represses our real relationship to it. A dominant system of ideology is accepted as a commonsense view of things by the dominated classes and thus the interests of the dominant class are guarded. Art, however, finds an imaginary distance from the very ideology of the writer. In a Marxist viewpoint, Althusser treats the text as a ' production ' in which a number of different sources are worked over and changed in the process, rather than as a 'creation' or a self-contained artifact. The text has an 'unconscious' which works the pre-given materials that are not consciously used to create a controlled and unified work of art. When that state of consciousness (or ideology) enters the text it takes on a different form. Ideology is normally lived as if it were totally natural, as if its fictional and smooth discourse gives a perfect and unified explanation of reality. Once it is worked into a text, all its contradictions and gaps are exposed. The realist writer intends to unify all the elements in the text, but the work that goes on in the textual process inevitably produces certain lapses and omissions which correspond to the incoherence of the ideological discourse it uses: 'for in order to say anything, there are other things which must not be said '. The literary critic is not concerned to show how all the parts of the work fit together, or to 47

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harmonize any apparent contradictions. Like a psychoanalyst, the critic looks into the text's unconscious to find what is unspoken and inevitably suppressed (Held 35-6). Hegel's dialectic has been a guide to Jameson. To Plato, dialectical method is dialogue between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject, who wish to establish the truth of the matter by dialogue, with reasoned arguments (Jowett 37). Hegelian dialectic is usually presented in a three-fold manner: a thesis, giving rise to its reaction, an antithesis, which contradicts or negates the thesis, and the tension between the two being resolved by means of synthesis. Hegel used a three-valued logical model that is very similar, but his most usual terms were: 'Abstract – Negative – Concrete', or 'Immediate – Mediated – Concrete'. To describe the activity of overcoming the negative, Hegel used the term ' sublation' or 'overcoming', to conceive of the working of dialectic. For him, the purpose of dialectic is '' to study things in their own being and movement and thus to demonstrate the finitude of the partial categories of understanding''. A Marxist dialectical criticism always recognizes the historical origins of its own concepts and never allows the concepts to become outdated or irrelevant to the requirements of reality. We can never get outside our subjective existence in time, but we can try to break through the hardening shell of our ideas into a more brilliant awareness of reality itself. A dialectical critic aims to uncover the inner form of a genre or a whole of texts, and proceeds from the surface of a work inward to the level where literary form is deeply related to the concrete reality (Fox 32-43). The ideals of the Frankfurt School – pioneers: Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse – have had a far-reaching influence on Jameson. Inspired by Marxian and Freudian thought and rejecting realism, they regard the social system, in Hegelian fashion, as a totality in which all aspects reflect the same essence. Their analysis of modern culture has been influenced by fascism. In America, they have found a similar ' one dimensional' quality in the mass culture and the commercialist penetration into every aspect of life. Art or literature does not have a direct contact with reality; its detachment gives it its special significance. This helps Modernist writings to have a power of criticizing reality. Adorno argues that art cannot simply reflect the social system, but acts within that reality as an active rebel that produces an indirect sort of knowledge: 'art is the negative knowledge of the actual world'. Literary form is not simply a unified and compressed reflection of the form of society, but a special means of distancing reality and preventing the easy re-absorption of new insights into familiar and consumable packages. The Frankfurt school's work has much of the authentic Hegelian subtlety in dialectical thought. In Hegel's opinion, dialectic is seen as '' the development which arises from the resolution of contradictions inherent in a particular aspect of reality''. The commercial exploitation of artistic techniques in popular art forces the writer to respond by producing a shattered and fragmented art, in which the very grammar of literary language is denied (Bernstein 208). It has been an important event that a major Marxist theorist, Fredric Jameson, could appear in America where the labour movement has been partially corrupted and totally excluded from political power. Jameson believes that the Hegelian Marxism could adapt itself to the postindustrial monopolistic capitalism. Based on Hegel's philosophy, it shows: 'the relationship of 48

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part to whole, the opposition between concrete and abstract, the concept of totality, the dialectic of appearance and essence, the interaction between subject and object'. For dialectical thought, there are no fixed and unchanging 'objects'; an object is integrally bound up with a bigger whole, and is also related to a thinking mind, as well as an individual artistic work, which is always part of a larger structure ( a tradition or a movement) or part of a historical moment. Therefore, dialectical criticism does not isolate individual literary works for analysis. The dialectical critic has no pre-set categories to apply to literature, and he is always aware that his chosen categories ( style, character, image, etc.) must be ultimately understood as an aspect of the writer's own historical situation. Jameson suggests that society imposes a strategy of repression on both art and history. Literary texts offer solutions which are merely symptoms of the suppression of history. Inspired by A.J. Greimeas' semiotic theory and by Georg Lukacs' work on the realistic historical novel, Jameson discusses in ideological literary texts strategies of containment which appear as formal patterns; a number of banned human relations (sexual, legal, etc.) are applied to a text's strategies to allow the analyst to discover the possibilities which are not said. This ' not said' is the 'repressed history'(Selden 44-6). In Jameson's opinion, all interpretations of literature are necessarily transcendent and ideological; we have to use ideological concepts as a means of transcending ideology. He takes from Freud the essential concept of 'repression' but applies it to the collective level rather than the individual. Ideology represses 'revolution' and both are aided by a 'political unconscious'. To analyze a work of art, we need to establish an absent cause (the 'not revolution'). Jameson proposes a critical method which includes three 'horizons': a level of immanent analysis, a level of social-discourse analysis, and an epochal-level of historical reading. Broadly, Jameson accepts Althusser's Marxist view of the social totality as a 'decentered structure' in which various levels develop in 'relative autonomy' and work on different time-scales. This complex structure of discordant and unexplained modes of production is the heterogeneous history which is mirrored in the heterogeneity of texts. He shows that the textual heterogeneity can be understood when it is related to social and cultural heterogeneity outside the text. Marxist criticism is valued more than all the other interpretative modes, by containing their positive findings within a political interpretation of literary texts. The repression by ideology of the contradictions of history into the depths of the political unconscious makes the content of this repressed history as the collective struggle to extract moments of freedom from a realm of necessity. Jameson advises the Marxist critic to allegorically rewrite the literary text in such a way that the text may be seen as the reconstruction of a prior historical or ideological subtext â&#x20AC;&#x201C; that is, of the text's unspoken, because repressed and unconscious, awareness of the ways it is determined not only by current ideology, but also by the long-term process of true history (Arac 261-79). As for Carol Ann Duffy, her context is apparent in her poetry. She was the daughter of Roman Catholic Scottish parents who lived in one of the poor slums of Glasgow, and who had Irish roots. Then her family moved to England. She has described her upbringing as '' left-wing, Catholic, working-class''. Her father was a parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party. Her mother, May, wrote anecdotes and songs for children. Carol studied philosophy at Liverpool University; she has learned about Ludwig's Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, and the futility of language to convey meaning. There, she met the poet Adrian Henri and lived with him 49

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until 1982. This unlawful relationship (and others) has a great effect upon her verse. She said, '' he gave me confidence … he was great. It was all poetry,… very heady, and he was never faithful. He thought poets had a duty to be unfaithful''. In 1999, she was nominated as Poet Laureate but lost the position because of the gay life she has led. Refusing this appointment, Duffy declared that she '' will not write a poem for Edward and Sophie (referring to the 1999 marriage of Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones) … no self-respecting poet should have to write about royal weddings'' (Savage 12). She thought that Laureateship compels her to write poems for royal events, funerals and various state occasions. She calls herself a ''poet of the family'' and sees the history of the royal family as entwined with British national identity. But in 2009, she accepted the post both to achieve her daughter's wish, and to create a feminist presence in a male-dominated world of poetry: ''I took on it as a recognition of the great woman poets we have writing now. I've decided to accept it for that reason''. She thinks that '' it's good to have someone who's prepared to say poetry is part of our national life'' (Preston 14). When asked to write a poem for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middelton, Duffy has escaped the specified occasion by celebrating the rings found in nature. Duffy cannot be put under a certain category of poet: feminist, political or romantic (Rees-Jones 2). Most of Duffy's poems are based on autobiographical (or contextual) experiences. She thinks that ''each poem had to be personally honest, and have some kind of autobiographical element in it, whether it had happened to [her] or whether it was an emotional or intellectual truth''( Viner 21). Duffy's childhood experiences are recollected in poems such as ''Litany'' and ''Stafford Afternoons''. Her imprudent behaviour is evident in a big number of her poems; however her earlier love poems (written in the 1980s) depict the beloved as someone whose gender is not mentioned. She did not start writing about sexual relationships until her 1993 collection, Mean Time (DiMarco 25). This has coincided with the beginning of Tony Blair's regime, whose government, Duffy thinks, was '' brought to power by Peter Mandelson and introduced civil partnership''; this has been Blair's '' cool Britannia'' Duffy exemplified( Godwin 1-22). '' Little Red-Cap'' is about a young girl who tries to write poetry, and is seduced by a ' wolf-poet'. The Way My Mother Speaks'' is about the role played by Carol's mother in the poet's life and verse. In ''Valentine'', she deplorably resorts to rejecting romantic love that leads to marriage. There cannot be a clear break between the poet's personality and her poems; in The World's Wife, Duffy implicitly expresses her own views in the voices of imaginary characters ( from myth or history but in a postmodern frame). Thus her ideological context is always behind her poems. ''Anne Hathaway'' describes the nature of her long, gay relationship with Adrian Henri: The bed we loved in was a spinning world Of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas ……………………………………………. On these lips; my body now a softer rhyme To his, now echo, assonance; his touch A verb dancing in the centre of a noun. ……………………………………….

October 2013 I hold him in the casket of my widow's head As he held me upon that next best bed.

Duffy mostly uses dramatic monologues ( sometimes sonnets), expressed in simple diction. She often speaks about degraded persons, prostitutes who sold their chastity. This form reflects an ideology: the poet's view of the bad effects of capitalism on society; she sees contemporary Britain as a woman who sold her values for capitalist or materialistic benefit. The dramatic monologue is a poetic form reputably used by R. Browning, where " a single speaker is talking to someone, if only himself … the sense of the presence of an audience is extremely important" ( Grosskurth 13). This genre allows the poet to declare her own ideology, i.e. to ''give facts from within''( Langbaum 78). Dramatic monologues allow Duffy to trade places with the perpetrators of consumerism in order to demonstrate her intolerance with the capitalist social climate associated with the former Tory government of Margaret Thatcher and John Major( Evans 6). In ''Frau Fraud'', for example, the poet creates a modern voice for a historical character. Robert Maxwell is Jewish man who survived the holocaust, and moved to England. The capitalist atmosphere in modern Britain allows this cunning person to be wealthy: What was my aim? To change from a bum To a billionaire. …………………. Poverty's dumb. Take it from me Sunny Jim. ……………………….. Then there's Him – From whom I paid for a butch and femme To make him come.

This previously vulnerable character is hardened by time. The tone changes throughout the poem. This is due to the use of various styles: direct and factual, rapid, slangy curse words, ellipsis. The changeable voices show the character's negative attitude towards English life. In ''Havisham'', Duffy uses a literary persona (taken from Dickens). Miss Havisham feels anguished and lonely after she is deserted by her lover who has been about to marry her: Not a day since then I haven't wished him dead. Prayed for it So hard I have dark green pebbles for eyes Ropes on the back of my hand I could strangle with ………………………………………………… Beloved sweetheart bastard

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Miss Havisham symbolizes the British people who have been shocked by the 1990s' capitalist laws that reduce the role of governments to look after people's affairs. In ''Mrs Faust'', a couple show their desire for material wealth, ambition and power. Christopher Marlowe's Dr Faustus sells himself to the devil, but Mrs Faust and her husband are gradually corrupted by their materialistic status. They lose their morality, love for each other and conscience. The poem is as fast and abbreviated as a short business telephone conversation. In ''Education for Leisure'', Duffy explores the mind of an unbalanced person who plans to commit murder. He/She has finished education, but can find no work, or even enjoy a joyful holiday. In a capitalist atmosphere, job opportunities are not easy to get, so boredom affects people's sanity. The sonnet could be also used for political comment. The structure of the Italian sonnet allows the possibility of an argument. The octave displays a proposition or a problem, and the sestet presents a resolution. The ninth line create a 'turn' or 'volta' which marks the change from proposition to resolution; it may also signal a change in the tone or vision of the poem. In English sonnets, the 'volta' occurs in the third quatrain, while Shakespeare usually creates the turn in the couplet to summarize the theme of the poem or introduce a fresh look at the theme( Fuller xxv-xxix). Duffy does not adhere to conventional rhyme or metre of the sonnet. In ''Cold'', for example, the speaker loses the feeling of warmth after her mother's death. Her permanent feeling of coldness symbolizes a loss of emotion, and a person who cares. In the ninth line, the speaker tells us why she always feels cold: my mother's voice calling me in From the cold

This instinctual sense of belonging to a family and a cosy home makes her feel safe. Capitalist life has distorted the family relationships, and set people apart from each other. The couplet presents some illumination when the speaker becomes exposed to the life of practicality: in the Chapel of Rest where my mother lay, neither young, nor old, Where my lips, returning her kiss to her brow, knew the meaning of cold

Duffy often uses symbols in her poems. She also presents psychic characters who often speak in ironic tones. This technique creates a repressed history in her poems; it forms a resistance strategy that indirectly attacks the political and social system in her country and the western world. The dominating ideology in capitalist England has imposed on her to use symbolism, rather than directly criticize capitalist leaders. In ''Stealing'', Duffy displays a strange person who likes stealing everything or anything; whether he needs it or not, whether he can use it or not: One time, I stole a guitar and thought I might Learn to play. I nicked a bust of Shakespeare once, Flogged it, but the snowman was strangest You don't understand a word I'm saying, do you?

When he feels bored, he steals a snowman in order that he may take the children's feeling of pleasure. But ironically the snowman melts and he cannot get rid of his sense of boredom. Duffy sees that in a capitalist society, theft becomes inevitable or it becomes a lifestyle. The 52

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bourgeoisie often deprive the proletariat from happiness. Having a Leftist upbringing, Duffy often lampoons the powerful and gives voice to the oppressed, and ''it is perhaps this tendency, rather than her sexuality, that lies at the heart of the Poet Laureate controversy [what made Tony Blair prevent her from gaining the title in 1999]'' (Evans 12). Following his Marxist examples*, Fredric Jameson sees that a literary work is marked by its resistance to capitalist commercialism. A work of art opposes society by means of indirect disapproval; it ''refuses to engage in direct reflection of social surface; it does not want to duplicate the façade of reality, but makes an uncompromising reprint of reality while at the same time avoiding being contaminated by it", creating '' a negative sense of reality'' (Adorno 28-36). On this ground, Carol Ann Duffy – who writes less sophisticated, less difficult poems than those of the avant-garde poets such as Eliot and Pound – is relevant to be evaluated by Marxist rules. Marxist critics reject modernist fragmentation and difficulty for they miss the real banalities of daily life (Hardt 123-48). Hints: * Majorie Perloff, "The Aura of Modernism,'' Modernist Cultures, Vol.1, Issue 1, Spring 2005 Bibliography Primary Sources 1.

Duffy, Carol Ann. Standing Female Nude. London: Anvil Press, 1985.

---------------------. Mean Time. London: Anvil Press, 1993.

--------------------. The World's Wife. London: Picador, 1999.

-------------------- . New Selected Poems – 1984-2004. London: Picador, 2004.

-------------------. Rapture. New York: Picador, 2005.

Jameson, Fredric. Marxism and Form: Twentieth-Century Dialectical Theories of Literature. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971.

----------------. The Prison-House of Language: A Critical Account of Structuralism and Russian Formalism. Princeton: PUP, 1972.

----------------. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1981.

---------------. Postmodernism, Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991.

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Secondary Sources 1.

Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 6th ed. Orlando: Harcourt & Co., 1993

Adorno, Theodor. Aesthetic Theory. Trans. C. Lenhart. London: Routledge, 1984

Arac, Jonathan. "Fredric Jameson and Marxism". Critical Genealogies. New York: Columbia UP, 1987.

Baldick, Cris

Mohamed Kamel Abdel-Daem, from Egypt, is a lecturer in English literature at Shaqra University, Saudi Arabia. He got his M.A. in English literature, in 2010, at South Valley University, Egypt. His main interests feature: English poetry, comparative studies, translation and theology. His publications are: “A Brief Survey of Contemporary English Poetry”(textbook), " The Panegyric in Old and Early-Middle English Poetry", and " Translation of Present-Day Egyptian Slang into English" .

Get Your Book Reviewed by Contemporary Literary Review India — journal that brings articulate writings for articulate readers.

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11.

SHAILENDRA CHAUHAN

A Thought on Theory and Criticism of Literature The most important part of literary theory and criticism is poetics, the study of the structure of individual works and groups of works, for example, all the works of a particular writer or the works of a literary school or epoch. Poetics may be related to each of the major areas of literary theory and criticism. In literary theory it provides knowledge of the structure of any literary work (general poetics). Within the scope of literary history, historical poetics investigates the development of artistic structures and their elements, such as genres, plots, and stylistic images. The principles of poetics may also be applied in criticism in the strict sense. Stylistics occupies a similar position in literary theory and criticism. Stylistics may be included in literary theory as part of general poetics; here stylistics is the study of one level of the structure, the stylistic and language level. In literary history stylistics treats the language and style of a particular current or school. The stylistic study of contemporary works has almost always been one of the chief functions of literary criticism in the strict sense. Contemporary literary theory and criticism encompasses a complex and changing group of disciplines. There are three main areas of study: literary theory, the history of literature, and literary criticism in the strict sense (literaturnaia kritika). The theory of literature investigates the general laws of the structure and development of literature. The history of literature studies the literary past as a process or one of the stages of this process. Literary criticism is concerned with the most recent, the â&#x20AC;&#x153;presentâ&#x20AC;? state of literature. It also interprets the literature of the past from the standpoint of modern social and artistic aims. Literary criticism in the strict sense is not universally accepted as being part of the scholarly discipline of literary theory and criticism. The three spheres of literary theory and criticism are closely related. Criticism, for example, is dependent on information derived from literary history and theory, which in turn take into account and reveal the significance of criticism. Moreover, secondary disciplines have arisen in literary theory and criticism, such as the theory and history of criticism in the strict sense, the history of poetics (as opposed to historical poetics), and the theory of the stylistics of artistic language. The various disciplines within literary theory and criticism also shift from one level to another: thus, criticism becomes material for the history of literature, for historical poetics, and for other studies. In addition to the principal disciplines already mentioned, there are many auxiliary disciplines, such as the study of archives relating to literary theory and criticism, the compilation of bibliographies of literature and criticism, heuristics, paleography, textual criticism and commentary, and the theory and practice of publishing. In the mid-20th century mathematical methods, especially those of statistics, were widely adopted in literary theory and criticism, primarily in prosody, stylistics, textual criticism, and folklore study, where quantifiable 55

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structural segments can be isolated more easily. The auxiliary disciplines are an indispensable foundation for the primary disciplines. As they develop and grow increasingly complex, however, they may set independent scholarly goals and acquire independent cultural functions. Literary theory and criticism is in many ways linked to the humanities, some of which (philosophy, aesthetics) serve as its methodological basis; other branches of the humanities resemble literary theory and criticism in their goals and subject of investigation (folklore studies, art studies) or are related by a general humanistic orientation (history, psychology, sociology). The many links between literary theory and criticism and linguistics are based not only on common material (language as a means of communication and as the raw material of literature) but also on the contiguity of the epistemological functions of words and images and on an analogy between the structure of words and images. The close relation between literary theory and criticism and the other humanities was formerly reflected in the concept of philology as a synthesizing branch of learning, studying culture in all its written manifestations, including literary works. In the mid-20th century the concept of philology suggests the affinity between literary theory and criticism and linguistics; in the strict sense philology denotes textual criticism. History of schools and trends. Literary theory and criticism originated in early antiquity in the form of mythological concepts, for example, the reflection in myths of the classical differentiation between the arts. Judgments about art are found in such ancient works as the Indian Vedas (tenth to second centuries B.C.), the Chinese Book of Legends (Shu Ching, 12th to fifth centuries B.C.), and the ancient Greek Iliad and Odyssey (eighth and seventh centuries B.C.). In Europe the first concepts of art and literature were developed by the ancient thinkers. Plato dealt with aesthetic problems, including that of the beautiful, from the standpoint of objective idealism and examined the epistemological nature and educational function of art. He also contributed to the theory of art and literature, classifying literature as epic, lyric, or dramatic. Although Aristotle’s works Poetics, Rhetoric, and Metaphysics preserve the general aesthetic approach to art, they introduce several disciplines of literary study, including the theory of literature, stylistics, and especially poetics. Aristotle’s Poetics, containing the first systematic exposition of the fundamentals of poetics, initiated a long tradition of treatises on poetics. As time passed, however, these works became more normative, for example, Horace’s Art of Poetry. Along with classical poetics there developed rhetoric, initially the study of oratory and prose in general, for example, Aristotle’s Rhetoric, the works of Isocrates and Cicero, and Quintilian’s The Training of an Orator. The theory of prose and stylistics developed within the framework of rhetoric. The writing of treatises on rhetoric, as well as poetics, continued into modern times; in Russia M. V. Lomonosov published his Short Manual on Eloquence in 1748. Criticism in the strict sense also arose in Europe in antiquity, as may be seen from the early philosophers’ opinions about Homer and the comparison of the tragedies of Aeschylus and Euripides in Aristophanes’ comedy The Frogs (405 B.C.). Initially, criticism was inseparable not only from other areas of literary study but from art as a whole. Significant differentiation in literary theory and criticism occurred in the Hellenistic age. During the period of Alexandrian philology (third and second centuries B.C.) literary theory and 56

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criticism, along with other studies, broke away from philosophy and formed its own disciplines, including biobibliography (the Tablets of Callimachus, the prototype of the literary encyclopedia), textual criticism to determine the authenticity of a text, and textual commentary and the publication of texts (Zenodotus of Ephesus, Aristophanes of Byzantium, and later Aristarchus of Samothrace). Later, comparative historical studies arose, for example, comparisons of classical works from the standpoint of the sublime and the beginning of the section entitled “Being” in the treatise On the Sublime, written in the first century A.D. by an unidentified author known as Pseudo-Lon-ginus. Profound concepts of art and literature also developed in the Oriental countries in ancient times. In China the doctrine of the social and educational function of art evolved within Confucianism (Hsiin-tsu, c. 298–238 B.C.). The Taoist school developed an aesthetic theory of the beautiful in conformity with Tao, the universal creative principle (Lao-tzu, sixth and fifth centuries B.C.). In India problems of artistic structure were worked out in relation to theories of the psychological perception of art, called rasa (in Bharata’s Natyasastra, c. fourth century and later treatises), and theories of dhvani, the hidden meaning of works of art (in Anandavardhana’s Dhvanyaloka,ninth century). Primary attention was given to style, that is, to the linguistic realization of artistic effects. In the Oriental countries general theoretical and aesthetic methods (alongside textual analysis and bibliographic work) predominated for many centuries. Research on the historical and evolutionary plane appeared only in the 19th and 20th centuries. Byzantium and the Latin works of the Western European peoples were the links between ancient and modern literary theory and criticism. Stimulated by the study and collection of ancient works, literary study in Byzantium was primarily concerned with biobibliography and commentary. Important Byzantine works included one of the first European encyclopedic collections of literary works, Photius’ Myriobiblon (ninth century), containing paraphrases and evaluations of literary works; Suidas’ biographic dictionary of ancient authors (c. tenth century); commentaries on Homer, Pindar, and other authors by Johannes Tzetzes (12th century) and Eustathius of Thessalonica (12th century); and a treatise on rhetoric by Michael Psellus (11th century). In Latin works, philological study stressed the writing of compendiums and textbooks on rhetoric. At the same time, within a theological framework and often assimilating Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism, the philosophical and epistemological principles of literary theory and criticism were developed by St. Augustine in the fourth and fifth centuries and St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century. The Renaissance stimulated the creation of original poetics adapted to local and national conditions. The problem of language, extending beyond stylistics and rhetoric, became the general theoretical problem of establishing modern European languages as legitimate material of poetry. Important works on this subject include Dante’s treatise On Popular Speech (1304–07) and Du Bellay’s Defense and Illustration of the French Language (1549). The right of literary theory and criticism to deal with contemporary artistic phenomena was affirmed in Boccaccio’s lectures on the Divine Comedy and his biography The Life of Dante Alighieri (c. 1360). The moral significance of contemporary literature was the subject of the Englishman P.Sidney’s Defense of Poesie written in 1583. But inasmuch as modern literary theory and 57

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criticism was developing out of the “discovery of antiquity,” the Renaissance faced the problem of originality in its full force. Solutions to this problem ranged from attempts to adapt elements of classical poetics to modern literature (the application of the norms of the Aristotelian theory of drama to the epic in T. Tasso’s Discourse on the Art of Poetry, 1587) to the rejection of classical authorities (F. Patrizi’s On Poetry, 1586). The view of the classical genres as “eternal” canons coexisted with the sense of dynamism and incompleteness that was characteristic of the Renaissance. The prevailing tripartite division of man’s history into antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance (the term was first used by G. Vasari in his Lives, 1550) anticipated G. Vico’s theory of cycles and the doctrine of stages of cultural development expressed by the romantics and found in the dialectical philosophical systems of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Beginning in the late 16th century and especially in the age of classicism, the trend toward systematizing artistic laws became more pronounced, and the normative and pragmatic character of artistic theory was emphasized. In his Art of Poetry (1674), N. Boileau relegated general epistemological and aesthetic problems to the background and concentrated on constructing a harmonious poetics imbued with Cartesianism and conceived as a system of genre, stylistic, and linguistic norms. The exclusive and obligatory nature of Boileau’s norms made his treatise and such related works as J. C. Gottsched’s Experiment With a Critical Poetics for Germans(1730) and A. P. Sumarokov’s Epistle on Versification (1748) literary codes. Rationalism also stimulated attempts to achieve a deductive knowledge of art and to reduce all its elements to “one principle,” for example, imitation (C. Batteux’s The Fine Arts Reduced to One General Principle, 1746). However, the 17th and 18th centuries also saw a strong trend opposing the normative approach to literary types and genres. In defending the mixing of genres S. Johnson pointed to Shakespeare’s works in his Lives of the Most Outstanding English Poets (1779–1781). D. Diderot advocated middle-class drama, a genre between tragedy and comedy. Finally, with E. Joung (Description of Original Works, 1759) and G. E. Lessing (Hamburg Dramaturgy, 1767– 69), this tendency grew into an attack on all normative poetics, thus opening the way for the aesthetic and literary theories of the romantics. During the Enlightenment attempts were also made to explain the development of literature in terms of local conditions, particularly environment and climate (J. Dubos, Critical Reflections on Poetry and Painting, 1719; writings of Montesquieu and J. J. Winckelmann), which anticipated the later theories of determinism. In the 18th century the first courses in literary history were given, notably G. Tiraboschi’s History of Italian Literature (1772–82), T. War-ton’s History of English Poetry(1774–81), and J. La Harpe’s Lyceum, or Course in Ancient and Modern Literature (1799–1805), based on a historical consideration of the types of poetry. It is more difficult to date the appearance of literary criticism in the strict sense, which evolved in the course of more than a century, from F. Malherbe, Boileau, and J. Dryden (whom S. Johnson called the father of English criticism) to Lessing, Diderot, J. Marmontel, and N. M. Karamzin, who was the first Russian to include in his magazine a substantial section devoted to criticism and bibliography. 58

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In the late 18th century an important change occurred in European literary thought, shaking the stable hierarchy of artistic values. The inclusion of folklore in the scholarly study of medieval European and Oriental literatures cast doubt on the validity of models, whether classical or Renaissance. There developed a strong sense of the intrinsic merit of artistic criteria of different ages which ought not to be compared. This attitude was best expressed by J. G. Herder in his Shakespeare (1773) and Ideas Toward a Philosophy of Human History (1784–91). The category of the “unique” came to denote the literature of a given people or period, possessing its own measure of perfection. Following J. Hamann in studying the Eastern sources of classical Greek literature and approaching the Bible as an artistic work of a particular age, Herder created the preconditions for the comparative historical method. The romantic view that different criteria existed developed into the concept of different cultural periods expressing the spirit of a particular people or era. Adhering to the classification of art forms proposed by J. F. Schiller (On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry, 1795), the romantics drew a distinction between classical (ancient) and modern (Christian) art forms. Recognizing the impossibility of restoring the classical form, the romantics stressed the endless mutability and capacity for renewal of art (F. Schlegel, Fragments, 1798). A. Schlegel applied this idea to literary history in his Berlin lectures on literature and art (1801–03) and his Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature (1809–11). However, in establishing modern art as romantic, as imbued with the Christian symbolism of the spiritual and infinite, the romantics imperceptibly, and despite the dialectical tone of their doctrine, restored the category of model (historically medieval art and regionally Oriental art). At the same time, in the idealist philosophical systems, culminating in Hegel’s philosophy, the idea of the development of art was embodied in a phenomenology of artistic forms dialectically replacing each other (Hegel’s symbolic, classical, and romantic forms). The nature of the aesthetic and the distinction between it and the moral and cognitive were established philosophically by I. Kant. The inexhaustible, “symbolic” nature of the artistic image was expounded in philosophical terms by F. Schelling. Another important aspect of Hegel’s philosophy was the right of mediated (discursive-scientific) knowledge to judge artistic phenomena since “art is not so disorderly that it could not lend itself to philosophical elucidation” (Estetika, vol. 1, Moscow, 1968, p. 19); this view stood in opposition to the intuitivist tendencies that prevailed among the romantics. In the first quarter of the 19th century the scope of literary study expanded in the European countries. Many new courses were offered in literary history, notably those of F. Bouterwek inGermany, L. S. Sismondi in Switzerland, and A. Villemin in France. Disciplines arose that studied all aspects of the culture of a particular ethnic group, for example, the Slavic studies of J. Dobrovský, J. Kollár, and P. Šafařik. With the growing interest in literary history, attention shifted from great masters to the entire body of artistic facts and from world literature to the student’s own national literature, for example, G. G. Gervinus’ History of the Poetic National Literature of the Germans (1835–42). In Russian literary studies the place of ancient Russian literature was affirmed; philosophical criticism had not viewed ancient Russian literature as being part of the mainstream of European literary development and had therefore excluded it 59

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from its aesthetic system. A greater interest in pre-Petrine literature was shown in M. A. Maksimovich’s History of Ancient Russian Literature (1839), A. V. Nikitenko’s Essay on the History of Russian Literature (1845), and especially S. P. Shevyrev’s History of Russian Literature, Primarily Ancient (1846). Several methodological schools arose in Europe, cutting across national boundaries. Among the first was the mythological school (its philosophical basis was the works on aesthetics of F. Schelling and the Schlegel brothers). Interest in mythology and folklore symbolism, which had been stimulated by romanticism (F. Creuzer’s The Symbolism and Mythology of the Ancient Peoples, Particularly the Greeks, 1810–12), grew among German mythologists, who discerned an Aryan protomythology (J. Grimm, German Mythology, 1835). The common features of primitive thought as recorded in language and legend were studied. In Russia the mythologist F. I. Buslaev did not restrict himself to studying mythology but traced its historical course, including the interaction of folk poetry and written works. Later the “young mythologists”—M. Müller in England, W. Schwartz in Germany, and A. N. Afanas’ev in Russia—posed the problem of the sources of myth. In the second half of the 19th century the school of cultural history became prominent. It had evolved under the influence of many factors, including the deterministic trends in literary theory and criticism in the preceding century, the romantic interest in national and local “color,” and French historical science (F. Guizot, A. Thierry, and F. O. Mignet). Impressed by the successes of the natural sciences, the school of cultural history attempted to reduce causality and determinism in literary study to precise, tangible factors, such as H. Taine’s triune of race, milieu, and moment (History of English Literature, 1863–64). The traditions of this school were developed by De Sanctis (History of Italian Literature, 1870), W. Scherer (History of German Literature, 1880–83), and M. Meléndez y Pelayo (History of Aesthetic Ideas in Spain,1883–91). In Russia its adherents included N. S. Tikhonravov, A. N. Pypin, and N. I. Storozhenko. As the cultural history method developed, it not only underrated the artistic nature of literature, which was regarded primarily as a social document, but also revealed strong positivist tendencies that ignored the dialectical method and aesthetic criteria. At the turn of the 20th century an antipositivist trend based on idealist premises arose in Western literary theory and criticism. It assumed three principal forms. First, mediated, intellectual knowledge was disparaged in favor of intuitive knowledge as applied to both the creative act and to judgments about art (H. Bergson’s Laughter, 1900). There were attempts not only to reject the system of traditional literary categories (types of poetry, genres) but also to prove that they were fundamentally inapplicable to art. In his Aesthetics (1902), B. Croce stated that all traditional classifications and poetic terminology determined only the external structure of a work, not its artistic value. In bringing intuition into conflict with reason and conceptual judgment, the intuitionists also questioned the scholarly validity of literary theory and criticism. Second, efforts were made to overcome the superficial determinism of the cultural history school and to construct a classification of literature based on deep-rooted psychological and intellectual distinctions. Such was F. Nietzsche’s polarity of artistic types, derived from the classical gods Apollo and Dionysus: the plastic and musical, the contemplative, mental, form-creating principle 60

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as opposed to “vital,” emotional-aesthetic, turbulent, and at the same time tragic elements (The Birth of Tragedy From the Spirit of Music, 1872). Strongly influencing bourgeois and, especially, decadent aesthetics were the late Nietzsche’s irrationalism, his “tragic” relativism denying social and historical progress, and his antirealist notion of “myth-creation” in art. The Geistesgeschichte, or cultural-philosophical, school attempted to explain art in terms of deep-seated processes, above all the merging of the “epoch” (the “historical spirit”) and the “psychic” (the spiritual integrity of the individual). W. Dilthey, the leading representative of Geistesgeschichte posited three basic types of world view and artistic activity (positivists, objective idealists, and dualists). Rendering more concrete the philosophical approach to art, R. Unger considered general philosophical problems to be of lesser importance than such specific problems as fate, freedom and necessity, spirit and nature, and love and death (Philosophical Problems in Recent Literary Studies, 1908). Asserting the primacy of “emotional experience” (as a unity of the “psychic” and the “historical”) in literature and its link with the world view of an epoch, the Geistesgeschichte school ignored the social and class aspects of emotional experience. In developing the principle of histori-cism with respect to the alternation of artistic styles and forms, the school avoided explaining the lawlike regularities of the historical process and tended toward irrationalism and skepticism. It also minimized the importance of artistic structure since art was dissolved in the general world view of an epoch. Greater attention to form was shown in H. Wölfflin’s theory of the structural differences between the art of the Renaissance and of the baroque (Principles of Art History, 1915), which was subsequently applied to literature by the German theoretician O. Walzel. A shortcoming of this approach was its tendency toward rigid classification, reducing the diversity of literature to one of two forms and exaggerating the spontaneous development of artistic forms. The third manifestation of the anti positivist tendencies was psychoanalysis (S. Freud), which introduced the unconscious into explanations of art. The of Freudian psychoanalysis yielded meager results, such as explaining an artist’s entire creative work in terms of an “Oedipus complex.” Moreover, the psychoanalytic approach completely ignored social and ideological factors in literature. Applying psychoanalytic principles to art in a different manner, C. G. Jung formulated his theory of the collective unconscious (archetypes) in On the Relationship Between Analytical Psychology and the Literary Work, (1922). The ritual-mythological school (N. Frye, M. Bodkin) developed under the influence of Jung’s analytical psychology and the ritual-mythological approach to the study of ancient cultures, represented by R. Smith and especially J. Frazer and his followers, the Cambridge school. The exponents of the ritual-mythological approach attempted to identify certain rituals and archetypes of the collective unconscious in the works of all ages, for example, initiation rituals corresponding to the psychological archetypes of birth and death. Similar views were held by E. Bjork in the United States, who attributed the symbolic effect of artistic works to magic rituals. Ritual-mythological criticism promotes study of genres and poetic devices (metaphors, symbols), but in its subordination of literature to myth and ritual, it submerges literary study beneath ethnology and psychoanalysis.

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Currents based on existential philosophy occupied a special place in Western literary studies. Attempting to refute the view of history as a phenomenological process, these currents introduced the concept of existential time, to which great works of art correspond (M. Heidegger, The Origin of the Work of Art, 1935). E. Staiger made time the cornerstone of his classification of artistic styles and types of poetry, in which lyric, epic, and dramatic poetry express, respectively, the past, present, and future (Principles of Poetics, 1946; The Transformation of Style, 1963). Treating poetic works as self-sufficient, self-contained truth and “prophesy,” the existential “interpretation” avoids the traditional genetic approach and removes the work from its social and historical context. Hindi literature has had a vibrant tradition of reflecting upon the reality and gets inspired by the dynamics of society. Tulsi’s Ramcharitmanas, a world class epic by portraying the unique character of Ram inspires every household where Ram is the ideal, a reference point for everyone. On the other hand , Munsi Premchand’s writings-be it the story like Kafan or Thakur Ka Kuan or his novels like Godaan, Sevasadan, Karmabhumi or Rangabhumi are as realistic as the reality itself. While reading Premchand one feels as if he/she is part of the same milieu about which the story is being written. The same could be said about Baba Nagarjun-recall his Akaal, a poem which vividly depicts famine of the 60s or his novel called Balchanma- and of Phanishwarnath Renu, the author of Maila Anchal and Parti Parikatha whose short story Maare Gaye Gulfam was adapted into a film ‘Teesri Kasam’ staring Rajkapoor by Basu Bhattacharya. The key issue of a dynamic relationship between literature and reality-ie; society- has been mooted by philosophers from the very beginning. Plato was not willing to accord due status to literature specially the poetry and drama as he believed that art and literature is nothing more than imitation. Thus he argued that something that is unreal could be dangerous to the stability of what he called The Republic –or the city state. His disciple Aristotle, however, did not agree with Plato, though according to Aristotle too literature is nothing but imitation of real. But unlike Plato he considered imitation as an intellectual and creative process and claimed that it is something very natural. Intervening in this polemic - though in response to Thomas Peacock’s “The Four Ages of Poetry,”- the British Romantic poet P.B.Shelley strongly defended poetry and emphasized that poetry performs valuable moral and social functions. In A Defence of Poetry, he said “The functions of the poetical faculty are twofold: by one it creates new materials of knowledge, and power, and pleasure; by the other it engenders in the mind a desire to reproduce and arrange them according to a certain rhythm and order which may be called the beautiful and the good….. Poetry is indeed something divine. It is at once the centre and circumference of knowledge; it is that which comprehends all science, and that to which all science must be referred.” Karl Marx was another philosopher who ascribed secondary status to literature as part of what he described as the ‘Super structure’ which is always determined by the ‘Base’ comprised of Forces and Relations of Productions. Again it was the disciples or the followers, the later Marxist scholars like Louis Althusser who stood to the point that both the base and the superstructure are interdependent, although he maintained the classic Marxist materialist understanding of the determination of the base “in the last instance”, albeit with some extension and revision. 62

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Let’s not evaluate value of poetry by the number of books sold in the market. For even if we accept this criterion for the time being how to judge Tulsi’s Ramcharitmanas which is available in every household. Not only this, the couplets of Ramcharitmanas are recited even by the illiterates in the rural areas, though this practice is fading away now. Poetry has survived, as because it represents our inner voice. It expresses our emotion and rejuvenates, perhaps more easily and more effectively than the prose. Largely owing to its structure and style- in most of cases it being rhythmic-Poetry is probably closer to the human memory than the prose. Otherwise how to explain the fact that it is easier to recall and recite the couplets of Tulsi, Kabir, Sur, Raheem, Raskhan, Dinkar and Dushyant and even Muktibodh. Hindi Literature which has inherited a rich poetic tradition. Right from very beginning the Hindi Literature has been enriched by the contributions from a large number of non-Hindu writers and scholars some of whom had foreign origin. A number of Muslim writers preferred to write in Hindi who became as popular as any other Hindu poet or writer. Poetry of Raheem and Raskhan are very dear to us. Amir Khusro, a Muslim who was born in India but whose father came from outside, has written a number of nazams in Hindi which are amazing. Recall his Gori sovai sej par mukh par daare kes. Chal Khusro ghar aapne, rain bhaee chahun des.

Or, the one which has been sung by luminaries like Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Abida Parveen, Sabri Brothers, Iqbal Hussain Khan Bandanawazi, Ustad Shujaat Khan, and Zila Khan. Chhâp tilak sab chînî re mose nainâ milâike Bât agam keh dînî re mose nainâ milâike

On the other hand, the great Hindi Novelist and story writer Premchand, a leading light of Indian Progressive Writers Movement started writing first in Urdu. In Urdu he would write by the name of Dhanpat Rai. The other well known Hindu name to be associated with Urdu writing is that of Firaq Gorakhpuri or Raghupati Sahay ‘Firaq’. What, however, is being emphasized is the fact that Hindi Literature that flourished in the company of Urdu in the Gangatic plain has led to and has been promoted by the secular Ganga-Jamuni culture of India. The other vibrant aspect of Hindi Literature has been the active involvement of a large number of women writers and poetesses whose number is increasingly rising. This is surprising as India has been a caste ridden traditional society where women are expected to perform very limited role outside their hearth and households. This is more true about the Hindi-heartland where the tradition continues to resist against change. But as shown by Bhasha Singh, women folks have come forward breaking all kind of social and religious shackles in expressing their emotions and anguish in letters. They include from Meera to Mahadevi Verma to Mannu Bhandari and many more in between and after. But this does not negate the truth that in the past the traditional patriarchal feudal set up kept the women in the cage and treated them as private property, an aspect depicted through a brief but brilliant interpretation of ‘Women in Hindi Poetry’ by Rameshwar Rai. During its travel of less than one thousand years Hindi literature has passed through several periods, produced numerous classics, invented several isms, inspired dance, drama, music and 63

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contemporary cinema. Hindi literature begins its journey with Adi kaal or veer-gatha kaal (c1050-1375) characterized by personified creative style. Prithviraj Rasau an epic poem written by Chand Bardai, a court poet of Prithviraj Chauhan is the contribution of this phase.It is considered as one of the first works in the history of Hindi literature. Bhakti kaal (c1375-1700) is the second phase and as the name itself suggests was inspired by Bhakti movement. Unlike the Adi Kaal or the Vir Gatha Kaal which was characterized by an overdose of Poetry in the Vir Rasa (Heroic Poetry), the Bhakti Yug marked a much more diverse and vibrant form of poetry which spanned the whole gamut of rasas such as Shringara rasa (love) and Vir Rasa (Heroism). Malik Muhammad Jayasi, Tulsidas, Surdas, Kabir, Nanak and Abdul Raheem Khankhana were the product of this phase. The third phase Riti Kaal (c1700-1900) is so called as it was the age when poetic figures and theory were developed to the fullest. Some of the most well known literary figures from this age are Bihari, Matiram, Ghananand and Dev. Last is the ongoing Adhunik Kaal (c1900 onwards) which began more or less with the British conquest of India and is characterized by several Yugas-(i) Bhartendu Yug associated with Bhartendu Harischandra (ii) Dwivedi Yug identified with Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi’s poetry of nationalism and social reform and that of Maithilisharan Gupta and (iv) Chhayavaad or the phase of Hindi ‘Romanticism’ and the literary figures belonging to this school are known as Chhayavaadi. Jaishankar Prasad, Suryakant Tripathi ‘Nirala’, Mahadevi Varma and Sumitranandan Pant, are the four major Chhayavaadi poets. The ongoing Adhunik Kaal has witnessed several genres such as the Realism identified with the name of Premchand; Agyeya’s Prayogvad (and Modernism as emphasized by Alok Rai, Nakenvad of the trio led by Nalin Vilochan Sharma: Pragativad of Muktibodh and Nai Kavita-Nai Kahani. Hindi literature also incorporates in its ambit playwrights, travel literature, journalism and its contribution to Hindi cinema. So far as playwriting is concerned, the two founding fathers Bhartendu Harischandra and Jaishankar Prasad and this should be supplemented by the contribution of IPTA-inspired Naya Theatre, of Habib Tanvir, Jana Natya Manch of Safdar Hashmi; playwrights like Jagdish Chandra Mathur (Konark) and Upendranath Ashk (Anjo Didi), Mohan Rakesh, (Ashadh Ka Ek Din, Adhe Adhure and Lehron Ke Rajhans) and Dharamvir Bharati (Andha Yug).The tradition of travel writing in Hindi is unlikely to forget the name of Rahul Sankritayan. Hindi Journalism has produced stalwards like Durga Prasad Mishra, Bhartendu Harischandra, Madan Mohan Malviya, Agyeye, Raghuveer Sahaya, Dharamveer Bharti etc. As far as cinema is concerned the detail has been done by Yatindra Mishra in his account of Hundred Years of Hindi Cinema. Suffice would be to recall some brilliant endeavours made in this field by Satyajit Ray (Shatranj Ke Khilari and Sadgati) Mirnal Sen (Kafan), Trilok Jeltley (Godaan) and Krishna Chopra along with Hrishikesh Mukherjee (Gaban) and a couple of more much before -all based on the writings of Premchand. And Basu Bhattacharya’s ‘Teesri Kasam’ of Renu, Shyam Benegal’s ‘Sooraj Ka satvan Ghora’ based on the work of Dharmveer Bharti, a film on ‘Sara Akash’ of Rajendra Yadav, ‘Pinjar’ on the story of Amrita Pritam and many more including some serials like the one on Bhisham Sahni’s Tamas and the other on the first Hindi Novel Chandrakanta of Babu Devkinandan Khatri that had in the past compelled many to learn Hindi so that they could read it. Manish Chaudhary details the sensitive relation between Literature & Cinema. 64

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However, any account or discussion on Hindi Literature is likely to remain incomplete in the absence of literary criticism. The prominent pillars of Hindi literary criticism include Acharya Ramchandra Shukla, Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, Ramvilas Sharma and Namvar Singh. These names strike one’s mind precisely because of the fact that they have been associated with a theoretical issue of prime importance in the area of Hindi literature. Dr. Ramvilas Sharma was a ruthless critic. His criticism at places reflect his strong personal likings and disliking. He never hides his anger. He hits hard on his opponents, at times harder than they deserved. His biographical study on Nirala in thee huge volumes, evaluate contributions of Nirala first time with so much intensity. Also, his work on Mahavirprasaad dwivedi, Presents his time and contributions in big way. An interesting issue came to light in the writings of Ramchandra Shukla who forcefully argued and established the fact that Tulsidas is the foundation stone, the main tradition in Hindi Literature. Against this view of Shukla the noted Hindi critique Hazari Prasad Dwivedi advocated that Tulsi is not the only tradition in Hindi as there is the tradition of Kabir which is as rich and vibrant as that of Tulsidas. Professor Namvar Singh in his Dusarii Paramparaa Kee Khoj extends this argument further and tries to establish the thesis put forward by Dwivedi. Whether Hindi literature contains one tradition or two traditions or, instead, multi-traditions is unlikely to be settled. Our emphasis is that the dichotomy of to be, or not to be –either this or that-may not be a valid proposition all the time.

Shailendra Chauhan (b 1954) is a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering, works as Dy General Manager in a Public Sector Undertaking of Govt. of India. He writes poems, short stories, criticism of Hindi literature. Also writes in English. He has many books published to his credit including poetry and fiction anthologies. He has been editing an unscheduled little Magazine “Dharati” since 1979.

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The artist doesn’t

have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don’t have the time to read reviews. – William Faulkner

Book Reviews

October 2013

12.

BOOK REVIEW BY VINITA AGARWAL

Vinita Agarwal Reviews Mamta Agarwalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s An Untold Story of a Pebble

Mamta Agarwal's latest collection of poems titled An Untold Story of a Pebble, her third publication, is a storehouse of deeply touching poetry and charming imagery. Mamta writes from the heart, and that heart is distinctly humane and sensitive. Her poetry overflows with glimpses of nature. A common enough trait in poetry, one might add. But what sets apart Mamta's descriptions is that in her writings nature is a cure for pain. It is cathartic to a wounded psyche, it is a balm to bruised senses. Nature is intrinsically woven into moods and emotions of the human self. For Mamta, nature is like an answer to the wretchedness of life. She observes with ease the whole spectrum of the natural world - from climates and their distinct seasons, to trees, flowers, mountains, a jungle safari, snowflakes, winds and even nature's most minuscule aspects like a ladybird in the grass. In a poem titled Poppies - A Crimson Tide, she writes: But now that am ripe of age Poppies bring me messages Of hope, beauty and rest From the far off lands And sitting amongst them till sundown Somehow lifts my spirits after a long and bitter winter. Their glow and cheerful demeanour Nourishes, makes me whole In another poem called Radiant Spring, the lines echo nature's uncanny secrets: Sun and buds gave a primeval pact.

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It's kept intact, despite the fog's stubborn act. Spring, on tiptoe, gently nudged it away. At times, all the seasons come in one go; The poems are sometimes deeply personal - about her granddaughter growing up, about the unforgettable love that her parents showered upon her, a tribute to a friend and about her own journey through life and sometimes they are uncanny observations about life, written with a powerhouse of soulfulness. The title poem - An Untold Story of a Pebble, is a wide-arc poem about love and compassion for all things - living or non-living. It takes an enlightened heart to press forth words of such sensitivity for a pebble. In the poem, a pebble on a sandy river beach speaks to her in the first person. She writes thus: Please, I beseech Let me rest for a while, Am tired of an arduous Journey ..... ...I want to share the story Of my adventure And how I ended up here. Although my colour, shape And size gives away. It entreated like a child ...... Before my eyes A big gushing wave Carried it away... In another poem which is an ode of deep love and reverence to her mother called Mothers Forever Stay, she writes Mother, your little girl is all grown up now, Just because you showed her how. 68

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Pray mother, How did you always know What to say? Even today I can feel your presence For mothers never leave, They forever stay. Mamta's work is deeply stirring, as if pain itself was used as ink in the pen that wrote them. Her choice of titles is so compelling that one cannot but help read the poem further. The striking thing about her poems is that they end on pertinent notes, with a significant message embedded in them. For example, in a poem titled Silk Cotton Tree Marches Into Town, she refers to the recent, deeply distressing Damini rape case and writes, As women marched in protest, Against Damini's unnatural death, At the hands of rowdy gangs Who stalk, brazenly at all times, Looking out for soft targets, To unleash their mental abrasions In a frenzy of madness! The poem moves on to end on a positive, encouraging note, a feeling inspired by the silk cotton tree in regal bloom...symbolic of a protective figure perhaps? O silk cotton tree, You make me proud to be a woman In charge of my life Renewal of faith! Mamta's work is seldom dark or gloomy. It is about bouncing back in life and taking life's injustices, squarely on the chin. Even in a poem which describes some nameless deep agony, the title is refreshingly bright. It is called A radiant Poppy and in it she pens: Although am long past the age, Today am in labour. Severe waves of pain Are far more intense Than were decades back. 69

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...... Am wading through clutching hope, For the radiance of a single poppy With its fluttering frock Still has hold on my soul! The anguished hand that wrote the above verse does a 360 in another poem titled One Afternoon in the Month of May. In this poem, the poet gives a witty response to a beautician's offer to do something about the lines on her face: Aghast, I replied, 'No Kitty, not me. These lines prove I have lived, Laughed, cried, sighed And smiled. Why would I like to look like a mannequin...? On an impulse, Extended my arm, Hey can you do something About these lines etched on my palm'? Mamta's poetic style is simple yet moving, her use of words is sparse but adequate and her use of language is as crystal clear as water. Her word imagery is explicit and painstakingly microscopic. Her poems settle straight into the hearts of the readers. One cannot but heave a sigh of relief at her unassuming, wholesome and lucid use of the English language especially in today's times, when verbosity symbolises literary sophistication and obduracy passes off as artistic license, Mamta's soft renditions are a blessed change to read! Mamta's poetry is a perfect carrier of unique observations, wit and wisdom and a delightful zest for life. The poems are mostly in a rhyming format but many are a combination of the free verse and the rhyme. All in all, the book is an aching, pulsating homage to the traumas and travails of life on the one hand and the undying positivity that nurtures existence, on the other. You may be down, but you are never, ever out - that is the marvellous message Mamta's work conveys, summed 70

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up well in the last stanza of the last poem in the collection called Life and Art: These pieces of art remind me to strive for excellence at all Times; To die while you are alive is nothing short of cheating on life! This book is a must read for all admirers of poetry. It is a landmark collection from a Indian woman writer with a distinct style and ability to draw the reader into her heart and soul through the power of her words! Vinita Agarwal is a Mumbai based writer and poet. Her poems have been published in Asian cha, Constellations, The Fox Chase Review, Spark, The Taj Mahal Review, CLRI, SAARC Anthologies, Kritya.org, Touch- The Journal of healing, Museindia, Everydaypoets.com, Mahmag World Literature, The Criterion, The Brown Critique, Twenty20journal.com, Sketchbook, Poetry 24, Mandala and others which include several international anthologies. Her poem was nominated for the Best of the Net Awards 2011 by CLRI. She received a prize from Muse India in 2010. Her debut collection of poems 'Words Not Spoken' is due for release in August 2013. Reviewers Bio:

Get Your Book Reviewed by Contemporary Literary Review India â&#x20AC;&#x201D; journal that brings articulate writings for articulate readers.

October 2013

Book Releases

October 2013

13.

BOOK RELEASES

Author: Abhay Chokshi Publisher: Rochak Publishing Country: India Language: English ISBN: 9789381696187 Published Year: 2013 Number of pages: NA Genre: Poetry Price: INR 150 http://www.cyberwit.net/publications/547

Author: Emeka Iwenofu Publisher: Hope Point Press, LLC Country: USA Language: English ISBN: 978-0985532123 Published year: 2012 Number of pages: 218 Genre: Humanities

Author: Dr. Jan Yager Publisher: Hannacroix Creek Books, Incorporated Country: USA Language: English ISBN: 978-1889262376 Published year: 2012 Number of pages: 258 Genre: business/economics/career

October 2013

Author: Edward Eaton Publisher: Dragonfly Publishing, Incorporated Country: USA Language: English ISBN: 978-1936381272 Published year: 2012 Number of pages: 246 Book genre: literature

Author: Miki Kikkawa Publisher: Babel Press U.S.A. Country: USA Language: English ISBN: 978-0983640219 Published year: 2013 Number of pages: 36 Book genre: Thought

From Bihan Publication

October 2013

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