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Redefining the River Discourse—The Angry River and India’s River Woes

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Pritha Banerjee

Sundarban Mahavidyalaya, West Bengal, India. Email: prithabanerjee1985@gmail.com

Volume 9, Number 1, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n1.23

Received February 10, 2017; Revised April 11, 2017; Accepted April 15, 2017; Published May 7, 2017.

Abstract

The March 2017 Uttarakhand High Court ruling recognizing the rivers Ganga and Yamuna as ‘living entities’, necessitates investigation of the rhetoric shaping discourse regarding rivers in India today. In the course of this paper, I shall try to map how this rhetoric influences the way these ‘entities’ are approached by policy documents and popular praxis in the country. Development measures and policy viewing the river as an object/resource to be controlled and manipulated, lead to intensive human intervention in the natural flow of the river, greatly affecting its capacity of self-renewal and regeneration. I shall be closely reading Ruskin Bond’s novella The Angry River, with close attention to the illustrations by Archana Sreenivasan alongside research by R. Umamaheshwari, Brij Gopal and Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt, to understand the possibilities such creative interventions have in redefining the ‘riverscape’ and highlighting the importance of embracing the disequilibrium natural to the river. I shall also be referring to the Delhi Declaration of the India Rivers Week in 2014 and its recognition of the disastrous effect of an instrumentalist and utilitarian view of rivers, for ascertaining the importance of nuanced expressions like Bond’s novella in aligning with the principles articulated in the Law of Mother Earth: The Rights of Our Planet in Bolivia, 2010, the most significant being recognition of the right of the river to ‘flow’.

Keywords:  discourse, river, redefining, Ruskin Bond, The Angry River, Archana Sreenivasan, illustrations, disequilibrium, ecosystem

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Voiceless Victims of War: An Absurd Truth

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Bhagyalaxmi Das & Itishri Sarangi

KIIT University, Odisha, India. Email: bhagyalaxmidas40@gmail.com

Volume 9, Number 1, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n1.22

Received January 2, 2017; Revised April 10, 2017; Accepted April 20, 2017; Published May 7, 2017.

Abstract

Literature written during and after World War II expresses an important ecological shift in human perception towards the concern for the environment. Prior to that writers and poets expressed the celebrated role of nature often expressed in Romanticism. A shift in focus was noticed in the absurdist texts written, between the 1940s and 1950s. The writers belonging to the absurd school of thought hinted at an ecological crisis that people were dimly aware of but a serious concern that was slowly paving ground. Ecology outlines the fundamental principle that everything and everyone in this universe is connected. Based on this principle, the paper offers an exposure of how a new concern for the ecology emerged in the absurdist text of the 1940s and 1950s, portraying the troubled relationship between the ecology and man. The paper also traces the atrocity on animals and nature during the two World Wars and how the strangeness of the universe affected the ‘other than human’ forms on planet earth.

Keywords: world war, absurd, ecology, nature, absurdist plays, war animals.

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Man-Eaters of Kumaon: a Critique of Modernity

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Parul Rani & Nagendra Kumar

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Roorkee. Email: parulnet.e@gmail.com

Volume 9, Number 1, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n1.21

Received February 14, 2017; Revised April 14, 2017; Accepted April 20, 2017; Published May 7, 2017.

Abstract

The present paper attempts to link the animals’ colonization with modernity as a form of European ‘mind-set’ through a short story collection of Jim Corbett, Man Eaters of Kumaon. The focus is laid on the disfigurement of the non-human entities in the colonial anthropocentric advancement; manifested through the hunting practices in colonial India. This study analyzes: first, the hunting practices as a power mechanism of colonials to dominate native subjects: human and non-human, and traces the conflict it creates between human life and wildlife. It also studies the sporting and systematic controlling over the wild animals with the help of technological enrichment. Secondly, it investigates the ambiguous presence of Jim Corbett, primarily a hunter, vacillating between his duties for the British colonial administration and for the native people, as a sahib.

Keywords: wildlife, modernity, Jim Corbett, colonialism, colonial ideology.

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Unlearning at White Settlers’ School;Erasure of Identity and Shepherding the Indian into Christian fold: A Study of Shirley Sterling’s My Name is Seepeetza

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Virender Pal

University College, Kurukshetra University Kurukshetra. ORCID ID:0000-0003-3569-1289. Email: p2vicky@gmail.com

Volume 9, Number 1, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n1.20

Received January 20, 2017; Revised April 8, 2017; Accepted April 10, 2017; Published May 7, 2017.

Abstract

The policies adapted by the whites in different colonies were different. In imperialist setups the natives were subjugated, but in ‘settler’ colonies elaborate strategies were devised to break the native societies. One of the policies was to take the native children away from the families. These children were kept in state and church run institutes to nurture them in white culture. In the recent years a lot many narratives written by these ‘stolen’ children have been published in Canada, the United States of America and Australia. These narratives are the vehicles for articulation of pain and trauma these children had to undergo. The current paper is a study of Shirley Sterling’s My Name is Seepeetza. The story in the novel is narrated by a twelve years old girl. The young girl’s authentic narration shows how Christianity was used as a tool to oppress and torment the young children by the missionaries. The young narrator not only narrates the trials and tribulations faced by the children in such residential schools, but also shows how the transmission of culture to the next generation was interrupted.

Keywords: Residential schools, Indians, Christianity, priests, sisters.

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Towards a “Negative Aesthetic”: Bombay Talkies and the Queer Futures of Popular Hindi Cinema

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Sameer Chopra

Gargi College, University of Delhi, India. Email: sam1565@gmail.com

Volume 9, Number 1, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n1.18

Received February 25, 2017; Revised April 9, 2017; Accepted April 10, 2017; Published May 7, 2017.

Abstract

This paper examines emerging trends in contemporary representations of queerness in popular Hindi cinema in an attempt to argue against the bourgeoning popularity of “positive images,” i.e. sanitized, tractable portrayals of queer lives on screen that find recognition among sections of mainstream audiences so long as these depictions resonate with one’s desire to see characters who are reassuringly “like us.” This sets forth a normalizing agenda that deems queerness intelligible only when it is shorn of its subversive, destabilizing potential. As a counter-narrative to this trend, I study two shorts compiled in the 2013 anthology film, Bombay Talkies– essentially, my contention is that both these texts feature protagonists (Avinash and Vicky) who are not “positive” or likeable in any reductive sense. Nonetheless, they embody, in their own peculiar ways, the revolutionary potentialities of queerness.  It is precisely for this reason that Bombay Talkies can be considered representative of a negative aesthetic, a term that consciously draws from John Keats’ notion of “negative capability” and its emphasis on embracing “uncertainties, mysteries, [and] doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason” (1818, p. 498). The textual and ideological open-endedness and variability intrinsic to Keats’ concept may help us evolve an interpretive framework that interrogates the prevalence of narrow, “either/or,” “good/bad” representational paradigms specifically geared towards rendering queerness “normal” and “acceptable” in the popular consciousness.

Keywords: LGBT, queerness, representation, popular Hindi cinema, negative aesthetic.

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Is Islamicate a genre? Looking at Popular Muslim Films through the Lens of Genre

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Asmita Das

Department of Film Studies, Jadavpur University.ORCID ID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7307-5818. Email: asmitadas85@gmail.com.

Volume 9, Number 1, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n1.17

Received February 25, 2017; Revised April 9, 2017; Accepted April 10, 2017; Published May 7, 2017.

Abstract

This essay engages with genre as a theory and how it can be used as a framework to determine whether Islamicate or the Muslim films can be called a genre by themselves, simply by their engagement with and representation of the Muslim culture or practice. This has been done drawing upon the influence of Hollywood in genre theory and arguments surrounding the feasibility / possibility of categorizing Hindi cinema in similar terms. The essay engages with films representing Muslim culture, and how they feed into the audience’s desires to be offered a window into another world (whether it is the past or the inner world behind the purdah). It will conclude by trying to ascertain whether the Islamicate films fall outside the categories of melodrama (which is the most prominent and an umbrella genre that is represented in Indian cinema) and forms a genre by itself or does the Islamicate form a sub-category within melodrama.

Keywords: genre, Muslim socials, socials, Islamicate films, Hindi cinema, melodrama

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Cinematic Sense of Place as a Window to Politics of Dominant Ideology, materialism and Morality in Tamil Cinema: A Case Study of the film Madras

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Indu Lakshman1 & Kalyani  Suresh2

1Independent Researcher

2Department of Communication, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Ettimadai, Coimbatore, India. Email: suresh.kalyani@gmail.com

Volume 9, Number 1, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n1.16

Received January 19, 2017; Revised April 6, 2017; Accepted April 10, 2017; Published May 7, 2017.

Abstract

In the theoretical conceptualization of contemporary space, cinema not only focuses on story telling but also provides a window to the cultural and traditional practices of the place and people. The armamentarium of the transitions of Tamil cinema after the 1970’s to date has shown an upward swing in the conscious use of sense of place as part of the visual narrative. This article studies the anatomy of place as portrayed in the Tamil film Madras (2014) against the backdrop of the reality and ethos of the slums of North Madras. The Wall – the main protagonist in the film and the power and value given to it, is the fulcrum on which the sense of place is established. This article takes the North Madras community’s sense of place as a window to the politics of dominant ideology and materialism infused with morality, as articulated in the film.

Keywords: sense of place, Madras, Tamil cinema, ideology, materialism, morality

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African American Womanism Speaks To Dalit Feminism: Special Reference To Telugu Dalit Women’s Literature

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D. Jyothirmai1 & K. Sree Ramesh2

Adikavi Nannaya University in Andhra Pradesh, India. Email: jyothirmai.dakkumalla@gmail.com

Volume 9, Number 1, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n1.15

Received March 1, 2017; Revised April 6, 2017; Accepted April 27, 2017; Published May 7, 2017.

Abstract

‘Mainstream feminism’ in India remained substantially elitist in its concerns carrying the legacy of ‘western feminism’. As such it failed to appreciate, accommodate and represent the specific concerns of Dalit women. Consequently Dalit women are forced to lead a separate movement.  It is the premise of this paper that the nascent Dalit Feminism, which could not derive any theoretical and representational sustenance from the Indian Feminism, can draw from the African American womanist/feminist experiences as it shares a similar socio-historical environment. Further, it argues in favor of Dalit feminism as a more inclusive kind of feminism that challenges oppression of any form for women in India or elsewhere. As much of Dalit women’s writing is produced in Indian vernaculars a few short stories from Telugu Dalit writing, translated into English are analyzed to reflect different perspectives of Dalit women’s discourse.

Keywords: Feminism, Dalit Feminism, African Feminism, Untouchability, Education of Dalits

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Draupadi Jeopardizing Jurisprudence: A Critical Analysis of Dharma as Law in the Light of Draupadi’s Question(s) in the Sabha

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Komal Agarwal

Center for English Studies, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Email: agarwal.komal.jnu@gmail.com

Volume 9, Number 1, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n1.14

Received March 1, 2017; Revised March 27, 2017; Accepted April 3, 2017; Published May 7, 2017.

Abstract

The character of Draupadi in the Maha?bha?rata has generally been read through the victim-perpetrator lens, where she is either seen as being at the receiving end or violence, or as an agent of questioning the very violence that is perpetrated on her, mostly by appealing to the morality of the men, warriors and kings present in the Assembly Hall, the scene of violence. The present paper reads the character of Draupadi in a new light: as a learned scholar and dialectician who is well-versed in the issues/debates of law, the legal code, and the codified system of ethics. The paper argues that it is her act of challenging and negating the prevalent, largely ‘masculine’ judicial system that she ends in pitting an alternative legal system against the then socio-judicial order. In so doing, she poses hair-raising questions against the abstract concept of ‘dharma’ and its drawbacks and the authority of the king on earth: thus unsettling the two pillars on which the society in the ancient times was based and sustained itself, both the cosmic principle which holds, and the kingly counterpart which executes. She marks a paradigm shift in and punctuates the masculine system of jurisprudence, thereby exposing its follies and its weaknesses, also anticipating the possible improvements in the present day legal set up in the country.

Keywords: Draupadi, Maha?bh?arata, dicing, law, dharma.

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The Problem of Being Black in Zora Neale Hurston’s Color Struck

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Hana Khalief Ghani1 & Istbriq Talib Joody2

1College of Arts, Department of Translation, Al-Mustansiriyah University. Email: h.horizons2013@gmail.com

2College of Education for Women, Department of English Language, University of Baghdad.

Volume 9, Number 1, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n1.13

Received March 3, 2017; Revised March 27, 2017; Accepted April 3, 2017; Published May 7, 2017.

Abstract

Human physical features such as skin color usually play an important role in defining who the person is. In many societies skin color contributes to determining social status and self-worth. This problems becomes more acute in case of women whose markers of beauty like having lighter skin mean she can enjoy more privileges in terms of partner choice, work, and status than women of dark skin.  The present paper aims at exploring the impact of skin color on the life of Emma who is color stricken in Zora Neale Hurston Color Struck. Rather than discussing this issue in relation to the color-based discrimination by the white-dominated society against the black in Americ, the play focuses on the pernicious effects of internalizing the color-based feelings of inferiority among the black themselves. The paper argues that obession with one’s skin color is not conduisve to one’s well-being. Rather than happiness and empowerment, it leads to self-marginalization and life-long anxiety.

Key words: Hurston, Color Struck, Emma, inferiority.

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