Book Review - Page 4

Book Review: Interpreting Cinema: Adaptations, Intertextualities, Art Movements by Jasbir Jain

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Reviewed by

Somdatta Mandal

Former Professor of English, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, W.B. Email: somdattam@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.24

Film studies now has become a full-fledged discipline with several theoretical approaches lined up behind it and has a strong foothold in serious academics. Films are now read from various perspectives as text, as a serious novel is read over and over again, since every successive reading/viewing yields additional insights into their meaning. Interpreting Cinema: Adaptations, Intertextualities, Art Movements by eminent academician and scholar Jasbir Jain is a collection of sixteen essays which explores the academic aspect of film studies and has a wide range of primarily Hindi films for discussion crossing decades, genres and cultures. The essays in this volume take up adaptations from fiction and drama both from within the same culture and across cultures and explore the relationships between cultures and mediums. There are individual essays on relationships, theoretical frameworks and art movements, reflecting the intimate connection between critical theory and filmmaking…Full Text PDF

Review Article: Homelandings: Postcolonial Diasporas and Transatlantic Belongings (2016) by Rahul Gairola

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Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren, Ph.D.

Director, Folded Paper Dance and Theatre Limited (Hong Kong, India, Seattle). Independent Researcher, Fulbright-Nehru Scholar, 2017-2018. Email: kanta.kochhar123@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.21

We all discover over and over again the kind of strange and violent stranglehold history has over us. We deploy histories to explain our pasts, identify the present, and orient us to the future. As Rahul K. Gairola shows in Homelandings: Postcolonial Diasporas and Transatlantic Belongings, the multiple currents of history have dictated our methods for establishing our home-sites: who belongs and who does not belong in any given place. Our “at-home” practices, one dimension of “the double-bind of history as home…” (2016, xvi), have a deep and lasting impact on how we move about and participate in the world-at-large. Homelandings provides a timely intervention into the theoretical discourse on the “home-site” as the outcome of a “home-economics” that continually reenacts the persistent racism, classicism, sexism, and queerphobia of a neoliberal bio-political governmentality of the Anglosphere (Bennet’s term, cited in Gairola, 18). The project offers “homelandings,” Gairola’s neologism, as the process of resistance to and reappropriation of “home-sites”: “producing new homes in which alternative modes of community and belonging flourish and reproduce” (17). Homelandings—with “landings” as the demarcator of that which is in motion, always about to happen—then act as a series of transversal disruptors of the neoliberal sphere. In this way, these resistances provide a conceptual and practical apparatus for the emergence of domestic orientations, relations, and spaces, even if these are often provisional…

Book Review: A Primal Issue: Stories of Women by Subrata Basu

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Number of Pages: 144. Publication Year: 2020. Publisher: Orient Blackswan

ISBN: 9789352879045. Price: Rs. 295.00/-

Reviewed by 

Ms. Adishree Vats

Assistant Professor, Department of English Studies, Akal University, Talwandi Sabo, Punjab. Email: vatsadishree8@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.20

The book, “A Primal Issue: Stories of Women”, is a gripping, enthralling anthology of analytical stories, translated by Subrata Basu, and written originally in Bengali by Jagdish Gupta, a “trailblazer” (p. xv) of modernist movement in India. With its epicentric plunge on the word “primal”, the book very meticulously exhibits a valorous investigation of interdictions and anathemas existing in the splendid post-Tagore chapter of Bengali literature. This revelatory compendium stresses on Jagdish Gupta’s seven translated stories, all originally published between 1927 and 1959, with females as chief characters, scrutinizing the intense connotations of life at personal as well as societal levels.  Every chapter is dedicated to one story so as to undrape the aggregation of the dilemmas, quandaries, and predicaments of Bengalis in general and women in particular for whom the repugnance of conservatism continues to exist. The stories unsparingly underscore the barbarous realities of the society, such as polygamy, child-marriage, widow-remarriage, women’s oppression and marginalization..Full Text PDF

Review Article: We Mark Your Memory: Writings from the Descendants of Indenture (2018)

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Edited by David Dabydeen, Maria del Pilar Kaladeen and Tina K. Ramnarine

Reviewed by

Arnab Kumar Sinha

Assistant Professor, Department of English and Culture Studies, University of Burdwan, West Bengal, India. Email: arnab.ks@gmail.com

 Volume 12, Number 4, July-September, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.19

Writing the history of indentured diaspora primarily depends on the available archives that contain the official and personal documents related to this history. While the State archives contain scanty materials for research in this area, considerable efforts have been made by the descendants of the indentured labourers to retrieve personal narratives of their ancestors. Retrieving these personal narratives, have indeed, played a major role in creating small family archives, which have inspired the present generation of authors/researchers to document the history of indentured diaspora. Indeed, this history is the outcome of intensive research on the genealogies of the descendants of indentured labourers. Stories narrated by the indentured labourers, old photographs, diary writings, travel documents and such other records are significant archival materials based on which the present generation of authors/researchers trace their family’s past as well as that of the community. These family archives provide considerable resource for research on history of indentured diaspora. It is in the context of this background that the anthology, We Mark Your Memory: Writings from the Descendants of Indenture (2018) edited by David Dabydeen, Maria del Pilar Kaladeen and Tina K. Ramnarine may be considered as a worthy contribution to the history of indenture diaspora. This anthology, which the editors of the book claim to be a “commemorative volume” (Dabydeen, Kaladeen, & Ramnarine, 2018, p. xii), is an attempt to collate the creative/critical pieces written by the descendants of indentured labourers (coolies). Production of such an anthology to mark the centenary year of the abolition of indentureship (1917) is a praiseworthy initiative. The publication of this book is the outcome of a collaborative venture between the School of Advanced Studies, University of London and the association of Commonwealth Writers, which inevitably foregrounds the active global network of almost thirty writers from various regions of the world working seriously on this project of retrieving the lost indentured narratives. The editors of the book acknowledge the genuine contribution of the association of Commonwealth Writers, which is “the cultural initiative of the Commonwealth Foundation” and this association, the editors claim, “inspires and connects writers and storytellers across the world, bringing personal stories to a global audience” (Dabydeen et al., 2018, p. vii). The pronoun ‘we’ of the title of this book represents the storytellers of the present generation, while the determiner ‘your’, mentioned in the title, refers to the coolies, the ancestors of these storytellers. The book therefore is indicative of academic activism that seeks to highlight the significance of reading, researching and discussing these personal narratives in the context of indenture diaspora…Full Text PDF>>

Book Review: The Silent Witness (2019) by Anuradha

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Publisher: Jaico Publishing House (January 1, 2019)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 9387944611

ISBN-13: 978-9387944619

Reviewed by

Maya Vinai

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS-Pilani (Hyderabad Campus). Email: mayavinai@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in

 Volume 12, Number 2, April-June, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n2.21

Narratives on territorial conquest, occupation and settlement have dominated postcolonial studies for decades. There has been a considerable dearth of fictional accounts surrounding the European invasion of port cities via the sea routes and subsequent trade monopoly over the spices. The Indian Ocean has been the vortex of political activities and cross-cultural links. The ports along the Malabar coastline was of great interest to not just for one; but three competing super-powers namely the Portuguese, the Dutch and British. The trade links commenced with the onslaught of Greek traders who came to ports like Muzhiri or Mucheripatanam (Malabar) and Pum Puhar (Madurai) during 2nd century AD. Experts on Mediterranean maritime history like Vincent A. Smith points out as to how ports like Pum Puhar had the good fortune to attract traders across the globe as they were rich in three precious commodities “Pepper, pearls and beryl” (Smith 400) In fact, historical accounts of Warmington point out as to how there was a drain of Roman wealth as “Romans showed a taste for excessive decoration of fingers and by the use of gems to cover conches, garlands, armour etc. The practice of collecting gems became common during the 1st century AD and Saurus, Julius Caesar, and Marcellus were all collectors of precious stones. (131) However, the last of the European traders who came since 1498, the Portuguese, Dutch and British had imperialistic designs apart from sheer mercenary motives.

The Silent Witness (2019) by Anuradha, (translated from Malayalam by Nirmala Aravind) is a historic novel which explores the descent of Portuguese and Dutch suzerainty in the princely states of Kochi (central part of Kerala). She traverses backwards in time; to explain how these princely states became a pawn to the imperial project, due to their internal dissensions thereby paving way to an easy colonization by Portuguese and Dutch from the 15th to 18th C. In addition, the novel also highlights the ‘cosmopolitanism’ and ‘shared culture’ which emerged as a result of these trade and colonial interventions. All the historic events of the novel are juxtaposed around the plot to; both ‘hold and foil’ the forthcoming coronation of Kerala Varma as the ruler of Kochi. Running parallel to the plot is; the love interest of Veera Kerala Varma (Kerala Varma’s younger brother) and the niece of rival kingdom’s (Chempakassery) chieftain, Unnimaya.

The novel subtly hints to its audience as to how the Dutch were much better and more popular than the Portuguese. Novelist Anuradha charts out reasons for the latter’s unpopularity; like introduction of opium to masses whose “inordinate consumption” (13) destroyed public health and drained resources. She also directs the reader’s attention to the terror Portuguese ships triggered in the Indian Ocean by their canon-loaded caramel ships, and the restrictions imposed on ships which did not have a Portuguese trade permit or cartazas to ply the Indian Ocean. The novel is equally blatant about the Portuguese forcible conversions and exclusion of the Syrian Christians and their entry to places like Fort Emanuel or Fort Kochi. Nevertheless, many of the historic incidents especially that which deals with the Portuguese has been ardently dealt in Malayalam films like Urumi, Pazhazhi Raja and in briefer versions in few novels like N.S Madhavan’s book Litanies of Dutch Battery and Johny Miranda’s Requiem for the Living.

However, the most refreshing aspect of Anuradha’s novel remains her representation of Dutch in Kerala. Very few novelists have covered the socio-political implications of the Dutch regime and the coalition of three rulers of Kerala namely the Zamorins (Samoothiris) of Calicut, the Cochin kings and the Queen of Kollam to oust the Portuguese from power. Towards the concluding part, the novel also highlights the peaceful reign of Veera Kerala Varma under the Dutch over lordship. The novel insinuates the readers to analyse the reason why Kerala became a hotspot for violence and terror and susceptible to the hegemony of foreign invaders.

The novelist has engaged in a meticulous research of the 15 to 17th century and notably included most of the major events that occurred during the period. Anuradha  has recreated or fictionalized real historic characters like Itty Achutan Vaidyan of the Kollad family who influenced the Dutch Governor, Van Rheede, with his knowledge of medicinal plants. As the plot progresses the audience is introduced to Itty Achutan’s treatment of Van Rheede’s painful boil on his foot with courtyard herbs like neem leaves, raw turmeric horanthus (186). The successful treatment led to the compilation of Horticus Malabaricus or “The Garden of Malabar” which was considered one of the most important treatise on the medicinal plants of Malabar. In addition, the religious tolerance of the Dutch is highlighted repeatedly in the book by contrasting it with the ‘forcible conversion of natives’ policy adopted by the Portuguese making most of the indigenous natives turn indignantly against the Portuguese rule. Although the book casts the Dutch regime as more benevolent as compared to the Portuguese, a closer look of the sub-text reveal at times; the tyranny and bloodshed  Dutch inflicted on the Portuguese women and children while conquering Fort Emanuel popularly known as the jewel of Dutch throne.

Temples and temple festivals are sites of faith and power dynamics and cultural transactions in Kerala society. The novelist has truthfully invoked famous and leading temples of Kerala like the Guruvayoor temple, Vaddakanathan temple, the Poornathrayesha temple, Ambalapuzha temple, adding to the authencity of the cultural setting of the novel and drawing attention to pivotal role temples played in the lives of royal families. However, the novelist has left out inclusion of a few important temple events like the attack on the famous Guruvayoor temple by the Dutch and razing of the flagstaff which could have further enhanced the authenticity of the novel. In addition, the novel also has a few historic flaws like attributing Zamorin Manavedan’s uncle as the composer of Krishnagiti (the text of dance form Krishnattam). Krishnagiti was actually composed by Prince Manaveda who became the Zamorin in 1665. ( Bush 21). Another flaw that can be discerned is the representation of the Vadekkara Palace, the palace of Cochin kings for ages; as the palace of Zamorin Manavedan where he has a clandestine meeting with Kerala Varma.

Running parallel to the political anxieties of the protagonist Kerala Varma and his brother Veera Kerala Varma is the story concerning the closest ally of the Kochi princes, known as the Ali Marrakar. Ali Marrakar and his pirate troops on sea called Marrakar pada supported and defended Kochi at the time of crisis. The other close allies of Samoothiri and Cochin kings like Mangath Achan, Paliyath Achan find a place in the narrative. The book also draws the attention of the readers to the fact that in many princely states it was the Queen who took care of the administrative affairs of the kingdom. For example, the Queen of Kollam not only entertained her guests at the Puthukulangara Palace but also initiated political discussions. This delineates the power and agency woman had to take decisions and also efficiently execute the same.

The overall novelty of theme in English fiction makes it an excellent read for both book lovers and students of literature and history. In fact, the dual focus on colonial interventions in port cities and the resistance put up by the local rulers against the Portuguese makes it a an important text for postcolonial analysis as well.

Works Cited

Bush, Martha et al. 2015. The Royal Temple Theatre of Krishnattam. DK Printworld, New Delhi

Madhavan N. S. 2010. Litanies of Dutch Battery. (Trans. Rajesh Rajamohan). Penguin, New Delhi

Warmington, E.H. 1928. The Commerce between the Roman Empire and India (2nd edition) CUP, Cambridge

Smith, V. A. 1924. Early History of India. (4th edition),  OUP, London

 

Dr. Maya Vinai has been working as Assistant Professor at BITS-Pilani (Hyderabad Campus) since 2012. Her research interests include Temple Art Forms in South India, Representation of Matrilineal Communities in Literature, Food and Culture in South Asian Literature, and the impact of Dutch and Portuguese Colonialism in South India.  Her critical works have been featured in several national and international journals like South Asian Review, Asiatic- IIUM, Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies on Humanities and IUP Journal of English Studies. She has also authored a book titled Interrogating Caste and Gender in Anita Nair’s Fiction.

Book Review: Jallianwala Bagh Literary Responses in Prose and Poetry (2019) by Rakshanda Jalil

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Publisher: Niyogi Books Private Limited (Under the Imprint: Thornbird); First edition (1 April 2019)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 9386906929

ISBN-13: 978-9386906922

Reviewed by

Revathy Hemachandran

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus. Email:   p20170018@hyderabad.bits-pilani.ac.in 

 Volume 12, Number 2, April-June, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n2.20

The Jallianwala Bagh incident has remained a spectral and contrite event in the collective memory of Indian sub-continent over decades. It echoes unhealed ruptures and gets rekindled as a result of public and political expectations in the form of official apology from the erstwhile colonisers. On the eve of the centennial anniversary of Jallianwala Bagh incident, literary historian, translator and critic Rakshanda Jalil, has published her book, Jallianwala Bagh Literary Responses in Prose and Poetry. The book occupies a crucial position as there is discernible dearth of literature and historic fiction surrounding the massacre of Jallianwala Bagh in April, 1919. Literary contributions on the subservient life under the East India Company allow for a study on not just the experiences of the colonial subjects but also the imagined realities they had of their colonisers. The narratives of this traumatic experience cannot be solely attributed to the events of the Jallianwala Massacre but also to the events which preceded the hot summer afternoon of Baisakhi in April 1919.

Punjab has always been one of the main platforms of turbulence even before the colonisation of India by British East India Company. The people from Punjab were preferred over other provinces, for military recruitment during the World War I because of the British theory of ‘martial races’ (Jalil, 10) where they ranked people from various provinces on their superiority in war front. Writings from Punjab is quite rich in authentic regional flavours and that is reflected in their cultural production.  One can always see the presence of ‘Punjab’ or what it means to be ‘Punjabi’ in their writings. Punjab has not only contributed to the nation, great revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh, Lala Lajpat Rai, Udham Singh, Harnam Singh Saini for the Independence movement, also writers of great calibre like Manto, Bhisham Sahni, Josh Malihabadi, Ghulam Abbas and such who have encapsulated the residual scars of the traumatic events of the past in literary fiction and poetry.

In the introduction to her book, Jalil talks about her interest in literature arising from the interstices between collective conscience and history. Being a seminal moment in the history of Independence of India and the subsequent partition of the Indian sub-continent; the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre has led to a wide emotional unrest amongst the population which effervesced into a nationwide political unrest. Critical analysis of the incident has been taken up for scholarly pursuits in varying contexts across time and space, while responses to it in Indian Literature across regional literature and in English have been overlooked. In the book, Jalil also points to the nature of censorship imposed by the British on literature. Even letters from Indian soldiers who served in the World War was subjected to scrutiny; which portrays the extent of the British regimentation and surveillance on narratives which documented the colonial regime and the discontent it generated.

This collection which includes eleven prose writings, eleven poems and an excerpt from a play is intended to represent the popular imagination. It portrays how the masses responded to the event, the reasons led to the event and the consequences of the event. The prose writings featured here are windows into the imaginations of survivors, victims and the perpetrators. Jalil has managed to explore various avenues in which the psyche of grief-stricken Punjab could traverse into, at the wake of this particularly ghastly chapter of Indian Independence movement. The writers are able to bring in the experience of the victims and survivors and how the physical nature of this trauma has transcended to become an emotional scar in the history of East India Company’s rule in India. A few of the poems included in this collection of literary responses to the event are Jallianwala Bagh by Muhammad Iqbal, A Complaint to The Hunter (Shikwa-e Saiyyad) by Tirlok Chand Mahroom, The Tyrannies in the Punjab (Mazalim-e Punjab) by Zafar Ali Khan, An address to the Sons of the East India Company (East India Company ke Farzanaon Se) by Josh Malihabadi. When read side by side, these poems evoke a sense of an experience left behind in the memory of the horrendous event. These reflect and ruminate on the reasons, conscience and consequences of being occupied by the East India company. The modernity that percolated into the social lives of the population had started getting scrutinisations under the shadow left behind this massacre. The poets through heart rendering words have been able to separate the civilising mission’s visage off of the coloniser for the readers to witness. The literature of this period thus critically expressed their dissatisfaction against the dictatorial measures of General Dyer and the British Government. The repressive attitude of General Dyer and his fellow soldiers was denounced unequivocally in these literary works published between 1919 and 1923 in Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu and English languages and these writings were highly ‘seditious’ in character. Many of these literatures were proscribed by the Government of Punjab and later on these received similar fate in all provincial governments.

The fiction has been an outlet to channelize the emotions that Jallianwala Bagh let loose in the hearts of the colonised subjects and also has in retrospect left the readers with an opening to look back into the psyche of the survivors of this gruesome event. The eleven poems featured in this collection are odes to the lives that were laid down in Jallianwala Bagh. It raises questions pertinent to the nature of humanity. An elaborate introduction in the beginning of the book illuminates the history building to the incident and how it was represented in several languages across numerous genres and the social context of each. The nature and location the gazes from which these responses are also mentioned in this introduction.

The incident of Jallianwala Bagh predicated the final days of British rule in India. Furthermore, the literary responses post-Jallianwala Bagh which originated nationwide unveiled the imperialistic intent of the British beneath the mask of the civilizing mission for the Indian population to witness.

When considered as a whole, the prose and poems in this book meticulously explores the following themes. Firstly, the role nationalist policies and colonial regime played in the (Jalil, 2019) activities of the Indian public and the confusion it unfurled into their domestic lives, when politics intermingled with the socio-cultural practices; secondly, the thought process of the natives who were confronted with conflict of power structures, for instance a social obligation v/s adherence to the colonial dictum, and thirdly, the native’s inability to discern the extent of the catastrophic measures taken by the British to keep up their colonial superiority (crawling order and shooting on Baisakhi) and the experience of being subjected to this unearned violence. Finally, the Jallianwala Bagh incident has played an important role in understanding the nature of humanity in power transactions that existed between colonised and colonisers.

Many contemporary debates discuss the ramifications this event has elicited and the nature of accountability it deserves. Moreover, these discussions are yet to result in an agreeable acknowledgement of the nature of events that transpired between the coloniser and colonised. An inclusion of the evolution of multiple reflective voices from both Indian and British contexts, rather than a collection of the immediate response would offer much to the scholarship on the literature of Jallianwala Bagh. It would result in more engaging academic debates in trauma literature, protest literature and studies on imperialism and colonialism. Besides the introduction that elaborated on the history and context of every literary response in this compilation will help the readers further to ruminate on the representations of this event and its relevance for the present times.

References

Jalil, R. (2019). Jallianwala Bagh, Literary responses in Prose and Poetry. Niyogi Books.

Kolsky, E. (2010). Colonial Justice in British India : White Violence and the Rule of Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sarkar, S. (1983). Modern India, 1885-1947. London.

Tharoor, S. (2016). An Era of Darkness : The British Empire in India. New Delhi: Aleph.

Revathy Hemachandran is currently pursuing her Ph.D in the department of Humanities and Social Sciences, BITS-Pilani (Hyderabad Campus). Her research interests include examining the representation of Agrarian unrests in literature, Contemporary Indian English fiction and South Asian Fiction.

 

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