Volume 12 Number 2 2020

Reframing Reproduction in Vernacular Periodicals: A Study of Contraception in Late Colonial Bengal

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Ayana Bhattacharya

M. Phil scholar at the Department of English, Jadavpur University. ORCID id: 0000-0001-7160-6323. Email: b_ayana@yahoo.in, b20.ayana@gmail.com

 Volume 13, Number 2, 2021 I Full-Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v13n2.41

PlumX Metrics

 

Abstract

With the emergence of the thriving literary public sphere around the close of the 19th century across colonial India, the issue of birth control was being debated in various magazines by economists, sexologists, doctors and members of women’s organizations. The discussions on reproductive rights of women and dissemination of contraceptive information published in various vernacular periodicals can be situated within a network of other contemporary discourses on “economizing reproduction” that were gaining visibility around this time. The present paper would like to explore the perceptions of women’s reproductive body at the beginning of the 20th century that were being forged through coalescing narratives on bourgeois norms of obscenity (aslilata?), biopolitical concerns of an emerging nation state in the last throes of anti-colonial struggle, and various takes on (heteronormative) interpersonal relationships between future citizens. It is within this specific context that I would like to examine articles on birth control published during the early 1930s in the ‘self-styled’ Bengali women’s magazine Jayasree? launched by revolutionary leader Leela Nag. By situating the opinions voiced by the men and women writing in the pages of this literary periodical vis-à-vis contemporary intellectual trends of birth control movement in India, this paper seeks to study the interactive textual ecosystem within which the writers and readers (the implied future authors) of Jayasree? were functioning.

 Keywords: birth control, reproductive politics, obscenity, bio-power, ‘right’ consciousness.

Problematizing Dalit Chetna: Sadgati as the Battleground of Conflict between the ‘Progressive Casteless Consciousness’ and the Anti-Caste Dalit Consciousness

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Sumit Rajak

Assistant Professor of English, S.B.S. Government College, Hili, Dakshin Dinajpur, India, &  Ph.D. researcher, Department of English, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. Email: rajaksumit111@gmail.com

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

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n4.10

Abstract

The notion of Dalit chetna or Dalit consciousness is central to the development of the anti-caste discourse. Since the inception of a visible and radical Dalit discourse, a paramount importance has been accorded to the idea of Dalit consciousness. Whereas the prevalence of Dalit consciousness is of paramount importance to the Dalit writers, filmmakers and critics, and there is a vibrant presence of this consciousness in their works, there has also been an attempt on the part of the upper-caste writers and filmmakers to engage with the Dalit consciousness on their own terms, and thereby developing what I call ‘progressive casteless consciousness’, which is not synonymous with the anti-caste Dalit consciousness developed by the Dalit writers, filmmakers among others, in their works. This paper is an attempt to explore these distinct versions of Dalit consciousness through a reading of the representation of the caste questions in the celebrated Hindi writer Munshi Premchand’s widely read short story Sadgati (‘deliverance’ in the religious sense of the term), which he composed in 1931, and its film adaptation by the globally acclaimed filmmaker Satyajit Ray in the form of a TV film Sadgati (1981), and the critical writings on the writer and the director’s handling of the caste questions. In the process, the paper will show how Sadgati, both of Premchand and of Satyajit Ray, becomes the repository of conflict between the progressive casteless consciousness of the upper-caste intellectuals and the anti-caste Dalit consciousness developed by the Dalit intellectuals.
Keywords: Dalit consciousness, repository of conflict, adaptation, battleground of representation, progressive casteless consciousness, anti-caste Dalit consciousness


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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.

 

Editorial: Reflections on Literature and Art at a Time of Pandemic

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Tirtha Prasad Mukhopadhyay

Profesor Titular, Miembro de Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (Nivel I), CONACyT, Mexico, Departamento de Arte y Empresa, Universidad de Guanajuato, Mexico. Chief Editor, Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities. Email: chiefeditor@rupkatha.com

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

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n2.00

Imagine the dystopia created by this viral holocaust. Incendiary piers start, burning bodies in wastelands. At night wastelands reportedly turn into a mass crematorium. At a University hospital in New Jersey, the bell rings every half an hour, announcing the passing away of a Covid victim. Ideas of nation states, frontiers, countries have only enclosed people in prisons of illusion.  Such unreal lineations become fault lines for nationalism, migrations, war and hierarchical exclusion. The Corona virus however is not impeded by such boundaries. It transmits from human to human; it affects people without distinction of nationality, economics, franchise, and turns humans into targets with a kind of Dawkinsian indifference.

On the other hand, though, the virus innervates solidarity in humans, which is manifest as the indivisibility of the herd. Yet, we are only capable of ignorant and conflicted response towards the possible evolution of, what Petrashov called, ‘noocenosic’ ecosystems. For Petrashov, biological agents like humans would have to compromise to co-exist or live with other powerful collectives like the virus and similar nanometrical entities that percolate through this wide world. On several occasions we may not have adequate knowledge about coping with threats that are so microscopic and intangible. Various respond activities have been proposed. Contrasted to proposals of precautionary survival aided by statistical indicators, we hear of views like that of some Swedish administrators who say that forced quarantine strategies are already conditioned by biopolitical responses to acts of war and terrorism. Epidemiological caution is supposedly built on a politics of panoptical surveillance. Hence it is not an indispensable tool in the management of the pandemic. Social evolutionary thinkers like Stephen Goundry speaks of the physically interactive gestures tht are necessary for social life and survival, and say that quarantining goes against natural human evolution.

2.

But the virus has forced us to reconsider what it means to live under the fear of death or even speciate extinction. This is where the artist’s personality comes at stake – since the artist, like all other human beings, is just another human being who has to respond to signals in its immediate environment, sometimes erroneously drifting, and sometimes doing the right thing. The virus has also generally coerced us to recognize true human worth out of the consciousness of our fragile life in the biological world. This global pandemic gives us a moment to reflect on the nervous and weedy layers of artifice that we have used to cover life’s raw and beautiful texture. The virus has instigated a psychosis in terms of not just statistical effects of disease and precipitant mental depression but from its threats to creative life. Biological virulence, is linked to media virulence, it turns human creativity into a whimpering shot in the dark. On a daily basis, we seem to be trapped in a world constantly manipulated by media pseudologies. There is little scope of independent thinking. Good examples of independent thinking are not hard to find though. Pepe Mujica, the former president of Uruguay, who was called “the poorest President” by the BBC, has a wonderful precept from Montevideo, where he tried to experiment with a lifestyle statement that was aimed at a distant and long-term amelioration of narcotic traffic in Central America. Mujica’s lessons were easy and difficult to achieve at the same time – he demonstrated that narcotic economy results from human greed of material things, not for substance abusers, which is another problem elsewhere, but for poor people in Uruguay, El Salvador, Colombia and other countries, who participated in the trade. Mujica’s own life, like Gandhi’s, was a demonstrable proof of this grand simplicity that touches the core of our humanity.

In a world where ‘art’ has become a product of investment economy, it is now time to acknowledge that anonymous art is better than art of the genius. Folk art is superior to masterpieces. Ritual is superior to art in a show-case. True novels are lived rather than parcelled out by the giant media. Neatness is more beautiful than décor and an unassuming home is more divinely aesthetic than a furnished salon with books printed by the media houses.

The project hence is to liberate humane expression from cinders of decadent royalty and big business, and from the fantasies spotlighted by newspapers and TV news. The virus forces us to confide in the warmth and love of home. It is the same love that preserves us at any time of want or hardship. Anthropophilia causes us to care for each other. It makes us committed and risk our life for others.  It is this capacity to empathise that saves us. Empathy, care, regard for others and for kin, are more important than any art that the media celebrates. The human being sacrifices love in order to become a monster of one’s passion – but no good comes out of it. The friendship of working class people is more precious than the social prestige commanded by the elite. The painted face of the news presenter secretly mocks at the ineptitude of the common man.

3.

The virus cannot be taken as an incentive to create “viral poetry”, as a testament of human art, like an Instagram post without any meaning beyond the instant. Browsing through the poetry section of last week’s Vanity Fair, we see on its page, the same incongruous union of contemporary “vanity” and “art”. The very title is pompous and instantaneous: “Why Poetry Is Having a Moment Amid the Global Quarantine”. As we read further we are introduced to the post-marketing world: “The poem is enjoying a bump in cultural relevance as the world sits at home and considers its surroundings. Why your timeline is possibly suddenly sprinkled with verse”. The Vanity Fair article is a precise reminder of how the same interweaving wealth of media magnate, collector, consumer and wealthy business personnel, fashion industry, ‘art’ is also actively spreading an idea of its own self-organizing poetry or art. The obnoxious twitter, the rigmarole of all things flashy and apple, blend wirh the empty tragedy of people locked at home.

The University in America, and many countries of Europe, has become a votary of the same class culture that prepares you for this world of quick sensations. In such times as now, we are compelled to ask “How does a novel apprised in New York impact the life of a villager in East Africa, or a lemon picker in Michoacan, or the trash collector in Kolkata’s marshlands. The media novelist, so gorgeously fetishized in the academy, is no more than a colonial and pseudo-progessive metrosexual. Museums worldwide have become abominable machines of the destruction of human spirit. The Metropoitan Museum of Modern Art once exhibited works of an indigenous artist. After the exhibition, the artist asked for a little compensation for transport and installation of the exhibits. The museum said, that they displayed his work was a lot of investmet in itself – and that he should be grateful for that. The MOMA arrogance exposes the real values of the art world. Consider the invisible way in which a critic in The New Yorker creates these neocolonial evaluations for a piece of painting. She says on the home page, “Museums know the desires of our hands. The special presence of paintings comes from their being at once untouchable and viscerally evocative of touch. (April 21, 2020)”. A piece of painting is never so important, that it will continue to invoke our presence for its self-fetishization.  Painting does not transcend life and humanity – it does not need to sit in a museum and make its own publicity look so arrogant and inhumane, waiting for its bidder, and its entry into the house of a collector.

4.

True human values lie in the honesty of the heart, even of it is not ‘artistic’ by the world’s standards. There may be true worth in the greatest of writings, but its appropriation by the industrial elite, has overshadowed its preciousness in a world of self-mesmerizing profanities. Creative writing should be undertaken in one’s own language, criticism should enrich one’s own culture and values. The unthinking study and glorification of Anglophone discourse, out of which we can scarcely escape, automatically aligns us to the media elite that tries to control the world’s markets. As long as we don’t shift our attention from the sufferings of our fellow humans we shall not render a disservice to people who speak the same language as ours, who reap the fruits, flowers and grain that sustain us. True beauty is tied to this simple life of communications.  The viral moment has now created a space of introspection. It lets us focus on the essential spark of life. Academic discussions have been alienating us for long time.  The best definition of creative process is to be creative, explore – each one, one’s true hope and dream. and to hope for expiation through a humble word. It would be time, in a world freed from the virus, to identify and negate the presence of all brands of elitism.

Reflection of Social Conflict of Kazakhstan of the 90s of the 20th Century by Visualizing Spatial Models in the Film Directed by Darezen Omirbaev

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Yembergenova Dinara1, Akhmedova Aizhan2 & Abikeeva Gulnara3

1Kazakh Leading Architectural and Civil Engineering Academy, Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan, dinarae@bk.ru, ORCID: 0000-0002-9133-1993

2Kazakh Leading Architectural and Civil Engineering Academy, Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan, aizhan.akhmedova@googlemail.com, ORCID: 0000-0003-3935-3957

3Turan University, Almaty, Republic of Kazakhstan, gabikeyev@googlemail.com; ORCID: 0000-0001-8493-1547

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

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n2.19

Abstract

The article highlights the issue of social and cultural clashes of different segments of the population of Kazakhstan. Art is a way of communication;  so Darezen Omirbaev expressed his opinion about the current situation in independent Kazakhstan in 1991 through the film “Kairat”. According to the plot, the main character, Kairat, leaves his village and moves to a big city – Alma-Ata. These are two fundamentally different spaces, both architecturally and socioculturally. As the director demonstrated, – the city did not accept a resident of another class, a different type of thinking. Kairat, as a representative of the Kazakh-speaking culture of Kazakhstan, ineptly tries to integrate into the Russian-speaking urban environment. The frames are filled with archetypal images that allow a more in-depth look at the conflict between the film and society. The article provides data that demonstrate how the situation with the film industry and language policy in Kazakhstan has changed.

Keywords: Film, Director, Kazakh Cinema, Language Policy, Social Conflict, Space, Kairat, Darezhen Omirbaev.

Magical Realism: The Magic of Realism

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Ayyub Rajabi1, Majid Azizi2, Mehrdad Akbari3

1Ph.D. Student of Persian Language and Literature. Arak Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran. Email: ayob.raiabi@gmail.com

2, 3Assistant Professor of Persian Language and Literature, Islamic Azad University of Arak

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

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n2.18

Abstract

In Magical Realism the elements of reality and imagination are so elaborately interwoven that the reader simply accepts them, in such a way that all artificial and imaginary incidents in the storyline seems completely real and natural. Considering the concept of Realism, it can be realized that literature aims to surrender itself to the real world and, by the means of imagination and imagery, balances the truth. Furthermore, realism admits that it owes a repayment to the real world, the world that it indisputably surrenders itself to. The results of this study indicated that, this art and the magic of Realism and reality have transformed Magical Realism into the most appealing and real type of Realism in such a way that, despite its magical and marvelous appearance, it is mostly acceptable and believable for the reader. Additionally, this kind of literary genre is more consistent with the principles of the school of Realism than any other, and it presents the mission of the Real author and his/her commitment to the community well and beyond reality.

Keywords: Imagination; Realism; Magical Realism; Knowledge; Reality.

Teaching and Researching Reading in Indian Context

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Megala M1 & Anil Premraj J2

1Research Scholar,  2Assistant Professor, Department of English, School of Social Science and Languages,Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore. Email: megalamanisharaj@gmail.com

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

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n2.17

Abstract

The importance placed on reading skill emerges from the necessity of performing well that starts from primary stage of learning to the workplace scenario. One of the first things children are pressurized to do at early schooling is ‘Learn to Read’ and of course that remarks their progressive transformation to become an expert in reading. Using descriptive method of research, the study traces the importance and efforts taken by second language teachers and students towards the development of reading skills from primary class to university education in Indian context. It also addresses the existing lag in English language education, necessity of infusing the requirement of specially designed curriculum, and to fulfil the need of learners especially who felt difficulty in reading. The study suggested skill-based instruction in detail at each level as a remedy for rectifying deficits in reading.

Keywords: ESL, Subskills instruction, Reading skill, NCERT.

Performative Subjects & the Irresistible Lack of Understanding in David Mamet’s Oleanna: a Butlerian Discourse Analysis

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Hojatolla Borzabadi Farahani1 & Mariam Beyad2

1Department of English language, Arak Branch, Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran

2Associate Professor, University of Tehran. Email: n_bfarahani@yahoo.com

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

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n2.16

Abstract:

The present study tends to explore the constitution of power and its formative effects on David Mamet’s play, Oleanna, a very controversial work dealing with sexual harassment and political correctness. The analysis is going to be done applying views and results of Judith Butler’s notion of gender and identity trouble to the play first through explanation of related key concepts like difference, decentering, subject and language, and then utilizing them to analyze the roots of sudden, surprising transformations and role-reversals of the involved characters, John and Carol, through the three acts. Furthermore, it is tried to find out the causes of unavoidable violence within the contexts of the relations going between the characters.

Keywords: gender, identity, difference, decentering, performative, understanding, violence, discourses, language

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Features of Adolescent Deviant Discourse in Social Networks

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V. V. Gridina1, V. N. Antonova2, I. G. Malanchuk3, A. V. Kipchatova4, O. I. Katlishin5

1 Samara State Technical University, Samara, Russia. ORCID: 0000-0003-3183-0448. Email: samavera@mail.ru,

2 North-Eastern Federal University named after M.K. Ammosov, Yakutsk, Russia. Email:  antegor@mail.ru

3 Independent Non-Profit Organisation Expert Union KONTEXT, Krasnoyarsk, Russia. Email:  cora1@inbox.ru

4 Krasnoyarsk State Pedagogical University named after Viktor Astafyev, Krasnoyarsk, Russia. Email: allakipchatova@mail.ru

5 Perm State Agro-Technological University named after Academician D.N. Pryanishnikov, Perm, Russia, ORCID: 0000-0003-2869-2312. Email: katol81@yandex.ru

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

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n2.15

 

Abstract

The flip side of “networking” was the emergence of new types and ways of social interaction between individuals and social groups, characterized, among other things, by socially dangerous manifestations. These manifestations are expressed in the absence of a system of sanctions and control over the dissemination of any type of information on the Internet, difficulties in identifying ideologues and leaders of extremist and separatist associations that also conduct their activities using social networks and much more. The younger generation easily perceived the entire multilateral network world with its ambiguous consequences for the system of its own norms, values and behaviors. It is not necessary to mention once again that the informal, youthful groups of a criminal nature today have changed their internal structure, mission and functional features. It is enough to recall a number of mass protest actions regularly organized using the internet and other social networks, including offline. Recently, quite often mass actions of a destructive nature have occurred with the participation of adolescents of middle and senior school age, whose activities were coordinated through the global Internet and other modern means of communication. At the same time, the scientific and expert community does not yet have reliable data on the mechanisms of such interaction, its trends and patterns. The social network of a teenager with deviant behavior will be interpreted by us as a special type of connection between the social positions of adolescents, the closest social environment, including the school environment and close relatives, which are formed on the basis of social capital resources, goals of interaction between these actors interplay between their positions.

Keywords: adolescents, deviations, social networks, social interaction, communication, age psycholinguistics, discursive behavior.

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