Labyrinth|Vol.6-No.3

ISSN 0976-0814

Labyrinth An International Refereed Journal of Postmodern Studies

Vol.6 - No.3 July 2015

Abstracted & Indexed at Literary Reference Centre Plus, EBSCO HOST, USA Editor Lata Mishra Dept. of English Studies & Research, Govt. KRG (PG) Autonomous College, Gwalior, MP Editorial Office 204- Motiramani Complex, Naya Bazar, Lashkar, Gwalior - 474 009 (MP) INDIA Cell. +91 97531 30161 email- [email protected] Title Owner & Publisher Lata Mishra, Editor- Labyrinth Styling, Design & Printing Digital EFX, Gwalior Cell. +91 98262 83355 email: [email protected] website: www.digitalefx.in

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Table of Contents Articles Oral Knowledge Discourse in World Cultures- Ravi Bhushan 5 Is the Discipline really Dead? Interrogation of Relevance of Comparative Literature in Indian Context - Hemang A. Desai 10 A Dream Surpassing all Structural Boundaries -A Spectral view of The Slave's Dream through the Prism of Parataxis and Hypotaxis -Priyanka Dey 17 Resistance Against Patriarchal Hegemony : Kunzang Choden's The Circle of Karma - Nazneen Khan 27 'Cursed' Black Aspirants in Gloria Naylor's Linden Hills - G.Satya & R.Sita 35 Absent Father in Anjana Appachana's Listening Now - S. B. Biradar & Tripti Karekatti 41 Confessions of Kamala Das: An Iconoclast of Her Generation -Guni Vats 47 Women and Their Livelihood: A Portrayal of Domestic Servants in the early 21st Century South Kolkata - Swati Basak 54 Manju Kapur's Home: Nisha's Voice Among The Voiceless -Shruti Sangam & Sunita Tiwari 65 Diaries and Letters: Emotional flow of Anna Frank and Anna Winterbourne in The Diary of a Young Girl and The Map of Love - Papri Sultana 74 Charles Dickens, the second construction of British Realism -Afroz Ashrafi 82 Betrayal of Myth of Controlled Sexuality: Liberation through Sexuality in Nadine Gordimer's A Sport of Nature - Shuchi Agrawal 92 'Songs of Desire and Throe' – A Voice from Pakistan: A Study of Poems of Parveen Shakir -Shweta Tiwari 98 A Study of Khushwant Singh's Train to Pakistan: Realism, Sacrifice, Affection, Brutality and Theme of Division - Sugandha Agarwal 103 Rethinking Subaltern: An Outsiders Perspective on Slumdog Millionaire - Gaurav Sood 112 Repression, Ethnicity and Identity- A Reading of Ismail Kadare's The Palace of Dreams as a Political Allegory - Kaushik Hazarika 119

Rethinking Haptic in Literature: Deleuze's Reading of Beckett -Sreedevi D Nadeem Aslam's The Wasted Vigil: An insider-outsider view of the Socio-Political scenario of Afghanistan - Namita Singh Laudable Regionality: The Oeuvre Of Neoti Ray - Pinaki Roy Containing the Chaos: Analyses of The Entertainer by Osborne Concerning the notion of a fragmented Alienation and the anxiety of the Unheimliche - Saranya Mukherjee The Concept of Games and Role-Playing in the Plays of Harold Pinter -Zeeshan Ali Triumph of Romanticism in Highway - Ranveer Walt Whitman & the Divided World of Critics - Monali Bhattacharya The Deori Tribe of Assam in India: Some Traditions and Cultural Fiestas - Guptajit Pathak Let There Be Peace, For Goodness' Sake - Albert Russo Sri Surya Pahar-The Attractive Tourist Destination Site of Assam - Azizur Rahman Sarkar

127 135 144

154 161 166 172 178 184 191

Short Story Winnings on Fire - Sayantan Pal Chowdhury The Secret Life of Adarsh Dev - ND Dani Three Experiences with Snakes - KV Raghupati

194 197 202

Poems What is Karma?

- KV Dominic

Our Esteemed Contributors

206 207

Labyrinth: Volume-6, No.3 July-2015

ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 5-9

Oral Knowledge Discourse in World Cultures - Ravi Bhushan Abstract: In this digital age, one finds it hard to imagine a time when knowledge was passed on orally, by word of mouth. The pursuit of knowledge in Indian traditions was developed and disseminated in a purely oral environment. Knowledge texts like Vedas, Ramayana, Mahabharata, Upanishdas, Iliad, Odyssey etc were orally transferred from one generation to another before they were finally written. Language is an oral phenomenon; in fact language is nested in sound. Not only communication but thought itself relates to sound. Structural linguists like Saussure and Henry Sweet have laid emphasis on primacy of speech. In fact Saussure goes on saying that writing simply represents spoken language in visible form. In an oral culture knowledge once created has to be continuously repeated or it would be lost. Fixed formulaic thought patterns are essential for conveying wisdom embedded in oral cultures. Many modern cultures that have known writing for centuries have never fully intellectualized writing but cultures like Arabic and Mediterranean rely on formulaic thought expressions. Sustained thought is the hallmark of orality. In an oral culture experience is intellectualized mnemonically. This paper is an attempt to affirm orality as the sustainable mode of knowledge discussed in world cultures. Keywords: Orality,Writing, Culture, Knowledge.

Introduction: Although literature generally has come to be associated with written forms, yet many non-western cultures have produced an extraordinary range of verbal, non-written literary genres. Oral discourses have wide circulation in many indigenous communities across the world whereby alternate belief and knowledge systems have been constructed and communicated. Indian culture has emphasized the primacy of 'oral' and 'aural' expressions against the 'written' or 'textual'. Among the great variety of verbal literary forms such as women's songs, ballads, devotional narratives, heroic epics, myths, legends, folk stories and so on, the majority of the forms are sung, spoken or performed in a variety of social and ritualistic contexts. In a multilingual and multivocal context like that of India, the oral often crosses language borders. Orality and Literacy: The classic texts like the Mahabharata have been re-evaluated in the light of the growing understanding of the role of oral literature and oral tradition in human culture. Communities as varied as the African indigenes, the Australian aborigines, the Baul minstrels of Bengal and the wandering bards of Punjab have rich repertoire of folk wisdom. Anthropologists, folklorists, literary critics, and creative writers have used such expressions to redefine the dynamics of cultural

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Is the Discipline really Dead? Interrogation of Relevance of Comparative Literature in Indian Context - Hemang A. Desai Abstract: Literature may be a universal phenomenon but it is also a product of a nation and finds expression of in a specific language. Comparative Literature has negotiated this dialectic of unity and multiplicity, national and universal, central and marginal that operate at the level of language, literature and culture from its birth to its alleged death. To an Indian rooted in the cultural heritage of Vasudhaivkutumbakam as well as rich multiplicity of hoary literary traditions, the idea of world literature sounds all very well if not avant-garde, though this humanistic notion is extremely problematic as it involves quite contentious issues of representation, canon, otherization, periodization, hegemony and homogenization. Keywords: Literature, Discipline, Globalization,Tradition.

That a discipline which was declared in crisis by Rene Wellek way back in1950stook approximately half a century to officially die speaks volumes about the intrinsic rigour and ineluctable relevance of Comparative Literature (CL). Interestingly enough, the last nail in the coffin of the discipline was driven by none other than the famous dwarpalika of Mahashweta Devi in west through her book Death of a Discipline (2003).In an otherwise well-intentioned intellectual mission, Spivak's here critiques the parochialism and cultural obscurantism innate to various disciplines like Ethnic Studies / Cultural Studies, postcolonial studies, areas studies and comparative literature and their consequent interdisciplinary failure in the age of globalization. While Cultural Studies' is obsessed with"new immigrant" community, postcolonial studies, according to her, with its woeful obsession with India, has failed to provide adequate knowledge of the Other in translated anthologies. She denounced “the arrogance of the cartographic reading of world literature in translation as the task of Comparative Literature,”(2003: 73 )counter-offering the figure of a 'planetary' conception of Comparative Literature that would strive towards the preservation regional specificities of languages and local identities in the face of the homogenizing discourse of globalization. However, admittedly the idea of yoking together Comparative Literature with Area Studies appears unrealistic at worst and romantic at best, the reason being it insists on the need to learn the language of the Other through the literary method and not simply as a fieldwork. Conceptualization of 'planetarity' may be

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ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 17-26

A Dream Surpassing all Structural Boundaries - A Spectral view of The Slave's Dream through the Prism of Parataxis and Hypotaxis - Priyanka Dey Abstract: M. A. K. Halliday believes that language is a social semiotic system. Every sound, word, structure an individual uses reflects the situational context influencing his psychological built and hence his linguistic choices to make meaning. H. G. Longfellow, the white skinned American poet, is world famous for his prodigious talent of artful exploitation of these linguistic devices to achieve his desired goal. The philanthropist poet's benign heart thus when comes to know about the slave trading in Africa and about the inhuman torture of the white Europeans on them he applies his weapon to raise a protest against this vandalism and compose the Poems on Slavery with eight poems. The slave's dream is perhaps one of the best of the lot where the poet makes a profound philosophical teaching of the single origin of mankind and celebrates the invincible power of the soul. How the poem surpasses all the physical, structural domains and etherealizes into the blissful spiritual domain of eternal peace through the central use of parataxis and hypotaxis is investigated in the present paper. Keywords: systemic functional linguistics, formal grammar, clause, parataxis, hypotaxis.

Introduction: FANBOYS (such as for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) have always been suggested to be avoided as much as possible in regards to good writing. These conjunctions along with the subordinating ones (such as that, accordingly, moreover, in fact, since etc) are often considered to backlash and deter the spontaneous flow of any written composition. And this notion that, 'Of all the parts of speech, the conjunctions are the most unfriendly to vivacity.' (Campbell, The Philosophy of Rhetoric, 395) is as old as the saying of the 18th century rhetorician George Campbell. However, Locke believed that the connectives provides the reader with the author's own key to the relation of the materials and bring the entire composition under focus. Hence he writes: The word whereby [the mind] signifies what connexion it gives to the several affirmations and negations, that it unites in one continued reasoning or narration, are generally called particles: and it is in the right use of these that more particularly consists the clearness and beauty of a good style. To think well, it is not enough that a man has ideas clear and distinct in his thoughts, nor that he observes the agreement or disagreement of some of them; but he must think in train, and observe

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Resistance Against Patriarchal Hegemony : Kunzang Choden's The Circle of Karma - Nazneen Khan Abstract: The Bhutanese writer, Kunzang Choden's The Circle of Karma (2005) provides a cross- cultural reading which tells its story across the boundaries of nation , religion and time. The novel gives vent to a kind of female subjectivity which refuses to reconcile to the dictates of a male dominated society. It traces the history of a woman's struggle for space in social structure , against hegemonic control and oppression. It questions the notion of patriarchy , subjugation of a woman's life to her sexual functions , and the guilt which society induces in her when she demands freedom or thinks of her own emotional needs. The chief protagonist, Tsomo's life is a series of ordeals which make her look within and initiate an inward journey as well. The Circle of Karma is a feminist text which questions the aesthetics of the traditional theoretical assumptions with a view to reassess the relation between the androcentric social order and the female body in order to subvert the phallogocentric discourse. This paper attempts to analyze Kunzang Choden's The Circle of Karma as a specimen of gynofiction which seeks to resist patriarchal hegemony and is concerned with what Elaine Showalter terms as “articulation of women's experience”. Keywords: Hegemony, gynocritics, patriarchy, sisterhood, androcentric, hierarchy, gynofiction.

Contemporary women's writing in English has moved away from the confines of domesticity to engage with the historical, political, cultural and economic dimensions of the public space. Recent years have witnessed women writers from different regions of the world gaining better visibility in the literary domain, making a more conscious and articulate attempt to speak for themselves and of the areas of experiences related to their lives.The postmodern liberalization grants women a space for their presence and thereby provides them opportunities to develop multiple identities for themselves. Women from different cultures are evolving new strategies to challenge or subvert dominant patriarchal ideology and to represent other images of sexuality. These attempts are part of the process of 'reading' the past, controlling the present and shaping the future. Jasbir Jain rightly observes : Women, as producers of goods, of knowledge, of posterity, as carriers of tradition and agents of change, refuse to be passive objects of desire or of subordination … it is not only society but art as well which has had to accommodate the change in women's self-perception. (Jain 21)

Contemporary women writers of SAARC fiction, apart from dealing with the traditional themes of man-woman relationship, subjugation of women, women empowerment etc., depict the larger issues of existence.

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'Cursed' Black Aspirants in Gloria Naylor's Linden Hills - G.Satya & R.Sita Abstract: In the literary socio-cultural conventions Black women writers have resorted to assert, unprecedented definitions of women and alternative discourses of black womanhood. Gloria Naylor focuses the gender roles of women seen through the lens of female activities, experiences, goals, values, institutions, relationships and modes of communication in her novel Linden Hills. Keywords: rife, ostracized, exorcism, sisterhood, octoroon, aphrodisiacs, epiphany, bondage

African- American literature is the body of literature produced in the United States by the writers of African descent. The genre traces its origins to the works of the writers of 18th century represented by Phillis Wheatley and Olaud Equianc. The tradition of African- American Literature has reached its high points with slave narratives and the writings of the Harlem Renaissance. It continues today with authors such as Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Gloria Naylor and Walter Mosley being ranked among the top writers in the United States. The themes and issues explored in African- American literature are the contexts of African- Americans within the larger American Society and African- American culture, rife with racism, slavery and inequality. A Black woman's voice for securing social equality is the major concern of Black women writers of the decades of Black literature where both gender consciousness and racial consciousness of blacks were made persistent. In the literary socio-cultural conventions Black women writers have resorted to assert, unprecedented definitions of women and alternative discourses of black womanhood. To quote Elizabeth Janeway in Women's Literature: Black women writers have produced some items of the most items and revealing studies of the strains that a mulches including society puts on its members. History is always present in these books, fiction or no; and it is a history of daily inescapable assault by a world which allows so little room for a continuous coherent self to grow that one wonders how survival is possible at all. (Janeway 382)

All Women Novelists are the unacknowledged sociologists of the world who examine female experience and the conforming norms of society. Gloria Naylor focuses the gender roles of women seen through the lens of female activities, experiences, goals, values, institutions, relationships and modes of communication in her novel Linden Hills. Gloria Naylor's second novel Linden Hills deals with the black man's effort to realize his American dream. Linden Hills is the name of a place which is an

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ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 41-46

Absent Father in Anjana Appachana's Listening Now - S. B. Biradar & Tripti Karekatti Abstract: Father is treated as a pious figure in Indian family system.The importance and his role have not been questioned in the past. Hence father is given a status of God. Father is a term widely used in social, religious and cultural context. It reflects the origin of power and authority. His scope and impact has been noticed in the titles attached to a family. Patronymic identity is followed in many societies across the world. Father is treated as a paragon of manhood and authority. He is not a stark picture and outgrows into a huge gigantic personality in all the societies. Innumerable fathers have shown their power and authority while discharging their duty and responsibilities in the family. In the sense, father is treated as a towering figure. However, many fathers do not fulfill all aspects of familial duties. This has been pointed in Anjana Appachan's novel Listening Now. Anjana Appachana's first novel Listening Now (1997) explores several mysterious clandestine regarding the father's identity. Five women characters reveal interesting observations on the secret identity of father. It postulates various perspectives on absent father. The novel depicts the challenges and frustration faced by the protagonist in her domestic life. The entire plot surrounds the awful life-story of Padma, the protagonist. Keywords: father, absent father and paternal functions.

'God the father', 'fatherland', 'forefathers' and 'founding fathers' all such terms invariably refer to the origin, authority and also to its importance. Patronymic identity is followed in many societies across the world. Father is treated as a paragon of manhood and authority. He is not a stark picture and outgrows into a huge gigantic personality in all the societies. The history has given innumerable images of fatherly personalities such as Arjun, Karna, Buddha, Shivaji, Gandhi, Ambedkar, Churchill, Lincoln and Nelson Mandela. More than eighty countries of the world have the father of the nation. For example, Mahatma Gandhi is father of India, Mohammad Ali Jinha, father of Pakistan, Cyrus the Great, father of Persia, Geroge Washington father of America, Giuseppe Garibaldi, father of Italy and so on. Many films have been screened on father or fathers as a central character. Innumerable short stories, plays, epics and novels are written on father and his victories and defeats in an interesting manner. Father is a towering figure in all these societies though many men do not fulfill all aspects of this most worshipped and idealized role of father when we consider paternal functions. Anjana Appachana's first novel Listening Now (1997) explores several mysterious clandestine regarding the father's identity. Five women characters reveal interesting observations on the secret identity of father. It postulates various perspectives on absent father. The whole plot moves swiftly like a mystery thriller. The novel

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Confessions of Kamala Das: An Iconoclast of Her Generation - Guni Vats Abstract: Confessional poetry as a genre emerged in the US in 1950s to aid the American youth drifting towards the drugs. Kamala Das did not attempt this but purely confessed her womanhood. Her truth was misinterpreted as lust and was crudely categorized as an adulterous feminine poet. Many elements of her poetry like the equations of Consciousness and Pain, use of language as salvation, constructing a selfhood and undoing it and the somnambulistic strain qualifies her to be compared with Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton but her assertion as a female poet in the male dominant generation and her unhesitant confessions undoubtedly make her an Iconoclast. Keywords: Confessional poetry, Voyeurism, Somnambulistic Strain, Consciousness and Pain, Salvation. With words I had destroyed my life. I had used them like swords in what was meant to be a purification dance, but blood was unwittingly shed. Kamala Das (My Story, 198)

An epitome of womanhood, a soul laid bare, a guilty and a pure writer, an unequipped housewife, a loving mother, an affectionate granddaughter, a teenager who migrated to womanhood, an innocent soul who was left alone in the sea of lust to experience and safeguard her identity, Kamala Das started writing at an early age only to discover it to be her greatest love and biggest fear. She emerged as an iconoclast not merely because she was a woman writer but because she had a voice and could speak about women as a woman. She wrote about her personal life, all that was a taboo and confessed it in the boldest language that a conventional nation could not accept: I am a freak. It's only|To save my face I flaunt, at|Times, a grand, flamboyant lust ('The Freaks') Confession stems out of a need to lessen the burden of a heavy soul, the emergence of confiding oneself in a confidante, may it be a priest, a friend or a reader. Confessional poetry as a genre emerged to aid the same purpose, in the United States of America in 1950s.This genre gathered its concerns from 'the awareness of the emotional vacuity of public language in America and the insistent psychologising of a society adrift from purpose and meaningful labor' (Charles Molesworth, 163-178). The variedly developing American middle class of the fifties, fascinated towards drugs was hardly interested in the post-Eliot poetry. The 'postindustrial' society, the 'lonely crowd' was intrigued and titillated by poets like Snodgrass and Sexton, who, focussing on extreme moments of individual experience, the psyche, and the personal trauma included subject matters which were then considered taboo, such as mental illness, sexuality, and suicide. “These are the tranquilized fifties, / And I am forty. Ought I regret my seedtime?” queried Lowell in his Life Studies (1959).

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ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 54-64

Women and Their Livelihood: A Portrayal of Domestic Servants in the early 21st Century South Kolkata - Swati Basak Abstract: In this research paper there is an earnest attempt to explain the socio-economic condition of the women domestic workers of Kolkata in the present society. The primary concern was to assess the employer-servant relationship. To realise the real condition of the domestic servants I have conducted a field survey on live in domestic workers of South Kolkata. I made a comparative study on the condition of the domestic workers of India and other countries. Domestic servants from Asian countries are migrated to many European countries. There are some similarities and some contrasts which I have exposed in my paper. Some biographies, letters have been found in the Western countries which are totally absent in our country. It is easier to assess the condition of the servants from these documents but the countries like India domestic servants are not literate enough to write anything or express their grievances. So it is very difficult to understand their actual situation. Only Baby Halder's autobiography throws some light on this topic. So I decided to conduct a field work on the women domestic workers of Kolkata. In this research gender and class play very important role in shaping the mistress-maid relationship. From my survey work I came to know that as they did not get any scope to receive education, the workers are hopeful enough to make their children educated so that they need not have to do the same job. This is a mouthpiece of the struggles, miseries of their lives. Keywords: domestic workers, bhadramahila, employment, middleclass, work, South Asia, South Kolkata, mistress-maid.

Introduction: This paper focuses on women domestic workers of Kolkata in the 21st century. Though domestic work is very important but it is not recognized by the scholars for a long time. Before 1970 it was not noticed by the scholars. The feminist writers first took initiative in giving importance to domestic work. As domestic work is mainly dominated by female workers so the feminist writers and scholars gave more importance to the significance of this work. In the country like India though a vast majority of women were engaged in domestic work there is no proper distinction between productive and domestic work. In the nineteenth century there was a huge demand for domestic workers in colonial Bengal. It has been argued by historians that class formation in Bengal in the nineteenth century extended, controversially, to women. According to Sumanta Banerjee, the more amorphous culture of the city in which the elite and the masses shared, gave way to a sharp divergence between elites and

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ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 65-73

Manju Kapur's Home: Nisha's Voice Among The Voiceless - Shruti Sangam & Sunita Tiwari Abstract: “I raise up my voice- not so that I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard.” (Malala Yousafzai). Manju Kapur is a writer raising her voice in her works through the characters. Her novels deal with women who raise voice in their life for recognition of their self. 'Home' is a place where a girl in her childhood days gets attached to the roots that is the traditional values of her family which, after her marriage she carries with herself to her new home. Throughout her life she maintains a long silence to domestic violence and traditional values that is passed from one generation to another. But, today, she has opened her eyes wide enough to see the world through her own perspectives and raises her voice in the world to protest against the male dominant society. She is a symbol of roots which is nourished with traditional values to become a sacrificial daughter, a wife and a mother. She knows her prerogatives in life and is aware of the balance she has to maintain in life. In this paper, an effort is made to present the image of a 'new woman' who fights for her identity and emancipation from her roots, not at the cost of her family. Nisha, Manju Kapur's protagonist in Home is a bold character that passes through a number of ebbs and flows since her childhood days. Crumbled with the burden of traditional values in the later part of the novel, she raises her voice against the traditional values, and her family, not only for higher education but also to establish her own identity by opening a boutique with the name of 'Nisha Creations.' Keywords: feminism, identity, roots, traditions, home.

“Home is where we have to gather grace.” (Enterprise) This is a perfect saying by Nissim Ezekiel in his famous poem Enterprise in which he elucidates that one can feel tranquillity at one's own house and nowhere else. And this statement is truly applicable for Nisha Kapur's bold and assertive protagonist of Home who from her very childhood was prone to a number of struggles and conflicts both internal and external but ultimately she is satisfied with herself and her own decision to stay with her family. It is so because she has been revolting against all the old traditions and practices that were practiced in her home since the survival of her grandfather Banwari Lal. As the title 'Home' indicates the novel centres around the concerns of womankind more than those of males, and some of the dominant concerns of womankind as discussed in it are dowry and marriage depending on it, barrenness and education and financial independence. According to the pioneer feminist Simone de Beauvoir, the two prerequisites for women's freedom are 'economic independence and liberation from orthodox traditions of society' (god) while dowry and barrenness are ostensibly visible in the Banwari Lals,

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ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 74-81

Diaries and Letters: Emotional flow of Anna Frank and Anna Winterbourne in The Diary of a Young Girl and The Map of Love - Papri Sultana Abstract: In her diary The Diary of aYoung Girl, Anna Frank and in the novel The Map of Love, Ahdaf Soueif has portrayed a living picture of a patriarchal society where women express themselves in letters and diaries. Diary is undoubtedly influential in the life of women and we can identify the differences of use of language to express emotions and thoughts. Though society plays a part in building this emotion and feeling in women along with the constructive attitude still some researchers argue that male and female brain has different construct. However, society still likes to be conscious about gender. Probably because of this taught and practiced construct of language use but it is true that women from different times and places have similar feelings and way of expression. This paper gives us the impression of emotional reading; rather I would say interpretations that have been used in the novel by Soueif, The Map of Love and in Anna Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl. This paper focuses on the similarities of incidents and the way of expression. To discuss elaborately it has focused on Culler's theory along with other prominent critics of the field that has worked behind this. It also talks about gendered reading and patriarchal social life of women. Keywords: Reading, Patriarchy, Diary, Letter, self identity, familiarity and similarity.

Neither Anna Frank's diary The Diary of a Young Girl nor Anna Winterbourne in The Map of love is a Cinderella story rather it is written in a very simple form with a feminist twist. In both of the book Anna character has gone far for their right to make choices and seek satisfaction with their will, intelligence, and perseverance, along with some good luck, they prevails. For this reason, these two books have been seen as a manifesto of a woman's right to the pursuit of happiness. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the similarities and dissimilarities of Anna Frank and Anna Winterbourne. Further, I am interested in showing how our understanding of the emotions in one novel, carries over into our reading of the other, thus affecting our interpretations of the characters and their relationships. In both the book we find letters and diaries which are considered as the pleasures of reading with or without any reasons and they are valuable windows for looking into the past. Both kinds of personal texts rely on narrative, or storytelling, something which gives historians a useful, inspiring, and sometimes challenging entry for the

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Charles Dickens, the Second Construction of British Realism - Afroz Ashrafi Abstract: Charles Dickensrose from the ruins of ashes totell everlasting stories of human miseries and exploitation based on the observations and the pragmatic illustrations of what he endured as a child, what he encountered as an adult and what he realized as a writer. A broken child, a wailing adult and a mature commentator of the human insouciance towards the street savvy. This research paper attempts a revaluation of Dickens in the context of Marxist doctrinal adhesion and the dogma of the capitalist holocaust. Keywords: Proletariat, Predicament, Lampoon, Capitalism, exploitation, dignity and rights.

Dickens is one of those writers who are well worth stealing. Even the burial of his body in Westminster Abbey was a species of theft, if you come to think of it. - George Orwell. Charles Dickens was one of the few masters of prose with enchanting style and poetic elegance, words, passages, paragraphs, expressions, idioms and a sense of direction remain the features of a writer who celebrated the writing of prose along with Joyce and Hemingway. Dickens wrote what ailed humanity, what ailed him personally and what ailed the world of his time and beyond yet there is the perfectly serene and lucidly crafted common sense in his writings be it the toxic chimney smoke or the dingy, congested, breathe-choking bottle factory, a soggy London street or the Victorian razzmatazz or the nobility of the Christian soul, all he did was to stir up the slumberous conscience of the Victorians who lived on the falsity of a feigned ethical scale. He was scathing yet entertaining, ruthless yet inspiring, savage yet redeeming. He blended his experiences with utter disdain towards the opulent to be one of them at a later stage but without the arrogance opulence entails. Dickens is the Captain Ahab of Moby Dick, so full of verve yet a sense of remorse permeates him but he is never in league with the advocates of irrationalism. Condemned to a scary childhood, to a firmed solitary road of life, trudged the dreams of a dream merchant with swords of realism, witty candour and a heavy fisted slam on the doors of destiny to end up as the song of the subaltern, as the succour of the deprived and as the hope of the abandoned future. He is tour de force and the vox populi of the reading mass, entrenched into a commoner's concept of paradise which never dwindles to the theatre of the Absurd. Reading him is recovering the faith in the justice of Nature, the good moral fable, the hijacked political hierarchy and the crumbled social order where the street savvy can dwell in his own wretched self to unearth the wretched of the earth which Dickens believes is a handful of

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ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 92-97

Betrayal of Myth of Controlled Sexuality: Liberation through Sexuality in Nadine Gordimer's A Sport of Nature - Shuchi Agrawal Abstract: What is sexuality? Sexuality is obviously connected with sex. Sex refers not only to sexual activity, it also marks the distinction between male and female anatomy. Sexuality is a social-political arena constantly reshaped through cultural, economic, familial and political relations, all of which are conditioned through prevailing social organizations at given points in time. Michel Foucault tended to regard sex itself as a phantasm that both constituted and contaminated sexuality. For Foucault, sex is no more than an “artificial…fictious unity of anatomical elements, biological functions, conducts, sensations, and pleasures” that passes itself sensations, and pleasures” that passes itself off “as a casual principle, an omnipresent meaning, a secret to be discovered everywhere.” (Foucault, 1976, 154) Although society tends to think of sexuality as internally situated, sexuality also involves a learned relationship to the world. Female sexuality is seen as something to be contained and controlled: this labeling: good” women as virgins and “loose” women as whores. Such labels depict female sexuality as evil and dangerous if not constrained and imply that “good female” should repress their sexual feelings. But Nadine Gordimer demystifies the myth of contained female sexuality in her novel, A Sport of Nature through the portrayal of Hilella who is pictured as a new breed, 'a flash-in-the-pan', a political drifter who lives life through her skin and body. Keywords: Sexuality, body-politics, apartheid, Hillela, Gordimer, postcolonial feminism, gender, identity, black, politics, sex.

Nadine Gordimer has never placed herself in the company of those who have suffered imprisonment, torture, exile and death, nor claimed the slightest sharing of experience with black South Africans. For herself, there was no direct involvement in political action beyond her work. In fact, she hates the labels “the anti-apartheid writer or post-apartheid writer. Her opposition to apartheid isolated her from English-speaking Whites. She is rare among white South Africans for having genuine and close friendships with blacks.Thus Gordimer reconstructs a world where 'art' and 'politics' like 'body' and 'mind', 'black' and 'white', 'betrayal' and 'commitment', have separated as binary oppositions. Thus her challenge is an intellectual and artistic as much as a political one. Whether it is in the way we dress, the gender we are or the shape we are, our bodies shape the way we think about ourselves and the way that society thinks about us. Our bodies are texts to be read, with meanings and values. When it comes to sexuality, despite sex being so naturalized in our society,

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ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 98-102

'Songs of Desire and Throe' – A Voice from Pakistan: A Study of Poems of Parveen Shakir - Shweta Tiwari Abstract: Parveen Shakir (1952-1994) is one of the prominent women poets of the twentieth century Pakistan who introduced a female perspective in the Urdu ghazal. The women in the Islamic countries as opposed to the women of the West have always been constructed as submissive, oppressed and backward. In a thoroughly male dominated country like Pakistan, the creative genius of a woman remains subdued. In such a socio-cultural scenario, Parveen Shakir as a poet presented a fine understanding of both the 'feminine' and 'feminist' identity of a woman. Her poems aim at redefining the space of a woman and reinstating her experiences in a gendered society. She not only emerged as a well known poet in the sphere that was primarily reserved for the males alone but also sensitized the people about the condition of a woman in a patriarchal society. Keywords: Ghazal, Nazm, Identity, Feminist, Patriarchy,

Due to rapid globalization and unprecedented advancement in communication technology, the focus is now shifting from the mainstream to the languages and culture that were earlier relegated to the margins. The literary and poetic richness of Urdu can compete with many ancient languages. The contribution of ghazal has been extremely crucial to the popularity of Urdu literature. Originally, the Urdu poetic canon articulated strong personal emotions of love, beauty, intimacy, pangs of separation etc but gradually it also became responsive to a wider range of complexities of human thoughts. It began to encompass mysticism, philosophy, principles governing life and socio- cultural reality too.With the pioneers like Mirza Ghalib and Faiz Ahmed Faiz, the Urdu literary tradition became primarily male-centric. In a patriarchal society the inner experiences of a woman have always been rendered invisible because they were considered frivolous and trivial. The male dominated society has smothered the individual identity of a woman by promoting marriage and motherhood as the most important roles of her life. A woman's self-exploration leads her to the discovery that she is the product of a culture in whose making she has had a negligible part. The Islamic society too has been strident and heavily gendered for the women. Till a very recent time the Muslim women in the countries like Pakistan had to grapple with the basic issues of freedom to education and appearing in public domains. In such a cultural milieu Parveen Shakir emerged as one of the most prominent poets of the twentieth century

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ISSN 0976-0814; pp 103-111

A Study of Khushwant Singh's Train to Pakistan: Realism, Sacrifice, Affection, Brutality and Theme of Division - Sugandha Agarwal Abstract: This paper attempts to bring forth the various aspects and the consequences of partition in India after the independence in1947. It also reflects that how seeds of contempt sown due to colonization which led only to destruction and violence. Train to Pakistan is a book about the terrors of civil war and how a small village finally becomes an area of religious hostility and communal destruction. It describes the myriads of human sentiments which arise in critical times and portrays how nothing is definite in life. Khushwant Singh states with this book that there is no categorical discrimination of a person as good or bad and that even the best of relationships, which are made upon the merits of friendship and empathy, Train to Pakistan is a story of human tolerance and struggle through a mass movement. Independence brought us our own government, our own flag, our own nation, but for a commoner he lost his own home, his own relatives, and his own complete individuality. Keywords: Discrimination, Contempt, Tolerance, Colonization, Violence, Struggle, Empathy

Khushwant Singh's name needs no introduction in Indian literary history as one of the finest novelists, a political commentator, and a remarkable observer and social critic. His vast and sound knowledge and understanding of India's history, political systems, and literary heritage is reflected truly. He was a renowned novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, columnist, historian and editor. His major topics were the traditions, ethical problems, and sociopolitical predicaments of typical Indian life. He had established himself as an eminent writer of social realism with the publication of his maiden novel, Train to Pakistan. The term social realism means the description in literature of social reality in its true sense. Khushwant Singh was a product of western culture but he was at heart a Sikh and an Indian. Realism is the most prominent feature of Indian English novel in which Indian sensibility is articulated through a foreign language. Realism shows real life, facts in a true way. It omits nothing that painful and idealizes nothing. The term 'realism' truly means a theory of writing in which the familiar ordinary aspects of life are presented in a matter of fact, straight forward manner designed to reveal life as it is in a way that presents descriptions of every day life, often the lives of so-called middle class. Realism which signifies to the content and art of literary creation has been evident in literature from its beginning. The theme of the novel is as simple and common as possible – a small

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ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 112-118

Rethinking Subaltern: An Outsiders Perspective on Slumdog Millionaire - Gaurav Sood Abstract: Mumbai, the major cinematic city of India is unarguably the most recognizable metropolitan city of India. The city is basically known as the financial hub of the country and above all the entertainment industry. Mumbai, allegorically speaking can be distinguished into the centre and the margin. The centre of the city is neat and better constructed and the “other” part resides in the periphery of the city which is haphazard, orderless and largely consists of slums that gives Mumbai a vital part of its character. As the “centre” cannot exist without the “periphery”, these slums are now the shadow of the main Mumbai as both leach on each other despite their economic and social asymmetry. Slumdog Millionaire gives a balanced view of Mumbai and represents the city in realistic categories of economy, class, religion and migrants. Keywords: Slumdog, cinematic city, marginalized, subaltern, Mumbai.

Film in India has had a powerful public presence and significance since the post-independent era. The rapid expansion of India cities and urbanism of lifestyle has been extremely large and Indian films have not only represented the process of modernization and urbanization, but also the struggle and reaction towards the agendas of modernity. Films propagate these agendas in the form of contestation, negotiation and asserting control over modern urban culture and politics. In my paper I plan to analyze the cinematic city of Mumbai and through the selected film Slumdog Millionaire, I will reconfigure and re-assess the representation of Mumbai from the perspective of an outsider and in this case, Danny Boyle (director of the film). The Mumbai film industry has created a space for itself around the world. Along with Indian diasporic audiences, Hindi films attract non-western audiences in Eastern Europe, Africa, Russia, Middle East. The films are the only connection for the diasporic families with the homeland and thus helps connect with Indian society, culture and politics. Akbar S. Ahmed in “Mumbai Films: The Cinema as Metaphor for Indian Society and Politics” (1992) compares cinema to the realities of life. He mentions that “Eclecticism and syncretism are dynamics of Indian cinema. Like life, the cinema suggests, societies are part real and part false.” (290). Despite the western influence, Hindi cinema has maintained a unique identity. This uniqueness makes it a vital part of popular culture and a crucial space for

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ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 119-126

Repression, Ethnicity and IdentityA Reading of Ismail Kadare's The Palace of Dreams as a Political Allegory - Kaushik Hazarika Abstract: The most widely translated and globally recognized Albanian author, indeed the only one to have gained an international reputation, is Ismail Kadare. Kadare is a superb master of employing myths and historiography to create the paradigm for the Albanian people to forge their unique national identity. An outstanding characteristic of the Balkan postmodern novel is its preference for historical evocation, a quality that distinguishes it from other European works in postmodern prose. His historical evocations and tales are meant to give a metaphorical representation of Albanian people along history and in contemporary times. Kadare's fictions are political allegories of the most powerful intensity where he assumes the role of a guardian commentator on situations and conditions both historical and contemporary. The following essay surveys Kadare's disillusion with the totalitarian regime that marks the beginning of his secretly dissident status. Situating his narrative in an allegorical Ottoman empire, the chapter also looks into how he comments about maintaining one's pure ethnic identity by shredding the Ottoman Shield. Keywords: Political Allegory, National Identity, Dreams, Ethnicity, Totalitarianism.

Ismail Kadare's 1981 novel The Palace of Dreams, easily his most daring novel upto date, paints a sinister and weird picture of a political edifice whose foundations are built upon the collection and the interpretation of dreams. Banned shortly after its publication, the novel is considered to be the most vicious attack on a totalitarian repressive regime. Although Kadare's novel is placed in an imagined late Ottoman Empire called the UOS (United Ottoman States), there is little of the color the Ottoman Empire in this novel. It reads very much as an allegory of post-war Central and Eastern Europe with parallels between Hoxha's regime in Albania being unmistakable. The present chapter shall deal with the political functioning of a state that differentiates itself by its proximity to be irrational and regressive at the same time and how Kadare charts out its workings in his allegorical Ottoman Empire situating its mechanisms to communist Albania. The Tabir Sarrail or Palace of Dreams, presented as the 'one of our great imperial state's most important institutions'(18)is based on the belief or rather blind faith that dreams have the supreme

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ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 127-134

Rethinking Haptic in Literature: Deleuze's Reading of Beckett - Sreedevi D. Abstract: There is an increased interest in the study of human sense experience - especially vision, touch, taste, and smell - across disciplines like anthropology, sociology, film studies, art history and literary studies. In literary studies haptic or tactile experiences through vision or sound has become a major subject of enquiry and such experiences are studied primarily through metaphors and other representations of bodily experiences of the characters with in the text. The paper aims to examine whether there is an alternate way of haptic experiences in literature. For this the paper will draw from Deleuze's analysis of Beckett in his Essays Critical and Clinical. Keywords: Proximity, intensive, the limits of language, stutter and exhausted.

Recent decades have witnessed an increased interest in the study of human sense experience - especially vision, touch, taste, and smell across disciplines like anthropology, sociology, film studies, art history and literary studies. In anthropology a whole range of studies related to sense experiences have emerged, which can be termed as a 'sensorial turn' (Howes 2004; Classen 1993, 2005). Multisensory experiences like haptic experiences are discussed not just in film theory and new media, but literary studies also began to explore it in literature. The experience of haptic has become an object of enquiry in literature especially in European modernist literature (Garrington 2013). Haptic experiences in literary texts are studied mainly through representations of bodily experiences.This paper aims to analyse whether there is an alternate way of studying the experience of haptic other than the representation of bodily experiences in modernist literature. For this the paper will draw from Gilles Deleuze's analysis of modernist literature. Haptic visuality is a term that is popularly associated with film and new media related studies (Marks 2000, 2002; Barker 2009; Hansen 2004). It is associated with the experience of touch while viewing. Thus it is not touch in literal sense, but an experience or knowledge of tactile experience through other senses primarily vision. It is through close or proximal vision that such experience is realised. In one of her essays namely “Touching Texts: The Haptic Sense in Modernist Literature” Garrington says that “no full account has been given of the role of the haptic in literature, either as a subject of fiction or as the basis for a mode of writing” (810). One of the recent studies on haptic in literature is AbbieGarrington'sHaptic Modernism: Touch and the Tactile in Modernist

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ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 135-143

Nadeem Aslam's The Wasted Vigil: An insider-outsider view of the SocioPolitical scenario of Afghanistan - Namita Singh Abstract: The status of an insider or an outsider has created interest and found place in the works of the sociologists such as Merton (1972) and Schutz (1976) long back. This term was first coined by Robert K. Mertoni in his paper entitled Insiders and Outsiders: A Chapter in the Sociology of Knowledge. Merton holds that knowledge has been accessed in categories. Some groups have monopolistic access to the particular kind of knowledge while the others have the privileged access towards it. The paper aims to analyze Nadeem Aslam's TheWastedVigil in order to throw light upon the socio-political scenario of Afghanistan both with an insider and the outsider's perspective. Keywords: Diaspora Community, Nadeem Aslam.

Afghanistan is considered one of the most impoverished nationsii of the world. Years of continuous war have made it a war-torn, ravaged, and besieged nation. Owing to its geographic position between the Middle East, Central Asia and South Asia, Afghanistan has long been used as a battleground for strategic wars by the external powers. In addition, the fragmented and polarized nature of Afghan society, which is made up of many different ethnic groups, has lead to its multiple internal struggles which have gained support from the different external powers. The continuous destruction caused to the country for over the past three decades is evidence to the strength and patience of its people and the groups who work towards rebuilding their country. Although Afghanistan is a difficult place for a serious writer, yet the happenings in Afghanistan have been captured by several literary figures. They have been writing about the life and politics of Afghanistan and its tragic and violent story continues to unfold over the last more than four decades in their writings. These writers can both be insiders and outsiders. Insiders comprise of the diasporic writers who were born in Afghanistan but due to the socio-political upheavals and turmoil in the country they left the country like Khaled Houssini,Tamim Ansary,Bashir Sakhawarz etc. Outsiders comprise of the writers who stay outside Afghanistan and writing about the situations prevailing there like Nadeem Aslam,Yasmina Khadra etc. Khalid Hosseini's novels The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns and Tamim Ansary's West of Kabul; East of New York and The Widow's Husband present an insider's account of Afghanistan and the life of its people. Both Ansary and Houssini are insiders with a difference. Both of them have delineated the situation of Afghanistan from their own perspective. The Basic difference in the

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ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 144-153

Laudable Regionality: The Oeuvre of Neoti Ray - Pinaki Roy Abstract: Regionality in literature has come to be regarded as an important literary aspect since the popularisation of the feature by the Irish dramatist John Millington Synge (1871-1909). At least twentyfour English writers have been identified by literary historians as 'regional novelists', among them being Phyllis Bentley and H. E. Bates. An inhabitant of northern Bengal, Neoti Ray has achieved critical recognition as a regional litterateur with her narratives dealing especially with the hardships of the impoverished people of northern Bengal. The present essay attempts to offer a very brief review of Ray's oeuvre until 2012, and introduce the fineries of her publications to general readers. Keywords: Regionality, north Bengal fiction, poverty, immigration, hardship.

One of the more important features of postcolonial literature is its assertion of its own specific identity vis-à-vis the sense of self gained through interaction with and influence of the colonisers. If the twentyfirst century literature – especially that produced in India – is characterised by a concern with a specific identity, Neoti Ray's oeuvre (comprising six short-story collections and one novel) is postcolonial in its identity-building as well as other various aspects. Ray (originally born in Cooch Behar and presently a Siliguri-resident) who completed her doctoral studies in 1993 on the Rajbanshi folktales and female life of northern Bengal, has gradually carved a literary niche for herself over the years, by writing especially about northern Bengal and its life in her short-story-collections and novel, more critically acclaimed of which are Badhubaran ('Bride-welcoming') (1996), Buri-Balasoner Upakatha ('Tales from the Banks of Buri Balasone') (2000), Mahendra O Tar Alik Swapno ('Mahendra and his Fantasies') (2011), and Karna-Kunti Cycle Workshop (2012). In Bengal's literary milieu – consisting principally of publications in both Bengali and English – which has steadily (though censurably) remained Kolkata-centric even one-hundred-and-fouryears after the city ceased to be the Indian capital, it is hardly surprising that the aesthetic regionality of Ray's narratives would be alternately overlooked and criticised. But it is an incontrovertible fact that her symbolic strategic-essentialism concerning registering of a nonsouthern-Bengali identity has actually savoured her oeuvre from dwindling into the level of forgettable writings routinely churned out as despicable sentimental stories or potboilers. Though not lacking in

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ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 154-160

Containing the Chaos: Analyses of The Entertainer by Osborne Concerning the notion of a fragmented Alienation and the anxiety of the Unheimliche - Saranya Mukherjee Abstract: John Osborne's works created a huge uproar in the late 50s and 60s when they first appeared. This study attempts to re-read the author's works and his time with all the shakeups; it is a re-reading of the past angst, the passed anger, through certain ever-present but overlooked psychic stress, anxiety of lessness/alienation. The study shows the disintegration of the modern man, centering on the plays of Osborne by linking it with the evocation of an 'uncanny' feeling for an increasingly unknown ambience, an unfamiliarity that breaks a full generation apart. Keywords: Osborne's works, angst, psychic anxiety, alienation, Lessness. “Puff your plume in anger and fight, cock, Delight the owner of knife Smear sting with pollen and flap your wings. As I said:Twist the arms and keep them bent Roll the rug and come down the terrace after disturbed sleep Shoe boots …rifle…whirring bullets…shrieks…”(Malay,2008)

It is a long story the origin of which can be traced back to years before; a story that talks of man as a helpless creature, diligently digging its own grave deeper and deeper. The present age, bystander of all its splintered truth points to an empty cultural landscape: a scenario that was so very evident and reacted throughout, as hinted even in the late 18th and 19th century. The incredibly astonishing 20th century with the significant years 1900, 1913, 1922, 1939, 1956 and so on has gone through more than a few explorations in and outside the sphere of the Individual. Drama provides a space where the questions are raised to problematize the identity and the placement of a modern man in the present age. Through its use of different insignia or emblematic representations, language, radical scenes, modern drama is considerably significant, so far as the ratification of the 'piece-full' reality(ies) of the slippery truth of a world is concerned, which at present time is considered to be pseudomodern, neither modern nor postmodern1. Multifaceted ideas, often with straightforward, almost rugged diction are presented as a form of communication. The plays of the time demonstrate the unfamiliarity with a changed world through these techniques for most of the times. The modern plays are envoys of that metamorphosis, the changing

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ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 161-165

The Concept of Games and RolePlaying in the Plays of Harold Pinter - Zeeshan Ali Abstract: Harold Pinter, a playwright whose originality was so compelling that it has brought into the lexicon the term Pinteresque, to describe an atmosphere of expectation, where real characters speak "unrealistically," or inconsequentially, as people actually do in everyday life. He evoked that atmosphere of dread simply by having his stage protagonists engage in conversational repetitiveness and seeming irrationality, served up as objects of interest in and by themselves. This paper shows the art of game and role playing that Pinter to explain the true appearance of human existence and situation. These conceptsemphasize the fear lurking just around the corner, the sense of menace that is prevalent due to an impending threat. Keywords: game playing, threat, menace, realism.

Harold Pinter, English dramatist, was born in 1930, in Hackney in London's East End. He is the son of an English tailor of Eastern European Jewish ancestry, and studied at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and Central School of Speech and Drama. One of the most important English playwrights of the last half of the 20th century and the most influential of his generation, Pinter writes what have been called "comedies of menace." Using apparently common place characters and settings, he invests his plays with an atmosphere of fear, horror, and mystery. The peculiar tension he creates often derives as much from the long silences between speeches as from the often curt, ambiguous, yet vividly vernacular speeches themselves. His austere language is extremely distinctive, as is the ominous unease it provokes, and he is one of the few writers to have an adjective—Pinteresque—named for him. His plays frequently concern struggles for power in which the issues are obscure and the reasons for defeat and victory undefined. He has won many prestigious honors, the crowning of which was the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature. Pinter began his theatrical career as an actor, touring with provincial repertory companies. Pinter's work is heavily influenced by Samuel Beckett, who used silence-filled pauses for a revolutionary theatrical effect. In his introduction to Pinter: A Collection of Critical Essays (1972), Arthur Ganz writes that Pinter “shares the reluctance of many writers to have the full evocative experience of his work reduced, or altered, to an intellectual formation.” In Pinter's case, however, this reluctance is tempered by his conscientiously designing plays that, in Ganz's view, “demand analysis even as he frustrates inquiry.” Pinter's willful obscurity was often viewed as a breach of contract between the

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ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 166-171

Triumph of Romanticism in Highway - Ranveer Abstract: Highway, as depicted in the film serves as a connecting link, an end to charter the route to release and freedom for Veer and Mahabir Bhati. Scenes of common and rustic life with its simple language and manner abound in the film. Veera and Mahabir exemplify the spirit of rebellion against the oppressive system and tradition. Imagination, passion, emotion and mysticism take the film closer to romanticism. The elements of sadness, gloom, silence, death and escape – all defining features of romanticism suffuse the canvass of the film. Silence with all encompassing gloom works like a language in the film. Finally 'love for nature' as the ultimate feature of romanticism serves as a unifying element of the plot in the film. Keywords: Elements of Romanticism, Highway, Freedom, Release, Rebellion, Escape, Silence, Nature

According to noted philosopher Isaiah Berlin, Romanticism embodied: a new and restless spirit, seeking violently to burst through old and cramping forms, a nervous preoccupation with perpetually changing inner states of consciousness, a longing for the unbounded and the indefinable, for perpetual movement and change, an effort to return to the forgotten sources of life, a passionate effort at self-assertion both individual and collective, a search after means of expressing an unappeasable yearning for unattainable goals (The Crooked Timber of Humanity, p. 92).

The film Highway exemplifies the elements of romanticism, the literary movement that started in the last decade of eighteenth century and went on progressing until about 1832, the time of death of the great romantic novelist Walter Scott. Despite severe criticism the movement faced for its over enthusiasm and transitory nature, it has kept its presence felt through sporadic efforts of writers in different genres particularly in poetry. Cinema is the most pervasive recent medium, which has benefited by the spirit of romanticism. The present essay is an attempt to analyze and evaluate the presence and influence of elements like – individual freedom; depiction of common life with its simple language and manners; the spirit of rebellion; role of imagination, passion and emotion; elements of gloom, silence death and escape; and the most significant, the presence of nature - in the film Highway. The film is called a 'road movie'. The road, i.e. the highway serves as a connecting link, a means to an end for the filmmaker. The end is to charter the route to release and freedom for Veera Tripathi, the heroine of the novel. This release - from oppressive and stifling atmosphere of her home - forms the theme of the film. Her father M.K. Tripathi is a business tycoon having all the resources of comforts and luxury at his

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ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 172-177

Walt Whitman and the Divided World of Critics - Monali Bhattacharya Abstract: Walt Whitman continues to puzzle the critics with his poetic concerns that openly celebrate love between man and woman as well as man and man. The critics earlier have condemned him as being perverted, later on as homosexual, but none can deny that love which he professes is beyond body urges embodying the spirit of love between souls. The result has been divided opinion amongst members of critics' fraternity with some supporting him, some criticizing him while many almost worshipping him. This paper attempts to put forward this division amongst researchers in the last century and see how Whitman was really ahead of his times and a true ambassador of humanity, celebrating love forever. Keywords: Whitmaniacs, Homosexuality, Love,Transcendentalism

American Literature has come a long way from being younger brother of British Literature to becoming the Master of World Literature today. It could attain this position only because of innumerable writers of excellent creativity and philosophy shaping and nurturing it. Their immortal works as well as their philosophic thought continue to nourish the emotional and intellectual needs of the readers even till date. One such writer is Walt Whitman and his 'Leaves of Grass'.To talk of American Literature without them is like British drama sans Shakespeare. Leaves of Grass is essentially a saga of American Civilization, a poem in process, with each succeeding edition from 1855 to 1891 representing a unique period in the poet's life as well as the nation. Leaves of Grass in its final edition is the perfect mirror of American philosophy of the last century, Whitman's poetic philosophy as well as the general ideology of U.S.A. Today, more than a century after publication of the final edition of the Leaves of Grass, Whitman's place in American history often seems as nebulous and enigmatic as the ideas upon which America was founded. Numerous poets since Whitman have consciously either placed themselves in the wake of his tradition or reacted violently against him, and the aesthetic value of Whitman's poetry continues to be a controversial subject. But for the critics, every decade has seen emergence of those who are called "Whitmaniacs", the readers who are much caught up in Whitman the man, as in his writings. Consequently, they have created a series of authorial myths, often but not necessarily contradictory: Whitman the good g(r)ay poet, the nationalist, the moralist, the advocate of the family, the prophet, the crusader for liberty, the enemy of social injustice. Whitman may be said to have believed in only one religion - the religion of modem man. And Leaves of Grass was his Bible, the text of his religion, the guide for those who would embrace

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ISSN 0976-0814; pp. 178-183

The Deori Tribe of Assam in India: Some Traditions and Cultural Fiestas - Guptajit Pathak Introduction: The Deori Tribe is one of the major ethnic tribes of Assam in India. It belongs to the Sino-Tibetan family of Mongoloid stock. They have been able to preserved their Mongolian racial traits, languages, religion and folk tales, beliefs through centuries. It is believed that the people of Deori tribe had migrated from Dibang, Lohit, Kundil valleys and settled in Upper Assam long ago. However, turning the pages of history one can find that the homeland of the Deoris is in the North Eastern states of India or in the east of undivided Assam. The book 'Mataks and their Kingdom' states that the Deoris had their abode on the bank of the Kundil River that flows through the Sadiya (Chapakhowa) area. Hence, their Kingdom was known as Chutam in the North Eastern region of the Brahmaputra Valley. Again according to 'Siva Purana', the Deoris were living at Chaug-Chu-Kul, Chakati-Chaliya, Laibari, Lataubari, Joidaam, Arem-Kerem and Mamaru-Pichala. Social Life: The Deori people are very spiritual in nature. They build a place (in the home) containing an altar for praying. They follow aboriginal faith and worship their Ancestors like– Kundi-Mama, Boliya Baba (pisadema) and Tameshwari (pisasi). They also worship the Hindu deities.They worshiped God by singing hymns and holy songs. On the passage of time, the experienced priests known as Boderi and Bharali started sacrificing animals in their temples. They served as priest in the Sutiya and Ahom Kingdom and hence got the name “Deori”.They like introduce themselves as 'Jimo-Chhayan' (the children of the sun and the moon). They were respected among the tribal communities as priests or worshipers. The Deori people live in typical “Chang Ghar” (Stilt house). The lower part of the house is used as an enclosed space for the animals.The floor poses some holes in it. They used to pass the unnecessary foodstuff to the animals. A passageway is enclosed to the mid of the house or in a side by which they can separate various rooms for some purposes. They use bamboos, woods, canes, reeds, etc. to build their traditional house. The fireplace called as 'Dudepati' is attached with the 'Chang'. The Deoris cooks various meals in it and eat, sitting around the fireplace. A platform remains enclosed to the house for cleaning various things. Such a platform is also built (by somebody) at the entrance of the house. There are some exogamous clans among the Deoris. These are– Sundhariya, Patriya, Dupiya, Marangya, Chariya, Lagasuya, Chitigaya, Mehedaya, Kuliya, Ariya, Kumotaya, Bihiya, Khutiya/Buruk, Machiya, Birromiya, Paporiya, Fagimegera, Senaboriya, Chakuchara, Ekacharul/Busaru, Simocharu, Hizaru, Popharu and Gucharu. It is important to mention here about the deori people is that, though the community is made up of multiple clans; no two clans reside in the same village.

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Let There Be Peace, For Goodness' Sake - Albert Russo (Letter to a friend, after the Paris January 2015 massacres) appeared in The Times Of Israel 9 February 2015 I shall start with an African anecdote, for as you know, I was born and raised in Central Africa and also haved lived in the southern part of that continent, which is very close to my heart. I thought this article 'Tu seras Juif, mon fils', which is the story of a Congolese Christian who, with the blessings of his family, has converted to Judaism, might interest you, knowing that there are about 170,000 Ethiopian Jews living in Israel, as well as tens of thousands of AfricanAmericans who claim they belong to one of the lost Hebrew tribes (also considered as Israeli citizens). Of course, there are racists everywhere, even in Israel, where some Ashkenazi (of East European origin) look down on Sephardim (southern Europeans, or Jews, formerly living in North Africa and in the Arab Middle East), and the same goes for African and other Jews. But in the whole, it is a much more open country than most - and here I refer to our so-called developed Western societies. I am witness to this, since I've been at least a dozen times to Israel and to Palestine (the West Bank - my last visit there was in Novembre 2011). Next June B and I will spend 3 weeks in Israel and we shall attend, among two other congresses, a world LGBT interracial and interreligious conference. Tel Aviv, is by far the most gay-friendly city in the world, more so than New York City, San Francisco, Paris or London, since there are no specific gay districts there, gays and transgender individuals (men, women or vice-versa) are everywhere, they hold hands and even kiss openly in broad daylight, and that is considered 'normal', except, of course, by that small margin of Jewish fanatics (some of whom don't even recognize the State of Israel, since they are still waiting for the Messiah) - who mumble their inanities, since the Tel Aviv population would send them reeling on the pavement, if they dared voice their homophobia too loudly. Israel, an apartheid country? Let me laugh, and that is being repeated in Western universities, including in North America, and even in South Africa, during that infamous Durban gathering a few years ago (where of course, the Muslim countries were in majority). Either they don't know what real apartheid means (in the case of those South Africans who equated Zionism with racism, especially the small Muslim minority, they know everything about apartheid, but nothing about Israel, or else they wouldn't express such inanities) - I do, since I've lived in South Africa and one of my novels was banned there - or they are just blatantly antisemitic.

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Sri Surya Pahar - The Attractive Tourist Destination Site of Assam - Azizur Rahman Sarkar Introduction: Sri Surjya Pahar is famous archeological spot in the lower Brahmaputra valley and is one of the pivotal chief heritages of the ancient remains of Goalpara district of Assam. It is located on the eastern slope of Surjya Pahar within a charming lush green backdrop. Surjya Hill altitude is 2606' N and longitude is 90042' E. It is positioned about 12 kilometers south-east of Goalpara town and 130 kms. North-west of Guwahati connected by the National Highway 37 up to Dudhnoi. It is important that Sri Surjya Pahar of Goalpara district is the significant religious spot and it attracts people of all beliefs of the country mainly during Maghi Purnima (January-February). It is a union of three religions i.e. Hindusm, Janism and Buddhism, as obvious from the several relics. It may be transformed to heritage site and a tourist purpose in the outline of Ellora with its methodical developments. Review of Literature: Great Historians namely Sir Edward Gait, Banerjee and Singh highlight to the accounts of Chinese pilgrim Hieun Tsang and the unearthed relics claim that Sri Surjya Pahar and its margin have pivotal significance and is the definite Pragjyotishpur, the capital of the kingdom of Bhaskar Barman. Archaeological Representations of Sun: The occurrence of Sun worshiping is supported by a variety of revealed archaeological symbols of Sun in the beautiful region of Sri Surjya Pahar. The KalikaPurana, a work on the subject of 10th century A.D. composed in ancient Kamarupa talk about Sri Surya Mountain as the eternal abode of the God Sun. The Text cited, in Chitrasaila, the nine planets were devoted. The Surya Mountain of KalikaPurana is obviously Surya Pahar of Goalpara District and Chitrasaila has been recognized with Arvak hill near Guwahati. Excavations by Archaeological Department, Government of Assam, 1993: The Archaeological Department, Government of Assam, in the year 1993 highlighted the proposed excavation in the well-known tourist destination of Goalpara, Sri Surya Pahar and a lot of relics were exposed from this spot. Here, mention may be made of PanchaRatna Basement of an ancient temple along with a ceiling stone slab Surya Chakra curved in spherical form with picture of twelve Aditya and in the middle part there is a figure of lord Ganesha. On the other hand, in the north western way of Surya Chakra, at the foothills of Sri Surya Pahar, a variety of specifics created and hence one twelve armed deity with seven hooded canopy over its head locates wellknown.

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Our Esteemed Contributors Ÿ Ravi Bhushan, Assistant Professor, Department of English, BPS

Mahila Vishwavidyalaya, Khanpur Kalan, Sonepat, Haryana. Ÿ Hemang A. Desai, Education Officer, University Grants

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Commission,Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt. Of India, Bahadurshah Zafar Marg, New Delhi. Priyanka Dey, Asst. Professor (English), Department of Applied Sciences and Humanities, Haldia Institute of Technology, Haldia, E. Midnapore, West Bengal. Nazneen Khan, Associate Professor, Department of English and Modern European Languages University of Lucknow, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. G. Satya PhD Research Scholar, Bharathiar University,Coimbatore. Assistant Professor of English,Tagore Arts College, Puducherry. R. Sita, HOD of English (Retd), Kanchi Mamunivar centre for PG Studies, Puducherry. S. B. Biradar, UGC Teacher Fellow, Department of English, Shivaji University, Kolhapur, Maharashtra. Tripti Karekatti, Asst. Professor, Department of English, Shivaji University, Kolhapur, Maharashtra. Guni Vats, MA English, Department of English, Central University of Rajasthan, Rajasthan. Swati Basak, Assistant Professor of History, Mahishadal Raj College, Purba Medinipur,West Bengal. Shruti Sangam, Research Scholar Dr. C.V. Raman University Chhatisgarh. Sunita Tiwari, Assistant Professor, CMD PG College, Bilaspur Chhatisgarh. Papri Sultana,Teaching Assistant , BRAC University, Bangladesh. Afroz Ashrafi, Associate Professor of English, College of Arts and Science, Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Shuchi Agrawal, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Amity University, Noida, Uttar Pradesh. Shweta Tiwari, Research Scholar, University School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi. Sugandha Agarwal, Assistant Professor, Department of English, MIT, Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh. Gaurav Sood, Research Scholar, Department of English and Cultural Studies, Punjab University, Chandigarh.

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Labyrinth | Vol.6 No.3 (July 2015)

Ÿ Kaushik Hazarika, Research Scholar, Department of English,

Guwahati University, Guwahati, Assam. Scholar, Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Namita Singh, Lecturer, Department of English, S.S.Jain Subodh College, Jaipur, Rajasthan. Pinaki Roy, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University, Pundibari, Cooch Behar, West Bengal. Saranya Mukherjee, Guest Lecturer, Researcher and Translator, Creative Writer, University of Calcutta, Kolkata,West Bengal. Zeeshan Ali, Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology (NIT) Patna, Bihar. Ranveer, Research Scholar, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi. Monali Bhattacharya, Associate Professor, Department of English & MEL, Banasthali University, Rajasthan. Guptajit Pathak, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Kanya Mahavidyalaya, Affiliated to Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam & Ph.D. Research Scholar, Department of Women's Studies, Magadh University, Bodhgaya, Bihar. Azizur Rahman Sarkar, Assistant Professor, Department of Assamese, Bilasipara College, Dhubri, Assam & Research Scholar, Department of Assamese, Visva-Bharati Shantiniketan (Central), West Bengal. Sayantan Pal Chowdhury, UGC-NET qualified, Assistant Teacher, Siliguri Baradakanta Vidyapith (HS),West Bengal. N.D. Dani, Associate Professor, Department of English, Sri Jai Narain Postgraduate College, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. K.V. Raghupati, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Central University of Tamil Nadu,Tamil Nadu.

Ÿ Sreedevi.D, Research Ÿ Ÿ

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Other Esteemed Contributor/s are on the Editorial Board of Labyrinth.