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Constructing stereotypes about nations or sub-nations has been at once insistent
and fairly universal. The Western colonizer constructed the Orientals as rope-
walkers and magicians, the Muslim men as terrorists, and women as
hopelessly manacled by conservatism. It was said that a critic from the North belt once
commented, down South there are stenographers, but do they write poetry? He was colossally
ignorant of the rich poetic tradition in the South, dating back to thousands of years. It is then the
job of the `others' to break free from these constructions. Edward Said is one of the
eloquent thinkers who attempted such breakout. The construction of Muslim women as
ignorant of their religious texts and the absence of democracy is sought to be dispelled by a
few Western writers themselves, like Wilfrid Blunt. There are other stereotypes like that
of the Indian woman whose sole aim is to get married and beget children. Even in
teaching, the stereotype is to teach grammar mechanically. It is time that we got out of
these imposed or self-chosen constructions.
In the first paper in this combined issue, "Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient: An Intertextual Perspective", Guru Charan Behera brings out the intertextual
references to several novels, poems, history and even to the Italian painter Caravaggio's
paintings, which endow the novel with rich `hybridity and syncretism', in the words of Julia
Kristeva. They provide rich resonances. Examining the English epic poem, "The Stealing of
the Mare", by Wilfred Scaven Blunt, Aiman Sanad Al-Garrallah, in the paper,
"Bedouin Romance in English Poetry: Wilfrid Scawen Blunt's The Stealing of the Mare", shows that Blunt succeeds in presenting the local color of the Bedouins, decoding their
customs, traditions, even superstitions, which cumulatively dispel the imperialistic
constructions about the Muslim world by Westerners. Blunt argues for a more open investigation
into Oriental traditions and mores.
Swati Srivastava and Fatima Rizvi, in their paper, "The Concept of Self in the
Creations of Manju Kapur", examine the image of the new woman presented by Manju Kapur
in her novels Difficult Daughters, A Married
Woman and Home, which is yet another attempt at breaking the stereotype of the Indian woman as a mere wife, mother
and daughter. The protagonists in these novels seek emancipation from the traditional
roles and engage in the struggle between the passions of flesh and their yearning
for participation in the political and intellectual movements of their times. Binod
Mishra and Narinder K Sharma, in their paper, "Signification of Duality in Anita Desai's Voices in the City", examine the dualitymasculine versus feminine, tradition
versus modernitywhich creates difficulty for women like Maya in Cry, the Peacock and Monisha in Voices in the
City, and results ultimately in psychic tension, even
suicide. Suman Ray Malakar and Soumyashree Das, in their paper, "Structural `Anatomy'
in Shiv K Kumar's Select Short Fiction: An Appraisal", discuss the contribution of
the versatile Shiv K Kumar to the Indian short story in English, through an analysis of
his collection, To Nun with Love and Other
Stories, both structurally as well as
technically. They observe that the parts of human anatomy are idealized as embodiments of
mystery and beauty.
We offer three papers on issues relating to the teaching of the English
language, viewed from a pragmatic perspective. In his paper, "Teaching of the Passive Voice
in India: A Perspective", Rohit Shriniwas Kawale comes down heavily on the
mechanical teaching of the passive voice without paying attention to the communicative
purpose, citing extensively from the questions set for SSC and HSC examinations of the state
of Maharashtra. Kavita Singh Rajput, in her paper, "Literary Text: An Effective Way
to Communicative Language Teaching", emphasizes the helpful role that a literary text
can play in imparting linguistic competence to a learner. The unfortunate attitude of
certain powerful institutions to relegate literature to the back room, with an excessive zeal
to treat language as a mere skill, has been convincingly refuted. The need for realizing
the interrelatedness and interdependence of all humans for minimizing shyness, distrust
and fear, and for enhancing communication skills, is stressed by S Kumaran, in his
paper, "Necessity of Ecological Principles for Enhanced Communication". He draws on
the ecological concept that everything is connected to everything else.
Chetan Deshmane, in his paper, "The Place of Place in Stevens", examines
the `mythology of self' evolved by the poet Wallace Stevens, who finds that the place
one inhabits is really inseparable from such mythology, while the poet yet seeks
landscapes unfamiliar. The North-South dialectic and the resultant vector in his mediations on
space are examined by the author.
In a rare interview granted by the perpetually angry writer Sasthi Brata, the author
of works like My God Died Young and Confessions of a Woman
Eater, to Amitendu Bhattacharya, offered in this issue under the title, "An Angry Genius Called Sasthi
Brata: An Interview", Sasthi Brata comes across as an angry old man at seventy, and
denies vehemently that he depicted women as `slabs of meat on a couch'. Though a
penchant for the salacious is undeniable, mere frankness in depiction does not make one an artist.
In the `Book Review' section, we offer sympathetic assessment by S S
Prabhakar Rao of the service to Telugu writing rendered by Malathi Nidadavolu, in her
critical survey, Quiet and Quaint: Telugu Women's Writing
1950-1975 and an anthology of translations of Telugu short stories titled, From My Front Porch: An Anthology of Telugu
Stories; and of the fresh poetic voices of R M V Raghavendra Rao in Viewless Wings: An Anthology of Love and B Cauveri in Sandalwood Chips. The reviews will
hopefully enthuse readers to delve deep into the offerings.
-- S S Prabhakar Rao
Consulting Editor |
