Language as dramatic medium becomes very interesting in the Indian context especially if we keep in mind the fact that multilingualism and bilingualism are established facts of our literary culture. Indian writers like most educated Indians are usually bilingual to a large extent in their everyday dealings, and though most confine their literary activity to their mother tongue, there are a few who also write in English. Distinguishing functional bilingualism with intellectual and emotional bilingualism i.e. “between reading a language and knowing it through and through”, Ramachandra Guha notes that there has been a decline in intellectual bilingualism – in the ability to contribute “to literary or academic debate in that language”(39). However, Sudhanva Deshpande mentioning Girish Karnad among many others argues that theatre is an exception, “multilingualism is well established, and well entrenched, in Indian theatre” (74).
To Vilas Sarang one of the reasons for the bilingualism among Indian writers, other than the obvious one of English being the passport to success and glory, resides in the fact that for some Indian writers “expression in both their languages is perhaps the only means of fully satisfying their creative urge. To a genuinely bilingual writer expression in only one language must seem an incomplete process”(37). This is probably why Girish Karnad diligently translates his plays from one language to the other. However, among the two languages, Kannada seems to be the language of his unconscious mind while English that of the conscious part. A study of the circumstances that led to his first play makes this very clear. While embarking on his visit to England as a Rhodes Scholar the expectations of his family made him...
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... of language and education is the most important in this story and society. The make use of two different languages in a narrative, provides a reader a perplexing yet fascinating image of characterization and customs. Multilingual story telling pushes the reader to decelerate and acquire supplemental focus on the expressions which are in the small fragments, however as soon as the reader has figured out the foreign words, he or she acquires a priceless picture of the theme of this story. The panorama of native words and phrases, cultural perceptions, and class dispute taken from the incorporation of two different languages are helpful for the reader to obtain significance that he or she couldn't gain if exclusively one language was employed in the story. Just as the power of language is applied to unveil a society, a better comprehension is provided to the reader.
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“The writer from a marginal culture is in a double bind”(Damrosch 9). Without the influences of great foreign writers, a young writer is unable to attain greatness in the like. He is limited by reading and studying only the literature of his own culture. Thus, his writing becomes the same as those before him. Through world literature, a writer can access predecessors from varying cultures, who implement different styles and ways to express emotion in their works.
Throughout ‘To the Welsh Critic Who Doesn’t Find Me Identifiably Indian’, Arundhati Subramaniam argues that the “the business of language”, or the language that one speaks, should not dictate one’s identity. This becomes crucial in her poem as she uses this argument in response to a Welsh Critic, who does not identify her as being Indian. The poem substantiates her perspective of language through various techniques. For instance: Subramaniam reinforces the critic’s cultural assumptions in a defiant tone; she questions him, repeatedly, about language and eventually she challenges him, insisting he should explain to her how he would receive her as “Identifiably Indian”.
Recent years have witnessed a large number of Indian English fiction writers who have stunned the literary world with their works. The topics dealt with are contemporary and populist and the English is functional, communicative and unpretentious. Novels have always served as a guide, a beacon in a conflicting, chaotic world and continue to do so. A careful study of Indian English fiction writers show that there are two kinds of writers who contribute to the genre of novels: The first group of writers include those who are global Indians, the diasporic writers, who are Indians by birth but have lived abroad, so they see Indian problems and reality objectively. The second group of writers are those born and brought up in India, exposed to the attitudes, morale and values of the society. Hence their works focus on the various social problems of India like the plight of women, unemployment, poverty, class discrimination, social dogmas, rigid religious norms, inter caste marriages, breakdown of relationships etc.
The paper throws light on the major features of language that Arundhati Roy has deployed in her novel The God of Small Thing, the novel that won her The Man Booker Prize. Roy, through her creativity of language, makes an attempt to capture and represent the reality. The novelist comes up with certain strategies. She brings about certain linguistic innovations, by shaping and molding the language as it is not readily available, to capture Indian sensibility and present it in all its cultural dimensions.
Much work has been done on Indian literature in English based on analyses through the tools of Western critical methods. The ‘Indian classical tradition’ is very rich and consists of perception and insight which serve as a best alternative to the western critical theories; but due to the colonial hangover we fail to appreciate and recognize our age old classical tradition of critical theories.
The birth of Indian literature in English can be traced back to the works of India authors such as Raja Rao, Mulk Raj Anand, and R.K. Narayan among so many others. Drama as a genre emerged out during the British raj, though its origin can be traced back to Vedic period. Indian drama emerged with the establishment of the Kendriya Natak Sangeet Akadmi in 1953 and national school of drama set up by Sangeet Natak Akadmi in 1959. With these academies drama grew in almost all the Indian languages. The Year 1972 gave Indian theatre playwrights like Baal Sircar, Vijay Tendulkar, Mahesh Dattani, Girish Karnad, Habib Tanvir and many more. These postcolonial writers worked on bringing back the cultural essence of India. Their works also highlight the conflicts that a postcolonial writer goes through while writing about the colonial effect on postcolonial era. Young actors, directors and playwrights like Girish Karnad has explored new techniques, styles and themes which has contributed a lot to the growth of Indian
The measured dialogue between Reader and Editor serves as the framework through which Gandhi seeks to discredit accepted terms of civilization and denounce the English. These principle characters amply assist in the development o...
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