The novel, Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry is set in the city of Mumbai, India, during the year 1971. The book explores the journey of a Parsi man named Gustad Noble and his relationships with others as he goes through the difficult times in his life. The book is not just about Gustad’s personal life journey but it also explores the political background during that time. The battle between India and West Pakistan during the Bangladeshi Liberation War that helped East Pakistan form their own sovereign state, Indira Gandhi's socialist and corrupt government and Shiv Sena's fascist regime led by their ethnocentric leader, Bal Thackeray influenced the background of the novel.
There were growing tensions between East Pakistan and West Pakistan during 1971. After winning the 1970 elections, East Pakistan wanted to establish their own country and separate from Pakistan. West Pakistan answered this with “Operation Searchlight” which started the Bangladeshi Liberation War (Malieckal,77). Operation Searchlight’s purpose was the extermination of all Bengalis. Dinshawji comments on this genocide when he says, “Bloody butchers, slaughtering left and right” (76). 3 million Bengalis died and 10 million decided to take refuge in India (Malieckal, 75-76). To pay for all these refugees, India introduced refugee relief tax which made the lives of the people harder. India joined the war after the bombing by West Pakistan's military aircraft. In the novel, Gustad covers his windows with black paper and builds an air-raid shelter under his bed to keep his family safe during the war (347). After 13 days of fighting, the Indo-Pakistani war came to an end with Pakistan surrendering and the Bengalis establishing their own nation.
In 1971, the ...
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... Pakistan to surrender during the Indo-Pakistani War helped the Bengalis establish a sovereign state for themselves. The distribution of the racist pamphlets against the minorities showed Shiv Sena's chauvinistic and fascist regime. Indira Gandhi's corrupt government, socialist regime and her controversial scandals such as giving her son's company government money and the 1971 Nagarwala scandal were also revealed. All of these political events influenced the background of the novel and the characters’ everyday lives. .
Works Cited
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Mistry, Rohinton. Such a Long Journey. New York: Knopf, 1991. Print.
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The extend of most American’s knowledge of early America is of Columbus’ discovery of America for Europe in 1492 and the landing of the Mayflower in Plymouth in 1620. This was true of A Voyage Long and Strange author, Tony Horwitz. Horwitz felt as if there were pieces missing in his picture of early America and set out on a journey that spanned from Canada to the Dominican Republic. The novel starts out with a prologue of Horwitz talking about his own reasons for wanting to learn more of early America and then is broken into three sections Discovery, Conquest, and Settlement. Each section discusses another period in early American history starting with first contact in Vinland and ending with the landing in Plymouth.
Different events occur when the Taliban gains power. Their invasion on women's rights shows a theme throughout the novel.
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Ung (2000) mentions that the Cambodian genocide is a product of a perfect agrarian vision that can be built by eliminating Western influence. More specifically, the Angkar perceives peasants and farmers as “model citizens” because many have not left the village and were not subjected to Western influence (Ung 2000:57). Moreover, the Khmer Rouge emphasized the ethnic cleansing of individuals from other races who were not considered “true Khmer” and represented a “source of evil, corruption, [and] poison” (Ung 2000:92). Lastly, the ideology centered on obtaining lost territory was based on a “time when Kampuchea was a large empire with territories” (Ung 2000:78). In essence, Ung successfully demonstrates that multiple causes encouraged the Cambodian
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Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children employs strategies which engage in an exploration of History, Nationalism and Hybridity. This essay will examine three passages from the novel which demonstrate these issues. Furthermore, it will explore why each passage is a good demonstration of these issues, how these issues apply to India in the novel, and how the novel critiques these concepts.
Rohinton Mistry’s “Such A Long Journey” is the story of turbulent life of Gustad Noble and his family, who lives in Khodadad Building north of Bombay. The story portrays the series of events such as his son Sohrab’s refusal to attend Indian Institution of Technology, hardships faced by his friends and family, political turmoil and chaos caused by the war between India and Pakistan. Gustad transforms from a stubborn, materialistic and awful person to an open-minded and more adaptive to circumstantial changes in his life. Ultimately, Gustad Noble journeys to a greater understanding of his role as a father, friend and citizen of India.
...shown through Lenny’s point of view. Prior the partition, Lahore was a place of tolerance that enjoyed a secular state. Tension before the partition suggested the division of India was imminent, and that this would result in a religious. 1947 is a year marked by human convulsion, as 1 million people are reported dead because of the partition. Moreover, the children of Lahore elucidate the silences Butalia seeks in her novel. The silence of survivors is rooted to the nature of the partition itself; there is no clear distinction as to who were the antagonists. The distinction is ambiguous, the victims were Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims, and moreover these groups were the aggressors, the violent. The minority in this communal violence amongst these groups was the one out-numbered. This epiphany of blame is embarked in silence, and roots from the embodiment of violence.
There are people bustling, merchants selling, Anglo-Indians watching, and birds flying overhead. How many perspectives are there in this one snippet of life? They are uncountable, and that is the reality. Modernist writers strive to emulate this type of reality into their own work as well. In such novels, there is a tendency to lack a chronological or even logical narrative and there are also frequent breaks in narratives where the perspectives jump from one to another without warning. Because there are many points of view and not all of them are explained, therefore, modernist novels often tend to have narrative perspectives that suddenly shift or cause confusion. This is because modernism has always been an experimental form of literature that lacks a traditional narrative or a set, rigid structure. Therefore, E. M. Forster, author of A Passage to India, uses such techniques to portray the true nature of reality. The conflict between Adela, a young British girl, and Aziz, an Indian doctor, at the Marabar Caves is one that implements multiple modernist ideals and is placed in British-India. In this novel, Forster shows the relations and tension between the British and the Indians through a series of events that were all caused by the confusing effects of modernism. E.M. Forster implements such literary techniques to express the importance or insignificance of a situation and to emphasize an impression of realism and enigma in Chandrapore, India, in which Forster’s novel, A Passage to India, takes place.
Nawoyski, K. (2012) 'Genocide Emergency: Violence against the Rohingya and other Muslims in Myanmar', p. 1.