The marvelous success of Chetan Bhagat as a novelist is a miracle of an exceptional device. The credit goes to his management skills, growing of thousands of new private engineering colleges necessitating his mastery over simple past tense, his justification of depraved instinctive human acts in garb of new age realism and above all one term from great Hindu philosophy called Prarabdh- Throw a lucky man into the sea, and he will come up with a fish in his mouth. Since the phrase, the bestseller English language author has become the similar to Chetan Bhagat. The legend deserves some critical attention and assessment as the master of sentiments of young generation, a name and place, both in the hearts of their sweet hearts and in society. His …show more content…
The composition not only shows his ultimate sarcasm with the British rule in India, it is also a reflection of the Western civilization. Rabindranath jots down, I had at one time believed that the springs of civilization would issue out of the heart of Europe. But today when I am about to quit the world that faith has gone bankrupt altogether. Rabindranath, who had started his life as a keen believer in the generosity of the European civilization was later disappointed when he came across the catastrophic consequences of the English rule in Indian subcontinent. It is with this disappointment the beginning of Modern Indian English Literature is marked, the earliest phase of which is described by H.M. Williams as Georgian effusions. However, more than a period of time, those effusions took a back seat with the British denial to grant Indian sovereignty. Therefore, the new generation that emerged was cynical by the West’s failure to keep its exciting promises. Three early masters of the Modern Indian Literature in English namely Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and R.K. Narayan laid the foundation of the Contemporary English novel in India by throwing out the Indian values and adapting English Language to the Indian needs by asserting an Indian identity. It was a creative appropriation of English Language, but a rejection of the world of the existing British English Literature also. While the trio Mulk Raj Anand, Raja Rao and R.K. Narayan successfully laid the basics of the Indian reality and started to look at the Indian opinion and the Indian picture from a post-colonial point of the view, the later generation went further and calculate in detail the emerging guides of the Indian socio-political reality born within and without the Indian environmental boundaries. Hence, the arrival of Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Amitava Ghosh, Upmanyu
War is commonly defined as an armed conflict between two entities, one that dates back to the beginning of mankind’s very existence. During this time many have attempted to explain the complex nature of war, its actors, and its origins. There are two authors in particular who have made critical analysis on the topic of war within the international system, more specifically the nature of balanced power and hegemonic war and the role that perception plays in conflict. Glipin asserts that disequilibrium will result in a hegemonic war due to inferior civilizations striking falling civilizations. Whereas Jervis asserts that misperception is the driving cause of war. I argue that it is not an inferior civilization, but rather different economies
In India and World Civilizations by D.P. Singhal, the theme is “the cross-fertilization of cultures and the resultig new development” (Embree 451). The author uses artifacts from Mohejodaro and Yucatan, theories of Parmenides, and the revenue system of Ptolemaic Egypt (Embree 451). Singhal discusses the Hellenistic world and the Roman Empire and how it influenced artistic creativity in India. Singhal rejects the idea of Hellenistic and Roman art having any influence on Indian art. Despite having easy access to Christian sources, there isn’t any evidence of India being influenced by Christian thought, according to Singhal.
The author experienced a background history with this country. Indeed, he wanted to be a foreign journalist, so when he was offered a job by the NPR in India, he could not resist. As a correspondent, his job was to cover the main political and economic events about modern India, and he did not get to know the other India: the one with gurus, yoga, meditation, and what seemed to lead to a direct path to happiness. However, this time he came to India with a special purpose: to write about Indian’s happiness, and to find answers about the mystery of this country’s attraction of westerners.
When discussing the controversial authors of Indian literature, one name should come to mind before any other. Salman Rushdie, who is best known for writing the book “Midnights Children.” The first two chapters of “Midnights Children” are known as “The Perforated Sheet”. In “The Perforated Sheet” Rushdie utilizes magic realism as a literary device to link significant events and their effects on the lives of Saleem’s family to a changing India. In fact, it is in the beginning of the story that the reader is first exposed to Rushdie’s use of magic realism when being introduced to Saleem. “On the stroke of midnight/clocks joined palms” and “the instant of India’s arrival at independence. I tumbled forth into the world”(1711). Rushdie’s description of the clocks “joining palms” and explanation of India’s newfound independence is meant to make the reader understand the significance of Saleem’s birth. The supernatural action of the clocks joining palms is meant to instill wonder, while independence accentuates the significance of the beginning of a new era. Rushdie also utilizes magic realism as an unnatural narrative several times within the story to show the cultural significance of events that take place in the story in an abnormal way.
Only a boat remains, an eye painted on it. The novelist says that this eye can weep. Hence, even after the cathartic disaster, “maya remained”. Partha Chatterjee, referring to this novel, argues that our colonial modernity embodies this maya, this obstinate infatuation with our pre-modern pasts which embodied both the loathsome and the beautiful. Like the storm suffered by Walter Benjamin’s Angel of History, the flood faced by the chandal in Antarjali Jatra is an apocalyptic vision of the advent of modernity, a violent rupture that is necessary yet painful. On the other hand, the map of the “sacredsecular” modernity that Madhu Khanna, Brother William and Mani seek to draw begins from little things - a dewdrop or a flower - and is grounded in an ecology of love that is captured in this remark of Irigaray: “Love is not an explosion or implosion but an
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.
Writing by women has given a new dimension to the Indian literature. In the 20th century, women’s writing has been considered a powerful medium of modernism and feminist statements. The last two decades have witnessed phenomenal success in feminist writings of Indian English literature. Women writers comprise a sizeable segment of Indo-English writers. They present the age-old problems of Indian womanhood. As Indo-English literature has absorbed the new trends from the western literature, its theoretical foundation ranges between Greco-Roman theories of literature and Marxist, existentialist, psycho-analytic and other avant-garde movements in the world literature. The English language
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.
Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, published in 1980, was perhaps the seminal text in conceiving opinions as to interplay of post-modern and post-colonial theory. The title of the novel refers to the birth of Saleem Sinai, the novel’s principal narrator, who is born at midnight August 15th 1947, the precise date of Indian independence. From this remarkable coincidence we are immediately drawn to the conclusion that the novel’s concerns are of the new India, and how someone born into this new state of the ‘Midnight’s child’, if you will, interacts with this post-colonial state. To characterise the novel as one merely concerned with post-colonial India, and its various machinations, is however a reductive practice. While the novel does at various times deal with what it is to be Indian, both pre and post 1947, it is a much more layered and interesting piece of work. Midnight’s Children’s popularity is such that it was to be voted 25th in a poll conducted by the Guardian, listing the 100 best books of the last century, and was also to receive the Booker Prize in 1981 and the coveted ‘Booker of Bookers’ in 1993. http://www.bookerprize.co.uk/
They are equally mindful of the need to fight against imposing rule of the British government as their historical counterparts. Patriotism in his protagonists does emerge very distinctly. His central character is an ordinary man who wants to make his presence felt, his voice heard. Ghosh’s sturdy assurance that nationalism also burns in the heart and spirit of unhistorical figures makes him give voice to their patriotic zeal. Hence his greatest and utmost concern in including history into his works of fiction is to bring to the fore ordinary individuals, who search for examples to create history for themselves. Refusing to allow his individuality to be inundated in the surge of history the ordinary citizen of a nation attempts to carve a place for himself in the period of history. Thus Ghosh’s novels re-create the ordinary citizen as a distorted and transgressed
Upamanyu Chatterjee is one contemporary Indian English author who has attracted adulation and admonition in equal measures. His critics, who find his novels often dealing with unpalatable issues, loaded with heavy negativity, cynicism and turgid expressions, however, unanimously aver that he is witty and intelligent, endowed with a unique style of wry playfulness mixed with keen observation. He defies conventions and is rarely calm or ‘normal’ in his novels. Having emerged as the sort of champion of the de-centred and de-cultured, Chatterjee delves deep in the postmodern ethos of the contemporary Indian scenario. But the question is, are the ‘bleak-books’ of Upamanyu Chatterjee really devoid of any redeeming positive value? This study attempts to get the answer of this question through the process of deconstructing the author’s sensibility and the formative influences on his creativity.
If there is one author which is responsible for bringing realism in Indian fiction back in the early twentieth century, he is Premchand. Before him, almost every Indian fiction encompassed stories about Gods and mythological tales. Premchand’s stories were a true reflection of the society where the abused like the peasants, the farmers, the prostitutes and the widows were crushed all their lives by the hollow norms and rules of the society where the riches and politically powerful ruled. His stories depicted their exploitation and I, as a reader could feel that – such is the ability of his writing skills. He also wrote these stories and novels aiming to bring about social reform in the society.
Salman Rushdie introduces his readers to numerous thought-provoking ideas through the novel. The attention to detail regarding Indian history, geography and culture are evidence that Rushdie is a native of India. “Salman Rushdie is the quintessential migrant: born in India, schooled in England, forced by his parents to move to Pakistan and finally exiled back in Britain”( Schröttner). The novel includes many major themes that are not only specific to India, but can be universalized as well. Rushdie includes the juxtaposition of destruction and creation, and fate and freewill, as well as themes surrounding identity crisis and fragmentation.
Aravind Adiga in his debut novel The White Tiger, which won the Britain’s esteemed Booker Prize in 2008, highlights the suffering of a subaltern protagonist in the twenty first century known as materialism era. Through his subaltern protagonist Balram Halwai, he highlights the suffering of lower class people. This novel creates two different India in one “an India of Light and an India of Darkness” (Adiga, p. 14). The first one represents the prosperous India where everyone is able to dream a healthy and comfortable life. The life of this “Shining India” reflects through giant shopping malls, flyovers, fast and furious life style, neon lights, modern vehicles and a lot of opportunities which creates hallucination that India is competing with western countries and not far behind from them. But, on the other side, the life nurtures with poverty, scarcity of foods, life taking diseases, inferiority, unemployment, exploitation and humiliation, homelessness and environmental degradation in India of darkness.
This total idea of challenging and creating a new identity may seem quite a utopian concept, but it is not so impossible. The present paper will illustrate the writings of Mridula Garg and Arundhati Roy. The characters in their work are not extraordinary and utopian, but ordinary people like us whom we can come across in our day to day life. Here for the purpose of analysis, Garg’s three short stories have been chosen. They are: Hari Bindi, Sath Saal, Ki Aurat and Wo Dusri.