guest lecture of Balaji Rangnathan

This Blog about the feedback on Guest lecturer Balaji Ranganathan sir who came from Central University of Gujarat and he taught us about postcolonial studies. We had three days sessions from 14th September to 16th September 2018, on the  postcolonial paper. To know in details click in the given links.

Postcolonial studies is very hard to understand but Balaji sir taught each and every unit very wonderful way. His level was very high than us because he is teaching to the P.HD scholars in CUG but he knew our level and try to teach as per our level so, he gave very simple examples so that students understand easily the concept of postcolonial studies. So, now I am going to write that what I liked from the teaching of Balaji sir and what were the unique ideas/style/concept I learnt from the three days.

Day-1 - Black Skin, White Mask: Frantz Fanon (1952)

Day-2

1-Orientalism: Edward Said (1977)

2-A Tempest: Aime Cesaire (1969)

3-Net-Slet: The great Challenge

Day-3

Imaginary Homelands: Salman Rushdie (1981-91)

On first day we are very happy to see them in front of us. I meet his second time . i am very impress by him his language, tone of speak,  I really  enjoy his lecture. Many time he speak some word that word is not in my mind. I can not identify some of words. He deal with main points and gave many example which is related with topic. On think he say that he imagine in English if some good or bad experience happen with him that time he think on english . Most of time I think in my mother tun language .

Movie screening- 1] Midnight's children and 2] The Reluctant Fundamentalist

On 9 September 2018, we had a movie screening of "Midnight's children" and "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" at the Department of English, MKBU. So, this blog is a review of two movies from the post-colonial perspective, as a part of academic activity.

1) Midnight's children

Here I would review the move ‘The midnight’s children’ with the help of postcolonial perspective.

Movie is based on Salman Rushdie’s Midnight children.

First Ahmed (Mumtaz’s second husband) gives a new name Amina to Mumtaz after their Marriage. It sounds very colonial that after marriage you have control over your wife. It is consciously or unconsciously gets reflected by female director. Mumtaz accepts the new name happily because you are so much colonized and it is so deep inside you that you don’t even realize that you are being colonized and you don’t deny accepting a new identity given by a colonizer.

Nurse changes child because her lover Joseph said so. Joseph said that by changing the fortune of these two children it will be a revolutionary step. Again religion plays vital role to prove my arguments. A Christian ( No offense) is changing fortune and considers it as a revolutionary step.

When Saleem came to India we saw slum area and poor people, snake charmer, Parvati doing black magic shows backwardness of India. At the same time they show nuclear experiment of 1974 which shows progress of India.

These are some of my post colonial interpretations on this movie.

2) The reluctant fundamentalist

The ‘ Reluctant Fundamentalist’ movie released in 2014,directed by Mira nair.it is not less than any Hollywood movie,its script is written by Salman Rushdie and mohsin Hamid.

          The Reluctant Fundamentalist" follows the transformations of the wide-eyed Pakistani Changez Khan  who arrives in the US with great professional ambitions.The story is recounted in flashback by Changez.

       This movie all about political controversy and 9/11 attack ,idea of East and West , American dream of changez.changez kham leading main role in this movie.This movie reflects relationship between Pakistan and America.As we realize that America is a capable country contrasting Pakistan .                                                                 As we probably an aware in Postcolonial theory .one country tries to control another country .so as we realize that America control Pakistan. furthermore ,in this film principal character 'Changez’ endure a great deal since he is from Pakistan.in America he is capable and intelligent individual as opposed to other individual in his office,yet he confronts great troubles in America.For instance 'Changez' allow due to his standpoint and his body looks up at air terminal and it is offending for any individual to be exposed and giving the confirmation that he is not terrorist.so,we can see Power of East and West in this movie.In this movie the character of chngez khan is an intriguing one.

Shashi Tharoor's views on postcolonialism

Shashi Tharoor is member of parliament, he given postcolonial argument. He written a book on that 'An Era of Darkness'. He asserts that Britishers are not developers of any colonies. According to him real Thugs Of Hindustan were Britishers, in the name of free trade they are looting the Indians. In a way the word loot is a Hindi word and they taking the word in their dictionary. This is how Shashi Tharoor make a satire on British Empire.

Let's see Shashi Tharoor's view on postcolonialism

1) Shashi Tharoor's view on British empire on India.

They come from rich British countries. There are many people who live the life in poverty after independence only because of Britishers. They doing loot in India , sending Indian important thing to their country and became rich.

So he said that growth of education and growth of people from 1900 to 1947 was 0.001 percent. He talks about life and situation about India after independence. 

Britishers came for making India poor and poor.Indians had economical damage at that time.we all knows that Britshers came for the trade but they are ruled over India. Tharoor very clearly says that British is wealthy because of India. Tharoor says there are Mughal rulers in India they also looted India but they spent only in India, while the Britshers sent all to thier country and make India poor and poor. The India which is exporter in the beginning after that they make it importer.

 

In India 15 to 20% people died by starvation. He gave example of Bengal family. During the Second World war - 4 million people died because of starvation.

Britishers make money from the poor Indians by various kind of Taxes and make their own country rich, day by day ..

Thank you.....

Orientalism

Here is my response of the given task of identifying 5concept of orientalism from interview of Edward said "Orientalism" by Sut Jhally.

1. Professor Edward said that instead with an enormous of soldiers but also scientist, Architects, Philologist, Biologist,Historians, whose job it was to record Egypt in every conceivable way, and produce a kind of scientific survey of Egypt, which was designed not for the Egyptian but for the European.
2. Orientalism revolutionized the study of the middle East and helped to create and shape entire new fields of study such as post-colonial theory as well influencing disciplines as diverse as English, History,Anthropology, political science and cultural studies.
Professor said 's contribution to how we understand this general process of what we could call stereotyping has been immense.
3. How do we understand the natives we are encountering so we can conquer and subdue them easier? This process of Orientalism makes this general process more formal in that it presents itself as objective knowledge. Said identifies "Napoleons"  conquest of Egypt in 1798 as marketing a new kind of imperial and colonial conquest, that inaugurates the project of orientalism.
4.Islam is a useful foreign demon to turn attention away from the inequities and problems in our society. As a result the human side of the Islamic and especially Arabic world, are rarely to be found and the net result is this vacancy on the one hand and these easy, almost automatic image of terror and violence.
5. Edward said draw on work of Antonio Gramsci,"Therefor the task at outset, is to try to complies an inventory"  in other words to try and make sense of it, it and this seems to me to be the most  interesting sort of human task. It's task of giving history some shape and sense, for a particular reason not just show that my history is better than yours, or my history is worse than yours.

Sunday Reading : Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is Nigerian novelist/ writer . In 2008 , Adichie was awarded a MacArthur genius grant . She is excellent speaker.

She has written the novels,
Purele hibiscus
Half of the yellow sun
Americanah
The things around your neck ( short story collection )
We should all be feminist ( Book length essay )

she is also very good speaker 
 There are  her three most popular talks.

1)  The Danger of a single story

• In this topic she talked about danger of a single story.
• In this video she talk about her family, her childhood writing, her view about the literature and also she talked about the danger of reading single story about any place, country and people that you can not judge anyone without any kind of authentication.
• In this talk, she said that she read and write only about British story and white characters with Blue eyes. 
• First she simpla immitate the things that she read. Bht as soon as her reading grows she started reading about the thing actually she found around her self. 
• We found that she simply speak that the thinks she never found around her she write about that.  This shows the denger of single reading that she wrote the things she never feel.  It also shows the power of colonialism. 
• Though she don't know anything about the life of white people she write about them. The roommate scene also shows thinking of white people about black.

2) We should all be feminist

When she began talk about Faminisam first she talks about her personal experience that she wants to be monitor in class but her teacher simply refund her because she was girl. Ferther she says that boys always pay for girl to prove her masculine. Their ego never allow them to bag in front of girl. Marriage is for them is about ownnership. She also says that we 

should focus on  ability rather then the gender. In culture virginity is more important for girl then boy. This also shows the our nerrow  mind set. We also feel that child is only responsibility of both not only man.

3) Talk on importance of truth in post truth Era

In third video is on well known term Post truth and truth. we all belives in the truth which was said by some political leaders. we should search truth in order to live life healthy. because if we believe in every word which they say we may lead to the downfall of democracy or an individual one. She says that most of the time politic force to lie. She also says you must not  tell truth because it's work but after telling truth you can sleep well. She also says that never stop your self to tell truth. Be courageous accept that life is messy. Your life is not always perfectly match with your ideology. She also talk about self doubt and self believe.

lagaan movie review

Here I am sharing my experience on movie, " Lagaan "

" Lagaan " mean's  revenue.
15th august 2018
On the special occasion of Independence day we have watched the movie lagaan a(2001) directed by Ashutosh Gowarikel

This film covers various topics like post-colonialism, religion, subaltern and many more.
Story based on 1893 "chapaner". This stories protagonist is not famous one or not Royal family or the freedom fighter but it's a normal farmer's son that become a leader and solve the problem of village.

WE  can see that most of this elements in this movie

• love tringle
• cast system
• leadership
• rules and regulation of British people
• victimization of poor Indian people
• very difficult situation of Indian society
• subltern
• religion
• different between personality and own skill
• different between education and uneducated people

postcolonialism

We see that in this movie that after a long time we become free from the White world people on British raj but still our mentality is that that someone is rule over I said they can teachers and they are very great person that they can rule out our us just like why in this movie the protagonist want help from the Elizabeth why not other people help him to teach cricket why not King help to teach the cricket game but some white people come and teach him how to play cricket that is in significance that we are still believe that some white people can give us a correct answer we cannot get correct answer by self or someone told us that we cannot get right answer but someone white people tell then and then we get correct answer is it so that our mentality or our mind is condition that white people means the correct answer the correct way.

Representation of Subaltern,  present through the character of Kachra, belonging from lower caste and untouchable for so called ‘pure’ Villagers. When Bhuvan take him as team Member, others resist their voice against that but Bhuvan shows Kachra’s disability (disable hand) as advantage. The whole plot is somewhere touch the same story line of Kanthapura by Raja Rao. Where the point of Untouchability faced by Murthi and at last all  villagers fight together for freedom. And importance of Religion is also in center, Temple of Kantheshwari is in heart of village and temple of Lord Krishna in height of  hill. Point of double Colonization is same in both the plot. 

In the end, last six by Bhuvan hit the ball out of stadium and give victory and pride for village after a long and interesting match. In the match also, fake representation of Islam  through the run out of Lakha. And fairness In justice shows whiteness of white people.

youth festival 2018

From last 27 year our University celebrate youth festival. This was the 28th youth festival of our University. This time youth festival Hosted by Taxshila college of science and commerce.
 This 3 day's are like Diwali for all students, In the festival students get chance to show their telnet in various field, there are many event like Lok Sahitya, Lok Sangit, Lok nritya, Rang manch, amd also this year they include western events like solo Western song and group western song.
I m not able to watch all events because I am also take part in one event. So lats start with theater event.

One Act play:-
There are many one act play performed by many collages but I am not able to watch all play, I watched only two play one was performed by our collage department of English and another was performed by other collage.


very frist play i watched was sikka ni triji baju

In this play presents a construction of society.

I observed that in this play represent life of “Hijra”.

Most of people do not like third gender even do not like Girl in this patriarchal society..

“Sikka ni treeji baaju means”

First is Man ,second is women and third is Hijra.

Skit

I have watched one skit which was full of comedy and also gives basic message of cleanliness, and the need of Toilet.

also i watched lok nrutya, lok song, lok vadhya vrund , western solo and group song in that i clearly saw our tradition ritual and how they performed our old dance forms.
it was very beautiful experience of watching youth festival like this

OD:- 2 Oneness of literature

Literature is the most important part of our life. It is like a Tree. It has many branches but they all connected with each other and it has a same root.  So like this in literature it has many different subjects but all are connected with each other. Also it is like same skeleton with different body. So all has the same root and all are connected with each other. New literature takes few things from the past literature.

In A Joke by Anton Chekhov we have the theme of fear, confusion, anxiety, uncertainty, innocence, commitment, paralysis and love. Taken from his The Complete Short Stories collection the story is narrated in the first person by an unnamed male narrator and from the beginning of the story the reader realises that Chekhov may be exploring the theme of fear.

The above pic of the story is based on. Some symbols like mountain , garden , a kind of imagery or their is two they are talk with each other and they're express they view regarding in sexual desire . 

Similarly we find in the short story 'A Joke' the same situation and incident in a girl Nadia.

She also feel like same situation in The West Land, she afraid like girl Marie. But she interest for sled and she doing it again and again.  During that time she felt that someone said her "I Love You Nadia". She confused that she thinks that it is reality or illusion. But after she realize that it's her illusion. No one speak that type of words.

So hear we can find the oneness between the poem and short story.

Online Discussion on LIosa's idea

He is a Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, essayist and college professor. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a larger international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American boom In 2010. he won the Nobel prize in literature "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat.^"

^{His most recent novel is "The Neighborhood." He was interviewed for The World Post by Michael Skafidas, a journalist and professor of comparative literature at the City University of New York.}

Here are some ideas which I like the most from the interview.

1)"If you respect literature you must accept not only the very idealist, altruist vision of human beings but also the infernal vision of them."

2)Georges Bataille said that in human beings, there are angels and devils. Sometimes the angels are important, but for literature, devils are important too.Literature is a testimony of what we want to hide in the real word.

3)Sartre’s ideas — that words are acts and that you write things that could make a difference in history or solve problems.

4)words are the main tools through we can create the history or make a difference in history or we can solve the problems. Writing is a main idea through which we can create a different kind of society, which is more freer, more liberal. Those were very influential ideas for a young writer.

5) history and literature both are very closely from each other, they are different faces of a coin. The literary version of a historical part prevails over a historian's account. Literature is also close to living experiences. 

 

Review if movie Matilda

This movie sounds serious, but it’s actually quite funny.Matilda is a brilliant girl neglected by her stupid parents. Ignored at home, Matilda takes interest in reading and she develops telekinetic powers. 

Matilda’s parents aren’t mean to their daughter on purpose; they  just don’t understand her.  They think it’s fun to watch terrible game shows on tv, and are offended when she says she’d rather read Moby Dick.  Matilda doesn’t hate them, but she also knows she doesn’t belong.

her insensitive parents send her to a school run by the cruel Miss Trunchbull. Matikda befriends her schoolteacher, Miss Honey. She soon realizes Matilda's talents, but is later amazed to see the full extent of Matilda's powers.

The message of the movie really is that family is what you make of it, not what you’re born into.

My foverite

Review of movie "Modern Time".

Review of movie "Modern Time".

As part of study of Modern literature.we have seen this movie The Modern time.  Modern Times is a 1936 comedy film writte and directed by charlie Chaplin in which his iconic little Tram character struggles to survive in the modern, industrialized world. 

.In this movie all character struggle to survive industrialization world and modern time.and also this films commented on the financial condition.

                        In the very beginning of movie we find some lines are " modern times story of industry of individual enterprise, Humanity cruciding in the pursuit of happiness"

              In this move chaplin played a roal of factory worker.His job mechanically tightening bolts on a moving belt.but because of his madness he loos his job.

                      

               Then he gets a job in a shipyard,but is fired for doing the wrong things at the wrong times. He resolves torefurn to the comfort and security of jail.  Then he mate one girl name gamine nad they both deside to live with each other's becouse they both are alone in their life.

             

                      Gamine was found herself a job as a cabaret dancer. She gets charlie a job in the same restaurant as a singing waiter. He proves a hugs success happiness seems close now, but the juvenile welfare officers have finally tracked the girl down.at the end of the movie they both are walked on the rode with possitive thinking and some hope.

                Through watching this movie we can clearly see that the situation of that time.and also how people survive for job and money.amd how people loos their identity.and also we can see that if we work hard with passion and hope no one can change our life and thinking.