Indian Women Writers

In this paper, I talk about the works of three Indian writers, namely Sarojini Naidu(1879-1949), Boman Desai (1976-Present), and Anurag Mathur (Probably 1970s-Present) with regards to their unique portrayal of India and its colorful, mind-boggling diversity, and sometimes disappointing habits in their respective works. I have picked Naidu's poem 'The Bangle Seller', Desai's short story - 'Between the Mosque and the Temple' and Mathur's essay - 'Education: Indian and American' for this comparative analysis.

When a pandemic occurs, it is only human to turn to literary works that have examined real and imaginary outbreaks to make sense of the situation. These narratives become the new scriptures.
The sales of Albert Camus’ The Plague shot up when the Covid-19 pandemic tightened its grip. An allegory of the occupation of France during World War II, it remains the definitive pandemic novel because it examines the helplessness of the human condition in an irrational world with great empathy.
Many classic works have used the metaphor of an epidemic to scrutinize both political and personal issues, while diaries of real pestilences provide actual experiences.
The 1918-19 influenza outbreak was the most devastating pandemic in modern times. American author Katherine Anne Porter’s short novel Pale Horse, Pale Rider, (1939) is perhaps the most compelling literary work that emerged from it. Based on her own brush with death during the epidemic, it uses a Biblical metaphor to personify the spectre of mortality.
The current pandemic has seen many responses like the Hindi short story “Love in the Time of Corona” by Prachand Praveer and Reenu Talwar’s “Lockdown Diary” on Facebook.
However, people seem to have found the deepest meaning in the You Tube poem “The Great Realisation” by Tom Roberts.

The paper attempts to examine the status of Telangana Telugu language, literature and social life. How the language and literature have become tools in illustrating the way of life, cultures, traditions, practices of Telangana people. It also looks at the role of regional writings in building resistance against oppressed.  It also explores how the discriminations of region, vocal, caste, class, gender, function through social institutions and the way they affect human interactions, relationships, language and literature.

कृष्णा सोबती के रचनाशील व्यक्तित्व में अवज्ञा का स्वर प्रमुख है. ज़िंदगी में गहरे पैठ, समाज की परंपरागत जकड़बंदियों को अस्वीकार करते हुए, जीवन के भिन्न पक्ष से साक्षात्कार करने की बेचैनी, उनकी कृतियों का केंद्र है. ‘डार से बिछुड़ी’, ‘मित्रो मरजानी’, ‘सूरजमुखी अँधेरे के’, ‘ऐ लड़की’, ‘दिलो दानिश’ आदि सभी रचनाओं में कुछ यादगार स्त्री छवियाँ उभरती हैं जिनमें परंपरागत मान्यताओं के प्रति अस्वीकार का बोध सामाजिक संरचनाओं के निषेध मात्र की अभिव्यक्ति नहीं बल्कि सामाजिक स्थितियों को पलटकर देखने और उनके भीतर के सत्य को उद्घाटित करने की कोशिश है. यह स्त्री आकांक्षा का वह सच है जो संस्कृति और नैतिकता के ढोंग में सदा अदृश्य रखा गया. कृष्णा जी का लेखकीय स्वभाव उन्हें साहित्यकारों की उस अलग पंक्ति में स्थापित करता है जिन्होंने जीवन में आसान समझौतों की राह कभी नहीं अपनाई.

Ladies Coupe is a masterpiece by Anita Nair a prolific writer. This novel presents the life of six women, all trapped in the unsteadiness of custom and the social order. The patriarchal society into which they are born, places a number of hurdles and obstacles in the path of their development. The future appears bleak and dark with an air of nothingness being spread about. With great courage and willpower the women face the chances and even fight them out. The journey undertaken by the women is not only a physical one but more emotional in nature, at the end of which each has a better understanding about themselves.

The patriarchal societies that existed in India have compromised Indian consciousness in order to have great impact on the half of the women population. Men thought that women are not worthy of education and they themselves considered Independent, superior and omnipotent. Men have always been bread winners and women was to share what he gained. It was a totally masculine world. No We can see the characteristics of women in ancient India. There is tremendous potential, untapped and not utilized. Women were generally treated as 'Abla nari' means helpless women. Also women were confined to four walls of the household. But things have changed and slow transformation was seen within. As civilization changed, society Transformed, Indian women were to escape the shadows without proving themselves. Women were ready to reveal their splendour and the beauty of the world they lived in, where not doing anything productive and simply spending time inside. When we analyse the rise of women literature in Indian context, the country had a situation of not accepting independent, bold, brave and dominating women. They were against the prevailing social norms and social order. There existed unwritten rules like, women should be warm, gentle, decent, dependent, submissive, ready to accept anything that the patriarchy ask them to. When we look into one if the ritual that was performed in India includes 'Sati'. 'Sati' was a very problematic ritual. When we look that in the light of contemporary situation. It was self immolation of women by jumping into the fire that burns their husband, this practise evidently states that there was no standing for independent or single women, the unwritten law was to end their lives when the male partner dies. A very strange fact was that, when Sati was finally abolished by British law, there were women protesting against the abolition of the practice. From a society holding a very old consciousness, the women have developed into winning international recognition for writing and other contributions to the social distribution. The literature of women have a great role in development of women from that to this. Women got equal educational opportunities when the Colonial rule came and made education accessible to everyone.

Abstract
The paper aims to engage in observations of elements at the
level of the theme and the structure of the novel Mother of 1084 by
Mahashweta Devi which contribute to a discourse of protest against
institutionalised discrimination, oppression and violence that leads
to disintegration of families and prompt the onset of a large scale
decadence. Protest manifests as much in the involuntary yet
predictable alienated/outsider status of the female protagonist as in
the metaphorical outlining of liminal spaces between two worlds,
neither of which she can inhabit. Likewise explicit is a questioning
and destabilising of socially sacrosanct institutions like marriage,
family and the state and market driven patriarchal ideologies
hegemonized for the benefit of the ruling class. Protest is also
obvious in the subversion of traditional norms of story-telling and a
deliberate and studied refusal on the narrator’s part to be effusive,
leaving a lot to be desired in terms of verbal articulation.
Deliberately cryptic and resorting to non-verbal elements and
motifs that define the structure of the narrative like the
simultaneous existence of different worlds, polyphonic accounts of
the truth offering multiple perspectives and persistent presence of
the motif of pain as if to suggest the inadequacy of language powered
by patriarchy to convey the poignancy and pathos of the situation,
further accentuate the tone of dissent. Irony, economy of words and
expression, third person account which denies complete access to the protagonist’s trauma and silence as words suffer ineptness
clinch the text giving it the semblance of activism on paper.

Shashi Deshpande has a distinct place among Indian Women novelists in the contemporary scenario. The problem of adjustment with the husband and within the home has been the most consistent theme in the novels written by Deshpande. Her work reflects the conflict between tradition and modernity as manifested within the context of the family. She also deals with many major contemporary problems existing in society. But the basis of all the problems hinges on the relation of man to woman.

Title: A Married Woman by Manju Kapur- Portraying Alternative Sexuality as a Medium of Emancipation for Women

Name: Preeti Kaul
University/Organization:  Amity Institute of English Studies and Research, Amity University, Noida.

Abstract:
This paper attempts to study the dissatisfaction of a woman from the ennui of a seemingly contented life and her quest to locate her identity in a world that sees her through the role of a wife, daughter or mother thereby negating her independent existence. The relationship of Astha with Pipeelika in this novel comes as a result of their unhappiness with the traditional patriarchy which governs the world around them. Astha’s growing realization about the futility of expectation of lifelong happiness in marriage and motherhood brings her closer to Pipeelika, a widow and a fiercely independent activist. Their clandestine affair and sexual escapades gives them a sense of independence from a world where a woman needs a man to define her. However, their affair ends with Astha’s fear of social unacceptability of being in a homosexual relationship. The deep-rooted tradition which sets a benchmark for an ideal woman doesn’t allow her to deviate from her stereotypical feminine role and embrace her desires. Thus, her alterative sexuality is pushed to a margin which remains a reality only under the closed doors and is nipped from coming in the forefront before the mainstream culture.

This article examines the feminist potential and political risks of a theatrical mode of protest staged by women in India, namely, the deliberate and public exposure of naked female bodies as a gesture of defiance against the violence of the Indian state. I examine literary, theatrical, documentary, and political representations of such naked protests in India, tracing how they draw from and reconstitute a wider cultural repertoire around women’s nakedness that shapes their meaning and impact as critiques of patriarchal violence. I also consider the gendered logics through which each of them attempts to rescript the patriarchal terms underwriting the violence of the state. I argue that naked protest does deviate from the hegemonic norms of feminine shame that render women violable—yet in particular framings, the gesture also risks reinscribing a chivalrous ideal of masculinity in ways that should give feminists some pause. I conclude that the eventual success of naked protests as a viable mode of women’s protest in India should be gauged not only in terms of their immediate reception and outcome but also in terms of the gendered scripts that they rewrite or reinforce. Moving away from a false dichotomy of protective or dominative masculinity implicit in some of these protests, I conclude that an ongoing deconstruction of the gender binary is integral to any feminist critique of violence.

Er(r)go,
jest pięć co najmniej powodów, nie licząc naszych związków z Madagaskarem, dla których warto poświęcić studiom postkolonialnym uwagę i odrzucić zbyt łatwy pogląd, iż podejmuje się je w krajach nie mających z kolonializmem nic wspólnego jedynie ze względu na modę lub ich popularność na Zachodzie.

Trzy powody metodologiczne. Po pierwsze, dyskurs postkolonialny należy do tych sposobów mówienia, które podważają ustalone i znaturalizowane systemy reprezentacji i konstruowania świata, które wskazują, iż reprezentacja jest w istocie kreacją rzeczywistości z perspektywy dominującego i uznanego za naturalny dyskursu ideologicznego — dyskurs postkolonialny charakteryzuje się "nastawieniem polemicznym i potencjałem krytycznym w stosunku do zastałych,skonwencjonalizowanych konstruktów, jak rasa, historia czy tożsamość" (Katarzyna Nowak) oraz, per analogiam, wszelkich innych konstruktów. Po drugie, jest to jeden z tych dyskursów, który musi permanentnie przyglądać się sobie, znajdować się w stanie ciągłej autorefleksji, a to z dwóch powodów: z jednej strony, by nie ulec przesyceniu kategoriami konstruowanymi przez kultury mające tendencję do dominacji i marginalizowania innych kultur, i by w ten sposób nie dokonywać ich krypto re-kolonizacji, z drugiej zaś strony, by — w ekspiacyjnej negacji wszystkiego, co zachodnie, europejskie lub własne — nie ulec "terrorowi marginesu". Po trzecie, dyskurs postkolonialny uświadamia nam i w praktyce analitycznej demonstruje lokalność każdej — w tym i naszej, czy szerzej, zachodniej — kultury. Domagając się przeformułowania historii i geografii oraz nowego spojrzenia m. in. na "historiozofię" kartografii, wskazuje na nieunikniony perspektywizm wiedzy. I władzy. Nauki wynikające z powyższego, to lekcja krytycznego konstruktywizmu i krytycznej autorefleksji oraz wyczulenia na grozę i siłę politycznych ideologii rozproszonych lub ukrytych w pozornej niewinności znaku.

Powód egzystencjalny. Jeszcze jedna lekcja wrażliwości na Innego.

Powód merytoryczny. Można postulować systematyczne badania postkolonialne w Europie Wschodniej i Środkowej; zachowując lub modyfikując przesłanki zachodnich studiów postkolonialnych, mogłyby one zainteresować się własnym obszarem, którego specyficzne doświadczenie kolonialne i postkolonialne jest od dziesiątków lat udziałem.

Numerem tym — pod gościnną redakcją Zbigniewa Białasa — rozpoczynamy cykl podobnych wydań w przyszłości, kiedy co jakiś czas do gościnnej opieki edytorskiej zapraszać będziemy wybitnych specjalistów w dziedzinie, w której mieścić się będzie problematyka planowanych numerów.

Wojciech Kalaga

Generally speaking, it may be affirmed that postcolonial literature is especially involved with the subject of self-representation, from a political and artistic attitude. It is precisely the search for identity what in many cases sustains the writer’s creative force. Immigrant writers therefore represent themselves through their writings, often alluding to the difficulties that living with a “double consciousness” entail (Innes 2007, 5). However, as Aciman also points out, “everyone’s exile is different and every writer has his or her own way of groping in the dark” (1997, 9). The aim of this paper is to analyse the different problems that the common experience of colonisation has provoked in the immigrant psyche, and also the different ways in which each writer has dealt with it. Migration will then be studied as an existential condition (and not so much as a political reality) in the works (poetry and fiction) of several women writers of Indian origin in Canada.

The unabridged version of my poetic hagiography of  9th century girl- goddess -poet Andal as told by Tamil mystic Periyalwar, saint and 'father'  of Andal. This fictionalized personal narrative was published in Andal The Autobiography of a Goddess with collaborator Ravi Shankar by the feminist press Zubaan in 2015. Conventional hagiographies are predicated on a given and absolute truth while first person narratives propose fragility of knowledge and intimacy of belief. Thus, history, fiction and faith merge to remain true to the form's intent: to reveal the life of  the saint. In this case, both of Andal's transformation into a girl- mystic and Periyalwar, her saint 'father'.

Abstract
The paper aims to engage in observations of elements at the
level of the theme and the structure of the novel Mother of 1084 by
Mahashweta Devi which contribute to a discourse of protest against
institutionalised discrimination, oppression and violence that leads
to disintegration of families and prompt the onset of a large scale
decadence. Protest manifests as much in the involuntary yet
predictable alienated/outsider status of the female protagonist as in
the metaphorical outlining of liminal spaces between two worlds,
neither of which she can inhabit. Likewise explicit is a questioning
and destabilising of socially sacrosanct institutions like marriage,
family and the state and market driven patriarchal ideologies
hegemonized for the benefit of the ruling class. Protest is also
obvious in the subversion of traditional norms of story-telling and a
deliberate and studied refusal on the narrator’s part to be effusive,
leaving a lot to be desired in terms of verbal articulation.
Deliberately cryptic and resorting to non-verbal elements and
motifs that define the structure of the narrative like the
simultaneous existence of different worlds, polyphonic accounts of
the truth offering multiple perspectives and persistent presence of
the motif of pain as if to suggest the inadequacy of language powered
by patriarchy to convey the poignancy and pathos of the situation,
further accentuate the tone of dissent. Irony, economy of words and
expression, third person account which denies complete access to the protagonist’s trauma and silence as words suffer ineptness
clinch the text giving it the semblance of activism on paper.

Clone inaugurates a new kind of writing on the Indian continent.  A contemporary parable, it holds a dark mirror to the world.  Generically, it draws upon but refuses to be subsumed by science fiction of the dystopian variety. The protagonist, a 14th generation clone in 24th century India, struggles against imposed amnesia and sexual taboos in a species depleted world.  She hesitantly navigates through a world rendered unfamiliar by her expanding consciousness.  The prose is resonant, allusive, and at times reaches an incantatory, almost Vedic pitch.  The questions the author raises revolve around a shared humanity, the necessity of plurality of expression, the wonder of love and the splendour of difference.  The book adventurously forays into vastly different times, spaces, and consciousness whether animal, human or post human, to create an imaginative space for compassion in the midst of all the grotesquely. It is by means of this redemptive space that Chabria speaks of the horrors as well as resistance to it.

Gender is the most discussed issue in feminism and postmodern literary world with wide and varied implications. Gender is not defined biologically; thus, it should not be limited to one's biological aspects or perceptions. It is a cultural creation and the notions concerning femininity or masculinity serve to maintain gendered identities. It represents socially acquired and acceptable forms of being either male or female. It defines our clothing pattern, habits, likes, choices, career, education, business, desires, etc. This stereotypical notion of gender is common across the cultures and societies throughout the world. Gender occupies a predominant position in Indian society. It is heart-rending to mention that education could not eradicate the social evils and they still cause havoc in some or the other form. Poile Sengupta through her plays successfully exposes the differences of these issues either in mythical, preindustrial, undeveloped and globalised ages. This article is aimed at identifying the dynamics of gender role and feminist concerns in Poile Sengupta's play Mangalam.

It is an exploration of Indian Sensibility, East West Conflict, Cultural clash, Multiculturalism and drift from materialism to spiritualism, and from sheer rationality to absolute faith in order to be better human beings in the novels of Kamala Markandaya.

This research document provides insights into the literatures of the Indian sub-continent and some of the most notable scribes. The specific topics include:  an overview of the Indian literary scene, 'book cafes', academia and literary criticism, international impact, famous scribes, journals, languages and translation.

हिन्दी की स्त्री रचनाकारों की कतार में आलोचक बहुत कम हैं. स्त्री-चिंतन की चुनौतियों पर विचार करते हुए स्त्री आलोचना के ग्राफ़ को ठीक-ठीक पहचानना भी आवश्यक है. रचना और आलोचना का घानिष्ठ संबंध है. दोनों एक दसूरे के क्षितिज को विस्त्ततृ करती हैं. जेंडर और साहित्य के रिश्तों की पड़ताल में एक अदृश्य-सा समझौता दखाई पड़ता है. रचना का संबंध भाव जगत से अधिक है, इसलिए के हिस्से रहा, लेकिन जहाँ साहित्य का नीति निर्धारण होता है, ताकत के समीकरण बनते हैं, किसी एक को प्रतिष्ठित और दूसरे को अदृश्य करने की योजनाएँ बनाई जा सकती हैं, आलोचना का वह संसार, पुरुष रचनाकारों के अकधिकार क्षेत्र में रहा। इस वर्गीकरण के लिए संभवतः लैंगिक भेदभाव के बजे स्त्रियों का अपना चुनाव भी रहा।

Stereotyping of the Jews has been a common phenomenon in the West and Europe which is reflected in major canonical texts like The Merchant of Venice, The Jew of Malta, Ivanhoe and Oliver Twist. However in India, their experience has been to a great extent positive. They were free to live according to their own volition and contribute to the economy of the nation. This paper will address questions like; how were the Indian Jews received in the sub-continent? Were they received with favour or were they perceived as threat by their neighbours? How much of the interface that took place influenced by the difference/similarities in their cultural, religious and other ways of life? The primary texts include Book of Esther, Book of Rachel and Shalom India Housing Society(SIHS) by prominent Indian Jewish writer Esther David who is also the recipient of the Sahitya Akademy for English literature 2010. Locating the Bene Israel within a large multicultural setting like India is one of her primary concerns. A very important question in this regard is the definition of a nation for a minority community and what does Nationalism mean to them. The paper addresses all these issues as it is observed in the novels of the writer.

How Rabindranath Tagore's 'Gitanjali' got a new rendition in the hands of a modern poet (scroll.in) How Rabindranath Tagore's 'Gitanjali' got a new rendition in the hands of a modern poet An excerpt from Priya Sarukkai Chabria's introduction to 'Sing of Life', her revisioning of Tagore's 'Gitanjali'.

There is no denying that the Indian community has significantly impacted the social, economic, political, and cultural dynamics of Trinidad. We have seen these contributions in our everyday lives; Indian dance, music, art, language, cuisine, religion, healing practices, fashion, literature, and political involvement to name a few. Yet, what is often underrepresented and thus overlooked in our history and heritage, are the torment and pain, the lies and death, the violence, assault, and rape that many of our ancestors endured under the system of indenture – a legacy of trauma that still bleeds onto many of the descendants of indentured labourers.

Eunice de Souza (1940-2017) is one of the foremost Indian women poets writing in English who have made their mark in the post-Independence era. My paper takes up for a detailed discussion three of her poems – “Miss Louise”, “Women in Dutch Painting” and “Advice to Women” – all of which are bound by certain feminist underpinnings. Along with her celebrated, if controversial, contemporary Kamala Das, de Souza too has dealt with a gamut of issues concerning women. Her poetical oeuvre, mainly comprised of short verses, is characteristically laconic, at times even to the point of being obscure. She negotiates the many inequities that women in Indian society, and her Goan Catholic community in particular, have to face in their day-to-day lives. This is accomplished chiefly through irony, both mordant and subtle, which exposes the various hypocrisies that have become embedded in our social customs and mental set-ups. However, in addition to the witty satire that is evident on the surface, one also perceives a hint of pathos which runs deep in these poems and lends them a poignant touch. It is perhaps this lingering sense of sadness that makes her poetry distinct from other feminist writings of our times.

Translating the 9th  century girl mystic Andal's songs from Classical Tamil took me almost a decade, from 2006-2015.  In this early paper I explore my growing fascination with ancient Tamil Sangam poetics which allows for three levels of interpretation of each verse, of which only the literal is given, the other two levels require to be uncovered and intuited by the translator. My translations of Andal's  intense, scared and erotic songs are experimental in approach yet deeply researched. She continues to have me in her thrall. The book was published by the feminist press, Zubaan , with collaborator Ravi Shankar , in 2015 and won the Muse India Translation Prize in 2016.

This article examines the work of Indian-American poet Meena Alexander (1951-2018), one of postcolonial India's foremost poets, and argues that Alexander's combination of religion and secularism in her poetry gestures toward postsecular possibilities and conditions, especially as such postsecularism emerges from the worldly crises and violence of the twenty-first century. The secularisms that inform Alexander's work include state secularism in postcolonial India, and political and philosophical secularism in the West, especially in the US. In addition to these senses of secularism, this article explores the secular as worldly, material, and historical, all three of which include the embodiments of gender, race, migration, and dislocation, especially as Alexander describes them in her collection of essays Poetics of Dislocation (2009). How can postcolonial poetry gesture toward, explore, and search for-in highly personal, experimental ways-some sense of affirmative values in the wake of the dissatisfactions and disenchantments of philosophical secularism, while retaining the inclusive, democratic aspirations of political secularism (as non-establishment of religion in the state)? What values and aesthetic forms-however precarious, fragile, and tentative-emerge for the postcolonial, transnational, dislocated poet, values that cannot return to the ideologies of religions that have so fueled violence? These are two issues raised by Alexander's work that this article seeks to answer.

Independence is as great a virtue to an individual as freedom is to the nation. The novel ‘Anitya’ by Mridula Garg is a fascinating story that beautifully weaves the personal and political in one thread. It effectively uses the backdrop of the independence struggle to recount the failings of a nation and also the individuals caught in a web of conflicting ideologies. Treading the path of ‘protest or compromise’ is an eternal conflict faced by individuals and nations alike. Whatever one may choose, one ends up embracing pain arising out of the futility of the whole course of action. It is an endless journey that takes you nowhere. Hence, in ‘Anitya’ a story of thinking individuals engaged in a quest for freedom (both personal and political) , the characters find themselves making choices that lead them nowhere or ‘halfway to nowhere’. The novel touches the chord of many hearts by bringing forth the rage and angst of youth, questioning the establishment which in garb of ideologies jeopardizes the lives and destiny of ordinary people.