Happy New Year 2015

ANSWER KEYS FOR UGC (CBSE) NET DECEMBER 2014, ENGLISH PAPER II (50 QUESTIONS)

ANSWER KEYS FOR UGC NET DECEMBER 2014 ENGLISH (PAPER II) (50 QUESTIONS)

1 C

2 B

3 C

4 B

5 C

6 A

7 B

8 

9 B

10 C

11 C

12 B

13 B

14 B

15 C

16 B

17 B

18 B

19 C

20 C

21 

22 C

23 B

24 C

25 B

26 D

27 C

28 A

29 B

30 B

31 C

32 C

33 A

34 B

35 B

36 C

37 C

38 D

39 D

40 

41 B

42 

43 C

44 D

45 C

46 A

47 A

48 

49 B

50 

HOWEVER, I AM NOT SURE ABOUT THE BLANK OPTIONS (KEYS). IF YOU KNOW, THEN PLEASE SHARE THE ANSWERS HERE. THE ANSWERING HAS BEEN CARRIED VERY CAREFULLY, YET, I DO NOT HOLD THAT THESE ARE THE OFFICIAL ANSWERS!

WELCOME THE VIEWS OF THE READERS.

Synopsis of Some Poems: Rupert Brooke, Le Mare, Sassoon, W. B. Yeats, Kipling, Wordsworth,

The Daffodils

The poem Daffodils is all about the technique of writing poetry and also, at times in literature, the poetic of Wordsworth. The perfected example of ‘recollection in tranquillity’ of the poet. He saw some daffodils and enjoyed that sight; comes back home and he adds to his memories certain colouring of imagination and the poetic beauty and the poem is ready to be served to the masses!

However, apart from these things, the poem is also a masterpiece of the poet – the so-called nature poet of English nation. The poet enjoys in the abode of nature and he revels in the landscapes. He enjoys the river; he enjoys the flowers; he loves the sight… the poem is all about nature and love for nature. As an aid to it, the tone and rhythm of the poem makes it sublime! Wordsworth talks about the ‘bliss of solitude’ in this poem which he later takes up in his long poem The Prelude. The ‘company’ of nature, according to the poet in this poem is ‘jocund’, joyous and gay!

Wrapping up, the poem is a song of joy in the nature. In the heart of a poet, what he feels and sings, is a song; and the poet urges all of us to sing with him!

(The Daffodils by William Wordsworth, Romantic Poem, Poem, 18^th Century Poem, Wordsworth, Poetry, Nature, Scenery, Romance, Poem, etc keywords reflect this post.)

Echo

Echo occurs when we speak; the sound of one person is echoed. Now, the poem Echo, by de la Mare is not simply about the echo of sound uttered by human beings. The poem is about the echo of actions by men and women in the world. Simply, the poem tells the readers that:

“Who cares? Who cares?”

The poet is overcome at some pauses in the poem with pessimism and it undermines his poetry perhaps. Whole poem, if interpreted otherwise, is the outcome of some pessimistic, lost person’s account and assumption of the world. There are both – the good and the bad persons in the world. Simply crying that who cares who cares does not make any sense more than revealing one’s heart about the world. Phrases like ‘dark air’ aid to the melancholy tone of the poem.

Indeed, the poem is sad account of the experience of echo. However, when we speak ‘everything is beautiful; I am happy!’ same thing we have to listen!

(Walter De La Mare, Poem, Echo, Poetry, New Poetry, Poem, New Poet, de la Mare)

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

The Lake Isle of Innisfree is an account of the poet’s days at the place of the same name. W. B. Yeats is a great realist and spiritualist known for his scholarship and wide range of philosophy. In this poem, the poet is talking about the peace one gets in the lap of nature. Amid nature, in the love of natural scenery, nights and days in middle of the music of crickets and nature’s anklets… how beautiful can the life of a person be! The philosophy behind the poem, however, may be speculated, but – the ultimate home of a human being is nature!

(W. B. Yeats, Poem, Poetry, Poet, Romantic Poet, New Poet, Victorian Poet, 19^th century Poet, 20^th Century Poet, Mask, Theory)

Everyone Sang

When joy comes, by any means, people generally feel excited and delighted. To express their joy, sometimes the emotional people start singing the songs of joy and happiness. The poem, as people and critics generally see it attached with, expresses the joy of people after the end of first world war in November 1918. However, it must not mar the wholesome effect of the poem in general; we must not be only Marxists and sum the poem up with that time social conditions!

Here one are is praising other art. Poetry is appraising singing! The comparisons are drawn in simple images. The freedom of joy is compared to the joy of birds set free of the cage. This image certainly creates the social scenario in the mind of the readers. The most important image in the poem, to me, seems the image of the setting Sun. ‘Beauty came like the setting Sun’ line seems to inspire many interpretations. Undoubtedly, the beauty of the setting Sun is incomparable; however, this beauty has other aspects too! Setting Sun brings night with it and night is known in the poems often as dark-image! Moreover, the song does never end! The song is sung forever… such is the joy of the poet and the people!

(Seigfried Sassoon, Poem, War poet, War Poetry, War age, 1914, 1918)

The Soldier

Rupert Brooke is the only claimed war-poet in real sense and general consensus of the critics and general readers. He was a soldier himself and took part in the war of the world. He had witnessed the war from centimetres distance and he had experienced the real agony and suffering of it!

This poem shares the voice of a soldier fighting for his home-land. What the country gives you and what you return back to your nation? Every solider fighting in the war for the nation is the child of the nation and he must yield his last breath to the service of the nation… the zenith of the poem is the scenario of patriotism!

(Rupert Brooke, War poet, war poetry, Poem, 20^th Century poem, dead in war poet)

 

 

 

 

 

Prism and Ray; Poem; Love; Light;

2Prism and Ray@

 

Sadly He looks

The ray of love and light

Crossing the ‘prism’

And fall into ‘seven’

Different ‘colours’.

 

Alok Mishra

Monday, 17 November 2014

CHILDREN'S DAY: HAPPY CHILDREN'S DAY: 14 NOVEMBER

[ Children’s Day – Love Abode ]

 

Children, the father of men,

With innocent smile

When they see,

Joy overpowers all rigid pain.

 

Children, the shadow of God,

Flowers of light

And sight of tomorrow’s

Peaceful and Harmonious abode.

 

Pinch them; beat them;

Kiss them; or fondle;

You do what you can,

But every now and then

 

Children will,

And sure they – love!

 

Friday, 14 November 2014

 

[(Alok Mishra)

Poet and Author, MA, Nalanda College]

Sex and The City: Indian Youth; Sex; Debate: Kiss in Public

Sex and the City

Saw in the newspaper today a girl’s comment about her ‘rights’ of using her ‘self’ and tacitly she was trying but all to say that she has the right of her body and she can do what she wants with it! Agree with the comment that she makes. However, from the point of view of politics and economics; from the point of view of penal code of our country; a man is not the owner of himself. It is the state – to say, the country that owns your body. If that would not be the case, I do not think that a man would have to go to prison for attempting to suicide!

From the words, I know you must have been considering what point I am hinting towards. Yes, I am doing the same; I am making a talk about the burning topic to the days – sex and the city. Being a youth of modern India, I also agree to what they say. They want make love in the open; I support them; the law does not do so! They say they are learning from the Western culture. Let me remind you that our penal code is their gift and they did make a ‘294’ issue! Still, yes, yet I am with you people. Keep sounding your voices high. A day may come perhaps that you get the legal right of your body and then you may use it the way you like. However, now, then please do not laugh; do not hate; do not despise prostitutes. They are doing the same, using their body to earn their living! You may have money; they do not have so much that they can put a petition in the Supreme Court…

You say that you have the right to live your life as you can. Yes, you have. I support you. If the justice and law of our nation has not the right to condemn you and prison you then you also do not own the right to kill someone before their feet land on the pious earth who is ashamed these days on her sons and daughters! If you can make love in open and ‘lock your lips’ with whom you want, let he/she also come and do the same! SHE HAS THE RIGHT!

You defy the Bible; you defy the Gita; you defy the Koran; you defy Vivekananda; you defy Manu sutra; you defy even Kamsutra; I am with you always. You forget totally what Krishna said in Gita:

“बलं बलवन्तां चाहं कमरागविवर्जितम् |

धर्माविरूद्धो भूतेषु कामोऽस्मि भरतर्षभ ||७.११||”

Yes, you please do forget it. Who is Sri Krishna to decide what young people of India shall do in any way? Noh! You have your freedom from any morality. You are free to defy anyone you think unworthy!

Once Aristotle made a remark

“Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.”                   Aristotle, Politics, 1,2.

Yes, you are right. Aristotle was a mad man. What he does know about India and Indians? There is no use of making an Aristotelian quote here. I am sorry to make so.

You are people above the law, above the Supreme Court, above the justice, above the social behaviours. You can claim that when a man smokes in the public, it is effecting very bad upon the growing children. But when you people will start making love in the public, our children will learn a lot from you. “Oh my god! Look that is the perfect way to grab a girl and kiss her!”

You cannot be questioned by your parents; it’s your life. But when you grow and someday (rarely these days) become parents, you have the right to interrogate your children 56 hours a week. “Where are you going? What do you do so late in night? Do you really go to pub in night hours? Etc etc….”

Sorry to trouble you my dears!

And sorry once again, but the words were too much in the news – ‘until I do it in your lap’!

I was wondering over the use of words and their selection. Yes, I will have no problem with sights of you kissing your boy/girlfriend in the public. No one will have, only, yes, only, if you first do in in front of your parents. If you can show your parents, your relatives your guts (at last you have the RIGHT) no one will defy you in the public.

Just think why does not a husband kiss his wife, has sex with his wife in front of their 8 year, 10 year, 20 year (adult) children! Why?

Decision is yours my dear youth of India. Do it in the public. I am with you.

Defining Literature: (What is Literature); Definition of Literature: English Literature

Defining Literature

Looking for the definition of literature is the same Herculean task that every student of literary curious person has to take up; however, the result is the same – either a philosophized hallucination or nothing! To define literature in the most appropriate terms is very difficult and rather impossible (this is what I think to be true; and most others too). In the academic days, a teacher may come in the class with his spectacles on the forehead and might tell you that ‘literature is the mirror of society’. It is, however, the most suiting of the available definitions. Literature is, indeed, the mirror of society. Nevertheless, will you take the risk to ask him that which ‘image’? A real image; a forged image; a virtual image; or some other image! The question them moves to a new level of the argument. What type of mirror is literature is? A plain mirror that reflects simply what it observes; a convex mirror that forges the image otherwise; or a concave mirror that starts predicting rather than reflecting…

Therefore, friends, defining literature persists to be a pain in neck for the students, teachers, and scholars. We offer you to construct a definition of your own for best results!

Words Come Out: Poem by Alok Mishra

Words Come Out

It melts; it freezes;

Swings with blows and sympathy,

Swells with love and affection.

Wind pats the soul;

Melting emotion

Within reservoir of heart

Comes and embrace Eternal Ocean

Where no voice is dead!

Monday, 20 October 2014

Alok Mishra

ISLAMIC Teachers, Mullahs, and so called Maulvis EXPOSED: Banning Muslim girls from co-education NEWS

I was shocked rather than surprised as soon as I saw the newspaper today morning. The local daily newspaper Hindustan (though popular nationwide) read a shocking and harassing news. The issue was of the Muslim girls being prevented from taking admissions in a Madrasa. The photograph that the reporter took and posted with the news was (particularly for Islam) hopeless as well as hopeful. Some girls in burka were shown standing on the gate and the gatekeeper was shown sitting on the chair and preventing the girls from entering into Madrasa. The general assumption some years ago was that the Muslim girls are generally not that bold to come out of their home and fighting for their cause when required. However, this photo was telling the story upside down! The girls were out and fighting for their justice but the so called Mullahs and Maulvis accompanied by the gatekeeper were the real nuisance for Islam today!

The more shocking was the support that these so called religious persons were having. Advocates, teachers and “budhijivis” of the Islamic community are showing open support to them. An advocate’s words were like these:

“Shiksha se jyada parde ki vyavastha jaruri”

What my consideration over all this issue is that today the Muslim girls have come out of their hijab and are ready to have their share in the world of democracy, but the Mullahs and Maulvis have gone into the “pardah” and cannot see the reality!

Wordsworth and Nature... Debate. Issue. Poetry of Wordsworth and Nature. Poet Wordsworth and Nature Poetry

CONCLUSION

It is well-known in the world of poetry readers and literary persons that nature and Wordsworth more or less work like synonymous to each other. Without nature, the poetry of Wordsworth is nothing; since the beginning of his poetic career to the end of his poetry, one can easily find the impression that nature marked upon him and his poetry. Nature is the inevitable force when we talk about the poetry of Wordsworth; it works like the central object around which the cobweb of Wordsworth’s poetry is weaved. Nature to Wordsworth means everything in his last stage… however, it was not a sudden ‘flash’, rather it was a gradual process that integrated nature to the poetry and even the life of Wordsworth. Nature in the beginning was only of a ‘secondary pursuit’ to the poet and eventually it became the ‘mistress’ and later ‘mother’ and sustainer of the poet. All the story, Wordsworth records in his celebrated autobiography – The Prelude.

To Wordsworth, nature does not only mean the object to see and be pleased with; he perceives nature as offering security and protection to the world, to humankind, and acting like an authority to manage the movements of the environment. Writes an author about this unique trait of Wordsworth:

“In Wordsworth’s The River Duddon: A Series of Sonnets (1820), the speaker is again drawn to the thought that nature actively protects – as the stream descends from bare upland, ‘to form a shade / For Thee, green alders have together wound / Their foliage; ashes flung their arms around; / And birch-trees risen in silver colonnade’. In the sequence, individual sonnets present different parts of the landscape, often raising the possibility of an allegorical meaning for them, sometimes making it unmistakable. In this case, the trees are like parents watching over and nurturing the young stream; the course of a life, charted by the stream, has reached childhood and nature’s nursing of the human soul is visible in the trees’ protective efforts and again, a moment later, in the cottage nearby where a ‘mother’s eyes / Carelessly watched’ her children at play (Sonnet 5). This movement of thought is typical of the sonnets and, as here, the fancifulness of Wordsworth’s language draws attention to the mind creating the allegorical sense at the same time as it claims that that sense is genuinely present.” ¹

Indeed, to Wordsworth, ‘human soul is visible in the trees.’ Wordsworth is a unique poet with such blessed eyes that can actually see nature and human so commingling that one without the other cannot exist! When the sister of the poet calls him to stay with her, he composes a poem and writes the first line:

“On Nature’s invitation do I come,” ²

For Wordsworth, it was not merely the call of his sister, rather it was the call of Nature unto him… it was in the habit of Wordsworth, in his poetry and his sensibility to relate everything to Nature. A serious poetry reader can find certainly the quality in the poetry of Wordsworth that mingles human emotions and sufferings with nature – nature that endures all; nature that returns only good; and nature that acts like the guardian to humankind! It is the company of nature that lets Wordsworth listen –

“The still, sad music of humanity,”

And for the asylum, for the peace Wordsworth releases himself in the arms of nature and so he advises to everyone else. Wordsworth is the genuine flag-holder of the romantic revival’s call that advocates ‘return to the nature’.

Wordsworth wished always the development of humankind and the mutual harmony between man and man, and man and nature, ‘By Nature’s kind and ever-present aid’.

At last, to conclude this dissertation, there is no better way than quoting his lines that muse the Nature:

“The spot was made by Nature for herself;

The travellers know it not, and 't will remain

Unknown to them; but it is beautiful;

And if a man should plant his cottage near,

Should sleep beneath the shelter of its trees.

And blend its waters with his daily meal,

He would so love it, that in his death-hour

Its image would survive among his thoughts:” ³

REFERENCES

1.     Stephen Gill, The Cambridge Companion to Wordsworth. p. 193.

2.     William Wordsworth, The Complete Poetical Works of Wordsworth (New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1919), p. 213.

3.     Ibid. p. 310.

Further Reading

Primary Sources:

1.     Wordsworth, William. The Complete Poetical Works of Wordsworth. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1919.

2.     Wordsworth, William. The Collected Poems of William Wordsworth. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Limited, 2006.

3.     Wordsworth, William. The Prelude. Agra: Narain, 2007.

4.     Wordsworth, William. Selected Poems. New Delhi: Vimal Prakashan, 2006.

Secondary Sources:

1.     Herford, Charles H. The Age of Wordsworth. Kolkata: Books Way, 2008.

2.     Gill, Stephen. The Cambridge Companion to Wordsworth.

3.     Hopkins, Kenneth. English Poetry: A Short History. New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1962.

4.     Legouis, Emily and Louis Cazamian. History of English Literature. Gurgaon: Macmillan, 2012.

5.     EVANS, Ifor. A Short History of English Literature. Noida: Penguin, 1990.

Arun Kolatkar: Poem Woman by Kolatkar: MA Syllabus: MU, PU

Woman by Kolatkar

a woman may collect cats read thrillers
her insomnia may seep through the great walls of history
a lizard may paralyze her
a sewing machine may bend her
moonlight may intercept the bangle
circling her wrist

a woman my name her cats
the circulating library
may lend her new thrillers
a spiked man may impale her
a woman may add
a new recipe to her scrapbook

judiciously distilling her whimper the city lights
may declare it null and void
in a prodigious weather
above a darkling woman
surgeons may shoot up and explode
in a weather fraught with forceps
woman may damn
man

a woman may shave her legs regularly
a woman may take up landscape painting
a woman may poison
twenty three cockroaches

This is a poem by Arun Kolatkar, often prescribed in MA Syllabus of many universities. Hope this article will help you. Soon, the analysis will be placed here. 

For Rupesh: Synopsis of some poems by Auden, de la Mare, and John Donne

Sweetest Love, I Do Not Goe

The poem written by Donne is a parting poem (often written in Elizabethan and the age just ahead). In the flux of the poem, simply the poet is consoling his beloved who is weeping at his departure. Donne is a master of images and so he reflects some of his imagery skills here. The first image he makes to console his beloved is that of the Sun. According to the poet, the Sun comes daily and daily goes in the western horizon. He follows his routine daily without taking a leave. Even without having sense or any desire, the Sun rises daily! The poet, however, has senses and desires to be with his beloved life-long; so, anywhere the poet goes, he would return to his beloved!

Moments with Oneself: Poem by Alok Mishra: Artist and Art~~ the thought

Moments with Oneself

‘They liked it, but demanded

‘More openness in my art

‘Before I am eligible to be displayed!’

An artist with heavy heart

Closed his eyes, thought and prayed.

‘You will do.’ He commanded

To his soul in dilemma and dismay.

A horrible cry of silence spread…

Accepted the dejected, having no other way

But the only choice for bread.

Dead artist cannot produce art!

Friday, 25 July 2014

Alok Mishra

A Passage to India: E. M. Forster: Themes: Synopsis: Details

Theme of A Passage to India

A Passage to India, the novel, is the masterpiece of twentieth century, written by the great novelist of the age, E. M. Forster. This novel reveals the heart of a nation; the heart of the inhabitants of a nation; and the heart of the outsiders dwelling inside a nation. Forster presents his ideas and views about the countrymen and the British in a very well manner. He has visited India many times; this is the record of his first visit to India which he made in the year 1914. This novel records various events, important religious believes, relationship between English and Indians.

Political Themes:

Thematically the story begins over dinner in Hamidullah’s house where Dr Aziz and another friend Mehmoud Ali discuss ‘whether or not it is possible to be friends with an English man’. Mehmoud Ali argues that it is not. Hamidullah disagrees. He contends that it is possible in England. He had been to that country long ago, and received a cordial welcome at Cambridge. In India, any English man (Torton or Burton) changes his attitude in two years and any English women in six months. Leaving aside exceptions, English men become distrustful and feel superior, English women appear haughty and venal. When the English arrive in India, they intend to be gentleman but are told by their country men it will not do. So they change. Turton was a gentle man once, now he is not. Mr fielding is gentleman today, tomorrow he may not be.

Culture Clash

At the heart of A Passage to India −and in the background−Is a clash between two

fundamentally different cultures, those of East and West. The British poet Rudyard

Kipling, who was born in India and lived there for several years as an adult, wrote:

"East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet."_ Without quoting or

acknowledging Kipling, Forster adopts this premise as a central theme of A Passage to

India.

The West is represented by the Anglo−Indians (the British administrators and their

families in India) in Chandrapore. They form a relatively small but close−knit

community. They live at the civil station, apart from the Indians. Their social life

centers around the Chandrapore Club, where they attempt to recreate the

entertainments that would be found in England. Although these Westerners wish to

maintain good relations with the Easterners whom they govern, they have no desire to

"understand" India or the Indians. Early in the book Ronny Heaslop remarks that "No

one can even begin to think of knowing this country until he has been in it twenty

years."' When Adela Quested rebukes him for his attitudes, he replies that "India isn't

home"−that is, it is not England.

God and Religion

E. M. Forster was not a religious man nor a religious writer. However, religion is a

major preoccupation in the book. India is seen as a meeting point of three of the

world's historic religions−Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism. Indeed, the three parts of

the book−"Mosque," "Cave," and "Temple"−generally correspond to these religions.

Aziz loves the cultural and social aspects of his Moslem (Islamic) heritage, but he

seems less concerned with its theology and religious practice. He is aware that

Moslems are in the minority in India, and he thus feels a special kinship with other

Moslems such as Hamidullah. The Anglo−Indians are nominal representatives of

Christianity, although there is little overt sign of such Christian virtues as charity,

love, and forgiveness. Ronny Heaslop admits that for him Christianity is fine in its

place, but he does not let It interfere with his civil duty. Mrs. Moore is basically

Christian in her outlook. However, she experiences a crisis of faith during her visit to

the Marabar Caves, and her belief in God or in any meaning to life is destroyed.

Hinduism is the main religion of India, and Professor Godbole is the central Hindu

figure in the book. He is also, by far, the most religious character. For Godbole,

Hinduism is "completeness, not reconstruction." The central principle of this religion

is the total acceptance of things as they are. Forster suggests that this is the most

positive spiritual approach to life. It is also most representative of the true spirit of

India.

(Taken from a book)

Sons and Lovers: Theme: Short Note: Append Yourself Note: Modern Novel: Lawrence:

“My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh…”

Writes D.H. Lawrence at one place. This remark, though cryptic, yet, displays the belief of this great novelist in the earthly matters, the worldly pleasures, and the denial of spiritual causes in the life. Lawrence is a believer in the need of the blood running in human body, rather than the spirit residing in the flesh. His novels often argue of these. None of his novels deals with things different from these. ‘Sexual pleasure’ of the ‘experiences of sexual activity’ is what he goes to describe in his works. ‘Lady Chatterly’s Lover’ is a novel that deals openly with the experiences of sex and fleshly desires.

William Wordsworth and Nature: Poetry of Wordsworth: Role of Nature... A Piece describing the connection of these two

It is well-known in the world of poetry readers and literary persons that nature and Wordsworth more or less work like synonymous to each other. Without nature, the poetry of Wordsworth is nothing; since the beginning of his poetic career to the end of his poetry, one can easily find the impression that nature marked upon him and his poetry. Nature is the inevitable force when we talk about the poetry of Wordsworth; it works like the central object around which the cobweb of Wordsworth’s poetry is weaved. Nature to Wordsworth means everything in his last stage… however, it was not a sudden ‘flash’, rather it was a gradual process that integrated nature to the poetry and even the life of Wordsworth. Nature in the beginning was only of a ‘secondary pursuit’ to the poet and eventually it became the ‘mistress’ and later ‘mother’ and sustainer of the poet. All the story, Wordsworth records in his celebrated autobiography – The Prelude.

Alok Mishra awarded Best Student of the Batch Award (MA in English, Nalanda College, Biharsharif)

On 27th of AUGUST this year, Alok Mishra, student of Nalanda College, Biharsharif, was awarded the "BEST STUDENT OF THE BATCH of MA IN ENGLISH LITERATURE STUDENTS" award. This award was given on the day of their farewell. Dr. Swarn Prabhat, honourable head of the English Department awarded Alok Mishra the award. The Principal and other faculties of the English department and other departments as well were present on the event. 

Here are some photos of the event:

Here is a list of the persons who attended the Farewell Function cum Homour Ceremony of the Faculties of English Department, Nalanda College, Biharsharif:

Dr. S. N. Sinha - Current Principal, Nalanda College, Biharsharif

Dr. Swarn Prabhat - Head, Dept. of English

Dr. R. K. Paramhansa - Faculty, Dept. of English

V. P. Sinha - Faculty, Dept. of English

N. K. Dar - Faculty, Dept. of English

Dr. Ishwarchand - Head, Dept. of Hindi

Manjar Ali - Faculty, Dept. of English

Dr. K. K. Jetley - Faculty, Dept. of Hindi

Dr. Z. M. Sabir - Head. Dept. of Urdu

and many others.

361 Degrees

361 Degrees

Corpses float eaten, sunk by worms

In the vale of death.

Away of trust, faith

Steps move endlessly – no rules or norms!

What is changed?

Same earth; the same mirth;

The same animal imagery in verse!

Same round and round movement

Of our planet in the universe…

Ah!

Only change I see is the curve –

The new 361 degrees shape of our earth!

Saturday, 20 September 2014

Alok Mishra

COMMUNAL HARMONY IN INDIA. COMMUNALISM. HINDU, MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD, ESSAY ON COMMUNAL HARMONY IN INDIA

Seeking what is impossible is a ‘sheer foolishness’ in the terms proper! However, looking for what might come true, what has some possibilities, if we are ready to make an effort for that task, is a bright side that we must get into. ‘Communal Harmony’ in our country India is not a daydream! We can achieve this heavenly bliss in our great nation. People of India want it; children of India do not know what to talk about community; they know the muslim boy as a boy and a hindu girl as a girl! When and how did ‘Love Jihad’ occur? Our children do not really understand!

The question arises then who knows all these? Who is the cause? What is the cause behind the scenes who is governing all these bull-shit in our nation? You people know the answer already! Some so called leaders, and mostly the media of our nation. A small issue and the media people are ready to make a hype of it in a single night of debates and ‘bayanbaji’ from the ‘netas’. Did you first see the ‘naked poster’ of Amir Khan? (I think only the netizens must have seen it over some facebook or twitter.) And  the people, the simple people who sat down to watch the news on their television, had to see the nude Amir Khan with a radio in his hands and trying to hide what he wished people to see!

Ah! The dilemma!

People, now we have to be prepared to do what we really need to. To bring down the dream of ‘COMMUNAL HARMONY’ in our nation, try to act with your heart. ALL PEOPLE ARE same. No one is more; no one is less; now understand this ultimate lesson of humanity and accept all with open chest. The leaders will always be in a way of grinding their own axe and making us fool. So do not be more a fool and act like clever, sensible, responsible citizen of our glorious country. Wish you all the best!

#Being Human is not that easy as Salman Khan Thinks!

It takes 12 years to be a high school pass-out. Next three years to be a graduate and two further to be a post graduate. If you need and want – maximum five to ten years to be Doctor of Philosophy! However, it takes more than your lifetime to become a MAN! #Being #Human is the toughest degree that you can have. Go and give it a #TRY.

Alok Mishra

Tragedy: Shakespeare, Greeks, About Tragedy in general.

The Greeks were highly civilized and could see with ease the unidentified simplicity in the baffling variety of human emotions and suffering in relation to an established set of principals. They could present in their dramas all the terrors of living, and their clear vision of life and world order helped them to put things in their proper place.

Their world order was basically religious. It was not a narrow religion, but one which provided not only a broad base but also spiritual adequacy and moral sufficiency to a civilized race of men. It was a religion devoid of dogma, martyrs and sacred books. It was a religion very fleetingly concerned with sin, and one which treated sex as normal human function. It had its concept of “aidos” or punishment and “hamartia” or purification thrust on them by fate or their own destiny beyond the Gods. They had an abundance of tolerance towards Gods of other religions. This made them healthy and profoundly spiritual. Within such a framework there was naturally a greater scope for independent human action and suffering and also for a more wiling sense of reverence. The Greeks were not optimistic of their world but through the freedom to perform the Dionsian act, they thought they could hope to falter their way to the Appolonian grace by way of self realization.

Purification or expiation is the one which brings the full realization of the tragic density of the individual life as well as that of life viewed as a whole. It also vindicates the Gods who allowed things to take its own course and merely watched as spectators. Aristotle understood this concept and proposed of tragedy, and if he led so much emphasis on the catharsis of pity and fear, it was because he wanted the spectators to rise above pity and fear, to be able to see this grand design in tragic drama of life.

The main concern of tragedy is with truth and the pleasure it gives is the pleasure of knoeledge. Plato had used the word catharsis to mean purification or sublimation. Accepting this meaning, Aristotle seems to confirm that tragdye, first by arousing pity and fear, ultimately sublimates and raises the spectator to a state of understanding. Pity and fear in that nakedness distort our vision of truth. Tragedy takes us to various rational responses, culminating in intellectual purification. Plato’s approach to tragedy was emotional. Aristotle sought an intellectual response to tragedy, and that response applied consistently to Shakespeare.

Greek tragedy was myth, ritual and drama, all in one. Their view of tragedy was all encompassingly tragic and gloomy, mainly because their dramas justified the ways of the Gods not in the ethical sense, but in terms of cosmic law and order that their Gods stood for. Shakespeare felt the need for questioning their believes of God as a cosmic, divine power, because he found the existing world more definitely theological than mysteriously cosmic. He, however, did gradually see a design in the suffering of the world and the law of tragedy justifying it. This design he brought out in his tragedies. Shakespeare was always concerned with justice. It varied with his characters and situations though there was a distinct moral purpose in his kind of justice. His justice was sometimes poetic, sometimes tragic, sometimes wild, but it always gave an impression of being just sufficient to serve his tragic cause of rousing pity and fear in audience and finally bringing about both sublimation and nemesis. Shakespeare established a moral order, as his suffering characters grew in stature, and acquired wisdom. Shakespeare’s tragic vision was thus almost similar to that of Aristotle. His approach to tragedy was intellectual and not physical as that of Plato, and catharsis to him was the culmination of the intellectual response to the tragedy.

Samuel Johnson once said Shakespeare’s plays are not “in the rigorous sense either tragedies or comedies, but compositions of distinct kind.” His plays express the course of the world where the malignity of one is sometimes defeated by the frolic of another. Shakespeare united the powers of exciting laughter and sorrow and all his plays are divided between the ludicrous and serious characters, producing sometimes sorrow but on other times joy and laughter.

Yet Shakespearean plays have been divided into comedies, histories and tragedies. Shakespearean tragedy may, in the simplest terms, be stated as a story of exceptional calamity and sorrow, leading mostly to the death of the hero, in high estate. Thus it is prominently the story of one person, the hero, or at most of two, the hero and the heroine, the latter coming into prominence mainly in love tragedies like Romeo and Juliet.

Shakespearean tragedies, however, cannot be typified into any particular slot as has been often stated of late. Each tragedy is a new beginning, a fresh “raid on the inarticulate,” for although there is development there is no repetition. There are even marked differences of manner, approach and intention in each of his tragedies. Thus Othello is a revelation of character and its focus is own individual and domestic qualities. Lear is universal allegory and its dramatic technic is determined by the need to present certain human situations. Macbeth defines a particular kind of evil that results from a lust for power. Antony and Cleopatra brings out a conflict in our moral bearings, in sharp contrast to Macbeth where we are never in any such doubt.

It is too that there are certain similarities. Tragedy, in simple terms, means that the protagonist dies. In Shakespearean tragedy too a hero of high standing dies in the end. Throughout the play he opposes some conflicting force, either external or internal. The tragic hero should be dominated by “hamartia” or a so called tragic flaw, but really an excess of some character outrage, that is “hubris” or pride. It is this “hamartia” that leads to his downfall, and because of his status, to the downfall of others. The action in the tragedy must appear real to the audience, so that its passion or emotion is heightened, and the conclusion of the action thus brings release from the passion.

Tragedy thus purifies the mind by means of pity and terror, which purges the mind of these emotions themselves, and is termed as catharsis. Shakespeare, like Aristotle believed that his hero of a tragedy must never be commonplace and, his faults notwithstanding, must never be inherently bad. The hero must not be depicted in such a manner that when  he comes to his fated end we are only to be pleased and think there has been a good riddance. The disaster should arouse feelings of pity and terror in the minds of the audience; terror because of the terrible consequence of our weakness and the formidable authority which prohibits even a person of hero’s standing to trespass against its decrees; pity at his downfall despise his nobility and grandeur. Since the hero is a man of exceptional intelligence and sensibilities, his sufferings due to his tragic flaw and due to the forces of nature that are trust on him owing to that tragic flaw are also more acute than what may be suffered by ordinary man.

The elements of tragedy have often been split up into three aspects from the point of view of individual action and solution. The three aspects are:

a)     The tragic individual must be the champion of a great purpose into which he devotes his whole existence.

b)    The tragic action must be such that in the story there must be threads which connect the different characters with one another, although each of them must have some special purpose in view.

c)     The tragic solution is usually held to be the triumph of the principal of the ethical world.

Shakespearean tragedy, however, does not follow the above characteristics in their entirety. We do not admit that his tragedy is the work of an arbitrary fate or chance since it proceeds from the activity of the hero. The hero has a fatal flaw despite his noble and honourable existence. It is the combination of these two diverse characteristics that brings out the emotions of pity and fear, as nemesis catches up with him.

Dowden has said that tragedy as convinced by Shakespeare is concerned with the ruin or the restoration of the soul and of the life of man. Its subject is the subject of good and evil in the world. In his tragedies there are certain problems which Shakespeare pronounces as insoluble. He does not say anything about the origin of evil, nor, as her pursues the soul of man, through the unending torture of inferno or through the spheres made happy and radiant by the perennial presence of a benevolent God. According to Shakespeare, evil exists and it exists with an emphasis. In the same way, pure love also exists. Shakespeare presents a man groping from among these myriad pull and pushes of the moral world. He gives us no easy solution to our problems through religion. If anything he conveys moral values based on an inviolate thought process. He also understands that the despite his flaws man will ultimately assert himself.