Monday, July 26, 2010

Bankim was fond of female protagonists

Bankimchandra Chatterji's Debi Chaudhurani, Hindu nationalism, and Hinduism in the Indian novel from The Middle Stage 


The political rise of Hindu nationalism over the last three decades has generated many persuasive ideologues, but the movement does not, in English at any rate, have a house novelist, someone to turn ideas and abstractions into characters and plots. 

This is a shame. Firstly, it allows Indian novelists of a certain ideological disposition a free run of the land. The result is often a facile secularism, a kind of reflexive celebration of India’s diversity, that borrows its vocabulary and its tropes from well-worn ideas, and thus has no linguistic or narrative energy to call its own. Tellingly, when Hindu nationalists appear in such novels, they are condemned from first sight by the narrator as zealots, driven by anger, hate, and lust (Arya in Manil Suri’s The Age of Shiva, or the cartoonish Minister Prasad in Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi’s The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay).

Secondly, it would appear that there is a want of serious engagement in the Indian novel in English not just with Hindu nationalism, but with the immense weight of Hinduism itself. Not only is Hindu nationalism artistically unfashionable (except as a convenient source of villainy and conflict), its absence points to a deeper failing that ironically might be seen as lending credence to the Hindu nationalists’ complaint about the falling away of Hinduism from the wellsprings of culture. Barring exceptions such as Raja Rao’s Kanthapura, Hinduism itself is rarely explored or interrogated in an extended way in modern Indian novels in English.

This suggests a narrative orientation in the Indian novel in English that is not just politically centrist or left-of-centre, but which engages with religion more at the level of observation and backdrop than of sympathetic immersion or experience. Hinduism’s massive repository of ideas, fables, images, exemplars, proverbs, aphorisms and narrative structures have left an impression on the Indian novel in English far smaller than the one that it exerts on public and private life in India. One might say that, while Hinduism should be part of the Indian novelist’s wealth, the challenges of realising a mainly Sanskritic worldview persuasively in English are such that it is usually treated as a tax.

This background makes all the more significant the appearance of an English translation of Debi Chaudhurani, a late work by the Bengali writer Bankimchandra Chatterji (1838-1894), India’s first major novelist. One of the earliest recruits of the Indian Civil Service established in the middle of the 19th century by the British, Bankim – so familiar a name in Indian letters, across linguistic traditions, that he is usually referred to by his first name – spent his working life as a deputy magistrate in the colonial administration. But, even though he represented the vanguard of a new class of anglicised Indians (going so far as to write his first novel, Rajmohan’s Wife, in a sonorous English), Bankim’s ear remained close to the ground.

His novels, particularly those of his late “nationalist” phase, are preoccupied with contemplating the future (and reprising and sometimes reimagining the past) of a predominantly Hindu Bengali society hobbled, from without, by the martial superiority first of Muslim rulers and then the British, and from within, by a stagnation of thought, social structure and gender roles. Debi Chaudhurani (1884), loosely based on the story of a real-life female bandit in 18th-century Bengal, offers the reader a deeply felt vision of “the Hindu way of life” – one that celebrates but also interrogates Hindu tradition. If one were to imagine contemporary Hindu nationalism as its best and most intellectually coherent (something it is mostly not), this might be the kind of reading of Hinduism it would offer.

Like many 19th-century realists (Hardy, Flaubert, Zola), Bankim was fond of female protagonists, the better to portray the constraints and inquities of the patriarchal society that was, as much as the individual, the subject of his enquiry. When we first see his heroine, a young woman called Prafulla, it is as the victim of the neglect of society and “the pinchings of poverty” (this is one of Bankim’s lovely phrases from his one and only English novel).

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Hasan, Sliema, Marseille, Rishikesh

On The Road, Again from ANTIDOTE by Sauvik
Hasan should be on the tourist map. It is the closest city to Halebid, Belur and Sravanabelagola. Nestled in the hills of the Western Ghats, "the weather here suits my clothes." I love the monsoon, anyway.
I took the Konkan Railway to Mangalore and then the bus to Hasan. The railway urgently needs competition from buses - for which a Coastal Expressway is a must. The seats were hard and horrible. The bus had excellent reclining seats but I couldn't sleep a wink because of the bumpy road. It was a government bus from a government bus station 10 kms from the rail station. The auto-rickshaw from the railway station to the bus station cost more than double the railfare. Guess our government hasn't heard too much about "multi-modal transport." It has been a tragedy that wee the sheeple handed all transport over to The State. Everything needs to be privatized.
The highway from Mangalore to Hasan is terrible. Our Tata bus groaned and moaned all the way, not possessing the power to take on the climb. The road was jam-packed with heavy vehicles and progress was excruciatingly slow. [Antidote: For Liberal Governance Sauvik Chakraverti - Jan 2003]

philosophy trips from Object-Oriented Philosophy by doctorzamalek (Graham Harman)
Nietzsche thinks the value of places varies widely from person to person, but there is no longer any question that I myself need seaside, sea air, and long seaside walks to do my best thinking. (And I was cruelly deprived of these things well into adulthood– having grown up in Iowa, nearly as far from any sea as one can get.)
… I mentioned in January, that stretch of corniche west of the capital, running between Sliema and Paceville, though only a few miles long and heavily developed with quasi-suburban residential property, is about as intellectually stimulating a stretch of pavement as I have ever encountered. I think I had 15-20 good new ideas in 3 or 4 days there the last time. It’s almost hard to manage the flood of thoughts that can be generated by that sort of atmosphere.
The map below doesn’t quite explain what I’m talking about, but at least it sketches the physical geography well enough. If you find Sliema Point on this map, and go westward all the way to where it says Spinola Palace, that’s just about the most charming and captivating walk of several miles that can be imagined. Powerful ocean waves crash beneath you most of the time, but there’s still a comfortable domestic feel to the route: sublimity to your right, and a nice cup of coffee to your left whenever you need one.

Benjamin writes in Unpacking my Library, about the relationship between a collector and the things he or she collects, figuring that relationship as an extreme intimacy. This figuration extends into much of his other writing. His massive Arcades Project is in part an accounting that turns Paris into a collection, numbered, categorized, recorded and kept permanent. The same intimacy between a collector and his things characterizes Benjamin’s relationship to the places he visits and then describes. [...]
Conquest of one kind or another has forever been one human answer to the looming truths of impermanence. Collection, particularly as Benjamin figures collection, is a sort of small-scale conquest. If you collect shoes or books or records, you want to conquer shoes or books or records by having the most of them, by having enough of them (though, of course, there’s never such thing as enough). Benjamin’s pieces recounting Marseille or Spain or Naples have always seemed to me reminiscent of early American explorers’ journals, in which trees and birds and animals and everything else are written down in minute detail. JUNE 24, 2010, 9:14PM 

The Shatabdi: A metaphor for the new middle class India Rama Bijapurkar, leader on market strategy, and consumer related issues ... Economic Times - March 30, 2009
Many of us have trouble picturing exactly who the members of the Great Indian urban middle class are. Though we talk about them all the time, it still is like pornography “know it when I see it but can’t exactly describe it”. When visiting western businessmen talk, with a gleam in their eye, of investing in India because of the growing middle class, one is a bit worried about what images they carry in their heads about this group. The trouble is that our consumer base is so variegated, that even field research, away from meeting rooms, provides every kind of anecdotal evidence, to confirm any kind of mental picture that anyone might have, on any count.
A recent trip from Delhi to Rishikesh on the Shatabdi was a “eureka” moment. The Shatabdi is definitely the perfect metaphor for the middle class. Santosh Desai of Future Brands wrote once that the autoricksha is a metaphor for India. It can weave its way in and out of utter confusion, is ugly, noisy and inconvenient, but it serves the purpose quite well, at an incredible low price.  
The chair car is definitely like an upper middle class drawing room, and though the air conditioning works well, there is a cocktail of many strong smells in the air. Some of them you soon get used to, even welcome, partly because the strong smell of the cleaner assures you that cleaning has actually been done. Having not been on a Shatabdi for many years, one was struck by how “upwardly mobile” it had gradually become. And yet, how it has stayed the same on many counts too. 
Looking at the overhead baggage racks (open racks still), it is clear that a luggage revolution has happened. Smart suitcases (when compared to what we used to see earlier), lots of soft luggage, nylon backpacks - but the same old coolie system, even their uniforms unchanged! The luggage rack definitely made a statement about what progress Consumer India has made and the attitude it now sported, based on what luggage they were ‘wearing’. No uniformity here, no herd mentality, lots of individualism. No boring single brand here, this was the full blown variety of the gray market, importing from around the world! (The same, by the way, can be said for the winter wear of the passengers. No more aunt knitted hand made sweaters. Wind cheaters of all hues, and machine made sweaters and caps. And also of the closed footwear. No cumbersome heavy leather shoes in sight anymore.) [We Are Like That Only: Understanding the Logic of Consumer India Rama Bijapurkar - Jan 2007]

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Dr. V.M. Madge came down heavily upon unjust criticism of Sri Aurobindo

The Literary criterion 2002
Speaking on "Contemporary Indian Poetry" Dr. VM Madge not only came down heavily upon some contemporary poets like Ezekiel, Parthasarathy and others for their unjust criticism of Aurobindo but also felt that our contemporary poetry can...
The perennial quest for a psychology with a soul: an inquiry into ... - Page 337 Joseph Vrinte - 2002 - 568 pages
Actually, Ken Wilber's criticism of Sri Aurobindo is not a repudiation of Sri Aurobindo's vision but a refinement. Ken Wilber states that Sri Aurobindo's 'individual' integral Yoga and practice is "especially focused on integrating the ...
Sri Aurobindo Ghose: the dweller in the lands of silence William Kluback, Michael Finkenthal - 2001 - 167 pages
I wonder if this awakening spirit is anything more than a child of goodness and beauty. It does not create them. It is a child of their nurture, of their power over chaos. I saw in my words a potential criticism of Sri Aurobindo. ...
Tradition and the rhetoric of right: popular political argument in ... - Page 85 David J. Lorenzo - 1999 - 339 pages
... the Ashram's program was the abolition of religious, caste, and gender disabilities, achievements for which traditional Hindus and even some conservative members of the movement criticized Aurobindo and the Mother.66 The structured...
Continuities in Indian English poetry: nation language form G. J. V. Prasad - 1999 - 198 pages
... poetry echoes the post-Independence criticism of Aurobindo-like mystical poetry! Sarang praises Daruwalla for precisely these qualities. Daruwalla stands out amongst Indian English poets for bringing to poetry a range of experience ...
Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research Indian Council of Philosophical Research - 1995
Though he rejects root-based study as unsound on page 9, he very quickly reverses his position on page 15, while criticizing Sri Aurobindo, and speaks as if that study is a sound method of interpreting the Vedic terms. ...
Mao Zedong and the Communist Policies 1927-1978 - Page 137 B.E. Shinde - 1993 - 183 pages
Man has always oscillated between the extremes, the fabric of the mind itself is of such peculiar composition. The Gita does not merely deal with the mind as thecriticism of Aurobindo Ghosh would suggest. It is as well not wholly the ...
Nissim Ezekiel, poet of human balance Harish Raizada - 1992 - 196 pages
He is highly critical of Sri Aurobindo both as a poet and critic. He dislikes his "Asiatic vague immensities" or mighty abstractions and finds his magnum opus Savitri "embarrassingly bad." He criticizes Sri Aurobindo's The Future of ...
The Political Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo - Page 323 V. P. Varma - 1990 - 494 pages
This second criticism of Aurobindo reminds us of the attacks made by TH Green on utilitarianism. Green led the idealist attack against the ethics of utilitarianism. He candidly admitted that the utilitarian creed aims to improve the ...
Modern Indian political thought Vishwanath Prasad Varma - 1971 - 640 pages
In 1928, however, while criticizing the political ideas and technics of Gandhi (the thought of the Ashram of Sabarmati), Bose also criticized Aurobindo (the thought of the Pondi- cherry Ashram). 4 Subhas Chandra Bose, Tarun ke Swapna ...
Seven studies in Sri Aurobindo V. Madhusudan Reddy - 1989 - 239 pages
... in the study of the creative and multi-dimensional use of language and its mystical and metaphysical implications one aspect of the literary criticism of Sri Aurobindo which has a direct bearing on their concerns and conclusions. ...
The politics of philosophy: a Marxian analysis A. Pampapathy Rao - 1983 - 118 pages
... Marxist criticism of Sri Aurobindo? "The conceptual affinity between Hegel and Sri Aurobindo is much closer than that between Marx and any one of them", p. 208. One of whom? "Of all forms of justice perhaps the most important one is ...
The Heritage of India: L. N. Mishra commemoration volume 1978 - 616 pages
Yoga and Literary Criticism Dr. S. K. Prasad Department of English, Magadh University On the publication of my book on the literary criticism of Sri Aurobindosome months back, a quite pertinent question was raised by a distinguished ...
Indian literature Sāhitya Akademi - 1977
SK Prasad's The Literary Criticism of Sri Aurobindo (Bharati Bhavan,
Patna) is an exhaustive study of Sri Aurobindo the literary critic, and there are comparative glances at Western critics like TS Eliot, Middleton Murry and Herbert ...
The Journal of Asian studies Far Eastern Association (U.S.), Association ... - 1976
The essayists in this volume are not judgmental or critical of Aurobindo from an out-of-context perspective. But this is not to suggest that they avoid questions of comparison or relevance in Aurobindo's writings. ...
The quest for political and spiritual liberation: a study in the ... June O'Connor - 1977 - 153 pages
... criticizes Aurobindo on this issue, naming the problem of evil to be "the most questionable element" in his system (World, pp. 270-71). In The Political Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo (New York: Asia Publishing House, 1960), p. ...
The literary criticism of Sri Aurobindo, with special reference to ... Shree Krishna Prasad, Aurobindo Ghose - 1974 - 487 pages
Hazlitt, it appears, only echoes them when he calls poetry "the language of the imagination and the passions".1 The typical Romantic critical standard for poets is well expressed by Leigh Hunt, who, like Shelley, calls poetry ...
age. of. the soul of man in Odysseus".1 The. same is true of the Iliad. It is "not merely the action and stir of battle" in it which explains its greatness but "the clash of great and strong spirits with the gods leaning down to 
falls are,— when the needed energy is within, — an obscure condition for unprecedented elevations".1 "In the recoil", continues Sri Aurobindo, "....some discovery is made which would otherwise have been long postponed or not at all have ...
Nissim Ezekiel Chetan Karnani, Nissim Ezekiel - 1974 - 192 pages
Ezekiel has courageously exposed the pretensions in poetry and criticism of Aurobindo Ghosh. It is curious that Ezekiel himself did not escape the stranglehold of this tradition. He has too often lapsed into ...
Contemporary relevance of Sri Aurobindo Kishor Gandhi - 1973 - 343 pages
It was with thoughts and feelings of this sort that I came to read the literarycriticism of Sri Aurobindo. That criticism is to be found for the most part in The Future Poetry, (published originally as a series of articles in the Arya, ...
Literature east & west Modern Language Association of America ... - 1969
... the Age," helped to demonstrate the close relationships which even the writer in English has with the old and meaningful traditions. Professor S. Nagarajan, of
Poona University, in discussing the literary criticism of Sri Aurobindo, ...
Contemporary Indian literature: a symposium Sahitya Akademi - 1968 - 338 pages
The literary criticism of Sri Aurobindo (The Future Poetry) and the art criticism of Ananda Coomaraswamy (History of Indian and Indonesian Art, The Dance of Shiva and An Introduction to Indian Art) are in a category apart. ...
Main currents of social & political thought in modern India Jyoti Prasad Suda - 1963
The criticism of Sri Aurobindo •was motivated by two considerations. Firstly, he wanted to undermine the faith of the Indians in the superiority of the British political organisation. ...

Sunday, July 04, 2010

Sri Aurobindo succeeds in showing the logical necessity of supramental or integral consciousness


  1. Amar Nath Prasad - 2005 - 327 pages
    If through his characters 'Kalidasa excels in depicting the emotions of love, from the first suggestion in an innocent mind to the perfection of passion'.27 Sri 
    Aurobindo succeeds in catching 'the whole of love's inner heart — the ...
  2. Sri Aurobindo Ashram - 2004
    and he concluded by affirming, "My quantitative system... is based on the natural movement of the English tongue, the same in prose and poetry, not on any artificial theory."3 It is not in the hexameter alone that Sri 
    Aurobindo succeeds ...

    Michael T. McLaughlin - 2003 - 318 pages
    ... movement of 61 After repeated readings, I am not convinced that Aurobindo succeeds in reconciling all of these models. It seems to be more a question of attacking the same problems from different standpoints in different chapters. ...
  3. Ramesh Chandra Sinha - 1981 - 234 pages
    Sri 
    Aurobindo succeeds in showing the logical necessity of supramental or integral consciousness by his analysis and criticism of the other sources of knowledge. Reason and intuition, according to him, find their fulfilment in the ...
  4. Punjabi University. Dept. of Religious Studies - 1979
    Aurobindo succeeds Ram Mohan Roy, Debendranath Tagore, Keshab Chandra Sen, Ramakrishna and Vivekananda as a Bengali leader in the Hindu reformation sequence. But he does it with a difference. For he is in a sense the climax of ...
  5. Avanindra Kumar Sinha - 1979 - 227 pages
    If through his characters 'Kalidasa excels in depicting the emotions of love, from the first suggestion in an innocent mind to the perfection of passion'," Sri 
    Aurobindo succeeds in catching 'the whole of love's inner heart — the ...
  6. Jan Feys - 1977 - 371 pages
    Yet, while thus respecting the Gita's general line of development, Sri 
    Aurobindo succeeds in orderly grouping its sections into a sequence of some three or four ...
  7. Jan Feys - 1977 - 371 pages
    Thus Sri 
    Aurobindo succeeds in giving a new impetus to a movement which seemed to have reached a dead end. Krishna, the prototype of yogic siddhi, is asked to reveal the secret of the universal unity he has attained : "this Yoga by ...
  8. Kaikhushru Dhunjibhoy Sethna - 1974 - 141 pages
    ... breath of inspiration with a wide-eyed artistry that is attuned to the soul both of classical and English poetics. It is not in the hexameter alone that Sri Aurobindo succeeds. Many kinds of quantitative verse he has revived in ...
  9. Shree Krishna Prasad, Aurobindo Ghose - 1974 - 487 pages
    The two works are like the legislative and executive aspects of the same living body politic, as it were; the soul and body of a single, though highly complex, creative activity or genius. And thus Sri 
    Aurobindo succeeds in demonstrating without any shadow of a doubt that his theories of poetry are not just theories, ie, mere ideas and visions in an unrealisable, insubstantial form, but living practical idealities ...
  10. Aurobindo Ghose - 1970

  11. Kaikhushru Dḥunjibhoy Sethna - 1968 - 217 pages
    Sri 
    Aurobindo succeeds everywhere because he not only is familiar both as mystic and artist with the magnitudes and intensities of our subliminal and supraliminal being, but has also endeavoured to lay on the poor dust of the outer self ...
  12. Sri Aurobindo Ashram - 1968
    The two works are like the legislative and executive aspects of the same living body politic, as it were; the soul and body of a single, though highly complex creative activity or genius. And thus, Sri 
    Aurobindo succeeds in ...
  13. Haridas Chaudhuri, Frederic Spiegelberg - 1960 - 350 pages
    Sri 
    Aurobindo succeeds everywhere because he not only is familiar both as mystic and artist with ...
  14. Kaikhushru Dhunjibhoy Sethna - 1947 - 156 pages
    ... with a wide-eyed artistry that is attuned to the soul both of classical and English poetics. It is not in the hexameter alone that Sri Aurobindo succeeds. Many kinds of quantitative verse he has revived in forms natural to English. ...